‘Mindhunter’, the fiction created by Joe Penhall for Netflix, and directed by David Fincher (‘Se7en’), is proving to be one of the most successful series in the online platform’s catalogue.
His long-awaited season 2 brings us several of the most dangerous criminal personalities in recent North American history. Some of them will sound more or less familiar to you, and others may make you curious about the series. Do you dare to meet them
? Charles Manson: The leader of brain manipulation
There are very elusive assassins due to their modus operandi, who come to give real headaches to the police, as Fincher brilliantly reflected in ‘Zodiac’ (2007), a film about the so-called“Zodiac Killer” who was never caught .
The Zodiac killer in a sequence of the 2007 film | Den of Geek
And then there is the hippie leader of “The Manson Family”, Charles Manson, who through the art of manipulation got others to kill in his name. From a very young age he was involved with illegality, at the age of 13 he was arrested for counterfeiting bills.
At 23 years old, practicing as a homeless man, he managed to manipulate a woman to live with her. He had previously tried to make a living as a musician, collaborating with Denis Wilson, drummer and co-founder of ‘The Beach Boys’.
Manson photographed in the 70’s | Cult- The Third
During those years he studied philosophy and esotericism in a self-taught way: it is in this period when he comes to the conclusion that the Helker Skelter theme of ‘The Beatles’ predicts a racial war that he must advance in any way possible.
To achieve this, he formed ‘The Manson Family’ in the early 1960s, made up of several hippies who, inspired by his words, followed him, committing the brutal massacres in Hollywood of actress Sharon Tate (‘The Vampire Dance’) and her four guests, as well as those of LaBianca.
Manson was arrested after the crimes and sentenced to life in prison.Due to the fact that the State of California had changed the legislation, he could not be sentenced to death. He died in prison at the age of 83 in 2017.
Davif Berkowitz: 44 Caliber Revolver
This was the favorite weapon of David Berkowitz, known as “The 44 Caliber Killer”, and more popularly as “The Son of Sam”. Born in 1953, the murderer always declared that his childhood was complete hell and that at the age of 14 he tried to commit suicide on several occasions.
Arrest of Berkowitz, ‘The Son of Sam’, in 1978 | Fandango
Berkowitz murdered a total of six people between 1976 and 1977 at the point of a revolver , having also wounded another 8 in different shootings that took place in New York during those years.
John Leguizamo in the film about the killer, ‘No one is safe from Sam’, 1999 | Little White Lies
Berkowitz came to confess that there was a satanic sect behind other crimes , of which he had been a member, and that a neighbor’s dog, possessed by the devil, had forced him to commit some crimes. A fine for bad parking was key to his arrest. He was sentenced to six life sentences in 1978. He is now a converted Christian, 66 years old and continues to serve his sentence.
Paul Bateson: From radiologist to serial killer
Paul Bateson was a radiologist whom William Friedkin decided to give a small role in ‘The Exorcist’ (1973), in which it is considered the most unpleasant sequence of the film. Later, due to an incipient alcoholism, the radiologist lost his job, doing menial jobs.
Bateson in his sequence of ‘The Exorcist’, 1973 | The Lineup
That bad streak would get worse: Bateson would confess to the murder of the film critic, Adisson Verrill , although later he was involved in another series of murders of gay people who had been found mutilated and dismembered in various garbage containers, for which he was nicknamed him “The Dumpster Killer”; he finally admitted them for an agreed sentence reduction.
Steve Burns (Pacino) in a sequence of ‘On the Hunt’, 1980 | cult movies
Friedkin would turn to Bateson again as an advisor (uncredited) during the filming of the fim ‘On the hunt’ (1980), starring Al Pacino (‘Dog Afternoon’), where a policeman has to solve several murders of gays in The Greenwich Village. The former radiologist was released in 2003 and his current residence is unknown.
Dennis Rader BTK: Bound, Tortured, and Murdered
Dennis Rader, born in 1945, was the neighbor everyone wanted: law enforcement officer, Boy Scout leader, and volunteer at the Lutheran Church. Perhaps, perhaps, that is why the police took more than three decades to catch him, and that man, so gentle and friendly, was a brutal serial killer.
Denis Rader, aka ‘BTK’, in one of his recent photos | The Lineup
He carried out a total of ten murders throughout 1974 and 1991, combining this with an exemplary family life, together with his wife Paula and their two children, Brian and Kerry. He called himself BTK, due to his modus operandi which consisted of tying up, torturing and murdering his victims , most of them Hispanic women.
Kane Hadder played Rader in the film ‘BTK’, 2008 | Trak.tv.
It was precisely because of his daughter Kerry (a blood sample), that he was arrested in 2005, added to his arrogance in sending a CD to the Kansas police, favored his being found guilty of the ten murders ; he was sentenced to ten life sentences of ten years, one for each victim, in total, 175 years.Rader will spend the rest of his life in prison; he is currently 74 years old.
Wayne Williams: A racial question
Another crime that this season 2 of ‘Mindhunter’ will address, will be the well-known case of the children of Atlanta: up to 28 children were murdered in the city throughout 1970.
The 28 children of Atlanta and Williams | All That’s Interesting
In principle, Wayne Williams, a reporter and photographer, was found guilty of the murders of two young men in 1975 , for which he was sentenced to two life sentences. The moment he was arrested, the crime wave stopped. Everyone took it for granted, and the press helped settle this conclusion, that the detainee was “The Atlanta Child Killer.”
However, Williams, with an enormous IQ, always declared himself innocent , despite the fact that the only thing that convicted him was the fabric fibers of the garments of the two victims he murdered; he could not be linked to any of the others. Apparently the vast majority of the Afro-American population considers that the police incriminated him for a racial question, due to the prevailing historical context.
Williams at his trial for the two murders committed in 1975 | Sputnik International
The real perpetrator of the murders would have been Charles T. Sanders , an active member of the Ku Klux Klan, and of whom a well-known anonymous comment, that Sanders himself would have confessed the murders of the children.
- You can also read: Charles Manson in the first images of season 2 of ‘Mindhunter
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