From the depths of human depravity come discoveries that chill us to the bone... Join us as we explore the most disturbing evidence found during notorious murder investigations. Our countdown includes refrigerated body parts, homemade decorations crafted from human remains, chilling written confessions, and makeshift dungeons that housed unimaginable horrors.
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00:00And the next thing I know, I heard the police open the refrigerator door and they said it was
00:05a dead body in there. Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at the most chilling pieces
00:09of evidence found during murder cases. Do you know that I feel that in part I am to blame for
00:15the condition Bobby is in? Refrigerated heads. People don't think it's possible. They don't
00:22think this actually happened. What started as a welfare check ended in horror. Though Charles
00:28Rogers had a promising career, he abruptly quit in 1957 and moved back in with his parents. In 1965,
00:34officers were called to the home after another relative reported not hearing from them. At first,
00:39their search seemed normal, save for a stack of unidentifiable meat sitting in the fridge.
00:44There was a massive amount of bleach that was used. It wasn't long until they noticed the heads of his
00:51parents and realized that the meat they'd found were parts of their bodies. Charles, who was already long
00:56gone by that point, was named the main suspect. He was never found, leaving the case unsolved to this
01:02day, though some forensic scientists are adamant that he was involved.
01:07Thank you, Your Honor.
01:08Look what you did to me.
01:11I'm so sorry.
01:12A cell, a treasure map, and home videos.
01:15What the officer did not reveal was that the room also had a one-way mirror and hooks positioned so
01:21that a body could be secured on the bed. Though the main suspect died shortly after being
01:25apprehended, what was found in the aftermath made his involvement clear. Leonard Lake and his
01:30associate, Charles Ng, were responsible for the kidnapping, torture, and eventual murder of almost
01:34a dozen people. Investigators traced a stolen truck back to Lake's bunker, where they made a
01:39shocking discovery, a makeshift cell near a burial site containing several pounds of human remains.
01:45They were mostly skeletal remains that were wrapped. Couldn't really make out if they were men or
01:52women because of the time that the bodies had been there.
01:57As if that wasn't enough, they also discovered a handmade map that led them to containers filled
02:01with evidence. The information ranged from their victims' names to videotapes detailing their plans.
02:07With Lake having taken his own life, Ng took the fall and was placed on death row after being found
02:12guilty of 11 homicides.
02:14He recorded a videotape in October 1983 in which he outlined the plan and his barbaric views on
02:21women. What I want is an off-the-shelf sex partner. Human remains and unsent letters.
02:28He designs a system of pipes leading from Holmes' private apartment to each guest room where he can
02:34control the flow of gas to asphyxiate victims. One of America's first serial killers is also one of
02:40the most insidious. After planning to fake the death of a friend for the insurance payout, H.H. Holmes
02:45betrayed him and took his life. He then manipulated the victim's wife into relinquishing custody of three
02:51of her children to him, leading to their fates and his downfall. In 1894, an investigator was tasked with
02:58searching Holmes' house in hopes of finding the missing minors, but was instead met with two corpses.
03:03He also found undelivered letters written to their mother, revealing another dark layer of Holmes' deceitful
03:08ways. The officer was then able to track Holmes down and apprehend him, finally bringing an end to
03:14his violent spree.
03:15I was born with the devil in me. I can't help the fact that I'm a murderer no more than the poet can
03:20help the inspiration to sing.
03:22A mirror message.
03:23It was a horrifying plea. For heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself.
03:31A murderer being self-aware makes their crimes even more chilling. While the violent acts committed by
03:37the lipstick killer, later identified as William Hirons, were horrific enough, what made them
03:42worse was his lack of control. This was made apparent following the 1945 death of Francis Brown,
03:47when officials discovered a message scrawled in lipstick.
03:51Those words were chilling to the public and captured the imagination of the newspaper reporters
03:58who made that a very sensational catchphrase.
04:02It was a plea to be caught before he could strike again, alongside a claim that he couldn't stop
04:07himself. That note, unfortunately, came true less than a month later in 1946, when Suzanne Degnan
04:13was kidnapped and murdered. Hirons was questioned later that year, where he confessed under duress.
04:18Though he later claimed innocence, he received three life sentences and spent the rest of his
04:22days behind bars. He told them not to contact the police or the FBI and to put $20,000 in small bills
04:30together. A written rant and punishment map. Investigators recorded one of his bone-chilling
04:35phone calls.
04:39Though he wasn't apprehended until 2018, authorities first got a look into his twisted mindset 40 years
04:50earlier. Joseph D'Angelo, more commonly known as the elusive Golden State Killer, had dropped
04:56several handwritten documents at the scene of one of his crimes. Though they couldn't trace it back to
05:00him then, what they did find were his vindictive ramblings blaming his sixth grade teacher for the
05:05crimes he committed in adulthood. He claimed that writing lines caused him to suffer and grow ashamed
05:10of himself, which later morphed into anger. The motifs of discipline were also found in a map he had
05:15drawn of a neighborhood with the word punishment written on the back, indicating an area he may have
05:20intended to attack. Especially we want people to give us a call, any suspicious circumstances,
05:26prowler calls, anything that seems out of the ordinary to them to give us a call. And of course
05:32we're responding to these calls. A corpse-filled crawlspace.
05:35Oh my god, no more space! As one of the United States' most infamous serial killers, every detail of
05:44John Wayne Gacy's terrible misdeeds is enough to send shivers down anyone's spine. His confession is
05:50no different. He drunkenly admitted to killing at least 30 victims, who he then buried beneath his
05:55crawlspace. Though he was intoxicated, officials were able to get a warrant to thoroughly search his
06:00home, and within minutes, found decaying human remains. So they immediately called me, let me know
06:07that there was human remains in a crawlspace, and at that time I arrested John Gacy for murder.
06:13The more they searched, the more they found, identifying four different bodies in the first dig
06:18alone. A subsequent search led to the discovery of 26 other victims in his crawlspace. The sheer
06:23magnitude of his crimes, and how easily he had hidden them, shocked both his community and the
06:28country as a whole. When Snow checks the collarbones of the skeletons found under Gacy's house,
06:34none of them are fully fused. These victims were all less than 30 years old. A macabre poem.
06:42Before I kill you, I'm gonna throw your baby out the window. To this day, the Zodiac Killer is one of
06:49the most prolific and elusive murderers in modern times, with his identity still remaining a mystery.
06:54Known for his communications with police, including a series of ciphers, the search for him proved to be
07:00fruitless. Though he had sent an anonymous letter following the death of Sherry Jo Bates in 1966,
07:05it was a discovery made two months later that truly alarmed authorities.
07:09The newly decoded message picks up where the last cryptogram left off.
07:14It said, I hope you are having lots of fun trying to catch me. That wasn't me on the TV show,
07:20which brings up a point about me. I am not afraid of the gas chamber, because it will send me to
07:24paradise all the sooner. Scratched within a library desk was a disturbing poem, detailing the sight of a
07:29woman's blood spilling onto her dress. The handwriting matched that of the letters sent by
07:33the killer. Though it didn't aid in his capture, it did add extra insight into his potential mindset
07:39during his freeze of violence. Before I give you any more details about the good times I had at the
07:44reservoir in Green Rock Park, I'd like to know, are the police having a good time with the cryptogram?
07:52Yeah. Polaroids and a human head. Goddamn. These are real.
07:59Grab them.
08:01All it took was one failed murder to apprehend one of the worst killers of the 20th century.
08:07After nearly losing his life, Tracy Edwards escaped the clutches of Jeffrey Dahmer and went
08:11straight to the police. Later that night, the near victim and two cops returned to his apartment,
08:16where they found the knife nearly used to slay him.
08:19In a refrigerator, left as it was found, at least two heads, the severed remains of victims of the
08:24alleged murderer.
08:25That was only scratching the surface. They also noticed an open drawer filled with photos of
08:30Dahmer's dismembered victims. Upon those being found, the killer attempted to fight back, only to be
08:35subdued. To top it all off, one investigator opened the fridge and was met with a head, the first of
08:41several body parts that would later be discovered.
08:43The parts, box after box of dismembered human remains, were taken away. Now the job is to
08:49identify the victim.
08:50Letter to Victim's Mother
08:51My dear Mrs. Shaw, just got your very nice letter. I am much pleased to know you are not one bit ashamed
09:00to strip Bobby naked and bathe him.
09:02Seeing physical evidence is awful enough, but somehow having the exact details written out is even worse.
09:08While Albert Fish claimed several lives, it was the murder of Grace Budd in 1928 that eventually led to
09:14his capture. In 1934, he penned an anonymous letter to Budd's mother. In the message, he opened with
09:20anecdotes about an acquaintance who introduced him to the idea of cannibalism.
09:24Truly it was a great horror, and the horror of the victim everyone knows. But the horror of the
09:32perpetrator is just as horrific.
09:37He then wrote out exactly what he did to Grace, from his technique to the way he prepared her to eat.
09:43The disgusting note was corroborated by him at his arrest, where he shared even more gruesome details.
09:48More of his crimes were unearthed, leading to a swift trial in 1935 and his eventual execution in 1936.
09:56Write a letter to Dr. Gregory at Bellevue Hospital. Tell him I won't write any more letters.
10:03Ask him in God's name to place me in your custody.
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10:21Decorations made of human remains
10:34Though he doesn't have the same level of notoriety as other killers, he's still one of the most disturbed.
10:40After being traced back to the disappearance of a hardware store clerk, Ed Gein was arrested and his
10:45farm searched. Once there, not only did officers find his latest victim's eviscerated body,
10:50they found a slew of depraved homemade decorations.
10:53His house was reportedly full of macabre items crafted from human remains,
10:57primarily consisting of bodies he had stolen from graves.
11:00He used human shin bones to crop up a coffee table.
11:03He took the tops of skulls and inverted them and used them for soup bowls.
11:08He upholstered a chair in human skin.
11:10He even admitted that he targeted the corpses of women who resembled his mother,
11:14adding another sick layer to his grotesque misdeeds.
11:17A decade later, Gein was finally tried, where he was ruled to be insane,
11:21and spent the rest of his days in a mental health facility.
11:36Which of these discoveries do you find the most disturbing? Let us know in the comments below.
11:41Check out these other clips from WatchMojo, and be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified
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