Delve into the dark side of the 1990s as we explore the most chilling murderers of the decade. From Milwaukee's apartment of horrors to the highways of America, these predators left a trail of victims and changed how we view serial crime. Join us as we examine the twisted minds behind some of history's most notorious killing sprees.
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00:00It's been 20 years since Andrew Cunanan's murder spree. His fifth and final victim was Versace.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most well-known and monstrous
00:11serial killers who were active in the 1990s. There was something about this guy that just
00:16made me uncomfortable, and I've jokingly said it made the spidey sense ting.
00:21Number 10, Dani Rowling. We had no way of reaching her. The phone hadn't been installed yet.
00:27She hadn't called us, and finally the pals who lived closer went over there.
00:33Have you ever seen Scream? Well, Ghostface, and the story as a whole, was largely inspired by the
00:39crime spree of Dani Rowling. He's perhaps better known as the Gainesville Ripper, his name coming
00:44from the Florida city in which he committed his murders. Over the course of four days in August
00:49of 1990, Rowling murdered a total of five college students after breaking into their apartments.
00:54He went in, I followed him into the apartment, and saw the young lady on the bed, and you could see
01:03her in a bad position. He was eventually arrested after robbing a supermarket,
01:11and investigators were able to link him to the Gainesville killings. While in prison,
01:16Rowling would also confess to a triple homicide in Shreveport in November of 1989,
01:20bringing his total body count to eight. After feasting on lobster, Rowling was executed via
01:26lethal injection on October 25, 2006. He got down on his knees and looked up with his flashlight
01:33in the bedroom.
01:38And he looked at me and he said, don't look. You don't want to see this.
01:44Number 9. Robert Lee Yates
01:46There's no sense in asking someone like Yates, why did you kill all those women?
01:55Oh, he wanted to.
01:57The creepy thing about serial killers is that they often hide in plain sight,
02:01posing as everyman with respectable jobs. Such was the case of Robert Lee Yates,
02:06who served in the U.S. Army while committing his grisly murders. Between 1975 and 1998,
02:12Yates killed at least 16 people, with many of his crimes occurring in the city of Spokane,
02:17Washington.
02:18Couldn't believe it. I was shocked.
02:23Especially when I saw him on the news after they had dressed him and he's walking through the hallway.
02:28It felt like it was someone else, but you know, that's my dad.
02:32His violent streak ramped up in the mid-90s after retiring as an aircraft pilot.
02:36And between 1996 and 1998, he murdered at least 13 women in the area of East Sprague Avenue.
02:43Yates was finally arrested after a traffic stop linked his white Corvette to one of the victims,
02:48and he is currently serving his life sentence inside Washington State Penitentiary.
02:52When they finally arrested Yates, nobody could believe that that guy was the serial killer.
02:59Number 8. Joel Rifkin
03:01You might recognize the name Joel Rifkin from an episode of Seinfeld,
03:12as Elaine gets a boyfriend with the same name and begs him to change it owing to its notoriety.
03:17This episode was released in November 1993, just five months after Rifkin was arrested,
03:23his Mazda pickup containing the body of his final victim, Tiffany Bresciani.
03:27I came running up, and he was just sitting there, and he put his hands up like this,
03:34as I approached. That's when I noticed stench.
03:38Rifkin is thought to have murdered 17 women in New York,
03:41with all but one murder occurring in the early 1990s.
03:45The victims were often killed by Rifkin after being picked up on the street,
03:48and their remains were deposited in remote areas and even roadside garbage bags.
03:53He was eventually found guilty of nine of the 17 murders.
03:57And sentenced to 203 years in prison.
04:00It takes someone who is coldly psychopathic, and by that I mean no guilt, no empathy, no remorse.
04:07Somebody who damn well knows what they're doing and knows it's wrong,
04:11and trying desperately to not get caught.
04:14Number 7. Gary Ray Bowles
04:16It's not hard to kill somebody.
04:18You can kill somebody pretty easy if you have the mind set for it.
04:25Better known as the I-95 killer owing to his primary hunting ground,
04:29Gary Ray Bowles murdered six men in 1994,
04:32with most of his victims living near the Interstate 95 highway.
04:35His crimes occurred across a period of eight months.
04:38His first murder occurring on March 15th, and his final on November 16th.
04:42He needs to be punished.
04:45And I think he needs to have his life taken just like he took all these other people's lives.
04:50Throughout that time, Bowles even found himself on the FBI's most wanted list,
04:54often posing as a sex worker, killing his clients, and then stealing their credit cards.
04:59According to Bowles,
05:00It all began after his girlfriend received an abortion upon learning that Bowles was a sex worker
05:05who often engaged with other men.
05:07He then developed a violent hatred towards gay people,
05:09and began targeting them as a form of misplaced revenge.
05:13I guess it just opened up a monster.
05:15Allegedly spurring him onto a mission to kill.
05:19I was on a real adrenaline high.
05:21From there on, it was just downhill rage.
05:25Number 6. Andre Chikatilo
05:27They had not dealt with anyone of his caliber before.
05:30They were reluctant to admit that things like this would occur in a communist state.
05:36Between 1978 and 1990,
05:39Andre Chikatilo committed a series of brutal and sadistic murders that shocked the Soviet Union.
05:44Operating mainly in the Rostov Obelisk,
05:47he was convicted of an astounding 52 killings,
05:50with 8 occurring in 1990 alone.
05:53Chikatilo often lured destitute victims from train stations or bus stops
05:57with offers of help before murdering them in remote areas.
06:00Walking between the gravestones of a small public cemetery,
06:04Chikatilo brought them to the site of a shallow, unmarked grave.
06:07He then mutilated the bodies,
06:09and while rumors of cannibalism circulated,
06:12Chikatilo denied it during his trial.
06:14Said legal proceedings were bizarre,
06:16with Chikatilo frequently singing,
06:18shouting, and rambling incoherently in court.
06:20On February 14th, 1994,
06:23he was executed by a single bullet to the back of the head,
06:26the Soviet Union's standard method of capital punishment at the time.
06:34Please don't turn around.
06:35Number 5. Andrew Cunanan
06:41Guess who I met.
06:43Andrew!
06:44Guess! You have to guess.
06:49Johnny Versace.
06:50Between April and July of 1997,
06:53Andrew Cunanan murdered a total of 5 people.
06:56His first victim was a friend, Jeffrey Trail,
06:59whom Cunanan beat to death with a claw hammer in a Minneapolis apartment.
07:02He proceeded to kill his ex-boyfriend, David Mattson,
07:05real estate developer, Lee Miglin,
07:07and cemetery caretaker, William Reese,
07:09who was killed solely for his vehicle.
07:12Get on your knees.
07:17Sir,
07:18if you're thinking of killing me,
07:22please hear this.
07:23I'm a married man.
07:25We have a son,
07:27Troy,
07:28and sir, I'd very much like to see them again.
07:30But his most famous kill by far
07:33is that of fashion mogul Gianni Versace,
07:35who was shot point-blank and in broad daylight
07:37on the steps of his Miami mansion.
07:39Cunanan ultimately took his own life
07:41in the middle of an enormous manhunt,
07:43leaving his motives for the killings completely unclear.
07:46A marvelously good-looking man
07:48talked about the years he spent with Versace
07:50in great detail,
07:51but also talked about
07:52the controversy about whether or not
07:55Versace ever met Andrew Cunanan,
07:58and that was considered to be
07:59one of the foundational reasons
08:01for this murder.
08:03Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka
08:05Breaking news involving
08:06one of our country's most notorious killers,
08:09Paul Bernardo.
08:10He has just been denied parole again.
08:13Marks the second time
08:14Bernardo has been denied freedom.
08:16His first was two years ago,
08:18and that was rejected in just 30 minutes.
08:20Some of the most infamous
08:21and disturbing crimes in Canadian history
08:24were committed by husband and wife duo
08:26Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolka.
08:28Shortly before Christmas of 1990,
08:30the villainous duo drugged Homolka's sister Tammy,
08:33and she died after choking on her own vomit.
08:35Her death was ruled as an alcohol-related accident,
08:38as the duo had spiked her rum and eggnog.
08:41They got off scot-free
08:42and proceeded to kidnap and murder
08:44two further girls,
08:45Leslie Mahaffey and Kristen French.
08:47Remember, he encased their bodies in cement
08:50after dismembering them.
08:52I mean, I know we're in a different day and age
08:54of low self-esteem and a different culture,
08:57but it doesn't matter whether you're in 1995 or 2021.
09:01This was not a spur-of-the-moment, one-day spree.
09:04When they were finally arrested,
09:05Homolka struck an extremely controversial plea deal
09:08offering to rat on Bernardo
09:10in exchange for just 12 years in prison.
09:12He was sentenced to life.
09:14Homolka was released in 2005
09:16and currently lives in Quebec.
09:18Canada's notorious schoolgirl killer
09:20is an occasional volunteer at a Montreal school.
09:23City News has learned Carla Homolka
09:25has been in the classroom and on a field trip.
09:28Number three, Eileen Wuornos.
09:30And now Central Florida is being threatened
09:32with news of yet another round of serial killings.
09:39Eight men have been shot to death
09:41in cold blood on Central Florida Highway.
09:44Most people know Eileen Wuornos
09:46from Charlize Theron's Oscar-winning performance
09:48in Monster.
09:49However, that film has been criticized
09:51for portraying Wuornos
09:52in a far more sympathetic light than she deserved.
09:55While Monster painted her as a victim,
09:57she was in reality a manipulative
09:59and conniving serial killer
10:00who murdered seven men between 1989 and 1990.
10:03Wuornos claimed that the men had assaulted her
10:17while she was engaging in sex work
10:18and that she killed them in self-defense.
10:20However, the prosecution successfully argued
10:23that the murders were financially motivated
10:25and that her self-defense claims were not credible.
10:28She was also found to be a clinical psychopath
10:30in a psychological assessment following her arrest.
10:33Wuornos ultimately received six death sentences
10:36and was executed on October 9th, 2002.
10:39The heck with what?
10:42It has nothing to do with the number killed.
10:45It's a principle.
10:46But they're saying, if there is a number,
10:49no, self-defense is self-defense
10:51no matter how many times it is.
10:53I don't care if it's 100 times.
10:54Number two, Samuel Little.
10:56How does someone like this continue
10:58to move around the country
11:00and continue to wreak this carnage
11:02and not have any of these charges stick enough
11:06to take him off the street?
11:07It's amazing how few people have heard of Samuel Little,
11:11considering he's the most prolific serial killer
11:13in American history.
11:15While he was only convicted of eight murders,
11:17the FBI has confirmed at least 60 victims
11:20and Little has confessed to 93.
11:23Like many serial killers,
11:24he often targeted people who were less likely to be missed
11:27or thoroughly investigated,
11:29including sex workers and destitute victims
11:31he found on the street.
11:32But society doesn't see those people.
11:34He picked people that he thought
11:35no one would notice if they were gone.
11:37He also tended to strangle his victims,
11:40leaving behind little physical evidence
11:41for police to work on.
11:43As such, Little went undetected for decades,
11:46his crimes beginning as early as the 1970s
11:49and stretching well into the 90s.
11:51He received four life sentences
11:52and died in prison in 2020 at the age of 80.
11:56And that little road up there,
11:59on the side of that little road,
12:00she was like partially concealed
12:02by the vegetation.
12:05Left for that.
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12:19Number one, Jeffrey Dahmer.
12:23A gruesome story leads off our newscast.
12:27Milwaukee police found body parts
12:28in a Northside apartment
12:30and now they wonder if they've uncovered
12:31some kind of death factory.
12:33Samuel Little may be more prolific,
12:35but it was Jeffrey Dahmer
12:36who got all the attention.
12:38That speaks to the heinous severity
12:40of his crimes,
12:41the extent of which are infamous today.
12:43While Dahmer committed his first murder in 1978,
12:46his crimes ramped up in the late 80s
12:48before exploding in the early 90s.
12:50Between 1990 and 1991,
12:53Dahmer murdered 12 victims
12:54with all being killed
12:56and stored in his Milwaukee apartment.
12:58Do you know what started it?
12:59Was there any kind of incident
13:00that you can remember?
13:01To this day,
13:02I don't know what started it.
13:04And the person to blame
13:06is sitting right across from you.
13:08That's the only person.
13:10Not parents, not society,
13:12not pornography.
13:13I mean, those are just excuses.
13:15It was during this time
13:16that Dahmer also attempted
13:18to make mindless zombies
13:19by pouring things like hydrochloric acid
13:21and boiling water
13:22into his victims' brains.
13:24Dahmer was later beaten to death
13:25in prison by Christopher Scarver,
13:27who said that God told him
13:29to kill Dahmer
13:29in an act of divine justice.
13:31You may convince yourself
13:33that God has forgiven you,
13:36but you can never escape God's wrath.
13:43It always catches up with you.
13:45Do you know of any other
13:46prolific serial killers
13:47in this time period?
13:48Let us know in the comments below.
13:49It's one of the most horrifying stories
13:51that I had ever covered.
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