cover of episode Robert Berdella | The Butcher

Robert Berdella | The Butcher

2017/3/13
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The episode introduces Robert Berdella, a serial killer who operated in Kansas City during the 1980s, detailing his upbringing, early life, and the factors that may have contributed to his brutal crimes.

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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast, THE podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your host, Thomas Weyborg Thun, and in tonight's episode, we find ourselves back in the United States. Usually, I do not warn my listeners of any graphic content,

But the nature of this serial killer and what he did is so brutal and evil that I simply must do not let children listen to this episode. It is very graphic and I am going to provide you, dear listener, with all the details. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz famously said, ''I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.''

Kansas was used by the author to symbolize the ordinary, the mundane and the safe, due to its reputation as being wholesome, rural and plain-looking. It has few mountains, lots of prairie and most of it is farmland. The victims of tonight's subject may have thought the same phrase as Dorothy. The situation they found themselves in was as alien as any fantasy realm.

even though they still very much were, in Kansas City, Missouri. The modus operandi of our subject usually involved luring his victims to his place of residence, tying his victims up, and then proceed to torture and rape them for prolonged periods of time before ultimately killing them using a variety of methods.

The name of this killer, the most brutal and sadistic serial killer your humble hosts know about, even though he is only known to have murdered six people, was Robert Andrew Berdella, the Butcher of Kansas City. He operated in the tail end of the golden era for serial murder, the mid to late 1980s. This time in history stands out in regards to serial murder.

Apart from the obvious fact that most of the serial killer superstars, for example John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, operated in this very period, it is also true that police resources were far more restricted back then than it is today.

They did not have DNA forensics and were significantly less funded than today, with only $140 per citizen in 1986 compared to over $300 today. Due to this, in addition to many other factors, one of the most important being the advent of the Internet in the early 1990s,

Serial killings were simply far more rampant in the 1970s and 80s than today, and thus I like to call it the golden era of serial killers. Robert was born to Robert Berdella Sr. and his wife, whose name I have not been able to find, on the 31st of January 1949. He grew up in a very typical small-town suburban post-war America.

Wife at home, father the breadwinner, garage and medium-sized home. There are many mentions of Berdella being bullied in school. He was severely nearsighted and had to wear thick glasses. He was never athletic looking and was early aware of his homosexuality. This was the 1950s and 60s heartland America, so those characteristics was a recipe for bullying. But...

More importantly than any potential trouble with schoolmates was his father suddenly dying at the mere age of 39 in December of 1965. Young Berdella always looked up to his father, even though he was a strict disciplinarian who regularly beat his son with a leather belt.

"'Him dying when Robert was only 16 years old deeply affected him, "'and he resented it deeply when his mother, "'almost immediately after the death of her husband, remarried. "'Robert's life changed early for the worse after his father's death. "'He started acting out, rebelling against everyone and everything. "'He also started seeking out the affections of more sexually experienced men.'

But this was very risky behavior that resulted in him being brutally raped in the anus at an Ohio restaurant by a man he worked with there. The rape, unsurprisingly, deeply traumatized the young man and probably increased his already abnormal sexual interest in the macabre and deviant. After being raped, he declared to his mother that he would no longer attend church service with her

Although he never claimed to stop believing in the supernatural, rather seeking spirituality from more occult and mystic sources than the Catholic Church had to offer. Being a perpetual loner growing up, his interests were films, books, and ever-increasing sadistic sexual deviancy. In 1965, Robert saw a film adaptation of the John Fowles book, The Collector,

which is about a man who abducts a young woman and holds her captive in his basement. He later said it made a lasting impression on him, although Robert Slater victims was male rather than female. In 1967, at the age of 18, Berdella enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute, hoping to become a professor.

His taste in art varied, but was always considered a bit strange, and he collected oddities and artifacts. During his time in art school, he engaged in animal torture at least three times. During two of these incidences, he tortured a duck and a chicken, and on the third, he experimented with sedatives and tranquilizers on a dog. He also began a criminal career as a petty thief,

along with abusing alcohol and selling drugs to fellow students and at parties. An archived local newspaper article tells of how the graduate student Robert Berdella had transformed his house into an art gallery, showcasing primitive art from Italy, Egypt and New Guinea. Tours could be arranged upon appointment with Berdella, however it is doubtful he ever hosted any.

At age of 19, he was arrested for possession of LSD and marijuana, but was released from his first stay in prison after only five days due to a lack of evidence. In 1969, he was expelled from the Art Institute after killing a dog for the sake of art. So even though college didn't work out for young Robert, he always loved both to eat and make food.

So after being kicked out, he became a successful full-time chef. As a member of a local chef's association, he helped set up a training program for aspiring chefs. He was also a member of his local crime prevention and neighborhood watch association. When he was 32, he quit working as a cook and instead opened his own store.

Called Bob's Bizarre Bazaar, the booth was a Kansas City fixture that sold everything from human skulls and shrunken heads, African deity masks and occult books to regular antiques. Many years later, on the weekend that Berdella was captured, the Final Four basketball tournament was happening in Kansas City.

and Berdella displayed four human skulls in the window of Bob's Bizarre Bazaar, along with a sign that read The Final Four. Whether these skulls were actual human remains, or simply models, one can only speculate on.

But considering how serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer loved to showcase human remains, both as art pieces and trophies, and considering how Berdella himself had used a dog's carcass in a supposed art installation, I think those skulls might very well have been those of four victims.

Once Berdella's case became public knowledge, popular rumor would have it that he cooked and served some of his victims as food in his shop, though there is no actual evidence to suggest that was the case. After turning 25 years old, Robert came out of the closet as a homosexual and he started a relationship with a Vietnam veteran that he was very much in love with.

However, the boyfriend never reciprocated Robert's strong feelings, and the relationship ended after a few months. Berdella thus shared much of the same internal turmoil that his earlier serial killer colleague Jeffrey Dahmer had. He wanted both to hurt his victims and keep them to himself forever, to dominate them completely.

This, combined with pent-up rage from a battered and bullied childhood and abused youth, resulted in deeply brutal crimes that, dear listener, it is very odd so little is written of. After being dumped by his boyfriend, Robert started hanging out with male prostitutes, befriending them and even appearing to try and help them out of prostitution.

He would allow them to live in his house in exchange for sexual favors and housework. Unlike many serial killers, Robert Berdella was not a neat man. He had an unkept appearance, with bushy hair, bushy mustache, and when he didn't have his male hookers to clean up, his house was filled with clutter, dirty laundry and dirty dishes.

It was in this setting that Jerry Howell woke up in on July 5th, 1984. He was one of Robert's male prostitute friends and had been drugged. When he woke up, he was completely naked and tied with electrical cord around his wrists, ankles and gagged with piano wire. Berdella stood over him, also naked, with an erect penis.

"'Berdella never disclosed what he told his victims, if he told them anything at all, but he did take photographs. "'After taking a few pictures, he began injecting Jerry with pesticide, with a syringe. "'He didn't inject it directly into a vein, as this would probably kill him almost instantly, "'but injected it instead into muscle, causing massive amounts of searing pain.'

Jerry started screaming, but this did little to stop the torture. Probably it only egged Berdella on. As he was screaming through the piano wire, Berdella proceeded to rape him repeatedly. First with his penis, and after ejaculating he continued the rape with various objects, such as carrots, cucumbers, and his fist.

When using his fist, the rectum would tear, causing massive bleeding. Berdella was not a cleanly man, and copious amounts of blood would later be traced in Berdella's house by law enforcement. When Jerry eventually passed out from pain and trauma, Berdella sat on top of his chest and smacked him in the face until he woke up again.

When he did, Robert closed his hands over Jerry's throat and strangled him to death. After this first murder, Robert felt intoxicated and unhappy for weeks afterwards. Typical traits of the sexual psychopath.

He would happily engage more in voluntary work and spend even more time at his shop, Bob's Bazaar Bizarre, with the catchy tagline, Ethnological Curiosities from the World's Far Corners. However, as with all serial killers, the endorphin high following a murder did not last.

On the 10th of April the next year, 1985, another friend of Berdella, Robert Sheldon, came to stay with him for a few days and found himself drugged and held captive, just like Howell before him. At first Berdella changed his mind about keeping him and took him to a doctor to have his injuries treated.

Not long afterwards, he changed his mind and returned Sheldon to his house after getting him severely drunk. How Sheldon could think of staying with Berdella is unknown. What is known is that the torture lasted for days. Robert Berdella loved to experiment, much like a child pulling the wings off of a fly.

After the first murder, he escalated and started using knives as well, cutting long gashes on his victims while he was bound. Sheldon was also injected by a syringe with drain cleaner directly into his vocal cord. On April 15, a workman came to do some work on Berdella's home, forcing Berdella to fatally suffocate Sheldon with a plastic bag so he wouldn't be heard.

Sheldon's skull is one of the few human remains that eventually were recovered by authorities, all the others mostly having been put in Berdella's bathtub, sliced open and cut into pieces. He sometimes also hung his victims upside down over a large vat in his basement, cutting their artery and allowing them to drain completely of blood before their dismembered body parts were packed in plastic bags and

and driven to various landfills, never to be seen again. June 22nd, the same year, Berdella found Mark Wallace, who had helped him do some yard work, hiding in his tool shed to seek shelter from a storm. Berdella invited him inside his house, drugged him, and started holding him captive.

After hours of torture, he was killed, like the previous victims, by strangulation. By now, Robert Berdella could be said to be on a rampage. His ever-increasing need to inflict pain, and in lack of a better word, bloodlust, caused him to seek out victims more rapidly. In September, he picked up James Ferris at a gay bar, invited him home, and took him captive.

He drugged him, and he experienced the same as Berdella's other victims. There is a photo of James Ferry's available online that Berdella took during his torture session the 5th of September. It shows a naked young man with dark hair lying on his stomach on a makeshift bed. His hands are bound behind his back with some sort of dark string, and his wrists appear to be bandaged.

This corresponds to Berdella's claims of often trying to keep his victims alive for as long as possible. He used antibiotics and cleaned the wounds before bandaging them. After a little while, though, he would continue the torture. The young man in the photo is also gagged with what appears to be a S&M gag, and his body is riddled with what appears to be burn marks.

There are two hypodermic needles protruding from between his shoulder blades. The murder of Ferris seems to have calmed Berdella somewhat, as the next known victim did not meet Berdella until June 17th the following year, in 1986. Todd Stoops was a 21-year-old slim and handsome prostitute,

Robert often bought sexual services from prostitutes, but for some reason Todd frustrated him. He often struggled with maintaining an erection, especially when engaging in consensual sex, and this only caused his murderous desires to flare up even more. Stoops, incredibly, endured more torture and pain than the previous victims. He was drugged.

This he managed simply as most of the prostitutes were drug addicts and bound as all the others. However, he was bound in a more dramatic way. Stoops is also the subject of one of the available crime photos online and it shows the young man on the same makeshift bed Ferris was on, bound with piano wire and cloth tightly wound in his mouth.

He also appears to be bound around the neck and have some sort of tube extruding from his mouth. He is, uncharacteristically, not naked, but have dark pants on, even though his torso is bare. His arms are bound behind him, and a long log is jammed between his arms and his back, causing his back to arch.

Todd Stoops' eyes are bulging open in a look of sheer terror in the photo, and all his muscles appear to be flexing tightly. The reason for this is that there is a car battery tong fastened to his naked shoulder. From the tong, a wire runs towards the camera. From interviews with Berdella, as well as in his detailed diary...

We know, dear listener, that Stoops, in this very photo, is receiving one of several jolts of 7,700 volts of electricity, causing his entire body to spasm in extreme pain. In addition to this, Stoops was cut, burned, raped, and injected with various pesticides, bleach, and other various drugs.

His rectum ruptured, causing extensive bleeding, and finally his eyes were injected with Drano before he died of a combination of shock and blood loss. His body has never been recovered. Very little is known of Berdella's actions between the torture and murder of Stoops in June of 1986 and July of 1987.

I, dear listener, can only speculate as to his actions, but it does seem out of character for a serial killer that is experimenting and increasing his brutality to wait for over a year between killings. Other serial killers having similar characteristics as Berdella, and again Jeffrey Dahmer springs to mind,

did not slow down but rather sped up their murderous activities. It is also known that Berdella was only convicted of six murders due to him eventually confessing to them. And as I like to say on this podcast, serial killers are psychopaths. And psychopaths are born liars.

It would not surprise your humble host in the least... if it turned out that Berdella was proven to be behind... several more murders than authorities thought. And so, we travel forward to Easter... in Kansas City, 1988. A young, lean and handsome male prostitute... named Chris Bryson... is working the Greyhound bus station...

as a stocky man with a thick moustache pulls up and invites him back to his place. They agree to go back to his house at 4315 Charlotte Street for sex and drugs, and the two spend some time getting to know each other. Later that evening, Berdella suggested they go upstairs.

"'There were vicious dogs on the floor they were on,' Berdella explained, "'whereas the room upstairs housed a television and comfortable furniture. "'Climbing up the stairs, Berdella overtook Bryson "'with a swift blow to the back of the head with a blunt instrument. "'Bryson went down quickly, unconscious. "'Berdella immediately took advantage of the situation "'and began shooting pictures of his victim with a Polaroid camera.'

This was a great fascination for Berdella. It would also later prove to be irrefutable evidence of his guilt. Berdella was immaculate in his methodical documentation of the events with each of his victims. Over the next four days, Bryson would be subjected to many different kinds of tortures at the hands of Berdella. He beat Bryson with an iron club,

and injected various parts of his body with animal tranquilizers and antibiotics. Berdella shocked Bryson with an electrical current by attaching alligator clips to different parts of his body, including his testicles. Berdella sodomized Bryson, sometimes demanding sex from the incapacitated captive two and three times a day.

During this course of events, Berdella held Bryson captive, with bondage and drugs. Bryson was tied with several ropes to the iron headboard of the bed, his limbs outstretched. Berdella showed Bryson pictures of men who had been in his position before and would not cooperate. He told Bryson they were now dead and that dogs had eaten them.

This was not far from the truth, and Bryson believed every word Berdella said to him. He was fearful for his life, and with good cause. Early on in Bryson's captivity, he screamed as he was raped, and Berdella injected Drano into his throat next to his windpipe, telling him if he continued to call out, he would lose his voice entirely.

Bedella jabbed swabs into Bryson's eyes, soaked with a chemical, which could have been alcohol. Bryson did not think he would ever see his family again, but he continually thought of ways to get out of the situation alive.

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On the day of his brave escape, Bryson did not know for sure that Berdella was gone, although in fact Berdella had gone out to run some errands. Bryson had been cooperating with Berdella and therefore was allowed to hold a remote control for the television between his knees with his hands, while still bound with ropes. He lowered the volume of the television set,

to determine Berdella's whereabouts. Also, his hands were tied in a different fashion than usual, and he quickly learned how to loosen the ropes. Another treat Bryson received for his cooperation earlier in the day was a cigarette. Berdella tossed the matches by the bed. This combination of events allowed Bryson to make his quick getaway.

"'After freeing a hand from the ropes, he used the matches to burn the rest of the ropes. "'His mind was racing with thoughts about what Berdella would do to him "'if he were captured while trying to escape. "'Naked, with the ropes dangling, he dashed to the window, "'worrying that it might be locked or nailed closed. "'It was not, and he quickly broke the glass.'

Looking down from the second story, he realized he had no choice but to jump from that height. He injured his foot upon landing, but ignored the pain as he ran out into the street to locate the nearest neighbor. The neighbor would not let the naked man into his home, but he did call the police.

Shortly after, police questioned Bryson as he sat on the neighbor's stoop with red swollen eyes and crimson marks on his wrists and ankles. Berdella showed up at his home. Berdella was arrested within minutes of Bryson's complaints. As it was obvious by looking at him, Bryson was telling at least a partial truth.

The detectives had 20 hours, according to the laws of Missouri, to determine what charges they were holding him on. This would prove to be no easy task. Detectives with the Kansas City Police Department spent the entire weekend cataloging items found in Berdella's home. It became apparent he was a collector or a pack rat. His house contained things like vertebrae and skulls,

It was not easy to determine at a glance if these items were authentic. There were reports of other missing young men, of course, and the goal was to determine if any of them met with foul play at the hands of Bob Berdella. The police spent the remainder of their time that weekend obtaining search warrants to detain Berdella in custody.

However, after sorting through the copious piles of papers, pictures, and other clutter and dog feces in Berdella's home, the detectives didn't have time left to do much else. Bryson positively identified Berdella in photos the detectives showed him while he was in the hospital.

"'Berdella was originally charged with forced sodomy "'and charges relating to the torture Bryson endured. "'After locating questionable items in Berdella's home, "'such as the skulls and other bones, "'the police noticed an area in the basement's dirt floor "'that by its dimensions resembled a grave. "'Police interviewed neighbors, "'which led police to search the property around the house "'and to find out what was going on.

and in the backyard were other freshly dug places. A worst-case scenario seemed to be unfolding. On Easter weekend, it would prove to be difficult to locate someone who would operate and had access to earth-moving equipment. As Berdella was currently being held by warrants previously issued stemming from Bryson's comments, time was on the side of the Kansas City Police Department.

However, as is always the case, the media was alerted to the strange turn of events. The media soon began to swarm the house on Charlotte Street, complicated the entire investigation. Excavation of the backyard began as hordes of reporters were on site.

Almost immediately, the detectives spotted a human skull, with hair and soft tissue still intact. The work continued in the backyard into Monday. Strange items were found, but unrelated to any human death. Bones from animals, jars with bird feathers, and so on.

The discovery lent credence to the idea that perhaps Berdella was into Satanism or some kind of occult religion. It seemed that every new discovery created more questions for the detectives rather than answers. In the meantime, detectives also continued to work inside the house, impeded by the amount of clutter and piles of dog feces and other garbage.

Luminol, a spray chemical used by the detectives to highlight blood, was applied to many areas in the basement with positive results. People began contacting the police department with concerns for loved ones that were missing and were known to have spent time with Berdella.

Witnesses stepped forward to discuss their encounters with Berdella. Some claimed to have seen Berdella injecting people with drugs, primarily the tranquilizers he used for his dogs. Others claimed to be victims of these assaults. The intangible evidence was overwhelming.

Leading detectives to realize a death, if not more than one, had occurred on Berdella's property. But there was no body. It was most difficult to convince a judge to seriously consider murder charges when there were no corpse to prove murder occurred.

"'Skull and vertebrae located early in the excavation of the yard "'were sent into the lab for positive identification. "'As Berdella had so many odd artifacts in his store and house, "'it was difficult to determine what was authentic and what was not. "'The detectives continued the tedious methodical search, "'pending results from the lab regarding the bones.'

They devised a backyard grid, allowing them to search the area most effectively without going over ground that had been previously searched. Copious documentation provided by Berdella led detectives to begin contacting the people whose names were listed in the diaries he kept of the torture administered to each victim.

However, identifying the faces contained within the photographs proved to be difficult in some cases. Some pictures were of Berdella sodomizing his victim, where no face was visible, not even Berdella's. Police began deciphering the code of shorthand Berdella utilized while logging the events taking place with his victims.

It was written in a rather elementary and crude style. For example, police were able to rapidly determine BF represented anal penetration with his penis, while FINGF stood for use of his finger.

There were dozens of references to F in various fashions, such as carrot F or cucumber F, which meant Berdella inserted cucumbers or carrots into the rectum of his victim. The logs contained other equally disturbing information regarding the frequency and dosage of medication used

administered to the victims and where he injected them. Some names were listed frequently, so the detectives began the search for these individuals. They quickly determined that the information contained in the logs directly corresponded to dates and times of young men who were missing. Robert Berdella sat in the Jackson County Jail awaiting his fate.

For his own safety, he was isolated in a private area of the sickbay. Sexual abusers, particularly homosexuals, are often the victims of violence at the hands of other prisoners in America, and observers claimed Berdella appeared remorseful and in denial, perhaps somewhat pensive and reflective.

He refused to speak to anyone who might convey his side of the story, such as the media or police. His friends who visited him said that he wished to speak to a particular minister with whom he had developed a friendship, not necessarily for religious counseling, but to have someone to confide in. Mardella was not interested at that time in confessing anything to anyone.

He ignored the entire situation. As an individual accustomed to being in control, the experience was humiliating and irritating. Because of his contacts in his business and years spent in Kansas City, Berdella had a lot of acquaintances, some of which were friends. But to all who knew him, it was difficult to believe such a monster lived within him.

Some friends accused the police of framing Berdella. Actually, no one in Kansas City wanted to believe a human being was capable of this behavior, whether it was Berdella or not. It shattered the entire image of a wholesome Midwestern town. This reaction from people made the investigation even more confusing. The police had no corpse and therefore could not prove a murder had happened.

Friends and family claimed Berdella was an eccentric yet very likable and responsible person. His worst fault, from the viewpoint of his friends, was that Berdella was condescending when dealing with women, or people he considered less knowledgeable than himself. A week into the investigation, the detectives knew they had to identify people in the pictures, including the ones with no faces portrayed.

It was suggested by an outside source that detectives ask Berdella to assume the pose of the person taking the photographs, whose stomach, lower limbs and occasionally arms or hands were photographed. A plan was put into action to have Berdella take a strikingly similar photograph of him in these poses. They would then be sent to a professional for positive identification.

At the same time, samples of Berdella's body hair would be obtained. Berdella was very embarrassed and humiliated by having to pose for the photos, yet cooperative for the most part. He did resist with more than one position he was asked to assume, one of which was positioning himself to represent having anal sex with

and another when the detectives wanted to position his hand, as if shoving something into someone's anus. At Berdella's arraignment, in the courtroom of Judge Alvin Randall, Berdella shocked everyone by entering a plea of guilty to the charge of murder in the first degree.

Eventually, Berdella confessed to the murder and torture of six young men between the years of 1984 and 1987. With an uncanny ability to recall detail, he told his frightening story as court reporter Ruth Emma Pietro recorded each grisly event of the carnage in the court record.

He seemed to enjoy his moment in the limelight while in the courtroom confessing, probably due to him once again having a semblance of control. This confession was the only way the detectives had a real case, since the bodies of his victims were never located. Berdella claimed to have dismembered each body with various instruments, such as a chainsaw and knives.

"'Berdella recounted how he placed the bodies in the bathtub "'and made precise incisions at the elbow joints, legs and groin "'to allow the blood to drain from his dead victim. "'He then packaged them into plastic trash bags "'to be thrown away at the landfill. "'By confessing to the city's prosecutor, Albert Riederer,

Berdella was able to negotiate for his life. He was promised a death penalty would not be sought if he provided the grisly details of his actions, and he did. Judge Vincent E. Baker subsequently found Robert Berdella guilty of six counts of murder and sentenced him to two life sentences without parole.

It was recommended that Berdella go for psychiatric evaluation, which placed him outside the general prison population and prevented any violence from other inmates. The real Robert Berdella began to emerge in the ensuing psychiatric records. Berdella appreciated control and considered himself important. He wanted his victims to be his sex slaves.

He claimed never to have killed them intentionally. It is theorized that murderers convince themselves the victim is less of a human being. This perception gives the killer an opportunity to justify his actions or, at the very least, feel less guilty about it. Berdella referred to his victims as, and I quote, "...play toys."

In Berdella's case, the victims were young men with little or no education. Most of the victims made a living selling themselves and drugs. Obviously, in Berdella's mind, they were beneath the social stature of a well-liked and successful businessman such as Robert Berdella.

It was this mentality that led Berdella to the grotesque acts of torture to which his victims were subjected. He would befriend them and then deprive them of all emotions and sensations unless administered by him. In his confession, he tells how one victim died from a ruptured anal wall after Berdella put his arm deep inside of the man.

"'Berdella callously referred to this as Fist F. "'Berdella, amazingly, believed he was a good and upstanding individual "'who may have done some terrible things, "'and he set forth to prove this theory to the public. "'He hated having his name smeared in the public eye.'

In an attempt to get back in the good graces of the public, Berdella opened a trust fund for his victims' families, administered by Reverend Roger Coleman, who had stood by him throughout the entire ordeal. Some families of the victims sued Berdella for wrongful death, but failed because of the inability to meet the statute of limitations for such crimes.

"'Berdella was smug in his remarks concerning the impending lawsuits. "'Robert Berdella claimed that he did not understand why he was a serial killer "'or what in his life had contributed to his behavior, "'and he took great offense and claimed people incompetent "'for thinking he himself understood it. "'He rejected emphatically that claim that he had any dealings with Satanism.'

Robert Berdella served only four years of his time in the state penitentiary in Jefferson City, Missouri, before he died of a heart attack at the age of 43 on the 8th of October, 1992. I have been your host, Thomas Weyberg Thun. Doing this podcast is a labor of love.

But if you do want to support me, it is greatly appreciated. I have created a Patreon account that you can find at patreon.com slash the serial killer podcast. And again, any donation, no matter how small, helps a great deal. Patrons have started letting themselves be known. Maud, Daniel, Wendy and Paddy have

Thank you. Your patronage is very much appreciated and your donations duly noted. Finally, as always, if you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe to it and feel free to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast review site. Thank you, dear listener, for listening.

And join me next time for another tale of serial murder. Good night and good luck. The most powerful designer drugs are the digital ones we use daily. And we get high off them. One touch, tap, like, scroll at a time. You know, just like tech creators want us to. Use digital without digital using you. Learn more at sync.ithra.com.

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