20 Serial Killers Who Served in the Military
David Berkowitz was a New York City serial killer who was arrested in 1977 for a series of shooting attacks with a .44 caliber revolver. In more than a year, Berkowitz murdered six victims and wounded seven others while terrorizing New York City with acts of arson.
Prior to his killing spree, an eighteen-year-old Berkowitz enlisted in the US Army in 1971 and was honorably discharged after serving in the US and South Korea.
- Believed to have murdered at least 71 victims who were mostly women and prostitutes in the late '90s. He was convicted of 49 murders and is serving a life prison sentence in Washington. Prior to his killing spree, Ridgeway joined the Navy and was sent to Vietnam where he served on a supply ship.
Murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, before he was convicted of 15 of the murders and sentenced to life in prison in 1992.
Jeffrey Dahmer was an alcoholic who dropped out of college and, at his father's urging, enlisted in the U.S. Army. He trained as a medical specialist and was deployed to Germany in 1979. He was discharged from the military in 1981 after his performance suffered due to his alcoholism.- Photo:
Often described as the "British Jeffrey Dahmer," Dennis Nilsen was a serial killer in London who committed the murders of 15 young men from 1978 to 1983 before he was arrested and charged with six counts of murder and two of attempted murder. Prior to his killing spree, Nilsen joined the British Army and enlisted in the Army Catering Corps where he became a cook and served for 11 years.
He earned a General Service Medal before he was discharged, at his own request, in 1972.
What can be creepier than a serial killer known as the Candy Man? From 1970 to 1973 before he was murdered himself, Corll murdered at least 28 boys whom he abducted, raped and tortured. Corll's family owned a candy factory in Texas where he worked as a young boy and eventually became the vice president. Corll was also drafted in the US Army in 1964 where he trained as a radio repairman.
Though Corll's military record was pristine, he reportedly hated military service and applied for a hardship discharge on the basis of being needed within his family's candy business. He was granted an honorable discharge after 10 months of service in 1965.
Perhaps most notorious for his military career, Timothy McVeigh was convicted of the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people and wounded more than 600 others. He was sentenced to death by legal injection in 2001. McVeigh was highly interested in firearms and weaponry and graduated from the U.S. Army Infantry School. He served in the U.S. Army and was a decorated soldier who served in the Gulf War and Operation Desert Storm.
He was discharged in 1991 after his failure to join the United States Army Special Forces due to his unsuitable psychological profile.
- Photo:
- Police Department of Russia
- The Line Up
- CC BY 4.0
Andrei Chikatilo was a Russian Soviet serial killer whose victim count includes a minimum of 52 women and children from 1978 to 1990 before he was arrested and confessed to a total of 56 murders and tried for 53 killings in 1992. He was convicted and sentenced to death and executed in 1994. Chikatilo was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1957 where he worked in the communications unit in Berlin for his compulsory military service until 1960.
He also joined the Communist party and had an unblemished military record.
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From 1970 to 1990, Dennis Rader terrorized the Wichita, Kansas area until he was finally arrested and revealed in 2005. Rader seemed to be an average married father of two who worked for ADT Security Services. In 1966 Rader joined the US Air Force and was stationed in Alabama before being sent to Okinawa and then mainland Japan until the end of his service in 1970.
His military record has been described as "unremarkable." Rader is currently serving 10 life sentences in a Kansas prison.
- Known as the "Freeway Killer," Kraft was convicted of murdering 16 victims from 1972 and 1983. He is currently on death row in a California prison. After college, Kraft joined the U.S. Air Force and was based in southern California where he supervised the painting of test planes and eventually rose to the rank of Airman First Class. He was discharged in 1969 after he admitted his homosexuality, though under "medical" grounds.
- Arthur Shawcross was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 14 people from 1972 and 1989. He died in 2008 after suffering cardiac arrest. At 21, Shawcross was drafted by the Army in 1967 where he did a tour in Vietnam and then based in Oklahoma as an armorer.
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Lake served as a Marine in Vietnam, though as a radio operator on non-combatant duty. He was medically discharged in 1971 after psychiatric treatment. Together with serial killer Charles Ng, Lake committed 11 to 25 murders before he was apprehended. Lake ended his life with a cyanide pill after authorities arrested him for a firearms offense.- Together with his accomplice, Leonard Lake, Ng was convicted of 11 murders and is currently on death raw in a California prison. Ng enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps though he was not a U.S. citizen and was dishonorably discharged for stealing weaponry and machine guns in Hawaii. He was also charged with escape from confinement and attempted desertion and was sentenced to 14 years in military prison. He was released in 1982.
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Yates is known to have murdered 16 women and was convicted of two killings. He is currently on death row in Washington state. Yates enlisted in the Army in 1977 where he flew civilian transport airplanes and helicopters. During his nearly 19 year military career, Yates earned a number of awards and left military service in 1996.Convicted of sniper attacks that killed 10 people and injuring more, John Allen Williams (later Muhammad) was given the death penalty. He enlisted in the Louisiana Army National Guard in 1979 where he served for seven years and then volunteered for active duty in 1986 in the U.S. Army.
He earned the highest level of marksmanship for a basic soldier and was a trained mechanic, truck driver and specialized metalworker. He was discharged following the Gulf War after serving in the Persian Gulf.
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This notorious English serial killer is known for murdering at least eight women, including his wife, in his apartment in London between 1943 and 1953. He was given the death penalty and hanged. In 1916 Christie had enlisted in the army and was sent to France in 1918 where was injured in a gas attack and spent a month in military hospital.
An underlying personality disorder led Christie to exaggerate the effects of the attack and feign illness to gain attention.
- Photo:
- Metaweb (FB)
- Public domain
Whitman was a former U.S. Marine who killed 16 people in a mass shooting at the University of Texas in Austin in 1966. Whitman enlisted in the Marine Corps and earned a medal for good conduct, as well as a sharpshooter's badge.- Photo:
- Photo:
- Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Wikimedia Commons
- Public Domain
Keyes was a specialist in the U.S. Army who confessed to a long series of murders with three confirmed but may have murdered eight or more victims until he was apprehended in 2012. He committed suicide in prison.- Photo:
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Harvey worked as an orderly in Ohio and Kentucky hospitals during the 1970s and 1980s, poisoning at least 30 patients and earning the nickname Angel of Death. In 1972, Harvey served in the Air Force for less than a year before receiving a general discharge.- John Joubet brutally kidnapped, tortured and murdered three boys in the early 1980s. He killed the last two while he was serving at an Air Force base in Nebraska.
- Naso committed what were known as the "alphabet murders", so named because four of his six known victims were women whose first and last names began with the same letters. Naso served in the Air Force in the 1950s.
