Robert Berdella

Robert Andrew Berdella Jr. (January 31, 1949October8, 1992) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered at least six young men after forcing his victims to endure periods of up to six weeks of captivity. His crimes took place in Kansas City, Missouri, between 1984 and 1987.

Describing his murders as being "some of my darkest fantasies becoming my reality", Berdella pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder of one of his victims, Larry Pearson, in August 1988; he would later plead guilty to one further charge of first-degree murder and four charges of second-degree murder in December 1988. He died of a heart attack while incarcerated at the Missouri State Penitentiary in October 1992.

Berdella became known as the Kansas City Butcher due to his practice of extensively dissecting his victims' bodies, which he would then dispose of in garbage bags, and The Collector due to the movie which he stated was the basis of the fantasies behind the modus operandi of his crimes.

Early life Robert Berdella was born on January 31, 1949, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, Berdella's father was a devout Roman Catholic of Italian descent, while his mother was of German and British descent. The family regularly attended Mass, and both sons regularly attended religious education courses.

As a child, Berdella was intelligent but a loner who rarely played outside his home and seldom had friends visit to socialize. He had a speech impediment and wore thick glasses from the age of five because he was severely nearsighted; he was also diagnosed with high blood pressure, for which he took several medications. Berdella was largely unathletic, whereas his younger brother, Daniel, seven years his junior, displayed an aptitude for sports from an early age. Berdella's father valued sports and physical education and viewed his older son's lack of interest in sports as a sign of failure, often comparing him unfavorably with his younger brother. Occasionally, Berdella's father physically and emotionally abused his children, such as by beating them with a leather strap. Two days later, Berdella returned to Cuyahoga Falls by himself. When he arrived home, his family told him his father had died.

Shortly after the death of Berdella's father, his mother remarried, an action that was met with resentment by Berdella, who viewed it as a form of betrayal against his father. As a result, he became increasingly withdrawn and further immersed himself in the solitary activities he had participated in since childhood, such as painting, collecting coins and stamps, and writing to foreign pen pals. Berdella would later claim that his hobby of writing to pen pals in countries such as Vietnam and Burma and their sending him stamps and photographs of mythical and historical icons, ancient cultures, and architecture would lead to his avid interest in primitive art, photographs, and antiques. From approximately 1965, he began collecting such artifacts; this practice would inspire him to open his own antiques business in 1982. he was released after posting a $3,000 bond (equivalent to about $ ). He would later plead guilty to the offense and was handed a five-year suspended sentence. One month after this first arrest, Berdella and two other students were arrested for possession of marijuana and LSD in Johnson County. On this occasion, Berdella could not post bond, and he spent five days in jail; the charges against him and one of the other students were later dropped due to a lack of evidence. district: 4315 Charlotte Street. (Berdella held a brief relationship with a bisexual Vietnam veteran in 1982 who had a severe emotional disorder.) The relationship was one of the few serious ones Berdella engaged in when living in Kansas City. This store was named Bob's Bazaar Bizarre,

Howell was restrained to Berdella's bed for approximately 28 hours. Throughout this period of captivity, Berdella repeatedly drugged, tortured, raped, and violated him with foreign objects, He suspended Howell's body above a large cooking pot and made several incisions to his inner elbows and jugular vein, leaving the body suspended in this position overnight to allow the blood to drain from his corpse.

When later questioned by officers investigating Howell's disappearance, Berdella claimed to have driven the youth to Merriam as promised, where the two had parted company close to Howell's intended destination. Berdella further claimed he had not seen him since. He would remain adamant to investigators that this was not for his enjoyment, but for what he called his "physical and mental satisfaction". According to Berdella, although Sheldon paid his rent responsibly, he considered him to be "an inconvenience". Although he was not physically attracted to Sheldon, on April12, he drugged and held him captive because he returned home from work to find Sheldon intoxicated. Berdella was adamant that he held no firm malice toward Sheldon, but saw him as someone upon whom he could "express some of the anger and frustration that [he] had toward other people".

Three days after Berdella had begun holding Sheldon captive, on April15, a workman came to perform some scheduled work on the roof of his home, leading Berdella to fatally suffocate Sheldon by placing a sack over his head, which he then tightened with a piece of rope. He later dissected Sheldon's body in the third-floor bathroom.

The following June, Berdella found Mark Wallace (a very casual acquaintance who had previously helped him with yard work) hiding in his tool shed to seek shelter from a severe thunderstorm. As had been the case with Robert Sheldon, Berdella invited him inside his house, and, noting Wallace's acute state of tenseness and depression, volunteered to inject him with chlorpromazine with the explanation that this would "calm down and relax" him. Wallace willingly accepted the offer and, 30 minutes later, Berdella decided to render him captive. According to Berdella, he did not initially intend to capture Pearson, but began forming the plan to do so on June23, two weeks after having bailed Pearson out of jail and noting Pearson—in the weeks before his captivity—displayed little interest in finding a job. then suffocating him with a bag and ligature, before driving to the hospital to receive treatment for his wound. Pearson's body was later dismembered in the basement, and his head was initially stored in a plastic bag inside Berdella's freezer before being buried in the backyard. (In his subsequent confessions to investigators, Berdella stated he had dismembered the bodies of Sheldon, Wallace, Ferris, and Stoops in the bathtub in his third-floor bathroom, whereas the bodies of Howell and Pearson had been dismembered in his basement.) before exclaiming to him: "The only things you need to think about are you, me, and this house."

After several days, Berdella explained to Bryson that he had begun to "trust" his captive, and that although he was willing to discuss some aspects of the abuse and torture he was receiving, there would be no negotiations regarding his sexual abuse. Berdella finished this discussion with a stern warning: "I've gotten this far with other people before, and they're dead now, because of mistakes they made." The meter reader led Bryson to the house he had been approaching; the occupants called the police, who arrived minutes later. Berdella had kept him bound to a bed on the second floor of the house throughout much of the time, repeatedly sodomizing him, drugging him, and injecting his throat with drain cleaner to diminish his ability to speak loudly. As Bryson spoke, the officers also noted that in addition to the dog collar and broken foot, Bryson had red, swollen eyes and visible scars and welts across his entire body. Two officers were told to maintain discreet surveillance of the property; Bryson was driven to the Menorah Medical Center for treatment, accompanied by a third officer, while the fourth officer radioed the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) to request a formal search warrant of the property. and a partially decomposed human head in the backyard. The search also uncovered several human vertebrae scarred by both hacksaw and knife marks stowed in a hallway, His lawyer would later threaten to file harassment accusations against police unless their questioning and surveillance of him ceased.

James Ferris's wife identified him in several Polaroids found at Berdella's property, some taken after her husband's death. Paul Howell formally identified one picture of a young man hanging upside down in Berdella's basement as his son.

Berdella would be formally charged with the murder by dismemberment of Larry Wayne Pearson in July after the head discovered in his backyard was formally identified as Pearson's on May12. (Berdella entered this plea of guilty at his arraignment hearing (in the voluntary company of his public defender) due to the fact that, at this hearing, unless the state has filed notice of intent to seek the death penalty at an arraignment hearing in which first-degree murder charges were filed, the automatic sentence to be filed upon receipt of a guilty plea is life imprisonment without parole.) In response to questioning by his attorneys, Berdella stated: "I put a plastic bag over his head, and tied it with rope and allowed him to suffocate." When asked if he performed this act deliberately and with malice aforethought, Berdella simply stated, "Yes." He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Upon being sentenced, Berdella was transferred to the Missouri State Penitentiary to commence his life sentence. He would later be temporarily placed in protective custody at the Potosi Correctional Center, due to concerns for his safety.

A second guilty plea submitted before the Jackson County Court on August24 earned Berdella a further life term without parole for one charge of forcible sodomy against Christopher Bryson (six counts of sodomy and one charge of assault being dropped as part of a plea bargain); he would also receive a further term of seven years on one count of felonious restraint against Bryson on this date. with the agreement of his two defense attorneys, Berdella ultimately conducted a plea bargain with the prosecutors to avoid the death penalty in these remaining charges. at a formal hearing scheduled for 9a.m. on December19. His victims, he stated to investigators, had lost any degree of humanity in his eyes once he had chosen to render them captive.

"These were not people that I thought of, once I had them bound and was using them ... They became something other than people to me. I never thought it out to the level of: 'What if one of these bodies ever gets loose?'" — Robert Berdella, describing how he viewed his victims once he had decided to render them captive. December 13, 1988.

Entries reading "EK" or "EKG" referred to torture administered to his captives with electrical shocks, whereas several other entries contained the anatomical location where Berdella administered the abuse or torture to his victims. For example, at one point in relation to victim James Ferris, Berdella had written an entry reading: "2 1/2 ket nk + shoulder" to indicate he had injected 2.5 cubic centimeters of ketamine into his victim's neck and shoulder. Other entries such as "gag loose, no resist in retie" or "very delayed breathing, snoring" were more self-explanatory. in an area of the household Berdella referred to as "my gallery area", Their bodies were never recovered.

Berdella also lodged several complaints with prison officials regarding prison conditions. He also wrote several letters to a local minister claiming that prison officials knew of his high blood pressure, yet were not providing him with his prescribed heart medication.

Death In 1992, Berdella contacted Rev. Roger Coleman, whom he had met when first incarcerated, relaying his distress that the staff at the Missouri State Penitentiary were allegedly withholding his heart medication. who gained extreme sexual excitation from the humiliation, pain, and torture to which he had subjected his victims. Moreover, despite his claims to journalists whom he had contacted in the years of his incarceration, Berdella never expressed any degree of remorse for his actions and tersely referred to his victims as "play toys" in an interview he granted shortly before his death.

Aftermath In November 1988, auctions of Berdella's vast collection of artifacts and furniture confiscated from his home and business were held on four separate dates, with the intention that all proceeds raised at the auctions would be used to pay his mounting legal fees within the then-ongoing legal proceedings. The auction attracted considerable national interest, receiving telephone bids from across the United States. Although many items sold for less than the expected price, by the end of the first day's auctioneering alone, more than $60,000 had been raised (equivalent to $ ).

Berdella's house was purchased by a local businessman for an undisclosed sum in December 1988. The property was later demolished. Mark David Wallace, 27, June 22, 1985: Discovered by chance hiding from a thunderstorm in Berdella's tool shed. Wallace died of a combination of a lack of oxygen and injected drugs at 7p.m. on June23.

Television A 2004 documentary, Bazaar Bizarresometimes styled James Ellroy Presents Bazaar Bizarreis based on journalist Tom Jackman's book Rites of Burial and directed by Benjamin Meade. Bazaar Bizarre recounts the murders committed by Berdella and includes archive footage of interviews with Berdella before his death. Christopher Bryson is among those interviewed for this documentary.