Robert Berdella

Robert Andrew Berdella Junior (31st January 1949-8th October 1992) was an American serial killer and torturer nicknamed The Kansas City Butcher and The Collector.

Biography
Berdella was born on the 31st of January 1949 in Cuyahoga, Ohio. He was raised in an abusive, deeply religious Catholic household. Growing up, Berdella had no friends and was placed on medication due to high blood pressure. He also realised he was gay when he reached puberty, but decided not to tell anyone yet.

When Berdella was a teenager, his abusive father, Robert Andrew Berdella Senior, suffered a fatal heart attack. In 1965, Berdella saw the movie The Collector, inspiring him to commit his later actions. His mother later remarried, upsetting Berdella.

Berdella graduated high school in 1967, and enrolled in an Art Institute in Kansas City. While there, Berdella began selling drugs, killing animals and drinking heavily. When he was 19, Berdella attempted to sell methamphetamines to an undercover police officer and was arrested, later receiving a five-year suspended prison sentence. One month later, he was arrested again, having been found with cannabis and LSD in his possession, although drugs charges for this second offence were dropped.

In 1969, Berdella left the Kansas City Art Institute after coming under fire for killing and cooking a duck. he began helping drug addicts, as well as having sex with male prostitutes. Berdella began working as a chef, eventually getting a job at a Kansas City restaurant.

Berdella opened a shop, Bob's Bazaar Bizarre, in the Westport flea market in 1982, selling antiques and primitive art. While working at the flea market, he met fellow store owner Paul Howell, and befriended his son Jerry, who allegedly worked as a male prostitute.

In 1984, Berdella offered to drive Jerry to a dancing contest in Merriam, but instead drugged him with Valium and acepromazine, before finally administering a heavy dose of tranquilisers and tying him to his bed. Berdella then raped and sodomized Jerry for 28 hours until he finally choked to death on his own vomit. Berdella then mutilated Jerry's body and suspended it over a cooking pot in order to drain the blood out before finally dismembering the corpse and concealing the remains in his bin. When questioned, Berdella claimed he had driven Jerry to Merriam and, since the police couldn't prove otherwise, no charges were brought.

On 12th April 1985, Berdella returned from work to find his former lodger Robert Sheldon drunk in his house. He proceeded to drug Sheldon before tying him to the bed and exerting his frustrations on him by dabbing drain cleaner in his eye, forcing needles under his fingernails, tightening string round his wrists in order to cause nerve damage, pouring caulking in his ears and performing other forms of torture on Sheldon for three days before finally suffocating him in order to prevent a workman discovering the crime.

In June, Berdella found former co-worker Mark Wallace taking shelter from a thunderstorm in his tool shed and invited him inside. He then injected Wallace with chlorpromazine and carried him to the second floor bedroom, where he proceeded to gag him and attach clips to his nipples. Berdella then tortured Wallace by stabbing hypodermic syringes into his back for one hour until Wallace died from suffocation and an overdose of chlorpromazine at 7.00 p.m.

On 26th September 1985, Berdella met acquaintance James Ferris at a bar, took him home, drugged him with tranquilisers and tortured him, electroshocking his shoulders and testicles and stabbed needles into his neck and genitals. Berdella sexually tortured Ferris for 27 hours until he finally died.

On 17th June 1986, Berdella brought male prostitute Todd Stoops home and forced him to become his sex slave, with Berdella injecting drain cleaner into his larynx to stop him screaming and attempting to blind him by electrifying his eyes. Stoops was tortured and raped until he was incapable of keeping any food down, eventually dying two weeks after his capture from blood loss stemming from an incident in which Berdella used his fist to inflict anal tearing upon Stoops.

The following year, Berdella met Larry Wayne Pearson and befriended him. However, Berdella became enraged when, on the 23rd of June, he discovered that Pearson made a living by robbing gay men. Berdella sedated Pearson with chlorpromazine and tied him to the wall of his basement, then injected his larynx with drain cleaner. Over the next few days, Berdella raped and tortured Pearson many times, as well as breaking his hand with an iron rod.

After six weeks, Pearson attempted to bite off Berdella' s penis while Berdella was in the act of raping him, causing Berdella to beat him into unconsciousness and suffocate him before driving to the hospital to have his bleeding genitals treated. He later dismembered Pearson's corpse and buried the remains.

On 29th March 1988, Berdella lured male prostitute Christopher Bryson into his house and knocked him out with an iron bar. Berdella then tied him to his bed, swabbed his face with ammonia, and tortured and sexually abused him for four days. On the fourth day, Bryson managed to burn through his restraints and escaped through a window before having the police search Berdella' s house. The officers found several devices Berdella had used as instruments of torture in his house, and uncovered the remains of Larry Wayne Pearson, as well as blood belonging to Jerry Howell.

Berdella was arrested, and a rigorous police investigation resulted in several polaroid photographs being found showing Berdella raping Jerry Howell, Todd Stoops, Robert Sheldon and Larry Wayne Pearson. They also found a driving licence belonging to James Ferris and, crucially, a ledger containing the details of the tortures and murders of Howell, Sheldon, Ferris, Stoops, Pearson and Mark Wallace. Berdella plead guilty to the murder of Larry Wayne Pearson and the kidnapping and sodomy of Bryson, and later entered into a plea deal where he plead guilty to the murders of Howell, Sheldon, Wallace, Ferris and Stoops in order to avoid the death penalty. Berdella received six life sentences, and died of a heart attack while imprisoned on the 8th of October 1992.