From 1984 to 1988, Robert Berdella, who was known as an eccentric business owner and collector of rare and bizarre artifacts, took the lives of at least six young men and boys. However, before killing his victims, Berdella subjected these men and teenagers to terrifying and shocking acts of torture, even holding them captive for several weeks and raping and abusing them on a daily basis. He was the kind of killer who kept humans as torture pets for exceedingly long periods of time, slowly torturing them for months at a time.
Berdella's secret life as a sadistic killer was finally uncovered when one of his victims escaped from the shop owner's Kansas City home, wearing nothing but a dog collar around his neck. The people of Missouri's largest metropolis were horrified to learn of the brutal crimes that had been taking place in their community for years, causing Berdella to be dubbed "The Butcher of Kansas City" for his depraved acts.
Horrifying Details About Robert Berdella, Who Kept Detailed Records Of His Murders,
He Was Fascinated By A Movie About A Man Who Kidnapped A Woman And Held Her Captive
When he was a teenager, Robert Berdella watched a film version of The Collector, a book by author John Fowles about a man who abducts a woman and imprisons her in his basement. Berdella claimed the film had a huge impact on him, and it served as inspiration for his crimes. In The Collector, a man named Frederick Clegg uses chloroform to kidnap Miranda, an art student he had become obsessed with, and he keeps her captive in his cellar in hopes that she will grow to love him over time.
The similarities between Fowles’s novel and Berdella’s crimes are undeniable; however, the book is obviously not to blame for the acts of torture and murder the killer carried out as an adult.
He Was Friends With Most Of The Men He Tortured And Killed
Robert Berdella’s first known victim was 19-year-old Jerry Howell, the son of one of the other seller’s at the flea market and a young man who was reportedly involved in prostitution. On July 4, 1984, 35-year-old Berdella picked the teenager up in his car, claiming he was taking Howell to a dance, but the 19 year old was never seen alive again by his family and friends. While Berdella met Howell through his store, a number of the killer’s other victims were sex workers he had befriended.
Berdella, who claimed he wanted to help men who were involved with prostitution, developed relationships with a number of sex workers he met in downtown Kansas City. However, according to people who knew Berdella’s victims, not all of the men he killed were gay or involved in prostitution.
The Father Of One Of His Victims Suspected Berdella Had Killed His Son
After Jerry Howell disappeared, his father Gerald, who was also a merchant at the same flea market that housed Bob’s Bizarre Bazaar, suspected Robert Berdella had murdered his son. In fact, Mr. Howell reported his fears to law enforcement, claiming the middle-aged man was the last person to be seen with the teenager before he went missing.
Consequently, Berdella was put under police surveillance, but the authorities were unable to uncover any evidence to charge him with a crime or prevent him from committing future murders.
He Opened A Shop Called Bob’s Bizarre Bazaar
When he was 20 years old, Robert Berdella dropped out of art school and devoted most of his time to working as a chef at various restaurants in Kansas City. He also bought a home in the city in 1969, and he started filling it with oddities and antiquities that he purchased or acquired by trading artifacts with other like-minded collectors. However, his collection began to take over his three-story home, so Berdella got a booth at Kansas City’s Westport Flea Market in 1970.
The shop, which he called Bob’s Bizarre Bazaar, sold a range of unusual items, including drug paraphernalia, shrunken heads, and books on the occult. It also introduced him to a number of different people, including some of his future victims.
He Dismembered His Victims And Threw Their Remains In The Trash
While he killed some of his victims by suffocating them with a plastic bag or strangling them to death with a ligature, others died as a result of asphyxiation caused by the gags Robert Berdella had forced into their mouths. After his victims died, Berdella would use a chainsaw to cut up their corpses, and he would wrap these body parts in plastic bags and put them in his garbage can for trash collection.
Afraid the sanitation workers would discover these grisly packages, Berdella watched from his window to make sure the garbage men didn’t become suspicious about the contents of his trash can. Because of the way he disposed of the corpses, most of the victims’ remains were never recovered.
He Tortured His Victims In Terrifying Ways
Robert Berdella appeared to delight in inflicting pain on his victims, many of whom had considered him a friend, and he bound their wrists with rope and used leashes and dog collars to restrain the young men. Berdella subjected his victims to painful electric shocks that he administered using a 7,700 transformer, and he also applied caustic chemicals, such as bleach, to their eyes, causing them excruciating pain and temporary blindness.
To prevent his prisoners from screaming, he placed gags in their mouths, but Berdella also injected drain cleaner into their vocal cords to stop them from being able to cry out. However, perhaps the most disturbing act of torture was his practice of sodomizing his victims with his fist, causing such severe damage that he punctured the anal cavities of the young men.
He Was A Drug Dealer Who Got Arrested For Selling LSD, Acid, And Marijuana
While he was attending art school, Robert Berdella began using drugs and drinking heavily, and he eventually started selling narcotics, including marijuana, amphetamines, and LSD. Berdella was arrested twice during his second year of college for crimes related to drugs, once for selling amphetamines to an undercover cop and another time for possession of LSD and marijuana.
Berdella was given a five-year suspended sentence for his crimes, but it did little to curb his criminal appetite or stop him from experimenting with drugs.
He Documented His Torture With Photographs And A Journal
Robert Berdella approached his appalling torture as if he were a scientist conducting experiments, logging details about the sadistic acts, including when they were administered and how his victims reacted. He also injected the men with sedatives to keep them compliant and gave them antibiotics to stave off infection, so he noted down these doses as if he were a nurse or doctor attending to patients.
In some instances, he kept these young men in his home for weeks, subjecting them to unspeakable horrors multiple times a day. In addition to the written logs of his crimes, Berdella took lots of Polaroid pictures of his battered and bleeding victims, often shirtless or nude and with collars around their necks, gags in their mouths, and restraints around their wrists.
He Incapacitated His Victims With Sedatives And Animal Tranquilizers
Like the main character in The Collector, Robert Berdella used drugs to incapacitate his victims, guaranteeing they would be easier for him to control. Typically, Berdella would invite someone back to his home, often by offering them a meal, drugs, or a place to stay, and then he would serve the unsuspecting men food or drinks laced with powerful sedatives.
Once the men were unconscious and unable to defend themselves, Berdella would move his victims to the basement or a spare bedroom where he would subject them to unspeakable acts of sadistic torture.
He Killed Animals For The Sake Of Art
After graduating from high school, Robert Berdella attended the Kansas City Art Institute; initially, he wanted to become an art professor, but he turned his attention to culinary arts and studied to become a chef. While he was in college, Berdella incorporated animal cruelty into his art, even decapitating a live duck and dancing around with its corpse as part of a performance piece.
It’s not uncommon for people who become serial killers to treat animals cruelly and sadistically before they go on to harm and murder human victims, indicating there were signs that Berdella was dangerous from a relatively young age.