It’s a sad fact that most murderers and serial killers usually do their work in horror basements reserved explicitly for committing unnamed acts to their victims. For some killers, the basement is a means to an end - a way to quickly get rid of a body in a place where no one’s going to stumble upon it. But for other, more methodical murderers, the basement is their place of refuge. A room away from the world where they can truly be themselves; a place where their inner monsters can roam free. On this list you'll find many kinds of murder basements from across the world – from dirty rooms at the bottom of New York tenements, to torture chambers that cost more than your car, if you saw the inside of one of these rooms it’s likely you never saw the outside world again.
It’s terrifying to think that the most recent crime on this list of people murdered in basements happened in 2016, and the earliest was from when H.H. Holmes dedicated an entire castle to murder in the late 19th century. You’d think serial killers would have changed their M.O.s in the hundred years between crimes, but you know the saying, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The killers on this list are a kind of real life monster, and a few of them even had lairs or dungeons to prove it. Please don’t get any ideas from this list of murder basements from around the world.
Creepy Murder Basements from Around the World,
Gary M. Heidnik
Gary Heidnik was a real creep who, despite spending years in a mental institution was able to buy a house in the North Philly area, where he kept five women captive. One of the women, Sandra Lindsay, starved to death while chained to a wall. After her death she was dismembered by Heidnik in front of one of the other women.
John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy is one of the most famous serial killers in American history. However, one of the goriest details in his story was the crawlspace beneath his house, where he kept 28 of his 33 victims. How bad do you think his neighborhood smelled?
Leonard Lake
Leonard Lake was a true monster (and a complete dork) who, along with Charles Ng, tortured, raped, and murdered women in a chamber designed by Lake himself. Lake committed suicide before he could be arrested.
Maury Travis
In 2014, a woman in St. Louis discovered that the house she was renting sat above a basement that was once the site of a gruesome torture chamber where Maury Travis tied his victims to a pole before dispatching with their bodies. To make things worse, the woman couldn't get out of her lease because the landlord (Travis's mother!) didn't see what the big deal was.
Josef Fritzl
Josef Fritzl will never win a father of the year award, and though he never technically murdered anyone in his basemen, this Austrian monster locked his daughter in a cellar for nearly two decades. During the time he had her locked up, Fritzl raped his daughter repeatedly and fathered multiple children with her, all while he rented out the room above his chamber of horrors.
The Philadelphia Basement of Horrors
Linda Ann Weston, from Philadelphia, would confine mentally disabled people in the basement of her apartment building, force them into prostitution, and steal their social security benefits. During the initial stage of the investigation, one woman was found chained to the building's boiler.
The Toy Box Killer's Hundred Thousand Dollar Lair
Like Leonard Lake, David Parker Ray (or The Toy Box Killer) built a $100,000 torture chamber in the middle of nowhere where he videotaped his exploits. In 2001 he was finally sentenced to 224 years in prison.
H.H. Holmes's Murder Castle
H.H. Holmes didn't just have a murder basement, he had a whole murder castle. He spent nearly a decade hiring and firing builders to add pieces to his house that included pipes for pumping gas into bedrooms, a room built specifically to suffocate people, and a good ol' fashioned murder basement where he would strip the skin from his victims.
Gay Love Triangle Ends in a Louisville Basement
What began as a love triangle between three men ended with a bizarre murder that was only supposed to be a robbery. Jeffrey Mundt and Joseph Banis allegedly used GBH to drug their victim, before killing him and burying him in a plastic tub in a Lewisville basement. They then escaped to a nearby hotel. They were quickly caught after the doorman of the hotel decided that they were way too suspicious.
William Caruth's Hole in the Basement
After being reported missing, police found the body of Andrea Caruth in a hole dug into the closet of a basement in her father's apartment. According to the police, Andrea's father murdered her after having a dispute about their finances.