Photo by Favi Santos
We have searched through the most startling pages of history books in the United States to compile 5 Best Known American Horror Stories. Find out who were the most fearsome killers that inspired many movies, books, TV shows and even video games. After you are done reading you will shed a tear for humanity.
Edward Gein
Thanks to Mr. Edward Gein, screenwriters and authors were inspired to create characters, such as Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Norman Bates in Psycho. However, we shouldn’t give too much credit to Gein. After all, Gein was a killer who dug corpses out of graveyards and made trophies from their flesh and bones. In 1957, when the authorities searched Gein’s home, they found a trove of horror, such as bowls made from skulls, a lampshade made from a person’s face, human skin covering chairs, four loose noses, and a belt made from female nipples amongst other grotesqueries.
The Ripper Crew
Robin Gecht definitely worked up his reputation of the serial killer. At first, by working for John Wayne Gacy, Gecht learned the trade. Over time he amassed his own group of homicidal colleagues (Thomas Kokoraleis, Andrew Kokoraleis, and Edward Spreitzer) and made a name for himself. In 1981 and 1982, Gecht and his colleagues drove around the streets of Chicago, abducting prostitutes, forcing them into the van, and taking them back to the apartment where they were killed in gruesome Satanic rituals.
Albert Fish
Albert Fish had many nicknames throughout his time as a serial killer. He lived from 1870 to 1936 and had obsessions and fascinations with castration. Fish was also visiting brothels to indulge his sadomasochistic kinks. He begun killing around 1920. His victims were mostly mentally handicapped children and African-Americans and he used a meat cleaver, a butcher knife, or a bone saw to kill them. Grace Budd was his most infamous murder victim. Six years after 10-year-old girl disappeared, Fish sent a letter to her mother, describing how he killed her daughter and ate her body.
Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer, the Wisconsin-born, definitely deserved his reputation as one of the sickest serial killers of all time. From 1978 through 1991, over a 13 year span, Dahmer killed 17 men. He ended their lives via dismemberment and rape and then extended his sadistic enjoyment after their death by eating some of their flash and having sex with corpses. Dahmer met guys at local gay bars. He had sex with them before he started to torture them. In November 1994, Dahmer received his comeuppance in prison, where other inmate beat him to death.
Dr. Henry Howard Holmes
The celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ introduction into the New World in 1893 took a place in the Windy City and attracted over 20 million people from May through October. The most unfortunate visitors checked into a hotel operated and owned by Dr. Henry Howard Holmes. However, nobody knew that the owner was a sadistic, ruthless mass killer who often killed his guests. The hotel, later known as Holmes’ Murder Castle, become ground zero for his evilest impulses. Not limiting his murders to guests, he also killed many of his female employees, too.
