South Dakota

Elijah Page

Elijah Page a teenager when he was arrested and convicted of the torture and murder of fellow South Dakota teen, Chester Poage. Page and two other teens told Poage they wanted to hang out, but when they decided to rob him things took a gruesome turn. They knocked Poage unconscious and then tied him up with a cord to a chair. They forced him to drink acid, cut his throat, stabbed him and beat him repeatedly, before putting him into his car and driving him to Higgins Gulch in the Black Hills. They then forced Poage to strip, attempted to bury him in the snow, and made him jump in and out of a frozen creek. Eventually, after failing to drown Poage, they beat him with rocks until he stopped moving. Page and one of his accomplices were both sentenced to death, while their third accomplice received a life sentence. Before his execution in 2007, Page penned a letter taking the blame for the crime saying he was threatening the other two with a gun to go along with the murder. He was executed by lethal injection on July 11, 2007.

Tennessee

Jessie Dotson

Jessie Dotson was convicted for the 2008 murders of his brother and 5 other people (2 of which were his toddler nephews) in 2010. After an argument broke out between Dotson and his brother, Dotson shot him and began eliminating the rest of the people in the house, who could’ve been witnesses to the murder of his brother. Dotson shot his brother’s girlfriend as well as two other friends, and beat his nephews and stabbed them. Dotson’s 9-year-old nephew waited for over 40 hours in the bathtub for help, and was found with a 4-inch knife in his head by police. This nephew, along with one other who survived the attack, and Dotson’s mother were key witnesses for the prosecution leading to his conviction. Dotson was sentenced to six death sentences and over 120 years in prison for the murders.

Texas

Ricky Lee Green

Ricky Lee Green was an alcoholic, drug addicted serial killer active between 1985 and 1986 in Tarrant County, Texas. After raping his wife who immediately left him, Green’s drinking and erratic behavior began to increase. Green’s first victim was a young man who sexually propositioned Green, who ended up beating him to death and mutilating his body. Green cut off the man’s genitals and disposed of the body in a secluded area near a lake.

Green’s second murder was with the assistance of his second wife. After picking up a young woman who was hitchhiking, Green and his wife propositioned her for a threesome. When she refused, they tied her to the bed and repeatedly assaulted and tortured her. Green stabbed and beat her to death with a hammer. Green and his wife repeated this with a second woman in the same fashion. Green’s last murder was a young man who he tied to the bed insinuating he wanted to have sex, and instead repeatedly stabbed the man while saying, “I hate homosexuals.” After this last murder, Green’s marriage deteriorated shortly after and his wife left him.

Green’s wife eventually went to the police and Green was arrested. Green was executed by lethal injection in October of 1997.

Utah

Clarence Bertucci

Private Clarence Bertucci of the US Army was the soldier responsible for the Utah Prisoner of War Massacre in 1945. Despite over 5 years of service, Bertucci was not being promoted in the Army due to having a “discipline problem” He reportedly was not happy with his tour, saying he felt cheated out of the chance to “kill some Germans.” Bertucci was stationed at Camp Salina in Utah, where the massacre took place.

On July 7, 1945 after a night of drinking, Bertucci waited until the midnight changing of the guard, waiting for the previous guard to go to bed. He then climbed the guard tower, loaded an M1917 Browning machine gun, and began firing into the tents of sleeping German POWs. For 15 seconds Bertucci moved the gun back and forth, hitting 30 out of the 43 tents before being removed by another solider. Bertucci’s only reasoning he gave for the shooting was he “just didn’t like Germans.” 6 Germans were found dead right after and 3 later died in the Salina hospital. The 9 victims were buried with full military honors, and Bertucci was found to be insane by the military and hospitalized.

Vermont

Brian L. Rooney

Brian Rooney is the former construction worker convicted of the 2006 abduction and murder of Michelle Gardner-Quinn. Jewelry store security footage showed Rooney walking with Michelle, and it’s been suspected that he let her borrow his cellphone so she could find her friends. Michelle’s body was found after she was missing for 6 days. She had been raped, assaulted, strangled, and beaten.

DNA evidence linked Rooney to the murder, and he was convicted in 2008. Rooney and his lawyers sought a new trial, claiming the jury was given poor instructions by the judge and that the government witnesses misled the jury. The Vermont Supreme Court ruled Rooney’s trial was carried out adequately, and his life sentence without parole would stand. Rooney is currently carrying out his sentence at a correctional facility in Kentucky.

Virginia

Seung-Hui Cho

Seung-Hui Cho was the senior student at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute responsible for the Virginia Tech Massacre of 2007. At 7:15 AM on April 16th, Cho first shot an RA and student at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory on campus. Two hours later, Cho chained the doors to Norris Hall shut from the inside and placed a note on them saying that if opened, a bomb would detonate. At 9:40 AM, he began shooting. For 9 terrifying minutes, Cho roamed the building and and shot through various classrooms. He shot and killed 30 people and injured 17 others before shooting himself in the head. All of Cho’s victims were shot at least three times and multiple victims were shot in the head.

Two days later, NBC News received a package from Cho with a DVD, video clips, photographs, and a manifesto explaining the motives behind his actions. In his manifesto Cho likened himself to Christ and continually condemned rich kids, hedonism, materialism, and debauchery. NBC News President Steve Capus has expressed his hope that the full contents of the package are never released.

Cho had reportedly been told to seek medical attention for his severe depression and other mental health issues before the massacre.

Washington

Kyle Huff

Kyle Aaron Huff was the 28-year-old gunman responsible for the infamous Capitol Hill Massacre in Seattle, Washington in 2006. At around 4 in the morning on on Saturday, March 25th, Huff went to an after party for the “Better Off Undead” rave that was held at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. Huff reportedly did not know anyone at the party, but exchanged pleasantries with some people before leaving the party. Upon reentering the party, Huff returned with a 12 gauge pistol grip shotgun, a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun, and multiple bandoliers with more than 300 rounds of ammunition for the guns. Huff immediately gunned down 5 people who were talking outside, and then entered the house and opened fire. He shot two more people on the first floor of the house, shot through a bathroom door where a couple was hidden (neither were hit), and injured at least one other person before police arrived. Before the police officer could order him to lower his weapon, Huff shot himself.

West Virginia

Harry F. Powers

Harry Powers was a serial killer active in 1931 who found his victims through personal ads in Lonely Hearts magazine. Powers would get close to his victims, and usually ask them for money before killing them.

Powers found his first victim through her lonely hearts ad and began writing to her using the name Cornelius Pierson. He eventually went to visit her and her three children in Illinois. They all disappeared shortly after. Powers began communicating with another woman from her lonely hearts ad, and took her to Iowa (where he was pretending to live) to marry her. He convinced her to give him $4000 from her checking account before their marriage, and she promptly disappeared as well. Police began investigating the disappearances, and while there was no Cornelius Pierson in Fairmont, West Virginia, “his” description matched Powers. Below the garage of Powers’ home they discovered the murder scene. Hair, blood, a burned bankbook, and the bloody footprint of a child were found in the rooms before the bodies of all five were dug up from a trench behind the home. Powers strangled the women and girls and beat the young boy to death with a hammer. Several other love letters were found in his car, all leading to the same intention with more would-be victims.

On March 18, 1932, Powers was executed by hanging for his crimes.

Wisconsin

Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer, necrophiliac, and cannibalistic killer who murder 17 men between 1978 and 1991 in Wisconsin. Dahmer admitted to committing his first murder when he was just 18, picking up a hitchhiker and beating him with a dumbbell before strangling him and dismembering him. Dahmer says he pulverized and destroyed the remains of his first victim with acid before scattering them in the woods behind his home.

Dahmer would frequently pick up men at bars or solicit male prostitutes, bringing them back to either his grandmother’s house or his North 25th Street apartment where he would drug them and kill them. Dahmer would at times keep the remains of victims, preserved genitals, organs, and skulls were found when he was arrested in 1991. Dahmer even kept the entire skeleton of one of his victims in the bottom of a filing cabinet. Dahmer is infamous for eating some of his victims; legs, arms, and hearts were found in his freezer for “later.” One of his experiments was injecting his victims’ brains with hydrochloric acid in an attempt to render them in a “permanent, unresistant, submissive state.”

After a would-be victim successfully escaped and ran to police, Dahmer was found out. Police found four severed heads in his fridge, dozens of polaroids of posed bodies and bodies in the state of being dismembered, and several other body parts all around the apartment at the time of his arrest. One medical examiner said, “It was more like dismantling someone’s museum than an actual crime scene.”

Dahmer confessed to his crimes and waived his right to an attorney during his interrogation. He plead guilty but insane to the 15 murder counts brought against him. As Wisconsin had abolished the death penalty, Dahmer was sentenced to life plus 10 years for the first two counts, and life imprisonment plus 70 years for the final 13. Dahmer was bludgeoned to death by another inmate in 1994.

Wyoming

Justin Geiger

Justin Geiger was a sophomore at the University of Wyoming who killed himself and two other students in the wee hours of the morning on July 16, 2006. After a small party at the house Geiger rented with several roommates, everyone but Geiger and the victims of the rampage remained. At about 2 in the morning, Geiger stabbed Adam Towler multiple times, and then attacked his roommate, both stabbing and sodomizing him before his roommate escaped the house and began screaming for help, alerting the quiet neighborhood, who called the police. Amber Carlson then walked into the room where Geiger killed Towler, and he promptly shot her in the face before turning the rifle on himself. Geiger’s motives for the murders were never discovered.