A
thrill killing is a term used to describe a premeditated
murderMurder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
committed by a person who is not necessarily suffering from mental instability, but is instead
motivatedIn law, especially criminal law, a motive is the cause that moves people to induce a certain action. Motive in itself is seldom an element of any given crime; however, the legal system typically allows motive to be proven in order to make plausible the accused's reasons for committing a crime, at...
by the sheer excitement of the act.
- May 21, 1924: University students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks
Robert Emanuel "Bobby" Franks was the fourteen-year-old murder victim of the notorious teenaged thrill killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb....
. Leopold, age 19 at the time of the murder, and Loeb, 18, believed themselves to be Nietzschean supermen who could commit a "perfect crime" (in this case a kidnapping and murder).
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A
thrill killing is a term used to describe a premeditated
murderMurder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
committed by a person who is not necessarily suffering from mental instability, but is instead
motivatedIn law, especially criminal law, a motive is the cause that moves people to induce a certain action. Motive in itself is seldom an element of any given crime; however, the legal system typically allows motive to be proven in order to make plausible the accused's reasons for committing a crime, at...
by the sheer excitement of the act.
Documented incidents
- May 21, 1924: University students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks
Robert Emanuel "Bobby" Franks was the fourteen-year-old murder victim of the notorious teenaged thrill killers Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb....
. Leopold, age 19 at the time of the murder, and Loeb, 18, believed themselves to be Nietzschean supermen who could commit a "perfect crime" (in this case a kidnapping and murder). Both were sentenced to life imprisonment plus 99 years; Loeb died in prison at the age of 30, while Leopold was paroled in 1971 after serving 33 years in prison.
- September 8, 1988: Twenty-year-old bank clerk Janine Balding was abducted from Sutherland railway station at Sutherland, New South Wales, Australia by a group of homeless youths with extensive criminal records and driven to nearby Minchinbury where she was repeatedly raped by three of the male offenders, before being bludgeoned, hog-tied and drowned in a dam. 22-year-old Stephen Wayne 'Shorty' Jamieson, 16-year-old Matthew James Elliott, and 14-year-old Bronson Matthew Blessington were arrested the next day; all three were sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
- September 15, 1990: Debra Holt, the mother of future world champion boxer Kendall Holt
Kendall Holt is an American professional boxer fighting in the light welterweight class. He is a one-time world champion, having held the WBO junior welterweight championship from July 5, 2008 until April 5, 2009.-Personal:...
, and also known as Debra Holts and "Cocoa Tan", and three men she had met while staying at the Alexander Hamilton Hotel, were convicted of killing a homeless man during an evening of senseless violence and crime in Paterson, NJ. .
- August 19, 1992: Andrew Peter Garforth murdered 9-year-old schoolgirl Ebony Simpson
The murder of Ebony Jane Simpson occurred in Bargo, New South Wales on 19 August 1992. Simpson was nine years old. Andrew Peter Garforth later pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of release on parole.-Abduction and murder:On 19 August 1992,...
at Bargo, New South Wales, Australia. Garforth threw Simpson into the boot of his car as she was walking home from school, raped her repeatedly, bound her hands with speaker wire and weighted her schoolbag and threw her into a dam where she drowned. Garforth joined in the search for the girl before being arrested; he pleaded guilty to the crime and was sentenced in 1993 to life imprisonment plus 30 years without the possibility of parole.
- February 12, 1993: Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, two 10-year old boys, abducted and murdered toddler James Bulger. Thompson and Venables did not know the child but wished to kill someone. They were imprisoned for eight years.
- October 29, 1995: Handyman and mechanic Paul Stephen Osbourne raped 10-year-old Leanne Oliver and nine-year-old Patricia Leedie before bashing them to death with a wheel jack at Warana Beach, Queensland, Australia. After drinking 12 stubbies of full strength beer and smoking marijuana at a barbecue, Osbourne took the girls to the beach for a swim with permission from Leanne Oliver's father, Alby Oliver, who found the bodies of the girls in sand dunes the next morning (along with Osbourne's wallet) after having become concerned about the girl's welfare. Osbourne pleaded guilty and was sentenced in 1997 to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment plus 46 years without the possibility of parole.
- April 19, 1997: New Jersey teens Thomas Koskovich and Jayson Vreeland ordered a pizza and ambushed the two men who delivered it, Georgio Gallara and Jeremy Giordano, before going bowling. Koskovich and Vreeland later admitted to police that they wanted to experience what it was like to commit murder.
- September 30, 1997: 18 year old Todd Rizzo of Waterbury, Connecticut
Waterbury is a city in New Haven County, Connecticut, on the Naugatuck River, 33 miles southwest of Hartford...
bashed 13 year old Stanley Edwards to death with a 3-lb-Units:*Pound , a unit of currency in various countries*Pound sign, £*Pound sterling, the fundamental unit of currency in Great Britain*Pound , unit of force*Pound , various units of mass or weight...
sledgehammer after he lured the teenager by telling him that they would hunt snakes in his backyard. Rizzo was convicted of the murder in 1999 and is currently on Connecticut's death rowCapital punishment in Connecticut currently exists as an available sanction for a criminal defendant upon conviction for the commission of a capital offense. Connecticut, along with New Hampshire, are the only two New England states that maintain a death penalty. Since the 1976 United States...
.
- October 6, 1997: Bega schoolgirl murders
The Bega schoolgirl murders refers to the abduction, rape and murder of New South Wales schoolgirls, 14-year-old Lauren Margaret Barry and 16-year-old Nichole Emma Collins of Bega, New South Wales on 6 October 1997....
: Career criminal Lindsay Hoani Beckett and prison escapee Leslie Alfred Camilleri murdered 14-year-old Lauren Barry and 16-year-old Nichole Collins at Fiddler's Green Creek, Victoria, Australia. After accepting an offer of a lift to a party, the girls were abducted, raped and tortured over the next 10½ hours before being stabbed by Beckett on the orders of Camilleri. Beckett pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences with a non-parole period of 35 years in exchange for testifying against Camilleri, who was found guilty and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus 155 years without the possibility of parole.
- July 31, 2003: 37-year-old Glenn Kopitske was murdered by high school student Gary Hirte in Wisconsin on July 31, 2003. Hirte initially admitted to killing Kopitske "to see if he could get away with it". However, he later claimed to have experienced temporary insanity that resulted from his rage after a supposed homosexual encounter with Kopitske. Hirte was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. At the time of the murder, Hirte was a 17-year-old Eagle Scout
for the Eagle Awards for comic books, please see Eagle Award .Eagle Scout may refer to several ranks in Scout organizations around the world:* Eagle Scout * List of Eagle Scouts...
, salutatorianSalutatorian is an academic title given, in the Philippines, United States and Canada, to the second highest graduate of the entire graduating class of an educational institution. This honor is traditionally based on grades along with grade point average , but consideration is also sometimes often...
of his high school class, and star football player.
- March 29, 2005: James Patrick Roughan, nephew of convicted killer Katherine Knight
Katherine Mary Knight was the first Australian woman to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. She was convicted of the murder of her partner, John Charles Thomas Price in October 2001, and is currently detained in Mulawa Correctional Centre.-Family:Originally from the town of Aberdeen...
, and his friend, Christopher Clark Jones, murdered Morgan Jay Shepherd, 17, in Dayboro, Queensland, Australia after a lengthy drinking session. The pair stabbed and bashed the teenager more than 133 times before removing his head with an axe; the head was used as a puppet and bowling ball, according to witnesses. Both men were sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 27 years.
- June 18, 2006: Two 16-year-old girls, who cannot be named because of their age, strangled Eliza Jane Davis with electrical cable and buried her body under a vacant house in Collie, Western Australia, Australia, after the three had attended a party. The girls told police they knew it was wrong to kill but it "felt right", and they did not regret Davis's death. Both girls were sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 15 years.
- December 17, 2006: Couple Jessica Ellen Stasinowsky, 20, and Valerie Page Parashumti, 19, drugged, bashed and strangled their 16-year-old flatmate, Stacey Mitchell, before disposing of her body in a wheelie bin
A wheelie bin is a type of waste container used for general household waste. It uses two wheels that allow it to be easily moved through the owner's property. It is common for people to have multiple wheelie bins that contain different types of waste and can be distinguished by different colours.-...
. Parashumti and Stasinowsky originally claimed to police that Mitchell had moved to Queensland after an argument, but later confessed to the crime; they had discussed killing people on several occasions. Both women pleaded guilty and were sentenced to life imprisonment with a non-parole period of 31 years, the longest non-parole period handed down to a woman in Australia.
In film and television
- Rope (film)
Rope is a 1948 film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
, 1948 film
- The Thrill Killers
The Thrill Killers is a horror/thriller film released in 1964 and directed by low-budget film-maker Ray Dennis Steckler. It stars Cash Flagg and Liz Renay....
, 1965 film
- American Psycho (film)
American Psycho is a 2000 film by Mary Harron, a film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the same name. The film stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, with Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux, Bill Sage, Chloë Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon, Willem Dafoe, and Samantha Mathis...
, 2000 film
- Murder by Numbers
Murder by Numbers is a 2002 psychological thriller film directed by Barbet Schroeder.It is quite loosely based on the Leopold and Loeb case.-Cast:*Sandra Bullock as Det. Cassie Mayweather*Ben Chaplin as Det. Sam Kennedy...
, 2002 film
- Hostel
Hostel is a 2005 horror film written, produced and directed by Eli Roth, starring Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Jennifer Lim, Eythor Gudjonsson and Barbara Nedeljáková. Due to the graphic nature of this film, its showing has been restricted in certain countries, primarily those with strict...
, 2005 film
- Mr. Brooks
Mr. Brooks is a 2007 thriller film directed by Bruce A. Evans starring Kevin Costner, Demi Moore, Dane Cook, and William Hurt. It was released on June 1, 2007.-Plot:...
, 2007 film
- Dexter (TV series)
Dexter is an American television drama series that airs on the premium channel Showtime. Set in Miami, the series centers on Dexter Morgan , a covert serial killer governed by a strict moral code who works for the Miami Metro Police Department as a blood spatter analyst.The show is based on...
, 2006 TV series