340
FRANCIS HEAULME
1979–97“Criminal Backpacker” Francis
Heaulme strangled and stabbed at
least nine victims. He is suspected
of killing a great many more across
France. His nomadic lifestyle and
random choice of victims made it
difficult for regional police forces to
pin Heaulme down. His police
interviews were a mixture of truths
and falsehoods, and Heaulme
formed an adversarial relationship
with investigator Jean-François
Abgrall. Heaulme has Klinefelter’s
Syndrome, which means he has an
additional X (female) chromosome,
and confounded investigators when
he confessed to rapes – actually
the work of an accomplice – that
Heaulme was biologically incapable
of committing. Heaulme received
multiple life sentences during trials
in 1997 and 2004
See also: The Zodiac Killer 288–89
■ Colin Pitchfork 294–97CHEUNG TZE-KEUNG
1980s–1998This Guangxi-born gangleader
carried out a series of high-profile
robberies in Hong Kong before he
turned to kidnapping for ransom.
The abductions of Victor Li in 1996
and Walter Kwok in 1997 won him
worldwide notoriety. Li was the son
of Li Ka Shing, reputedly Asia’s
wealthiest man, and Kwok was the
son of Kwok Tak-Seng, the founder
of Hong Kong’s biggest property
development company. Both men
were released after their families
paid massive ransoms. Cheung
was arrested in August 1998 and
was found guilty of several crimes,
including robbery, kidnapping, andsmuggling firearms and explosives.
Cheung was executed by firing
squad in December 1998.
See also: The Kidnapping of John
Paul Getty III 186–87 ■ The
Kidnapping of Patty Hearst 188–89COR VAN HOUT AND
WILLEM HOLLEEDER
9 November 1983Freddy Heineken, the 60-year-old
CEO of an international brewing
corporation, was snatched, along
with his chauffeur, from outside the
company’s head office. They were
held in Amsterdam in a hut with a
secret double-wall. When the police
failed to find them, Heineken’s
family paid the ransom. The police
then received an anonymous tip
giving Heineken’s location – and
the names of three of the
kidnappers. The ringleaders, Cor
van Hout and Willem Holleeder, fled
to Paris, while their accomplices
Martin Erkamps, Jan Boellaard, and
Frans Meijer, were arrested. Van
Hout and Holleeder were eventually
arrested in France and sent back to
the Netherlands, where they served
11 years in jail for the kidnapping.
See also: The Lindbergh Baby
Kidnapping 178–85 ■ The
Kidnapping of John Paul Getty III
186–87JOSEF FRITZL
1984–2004Eighteen-year-old Elisabeth Fritzl’s
father Josef had been abusing her
for seven years when he imprisoned
her in the basement of their home
in Austria. Elisabeth spent 24 years
trapped underground. During this
time, Josef abused and raped her,
fathering several children. Somewere taken upstairs to live with
Josef and Elisabeth’s mother, who
had initially reported her daughter
missing. Josef later told his wife
that Elisabeth had joined a cult.
Elisabeth and her children escaped
in 2008 after one child had to be
taken to the hospital. After Fritzl
presented the medical staff with a
suspicious note “from Elisabeth”
about the girl’s medical history, the
staff contacted the police, who
reopened Elisabeth’s missing
person’s case. When Fritzl allowed
Elisabeth to visit the child, staff
alerted the police, who detained
her and learned the full story of her
father’s abuse. In 2009, Josef Fritzl
was sentenced to life in prison.
See also: The Kidnapping of
Natascha Kampusch 196–97THOMAS SWEATT
1985–2005A young short-order cook, Sweatt
set fire to houses, cars and property
across Washington, D.C. and
Maryland – often those belonging
to attractive men he followed to
their homes. When he was finally
caught – thanks to DNA analysis
and video footage that placed his
car at the scene of a fire – Sweatt
admitted to starting nearly 400
fires that caused several fatalities
and injuries. He was active for
longer than any arsonist in the US.
See also: John Leonard Orr 48–53
■ Jeffrey Dahmer 293ADOLFO CONSTANZO
1986–89Cuban-American Constanzo was
drawn into drug-dealing in
adolescence, but had a parallel
interest in his culture’s traditionalDIRECTORY
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341
SINALOA CARTEL
1989–Originally a marijuana-smuggling
operation based in northwest
Mexico’s Sinaloa State, this gang
was established by Pedro Avilés
Pérez. Since 1989, under the
leadership of Joaquín Guzmán
Loera, “El Chapo”, it has grown into
one of the most powerful and wide-
reaching crime syndicates in the
world. In addition to marijuana,
the Sinaloa cartel are allegedly
responsible for most of the heroin,
cocaine, methamphetamines, and
MDMA smuggled into the United
States. “El Chapo” has escaped
from prison three times – first, in
2001, after being incarcerated in- He was recaptured in 2014,
but escaped in July 2015. Captured
a third time in January 2016, he
escaped once more in November,
and yet again became one of the
US and Mexico’s most wanted men.
See also: Hells Angels 160–63
■ The Medellín Cartel 166–67
BEVERLEY ALLITT
February–April 1991This child-killer was a nurse on the
children’s ward at Grantham and
Kesteven Hospital, in Lincolnshire,
UK. Allitt used her position to
murder at least four children, and
attempted to kill at least nine more
over a 59-day period in 1991. On
22 April, Allitt was tasked with
watching over 15-month-old Claire
Peck, who had been admitted for
an asthma attack. Peck went into
cardiac arrest and died on Allitt’s
watch. Doctors at the hospital were
suspicious: they had noticed how
often children left alone in Alitt’s
care experienced cardiac arrests.Investigators later discovered that
these were caused by insulin
injections. In May 1993, Allitt was
convicted and received 13
concurrent life sentences.
See also: Elizabeth Báthory
264–65 ■ Harold Shipman 290–91GUY GEORGES
1991–98Dubbed “The Beast of the Bastille”
by the Paris press because he
operated in the vicinity of the
historic prison, Guy Georges raped,
tortured, and murdered seven
women between the ages of 19 and- Since the 1970s, Georges had
indulged his violent tendencies,
strangling, raping, and stabbing
young women. He was already
serving a prison sentence – during
which he was allowed out in the
day for good behaviour – when he
began to commit murders in 1991.
Arrested after a police manhunt in
1998, Georges readily confessed to
his crimes and was diagnosed as a
“narcissistic psychopath”. He was,
however, declared sane and fit to
stand trial, and was sentenced to
life imprisonment in April 2001.
See also: Jack the Ripper 276–83
■ Ted Bundy 266–83
NICK LEESON
1992–95Whizz-kid Leeson was sent to
Singapore in 1992 to run the
derivatives trading desk for Barings
Bank, one of Britain’s oldest
banking names. Lauded as the
company’s star trader, Leeson’s
reputation was left in tatters in
1995, when it was revealed that he
had lost the company £832 million.
Leeson hid his losses in a secretwitchcraft-cum-Catholicism cult of
Santería. Beginning by boiling up
bones from graveyards, he and his
“narco-satanist” followers soon
began to kill their own sacrificial
victims at his desert compound in
Rancho Santa Elena. More than
20 people were killed in the hope
of imbuing Constanzo with dark
magical powers. Constanzo and
his followers fled to Mexico City
after the bodies were discovered.
When police visited his apartment
for an unrelated investigation on
6 May 1989, Constanzo panicked
and opened fire at the police.
Preferring not to be taken alive,
Constanzo ordered follower Alvaro
de Leon to shoot him. With
Constanzo dead, his followers
were arrested and prosecuted for
the murders.
See also: The Manson Family
230–37 ■ Elizabeth Báthory 264–65AILEEN WUORNOS
1989–90This Michigan-born serial killer
began to work as a prostitute on
the highways of Florida in her mid-
teens. She appears to have met all
seven of her victims in the line of
work – the first, Richard Mallory,
picked her up on Interstate 75. All
were shot at close range and, when
captured, Wuornos claimed that
they had tried to rape her. Wuornos
was caught when her victims’
possessions began to appear in
local pawn shops, and the police
used her former lover, Tyria Moore,
to extract a confession from her.
Found guilty of seven murders,
Wuornos was sentenced to death,
and executed by lethal injection in
October 2002.
See also: Phoolan Devi 46–47
■ Elizabeth Báthory 264–65DIRECTORY
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