October 22: Conrad Johnson, thirty-five – the final victim – killed in Aspen Hill, Maryland.
Arrest and Trial
Early in the morning of October 24, their dark blue 1990 Chevy Caprice, which had been widely publicized on the news, was spotted at a rest-stop parking-lot off I-70 in Maryland. Within the hour, law enforcement swarmed the scene, setting up a perimeter to check out any movements and make sure there was no way to escape. They found both of the killers asleep inside the car.
What the F.B.I. and other police forces found in the car was both revealing and shocking. The car had a hole cut in the trunk near the license plate so that shots could be fired from within the vehicle. The Caprice was, in effect, a rolling sniper’s nest.
Execution
The execution for Muhammad was scheduled for November 10, 2009, and although there was an appeal, it was denied. Muhammad was put to death by lethal injection. He declined to make a final statement.
Malvo pled guilty to six murders in Maryland while being interviewed, and confessed to more in other states while testifying against Muhammad. Malvo was sentenced to six consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.
Tsutomu Miyazaki
The Little Girl Murderer
(Victims 4+)
Background
Tsutomu Miyazaki was born on August 21, 1962 in Tokyo, Japan. Born prematurely, he had deformed hands which were permanently bent and fused directly to the wrists, necessitating him to move his entire forearm in order to rotate the hand. Due to his deformity, he was not accepted when he attended Itsukaichi Elementary School, and consequently kept to himself. Although he was originally a star student, his grades at Meidai Nakano High School dropped dramatically. He had a class rank of 40 out of 56 and did not receive the customary admission to Meiji University. Instead of studying English and becoming a teacher as he had originally intended, he attended a local junior college, where he studied to become a photo technician.
Murders
In 1988 and 1989 Miyazaki mutilated and killed four girls between the ages of four and seven, sexually molesting their corpses. He drank the blood of one victim and ate a part of her hand. These crimes which, prior to Miyazaki's apprehension and trial, were named, ‘The Little Girl Murders,’ were later known as the Tokyo/Saitama Serial Kidnappings. The murders of the little girls shocked Saitama Prefecture, which had few crimes against children. During the day, Miyazaki was a mild-mannered employee; outside of work he randomly selected children to kill. He terrorized the families of his victims, sending them letters which recounted, in graphic detail, what he had done to their children. To the family of victim Erika Nanba, Miyazaki sent a morbid postcard assembled using words cut out of magazines: 'Erika. Cold. Cough. Throat. Rest. Death.' He allowed the corpse of his first victim, Mari Konno, age four, to decompose in the hills near his home, then he chopped off her hands and feet, which he kept in his closet, and were recovered upon his arrest. He burnt her remaining bones in his furnace, ground them into powder, and sent them to her family in a box along with several of her teeth, photos of her clothes, and a postcard reading: 'Mari. Cremated. Bones. Investigate. Prove.'
Police found that the families of the victims had something else in common: all were bothered by silent, annoying phone calls. If they did not pick up the phone, it would sometimes ring for twenty minutes.
On July 23, 1989, Miyazaki attempted to insert a zoom lens into the vagina of a grade school-aged girl in a park near her home and was attacked by the girl's grandfather. After fleeing naked on foot, Miyazaki eventually returned to the park to retrieve his car, at which point he was promptly arrested by police who had responded to a call by the grandfather.
Arrest
A search of Miyazaki's two-room bungalow turned up a collection of 5,763 videotapes, some containing Slasher films, later used as reasoning for his crimes.
Among the tapes police found footage and pictures of his victims. He was also reported to be a fan of horror films, having an extensive collection, including the fourth film of the Guinea Pig film series (Mermaid in a Manhole). Miyazaki, who retained a perpetually calm and collected demeanor during his trial, appeared indifferent to his capture.
Miyazaki's father refused to pay for his son's legal defense. The trial began on March 30, 1990. Often talking nonsense, he blamed his violence on ‘Rat Man,’ an alter ego whom Miyazaki claimed forced him to kill. He spent a great deal of the trial drawing ‘Rat Man’ in cartoon form. Believed to be insane, Miyazaki remained incarcerated throughout the 1990s while Saitama Prefecture put him through a battery of psychiatric evaluations. Teams of psychiatrists from Tokyo University diagnosed him as suffering from dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) or extreme schizophrenia. The Tokyo District Court, however, judged him still aware of the gravity and consequences of his crimes, and therefore accountable. He was sentenced to death on April 14, 1997. His death sentence was upheld by the Tokyo High Court, on June 28, 2001, and the Supreme Court of Justice on January 17, 2006.
Execution
Judge Kunio Hatoyama signed his death warrant. Miyazaki was hanged on June 17, 2008.
Andrei Chikatilo
The Butcher of Rostov
Victims (52)
Background
Andrei Chikatilo was born on October 16, 1936, in the village of Yablochnoye in modern Sumy Oblast of the Ukrainian. At the time, Ukrainian farmers were forced to hand in their entire crop for statewide distribution. Mass starvation ran rampant throughout the Ukraine and reports of cannibalism soared. Chikatilo's mother, Anna, told him that his older brother, Stepan, had been kidnapped and cannibalized by starving neighbors, although it has never been independently established whether this actually happened. Chikatilo was a chronic bed wetter and was berated and beaten by his mother for each offense.
