John Balaban was a man with obvious mental health issues, but they would fatally go undiagnosed. After his father’s suicide, John began to study philosphy, claiming to be an atheist, while also claiming God had appeared to him in a dream. He fled to France to escape the Soviet takeover of his native Romania, where he met a woman and they went back to her apartment. For no reason, John strangled her to death in the bedroom and fled the scene. He was able to avoid capture, emigrating to Australia during the post WWII boom. After essentially getting away with murder, John’s new situation down under wasn’t that much better, as four more innocent people would fall victim to his hidden personality.

On June 8, 1961, police in Portland, Oregon received a phone call from a local housewife, as her dog brought home a paper bag containing a severed human foot. While detectives were investigating, the dog returned again, this time with a severed hand. The area was then searched more thoroughly, which uncovered several more body parts, all in fairly fresh condition and all drained of blood. The killer was extremely bold, simply leaving the parts scattered all over the ground, not even making an attempt to bury them. The foot definitely belonged to a woman, as the bright red nail polish on the toes further cemented this. Eyewitness accounts from the week before identified local drifter Richard Laurence Marquette as the last man to  have seen her. This prompted the FBI to do something they had never done before, add an 11th name to the Most Wanted List. Once Richard was caught, he looked to be going away forever, as police found even more body parts in his refrigerator and he actually led them to the location of his victim’s severed head. But somehow, 11 years after he was convicted, Richard was released on “good behavior” and you already know how this goes.

Damaso Rodriguez Martin grew up poor in the Canary Islands, but his parents tried to steer him in the right direction. He got into some trouble with the law as a teenager, but after joining and graduating from the Spanish Legion, he settled down in Tenerife, getting married and fathering two children. At face value, this seemed like a story of a normal guy, but outside of his daily life, Damaso would roam the mountains, becoming extremely familiar with the terrain. He also liked to spy on couples having sex, so when he spotted a young pair doing the deed in their Mazda, he decided that he wanted to join. Damaso walked up to the car, pulled out his gun and fired multiple shots at the man’s head. He then entered the car and raped the woman while her boyfriend bled to death right next to them. He then drove to a random area, abandoning both victims. The woman didn’t know how to drive, but she was able to navigate her way to a police station. The authorities asked around about a “night stalker” that knew the mountains, and all evidence pointed to Damaso, the man they called “El Brujo”, or warlock in Spanish. He was eventually caught and sentenced to 55 years. Thankfully, this psychopath was behind bars and was no longer a threat to the community, but then he escaped.

Damaso Rodriguez Martin grew up poor in the Canary Islands, but his parents tried to steer him in the right direction. He got into some trouble with the law as a teenager, but after joining and graduating from the Spanish Legion, he settled down in Tenerife, getting married and fathering two children. At face value, this seemed like a story of a normal guy, but outside of his daily life, Damaso would roam the mountains, becoming extremely familiar with the terrain. He also liked to spy on couples having sex, so when he spotted a young pair doing the deed in their Mazda, he decided that he wanted to join. Damaso walked up to the car, pulled out his gun and fired multiple shots at the man’s head. He then entered the car and raped the woman while her boyfriend bled to death right next to them. He then drove to a random area, abandoning both victims. The woman didn’t know how to drive, but she was able to navigate her way to a police station. The authorities asked around about a “night stalker” that knew the mountains, and all evidence pointed to Damaso, the man they called “El Brujo”, or warlock in Spanish. He was eventually caught and sentenced to 55 years. Thankfully, this psychopath was behind bars and was no longer a threat to the community, but then he escaped.

Kevin Foster was a high school dropout that really had nothing going for himself, but he knew how to manipulate impressionable teenagers, so he essentially started his own militia, calling himself God. He was able to gather a group of teenage outcasts from Riverdale High School, and this group would be called the Lords of Chaos. They would be dedicated to terrorizing the community, so they resorted to vandalism, robberies and arson just for the thrill of it, with their biggest crime resulting in the destruction of a Coca-Cola plant. The group had actually gotten away without getting caught. They then stole several items from their high school auditorium, but they were caught by Mark Schwebes, the band director. He confiscated the stolen property and since he recognized some of the members, he told them that they would get a visit from the police in the morning. The Lord of Chaos didn’t want their reign of terror to end, so they chose to eliminate the threat.

The solution to crime has always been highly debated in our society, as appropriate sentencing lengths, parole restrictions and the death penalty are topics that always start intense conversations. In some countries, like Finland for example, they believe in rehabilitation, as their justice system has been criticized by multiple countries for its rather gentle approach to criminals. One of the worst examples of this is Esa Akerlund, a man who randomly decided to shoot into a car with five people in it in 2010, as one of the occupants was a pregnant woman. Three people died at the scene, and when Esa was arrested, he was charged with 3 murders and sentenced to 15 years. The even more insane part of this story is that he had already killed before, having a previous life sentence commuted.

Joey Fischer was a kid with a lot of potential, as he was an honors student at a Catholic private school in Brownsville, Texas. He was pretty popular amongst the students, so it came as a surprise when he started dating Christina Cisneros, a quiet girl who wasn’t known by many people. But like most high school relationships, they didn’t last. Even as the two seemed fine separate and were even seeing other people, Christina’s mother Dora was obsessed with their pairing. She was highly upset that Joey broke up with her daughter, constantly calling and begging him to get back with her. She consulted a fortune teller and even offered him $500 to rekindle the relationship, but he refused, sternly telling her to leave him alone. Little did he know, he had just sealed his fate, as the investigation into his murder turned into one of the most bizarre cases the country had ever seen.

Mark Hopkinson had been released from a marijuana possession charge in 1975. He came back to find his father in a dispute over water and land rights with the neighboring Roitz family. Mark and his father even beat up Frank Roitz and his pregnant daughter, but after a prosecutor that was chummy with Mark declined to press charges, the father and daughter turned to Vincent Vehar, an attorney that would become a thorn in the side of the Hopkinson family. Mark devised a plan to eliminate him and the lawsuit against him, as this involved a bomb that leveled the entire house and killed 3 people. Now that the police were closing in on Mark and his crew, the desperation to save his own skin led Mark to take some extreme measures.

Unless you actually live there, most Americans couldn’t tell you five things about the state of Wyoming. With its wide open plains and sparsely populated areas, crime isn’t much of a worry for its citizens. In fact, the state has only executed one person since 1976 and his name was Mark Hopkinson. As a kid, he seemed to have it all, being a star athlete in multiple sports while also having his way with the ladies. He was deemed by most to be a pretty likable guy, but behind the facade lay a more manipulative and sinister character, one who killed animals for no reason and took nude photos of his female classmates to blackmail them. Mark spoke with a level of conviction that made people do his bidding with no questions asked, so he had a group of low-level thugs that carried out his every desire, as all he had to do was make a call and someone disappeared.

On March 2, 1989, Ramon Laso’s car fell off a 60 foot cliff while he was driving with his 6 year old son. The car burst into flames and the boy didn’t make it, but Ramon was unharmed, despite claims that he was passed out for 15 minutes. He received a large insurance settlement, which he used to open a video rental store. His wife was mysteriously found decapitated by a train 9 months earlier, but this was ruled as a suicide. Since Ramon was living life normally as if his wife and son weren’t dead, his father in law became suspicious and hired a private investigator to find evidence of murder, and he did. Ramon was found guilty in 1993 and was sentenced to 56 years, but by 2001, he was paroled already.