A grey beard. A friendly smile. A neighbor who seemed like the kindest man on the block. But behind the gentle face of a grandfather was a predator who strangled women who reminded him of his ex-wife.

Adolph Laudenberg was a cab driver in Los Angeles during the 1970s who used his job to find vulnerable victims. He picked up lonely, alcoholic or ill women, then bound, raped and strangled them [citation:1]. For decades, he denied everything. He looked like Santa Claus and acted like a harmless old man. Two daughters-in-law heard his confessions twenty-seven years apart. The first time, police could not prove the claims. The second time, investigators used an undercover officer to retrieve Laudenberg's DNA from a coffee cup at a donut shop. The sample matched seminal fluid found on one of his victims [citation:1]. In 2002, nearly thirty years after his killing spree, the Santa Strangler was finally arrested. He died in prison in 2015 at age eighty-nine, taking the full truth of his other suspected victims to the grave [citation:1].

Turn down the lights, put on your headphones, and press play because the jolly man in the beard was hiding bodies, not delivering presents.

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