A former respiratory care practitioner at a Glendale hospital Efren Saldivar confessed to killing 40 to 50 patients over a eight-year period. A suspected "Angel of Death," he allegedly targeted patients who were already near death. [ReadOn]

The Pacific Northwest has produced a disproportionate number of serial killers in recent years, and several have managed to escape detection, remaining at large despite the best efforts of state and local law enforcement. [ReadOn]

A hospital nurse accused of attempting to murder four elderly patients was motivated by a drive to free up beds, a court has heard.
Barbara Salisbury overstepped the line between humane nursing and callous dispatch when she tried to hasten their deaths, Chester Crown Court was told. [ReadOn]

In 1984 and '85, San Antonio taxi drivers were terrorized by the murder of one cabbie and the disappearance of two others over an eight-month period. Driver Pete Lozano was killed in his cab during November 1984, and the unknown assailant was still at large when 68-year-old Julio Villanueva was reported missing on June 17, 1985. [ReadOn]

 

In August 1988, authorities from Washington and San Diego issued an announcement that at least ten unsolved murders, logged since June of 1985, were "definitely" linked with other homicides committed near Seattle and Tacoma by the elusive "Green River Killer." [ReadOn]

Martin Lee SANDERS, a long-haul trucker from Spokane, was convicted of raping and killing two teenagers in Spokane in 1983. He also killed two teenage female hitchhikers in Grant County in 1980. Avoided prosecution in those murders by later pleading guilty to the Spokane homicides. Status: In prison in Washington.

A triple killer by the tender age of fourteen years, Santo was jailed in Norwood, Massachusetts, during June 1908. Authorities from Brooklyn questioned him about the deaths of two young brothers, James and Frank Marino, murdered three months earlier, and Santo readily confessed. [ReadOn]

By age 32, drifter John Sapp had spent the better part of two decades confined to state and county institutions. Following the disappearance of a girlfriend, 24-year-old Elizabeth Duarte, in 1981, Sapp was imprisoned for two years on a charge of burning her home. [ReadOn]

No one paid much attention to Marc Sappington in March 2001 as he ambled along the side streets of Kansas City, Kansas. As he walked, Sappington weighed his options. “What about him?” he asked. “What about her?” The questions were part of an attempt to quell the voices Sappington was hearing in his head. [ReadOn]

On November 4, 1987, nine-year-old Frankie Barnes was reported missing when he failed to return from a neighborhood bike ride in Providence, Rhode Island. His bicycle was found two weeks later, concealed in tall grass near an abandoned brewery, less than a half-mile from his home. [ReadOn]

Vermont native and member of the fundamentalist Christadelphian Church, Schaefer first ran afoul of authority while serving in the Navy. Charged with arson and possession of illegal drugs, he responded with an insanity plea, but the Navy psychiatrists found him competent for trial. [ReadOn]

This homicidal Martin County, Florida, deputy sheriff, though convicted in 1973 of only two mutilation murders, is believed to be responsible for at least thirty killings. A sadistic sex-beast by nature, Schaefer would lure young women off the roads with the help of his badge to torture, mutilate and murder. [ReadOn]

A native of Daytona Beach, Florida, born in 1951 and adopted as an infant, Stano suffered persistent learning and "adjustment" problems in his early school years, complicated by a lack of coordination that resulted in frequent falls. [ReadOn]

Born to poverty in Lincoln, Nebraska, during 1940, Charles Starkweather was the runt of the litter, myopic and bowlegged, standing five foot two at age 17. Taunted by classmates in school, he lapsed into "black moods" as a child, developing "a hate as hard as iron" against his fellow man. [ReadOn]