The Netflix series Mindhunter follows two FBI agents, Holden Ford (Jonathan Groff) and Bill Tench (Holt McCllany), who join forces with psychologist Wendy Carr (Anna Torv) to initiate the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, Virginia.
The series reveals the birth of psychological profiling, following a string of murders in the 1970s, and explores the origins of our modern-day fascination with serial killers.
Here is a rundown of the series’ most prolific killers.
Charles Manson
Although he is mentioned in season 1, we do not meet the infamous Manson until season 2, episode 5 of Mindhunter. Charles Manson inspired his followers to commit a surge of violent killings, perhaps the most well-known being the massacre of Hollywood’s “most beautiful people” in the summer of ‘69. The Manson Family were thought to have been responsible for 35 murders in total.
Ed Kemper
Edmund Kemper is a prominent figure in Mindhunter and his family history and motivations were pivotal in exploring the profile of a serial killer. His fantasies were actualized at the age of 15 when he shot his grandmother after a disagreement. He is thought to have killed 9 women in total, including his own mother.
Dennis Rader, BTK Killer
Throughout Mindhunter, we are given glimpses of the unsettling ADT serviceman, thought to be based on the BTK (bind, torture, kill) killer. His trademark was the murder of 10 people (mostly women) in Wichita Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. After each killing, he wrote letters to the media and the police celebrating his skill in having “Bound, Tortured and Killed” each victim.
Charles “Tex” Watson
Charles Watson was synonymous with the Manson Family members and thought to be instrumental in many of the Manson massacres. Watson was caught after fleeing to Texas and was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder. Like Manson, he was sentenced to death, but when the death penalty was suspended in 1972 in California, his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.
Richard Speck
Richard Speck is known for one of the most brutal mass murders in American history. He broke into a student nurses’ home in Chicago and stabbed or strangled the inhabitants to death. Following an attempted suicide, he was then arrested and sentenced to the electric chair in 1967. This sentence was overturned in 1971 and he spent the rest of his life in prison until he died of a heart attack just before his 50th birthday.
