14 Heartbreakingly Cruel Murderers Who Taunted Their Victims' Families Afterward

For some killers, the thrill isn't over when the body is dead. They need to call or write the victims' families, harass them in court, or release offensive music or literature to reach them in the abstract - anything to get that extra fix. Taunting killers will go to any lengths to be heard, and sometimes there's no shutting them up. Sadistic murderers and their twisted minds will never cease to horrify!

Taunting victims's families after the fact is a particularly cruel endeavor, one that violates even the most basic code of civility. Some of these murderers are remorseful but most don't see the harm in what they did. Some of the most horrific serial killers added extreme insult to injury by taunting their victims's families and friends. 

Michael Madison was convicted of killing three Ohio women in 2013 and wrapping their bodies in garbage bags. In the courtroom, he stared down family members of his victims and smiled at them, taunting them mercilessly (though wordlessly). It was enough to rile up Van Terry, father of victim Shirellda Terry. According to Van Terry's sister, the distraught man couldn't take it anymore. At the stand, he spoke these words: "I guess we are supposed to find it in our hearts to forgive this clown...who has taken my child." Just then, he turned around and lunged at Madison. The killer was unscathed, but later received the death penalty.

In 1928, infamous serial killer Albert Fish, also known as the Brooklyn Vampire, sent a letter to the mother of his victim, 10-year-old Grace Budd. The letter, which emerged just recently, describes choking the girl, then cooking and eating her. What on earth would possess a man who has killed and eaten a little girl to meticulously recount the details to her aching mother? Fish wrote that Grace's flesh was "sweet and tender" and that it took him over a week to devour her corpse. On a positive note, the letter actually helped police find Fish. In 1936, he was executed in Sing Sing by electric chair.

Larry Gene Bell was a murderer from Lexington County, SC, who was sentenced to the electric chair for the murders of Sharon "Shari" Faye Smith, 17, and Debra May Helmick, 9. In both cases, Bell kidnapped the teens at gunpoint, executed them, and then called their horrified families to taunt them and give them directions to their corpses. Bell called Smith's family eight times, speaking with Sharon's sister, Dawn. He described how he forced Sharon to write a "Last Will and Testament" before killing her, and went into detail about the assault. During the trial, Bell impulsively yelled out absurd comments and made a spectacle of the proceedings, causing further strife for the families. To this day, he is suspected of killing even more women.

Moses Sithole, also known as the Smiling Strangler, is a South African serial killer who committed the grisly ABC Murders - named so because of the alphabetical nature of the crimes. Afterward, Sithole called the families of his victims and taunted them with horrific details of the murders. According to psychologist Dr. Nicola Davies, this behavior shows a growing evil within Sithole. Simply taking someone's life was not enough to satisfy his appetite, so he wanted to watch the whole family unit crumble. In turn, this destruction alleviated his own distress.

Tsutomu Miyazaki, also known as the Otaku Murderer, was a Japanese serial killer, cannibal, and necrophile. In the late 1980s, he preyed on four very young girls, the oldest being seven, and the youngest four. His crimes included vampirism, eating and desecrating victims's hands, and using body parts as trophies. In one sickening case, Miyazaki killed four-year-old Mari Konno, then sent a box of her ashy remains, teeth, and a photograph of her clothes to her parents, along with a postcard that read: "Mari. Cremated. Bones. Investigate. Prove." Miyazaki signed the letter "Yuko Imada," which means "Now I have courage," but is also a pun on the Japanese phrase for "Now I will tell you." He was not without a wicked sense of humor, it seems.

The much-feared Zodiac Killer, who terrorized San Francisco's Bay Area during the 1960s and '70s, made chilling calls to his victims's families after he killed. He also made calls to lawyers, policemen, writers, and schoolteachers. According to biographer Dirk C. Gibson, when he would call victims's families, the killer meant to further terrorize them. His calls consisted of heavy breathing, and if he did speak at all, his words were stunted and quite possibly scripted. One victim's mother recalled the killer had planned every inch of their conversation, leaving no room for insight.

The mysterious Long Island Serial Killer has slaughtered 10 people on Gilgo Beach and eluded capture for more than six years. His identity is unknown, but one thing is for sure: he takes pleasure in following up with his victims's families and rubbing salt in their wounds. Sara Karnes, a friend of one of the victims, received a creepy phone call just prior to her friend's disappearance in 2007. The man told her that he knew where she was - in a "whorehouse in Queens." Likewise, Amanda Barthelemy, whose sister went missing in 2009, spoke to the crazed man. He asked her if she was a "whore like her sister."

In 2016, Jeffrey Knoble, of Easton, PA, killed his friend Andrew "Beep" White. At his trial, Knoble, 26, brazenly wore a smirk on his face, turning the proceedings into a circus. White's friends and family members, many of whom wore shirts with White's image on them, found themselves in shock when Knoble stuck out his tongue and laughed. "Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha!" he screamed in a nauseating display. White's cousin expressed his anger to the press: "He's in there laughing, like it's some kind of joke? I can't even (expletive) speak, man." Another relative, Pat Gibson, vowed to have the last laugh. "It's just a game that he's playing," she said with dignity. "God is good."

In 1980, Dorothy Jane Scott, a 32-year-old single mother, went missing from her home in Scranton, CA. In 1984, her remains were found in a construction site. To this day, her crime is unsolved, but her killer has not broken contact. Until 1984, Dorothy's mother, Vera Scott, received a series of disturbing phone calls every Wednesday; the calls were brief, and usually occurred when Vera was home alone. Investigators are certain the anonymous caller is the one responsible for Scott's death. Police installed a voice recorder at the family's residence, but the man never stayed on the line long enough for them to trace the calls. The killer also reached out to the Orange County Register newspaper, writing the managing editor: "I killed her. I killed Dorothy Scott. She was my love. I caught her cheating with another man. She denied having someone else. I killed her."

Dylann Roof brutally gunned down nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina in 2015. In a letter written to his mother from prison, Roof has expressed sorrow for his family, but his racist ideologies still stand, and it's clear that he is absolutely devoid of remorse. Through these writings, Roof continues to terrorize the families of his victims by spelling out exactly how little his victims meant to him. “I would like to make it crystal clear I do not regret what I did," he writes. "I am not sorry." He explains that he hasn't shed even a single tear for the innocent lives he wasted, only for himself and for the mission he felt compelled to go on.