15 Serial Killers And The Music They Love

Have you ever wondered how close your taste in music is to a serial killer's? If, for instance, you and someone who murdered a group of co-eds before having sex with their corpses have the same favorite song? Well, it’s more likely than you think.

Film and television tell their audiences that serial killer music tends to be classical, usually opera or something by Wagner, but the favorite music of killers actually has a more populist slant. One of the biggest serial killers of all time loved AC/DC and Judas Priest, for instance.

While there’s definitely a good assortment of metal and hard rock to be found in the record collections of serial killers, there’s also plenty of groovy choices made by outliers that killed people with axes, hammers, and even science.

Who do serial killers listen to when they’re getting pumped up to kill? Chumbawumba? Buckner & Garcia? If you’ll learn anything from this run down of the favorite jams of serial killers, it’s that there’s no one kind of music that a depraved psychopath listens to.

While some killers are deciphering messages that they’re sure are hardwired into their favorite band’s lyrics, other serial murderers just want to relax and listen to some country music. Who hasn’t felt that way? Remember, if you find out that you and Jeffrey Dahmer like the same bands, don’t let it get you down, just try to rock a little softer next time. 

For someone who brutally murdered seven men over the course of one year in Florida, Aileen Wuornos sure did have a strange taste in music. And not strange in the way that she listened to grindcore or something while she beat men to death. That would actually make sense.

Wuornos was into Lilith Fair mainstay Natalie Merchant so much that she requested that the singer's track “Carnival” be played at her funeral. 

Arthur Shawcross, AKA the Genesee River Killer, killed at least 11 prostitutes near Rochester, New York between 1988 and 1989. Incidentally, this was also the heyday of the New York hardcore scene. While Shawcross might have been jamming the Cromags and Agnostic Front, the one musician that he mentioned on a questionnaire that he filled out while on death row was GG Allin.

If there were ever a singer who represented the "live to die" attitude of a serial killer, it would be Allin. Allin was a notorious heroin abuser whose final years were marred with a disgusting live show that pushed past performance art and became pure nightmare spectacle. Interesting side note: Allin's brother, Merle, actually owns some of Shawcross's original artwork that was painted while he was in prison. 

Yeah, yeah, yeah Manson wasn't technically a serial killer. But he was absolutely driven by The Beatles' White Album to try and start a race war. Because he was total crazy person, Manson felt that Macca and the gang were speaking directly to him in their lyrics, and he believed that they were telling Manson to come to England so they could hang out with him.

He felt that their song "Helter Skelter" was meant to be his Family's battle cry, but during the Tate/LaBianca murders his followers couldn't even get that right and ended up writing "Healter Skelter" in their victims' blood. With an "a." Kind of ruined the point, honestly. 

Of course David Berkowitz AKA The Son of Sam AKA the worst serial killer ever loved Hall & Oates. Who doesn't? There's nothing wrong with liking the smooth sounds of these purveyors of blue-eyed soul, but when you think about the "perfect" serial killer you want them to be getting pumped to something with a little more edge than "Rich Girl."

If there's a moral to this story, it's that if you see a weird bald guy walking along and whistling Top 40 radio it's probably best to get as far away from his as you can. 

Almost everything that people know about David Parker Ray, the Toy Box Killer, comes from his multiple trials for kidnapping women, raping them, and trying to brainwash them before killing them and stashing their bodies in the New Mexico desert.

Even though all the evidence surrounding Ray presents him as a calculating monster, the fact that he threw raging rape parties for his trailer park friends suggests that he had to own an at least medium-sized cassette collection. In the book Cries in the Desert by John Glatt, one of Ray's friends describes witnessing a torture session sound tracked by "g*ddamned heavy metal music." 

If you know anything about Jeffrey Dahmer, you know that he picked up his victims at Twin Cities gay bars in the late '80s and early '90s. Therefore, he was probably listening to a TON of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, but his true passion were the fathers of heavy metal.

Dahmer was a heavy, heavy drinker, and during his brief stint in the military he passed the time by getting hammered and jamming out to Black Sabbath. David Rodriquez of Springfield, Massachusetts remembers Dahmer thusly: "He'd be shut out from the rest of the world. He'd drink until he passed out, then wake up and start again. He didn't even go out for chow."

Of course John Wayne Gacy loved REO Speedwagon. Has there ever been another band that screams, "SERIAL MURDER DRESSED LIKE A CLOWN" the same way that they do?

In a questionnaire that Gacy filled out while he was death row, he listed his favorite musicians as REO Speedwagon and Elton John. He also notes that he enjoys "Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, [and] Roy Orbison." So maybe he didn't have such bad taste after all. Except for all of the boy killing. And REO Speedwagon. 

Richard Ramirez is the embodiment of the archetypal AC/DC fan. He had super greasy hair, a passing interest in Satanism (in the same way that an "edgy" 16-year-old has a thing for satanism), and he allegedly smelled like wet leather. Has there ever been a more hard rock smell?

Ramirez was such a fan of AC/DC that the one thing that tripped him up with the police was leaving his trusty AC/DC ball cap behind at a crime scene. Oh, he also scrawled the lyrics to the Judas Priest track "The Ripper" at the scene of one of his crimes. Take note future serial killers, don't wear your Smash Mouth cap on your "midnight outings" and you'll never leave it behind and be brought down by the coppers. That's called working smart, not hard. 

As if you needed another reason to hate Ted Bundy, the republican, yuppie, serial killer who loved skiing and tricking women into helping him put his crutches in his car before beating them to death and having sex with their bodies, here it is: Bundy loved talk radio.

In the book Ted Bundy: Conversations with a Killer, he openly discusses his love for listening to people talk. Of his obsession he said: "I would lie in bed for hours listening to news broadcasts exclusively. Meet the Press, or whatever. My favorite thing on Sunday nights was to hunt the radio bands for talk shows, call-in programs, documentary-like things. They're still my favorites. I'd listen to talk shows all day rather than listen to music." And to think, he was put to death just prior to the advent of the podcast. 

During the early 20th century, New Orleans had to deal with a string of axe murders that had everyone (rightly) freaked out. No one ever solved the case of the Axeman of New Orleans, but thanks to a letter that the Axeman sent a letter to the editor of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, we know what kind of tunes he liked. You know, because he threatened to murder anyone who wasn't listening to his favorite genre of music

"Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is: I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it on Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe."