Mass Murderers & Serial Killers

Hosted byIan Punnett

Mass Murderers & Serial Killers

About the show

Ian was joined by forensic psychologist and prolific author Katherine Ramsland for a discussion on serial killers and mass murderers. Ramsland commented on what seems to be an epidemic of recent mass murder shooting incidents. People who commit this type of killing are typically angry and unable to handle stress, she said. Ramsland predicted more mass murders caused by what she sees as "pervasive gloom out there," as well as "dramatic change in the political regime."

Ramsland talked at some length about healthcare serial killers, specifically noting the case of nurse Charles Cullen. Over the course of 16 years, Cullen killed as many as 45 patients at 10 different hospitals throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey. According to Ramsland, some healthcare workers may help someone die out of mercy then become serial murderers, while others with a predatory nature enter the profession as an easy way to find victims. She highlighted a case involving a nurse who put babies into respiratory arrest in order to save them. The nurse could sometimes be found in the morgue holding dead infants she was unable to resuscitate, Ramsland added.

Ramsland also talked about the first case involving DNA evidence, traits common in fledgling psychopaths, the Lizzie Borden trial, and how modern juries have been influenced by crime-based television shows. In one Michigan trial, the suspect was acquitted because the jury thought the crime scene investigators should have been able to take fingerprints off of grass, she noted.

MLK Assassination

In the first hour, Ian spoke with Lamar Waldron about new information that implicates the Mafia and white supremacists in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. According to Waldron, a white racist from Georgia named Joseph Milteer funded the contract to kill Dr. King and turned to mobster Carlos Marcello to find an assassin. New evidence indicates James Earl Ray, the man convicted of Dr. King's murder, worked for Marcello as a low-level heroin smuggler, Waldron said. More at legacyofsecrecy.com.

Websites:

Relevant Books:

Related Articles:

Artist C.Knight (email) created this comic, 'The Body Farm,' based on the testimony of a caller who phoned in to share her bizarre story with Ian Punnett. Check out the full panels.

Bumper Music