The '70s were known for sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, but they were also known for some of the biggest murder cases and mysteries that have fascinated true-crime fans for as long as the genre has existed. Decades later, we're still talking about these cases, their chilling details, and the impact they had on society.
If you met Ted Bundy on the streets in the 1970s, he would likely seem like a normal, charming, even attractive guy - not the violent killer he really was. Bundy might be one of the most controversial serial killers of our time, confessing to killing 36 people in the '70s and yet still retaining a shockingly large fanbase of women who claim to be attracted to him specifically because of his crimes. He even got married while on trial for his crimes, proposing to Carol Anne Boone in court while she was on the stand testifying. Her decision is made only more baffling by the fact that all his known targets were women, and almost all of them were young.
Moreover, many people believe the real death toll of his crimes is much higher. Bundy has said there were some murders he “would never talk about.” Murder had become so commonplace to Bundy that it was routine. As he described the act, “You learn what you need to kill and take care of the details. It's like changing a tire. The first time you're careful. By the thirtieth time, you can't remember where you left the lug wrench.”
Bundy was captured and escaped several times after his initial 1975 arrest, and during one of those escapes, he attacked four women at a Chi Omega sorority, killing two of them in one night. They were among his final victims. In 1989, he was electrocuted for the crimes he confessed to.
- Photo:
- Des Plaines Police Department
- Wikimedia Commons
- Public domain
Serial killer John Wayne Gacy was also known in his neighborhood as Pogo the Clown and first started showing signs of trouble at 22 when he pled guilty to sexually assaulting a pair of young boys. After serving 18 months, the newly-divorced Gacy moved to Chicago to start a new life, and, for a time, it seemed like he'd turned a corner. He remarried, started a construction business, and attended his local church. He threw huge block parties for his neighbors and even became the Democratic Precinct Chairman. Then a young man working for Gacy disappeared in 1975.
It was only the beginning of a terrible spree. In 1976, Gacy divorced again, and with seemingly nothing to hold him back, he murdered 33 people and buried 29 of them underneath his house. Many people asked the police to investigate Gacy, but they didn't until a 15-year-old boy's disappearance in 1977 led them to Gacy’s home, where the boy had gone to interview for a job with Gacy's construction company. They found clothing and a class ring that belonged to a different missing boy before making a gruesome discovery in the crawlspace underneath his home.
Gacy attempted to use an insanity plea to get out of being found guilty, but in 1994, Gacy was executed by lethal injection.
- Photo:
Dennis Rader, AKA the BTK Killer, likely eluded capture for so long because he had studied criminal justice at Wichita University. He was also quite savvy at blending into the community, participating in the local church and serving as a Boy Scout leader. But under that mask, for three decades, Rader terrorized Kansans by binding, torturing, and ultimately killing his victims.
Rader confessed to harming animals and having violent fantasies from a young age, but it wasn't until 1974 that he committed his first murders - a family of four, including two children, in Wichita. He killed five more women by 1977. He became frustrated at the lack of media coverage for his murders, sending a letter to a local TV station that read, “How many people do I have to kill before I get a name in the paper or some national attention?”
Rader didn't kill again until 1985, photographing the victim still bound inside his church. Then in 1991, he attacked his last target, a 62-year-old woman. By 2004, in the absence of new murders, the media and law enforcement speculated he was dead. In response, he started leaving souvenirs from his last victim around town, often hiding them in cereal boxes, which was allegedly a play on the term serial killer.
In 2005, one of the planted cereal boxes contained a note asking if he could leave a floppy disk for police and if it would be traceable. The police lied and told him no, and the subsequent floppy he left led them directly to his church.
Rader later said he couldn't believe the police lied to him. He received 10 consecutive life terms.
- Photo:
Jeffrey Dahmer might be one of the most infamous convicted serial killers of all time, but is unique in that, while other killers typically targeted young women, his victims were exclusively male, and often gay men of color (a particularly vulnerable population due to attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community at the time).
Dahmer allegedly began his three-decade-long murder spree in 1978 with his first victim, 18-year-old Stephen Hicks. Hicks was hitchhiking to a concert when his ride took a dark turn: Dahmer offered an invitation back to his house for beers and Hicks accepted, but when he eventually tried to leave, Dahmer took his life. Hicks was only the first of 17 men and boys allegedly killed by Dahmer, who stored body parts of his victims in his refrigerator as rather gruesome “souvenirs,” and even cannibalized some of his targets. It wasn't until one potential victim, 32-year-old Tracy Edwards, managed to escape from Dahmer's apartment and lead the police back to him that Dahmer was finally arrested in 1991.
Even after confessing to police, Dahmer initially pled “not guilty” during his trial, later changing the plea to “guilty but insane.” The jury disagreed. They found him guilty, but sane, and handed him 15 consecutive life sentences at his trial in 1992. He was killed in prison in 1994.
Just as Dahmer was beginning his serial killing career, one of the most infamous cult leaders in history led over 900 people to die by suicide, including men, women, and children.
In 1978, California congressman Leo Ryan had heard some disturbing reports about Jonestown, the Guyana jungle complex where Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones had been hiding out after facing widespread criticism in the US for his cult-like following. Ryan decided to make a first-hand visit to get to the bottom of what was going on there. Many cult members talked about the disturbing practices happening and wanted to leave with Ryan.
So severe was the concern for these people, that on November 18, 1978, Ryan had decided they needed to be evacuated at once. The process began, but while the Jonestown defectors were boarding the planes that would take them out of Guyana, an armed group of Jones’s remaining devotees opened fire, killing Ryan and several of those who had accompanied him. Still, some escaped, and Jones knew there would be severe repercussions when the police arrived.
Faced with losing his cult, Jones initiated one of the worst tragedies in American history, forcing his congregation to drink Flavor-Aid laced with deadly substances, including cyanide. Over 900 people were still in the compound and died that day, including over 200 children. Some who refused to drink the Flavor-Aid were injected with cyanide.
Jim Jones and the events that transpired at Jonestown still affect our current culture, having inspired a phrase in modern slang which refers to the suicides carried by Flavor-Aid spiked with cyanide - though the more popular brand of flavored drink, Kool-Aid, is substituted. The phrases “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid,” or, “You’ve drunk the Kool-Aid,” are sometimes used to caution one against the influence of a cult, or say they need to get out of one.
The Golden State Killer’s first known crime was very likely a burglary in 1973, with subsequent known crimes occurring from 1973 through 1986. As for his first kill? In the fall of 1975, College of the Sequoias Journalism Professor Claude Snelling attempted to stop DeAngelo from kidnapping his daughter during a break-in, and sadly paid for his bravery with his life.
In 2020, Joseph DeAngelo later pleaded guilty to 13 murders and many other crimes. He was 74 years old. During the years he remained unidentified, he was given various aliases like “Visalia Ransacker,” “East Area Rapist,” and, most famously, “The Golden State Killer." How did he elude police for so long? It's reasonable to presume he knew how to hide his crimes because he was once a police officer. DNA finally connected him to many of the crimes for which he was eventually convicted. In exchange for his confessions, he avoided the death penalty and received a life sentence.
- Photo:
From 1976 to 1977, David Berkowitz’s random killings terrorized New York City until he was arrested on August 10, 1977. After confessing to the six murderers, Berkowitz was sentenced to six life sentences and remains in Sullivan Correctional Facility in New York State. But how did the “Son Of Sam” case get that name? When serial killer David Berkowitz was finally arrested, he claimed a dark spirit inhabiting his neighbor’s dog Sam told him to do it.
A 2021 Netflix documentary, The Sons of Sam, asked a question that’s plagued many fascinated with the case: Did Berkowitz act alone? Berkowitz told journalist and author Maury Terry he wasn't the sole killer, but then changed his story again with vague, non-committal answers, saying at one point, “Let’s put it this way, there were demons.”
Survivor Carl Denaro even claimed he was shot at by one of these supposed accomplices, whom he described as an occult priestess. He believes Berkowitz was part of a cult. Another theory posits that Berkowitz's neighbors, John and Michael Carr, the sons of Sam Carr, may have been involved. Both eventually died under mysterious circumstances.
The question remains: did Berkowitz act alone, or are there still “Sons of Sam” out there?
- Photo:
When Nancy Spungen died in her Chelsea hotel room in 1978, people immediately speculated that her boyfriend, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, was responsible, theorizing the crime occurred through a haze of drug abuse and domestic fighting. He even confessed to the killing, although he later recanted and overdosed before the case could go to trial.
So did Vicious really commit the crime? Some theorize he had taken enough barbiturates that evening to kill most people and passed out in a coma-like sleep, and when he woke up, he might have believed he had committed the murder. If that's the case, then who really killed Nancy Spungen?
The next big suspect was Rockets Redglare, who allegedly often procured drugs for the couple. Phil Strongman, author of Pretty Vacant: A History Punk, even claims Redglare told him and several others what supposedly happened that night, saying:
Rockets Redglare casually admitted to several fellow drinkers that it was actually he who’d robbed and stabbed Nancy Spungen – and produced a handful of her blood-stained dollars to prove it.
But was that a true confession, or was he just trying to impress other members of the punk crowd and scare them into thinking he was tough? Unfortunately, all three parties - Sid Vicious, Nancy Spungen, and Rockets Redglare - are gone and can never tell us what really happened that night, so we'll likely never know.
- Photo:
- John Bottega
- Wikimedia Commons
- CC0
Where is Jimmy Hoffa? The question has been asked for decades, with countless theories proposed about what happened to the famous Teamster boss, who disappeared in 1975. Following a stint in jail for jury tampering, Hoffa had tried returning to power as a Teamster union leader but was not welcome after his fall from grace. He also had made enemies with New Jersey Mafia boss Anthony Provenzano, and then he vanished. The case is the subject of Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, which depicts Hoffa being shot and then incinerated.
Some theorize Hoffa was buried under the old Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands, but historians say that is unlikely. The FBI, meanwhile, has searched a farm, a pool, and a New Jersey landfill based on the sworn statement of one Frank Cappola. Cappola started working at the landfill as a teenager, along with his father, Paul Cappola, Sr., and claims he still remembers the day when men came to the landfill in a limousine and were pointed to a remote corner of the landfill. Here, Cappola asserts they planned to bury Hoffa in a steel barrel.
Because the landfill was under so much surveillance by federal agents, Cappola said his father later moved the body to another location just outside the landfill and covered Hoffa’s drum with even more steel barrels to cover his tracks. Cappola included details such as the awkward position Hoffa was in when rigor mortis set in, so they had to put him in the barrel headfirst to make him fit.
To this day, Hoffa has never been found.
- Photo:
In 1974, Patty Hearst became one of the most famous cases of “Stockholm Syndrome” (when a kidnapped person becomes empathetic to their captors), and notoriously made the term forever a part of American slang.
Hearst, the heiress to the William Randolph Hearst newspaper empire, was kidnapped by the militant revolutionary group the Symbionese Liberation Army and was allegedly brainwashed into helping them commit numerous crimes, including bank robbery and extortion. During this time, she also made tape recordings criticizing her capitalistic parents for their wealth and privilege and helped the Symbionese Liberation Army blackmail her father for $2 million. The money was ultimately used for a food giveaway to the poor. But regardless of the intent, her actions were illegal, and the wealthy Hearst heiress received a seven-year sentence. She was released after serving three years.
Other members of the Symbionese Liberation Army weren’t so lucky. Six of the dozen or so members were killed in a police shootout and a house fire in 1974.
The Watergate Scandal Began, 1972
What started as a politically-motivated burglary became the impetus for a political scandal, worldwide fame for two Washington Post reporters, and the resignation of a president. This was Watergate.
In 1971 and 1972, President Richard Nixon resorted to illegal tactics to try to gain an edge over his competition. It started as breaking into a psychiatrist’s office to try to get dirt on defense analyst Daniel Ellsberg in an attempt to stop White House leaks but escalated to five former CIA officials being arrested when trying to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel and office complex.
It was later revealed Nixon had also taped all conversations about the conspiracy. He was ordered to turn over the tapes, but Nixon refused, infamously declaring, “I’m not a crook.” Many started calling for impeachment, particularly after the tapes were reviewed and over 18 minutes were missing by “some sinister force,” officials claimed.
The Washington Post reported extensively on the scandal via two young reporters named Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who became journalistic legends as the lead reporters who led the newspaper to a Pulitzer Prize and brought down a sitting president. They currently remain active in journalism and have written books about politics as well as appeared on many news channels as political commentators.
In the end, the scandal cost Nixon the presidency, and he was forced to resign.
The Lyon Sisters Disappeared, 1975
The sudden disappearance of 12-year-old Sheila and 10-year-old Katherine Lyon from a Maryland shopping mall in 1975 would remain a mystery for over 40 years. The police searched the bottom of several ponds and interviewed nursing home residents to see if they had any information.
Eventually, the case ran cold, and like most cold cases, new sets of eyes would periodically look at it and see if they could come up with an answer. One of those detectives was Chris Homrock, who was looking through the evidence and found something he had never seen before - the six-page transcript of a statement from 18-year-old Lloyd Lee Welch, who claimed he had seen the sisters abducted. In 2013, Homrock tracked down Welch in Delaware, where he was just finishing a 33-year sentence for assaulting a 10-year-old girl. Welch greeted Homrock by saying, “I know why you’re here. You’re here about those two missing kids.”
Despite his claims he didn't have much to say, Welch couldn't help but keep talking to the police. He claimed a man named Ray Mileski had kidnapped the girls, that his uncle and 11-year-old cousin had been involved, and that the girls' remains had been dismembered and burned. Unsure which claims were true, in 2014, detectives began investigating the entire Welch family. Eventually, they came across forensic evidence of copious amounts of blood painting the walls of the basement of Welch's father's home. The Washington Post reported that “someone or something had been slaughtered in this room.”
This discovery, along with certain repeated details which stayed consistent across Welch's many lies, provided enough evidence to charge Welch with two counts of felony murder. He eventually confessed and pled guilty in 2017. He was sentenced to 48 years.
The Hillside Strangler Was Active, 1977-1978
The duo known as the Hillside Stranglers consisted of Cousins Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, who started aspiring to crime in 1977 when Bianchi noted the sex workers Buono often brought home were people who would not be missed if they disappeared. Once the pair had that epiphany, they wasted no time taking their first life, Yolanda Washington, on October 17, 1977.
But that was just the beginning. The pair became known for picking up women in their van, taking them home to assault and murder them, then leaving the bodies displayed on hillsides around Los Angeles. Everyone initially believed it was the work of one man.
Within a month, they attacked three more women and ultimately ended the lives of 10 women altogether. The murders only stopped because the two men were no longer getting along, and Bianchi moved to Washington, where he applied to be a police officer. Fortunately, he was turned down. Unfortunately, he became a security guard instead and continued in his violent ways, killing two college coeds in 1979. A witness had seen the two women with Bianchi before the murderers, and the case was solved.
Bianchi testified against Buono to avoid the death penalty and remains imprisoned to this day. Buono died of a heart attack in 2002.
The Kent State Shootings Occurred, 1970
While there were plenty of protests during the Vietnam conflict, the most famous was the Kent State shootings in 1970. A showdown between the Ohio National Guard and a group of students at Kent State started as a peaceful protest against the bombing of Cambodia that escalated into violence after students began throwing things at the armed guardsmen. The guardsmen then threatened students with bayonets on their rifles.
Unfortunately, a group of Ohio national guardsmen didn’t stop at bayonets during one confrontation. In the aftermath, nine students were injured and four killed when the guardsmen opened fire on the protesters. John Paul Filo photographed one of the victims, 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller, and a 14-year-old runaway, Mary Ann Vecchio, screaming over his body. That photo won the Pulitzer Prize and was a major turning point in public opinion about the conflict.
Protests escalated afterward, and many universities canceled classes for fear that protests would turn violent until then-president Richard Nixon started withdrawing troops. After many years, the Kent State shootings still remain a haunting event in US history, reflecting the true strength of the anti-war sentiment held by many young people of the day.
John List Killed His Family And Disappeared, 1971
Struggling to make ends meet as an accountant in New Jersey could certainly wear on anyone, but for John E. List, the strain prompted him to tragically kill his entire family and disappear for years.
After neighbors noticed lights at their New Jersey home going out one by one and teachers noted the absence of their children, police made a gruesome discovery. List had killed his entire family: his wife, Helen, 46, his mother, Alma, 85, and his three children, Patricia, 16, John, 15, and Frederick, 13. Organ music played in the background, like a Sunday service. He left a note for his pastor at the church where he taught Sunday school, claiming there was too much evil in the world and he had wanted to save their souls. List allegedly said he hoped he would be reunited with his family in heaven one day.
The investigation revealed that List had had trouble holding a job and the pressures of his bills and mortgage had apparently made him take money from his mother’s account. He disappeared after his car was found at the airport, but no one could find a trace of List in the US or overseas.
At least not until America's Most Wanted profiled the case in 1989. The bust they created of what he might look like today was complete with the horned-rimmed glasses he normally wore. A woman in Richmond, VA, thought the bust bore an uncanny resemblance to her neighbor, Robert Clark. Turns out, Clark was actually List.
List tried to claim his judgment had been impaired by PTSD after his military service in World War II and Korea. He was sentenced to five life terms and died in 2008.
