Robert Berdella

Case details

Robert Berdella (January 31, 1949 – October 8, 1992) was an American serial killer in Kansas City, Missouri who raped, tortured and killed at least six men between 1984 and 1987.

Background

Berdella was enrolled in the Kansas City Art Institute from 1967 to 1969.

During that time, he was convicted but received a suspended sentence for selling amphetamines.

He was later arrested for possession of LSD and marijuana, but the charges were dropped for lack of evidence.

In 1969, he bought the house at 4315 Charlotte.

He worked as a chef and eventually opened Bob’s Bazaar Bizarre.

Berdella owned and operated a novelty shop in the Westport Flea Market/Bar & Grill in Kansas City, Missouri. He named his booth “Bob’s Bazaar Bizarre” and catered to occult-type tastes.

Berdella carried business cards that advertised that he had “poison” in his head.

He claimed that the film version of John Fowles’ The Collector, in which the protagonist kidnaps and imprisons a young woman, had been his inspiration when he was a teenager.

He volunteered for youth organizations, neighborhood crime watch and various other committees, and he employed young men to work in his store.

Some friends accused the police of framing Berdella.

Friends and family claimed Berdella was an eccentric, yet very likable and responsible. His worst fault, from the viewpoint of his friends, was that Berdella was condescending when dealing with women or people he considered less knowledgeable than himself.

The offence

Berdella abducted and tortured at least six young men.

He had detailed torture logs and large numbers of Polaroid pictures he had taken of his victims, and detectives later recovered volumes of pictures and remained in their possession.

Berdella claimed that he was trying to “help” some of his victims by giving them antibiotics after torturing them.

He tried to gouge one of his victims’ eyes out, “all 'to see what would happen'”.

He buried one victim’s skull in his backyard, and put the dismembered bodies out for the weekly trash pickup. The bodies were never recovered but were left in the landfill.

Berdella confessed to the murder and torture of six young men between the years of 1984 and 1987.

He claimed he dismembered each body with various instruments, including a chainsaw and knives.

He recounted that he placed the bodies in the bathtub and made precise incisions at the elbow joints, legs and groin to allow the blood to drain from his dead victim.

He said he then packaged the bodies into plastic trash bags and dragged them to the curb for the trash men to pick up and take to the dump.

Berdella told the prosecutor and a courtroom full of people, including loved ones of the victims, how he watched the bags being taken from the curb to insure they were not disturbed.

Berdella asserted that he never killed his victims intentionally.

In his confession and subsequent accounts, Berdella used bondage and drugs during the period of captivity, beat his victims with various instruments, and injected them with drugs or chemicals.

He put chemicals into their body cavities, and it was stated that he even put window caulk into the ears of his victims.

He sodomized victims in a variety of ways, including with his penis and with vegetables such as cucumbers and carrots or with his arm.

One victim died from a ruptured anal wall after Berdella put his arm deep inside of the man; Berdella callously referred to this as “Fist F.” Some victims died from asphyxiation while others died from drug overdoses.

Berdella referred to his victims as “playtoys.”

He set up a trust fund for his victims’ families, administered by Rev. Roger Coleman, who had stood by him throughout the entire ordeal.

Some families of the victims sued Berdella for wrongful death but failed because of inability to meet the statute of limitations for such crimes.

Berdella was smug in his remarks concerning the impending lawsuits.

Berdella rejected emphatically any claim that he had any dealings with Satanism.

Victims

Jerry Howell — age 20 — July 5, 1984 Robert Sheldon — age 18 — April 19, 1984 Mark Wallace — age 20 — June 22, 1985 James Ferris — age 20 — September 26, 1985 Todd Stoops — age 21 — June 17, 1986 Larry Pearson — age 20 — July 9, 1987

Investigation

The Kansas City Police Department suspected Berdella in two other disappearances.

Voluminous evidence was recovered, including volumes of photographs and other items.

Detectives applied luminol, a spray chemical used to highlight blood, to many areas in the basement with positive results.

Police searched Berdella’s home after Bryson’s escape and found some 200 photographs of naked men bound and clearly suffering from cruel abuse.

Police seized torture devices during the search, along with a pair of human skulls, occult literature, and a Satanic ritual robe.

During excavation in the backyard, deputies unearthed bone fragments and another human head.

Police discovered an area in the basement’s dirt floor that by its dimensions resembled a grave, and the backyard contained other freshly dug places.

Media coverage complicated the investigation, and excavation began as reporters swarmed the house on Charlotte Street.

Police realized that a death, if not more than one, had occurred on Berdella’s property, but there was no body.

The skull and vertebrae located early in the excavation were sent into the lab for positive identification.

Detec­tives devised a backyard grid to search the area most effectively.

Police began contacting the people whose names were listed in diaries Berdella had kept of the torture administered to each victim, and identifying the faces in photographs proved difficult in some cases.

Some photographs showed Berdella sodomizing a victim with no face visible, not even Berdella’s.

Police deciphered a code of shorthand Berdella used while logging the events, including:

• “BF” represented anal penetration with his penis
• “Fing F” stood for use of his finger
• “carrot F” and “cucumber F” meant Berdella inserted cucumbers or carrots into the rectum

The logs contained references regarding the frequency and dosage of medication administered to victims and where he injected them.

Detectives determined the information corresponded directly to dates and times when young men were missing.

Court proceedings proceeded despite the lack of a corpse to prove a murder had occurred, with the difficulty of convincing a judge to seriously consider murder charges when there was no corpse to prove a murder occurred.

Arrest

Berdella was apprehended on April 4, 1988 after a victim he had been torturing for a week jumped naked from the second story of his house and escaped.

The escapee, Chris Bryson, was naked, wore only a dog collar, and escaped by breaking glass in a second-story window and jumping from the height.

Police questioned Bryson shortly after he reached a neighbor, and Bryson identified Berdella in photos shown by detectives while he was in the hospital.

Bail was initially set at $500,000 and revoked the next day when officers testified that one of the men in Berdella’s photographs—trussed up and hanging by his heels—appeared to be dead.

Berdella was arraigned in the courtroom of Judge Alvin Randall.

At arraignment, Berdella entered a plea of guilty to the charge of murder in the first degree.

Trial

Berdella was arraigned on seven counts of sodomy, one count of felonious restraint, and one count of first degree assault.

Berdella pled guilty to first-degree murder in the death of victim Robert Sheldon, and to four counts of second-degree murder involving additional male victims.

A bargained guilty plea on one count of murder consigned Berdella to prison for life, but authorities suspected him in at least seven other deaths.

Court Reporter Ruth Emma Pietro recorded Berdella’s confession as court proceedings unfolded.

Sentencing

Judge Vincent E. Baker found Berdella guilty of six counts of murder.

Berdella received two life sentences without parole.

It was recommended that Berdella go for psychiatric evaluation, placing him outside the general prison population and preventing violence from other inmates.

Appeals

No appeals were described.

Outcome

Berdella served four years of his time in the state penitentiary in Jefferson City, MO.

Berdella died of a heart attack in 1992.

He died on October 8, 1992 due to natural causes, with observers and statements describing his health and circumstances in prison.

His death was never investigated.

Aftermath

Prior to his death, Dell Dunmire, a millionaire originally from Punxsutawney, PA and living in the suburbs of Kansas City, purchased all of Berdella’s belongings, including the house on Charlotte Street and the inventory in his home and store.

Dunmire claimed to have no interest in the items other than he felt he understood Berdella.

Dunmire later leveled the house and sold the property to surrounding neighbors.

Other details

On Easter time in Kansas City during 1988, Chris Bryson jumped out the window of a yellow and brown house located at 4315 Charlotte Street.

A neighbor stepped outside to find a naked stranger crouching on his porch and called police after the stranger blurted out a tale of sexual abuse.

Berdella allegedly entered a plea of guilty to murder in the first degree and later confessed to the murder and torture.

Berdella wrote letters to a minister claiming prison officials were not giving him his heart medication.

Berdella refused to speak to anyone who might convey his side of the story such as the media or police while in custody.

Observers claimed Berdella appeared remorseful and in denial, and he was isolated in a private area of the sick bay for his own safety.