Most mass murderers are male, white, conservative and come from relatively stable, lower-middle-class backgrounds. They are not usually adopted, illegitimate or institutionalized as children. They are usually people who aspire to more than they can achieve. They see their ambitions thwarted, and blame other people for keeping them down. They feel excluded from the group that they wish to belong to, and develop an irrational, eventually homicidal, hatred of that group. Invariably, they choose to die in an explosion of violence directed at a group they feel oppresses, threatens, or excludes them.

There are three types of mass murderers, the family annihilators, the paramilitary enthusiasts, and the disgruntled workers. They all tend to be young, white, males with easy access to weapons. Unemployment, loneliness, a family breakup, or just a tongue lashing from a supervisor can trigger their deadly rage. Though a phenomenon usually related to postal workers, it's becoming commonplace in high schools throughout the U.S., as well as in the Red Army in the former Soviet Union. Strangely, Australians and New Zealanders are also prone to sudden fits of lethal madness. Most rampagers tend to save the last bullet for themselves. Those that don't are usually declared legally insane.

All mass murderers are listed according to the number of hits tallied in their fifteen minutes of homicidal fame. Check the morgue for the latest rampages. Because of its ever-increasing size, the Mass Murderer Hit List has been broken into three sections according to number of hits.



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Timothy J. McVeigh & Terry Nichols (168) Speed freak Timothy McVeigh and fellow white-trash-neo-nazi-ex-soldier Terry Nichols are believed to be responsible for blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. McVeigh and Co. thought the assault on the Branch Davidian compound by federal authorities in 1993 was a step towards civil war. (cont.)

Julio Gonzalez (87) Cuban born Gonzalez came to the United States in the 1980 Mariel boat lift. Ten years later, in a fit of jealousy, he killed eighty-seven partiers. Pissed off at his ex-girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, who was dancing with someone else, Julio bought a buck's worth of gasoline and torched the Bronx's Happy Land Social Club killing nearly everyone inside. Only six survived. As luck would have it, one of them was lucky Lydia, his ex-girlfriend.

Andrew Kehoe (45) The first mad bomber in U.S. soil, on May 18, 1927, Andy blew up a school in Bath, Michigan, killing 45 people, 37 of them children. After detonating explosives he planted under the school, "maniac bomber" Andrew Kehoe, a school board member and treasurer and farmer, blew up his pickup truck, killing himself and the Bath School superintendent.

"I don't remember hearing any noise, but I remember flying in the air and seeing things fly between me and the sun," remembers AdaBelle McGonigal, then 11 and in the fifth grade. "But I don't ever remember falling." AdaBelle's ear was nearly torn off in the blast that killed 38 of her classmates. Seven adults also died that day.

Jack Gilbert Graham (44) Jack, a petty criminal, was always annoyed by his doting mother. In 1955, when she came to visit him in Denver, Jack gave her a Christmas present to take back home with her on the plane. The present, fourteen pounds of dynamite with a timer in a box, blew up shortly after takeoff. This, he said, made him feel freer than he had ever felt before. It also got him gassed in 1957.

David Burke (43) On December 7, 1987, David Burke, a fired airline employee, followed his ex-boss onboard a Pacific Southwest Airline jet with his mind set on revenge. He shot the man in mid-flight and caused the plane to crash, killing all forty-three people onboard including himself.

Martin Bryant (35) On Sunday April, 28, 1996 Martin, a 28-year-old wanna-be surfer with a history of mental problems went on a rampage through the historical town of Port Arthur in the southeastern corner of Tasmania. Packing his car with weapons and a surfboard, Martin headed to the ruins of Port Arthur's famous prison. Outside the Broken Arrow Cafe he muttered, "There's a lot of WASP's around today, there's not many Japs here, are there?" Then he entered the cafe, pulled out two expensive semi-automatic rifles from his tennis bag, and methodically shot at everyone inside.

Once they were all dead he went out and murdered the driver of a tourist bus and shot at tourists around the site. After he walked back up the main road to his car. On the way he passed a woman who worked at the site with her two daughters. He murdered the woman, her toddler daughter and chased after the five-year-old and killed her. Then drove up to the admission booth of the site, murdered the people working there, and shot at people driving by.

Next he drove to the gas station, murdered someone in a passing car, forced a driver into the trunk of his car and drove to a small bed-and-breakfast. By the time he left the colonial prison ruins and their vicinity, 32 tourists lay dead and 18 others were wounded; 20 were killed in a cafeteria, another 12 on the roads surrounding the historic ruins.

Apparently Martin knew the proprietors of "Seascape". It is unclear whether he murdered them then, or before the rampage through Port Arthur. Holed up in the quaint seaside cottage, Bryant was surrounded by 200 police officers. During the 12-hour siege an Australian journalist managed to reach Bryant by phone. He told her, "I can't talk now, I'm having too much fun. I want to have a shower and if you ring me back again I will shoot the hostage." Later that night, he killed the driver who had been kidnapped and forced into the trunk of his car.

The next morning the house erupted in flames. Bryant ran out with his pants on fire and surrendered. He was rushed to the Royal Hobart Hospital where he was treated for second-degree burns and had several skin grafts, before being transported to Risdon Prison Hospital.

Jenetta Hoani, the gunman's former girlfriend, claimed that Bryant was obsessed with bestiality, violent videos and teddy bears, of which he had 200 in his bedroom. His best friend was a pet pig with whom he sometimes shared his bed. Jenetta said Martin's favorite video was "Child's Play 2", which features a doll named Chucky that is possessed by a serial killer and comes to life after killing a boy and taking over his body. She also said that he would undergo frightening personality changes and appeared to delight in death and danger.

Police have widened their investigation to include the killer's possible involvement in five other deaths making Martin a possible serial killer as well as the most lethal gun-toting mass murderer of the Archives. Detectives are investigating links between Martin, two or more stabbings, and the disappearance of a German backpacker three years ago, the apparent suicide of his father, Maurice, and the death of Helen Harvey, his family friend and possible lover. Dad's body was found in a dam with his son's diving weight tied round his neck. Helen died in a car accident in which Martin was a passenger. With her death Bryant inherited about $500,000. Neighbors said Martin used to grab the steering wheel when Helen was driving and several times the car had gone off the road.

On December 22, 2000, Bryant tried to kill himself again in his maximum security cell in Hobart's Risdon Prison. He was found bleeding after trying to cut his femoral artery in the groin region and making several cuts to his inner arms with a razor blade. A doctor was called in to the prison about 9.30pm Monday to stitch Bryant's wounds.

Bryant is known to have made at least four suicide attempts since his arrest, but this was the first for three years. On other occasions he reportedly took an overdose of sedatives which were supplied to him by another prisoner. He also attempted to strangle himself with bandages and tried to choke himself by swallowing a rolled-up tube of toothpaste.

Baruch Goldstein (29) In February 1994, Goldstein gunned down 29 Arab worshippers at al-Ibrahimi mosque. The shrine, the traditional burial place of the biblicial Abraham, is also revered as the Cave of the Patriarchs.

The segment of Shuhada Street - Martyrs' Street - opened today had been closed to Palestinian traffic except ambulances and municipal vehicles since February 1994, when Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish settler and immigrant physician from New York City, gunned down 29 Muslim worshipers in a Hebron mosque.

Israel feared that the street, which passes by heavily guarded compounds where 500 Jewish settlers live, would be the scene of Palestinian retribution. Palestinian traffic is still prohibited from the part of Shuhada Street directly in front of the settler enclaves.

Five years after the massacre, Israel opened the main road in the West Bank city of Hebron to Palestinian traffic that, strangely had been closed to Palestinians after the massacre even though the gunman was Jewish.

Humberto de la Torre (25) 21-year-old Humberto torched the Dorothy Mae Apartment Hotel in downtown Los Angeles in 1982 after a dispute with his uncle who managed the building. The blaze killed 25 residents and got Humberto a 625-year sentence.

George Jo Hennard (23) On October 16, 1991, Hennard crashed his blue Ford pickup truck through the plate glass window of Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. As he stepped out of the truck he screamed, "This is what Bell County has done to me! I hope all this is worth it, Texas!" Then he systematically opened fire throughout the cafeteria killing twenty-three and wounding twenty. As he was running out of munitions he went to the rest room and put his last bullet in his brain. One surviving employee hid in the freezer. Another crawled into the dishwasher where he stayed hidden for almost a day.

James Oliver Huberty (21) An unemployed security guard, James Oliver Huberty, had only one friend-- his dog Shep. On July 18, 1984, he donned camouflage pants, told his wife "Society had its chance. I'm going hunting. Hunting humans," and set off to a MacDonald's in San Ysidro. There he shouted, "I killed thousands in Vietnam, and I want to kill more!", and for the next hour and fifteen minutes he slaughtered twenty-one people and wounded twenty. A sniper's bullet ended his bloody rampage. Later the building itself was demolished and a park was built on the site.

Charles Whitman (18) Charlie's head always ached. On July 31, 1966, he decided to take action. He started at midnight by killing his mother and his wife. The next morning he packed a bag with guns, sandwiches, a radio, deodorant and toilet paper, bought ammo and barricaded himself in the University of Texas clock tower. There he started picking off students. After ninety minutes of target practice the police broke through his barrier and shot him to death. When the smoke cleared, Charlie had killed sixteen people and wounded thirty others. An autopsy revealed a golf-ball-sized tumor pressing against the aggression center of his brain which, of course, explains the headaches.

On November 14, 2001, a man shot by Charles Whitman during his 1966 clocktower rampage at the University of Texas in Austin died from complications from the gunshot wound to his good kidney, officials said. David H. Gunby, 58, die at a Fort Worth hospital after deciding to stop dialysis treatment. Gunby, then a 23-year-old engineering student, was one of 31 people shot by during the shooting spree in August 1966. During surgery, doctors found bullet fragments lodged in Gunby's only functioning kidney, forcing him to endure repeated kidney problems, a transplant and dialysis three times a week for 27 years.

Thomas Hamilton (17) An avid gun collector and disgraced scoutmaster, Hamilton was known as "Mr. Creepy" by the boys in Dunblane, Scotland, a village 40 miles from Edinburg. Disliked by all his neighbors, Tom enjoyed taking pictures of young boys with their shirts off. His fixation with young boys eventually got him dropped by the Boys Scouts. In the 1980s he sponsored boys' athletic clubs but it just wasn't the same. Sadly, Hamilton never got over being dropped as a scoutmaster. After nearly twenty years, he was still seething with anger. A week before his deadly rampage Thomas wrote a letter to Queen Elizabeth II complaining about a campaign to ruin his reputation. The shame was just too much for him.

On March 13, 1996, Hamilton walked to the Dunblane Primary School with payback in mind. Armed with four guns, he burst into the gymnasium where 29 children were attending class. The vengeful ex-scoutmaster systematically slaughtered 16 kids, their teacher and then shot himself. Another teacher and a dozen other students were wounded during the rampage. The children, ages 5 and 6, were sitting in circles on the floor playing when Hamilton started firing. 13 kids died instantly. Three more died later in the hospital. Surrounded by bodies of the dead and dying, 43-year-old Hamilton turned the gun on himself and put a bullet through his brain.

Scottish police described the crime scene as a medieval vision of hell with "little bodies in piles." Prime Minister John Major said the massacre was a "sick and evil act." Days later he visited Dunblane along with the Queen to express their grief over the senseless tragedy. Dunblane, with a population of 7,300, is a small market town in the Scottish Highlands north of Stirling. It is a popular commuting base for people who work in Stirling and Edinburgh.

Nearly a month after the massacre work crews began demolishing the gymnasium where all the children died. In its place there will be a play area and a flower garden. To avoid having some weirdo try to claim a piece of the building as a trophy, officers have placed a 24-hour police presence around the demolition site.

Michael Ryan (16) On 19 August 1987, 27-year-old Michael Ryan shot to death 16 people and wounded 14 others in the small farming community of Hungerford, approximately 60 miles west of London. After a "Rambo style" blood fest through the streets of Hungerford, he entrenched himself in a school building where he ended his life with a gunshot to his head.

The gunman, a loner who lived with his elderly mother, loved guns and television violence. The killing spree started in a forest outside of Hungerford. Wearing combat fatigues Ryan killed a woman who was preparing a picnic for her two children. Then he drove back to his house and killed his mother and the dog and torched the place. For the next two hours Ryan moved through the town, randomly killing or wounding everyone he met.

Ryan's rampage ended at the John O'Gaunt High School. Despondent over having killed his mom and his dog, Ryan commented "I wish I had stayed in bed". After 4 hours and several talks with the police Mike ended his life with the last round in his 9-mm. pistol.

After his deadly rampage the British government took steps to end the right to wear firearms, and to curtail television violence. Also, the film Rambo III was banned in several towns in the UK, because of Mike's claim of being inspired by Rambo movies.

Ronald Gene Simmons Sr. (16) This hillbilly from hell allegedly was the father of his daughter's son. In Christmas, 1987, he killed his whole family after his wife threatened with divorce. Gene killed fourteen members of his inbred clan making his the most proficient family annihilator of the Archives. When he was arrested for two other unrelated murders, the police sensed something suspicious about the way he talked about his family. When they went to his property they discovered the bunch of them dead.

Genildo Ferreira de Franca (15) Pissed off at being called homosexual by his former father-in-law, Genildo Ferreira de Franca, a former soldier, went on a 22-hour murderous rampage killing 15 people in São Gonçalo do Amarante, a town on the outskirts of Natal, 1,800 miles northeast of São Paulo. The dead included his ex-wife, her parents, his current wife and his mother-in-law.

Genildo, 27, armed with automatic pistol, a .38-caliber revolver with a silencer and wearing the customary mass-murdering camouflage, started his shooting spree the afternoon of May 21,1997, when he killed a taxi driver he suspected of being the lover of his former wife. After stuffing the body in the trunk of the car, he visited and killed his ex-wife, her parents and took his 5-year-old daughter Nayara hostage. With another hostage going along for the ride, 16-year-old Valderice Ribeiro da Silva, he lured people into the cab to go to a party and instead took them to a wooded area to kill them.

Police believe 16-year-old Valderice Ribeiro da Silva was more of an accomplice than a hostage in the killings. "She was with him the whole time and was carrying the ammunition. They were both on drugs," the police spokesman said. "We believe she may have been helping him." According to the girl the rampager, after sharing several joints with her, forced her to have sex with him threatening that it would be her last time.

Valderice said Fanca had a list of 25 people he wanted to kill. He was selective about his victims, crossing them off his list after each kill. Those fortunate enough not to be in the hit list were told, "You may go, you're a good person, you don't deserve to die." Franca was also despondent over the death of his 1-year-old son, who had been run over by a taxi two years ago. A friend and associate of Franca said: "He used to be a calm kind of guy, but ever since his son was run over by a car, he became a bit strange."

Army buddy Francisco de Assis dos Santos, 22, confessed to aiding Genildo with the first five slayings. According to police Dos Santos, a drug addict, confessed to holding the arms of the victims as Franca shot them. He also said that after each kill the ex-soldier would laugh as if possessed by the devil. He stopped helping with the carnage because the laughing was starting to bother him.

In a three-page letter found on Franca after he was killed by police, he said his purpose in "writing these few lines is not to justify the wrong I have done, but it is only in this way that I can ... challenge those who wanted to prove I was a homosexual." Franca's mother, Maria do Carmo said her son "was always kind and gentle with everyone." But when his baby Iuri was killed, "he opened himself to the enemy the devil." She thought her son got worse when his ex-father-in-law started telling everyone Franca was a homosexual. "But that was not true. My son was a womanizer."

Franca met his end at one in the afternoon the day after he started his rampage. He was cornered by 140 police officers in a ceramic tile factory where he shot himself before police riddled his body with bullets. The two hostages, Valderice and his 5-year-old daughter, were unharmed. Apparently, three months before, Ferreira went to buy a coffin, telling the undertaker he was going to commit suicide. Two days after the rampage only 15 people attended his funeral. Sadly only one relative showed up who, curiously, was on his hit list.

Pat Sherrill (14) The patron saint of all rampaging postal workers. Fearing that he might be fired, on August 20, 1986, Crazy Pat killed fourteen co-workers and wounded six others in his Edmond, Oklahoma post office. The day before the slaughter Pat was disciplined by his supervisor. Not one to take criticism lightly, Pat returned to work the next morning with two .45-caliber semiautomatic pistols and about 100 rounds.

Fatefully, the lucky man who chastised Sherrill missed certain death by oversleeping and arriving late to work. Not to be detracted, Pat shot another supervisors who had been critical of his work. Pat moved from cubicle to cubicle through the labirinzine post office shooting at anyone he saw. After 15 minutes and 14 deaths, Crazy Pat returned to the desk of his of the dead supervisors and put a bullet through his head.

Neighbors described Sherrill as a creepy loner who stalked the neighborhood at night wearing camouflage. He had no friends and, since the death of his mother in 1978, lived by himself. Strangely, he was in the habit of riding around town alone in a bike built for two. In his twenties he served with the Marines and became a great marksman. Later he would boast of a tour of duty in Vietnam that was purely fictional. He was once diagnosed with suffering from "fictitious post-traumatic stress disorder" which is imaginary battle fatigue. One has to notice that following his rampage, his imaginary battle fatigue just didn't seem that imaginary.

Marc Lepine (15) Marc loved guns and hated women, a combination that proved fatal in the fall of 1989. Marc went to the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal dressed in typical mass-murdering fatigues looking for "feminists". In the twenty minutes that followed, he became Canada's reigning Mayhem King by killing fourteen female students and a school secretary, saving the last bullet for himself. He shot his first female in the hallway, then walked into a class, asked the men to leave and shouted "You're all a bunch of feminists! I hate feminists!" He killed six of them. With a big smile on his face he proceeded to kill three more "feminists" in the cafeteria and four on another floor before blowing his head off.

After the massacre, a suicide note was received by a newpaper in Canada, that read, in part: "I have decided to send to death the feminists who have always ruined my life...... Being rather backward-looking by nature, except for science, the feminists always have a talent to enrage me. They want to keep the advantages of women, cheaper insurance, extended maternity leave preceeded by a preventive retreat, while trying to grab those of the men. They are so opportunistic they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men through the ages.... Will we hear of Caesar's female legions and female galley slaves who of course took up 50% of the ranks of history, though they never existed?? A real Causus Belli."

Marc then wrote out a "hit list" of 19 women he apparently wanted to kill, then closed his suicide letter by saying: "Nearly died today. The lack of time, because I started too late, has allowed these radical feminists to survive. Alea Jacta Est (The Die Is Cast)."

Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold (13) On April 20, 199 the two students dressed in black trench coats, fatigues and ski-masks opened fire in a suburban high school in Littleton, Colorado, leaving up to 12 students and a teacher dead. At least 24 others were wounded, with five in critical condition. Jefferson County Sheriff John Stone said Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, armed with explosives, two sawed-off shotguns, a .9 mm carbine rifle and TEC-DC9 semiautomatic pistol, appeared to be in a "suicide mission." The mayhem started at 11:30 AM, when half of the student body at Columbine High School was in their lunch break, until four hours later when the two rampagers were found dead in the library from apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Following their murderous outbreak schools throughout the nation have experience a rash of copycat threats leading to the closing of entire districts. (cont.)

Saber & Mahmoud Farahat Abu el-Ulla (13) On September 18, 1997, the two brothers attacked a bus outside the Egyptian Museum in Cairo leaving nine German tourist and their Egyptian driver dead. Not a novice slayer, Saber was incarcerated in a mental hospital for killing two Americans and a Frenchman at a Cairo hotel in 1993. In light of the bus rampage closely following his release from custody, three doctors, two nurses and six other hospital staffers are are being tried for negligence and accepting bribes.

Saber and his brother Mahmoud were charged with premeditated murder and attempting to harm the Egyptian economy through the use of violence. "This was a heinous crime against Egypt, the land of civilization ... the land of safety," military prosecutor Col. Mohammed Abdel Aziz el-Sheik said during their trial. In no uncertain terms Col. Aziz called for death by hanging for the lethal siblings.

Saber initially said that he launched the attack to avenge a cartoon drawn by a Jewish woman in Israel that depicted Islam's Prophet Mohammed as a pig. During their trial Saber repeatedly stated -- as if trying to justify deadly attack -- that they only meant to target Jews.

Egyptian officials have insisted the attack was not linked to Islamic militants. Saber has said he lacked the contacts to join the militants, but sympathized with them. Seven other people are on trial on charges of selling arms and ammunition to the brothers. Saber, a failed pop musician, said his father paid the head of Egypt's mental institutions $14,700 to have him certified mentally ill so that he could escape the death penalty in that case. The official, Sayed el-Qut, has been arrested and is on trial for bribery. On October 29, 1997, an Egyptian military court sentenced to death the two brothers for the fire-bombing of the tourist bus. The brothers chanted, "God is great!" after a judge read the verdict in the heavily guarded courtroom. Minutes later, Saber said "Jews, Jews, the army of Mohammed is coming back!" Six of seven co-defendants were found guilty on lesser charges of involvement in the attack, and sentenced to terms ranging from one year to 10 years in prison at hard labor.

George Banks (13) A former state prison guard, George Banks was found guilty on charges resulting from a shooting spree with an AR-15 high-powered rifle in Wilkes-Barre city and Jenkins Township on the morning of Sept. 25, 1982. The rampage left 13 dead, including five of his own children and the four women who bore them.

On June 21, 1983, Banks was found guilty of 12 counts of first-degree murder, one count of third-degree murder, and numerous other charges. The next day, the jury returned 12 death sentences and one sentence of life in prison. Banks is on death row at the State Correctional Institution in Greene, near Pittsburgh.

Howard Unruh (13) Meet the father of modern mass murder. A WWII veteran, Unruh never recovered from the war. He kept a list of his neighbors in East Camden, New Jersey who irked or bothered him and mumbled that someday he would get them. For a year Howard planned his lethal foray. Arecluse, he was convinced his neighbors were ridiculing him and plotting against him. "They have been making derogatory remarks about my character," Unruh told authorities after the attack. What set him off was discovering someone had stolen his fence gate.

Shortly after 9 a.m. on September 6, 1949 --the day after Labor Day -- the 28-year-old pharmacy student left the apartment he shared with his mother armed with a war souvenir Luger and 33 rounds of ammunition and set on what later came to be known as the "Walk of Death."

As neighbors screamed and scrambled for cover, Unruh went to the shoe repair shop and shot the cobbler. Next door, at the barber shop, he killed a 6-year-old boy on a hobbyhorse chair and then the barber. Next he stopped at the tailor's, but he had left to run an errand, so Unruh shot his bride of six weeks. Along the way, he shot randomly at anyone who crossed his path: a man, two women and a 10-year-old boy died. A tavern owner shot Unruh in the thigh from a second-story window, but Unruh continued walking. He then went to the house of a family that bothered him killing three. His lethal stroll down the streets of Camden tallied thirteen dead -- including two children -- in twelve minutes. After calmly strolling back home, he told a reporter, "I'm no psycho. I have a good mind... I'd have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets."

Unruh was never prosecuted because he was declared mentally unfit to stand trial on 13 counts of murder and three counts of atrocious assault. The indictments were dismissed in 1980 after a judge ruled he had been denied a speedy trial. Instead he was sent to Trenton Psychiatric Hospital for the criminally insane. A World War II veteran, Harry Rosell, began visiting Unruh in 1983. Rosell said he once asked Unruh if he ever wanted to fire a weapon again, and Unruh replied, "Guns and mental illness do not go together."

On November 7, 1997, Superior Court Judge Linda G. Rosenzweig refused to move 76-year-old rampager to a less secure psychiatric hospital even though he is no longer actively psychotic or an escape risk. Juge Rosenzweig said Unruh is still a threat to society. She said she could not put aside the psychotic homicidal rampage on Sept. 7, 1949, that led to his incarceration.

According to psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Greenberg Unruh should be moved to a facility with patients his age. "He is constantly fearful of being attacked," said Dr. Chung H. Lyou-Kim, another psychiatrist at the hospital. She said Unruh frequently sits alone in a corner to avoid confrontations with younger patients, all of whom have been found criminally insane.

Eric Borel (13) A bored French teenager, Eric woke up a Sunday morning with death on his mind. On September 24, 1995 Borel killed his mother, stepfather and brother with a hammer and a baseball bat. Then he picked up his .22-caliber hunting rifle, walked six miles to the village of Cuers and opened fire in a parking lot outside a bank and in the town square. During his half-hour morning rampage, he killed seven more people and wounded nine others before putting a bullet through his head. Two of the wounded died later in the hospital. Neighbors said the teenager was taciturn and probably upset over his father's recent death from cancer. The posters of Hitler and other neo-Nazi themes plastered all over his room also might have fueled his rage.

David Gray (13) New Zealand's worst mass murderer. In November 13, 1990, David slaughtered 13 people during a 24-hour rampage in the hamlet of Aramoana, a tiny seaside settlement in the province of Otago, near Dunedin in the South Island. He was finally shot dead by police.

Mark O. Barton (12) On July 29, 1999, Atlanta "day trader"Mark O. Barton, angry after losing a chunk of money trading on the Internet, pummeled his family to death, then headed to two brokerage offices were he opened fire, killing nine people and wounding 12. Barton, 44, escaped and shot himself to death after a five-hour manhunt when police stopped his van at a gas station.

The bodies of Barton's wife, 27-year-old Leigh Ann, his son, Matthew, 11, and daughter Elizabeth Mychelle, 7, were found at an apartment in Stockbridge, the town 16 miles southeast of Atlanta where Barton lived. The children's bodies were in their beds, with sheets pulled up to their necks and towels around their heads so only their faces showed. A handwritten note was left on each body and a computer-generated note was left in the living room explaining the reasons for the massacre.

July 29, 1999, 6:38 a.m.

To Whom It May Concern:


There may be similarities between these deaths and the death of my first wife, Debra Spivey. However, I deny killing her and her mother. There's no reason for me to lie now. It just seemed like a quiet way to kill and a relatively painless way to die.

There was little pain. All of them were dead in less than five minutes. I hit them with a hammer in their sleep and then put them face down in a bathtub to make sure they did not wake up in pain. To make sure they were dead. I am so sorry. I wish I didn't. Words cannot tell the agony. Why did I?

I have been dying since October. I wake up at night so afraid, so terrified that I couldn't be that afraid while awake. It has taken its toll. I have come to hate this life and this system of things. I have come to have no hope.

I killed the children to exchange them for five minutes of pain for a lifetime of pain. I forced myself to do it to keep them from suffering so much later. No mother, no father, no relatives. The fears of the father are transferred to the son. It was from my father to me and from me to my son. He already had it and now to be left alone. I had to take him with me.

I killed Leigh Ann because she was one of the main reasons for my demise as I planned to kill the others. I really wish I hadn't killed her now. She really couldn't help it and I love her so much anyway.

I know that Jehovah will take care of all of them in the next life. I'm sure the details don't matter. There is no excuse, no good reason. I am sure no one would understand. If they could, I wouldn't want them to. I just write these things to say why.

Please know that I love Leigh Ann, Matthew and Mychelle with all of my heart. If Jehovah is willing, I would like to see all of them again in the resurrection, to have a second chance. I don't plan to live very much longer, just long enough to kill as many of the people that greedily sought my destruction.

You should kill me if you can.

Mark O. Barton

Barton, dark-haired and 6-foot-4, was wearing khaki shorts when he walked into the Momentum Securities brokerage at the Two Securities Centre building in the trendy Buckhead section of Atlanta about 3 p.m. With a 9 mm and a .45-caliber handgun in each hand, he allegedly said "I hope this doesn't upset your trading day" before opening fire killing four people. Then he walked east across Piedmont Road and began shooting in the All-Tech Investment Group, a day-trading firm in the Piedmont Center building where he killed five others.

Not coincidentally, the previous wife and mother-in-law of this chemist turned investor turned mass murderer were bludgeoned to death in 1993 in Cedar Bluff, Alabama. No arrests were made. "He was the No. 1 suspect all the way through and still was," said Richard Igou, district attorney at the time of the killings.

Sadamichi Hirasawa (12) A Japanese artist, Sadamichi poisoned 12 bank employees during a robbery.

Saeed Qashash (12) On June 6, 1999, Saeed Qashash, a 20-year-old Jordanian convicted of shooting to death 11 members of his family and a friend , was hanged in his prison cell. Saeed Qashash was executed shortly before dawn at Swaqa Prison, 60 miles south of the capital, Amman. Qashash was sentenced November, 1998, for gunning down a classmate and 11 relatives, including his parents. He confessed to the murders, saying his family had pestered him to pass his final school exams. After the shooting, Qashash hid the bodies behind a brick wall in the basement of his family home. He was arrested days later. In addition to his parents and friend, Qashash killed his two brothers and four sisters, a brother-in-law and two nephews, ages two and three.

Drug Rampage in Sao Paulo (11) On June 17, 1998, three heavily armed men opened fire in a bar in the Francisco Morato neighborhood on the outskirts of Sao Paulo while people were celebrating Brazil's 3-0 victory over Morocco in the World Cup. Eleven people died -- including three women -- and three others were seriously wounding. Police said they believe the killings were drug related. They said most of the dead had been shot in the head.

Charlie Starkweather & Caril Ann Fugate (11) Standing at five feet two inches, Charles Starkweather hated everyone he saw. Everyone except his fourteen year old girlfriend Caril Ann. On January 21, 1958, Charlie got into an argument with Caril's parents and settled it the only way he knew -- shooting her mother and stepfather. Then he rammed his gun barrel down Caril's two-year-old sister's throat and choked her to death while Caril watched the tube.

A few days later, after the local authorities became suspicious, the two went on the run killing with reckless abandon. After eluding a two-hundred member posse chasing them through Nebraska, they were captured in Wyoming where they turned on each other. The movie Badlands with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek was based on their exploits. Charlie was fried in June 1959 and Caril got life. She was paroled in 1976. The latest confirmed report places Caril Ann in Michigan and working in a hospital in the Mt. Pleasant area.

James Ruppert (11) In 1975, 41-year-old James Ruppert killed his mother, brother, sister-in-law and eight nieces and nephews at an Easter Sunday dinner in Hamilton, Ohio. In 1982 he was convicted of two deaths and acquitted of the nine others by reason of insanity.

The 11 victims were shot a total of 35 times. James then calmly waited for police to arrive, making no attempt to flee. He told arriving cops: "My mother drove me crazy by always combing my hair, talked to me like I was a baby, and tried to make me into a homosexual". At trial, prosecutors said James planned to take the family's $300,000 net worth for himself, by killing everyone else, getting himself declard Not Guilty by reason of insanity. Then having himself "cured" within a few years, he would be released from the hospital a wealthy man.




Mohammed Yaqub (10) A resident of the Kashmir state in Pakistan, Mohammed gunned down 10 people after flying into a rage when his nephew defied him by chopping down a tree. Mohammed shot and killed his nephew, Yaseem, with an automatic weapon, then opened fire on family members and bystanders. The suspect surrendered to police soon after the shootout near Muzaffarabad, 60 miles northeast of Islamabad.

Sgt. Artur Vaganov (10) On June 2, 1997, Sgt. Vaganov, a mentally unstable Russian soldier in a unit posted in the breakaway region of Abkhazia in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, shot and killed 10 sleeping comrades and wounded three others before turning his gun on himself.

Lt. Gen. Dolia Babenkov told the Interfax news agency that Vaganov -- who was probalby drunk or pissed off about a hazing -- had "prepared for the murder beforehand, disabling the weapons" of his fellow conscripts. "He wanted to kill all the 19 men on duty at the 203rd post." The rampage was similar to several other incidents in recent years that have plagued the Russian military. A week earlier, Pvt. Yevgeny Gorbunov ran amok outside a military store in the Chita region of Siberia killing five fellow soldiers and an officer. The Russian Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, which defends the rights of conscripts, says the army is suffering an epidemic of soldiers driven to murder by low morale, bullying and ill-treatment from superiors.

James Edward Pough (10) On the morning of June 18, 1990, James Edward Pough walked in a GMC car loan office in Jacksonville, Florida and started shooting. Police said he was distraught over GMC's repossession of his red 1988 Pontiac. "Pop," as his neighbors called him, started his rampage the night before by killing a prostitute and her pimp. The next morning, at the GMC office, he randomly killed eight and wounded five others. When he saw no one else left alive he turned the gun on himself.

Here's a first-hand account from a reader of the Archives:

The morning of June 18, 1990 started out as a normal one for me. I was unemployed and looking for work. I had a job interview that morning on the southside of Jacksonville, FL. I got breakfast and headed towards Baymeadows Road. It was a pleasant day, so pleasant I actually got lost. After backtracking and finally asking an Electric Company crew for directions, I drove toward my destination. I missed the driveway the first time I passed the building I was to be at. The next building was the GMAC Office. I turned in and circled through the parking lot. As I passed through, I looked at my watch. I thought to myself, "Is there enough time to drop off a resume here?" If I hadn't gotten lost, there would have been. I had to go to my scheduled appointment, but thought I would go back afterward. I never dreamed that I wouldn't have the chance.

As I drove out of the GMAC parking lot an old, faded green Pontiac 4-door was pulling in. A big black man was driving. As we passed, he glared at me. It was the kind of look a wild animal gives just before it attacks. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I drove quickly out of the parking lot and across the street to my appointment. I had a real bad feeling about the man.

My interview went well and I left the building on my way to the GMAC office across the street. It was a scene I will never forget. The place was absolutely crawling with Police, Rescue, Helicopter Ambulances, you name it. The press wasn't there yet. I asked a bystander what was going on and was told of the massacre in the GMAC office. I felt my knees get weak. I sat down and tried to calm down. I would later find out just how close I came to being gunned down in cold blood. We were all detained while the emergency crews worked at the scene. We watched as stretcher after stretcher was rolled out of the building. 8 people would die that day.

I watched the news that night and they showed a picture of the killer and his car. It was the man in the Pontiac, mass murderer, James Edward Pough. Pough had already killed two people and went into the GMAC office within minutes after I saw him. I thank God to this day that I got lost that morning. I would have been one of the first to be gunned down in the lobby as Pough went on his rampage. He literally worked his way through the office methodically killing people. After he got done shooting the others, he turned a gun on himself and took his own life. It would be Pough's last violent act. An act of a madman.

Yang Mingxin (9)An axe-wielding farmer in northwestern China hacked nine people to death in a dispute over 10 geese. Yang Mingxin, 39, from Chenggu county in northwestern Shaanxi province killed nine fellow villagers and injured three others in a fit of rage on June 23. The oldest victim was aged 71 while the youngest was a four-month-old baby girl.

The problem started when Yang had refused to sell 10 stolen geese for fellow villager Guo Baoning. Unable to find his intended victim Guo, Yang attempted suicide by hanging himself and drinking insecticide after the massacre but was rushed to hospital and saved.

Mark Chahal (9) Straight from the wedding-guest-from-hell-file. Mark walked into a pre-wedding gathering of his estranged wife's family in Vernon, British Columbia, and killed his wife, her sister-- the bride-to-be-- and seven of her relatives. Two others were wounded, an elderly woman and a 6-year-old girl. After the massacre the chagrined husband drove a rental van back to the motel where he was staying, scribbled a short apology and killed himself. The stunned groom heard of the rampage en route to the wedding.

Richard Speck (8+) Richard Speck had a tattoo on his arm that read "Born to raise hell". In 1966 that's exactly what this garbage man and apprentice seaman did when he leisurely slaughtered eight student nurses in Chicago. Rich, a possible serial killer, is believed to be responsible for at least four more deaths in the three month preceeding his blood-soaked swan song.

On the night of July 13, Rich, tanked up with booze and tripping, knocked on the door of the two-story town house occupied by the nurses. He corralled the six women inside and hog-tied them with torn bed-sheets. He then led the first victim upstairs to a separate room and stabbed her to death. Methodically, he smoked the rest of the nurses at a clip of three per hour. Throughout the slow-motion butchery, he only raped one of the women.

As the night wore on three more nurses arrived from their dates to fall prey to his mania. One nurse, Corazon Amurao, survived the deadly visit by scooting under a bed. Rich left the townhouses when he thought there was no one left alive and headed back to a bar. Days later, as police closed in on him, Rich tried to kill himself by slashing his wrist. When he was rushed to the hospital a doctor recognized his tattoo from a news report and turned him in. In 1991 Ricky died of a heart attack while serving a 400 year sentence. He was forty-nine. At the time of his death he was "overweight, a chain-smoker and had poor eating habits." But that wasn't half of it.


A feminine looking Speck appeared to have taken hormone shots and, like fellow killer Bobby Joe Long, seemed to be sporting a pair of tits. It is unclear how the jailhouse Tarrantinos obtained the equipment to make their porn video. Besides Speck two other inmates appear on the tape, Speck's black lover, or in prison lingo, "his bitch," and the film maker himself who casually pops in for a line of coke. After viewing the video, Illinois state Representative, Al Salvi, said the demeanor of Speck and the others suggest "that they had the run of the place." On the tape, the convicts do not appear worried about getting caught. At one point Speck acknowledges that he killed the eight nurses saying that it, "just wasn't their night." For years he claimed to have "blacked out" on drugs, and could remember anything about the killings.

The Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security party unit in Joliet, was used in the filming of the movie Natural Born Killers. It is reputed to be one of the toughest prisons in the United States... And, by the looks of it, the funniest.

Anton Probst (8+) The axe murders in 1866 near Philadelphia were unprecedented. Anton Probst, a farm hand, systematically lured all eight members of the Deering family into a barn, then axed them to death. Beginning about 8:00 in the morning and finishing around 1:30 p.m., he then went into the farmhouse and put on Mr. Deering's fine clothes, sat down and ate the food in their kitchen (a man's got to eat), then plundered the house one room at a time until evening.

He then went into Philadelphia to his favorite saloon, bought drinks for the house with his new found wealth, gambled and lost at bagatelle (an early form of pool) and then treated himself to a lady of the evening until the following morning when he was thrown out of the whorehouse almost penniless. Managing to come up with more money for whoring for the next five days, Probst was finally captured and subsequently hanged, His body was then used for chilling medical experiments at the local college.

Strong evidence also suggests he was also a cold-blooded serial killer who roamed the east coast and enjoyed butchering families.

Richard Durn (8) On March 27, 2002, a man sat silently through a six-hour Nanterre city council meeting, then rose and started firing two semiautomatic Glock pistols, methodically killing eight city officials and wounding 19 more people. The shooter, Richard Durn, was also packing a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, which he did not use. Durn was restrained by witnesses after an official threw a chair at him. That official was seriously wounded when the Durn managed to free one of his free hands and continued firing. When police arrived, the rampager begged them to kill him. Nanterre is a working-class neighborhood near a business district of western Paris.

Durn, 33, often attended council meetings but never said anything. According to Stephanie Durn, his 68-year-old mother, Richard was deeply disturbed, had been in psychiatric treatment for years and had spoken "probably 10 to 20 times" of wanting to kill people. "The reason why I think he wanted to kill was because he felt very alone," she told reporters outside her home. "When he first went into psychotherapy in 1990, he asked the doctor: 'Help me to die'."

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who rushed to the scene in the early morning darkness, called the shooting rampage "a case of furious dementia." President Jacques Chirac, who met with grieving family members, described the events as "a completely unimaginable drama." Rightist presidential candidate Alain Madelin called the shooting, "This American-style byproduct, we wished not to have in France."

The rampage took occurred about 1:15 a.m. as about 40 people attending the were getting ready to leave. Nanterre's mayor said she didn't know the attacker and that there had been no heated debate at the meeting which had ended quietly when the shooting began. "He had been sitting in the public area. He shot straight in front of him, and then he moved to where the council members were sitting." The man had waited until there were only officials and bureaucrats left in the room, she said. "He said nothing," she said. "It was long. It lasted many minutes." Showing no party affiliations, shot at municipal officials from both ends of the political spectrum.

Durn had trouble keeping a job and was collecting unemployment. He once worked for several years at a nearby elementary school as a hall monitor. He also volunteered at the local branch of France's Human Rights League. He was described by acquaintances as a sympathizer of ecological organizations, but was not member of the Green Party. "He was somebody opposed to the directives of the city hall," said Christian Demercaster, a municipal official from the Green Party who said he'd greeted the attacker before the session.

Durn had no criminal record and had a permit for his guns, which he'd bought in 1997 and used for recreational shooting. Durn had been practicing shooting regularly for six years at a club in the Garenne-Colombes region. "It seems he regularly practiced shooting, and he never caused any problems to the club," said Alain Joly, an official at the French federation governing the sport.

Mamoru Takuma (8) On June 8, 2001, Mamoru Takuma Armed with a kitchen knife,burst into an elementary school in Osaka, Japan, slashing eight children to death and wounding 18 other children and three adults. Takuma, 37, was subdued by a vice principal and a teacher before police arrived. He was arrested at the scene, but was taken to a hospital, reportedly with self-inflicted injuries. The victims -- six girls and two boys -- were first- or second-grade students, ranging in age from 6 to 8. Two children were killed immediately and another six died at hospitals after the attack. Six more victims were in serious condition.


Takuma told police he had taken 10 times his daily dose of an unspecified anti-depressant before heading out to the school. He allegedly said he was "sick of everything" and "wanted to be caught and executed." He told police he had attempted suicide several times but failed to kill himself


Within minutes after the attack, a cashier at a nearby grocery said a group of terrified, bloodied children ran into the store. "I saw one of them, a boy, with blood all over his body," said Ikiyo Iriye, 23. "He had been stabbed in the back."


Russian Bath House Massacre (8) Five men and three young women were shot dead as they were having a birthday party in the sauna of a bath house in the Urals city of Nizhny Tagil. The causes of the massacre were simply that there were not enough girls to go around. As the lucky men paired off in different parts of the sauna, the unlucky ones flew into a drunken rage.

"They went wild, killed one man, then another and when they saw what they had done, they had to get rid of the witnesses," an investigator is quoted as saying. One witness fled stark naked, but died in the snow. The killers have not been caught.

Todd Hall (8) On July 3, 1996, in an act of sheer stupidity, Todd Hall decided that it would be fun to ignite a box of fireworks inside a fireworks store in Lawrence County, Ohio. The bone headed prank left eight people -- six adults and two children -- dead and a dozen injured as the store exploded in flames while customers were shopping for Independence Day fireworks. The bodies of the dead were so badly charred that the Ohio state coroner needed dental records to identify the victims.

Hall, who was described by neighbors as "mentally slow", suffered a head injury as a child. He was no stranger to having trouble with the law. In 1994 he was declared "incompetent" to stand trial on a domestic violence charge. He was also issued a citation for criminal trespass on May of 1996. Two days after the deadly blaze Hall stood up in court during his arraignment on eight counts of involuntary manslaughter and declared, "I didn't do it, I didn't do it, it's not fair." If convicted, Hall could face up to 25 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each count.

Ray Martin DeFord (8) In 1996, 11-year-old Ray -- the youngest member of the Archives -- was charged with eight counts of murder after allegedly setting a lethal fire in a suburban apartment complex west of Portland, Oregon. Three days before his arrest the kid was heralded as a hero. At first Ray told reporters that he was awakened by squeals from a rat he was planning to feed to his pet snake. When he realized the building was being ravaged by fire he woke up the rest of his family and alerted the neighbors. "My dad says I'm the hero for the day,"Ray said. After the fire the Portland media billed the kid as a real-life hero showing him eating chocolate cake at his favorite restaurant and interviewing him extensively.

On July 2, 1996, the story took an unexpected turn. The boy confessed to setting the fire next to the only exit for the 12-unit apartment building and was heralded as a cold-blooded murderer. All the victims of the fire were of Mexican descent. A family of six - four of them young children - that lived in the apartment above, and a teen-age mother and a 3-month-old baby that lived next to them. "He might be a small child, but he had the head to do such a dreadful act, I want him to pay. He killed my family," said Mario Guzman, a relative of the victims. Although authorities assert that no evidence indicates the arson was racially motivated, the boy's uncle said that their Mexican neighbors never liked young Ray. In fact, no one did: "He only had one friend down the street, a little guy named Matt."

On August 22, 1997 a state judge found the now 12-year-old Ray criminally responsible for one count of arson and eight counts of felony murder and criminally negligent homicide. The lethal tot showed little reaction to the verdict.

Wade Frankum (8) In 1991 taxi driver Wade Frankum killed 8 people when he sprayed his chinese assault rifle in a suburban shopping mall in Strathfield, Australia. Then he killed himself.

Frank Vitkovic (8) Like the U.S., Australia has also had it's share of postal rampages. In 1987 Melbourne law student Frank Vitkovic rampaged through an Australian Post Office building killing 8 and injuring 17 before leaping to his death from the 11th floor.

Julian Knight (8) A failed Australian military cadet, Julian shot his way into infamy on August 7, 1987, as he mowed down 7 and wounded 19 on a busy Melbourne street. After his arrest, the 19-year-old maniac blamed the military for his rampage: "They trained me to kill, and I killed." At one with his role of media star, Julian criticized local police for their slow response to his attack and announced plans to write the definitive account of his rampage, casting himself as the hero.

Julian thought his behavior was a result of being ousted from the Royal Military College, where He was he was regularly beat up by his fellow cadets who thought he was a wimp. Adding insult to injury, he was rejected by his girlfriend. And, when the gear box of his car blew up, it pushed him right over the edge. Curiously, the killer counted being adopted and not being breast-fed among his list of reasons for his actions.

On August 7, at 9:35 p.m., Julian took up his position in the shrubbery on the median strip of Hoddle Street and fantasized that the homeland was being invaded. Armed to the teeth with a Ruger semiautomatic rifle, a Mossberg pump-action shotgun, an M-14 and 200 rounds of ammunition, he started shooting at everything that moved. After 38 minutes he ran out of bullets and was captured by police. Later he claimed that he had saved a round for himself and lost it, prompting his surrender. Otherwise, he thought he deserved to be praised for his actions. "I performed exactly as my Army superiors would have expected me to perform in a combat situation... In other circumstances I would have gotten a medal for what I did."

Carl Brown (8) Unhappy with the work done on his lawn mower, Carl Brown returned to a Miami machine shop and shot eight people. He then walked out the back door and rode his bicycle back home. Two witnesses chased after him, shot him down and ran him over with their car to make sure he was dead.

Dale Merle Nelson (8) A sexually dysfunctional lumberjack, Dale fought his impotence with violence and liquor. On September 5, 1970, tanked up with booze and hatred, he drove to his wife's relatives' house where he killed a women and her seven-year-old daughter. Feeling a bit hungry, he slit the young girl's gut and munched on the half-digested food in her entrails. He then went to a neighbor's house and killed all six inside, sodomizing an eight-year-old girl as she died. Feeling hungry again, he returned to the first house and stole the corpse he previously had for dinner.

Gian Luigi Ferri (8) A failed businessman Ferri did what others only dream about doing. In 1993, the avenging angel of all those screwed by lawyers, killed eight and wounded six, as he rampaged through the Pettit and Martin Law offices in San Francisco. Fearing legal recourse, he turned the gun on himself.

On May 8, 1997, a San Francisco judge dismissed a lawsuit against Miami-based gun manufacturer Navegar Inc., saying the company wasn't responsible for the July 1, 1993, Gian Luigi Ferri rampage that left eight people dead. Superior Court Judge James Warren ruled two years before that victims and their survivors could try to prove that the Miami-based Navegar Inc. had designed the Intratec TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol for mass killing and marketed it in a way that would appeal to criminals.