Ohio: The Birthplace of Serial Killers? (TBT)

Ted Levine as Jame Gumb in The Silence of the Lambs

From January, 2011:

The other day I heard a snippet of news regarding the sentencing in a kidnapping and murder case that took place in Mount Vernon around the time that I returned to Ohio this autumn.   
Ohio is often lauded for its production of U.S. presidents and astronauts but it is unsettling how many serial killers have an Ohio connection, whether it be by birth or where they perpetrated their crimes.
Strangely enough, even fictionalized serial killers are somehow connected to Ohio.  The manhunt in The Silence of the Lambs leads investigators to the killer's fictional hometown of Belvedere, Ohio and the serial killer Jame 'Buffalo Bill' Gumb was portrayed by Ted Levine, who grew up in Bellaire, Ohio (also a filming location for the film).




Charles Manson - Self-styled guru and leader of the 1960s religious cult the Manson Family, Charles Manson is a convicted serial killer who never actually killed any of his victims himself.  Born "no name Maddox" on November 12th, 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio.


Jeffrey Dahmer (Cannibal of Milwaukee) - (May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994) was an American serial killer and sex offender. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys – many of whom were of African or Asian descent – between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of the murders occurring between 1987 and 1991. His murders were particularly gruesome, involving rape, torture, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism. On November 28, 1994, he was beaten to death by an inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution, where he had been incarcerated.  Dahmer was born in Wisconsin but grew up in the affluent Bath, Ohio.


Neal Bradley Long - A native of Dayton, Ohio, born in 1927, Long was a violent racist who could not abide the specter of black progress in his home community.  Indicted on seven counts of murder, Long was found competent for trial in November 1975 and was eventually convicted of two counts, drawing consecutive terms of life imprisonment . To protect him from black inmates and vice versa - Long was confined at the U.S. Medical Center for federal prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, under conditions of maximum security.


James Oliver Huberty - Mass murderer who killed 21 people and injured 20 more in a shooting spree at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California on July 18, 1984.  Huberty moved his family from Canton, Ohio to California after he was fired from his welding job and couldn't find new employment.


Larry Ralston - convicted for murdering four women in the 70s in southern Ohio (Cincinnati area)


Thomas Dillon - serial sniper/spree killer who shot and killed five men in southeastern Ohio from 1989 to 1992


Michael Swango (Doctor of Death) - intern and resident at OSU Medical Center, where one of his four admitted murders took place


Gary & Thaddeus Lewingdon - plagued the city of Columbus, Ohio and outlying areas with a series of indiscriminate and brutal murders that claimed the lives of 10 people in the late 70s.  


Alton Coleman & Debra Brown - carried out a six-state killing spree in 1984; Coleman was executed in 2002 in Lucasville's Southern Ohio Correctional Facility and Brown is still in prison in Marysville


Eric Elliott & Lewis Gilbert - responsible for cross-country crime spree, that included three murders and a kidnapping and began in Newcomerstown, Ohio (their hometown)


Moreland Baby Killer - Authorities in Dayton, Ohio, took four children from the custody of Regina Moreland's after the death of her 2-year-old grandson, the fourth child to die in her home in the past seven months. "The Morelands believe from the bottom of their hearts that no one is to blame for this tragic occurrence," said Jon Paul Rion, the family's attorney. In contrast, Sgt. Carl Bush said investigators believe Regina might be somewhat responsible for the dying children and plan to review the previous three deaths that, pointedly, were ruled as probable homicides. 


Anthony Sowell - strangled a series of women in his Cleveland home


William K. Sapp - sentenced (in 2004) to death for raping and killing at least three women in Springfield, Ohio


Donald Harvey (self-proclaimed 'The Angel of Death')


Cincinnati Strangler, Posteal Laskey - raped and strangled seven mostly elderly women in Cincinnati, Ohio between 1965 and 1966


The Cleveland Torso Murderer (aka Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run) - responsible for 12–13 murders in the Cleveland, Ohio area in the 1930s






Blog posing the question, 'Why are there so many serial killers from Ohio?'


What is it about Ohio and serial killers?


Another day, another Ohio serial killer