37 Chilling Quotes From Serial Killers

Jeffrey Dahmer is not the only serial killer who's captured the public's attention while also being downright terrifying. And sometimes, the things that murderers have said or written are just as creepy as their despicable actions. These convicted killers have all gone on record to either explain their motives, express their lack of remorse, or attempt to deliberately confuse the authorities. Their weird words will send shivers down your spine.

1. Jeffrey Dahmer

“My consuming lust was to experience their bodies. I viewed them as objects, as strangers… It’s hard for me to believe that a human being could have done what I’ve done.” This was how Jeffrey Dahmer — who killed 17 boys and men, mainly during the 1980s — explained his motives to the police. In November 1994, Dahmer — the so-called Milwaukee Cannibal — was murdered by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver at Wisconsin’s Columbia Correctional Institution, where both men were serving life sentences.

2. Carl Panzram

“In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons, and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry.” Serial killer Carl Panzram, who claimed to have killed 21 people during the 1920s, wrote these chillingly remorseless words from death row at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.

3. Albert Fish

“I always had a desire to inflict pain on others and to have others inflict pain on me. I always seemed to enjoy everything that hurt.” So said the “Gray Man” child killer Albert Fish — whose murder and mutilation spree took place in the 1920s and 1930s — during a confession to a psychiatric examiner in court. Fish, who was jailed in March 1935, was subsequently executed at New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility in January 1936.

4. Zodiac Killer

“I LIKE KILLING PEOPLE BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH FUN IT IS MORE FUN THAN KILLING WILD GAME IN THE FORREST BECAUSE MAN IS THE MOST DANGEROUE ANAMAL [sic] OF ALL.” This creepy capitalized excerpt came from the so-called Zodiac Killer, a still-unidentified murderer who terrified northern California during the 1960s and 1970s, claiming the lives of at least five victims. His words were deciphered from a cryptogram he sent to a local newspaper.