Carl Panzram
Bettmann/Getty ImagesCarl Panzram’s mug shot in Washington, D.C.
Carl Panzram is known as the most sadistic of American serial killers.
Before the end of his life in 1930, Panzram murdered at least 21 people and confessed to more than 100 acts of sodomy. He also committed countless burglaries and thefts, and if you think he might have felt some remorse for his actions, think again.
To use his own words: “For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry.”
Criminologists cite Panzram’s troubled childhood as the reason for his sadistic behavior. Born in 1891 to immigrant parents, Panzram was abandoned by his father at a young age, and by the time he was 12, he already had his first burglary under his belt.
The theft landed him in the Minnesota State Training School, where he was beaten, raped, and tortured by school staff. After he was released in his teenage years, he ran away from home and lived a nomadic life, hopping from place to place.
Panzram was reportedly gang-raped by a group of hobos. He continued his pattern of setting fires, stealing, and getting caught for his crimes.
In 1915, he was imprisoned again for theft. During the first year of his imprisonment at Oregon State Penitentiary, he helped an inmate, Otto Hooker, escape — and in the chaos became an accomplice to Hooker’s murder of the penitentiary’s warden.
Oregon/Wikimedia CommonsMug shot of Carl Panzram taken in 1915.
In 1917, Panzram followed Hooker’s lead and escaped from the penitentiary, but he was caught and returned. Panzram learned from his failed escape attempt, however, and successfully broke out the following year.
Two years after his prison escape, Panzram bought a yacht and made his name as one of the most gruesome American serial killers. He started off by luring drunk American soldiers onto his boat, where he would rape, kill, and then dump them into the ocean.
His yacht eventually sank, so Panzram moved to Africa. Shortly after he docked in Angola, he raped and killed a young boy. He later described the incident, saying, “His brains were coming out of his ears when I left him and he will never be any deader.”
He quickly followed up by murdering six local guides who were about to take him on a crocodile hunting expedition. Panzram savagely fed their corpses to the hungry crocodiles.
Panzram grew restless in Africa and decided to move to Lisbon, Portugal, but he hit a snag when he found out that authorities were looking for him. He fled back to America, hoping to escape the police.
He continued his pattern of raping and murdering young men upon returning to America — and he also continued to get caught.
He confessed to the murder of two boys and was sentenced to 25 years. He tried to break out from prison again but was caught. A year after his unsuccessful escape attempt, Panzram was sentenced to death for killing the laundry foreman, who was found beaten to death with an iron bar.
Somehow, the sociopathic Panzram managed to make a friend while incarcerated. Henry Lesser felt sorry for him and published Panzram’s detailed writings on his murders, Panzram: A Journal of Murder, in 1970.
The last words of one of the most disturbing American serial killers were eerily fitting. Before his hanging in 1930, Panzram said, “Hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could kill a dozen men while you’re screwing around!”
