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Name: Rodney Dale

Number of victims: 1 killed, 7 injured

Favoured method of killing: shooting

Nickname: Satan’s laughing hitman

Rodney Dale, a 26-year-old Australian carved the satanic number ‘666’ on the palms of his hands before he went on his rampage.

On the afternoon of 17 April 1990, he shot eight people – one of whom died – in just thirty minutes in the Burleigh Heads district of Australia’s Gold Coast. And the ‘666’ in the palm of his hands earned him the sobriquet ‘Satan’s laughing hitman’ in the Australian press.

With no warning at all, Dale went out on the balcony of his flat overlooking Tweed Street which was packed with Saturday afternoon shoppers at around 4 p.m. He was wearing a balaclava and carrying a rifle and a pump-action shotgun, and he started shooting.

By the time the first police car arrived, one woman was lying badly wounded on the nearby Gold Coast Highway and the gunman was out on the road shooting randomly at anything that moved. A bridal party happened to be driving through the area at the time. A bridesmaid was hit in the leg and the driver of the bride’s car was hit in the right hand, left arm and shoulder. But he managed to drive his passenger out of the area before he was rushed to hospital. The wedding went ahead, but the shooting, it is said, did put something of a damper on the proceedings.

Seven more police cars and five ambulances rushed to the area. But another six women were wounded before 38-year-old Sergeant Bob Baker from Burleigh Police Station took decisive action. He pulled his Magnum pistol and walked straight across the road at the crazed gunman.

‘Police! Put your gun down,’ he shouted.

In response, Dale turned his gun on the courageous policeman and started firing. What followed was something out of a western. The gunman loosed off bullet after bullet, but none found their mark. Sergeant Baker stood his ground and responded in kind. His fourth shot hit the gunman in the arm. He dropped his gun and surrendered.

In Dale’s flat was a note for his girlfriend saying he was ‘going out hunting’. Neighbours described him as friendly, nice and happy. There were rumours that he was involved with a satanic cult. He never explained why ‘666’ – the number of the Beast – was carved in his palms.

Chapter 16

Jeffrey Dahmer

Name: Jeffrey Dahmer

Nationality: American

Number of victims: 17 killed

Motive: necrophilia and cannibalism

Favoured method of killing: drugging, strangulation, dismemberment

Reign of terror: 1978–91

Sentence: 957 years

Like Dennis Nilsen, Milwaukee mass murderer Jeffrey Dahmer kept the corpses of his victims around his home. But he wanted to possess them even more completely. So he ate their flesh because that way they would be a part of him and stay with him forever.

Dahmer began his murderous career in Ohio in 1978 at the age of 18. At that time, his parents were going through an acrimonious divorce. Dahmer’s father had already left and his mother was away on a vacation. Dahmer was alone in the house and feeling very neglected. So he went out looking for company. He picked up a hitch-hiker, a 19-year-old white youth named Stephen Hicks who had spent the day at a rock concert. They got on well and Dahmer took Hicks back to his parents’ house. They had a few beers and talked about their lives. Then Hicks said that he had to go. Dahmer begged him to stay, but Hicks was insistent. So Dahmer made him stay. He picked up a heavy dumbbell, beat him around the head and strangled him.

Dahmer dragged Hicks’ body into the crawlspace under the house and dismembered it with a hunting knife. He had had plenty of practice – his childhood hobby had been dissecting animals. He wrapped Hicks’ body parts in plastic bags and stashed them there. But the stench of rotting flesh soon permeated the house. That night, Dahmer took the remains and buried them in a nearby wood. But soon he became afraid that local children would discover the grave,