Born to Kill?

Spine-chilling documentary series examining serial killers. After being convicted of attempted murder and kidnapping, David Carpenter went on to kill five women.

The horrific case of Timothy Wilson-Spencer, who strangled five people in the 1980s. The case was historic as it was the first case solved with DNA evidence.

Chilling documentary series examining serial killers. This edition explores the case of ex-marine Cleophus Prince Jr., who raped and murdered six women in 1990.

Grisly documentary series examining brutal serial killers. Tony Costa murdered four women in 1969, before penning a chilling, unpublished novel detailing his crimes.

Chilling documentary series examining brutal serial killers. Despicable duo Gerald and Charlene Gallego joined forces to rape and murder several teenagers.

British criminal Robert Napper, who was convicted of two murders, one manslaughter, two rapes and two attempted rapes. Napper is a paranoid schizophrenic who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and. also believed to be the 'Green Chain Rapist' who carried out at least 70 attacks across south-east London over a four-year period ending in 1994.

Following the story of the serial killer, Peter Sutcliffe, who between 1975 and 1981 murdered 13 females and became known as The Yorkshire Ripper. But how did he get away with the crimes for so many years and was it nature or nurture that turned this chilled out hard-working man into a serial killer.

The show examines the crimes of sadistic couple Paula Bernardo and Karla Homolka who carried out a series of despicable acts against different young women, including Karla's own sister.

During 1976 and early 1977, female students at the University of California in Santa Barbara were terrorised by some lookalike murders, so-called because the victims closely resembled one another. Thor Christiansen struck while they were hitchhiking and desecrated their bodies after murdering them.

In 1979, a violent crime spree rocked the town of Richmond, Virginia. The discovery of a triple murder led police to a local gang of brothers.

In 1970, a California doctor and his young family were executed and dumped in the swimming pool of their hilltop home. The killer believed that he was on a mission from God.

In the mid-1970s, Donald Nielson aka the Black Panther committed a string of burglaries, armed robberies and murders in north-east England.

Featuring a crime spree in Richmond, Virginia in 1979.

Featuring the killing of walkers in Yosemite National Park

Profile of the 1970s armed robber and kidnapper.

The psychology of Herbert William Mullin who murdered 13 people in southern California in the early 1970s but claimed his victims were sacrificed to save the lives of others. The programme explores how investigators brought an end to his crimes and experts discuss what might have driven him to kill. There is also an interview with Mullin himself. Last in the series., Serial Killing Saviour: Born to Kill. To Kill? Series profiling infamous serial killers. Was the heinous serial killer Herbert William Mullin driven by nature or nurture? Featuring a unique interview with the murderer himself.

A psychological profile of former nurse Beverley Allitt, who is currently serving 13 life sentences for murdering four children and injuring nine others at Grantham Hospital in Lincolnshire in 1991. Psychologists and criminology experts explore the possible motives for her crimes, examining her behaviour during childhood, when she was known to be an attention seeker. The apparently caring nurse Beverely Allitt had only just joined the staff of Children's Ward 4 of Grantham Hospital when a substantial rise in young patient deaths began occurring. At first, no one could explain why children, some as young as six months, were arriving on the ward with only minor health problems, but leaving only days later dead. A shocked and seemingly uncomprehending public would eventually be informed the culprit was actually the very person who was meant to be caring for the children. During her 59 day stint as a nurse, 23-year-old Beverly Allitt, nicknamed The Angel of Death, attacked thirteen children, killing four. From a very early age, Allitt was known to be an attention seeker. Was her desire to be the centre of attention really the reason why she attacked such innocent children or was something far more psychologically disturbing the cause for this evil?

When the discovery of human flesh blocking the drains of an address in London led to the arrest of 37 year old civil servant Dennis Nilsen, police were staggered when he calmly told them he had killed at least 15 young men. At the time, Nilsen would go down in history as Britain's most prolific serial killer, and as police interviewed the matter-of-fact Scot, they uncovered the extraordinary story of a man obsessed with death since childhood. The lonely job centre executive would strangle his victims and keep their corpses for company, sitting them in chairs, talking to them and watching television together, before butchering burning or boiling the body-parts. Was Dennis Nilsen obsession with death fused during his childhood? Or, was his instinct to kill hard-wired from birth?

When body parts began washing up on the beaches of a peaceful Californian seaside town, police realised someone was hunting, abducting, murdering and dismembering female co-eds. What they didn't realise was; the killer was in their midst - drinking with them at their favourite local bar. Cops considered the 6'9' inch Edmund Kemper a gentle giant, little did they know that as a teenager he'd murdered his grandparents, he'd fooled psychiatrists into releasing him from secure hospital after just 5 years, and while he was socialising with police officers he was living out his bizarre sexual fantasies with the corpses of young co-eds. Edmund Kemper would kill and dismember 6 young college girls before turning on his mother and her best friend. Was his mind was twisted by his upbringing in a broken home and volatile relationship with a domineering mother? Or was the Co-ed Butcher born to kill?

Hearse driving redneck Donald Pee Wee Gaskins may only have stood 5'4" tall, but he would earn himself the nickname of the meanest man in America and become South Carolina's biggest mass murderer when police discovered his boasts of having his own private graveyard were real. Cops would eventually discover the bodies of 13 men women and children, but in prison Gaskins would claim to have killed more than a hundred - raping, torturing and then sinking their bodies in the swamps. And Gaskins would add to his tally in prison, pulling off the extraordinary murder of a death row inmate - blowing him up by remote control. But what created this feared psychopath and sexual sadist? Was it nature or nurture? The men that knew and pursued him, leading experts, and the loving daughter he confessed to examine whether Pee Wee Gaskins was born to kill?

Ted Bundy orchestrated a campaign of terror that stretched across the United States. Between 1974 and 1978 he lured a series of pretty, dark haired women to gruesome deaths. Described as handsome and charming, Ted didn’t fit the bill of a conventional murderer. Until the end, Bundy remained arrogant and defiant, choosing to conduct his own defence in the trial. Bundy was sent to the electric chair in 1989, whilst hundreds of people cheered his death outside the prison…

In 1958 the real ‘Natural Born Killers’, Charles Starkweather and his teenage girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate, embarked on an 8-day killing spree that left 10 people dead and many more fearing for their lives. The duo was captured in January 1958 and Starkweather was executed on the electric chair little over a year later…

Made famous for Charlize Theron’s portrayal of her in the film Monster, Aileen Wuornos was executed in 2002 for the murder of seven men. A down-on-her luck lesbian prostitute, she lured her clients to remote wooded areas, and more often than not, shot them at point blank range. Tried and convicted in a Florida court, Aileen received 6 death sentences and spent a total of 12 years on death row…

Two black Americans, John Allen Muhammad, 42, a veteran of the Gulf War in 1991, and his stepson John Lee Malvo, 17, were convicted in 2004 of being the ‘Washington sniper’, who had been terrorizing America over a period of three weeks. Police found a gun in the suspects car - the criminals had supposedly shot it 13 times. Ten innocent people were killed, and three were wounded. Police also found a scope and a tripod. The criminals probably shot the victims without even leaving the car, as it has an opening in the trunk that allows people to lie hidden and shoot the victims. Experts unanimously agreed that it was John Allen Muhammad who was the force of the criminal tandem. What were the motives of these men, and was one ‘guiltier’ than the other? Psychologists suppose that John Allen Muhammad is non compos mentis, but find it difficult to explain why the stepson acted in the same way…

Jeffrey Dahmer was a homosexual sexual deviant who raped, murdered and ate parts of 17 victims. Like other killers such as John Wayne Gacy, he managed to elude capture while continuing to carry out his crimes. Like every other sociopath serial killer in history he believed himself to be completely justified in his actions. Why does a Jeffrey Dahmer happen? How does a man become a serial killer, necrophiliac, cannibal and psychopath? Many of the theories would have you believe that the answers can always be found in childhood abuse, bad parenting, head trauma, foetal alcoholism and drug addiction. Perhaps in some cases these are contributing factors, but not for Jeffrey Dahmer…

Over a period of about twenty years Fred and Rose West abducted, tortured, raped and murdered an unknown number of girls, many of whom lay buried in the garden until the police dug them up. What motivated West to commit such terrible crimes? Was he born evil or did his upbringing make him this way? Did he do it for sexual kicks? Or, as some allege, did he supply the sacrificial victims to a black magic coven?