CASES OF SERIAL KILLERS

INTRODUCTION

Crime is a problem around the world and represents a significant negative externality to the quality of
life in a society. Although the definition of crime differs across countries, acts of violent crime always
pose a serious threat to capability that could otherwise improve the quality of life.

The dense modern urban environment represents ideal settings for the routinized impersonal
encounters that operate as a hallmark of serial killing. Serial killing is different from mass murder and is
a modern phenomenon. Serial killing is when a person kills more than two persons in a different period
of time where mass murder means killing a bunch of people in the same place and time. They call these
murders as serial killing because there is a series of murders involved. Serial killers could be anyone like
our father, mother, friend, husband or other closed people.

Serial killing is the rarest form of homicide. It occurs when an individual has killed more than two or
three people who were previously unknown to him or her. There is always cooling off period between
each murder. The serial killer can be defined in a simple term as a person who kills more than three
people without any personal reasons. The above-mentioned definition has been accepted by both police
and academic experts and provides a useful frame for reference.

CASES OF SOME SERIAL KILLERS

THUG BEHRAM

Arguably India’s most prolific assassin

Thug Behram (c. 1765 – 1840), also known as Buhram Jemedar and the King of the Thugs, was a leader
of the Thuggee cult active in Oudh in northern central India during the late 18th and early 19th century,
and is often cited as one of the world's most prolific serial killers. He may have been involved in up to
931 murders by strangulation, between 1790–1840 and the murders performed with a ceremonial
rumāl, a handkerchief-like cloth used by his cult as a garrote. Behram and his thugs were devoted
followers of the Goddess Kali and they believed that all the murders they committed were merely a part
of their religious duty.

Realizing that important people and convoys were going missing, James Paton, an East India Company
officer was put in charge to handle the case. Behram’s reign of terror came to an end when he was
finally caught at the age of 75 and executed by hanging.  Behram was executed in 1840 by hanging. The
story of Thug Behram and his people is a story of human sacrifice gone perhaps too far, all in the name
of religion.

DEVENDRA SHARMA

The doctor turned killer

A successful doctor of Ayurvedic medicine, Devendra Sharma was one among the killers, scripting his
name in the history of crime. In a desire to make quick money, he didn’t mind the bloodshed that came
with it. It started from the year 2002-2004, when he stole cars and killed car drivers from many areas in
and around UP, Gurgaon and Rajasthan. According to his own confession, he killed about 30-40 men, all
drivers. He was sentenced to death in 2008. A senior police official was quoted as saying.

"Once he reached his destination, he would direct two of his accomplices waiting at the destination to
get inside the vehicle. The driver would then be driven to a secluded spot where the driver would be
killed and his car stolen."

SURENDRA KOLI

Nithari’s Killer

Nithari disappearances constitute the biggest and most bizarre urban crime of alll times. In December
2006, two Nithari residents reported they knew the location of the remains of children who had gone
missing in the previous two years. On 26 and 27 December respectively, Koli's employer, Moninder
Singh Pandher, and Koli were taken into custody by the police in connection with the disappearance of
children and after Koli's confession, the police started digging up the nearby land area and discovered
the children's bodies.

Koli was accused of having lured 18 children and women into the house of his employer Pandher in
Noida Sector 31, where he allegedly raped and murdered them before dismembering theit bodies and
throwing them into a nearby drain. The CBI filed 16 chargesheets in the Nithari cases and charged Koli in
all the cases for rape, murder, abduction and destruction of evidence. His employer, Pandher, was
charged only in a single case under provisions of the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act. During the course
of trial Pandher was summoned by the court as co-accused in a total of five cases. Both the accused
Moninder Singh Pandher and Surinder Koli were given the death sentence on 13 February 2009, as the
case was classified as "rarest of rare".

COURT CASE1 - Surendra Koli had admitted in great detail how he used to kill the girls after luring them
inside the House no. D-5, Sector 31, Noida by strangling them and he would then chop up and eat up
their body parts after cooking them. He used a definite methodology in committing these murders and
after killing them he tried to have sex with the body. Some body parts, clothes and slippers were thrown
in the enclosed gallery behind the house at D-5, Sector 31, Noida. Surendra Koli, and Maninder Singh
Pandher were convicted under Section 30 (punishment for murder)/ 364 (kidnapping or abducting in
order to murder)/ 376 (punishment for rape) IPC by the Special Sessions trial no. 611 of 2007 decided on
13.02.2009 by Additional Sessions Judge, Ghaziabad, U.P. By that judgment, the death sentence was
imposed on Surendra Koli and Maninder Singh Pandher. But Maninder Singh Pandher was acquitted and
the same day Allahabad high court upheld the death sentence for Surinder Koli. On 24 July 2017, both
Koli and Pandher have been awarded the death sentence in the latest hearing by the CBI Court at
Ghaziabad.

RAMAN RAGHAV

Sindhi Talwai

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Surendra Koli and Maninder Singh Pandher vs State Of U.P. Ors, 2011
Raman Raghav, also known as Sindhi Talwai, Anna, Thambi, and Veluswami, was a serial killer from
Khstra (then Patra) active during the mid-1960s. He was also called ‘Psycho Raman’ and is known to
bludgeon his victims to death. At the time of his arrest, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. A series of
murders occurred in the outskirts of Mumbai in August 1968. Pavement and hutment dwellers were
bludgeoned to death while they slept. The murders took place at night and were committed using a
hard, blunt object. A similar series of murders had taken place a few years earlier (1965–66) in the
Eastern suburbs of Mumbai. In that year, as many as 19 people had been attacked, out of which 9
victims had died. The murderer was identified as Raman Raghav.

COURT CASE2 - Raman Raghav was arrested under section 302 Indian Penal Code on charge of murder of
two persons; Lalchand Jagannat Yadav and Dular Jaggi Yadav at Chinchawli village, Malad, Greater
Bombay. The Additional Sessions Court of Greater Bombay in Sessions Case No. 65 of 1969 awarded him
death sentence under section 302 Indian Penal Code. But Raghav’s sentence was reduced to life
imprisonment because he was found to be incurably mentally ill. On examination by doctors it was
found that he can never be cured. The High Court reduced his sentence to life imprisonment in its
judgement of 4 August 1987. A few years later, in 1995, Raghav died at Sassoon Hospital. He had been
suffering from kidney failure.

K D KEMPAMMA

Cyanide Mallika

Greed can turn many into a green-eyed monster. KD Kempamma, India's first female serial killer, was
motivated purely by greed and the desire for better material comfort. Kempamma, was given the
moniker “Cyanide Mallika” as she killed multiple people in and around Bangalore in cold blood using
potassium cyanide. The first time KD Kempamma killed was in 1999 and it continued in the consequent
years. in 2007, KD Kempamma murdered five women in a span of three months by poisoning them with
cyanide. She got cyanide from the jewelry stores because cyanide is used to clean gold jewelry. After
nine years of murdering vulnerable women, KD Kempamma was arrested in 2008. When questioned, KD
confessed to all her crimes. KD Kempamma was given two death sentences for the murders of 60-year
old Muniyamma and 30-year-old Nagaveni.  In other trials for the other victims, she was convicted.  The
second death sentence was changed to life in prison because it was argued that it was only
circumstantial evidence.

COURT CASE3- Mallika – All the murders commited by K D Kempamma were very well planned and
employment of the poison cyanide shows her criminal mind, not to leave anything to chance but to
murder the person. The learned Prosecutor has submitted the factum of accused being found guilty of
the offence under Section 302 of IPC and convicted to undergo death sentence and in another case for
conviction under Section 302 of IPC and imposed punishment for imprisonment of life and yet another
case for punishment under the very Section is under trial before the Sessions Court. This indicated that
she is was person of great menace to the society and the human kind which justifies the extreme
punishment.

M. JAISHANKAR

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State Of Maharashtra vs Sindhi Alias Raman 1987
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The Registrar General vs Mallika 2012
Psycho Shankar

M. Jaishankar (1977 – February 27, 2018), nicknamed Psycho Shankar, was an Indian criminal, sexual
predator, and serial killer, notorious for a series of rapes and murders during 2008–2011. It is believed
that he was involved in about 30 rape, murder, and robbery cases across Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and
Andhra Pradesh. Having been apprehended by Indian authorities, Jaishankar was imprisoned in
Bangalore, where he was diagnosed as mentally ill. He tried to break through the walls of the prison a
number of times but he subsequently committed suicide following an unsuccessful prison escape
attempt in February 2018.

AKKU YADAV

Bharat

Bharat Kalicharan (1971 or 1972 – 13 August 2004), also known as Akku Yadav, was an Indian gangster,
robber, home invader, kidnapper, serial rapist, extortionist, and serial killer. Yadav tried to create a small
business empire; he extorted money, harming and threatening those who resisted him. Yadav's earliest
known crime was a gang rape in 1991. Yadav and his gang committed crimes like rape, murder, home
invasion, and extortion in Kasturba Nagar for 13 years. He targeted members of the “Untouchable”
caste, the lowest members of India’s society who he knew would be laughed out of police stations and
lawyer’s offices. A lynch mob of almost 200 women descended upon him in August, 2004 leaving
nothing behind but a gory mess. The women in the lynch mob were all victims of Yadav’s, from the
Kasturba Nagar, a slum area of New Delhi. Akku Yadav was murdered by a mob inside the court
premises at Nagpur in 2004. Observers noted that it was the feeling that he needed to get “instant”
justice as the law would take years.

COURT CASE4 - the Additional Sessions Judges deciding on his murder case noted that he had twenty-
five cases registered against him for charges of murder, robbery, extortion, rape and so on.
The court observed that many people had complained against him but no timely legal action was taken
by the police. In fact, the police provided him with liquor while he was in police custody and were seen
to be favouring the accused. Akku Yadav was arrested many times but was granted bail every time. The
court opined that it was police inaction that led the public to take the law into their hands. Lastly, it was
the failure of law due to which people dared to murder Akku Yadav.

MOHAN KUMAR

Cyanide Mohan

A school’s physical education teacher, Mohan Kumar killed around 20 women over a period of five years
in Southern Karnataka. Nicknamed Cyanide Mohan after he was caught, the serial killer used to lure
women, elope with them after promising them marriage, have sex with them and gives them
‘contraceptive pills’ laced with cyanide, the next day. Mohan would then make off with their money and
gold jewellery.  Law finally caught up with him in 2010 and Mohan was arrested. Cyanide Mohan is
serving a life sentence for the murder, rape and robbery of 28-year-old woman – the fifth case he has

4
State of Maharashtra v Eknath Duryodhan Chauhan 2019
been convicted of. Many more such cases are still pending. He was also sentenced to death in three of
the murder cases – a conviction that Mohan, who is defending his own case, has appealed against.

COURT CASE5 - The material produced before the court indicated that he was involved in more than 20
cases during the span of six years between 2004 and 2010. In all these cases, the common allegation
was that the accused has been administering cyanide to the victims and thereafter robbed valuables
from their possession, pledged or sold them to make gain. The seizure of large quantity of cyanide
powder, fake seals and visiting cards speak for the criminal mind of the accused. The appellant/accused
was acquitted of the charges under sections 366, 376 and 392 of Indian Penal Code. The conviction of
the accused for the offences under sections 302, 328, 394, 417, 465, 468, 473 and 201 Indian Penal Code
was confirmed.

A local court in Karnataka's coastal city sentenced serial killer Mohan Kumar to life imprisonment after
he was convicted for raping and murdering his 20th victim 11 years ago, police said 26 June, 2020. The
judge also slapped a fine of Rs 25,000 on him, 10 years and Rs 5,000 for feeding poison, 7 years and Rs
5,000 for rape, 5 years and Rs 5,000 for robbing the victim's jewellery and destroying evidence.

CONCLUSION

Each murder is a kind of angry monologue directed at the social order. Serial killings as such may be an
unfathomable phenomenon, but any knowledge regarding its underpinning could be of immense use
when the society as a whole trying to comprehend what it is about. Over the last few decades, a certain
kind of cult has developed around serial murderers in society—they have been put on a pedestal
because of the hundreds of films, books, and songs inspired by their deeds.

In the case of the development of a serial killer both nature and nurture are factors. The majority of
serial killers suffer from some type of mental illness, paranoia, schizophrenia, or psychosis. Many are
diagnosed psychopaths. But these natural ailments are not enough. Some event or dominant figure in a
person’s childhood has to trigger these murderous emotions, these deadly urges. When it comes to the
creation of a serial killer, nature and nurture both play their roles.  

The primary loophole in our legal system regarding these types of unmotivated crimes is the failure to
decipher and interpret the actual psychology behind the persistent criminal conduct along with the type
of mental ailment triggering it and obviously the lack of legal provisions available.
 

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The Registrar General vs Mohan Kumar 2017