Adolescence

By his mid-teens, Berdella had begun to display a degree of aggression, becoming rude and condescending to others, particularly women.^[4] He learned about cooking and art and developed showmanship. On Christmas Day 1965, the Berdella family drove to Canton, Ohio to visit relatives. That evening, Berdella's father had a heart attack at the age of 39.^[9] Two days later, Berdella returned to Cuyahoga Falls by himself. When he arrived home his family told him his father had died.^[4]: 353 Berdella sought solace in his Catholicism; reading extensively about many faiths. He eventually became cynical about all religion.

In 1965, Berdella saw the film adaptation of the John Fowles novel The Collector. The plot of the film revolves around a disturbed man who stalks and then abducts a young woman whom he finds attractive, holding her captive in his windowless stone basement, and viewing her as little more than an attractive specimen. After several weeks, the woman dies of a contracted illness despite her captor's efforts to keep her alive. Berdella later stated that this movie had formed a lasting impression on him.^[10]

Shortly after the death of Berdella's father, his mother remarried; an action that was met with resentment by Berdella, who viewed it as a form of betrayal against his father. As a result, he became increasingly withdrawn, and further immersed himself in the solitary activities he had participated in since childhood such as painting, collecting coins and stamps, and writing to foreign pen pals. Berdella would later claim that his hobby of writing to pen pals in countries such as Vietnam and Burma and their sending him stamps, and photographs of mythical and historical icons, ancient cultures and architecture, would lead to his avid interest in primitive art, photographs, and antiques. From approximately 1965, he began collecting these artifacts; this practice would inspire him to open his own antiques business in 1982.^[6]

College years

In the summer of 1967, Berdella graduated from Cuyahoga Falls High School. Throughout his studies in high school, he had earned such excellent grades and showed such potential that in 1966, one teacher had placed him in an independent study program.^[4]: 100 Shortly after graduation, Berdella relocated to Kansas City, enrolling in the Kansas City Art Institute (KCAI), with aspirations of becoming a college professor.^[4]: 46 In his first year at the KCAI, Berdella was considered an attentive and talented student, although by his second year, he became vocally anti-authoritarian, becoming acquainted with a clique of students who supplied him with drugs, which he then sold to other students at a profit. In addition, he began regularly abusing alcohol. He also engaged in acts of animal torture on at least two occasions; during one of these instances, he decapitated a duck in the presence of his peers, and in the second, he experimented with sedatives and tranquilizers on a dog.^[4]: 104

At the age of 19, Berdella was arrested for attempting to sell methamphetamine to an undercover officer;^[11] he was released after posting a $3,000 bond (equivalent to about $25,100 as of 2024).^[12] He would later plead guilty to the offense and was handed a five-year suspended sentence. One month after this first arrest, Berdella and two other students were arrested for possession of marijuana and LSD in Johnson County. On this occasion, Berdella could not post bond, and he spent five days in jail; the charges against him and one of the other students would be dropped due to a lack of evidence.^[4]: 103

4315 Charlotte Street

In 1969, Berdella voluntarily withdrew from KCAI after receiving harsh criticism from college administrators for killing and cooking a duck for the sake of art. He chose to remain in Kansas City and in September of that year, he moved into an address within the Hyde Park^[13] district: 4315 Charlotte Street.^[4]: 247 By this stage, Berdella had been openly gay for several years.^{[n 1]} He began spending much of his free time with male prostitutes, drug addicts, petty criminals, and runaways. Berdella would typically befriend these individuals, then "try to help free them from their drug addictions or criminal lifestyles", although he was adamant that, throughout much of the 1970s, he had no physical contact whatsoever with any of them.^[10]

To several of his neighbors, Berdella stated that he felt almost like a foster parent to many of these youths.^{[14][n 2]} By the early 1980s, many of his older acquaintances had ceased having any form of social contact with him. Berdella increasingly relied on these young men as a source of companionship and friendship. He would later claim to have become more and more frustrated that many of these individuals were ignorant of his efforts to help steer them away from self-destructive behavior.^[4]: 151

Despite these later claims, Berdella would often engage in sexual relations with the men he befriended, and would establish a degree of control over them, in part to engage in these sexual relations, by loaning them money and allowing them to live rent free at his house for periods of time.

To his neighbors, Berdella was considered to be flamboyant yet helpful and civic-minded, despite the generally unkempt state of his property and his somewhat haughty attitude. Beginning in the late 1970s, Berdella worked with the South Hyde Park Crime Prevention and Neighborhood Association, becoming their chairman in the early 1980s and encouraging neighborhood watch patrols.^[14] He remained active in the association until the mid-1980s, when he left his position. Berdella also volunteered at fundraising events for a local public television station until the mid-1980s.^[14]

Shortly before Berdella moved into his Charlotte Street address, he began working as a short-order cook in various restaurants around Kansas City, in part to help pay lawyer fees and fines accrued from his previous drug arrests. As a means of obtaining additional income, he also sold items of art and antiques he had accrued and collected from contacts he had established in Africa, Asia, South America, and various Pacific Rim countries.^[4]: 231 He initially operated this side business from his home.

Both Berdella's cooking career and the antiques business flourished, and by the mid-1970s he began working as a senior cook at several renowned Kansas City restaurants. He joined a local chefs' association and helped establish a training program for aspiring chefs at a local community college. At the same time, he devoted more attention to his own business. By 1981 he had established several contractual agreements with both national and international contacts for his antiques business. He viewed this as his full-time job and later ceased working as a chef.^{[4]: 56–57}

First known victim

Berdella is believed to have killed his first victim on July 5, 1984; he was 19-year-old Jerry Howell.^[6] Berdella had promised to drive the youth to attend a dancing contest in Merriam.^[4]: 80 According to Berdella, he plied Howell with alcohol, diazepam and acepromazine both in his car and at his house until he became unconscious. He then injected Howell with a heavy tranquilizer before binding him to his bed.^[17]

Howell was restrained to Berdella's bed for a period of approximately 28 hours. Throughout this period of captivity, Berdella repeatedly drugged, tortured, raped and violated him with foreign objects,^[4]: 258 repeatedly ignoring Howell's queries as to why he was being treated this way, and his pleas to be freed. According to Berdella, Jerry "either asphyxiated on [his own] vomit, or the combination of the gag and the medicines were too strong for him to be able to catch breath".^[4]: 258

Berdella would later state that he briefly attempted to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation upon Howell after he had died, before dragging his body to the basement. He suspended Howell's body above a large cooking pot and made several incisions to his inner elbows and jugular vein, leaving the body suspended in this position overnight to allow the blood to drain from his corpse.^{[4]: 259–261} The following day, he dismembered Howell's body using a chainsaw and boning knives, before wrapping the sections in newspaper and trash bags. These bags were later placed inside larger trash bags which Berdella placed outside for a garbage crew to collect and take to a landfill site.^[18]

Later questioned by officers investigating Howell's disappearance, Berdella claimed to have driven the youth to Merriam as promised, where the two had parted company close to Howell's intended destination. Berdella further claimed he had not seen him since.^[11]

As would be the case with all Berdella's murders, he kept a detailed log in which he documented each act of sexual and physical torture inflicted upon his victim. Berdella would recall that, like his subsequent victims, Howell had repeatedly pleaded with Berdella to stop the abuse and torture, although Berdella would either ignore these pleas, taunt his victim, or threaten him.^[19] He would remain adamant to investigators that this was not for his enjoyment, but for what he termed his "physical and mental satisfaction".^[4]: 270

Subsequent murders

On April 10, 1985, an itinerant former lodger, 20-year-old Robert Sheldon, arrived on Berdella's doorstep, asking if he could stay at his house for a short period of time.^[20] According to Berdella, although Sheldon paid his rent responsibly, he considered him to be "an inconvenience". Although he was not physically attracted to Sheldon, on April 12, he drugged and held him captive because he returned home from work to find Sheldon intoxicated. Berdella was adamant that he held no firm malice toward Sheldon, but saw him as someone upon whom he could "express some of the anger and frustration that I had toward other people on".^[4]: 266

Sheldon was drugged with sedatives and held captive in the second floor bedroom for three days, enduring forms of torture such as the swabbing of drain cleaner in his left eye,^[4]: 266 the insertion of needles beneath his fingertips,^[4]: 268 the binding of his wrists with piano wire with the intention of permanently damaging the nerves in his hands,^[4]: 271 and filling his ears with caulking to reduce his hearing capacity.

Three days after Berdella had begun holding Sheldon captive, on April 15, a workman came to perform some scheduled work on the roof of his home, leading Berdella to fatally suffocate Sheldon by placing a sack over his head, which he then tightened with a piece of rope. He later dissected Sheldon's body in the third floor bathroom.

The following June, Berdella found Mark Wallace (whom he vaguely knew via Wallace having previously helped him with yard work) hiding in his tool shed to seek shelter from a severe thunderstorm. As had been the case with Robert Sheldon, Berdella invited him inside his house, and, noting Wallace's acute state of tenseness and depression, volunteered to inject him with chlorpromazine with the explanation this would "calm down and relax" him. Wallace willingly accepted the offer and, 30 minutes later, Berdella decided to render him captive.^[4]: 277

Wallace was carried to the second floor bedroom where he endured almost a day of captivity and torture including the application of alligator clips to his nipples to facilitate electrical shocks to his body at any point at which Wallace began regressing into a state of unconsciousness. According to Berdella, one hour after his "experimenting" with hypodermic needles by inserting them into various muscles upon his victim's back, Mark Wallace died through a combination of "the drugs, the gag, and the lack of oxygen". He noted this victim's time of death as being 7:00 p.m. on June 23.^[4]: 281

Increase in brutality

On September 26, 1985, Berdella answered a phone call from an acquaintance named James Ferris^{[n 3]} who asked to stay at Berdella's home for a short time. Berdella agreed, with intention of kidnapping Ferris, whom he arranged to meet at a bar that evening.^{[4]: 285–286} Despite the brutality to which he had subjected his first three victims, Berdella claimed that Ferris was the first victim upon whom he intentionally inflicted torture.^[4]: 258 He also informed investigators that there were occasions during his final three victims' periods of captivity when he ceased making additions to his abuse-logs because he assumed the victim would not "be able to make it much longer".^[4]: 300

Berdella brought Ferris home and drugged him with crushed tranquilizers concealed in a meal, then tied him to his bed before torturing him almost constantly for approximately 27 hours. The torture included the repeated administration of 7,700-volt electrical shocks to the shoulder and testicles for up to five minutes in each instance, and acupuncture via hypodermic needles to the neck and genitals. Ferris gradually became delirious,^[4]: 288 but Berdella continued his physical and sexual assaults until he noted in his log that Ferris was "Unable to sit up more than 10–15 sec[onds]". The next entry read "Very delayed breathing", and finally, Berdella noted that Ferris died with a slang term he had used in his career as a chef, "86", which Berdella later explained "meant anything from 'Throw it out' to 'Stop the project'".^{[4]: 289 [10]}

Todd Stoops was a 23-year-old drug addict and occasional prostitute who, alongside his wife, had twice lived briefly at Berdella's house in 1984. After Stoops and his wife moved out of Berdella's home the second time, Berdella did not see him again until a chance encounter at Kansas City's Liberty Memorial Park on June 17, 1986. Berdella invited him to his house with an offer of lunch,^[4]: 139 with an added incentive of sex as Stoops stated he needed $13 to purchase drugs (the equivalent of about $35 as of 2023)^[8]: 270

Berdella would later stress to investigators he had been extremely physically attracted to Stoops, and this victim was held captive for two weeks before he died. He gradually increased Stoops' terror, attempting to make him a cooperative and incapacitated sex slave. Berdella used electrical shocks through Stoops' closed eyes in an attempt to blind him and injected drain cleaner into his larynx to try to silence his screaming.^{[4]: 299–300}

During the second week of his capture, Stoops asked Berdella for a soft drink and sandwich. When Berdella refused, Stoops burst into tears.^[4]: 300 On June 27, he ruptured Stoops' anal wall with his fist, causing bleeding and discharge.^[8]: 270 Towards the end of Stoops' captivity, he tried to feed his captive ice cream and soup, although Stoops "wasn't able to keep anything down". By the final day of his captivity, Stoops was so weak Berdella later stated he had been unable "to breathe in a sitting position".^[4]: 302 On July 1, 1986, Stoops died; a forensic pathologist later testified that the ruptured anal wall caused septic shock which proved fatal.^[8]: 271

In the spring of 1987, Berdella became friendly with 20-year-old Larry Wayne Pearson. This casual friendship began when Pearson entered his shop and explained to Berdella that, as a child, he had held an interest in both witchcraft and wizardry. Shortly thereafter, Pearson temporarily lodged with Berdella, and willingly performed chores around his home as a means of paying rent.^[21] According to Berdella, he did not initially intend to capture Pearson, but began forming the plan to do so on June 23, two weeks after having bailed Pearson out of jail and noting Pearson—in the weeks prior to his captivity—displayed little interest in finding a job.^{[4]: 307, 309}

On the afternoon of June 23, Berdella and Pearson watched the movie Creepshow 2 together before eating lunch. As the two "[drove] around" Kansas, the young man began jokingly referring to his practice of robbing gay men in Wichita; this disclosure finalized Berdella's decision to hold Pearson captive.^[4]: 307 That evening, Berdella ensured Pearson became intoxicated before injecting him with chlorpromazine and moving him down to his basement, where he bound Pearson's hands above his head, then linked the rope he had used for this purpose to a brick column, before injecting Pearson's larynx with drain cleaner. He then brought an electrical transformer to the basement.^{[4]: 307, 309}

According to Berdella, Pearson was by far the most cooperative of his six murder victims. On the fifth day of his captivity, having by this stage endured torture such as the repeated administration of electrical shocks with the transformer, and the breaking of several hand bones with an iron rod to render him submissive,^[4]: 311 Berdella deduced Pearson had earned his trust as to his continued cooperation in his sexual and physical abuse. As a form of reward, Pearson was moved to the second floor, with Berdella first informing Pearson that if he continued to cooperate, he would not continue to inflict as much pain upon him as he had done so while he had been held captive in the basement. Throughout the latter part of his six weeks of captivity, Pearson trained himself to sleep without moving, in order that he did not antagonize Berdella and thus invite further torture or being returned to the basement.^[4]: 312

After six weeks of captivity, Pearson deeply bit into Berdella's penis before screaming he could not continue to tolerate his ongoing poor treatment. In response, Berdella killed Pearson by first bludgeoning him into unconsciousness with a tree limb,^[22] then suffocating him with a bag and ligature, before driving to the hospital to receive treatment for his wound. Pearson's body was later dismembered in the basement, and his head initially stored in a plastic bag inside Berdella's freezer before being buried in the backyard.^{[n 4]}

Escape

By the third day of his capture, Bryson had earned sufficient trust from Berdella to persuade him to establish a daily regime of tying his hands in front of him after his sexual abuse rather than to the bed above his head, upon the excuse that his doing so was restricting the circulation to his arms. He had also persuaded Berdella to leave a television on in the room with the remote control placed between his legs whenever Berdella was out of the room. Bryson later stated to investigators that he thought almost constantly about escaping.^[4]: 16 The following day, he managed to break free of his restraints by burning through them using a book of matches Berdella had inadvertently left in the room and within his reach when he had left the house to go to work.^[1]

Wearing nothing but a dog collar, Bryson managed to escape from the house by jumping from a second floor window, breaking a bone in his foot. He ran toward a meter reader who was walking down the other side of the street, shouting for him to call the police.^[24] The meter reader led Bryson to the house he had been approaching; the occupants called the police, who arrived minutes later.^[4]: 17

Questioned at the scene by four officers, Bryson initially claimed he had been hitchhiking when abducted by Berdella, who had kidnapped, raped, and tortured him for four days before he escaped by jumping from a window on the second floor of the property.^[25] Berdella had kept him bound to a bed on the second floor of the house throughout much of the time, repeatedly sodomizing him, drugging him, and injecting his throat with drain cleaner to diminish his ability to speak loudly. As Bryson spoke, the officers also noted that in addition to the dog collar and broken foot, Bryson had red, swollen eyes, and visible scars and welts across his entire body. Two officers were told to maintain a discreet surveillance of the property; Bryson was driven to the Menorah Medical Center for treatment, accompanied by a third officer, while the fourth officer radioed the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD) to request a formal search warrant of the property.^{[4]: 24–25}

Search warrant

On the afternoon of Bryson's escape, Berdella was arrested on charges pertaining to the sexual assault of Christopher Bryson. He declined to allow officers inside his home,^[4]: 26 and the search warrant earlier requested was drafted to search his property.^[11] Corroborating Bryson's claims of having been restrained and tortured in a second floor bedroom, investigators discovered the bedroom on the second floor had burnt ropes attached to the posts at the foot of the bed. Also in the room was an electrical transformer plugged into a wall, with wires leading to the bed. A metal tray containing syringes, small bottles apparently containing prescription drugs, swabs, and eye drops were also close to the bed.^[11] Also found in the room were a long iron pipe, various lengths of rope, and leather belts. Investigators also noted that posts on the bed had been extensively worn, suggesting that restraints had earlier been tied to them, and that the individual or individuals had struggled to free themselves.^{[4]: 33 [n 7]}

Searching the house and grounds of 4315 Charlotte Street, investigators uncovered a human skull inside a closet on the second floor of his property,^[26] and a partially decomposed human head in the backyard.^[27] The search also uncovered several human vertebrae scarred by both hacksaw and knife marks stowed in a hallway,^[4]: 44 and several human teeth stowed in two envelopes.^[14] Both a hacksaw and a miter saw were discovered in the basement of the property,^[21] and a chainsaw was also found to be soiled with bloodstains, flesh, and pubic hairs. Luminol tests revealed that the floor of Berdella's basement, and two plastic trash barrels, were extensively bloodstained.

Three hundred and thirty four Polaroid pictures and 34 snapshot prints of various men were also found in Berdella's house.^[6] These pictures showed Christopher Bryson and several other men both in life and in death; many of the images had been taken while the subjects were being tortured.^[4]: 36 The search also uncovered numerous restraints and sexual devices, pornographic literature, hypodermic needles, and a book on narcotics. Officers also discovered a stenographer's pad containing detailed torture logs that Berdella had maintained for each victim lying atop a chest of drawers.^[4]: 37 Several newspaper clippings from The Kansas City Star mentioning a missing young man named Jerry Howell, and a wallet and driver's license belonging to a missing person named James Ferris were discovered in a closet on the second floor of the property.^[4]: 41

Task force and further investigation

Before the search of Berdella's property had concluded, the KCPD assembled a special task force of 11 detectives and one sergeant to focus exclusively on the Berdella case. This task force extensively researched Berdella's history, discovering that he was well known among Kansas City's male hustlers, having earned a reputation for preying on transient young men. Several of these male prostitutes were also reluctant to accept him as a client both because of his penchant for drugging, injecting, and torturing his sexual partners and acquaintances, and also because he had long been considered a suspect in the disappearance of the two men whose personal possessions had been found in his house (Jerry Howell and James Ferris).^[28]

Missing person reports had been filed for both of these men, and Berdella had been extensively questioned in relation to these disappearances; he denied having anything to do with the disappearances. Despite being considered a prime suspect in both cases and being placed under surveillance, police had been unable to find any solid evidence linking him to either man's disappearance. In both instances, after giving his initial statement to police, Berdella indignantly refused to talk further without having a lawyer present.^[28] His lawyer would later threaten to file harassment accusations against police unless their questioning and surveillance of him ceased.

James Ferris's wife identified him in several Polaroids found at Berdella's property, some taken after her husband's death. Paul Howell formally identified one picture of a young man hanging upside down in Berdella's basement as his son.^[28] Several other Polaroid images depicted as-yet unidentified young men, and several detectives were assigned to identify them to determine if they were alive or dead and, if alive, the circumstances of the picture. Since several of these images depicted a section of the body of the photographer, on April 13, Berdella was ordered to pose nude for a series of photographs in the same precise angles as the evidence photos for comparison with the original Polaroid images.^{[4]: 121–122}

As numerous male names had been found scrawled upon various stenographer's pads at Berdella's address, the detectives began attempting to trace each of them. One of those traced, a young man named Freddie Kellogg, was able to state to detectives he and several other young men had intermittently lodged with Berdella since the early 1980s, and that Berdella had been in the habit of plying his lodgers with drugs – typically intravenously – before engaging in sex with them regardless of whether they consented or not.^[11]

Kellogg stated that in order for him to be allowed to lodge with Berdella, he must agree to persuade young men whom Berdella found attractive to attend parties at Charlotte Street so that Berdella could drug them. Should Berdella ever discover that any of them was a police informant, he would use this knowledge to blackmail him.^[11] In spite of this threat, Kellogg stated that numerous male prostitutes and addicts had been reluctant to engage in any form of contact with Berdella because of rumors of his links to the 1984 disappearance of Jerry Howell.^[4]: 261

In addition to these disclosures, Kellogg was able to name three of the men depicted in the Polaroids as Todd Stoops, Robert Sheldon, and Larry Wayne Pearson.^{[4]: 94–95} The investigators would discover that Berdella had paid a $30 fee to secure a bond for Pearson in June 1987 (the equivalent of about $78 as of 2023),^[12] and that no further records existed to indicate that Pearson was still alive. Nonetheless, investigators did discover that in August 1987, Berdella had filed an assault report from a hospital room, alleging that a man named "Larry Person" had deeply bitten his penis during oral sex, causing a serious laceration.^{[4]: 316–317} An interview with Robert Sheldon's employers at a Kansas City manufacturing plant confirmed that although the young man had been a reliable employee, he had suddenly ceased attending work in April 1985.

Shortly after the search of 4315 Charlotte Street had concluded, Berdella was informed of the discoveries at his property. The same afternoon he was ordered to pose for the series of nude photographs for comparison with the Polaroid images he had taken, investigators attempted to conduct their first formal investigation with him, although Berdella simply invoked his right to silence in this setting. (Investigators later sought to obtain handwriting samples from Berdella in an effort to prove he had written the notes found within the various stenographer's pads discovered at his house; he refused to cooperate and was sentenced to six months in jail for contempt of court.)^[4]: 180

Plea bargain

Despite initially pleading not guilty to the remaining five murder charges on September 13, 1988,^[34][35] with the agreement of his two defense attorneys, Berdella ultimately conducted a plea bargain with the prosecutors in order to avoid the death penalty in these remaining charges.^[32] In this plea bargain, Berdella agreed to confess in graphic detail as to whom he had killed, what indignities he had subjected each victim, how he had killed each victim, and what he had done with their bodies. These confessions were given to prosecutors between December 13 and 15, 1988.^[32] In return for his cooperation, the prosecution agreed not to seek the death penalty^[36] at a formal hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. on December 19.^[30]

On December 19, 1988, Berdella formally waived his rights to be tried for any of the outstanding murder charges, upon the understanding he was to be convicted of one further count of first-degree murder (that of Robert Sheldon), and four counts of second-degree murder. He formally pleaded guilty to each of these charges before Judge Robert Meyers in the Jackson County Circuit Court. Members of the public were prohibited from attending this hearing, with only family members of his victims and news reporters permitted access to the proceedings. In response to these guilty pleas, Judge Meyers imposed five further concurrent life sentences, with an additional condition barring any future prospect of parole in the sole case of first-degree murder to which he pleaded guilty.^[10]

Film

• The 2009 feature film Berdella is based directly on the murders committed by Robert Berdella. Written and directed by William Taft, and co-directed by Paul South, the film stars Seth Correa as Berdella.^[51]

Television

• A 2004 documentary, Bazaar Bizarre – sometimes styled James Ellroy Presents Bazaar Bizarre – is based on journalist Tom Jackman's book Rites of Burial and directed by Benjamin Meade. Bazaar Bizarre recounts the murders committed by Berdella, and includes archive footage of interviews with Berdella prior to his death. Christopher Bryson is among those interviewed for this documentary.^[52][53][44]