Arthur Shawcross seemed almost destined to be a serial killer. His childhood was a virtual blueprint for sociopathic behaviour that included the classic love/hate relationship with his mother and father, behavioural problems, bedwetting, arson, and several head injuries. The result was a man so full of rage that the only question was not if he would kill, but when.

Shawcross' career of murder may have actually begun while doing a tour of duty in Vietnam. The slayer spoke of going into the jungle alone at night and killing women and children in gruesome fashion, though he would claim that the victim's were enemy collaborators.

That pattern of excuses would later repeat itself after his arrest for his stateside murders. To hear him tell it, every victim forced him into murder by attempting to harm him or by insulting him.

The veteran's murders in the U.S. began in 1972 when he killed Jack Blake and Karen Hill in Watertown, New York. The children's bodies were found only days apart and Shawcross was arrested for the Hill slaying which police had more evidence in than Blake's death.

Not enough evidence, evidently, and Shawcross' lawyer managed a plea bargain that landed Shawcross a twenty-five year sentence. He was released in 1987 and after being driven from a few communities after residents found out about his gruesome past conviction, he finally settled into some obscurity in Rochester, New York.

Predictably, it was not long until he began killing again only now his victims became prostitutes, drug users, and homeless women.