Crime Library: Criminal Minds and Methods

The Ripper Rapists

The Devil Made Me Do It

Over the years, there have been a number of murders with some Satanic connection, whether real or merely claimed. In 1995, 20-year-old David McCallum stabbed a 15-year-old boy 11 times after they and two others used a Ouija board. McCallum, who professed to be a Satanist, believed that he was speaking to Satan himself at the time, "If you are Satan, what is it you want me to do?" (The X Factor). The boy died, and McCallum was placed in an institution for the criminally insane. This happened in the UK.

In Los Angeles there was Richard Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker. Two of his surviving female victims said that he had ordered them to swear by Satan that they would remain silent as he attacked them. He also left Satanic symbols at his crime scenes, some of them on his victims. During a preliminary hearing, Ramirez held his hand up to show a pentagram on his palm and exclaimed "Hail Satan!" Some believe it was real; others, believed it was merely for show.

There was also Sean Sellers of Oklahoma City, aged 16, who first shot and killed a store clerk and then some time later, his mother and stepfather while they were sleeping. He had written the following in a school essay the day before he murdered his parents, as quoted in The X Factor: "Satanism taught me to be a better person for myself rather than for the benefit of others ... I am free. I can kill without remorse. I have seen and experienced horrors and joys indescribable on paper."

A drug-smuggling gang under the leadership of 26-year-old Adolfo de Jesus Constanzo conducted Satanic rituals and human sacrifice and mutilation in the belief that they would become wealthy and invulnerable. Police discovered the severely mutilated and decomposed remains — including a human brain in a cauldron — of at least 13 people on a ranch near Matamoros, Mexico, in April 1989. When the police finally tracked Constanzo down a month later, he ordered his bodyguard to shoot him.

The Gardiners list four categories of Satanists: (1) amateurs who are only marginally involved, especially through music, occult books, movies, clothing and Satanic symbols; (2) amateurs that have become deeper involved through reading more about Satanism and forming a group of their own; (3) Satanists belonging to a formal Satanic church and who refrain from advertising their beliefs as the previous two categories tend to do; and (4) generational Satanists who "inherit" Satanism from their parents and are usually part of a secret and highly organized society.

Neither du Toit nor Kruger belonged to any formal or informal Satanic group. Psychologist Ian Meyer testified that instead they just believed in "the ideologies of Satanism," according to Die Burger (Oos-Kaap) of August 2, 1995. It would seem that they resembled the first group of amateurs, wearing black and going for image more than actual worship.

Du Toit claimed that during a ritual in 1985, conducted by the witch he'd met in Adelaide, a demon had taken possession of him. This demon, which du Toit called Incubus, supposedly spoke to him "inside his head", and would sometimes give him orders to have "violent sex", according to his testimony in Die Burger of June 20, 1995. The demon, according to du Toit, made him attractive to women; despite this, however, Alison was so repulsed by him that she pushed her hands against the car's ceiling so as not to touch him.

To those who believe in demons, Incubi (the plural of incubus) refer to a certain type of demon — male demons which visit females during the night and engage in sexual intercourse with them. Supposedly there is also a female version, called succubi, which visit men at night for the same purpose. This phenomenon has been offered by some as an explanation for nocturnal emissions, or "wet dreams." According to reports of people who claim to have had contact with these demons, they tend to visit their victims at night, in bed, while they are sleeping. They are also usually invisible.

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