Blondie and Victim Selection
You cannot become an accomplished serial killer overnight. However, if you have the patience, determination and courage to couple with the teachings of this guide, then I can guarantee your success.
Victim selection principles
Superb victim selection practice is at the heart of my success.
I made mistakes early on, with Jono and Sarah.
Had I carried on the way I’d started my career, I’d almost certainly be writing this opus from behind bars.
Thankfully, after my conversation with the police following Sarah’s loss, I had the sense to develop some proper victim selection principles.
Consistency in this domain is one of the main reasons I have been able to enjoy high kill rates and my freedom simultaneously.
The three core principles are:
Victims must be selected at random, with no characteristics in common that could lead to identification of a pattern or type.
Victims must not be known or connected to you, nor live near you.
Victims must not be children.
The final principle is, of course, a matter of personal taste.
Be warned, though, that the public has an unnatural attachment to cases involving children/infants and this tends to result in a greater budget and effort-level from law enforcement.
If your ambition is young ones, I advise that you achieve at least moderate competence levels first.
Alongside these core principles, I also tend to avoid particular types of potential victims who could be especially troublesome. These include: drug lords, Mafia bosses or their families; people with elite MMA skills; anyone with a fighting dog in the home; HIV carriers; Vinnie Jones.
What makes a good victim?
The answer to this question depends a lot on you.
You may have a particular type of person that you intend to target.
You may, for example, want to rid the world of lecherous men.
I jest, of course—there’d be none of us left.
As well as any agenda you may have, you also need to be guided by your own physicality and competence level.
As your skills grow, you can select more challenging victims, but I’ll give some general guidance here.
When considering your victims, their personality is as important as their physicality.
By far the best victims are those who are highly suggestible.
This type of person is far more likely to enter a victim mindset, where they will basically do anything you tell them right up to the point they’re sure you’re going to kill them.
Compliant victims almost always guarantee a smooth kill.
You can identify more compliant personalities in a variety of ways.
Look for people-pleasers and those with low self-esteem, who apologize often and seem to deem themselves unworthy of even existing.
They’ll try to blend in, to belong—which means dressing and acting like those in their immediate social groups.
Teddy Bundy was the absolute master at identifying the compliant victim.
His strategy was to pretend to need help and to ask young women for assistance.
Sometimes, he’d even wear fake arm or leg plaster casts, or carry crutches.
Teddy could get those gals to walk miles at a time, lugging boxes and all sorts before they even whispered a complaint.
Teddy wasn’t consistently great, though, and we can learn from that.
For instance, he approached a young, pre-fame Debbie Harry in a public location, with witnesses, and had to practically beg her to get into his car.
She even marched away from him at one point, forcing him to trail her—bad move, Ted—clear red flags.
No wonder she fought back when she noticed that he’d removed the internal handles from his car.
You already know that Debbie escaped and I confess I’m pleased that Teddy lost that one.
Anyway—compliance. Look for it and reap the rewards.
Traits that make a good victim also include clear weaknesses that you can exploit.
Some examples: drug addicts, who’ll do almost anything on a promise; people with mental illnesses; poor people and the homeless, obviously.
Get to these people before the God-botherers pluck them from the street and buy them a Greggs in exchange for singing hosanna. Who even is Hosanna? I digress.
People who are motivated to disappear also make great victims—petty criminals and parolees, for example. People on bail. Look out for anything that limits the person’s options or has conditioned them to be victims already.
In terms of the physical location of victims, a mid-sized city that is outside of your own police jurisdiction is best. Somewhere you can reach and return from within 6–8 hours.
The rationale here is that optimum kill-time is around 3 a.m. in the still of the night.
You can travel to the site two or three hours before, enjoy a comfortable kill-window, and be home in time to secure the alibi that your regular routine provides.
It is my advice to never transport a victim—alive or dead—primarily because of the inevitable forensics trail that this will leave behind.
Transporting a live victim also offers them a higher chance of escape, more opportunity for the public to spot you together and an increased risk of creating circumstantial and digital evidence.
Where and how to find your victims
In this day and age, finding your victims simply couldn’t be easier.
A plethora of options is open to you, and you really can have fun with this stage of the process.
Personally, I like to find my victims organically: a chance encounter on a train, a stroll along the beach, a pleasant wander in the park.
But initially, a more distanced approach can be better for emerging talent.
There are the obvious places to find victims online: dating apps, social media and forums—and I would recommend those for beginners, but please ensure you read all my advice carefully before conducting any online recruitment.
As your skills grow, however, you might enjoy thinking a little more outside of the box.
You can even have your victims find you.
One method that has delivered consistent results for me over the years is one I have affectionately dubbed the Samaritan Technique.
Inspiration for the Samaritan came from a casual stroll I took one day when I was visiting my cousin at university.
I visited as often as I could, despite finding the local accent thuggish-sounding.
During that visit, I had cause to cross a bridge close to Bobby’s university.
A truly stunning piece of Victorian architecture spanning the Big River.
I was appalled to see that this feat of engineering had been littered with dozens of little laminated notes.
These pastel-colored placards had been secured with cable ties to every piece of metalwork as far as the eye could see.
My initial thought was that it was another “celebration” by people forcing their pride upon the world.
I ripped several down, and only then did I notice that the notes had handwriting on them.
We are here for YOU, one note proclaimed.
The next read, Suicide is never the answer—call St. Martin’s on 0800 968 968.
As I continued my walk, I pictured people standing on the wrong side of the railings, looking down at the mangling murk below. Desperate people, ripe for death. Within six weeks, I’d covered four cities with new notes. Not long after that, Sean called me from that same beautiful bridge.