Making a Monster

BRITAIN'S MOST DEPRAVED FEMALE KILLER. Rosemary West certainly has notoriety – she is perhaps second only to fellow child-killer Myra Hindley as the most loathed woman in British legal history. But the true extent of Rose West’s depravity may still come as a shock to those who think of her as simply an accomplice of her equally infamous husband, Fred West.

ABUSED AS A CHILD, ROBERT MAUDSLEY KILLED ABUSERS AS AN ADULT. Among those under the microscope is Robert Maudsley, currently locked away in solitary confinement as one of the longest serving prisoners in British history. His CV sets him apart from the majority of other serial murderers. For one thing, most of his killings actually occurred when he was already in prison. For another, his crimes were not sexually motivated, or committed out of an urge to control or dominate or inflict pain for the simple sadistic pleasure of it.

Levi Bellfield was found guilty on 25 February 2008 of the murders of Marsha McDonnell and Amélie Delagrange and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy and sentenced to life imprisonment. Three years later he was found guilty for the murder of Milly Dowler. Chartered forensic psychologist Dr Caoimhe McAnena interviewed Bellfield just after he’d confessed to the murder of Milly Dowler. Having also worked with infamous killers such as Trevor Hardy, Ian Huntley and Mark Bridger she provides a unique insight into what it takes to make a killer.

Scottish serial killer and paedophile, Robert Black was convicted of the kidnap, rape, sexual assault and murder of four girls aged between 5 and 11 in a series of killings committed between 1981 and 1986. Having spent many hours interviewing Black, Forensic psychologist Dr Adrian Needs offers unprecedented insight into his dark mind.

Between 1981 and 1984, Ross murdered eight girls and women aged between 14 and 25 in Connecticut and New York. In 2005 he was executed and is the last person to be sentenced to death in Connecticut before the state repealed capital punishment in 2012. In the final episode of the series, psychiatrist and sexologist Dr Fred Berlin discusses appearing as an expert witness in Ross’s trial and supporting him through his attempts to bring forward his death penalty. English

Aileen Wuornos was an American serial killer who murdered seven men in Florida in 1989 and 1990. Wuornos claimed that her victims had either raped or attempted to rape her while she was a sex worker, and that all of the homicides were committed in self-defence. She was convicted and sentenced to death for six of the murders and was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002. This episode features, Professor Jethro Toomer, who spent more than 35 years practising forensic and clinical psychology. Having specialised in death row cases, he interviewed a number of high-profile serial killers including Ted Bundy and Aileen Wuornos. He carried out the psychological assessment of Wuornos before her trial where she discussed her troubled life and transition to serial killing in unprecedented detail.

John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer who raped, tortured and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978. Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death on March 13, 1980 for 12 of those murders. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection. In this episode, clinical psychologist Dr Richard Rappaport who acted as an expert witness in Gacy’s trial and interviewed him for more than 65 hours provides a deep understanding of his psyche and the factors that drove him to kill.

A look into the mind of media-savvy serial killer who took the lives of three sex workers in his sickening quest for infamy.