I had suspicions about my dad’s strange behaviour… but nothing could have prepared me for the disgusting truth
It’s not just the victims suffering at the hands of ruthless serial killers – often the innocent family of the killer is lost as well.
Such was the case for 48-year-old Jenn Carson, when at the age of 8, she discovered her father, Michael Bear Carson, was a ruthless killer who murdered at least three members of a family. california with stepmother Suzan Barnes.
The duo were dubbed the infamous San Francisco Witch Slayers because they believed their victims had supernatural powers.
Jenn opened up about how their evil crimes have severely affected her life in an interview with Everybody.
“When I was nine years old, I saw every adult as a potential killer. The whole world terrified me. I was also afraid that I would grow up to kill people,” she said.
“I want people to understand that this kind of shame is corrosive. And that’s why I’m telling my story.”
The most people in the world notorious killer used to live a relatively normal life with his wife and children, who were oblivious to their heinous crimes.
Here we take a look at the other children of the deadly monsters.
‘Secondary victim’
Melissa Moore‘father of Keith Jesperson is currently serving a three-year life sentence for strangling at least eight women to death, although he once claimed his victims amounted to 185.
Jesperson is known as the Happy Face Killer when he leaves smiley face drawings next to the victim’s body.
In 2010, Melissa revealed that as a child, she saw her father, whom she considers a social killer, torturing and killing kittens and there’s a sense of “another side to him”.
Speaking in a 2015 interview, she said: “We [children of serial killers] are secondary crime victims. We carry that shame with us and we want to get rid of it.”
She added: “I feel like I’m related to my father, but I don’t cause pain. But knowing that my father caused some pain hurts me.”
Melissa also talked about how she had to seek counseling to try to work through the trauma of being involved with a cold-blooded killer.
Last year, she revealed Jesperson, now 67, had sent her letters from prison – including one asking why he wasn’t invited to her wedding and telling her the marriage would does not last.
‘I turned my back on my murderous father’
After decades of doubting his father Edward Wayne Edwards As a murderer, Amy Balascio finally mustered the courage to open her own investigation in 2009.
She remembers her father, who abused her mother, obsessed with murders and police investigations – he often had local crime reports and would call the police about their investigation.
Edwards would move his family about every six months at midnight, leaving no trace.
After months of investigation, Amy finally discovered her father had killed at least 5 people and handed him over to the police.
Children are not stupid. There are dead bodies. Someone is always murdered wherever we live
Amy Balascio
After Edwards was arrested, further investigation revealed that he had killed more than 15 people.
He was sentenced to death by lethal injection in August 2011 but died of natural causes 4 months earlier.
In 2018, Amy said: “Children are not stupid. There are corpses. Someone is always murdered wherever we live.
“During this whole process, you keep hoping that he’s not the monster I thought he was, that he’s just my dad and very hot-tempered.”
‘Mom blames me’
Together Fred And western rose commit rape, abuse, incest, and kill 10 peopleincluding some of their own children, with most taking place in their home in Gloucester.
Investigating their gruesome crimes, the detectives discover they will kidnap the girls from the bus stop, detain them for a few days and torture them before ending his life.
Their act of brutality involved Rose killing Charmaine West – Fred’s stepdaughter from a previous marriage – and their daughter Heather Ann.
Fred also raped his stepdaughter Ann Marie and forced her into prostitution.
In 1999, she called me hateful and blamed me for everything. She said I should die when I was born
Stephen West
The couple had nine children between them, including Stephenwho in 2002 was jailed for having sex with a 14-year-old girl when he was in his early 30s.
In 2021, Stephen revealed the last conversation he had with his mother 20 years ago before he cut ties with her.
“In 1999, she called me with hatred and blamed me for everything. She said I should have died at birth and all that. It was a disgrace,” he remembers. again.
“She’s callous, evil, cruel, vindictive, or manipulative. He’s just a minion in a way. He just does what she wants him to do.
“I’m not saying he didn’t get any satisfaction out of it. I’m sure he did. But basically the torture was under her control.”
Rose, 69, is currently serving a life sentence at HMP New Hall but Fred died in 1995 after killing himself while in custody at HMP Birmingham.
‘Living with a psychopath’
Dennis Raderwho has been raging murderous for 30 years, finds it amusing to describe himself as a BTK killer – meaning to tie, torture, and kill.
He kill 10 people in Wichita, Kansas, and sent mocking letters to the police and the media in which he would detail his heinous crimes.
The letters were his fiasco as they led to his arrest in 2005 – when questioned, he told police that the “volume of evidence” was under the floorboards of the house he lived in. I share with my wife Paula and their two children, including Kerri Rawson.
In 2014, Kerri surfaced to say that the family had no idea he was behind the brutal murders.
Five years later, she explains: “My mother and I both said very early on that if we had known, we would have yelled out the door and ran to the police.
“It’s not like you’re going to sit there and make him dinner after finding out he’s killed 10 people. [We] didn’t know we were living with a psychopath.
“They hide it very well… I mean, my mom lived with him for 34 years, and 90, 95% of the time, he’s a good, loving husband and father.”
The 77-year-old monster is serving 10 consecutive life sentences at El Dorado Correctional Facility in Kansas.
‘Love and support’
During the 80’s and 90’s, Gary Ridgway killed up to 80 women and was able to conceal his reputation as a loving family man.
His son, Matthew, describes his father as a loving and supportive person who joined him in ordinary activities such as fishing and cycling.
He usually picks up women with Matthew in the car to lure his victims and evade suspicion.
The vile monster would then kill them and have sex with their corpses – in a documentary he claims that his young son was with him at least one of the killing.
Matthew was 26 years old when his father was first arrested in November 2001. The 74-year-old is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Now in his late 40s, Michael lives a reclusive life in the San Diego area.
Crime family
In the two months since January 2002, Ward Weaver III killed a 12-year-old girl and her classmate, 13, in Fairfield, California.
Weaver had a turbulent childhood when his father, Ward Weaver, Jr., was convicted of double murder in 1984.
During the trial of the younger Weaver in 2002, his stepson Francis, who both believe they were biologically related, was applauded and called a hero for his words. Witness statements help arrest the killer.
The family’s history of violence continued in 1998 when Francis was suspended from school for strangling another student and charged with aggravated assault after shooting a rifle at a vehicle full of teenagers the following year. .
Fast forward to 2016, he found himself in more trouble with the law and was sentenced to life in prison for shooting a drug dealer in the face in 2014.