Serial Killers
Dean: The Zodiac?
Sam: Seven victims.
Dean: No. Bass fishing, needlepoint ...that's a hobby, okay? Collecting serial-killer stats ...that's ...that is an illness.
Dean: Dahmer?
Sam: 17.
Dean: That's some freaky stuff, man. It's a whole new side of you.
Sam: It's called true crime, Dean. It's a hobby.
Serial killer is a term generally used to describe someone who commits three or more murders at different times, and usually committed in different places. The term is used in this sense in Supernatural in relation to humans, although many vengeful spirits and demons would also fit this definition. In fact Bela Talbot even refers to Sam and Dean as serial killers.
Sam Winchester is fascinated with serial killers. In 10.14 The Executioner's Song, Dean quizzes him on the murder statistics of different serial killers. In 11.05 Thin Lizzie, when Sam finds a case in the Lizzie Borden House and is keen to investigate, Dean says: "This has something to do with your freaky fetish for serial killers."
In 14.03 The Scar, Jody says that she had thought a serial killer was responsible for a series of deaths, and Sam states that it would be the first one in South Dakota since Robert Leroy Anderson, demonstrating his knowledge of true crime. Dean gives him a mocking look.
Contents
Episodes
1.07 Hook Man
In 1862, Jacob Karns killed 13 women. His spirit continued to kills people, feeding off repressed emotions until his silver hook hand he was thethered to was destroyed.
1.12 Faith
David Berkowitz is the name on the credit card that Sam gives to the nurse in the hospital to pay for Dean's treatment. There is an extremely famous person with the same name, the serial killer also known as "Son of Sam."
2.05 Simon Said
Dean comments when examining Andy's van "Not exactly a serial killer's lair, though. There's no... clown paintings on the walls, or scissors stuck in victims' photos. I like the tiger." Dean mentioning clown paintings is a reference to John Wayne Gacy, who was known to paint portraits of his alter ego "Pogo the Clown" while incarcerated.
2.06 No Exit
H.H. Holmes is often called America's first serial killer. The number of his victims has typically been estimated between 20 to 100, and even as high as 230, however, the only verified number is 2. In 1893 he opened a hotel for the Chicago World's Fair and used it to trap, torture and kill his victims. In Supernatural, his ghost is haunting the apartment building which was erected over the site where he was hung. When the Winchesters are researching people killed at Moyamensing Prison, it is Sam who recognizes that Herman Webster Mudgett was H.H. Holmes real name.
3.15 Time Is on My Side
After Doc Benton found the secret to immortality, over many years he would kill people for their body parts to keep himself alive. Sam and Dean are able to stop him by burying him alive.
7.15 Repo Man
Jeffrey was a postal worker with psychopathic tendencies, who was possessed by a demon who started killing people. After the demon was exorcised, Jeffrey eventually began killing on his own. Eventually he would hope to be reunited with his demon after performing a special ritual to summon exorcised demons. The demon, would however refuse to possess Jeffery revealing it is only a "recruiter" and has already unleashed Jeffery's potential.
7.19 Of Grave Importance
Whitman Van Ness killed his fiance, and a number of other women. He died at the age of 40, and continued to haunt the Van Ness House, killing many people over the decades all the while uses the other trapped ghosts in the house to feed off of and become stronger.
10.14 The Executioner's Song
Cain teleports to death row to visit one of his descendants; Tommy Tolliver. Before he was arrested, Tolliver killed nine people, but the state only arrested him for seven. Cain kills him and teleports away with his body.
While Sam and Dean visit death row to investigate Tolliver's disappearance, Sam comments on how he collects serial killer stats from watching movies from the true crime genre, including murders commited by the Zodiac and Dahmer.
Castiel discovers that Cain is committing genocide by killing off his descendants. "Culling one in ten of everyone." He kills people of varying ages and genders and buries their corpses in a plot somewhere in Illinois. Before he can kill Tommy's estranged son Austin Reynolds, he is captured by Sam and Crowley and Dean kills Cain with the First Blade.
11.05 Thin Lizzie
Sam and Dean visit the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast Museum, much to Dean's dismay due to his aversion to Sam's fetish for serial killers. Lizzie Borden was commited for hacking her father and stepmom with a hatchet in 1892. She ended up getting acquitted and spent the rest of her life persecuted by the townspeople.
Len Fletcher talks about how he and Amara were discussing Lizzie Borden. He stated that her uncle had stronger motive and opportunity to kill them, but Amara tells Len that she can tell that Lizzie definitely killed her victims.
14.03 The Scar
Sam shows off his knowledge of serial killers by mentioning Robert Leroy Anderson, who was a killer in South Dakota who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999.