Serial Killer of the Month: The Mad Biter
To be considered a serial killer, you have to kill at least three people. Look, I don’t make the rules, OK?Richard Otto Macek — the Mad Biter — got into the club by the skin of his —Well, no. Not gonna say that.When I was researching I Hunt Killers, the very first book I read was My Life Among the Serial Killers, by Dr. Helen Morrison. Morrison was a psychiatrist who did some of the first early work in trying to understand serial killers, so hers was a seminal volume and really helped me get into Billy’s head. In later years, some people quibbled with her work and her conclusions, but I wasn’t writing a treatise — I was writing fiction. She was helpful in the early going as I was generating context.She also has John Wayne Gacy’s brain in a jar in her basement. As you do.Her writing about Macek was interesting because he was the first serial killer she encountered. Macek became obsessed with her and apparently at one point thought she was his wife. Weird.Anyway, you can imagine why he was called the Mad Biter: Yes, dude liked to chew on the people he’d killed. He even worked his jaws on a couple of people he didn’t finish the job with.In the end, we are aware of three deaths attributable to him (including a young child), as well as some assaults that did not end in deaths. Macek was caught, tried, and imprisoned. In 1987, he did us all a favor and hanged himself with his shoelaces.Here’s his Wikipedia page. (This piece comes from my newsletter, which goes out monthly. For more stuff like this, and to get it first, sign up here!) Read the full article
