#robert berdella

Come here for fun and games at the bazaar.

"Charlotte" was inspired by a book that Kittie member Morgan Lander read. The book, Rites of Burial by Tom Jackman and Troy Cole, was about a serial killer named Robert Berdella. In an interview with Songfacts.com, Lander said about the serial killer: "He did a lot of really, really messed up things, and the story really stuck with me. I thought it was really quite sad and disturbing. So, it draws lyrical inspiration from that."

Robert Andrew Berdella Jr. (January 31, 1949 – October 8, 1992) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered at least six young men after forcing his victims to endure periods of up to six weeks of captivity.[2] His crimes took place in Kansas City, Missouri, between 1984 and 1987.[3]

Describing his murders as being "some of my darkest fantasies becoming my reality",[4]: 264  Berdella pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the first-degree murder of one of his victims, Larry Pearson, in August 1988; he would later plead guilty to one further charge of first-degree murder and four charges of second-degree murder in December 1988.[5] He died of a heart attack while incarcerated at the Missouri State Penitentiary in October 1992.[6]

Berdella became known as the Kansas City Butcher due to his practice of extensively dissecting his victims' bodies, which he would then dispose of in garbage bags, and The Collector due to the movie which he stated was the basis of the fantasies behind the modus operandi of his crimes.[4][7]

Berdella