Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
According to the Big Murder Pods, serial killers never fail. America loves to give its serial killers dramatic names. The Zodiac Killer. The Night Stalker. The Golden State Killer. These monikers carry weight, inspire terror, suggest a certain terrible competence that makes Nancy Grace’s eyes go all glittery. Documentary filmmakers cream their jeans over this stuff. Entire streaming platforms have been built on the foundation of white women in their thirties drinking wine and learning about BTK.
But you know what you never hear about?
The failed serial killers.
The ones who were so catastrophically, magnificently, almost impressively bad at serial killing that they didn’t even make it to a nickname, let alone a Netflix series with an ominous piano soundtrack. The ones who got caught before they could refresh their LinkedIn profile to “Freelance Murderer.” These serial killer failures represent the incompetent criminals who couldn’t figure out the basic mechanics of homicide despite having Wikipedia and several true crime podcasts to learn from. These unsuccessful murderers deserve recognition too, if only to remind us that evil still has to file its TPS reports like everyone else.
The Corduroy Killer
Active for approximately forty-five minutes in 1987, the Corduroy Killer’s reign of terror was cut tragically short by the fact that he sounded like a windshield wiper having an argument with itself. Witnesses report hearing a distinctive thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip sound approaching from several blocks away, giving them ample time to lock their doors, call the police, order a pizza, eat the pizza, and still have time left over to consider whether they’d adequately seasoned the crust.
The suspect was eventually apprehended hiding behind a tree that was significantly narrower than he was, still making the noise. Turns out he’d worn corduroy everything. Corduroy pants. Corduroy jacket. Corduroy turtleneck, which shouldn’t even exist but apparently does in the darker corners of thrift stores. He’d even commissioned a custom corduroy balaclava from an Etsy seller who later testified that she “had concerns but really needed the five-star review.”
One detective described him as “aggressively announcing his presence through friction, like if a sofa could commit a felony.”
The IKEA Wrench Killer
This aspiring murderer’s manifesto, which he’d written in a Moleskin notebook purchased specifically for manifesto purposes, promised to “disassemble victims into their component parts, reducing the complexity of human existence to its fundamental elements.” Pretty heavy stuff. Genuinely creepy. Would have worked great if not for his choice of weapon: the Allen wrench that comes free with a HEMNES dresser.
You know the one. That little L-shaped piece of metal that barely qualifies as a tool, the thing that makes you question whether IKEA is just conducting a long-term psychological experiment on the human capacity for frustration. The tool designed to barely assemble Swedish furniture under optimal conditions, with good lighting and a supportive partner who isn’t judging you.
It proved even less effective at disassembly.
His first attempted victim reported that the killer “sort of poked me with it for a while, like he was trying to find a hex socket on my ribcage. Then he got frustrated and tried to tighten something on my shoulder. It just spun uselessly, making that clicking sound. We both stood there for like twenty seconds in this profoundly awkward silence. Then I left. He didn’t try to stop me. I think he was crying a little.”
The killer was later found in his apartment, surrounded by unassembled IKEA furniture, having given up on both murder and Swedish organizational systems. Definitely one of the worst serial killers in the history of terrible life choices.
The Bubble Wrap Suffocation Specialist
Attempted three murders. All three victims are now in therapy, but not because of trauma. They’re in therapy because they discovered they have a bubble wrap popping addiction and it’s affecting their relationships. The Specialist would approach his targets in parking garages, alleys, anywhere with good echo acoustics really, wielding sheets of industrial-grade bubble wrap with the kind of dramatic flair you usually only see in Zorro movies.
He’d press the wrap against their faces for what was supposed to be a terrifying suffocation experience. And then… pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.
Witnesses report victims actually helping hold the bubble wrap in place because “it was just so goddamn satisfying.” The popping became collaborative. Communal, even. One victim later testified: “At first I was scared, obviously. Strange man, bubble wrap, parking garage at night. All the ingredients for an SVU episode. But then I popped one. And then another. And holy shit, it was like scratching an itch I didn’t know I had. We popped together for like an hour. Very therapeutic, actually. Life-changing, if I’m being honest.”
The Specialist eventually turned himself in, not out of guilt, but because he couldn’t afford to keep buying bubble wrap. His victims keep in touch through a Facebook group called “Popaholics Anonymous.”
The Motivational Speaker Killer
This one’s a real enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a Tony Robbins seminar. Started with all the dark intentions of a proper serial killer. He stalked victims for weeks. Broke into homes. Cornered people in parking garages. Had the whole theatrical murderer thing down cold. But then, right at the critical moment when he should have been doing murder things, he’d start talking about their potential.
“You could be so much more than this,” he’d say, gesturing at their cubicle or their studio apartment with the bad water pressure. “When was the last time you felt passion about your work? Real passion? When did you stop dreaming?”
By the second impromptu life-coaching session, he’d have them setting SMART goals. By the third, they’d turned their lives around entirely, quit their soul-crushing jobs, started the pottery business they’d always fantasized about during particularly boring conference calls.
The police have seventeen attempted murder charges they can’t quite make stick because all his “victims” credit him with their current success. One is now a motivational speaker herself, touring the country talking about “that time an attempted murderer helped me find my authentic self.” He’s been offered three book deals, a podcast, and a TED Talk. His working title is “Killing Your Old Life: A Murderer’s Guide to Personal Growth.”
The FBI has reluctantly classified him as “chaotic good.”
The Waiting Room Killer
Brilliant plan: poison the coffee in doctors’ waiting rooms. Simple. Effective. Lots of potential victims all lined up like a murderous buffet.
Fatal flaw: waiting rooms already have the most suspicious coffee imaginable. That shit was born poisoned. It comes out of the urn looking like it’s already conducted several murders of its own and is just waiting for someone stupid enough to drink it so it can add to its body count.
No one drinks waiting room coffee. Not even in emergencies. Not even in those moments of desperate caffeine withdrawal when you’d normally consider licking the inside of an old Starbucks cup you found under your car seat.
The killer sat in a Kaiser Permanente waiting room for six hours watching his poisoned pot of coffee grow cold and crystallize into something that could probably kill through proximity alone, like if swamp water and regret had a baby and that baby was raised by expired medications. But which absolutely no human would voluntarily consume.
Not even Frank, the guy who’d been sitting across from him eating a sandwich he’d clearly made three days ago. And Frank will eat anything. Frank once ate a Lunchable he found on the bus.
The killer eventually turned himself in out of boredom and because Judge Judy was on and he couldn’t hear it over some kid screaming about getting a shot.
The lesson here isn’t that murder is acceptable if you’re competent at it, although I feel like that should be obvious and the fact that I’m saying it at all is concerning. The lesson is that incompetence is a universal human experience, even among the psychopathically motivated. Especially among the psychopathically motivated, actually, because if they had good decision-making skills they probably wouldn’t be trying to murder strangers with bubble wrap in the first place.
This collection of serial killer humor proves that even the darkest criminal intentions can’t overcome fundamental incompetence. Somewhere right now, there’s probably an aspiring serial killer whose weapon of choice is one of those inflatable tube men from car dealerships, or who keeps getting distracted by really good podcasts right at the critical moment, or who can’t commit to a signature murder style because he’s worried it’ll limit his brand and he wants to stay flexible in case the market shifts.
And honestly? Thank god for incompetence.
It might be the only thing standing between civilization and complete chaos. Well, that and the fact that most people aren’t trying to murder anyone in the first place, which really does deserve more credit than it gets. We should hand out participation trophies for “Successfully Not Murdering Anyone Today.” Raise the bar, you know?
But mainly the incompetence.
Key Takeaways
- The article humorously explores the concept of failed serial killers who are so incompetent they never achieve notoriety.
- Examples include the Corduroy Killer, who drew attention with a distinct noise, and the IKEA Wrench Killer, whose weapon was ineffective.
- The Bubble Wrap Suffocation Specialist ironically created a therapeutic experience rather than a terrifying one.
- Even the Motivational Speaker Killer inadvertently inspired personal growth in his victims, turning them away from murder.
- Overall, the article emphasizes that incompetence can prevent chaos and even highlights the absurdity behind these failed attempts.
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His first manuscript was composed entirely of punctuation marks and confused sketches. He's since published "Not Bukowski" (poems that don't rhyme) and "Slop and Swell from a Festering Mind" (essays so concerning that bookstores check on his well-being). He once spent three hours photographing a rare bird that turned out to be a plastic bag, and he's the only person banned from church bake sales for "weaponized brownies." Inheriting absurdism from Vonnegut and Adams, sprawling narratives from Irving, and weaponized failure from Moore, he writes about conflicted everymen struggling through supernatural chaos.
He has two new, offbeat novels waiting for an agent or a publisher: "Truth Tastes Like Pennies" and "Elliot Nessie."
He remains unconvinced that birds aren't surveillance drones.
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