Leave No Child Behind

It’s often said that the first serial killer was Jack the Ripper, who terrorized London’s poor Whitechapel district in the latter half of 1888, brutally killing at least five prostitutes. But Jeri Westerson, who’s penning an as-yet-unpublished series about an ex-knight turned criminal investigator, came across a much earlier example of the breed, while researching her latest novel. He was Gilles de Rais, a 15th-century French nobleman, soldier, and ally of Joan of Arc. Westerson describes Rais as “truly a nasty fellow. A pedophile, a torturer, murderer, necrophiliac ... and a Satanist. But it was that last bit that really got him in trouble.”

To read the full results of Westerson’s research, click here.