19 Shocking True Crime Events That Were So Disturbing, Hollywood Literally Turned Them Into Movies

In March 2007 Lindsey Anne Hawker, a British woman teaching in Japan, was murdered and sexually assaulted by Tatsuya Ichihashi. After this heinous act, he went on the run for two and a half years and performed plastic surgery on himself to further evade authorities. He sliced off his lower lip, dug out his own moles, then paid for two more surgeries to change his nose. He was eventually caught and sentenced to life in prison.

In the movie I am Ichihashi: Journal of a Murderer he’s played by Dean Fujioka 

How many killings does it take to be considered a serial killer? Two? Three? How about around 600? Though Henry Lucas was only convicted of killing three people, including his own damn mother, later in prison he confessed to killing over 600. That’s out of control. He confessed to so much death that he was dubbed The Confession Killer. But in the end, that insane number might have all been a lie.

In the movie Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer he’s played hauntingly by Michael Rooker. 

In June 2010, Stephen Clancy Hill a pornographic actor (who went by the stage name Steve Driver) sharpened a movie prop samurai sword and attacked three people after he was fired and told to leave the porn studio where he had been living. One of those men was his friend Herbert Wong, who was attempting to calm him down. Herbert eventually died from his wounds and Stephen committed suicide by jumping off a hill while surrounded by police after being on the run for four days.

The tragic film Mope takes a deep dive into the porn industry. Hill is played by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Herbert Wong is played by Kelly Sry. 

John Christie was a British man who killed eight people including his wife in the 1940s and 50s London. Not only did he kill them and hide the bodies around his house and garden, but he also had sex with many of his victims as they were dying. The husband of one of his victims was wrongfully hanged for killing his own wife, and John Christie was even a witness at the trial. Imagine their surprise when they realized just three years later, that Christie was the killer all along.

The film 10 Rillington Place focuses mostly on the trial.

Krystian Bala planned and killed small business owner Dariusz Janiszewski. Dariusz's body was found floating in a lake and the crime went unsolved for three years. Krystian was so bold that he used his own act of murder as inspiration for his first novel, which eventually got him caught. And if you're wondering, his book Amok became a hit in Poland and he planned on killing a second victim to inspire a follow-up novel. 

In the film, Jim Carey plays the detective hot on the chase of the killer in Dark Crimes. 

This film follows the infamous story of two star figure skaters, Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. Their rivalry turned to violence when Tonya’s ex-husband Jeff Gillooly planned the attack on Nancy Kerrigan with a baton to the leg that would take her out of competition. Tonya was later banned from figure skating and would eventually turn to boxing and even appearing on Dancing With The Stars. 

Tonya Harding is played expertly by Margot Robbie in the film I, Tonya.

Richard Ramirez was a despicable human who went by many names, The Night Stalker, The Walk-In Killer, and the Valley Intruder. He entered homes, raped, tortured, and killed for fourteen months and was convicted on thirteen counts of murder. He would eventually be caught thanks to the description given by a 13-year-old boy, and by 'caught' I mean a group of citizens spotted him and beat the hell out of him until the cops arrived. 

In the film The Night Stalker, he’s played by Lou Diamond Phillips.

The murders of four members of the Clutter family by two ex-convicts Richard Hickock and Perry Smith rocked the nation and became the subject of the book In Cold Blood by writer Truman Capote. The two convicts broke into the house to steal a safe full of money but when it was revealed there was never any safe the two ex-convicts resorted to killing the family with shotgun blasts to their heads. 

The 1967 film In Cold Blood was shot in the actual home where the murders took place.

In the summer of 1976 David Berkowitz used a .44 caliber gun to kill 6 people and wounded 11 more which led to the biggest manhunt in NY history. To add to this, he sent letters to police, mocking them as he eluded capture which caused widespread panic throughout New York.  

The film Summer of Sam was directed by Spike Lee featuring an all-star cast. 

Over the course of eight years John Justin Bunting, Robert Joe Wagner, and James Spyridon Vlassakis killed twelve people in South Australia. Bunting was the leader and would invent reasons to kill them. The murders shockingly brought tourists to the town that was now infamous for the acts of brutality.

The movie Snowtown was chilling, to say the least.

Lee Chun-jae was a serial killer and sexual predator that killed 14 young women and girls from 1985 to 1994 in South Korea. He was actually only arrested for the sexual assault and killing of a 13-year-old girl in 1988 but after 20 years, he admitted to the remainder of his crimes that went unsolved until his confession. 

The film Memories of Murder was inspired by the investigation and was directed by Bong Joon-ho, who would go on to direct Parasite.

In a matter of three excruciatingly long months, 16-year-old Sylvia Likens was tortured, beaten, malnourished, and tormented by her caretaker and several neighborhood kids until she eventually died from her wounds. Her caretaker, Gertrude Baniszewski was so strict and so sick she'd force children as young as 10 to take part in Sylvia's abuse. 

The film The Girl Next Door chronicles the tragic story.

In a story that will make you question backpacking, the Backpack Murders were orchestrated by serial killer Ivan Milat between 1989 and 1992 where he would offer travelers in Australia rides, then eventually rob and kill them. We know of seven victims, although there are believed to be many more. 

Wolf Creek is a horror film inspired by the killings.

Be careful of your friend group because Bobby Kent was murdered by seven friends, including his best friend Martin Puccio. Kent was described as a bully to the friend group. Martin Puccio would often come home with bruises after spending time with Kent. His killing was a way to stop his alleged abusive reign of terror.  

The film Bully tells the story of this tragic friendship.

Bernie Tiede, a Texas mortician, seemingly became best friends with wealthy widow Marjorie Nugent who was more than forty years his senior. They became so close she transferred her will to him and for that, Bernie shot her in the back four times with a .44 caliber rifle.  In the end, no one in their town cared that Marjorie died because everyone in the neighborhood hated her and those very same residents loved Bernie, seeing him as the nicest man in the world. 

The film Bernie is a black comedy that chronicles the relationship between Bernie and Marjorie that led to her death.

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What happens when a group of bodybuilders decide to become supervillains? Well that's what the Sun Gym Gang did. They kidnapped, extorted, attempted to murder Marc Schiller and then successfully murdered Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton. The gang was led by Sun Gym manager Daniel Lugo. Him and his accomplices targeted wealthy men whom they'd kidnap and force them to transfer their assets to the gang. 

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Mark Wahlberg and Anthony Mackie take up the roles of this infamous gang in the Michael Bay film Pain & Gain. 

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Charles Raymond Starkweather was a twenty year old spree killer who was accompanied on his murderous rampage by his fourteen year old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate. He killed ten victims in just eight days including Caril's mother, step-father and half baby sister. He was executed just seventeen months after his arrest.  

Terrence Malick would make his directorial debut with a film based on the events called Badlands.

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This one is a doozy. Raymond and Martha met via a Lonely Hearts newspaper ad and after Raymond admitted to Martha that he was a criminal, she abandoned her children and dedicated her life to him. A life that would see the two of them using those same lonely hearts ads to lure unsuspecting victims to their house to be killed by the abusive and sadistic couple. 

The crime film The Honeymoon Killers commits their story to screen in a stark pulpy fashion. 

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Ed Gein killed less people than most on this list but he was the most infamous and influential to the imaginations of Hollywood filmmakers. He was also the most sadistic on this list because he mutilated corpses by creating masks and trophies out of body parts. He was a snatcher, murderer, and grave robber. When he was arrested for the murder of Bernice Worden, police entered his home and found Worden's headless, gutted body hanging from the ceiling, organs in jars and skulls used as soup bowls. He practiced necrophilia and wore human skin as masks and suits around the house. 

He’s the killer Hollywood is most obsessed with because there have been a number of prominent films based on his cruelty like House of a 1000 Corpses, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and the most famous one, Psycho.

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