William Dean Christensen

Serial Killer

William Dean Christensen: The "American Jack the Ripper"

Overview

William Dean Christensen was an American serial killer, rapist, and violent fugitive whose criminal history stretched from Maryland and Washington, D.C., into Canada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Born on September 24, 1945, in Bethesda, Maryland, Christensen accumulated a long record of sexual assaults and other violence before becoming connected to a series of murders during the early 1980s. He repeatedly used false names, including Richard Owen, Stanley Holl, John Robert Schrader, and Jeffrey Shrader, allowing him to move between jurisdictions while authorities in several places were looking for him. Christensen became known in the press as the "American Jack the Ripper" because of the mutilation associated with two Canadian homicide investigations and the possibility that he had killed additional victims while traveling through the eastern United States. Although investigators examined him in connection with numerous unsolved murders, he was convicted of two killings in Pennsylvania. Two additional Canadian deaths were historically attributed to him, although neither resulted in a Canadian murder conviction and at least one of those cases remains officially unresolved.

A History of Violence

Long before the murders for which Christensen became notorious, he had demonstrated a pattern of extreme violence toward women. In 1969, he attacked a young woman after picking her up in the Washington, D.C., area, stabbing her numerous times. She survived. Christensen received a five-year sentence but was released after serving only a small portion of it. In 1972, Christensen was again accused of sexual violence. One attempted-rape conviction was eventually overturned on appeal. Later that year, Christensen and another man abducted a young woman, sexually assaulted and beat her, and held her for hours. During the assault, Christensen reportedly threatened to cut her into pieces with a hacksaw. He pleaded guilty to charges arising from the attack and received a 16-year prison sentence. He served approximately seven years and eight months before being paroled on April 1, 1980. His freedom was short-lived without further violence. In 1980, another woman reported being taken from a bus stop and sexually assaulted at a house associated with Christensen's family in Kensington, Maryland. Authorities obtained a warrant, but Christensen disappeared before he could be prosecuted. Years later, after his eventual capture, he was returned to Maryland and convicted in connection with the 1980 attack. ...

Confirmed Victims: (4)

Sylvie Trudel Age: (27), Date of Death: 1982-04-26

Survivors:

Unidentified male 1 , Date of Attack: June 29, 1983

Unidentified male 2 , Date of Attack: June 29, 1983

William Dean Christensen - Wikipedia