For the majority of people, taking another person's life would make us feel such intractable regret that we would not be able to live with ourselves. Many murderers express remorse for their crimes. Some, however, are a different story.
When a serial killer is able to smile their way through a murder trial, admit they feel no remorse, and never apologize for their unimaginable crimes, it's quite clear they're better off removed from society and safely kept behind bars. These following chilling quotes all prove that those who said them lack any remorse.
10. Carl Panzram
I am not the least bit sorry. I have no conscience so that does not worry me. I don't believe in Man, God nor devil. I hate the whole damned human race including myself.
There are few serial killers as cold as Carl Panzram, whose murder spree took the lives of as many as 22 boys and men. Born in Minnesota and the son of Prussian immigrants, he claimed to have raped more than 1,000 victims. In his own autobiography, he wrote, "In my lifetime I have murdered human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things, I am not in the least bit sorry."
On September 5, 1930, Panzram was hanged at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas for murdering a corrections employee. He allegedly spat in his executioner's face and cried out, "I wish all mankind had one neck so I could choke it!" When asked if he had any last words, he replied, "Yes, hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could kill ten men while you're fooling around!"
9. Gary Lee Sampson
I switched from [stabbing to strangling] because I was tired of getting blood on myself.
In 2001, Gary Lee Sampson's killing spree claimed the lives of three victims. He was sentenced to death in 2003. In 2011, Sampson's death sentence was thrown out due to juror misconduct, and a second trial was scheduled. The former drifter and bank robber signed his own death warrant at the second trail with his continued angry outbursts in court, during which he swore at the judge. He also complained that stabbing his first two victims resulted in getting too much blood on his clothes, so he switched to strangling his third victim for a cleaner kill. In 2017, he was sentenced to death for the second time.
Sampson was tried in a Massachusetts federal court, where the death penalty is rare, but his lack of remorse proved he had learned nothing. The son of one of the victims said, "He brays and gloats about what he's done. They don't come any worse than Gary Lee Sampson . . . an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
8. Aileen Wuornos
I want the world to know I killed these men, as cold as ice. I've hated humans for a long time. I killed them in cold blood, real nasty.
Aileen Wuornos's outbursts in the courtroom bought her a one-way ticket to death row. Her tragic childhood—one that was witness to abandonment, sexual abuse, and emotional neglect—was overlooked, as her aggressive side would always rear its ugly head. Known as one of America's most notorious female serial killers, in 1989 and 1990, she shot and killed seven men in Florida who had picked her up as a prostitute.
Behind bars, she wrote, "I have hate crawling through my system." She also stated that keeping her alive would be "a waste of taxpayers' money." When she was convicted and sentenced to death, she yelled at the jurors, "I hope you get raped!" On October 5, 2002, she was executed at Florida State Prison and became the tenth woman executed in the US since 1976, when the death penalty for women was reinstated.
7. John Wayne Gacy
The only thing they can get me for is running a funeral parlor without a license.
