Killers Who Spawned Movies: 'Monster', 'Zodiac', 'Summer of Sam' and More

Aileen Wuornos, Monster

Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute who became a serial killer, admitted to fatally shooting and robbing six men between 1989 and 1990. The so-called "Damsel of Death" is suspected of killing a seventh man.

Wuornos was executed at the age of 46 in 2002 shortly after declining her last meal; her last words were, "I'll be back." Her life and crimes were depicted in the 2003 movie, Monster, starring Charlize Theron as Wuornos. Theron went on to win an Oscar for her gritty portrayal.

John du Pont, Foxcatcher

On the morning of January 26, 1996, multimillionaire John du Pont drove to the guesthouse on his 2,000 acre Pennsylvania estate and pumped three fatal shots into 36-year-old Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz as Schultz worked on his car in the driveway. Du Pont then fled to his mansion and barricaded himself inside for two days, but was finally taken into custody after he walked outside to fix a boiler authorities had turned off.

Du Pont was later found guilty of third-degree murder but mentally ill. Why du Pont, who died in prison in 2010 at the age of 72, killed Schultz remains a mystery, but his troubled past became the subject of the 2014 film, Foxcatcher, starring Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo and Channing Tatum.

James 'Whitey' Bulger, Black Mass

Mobster James "Whitey" Bulger was alleged to have killed 19 people, including two women, many of whom died while he was an FBI informant. But after getting tipped off that law enforcement was after him, Bulger, the head of South Boston's murderous Winter Hill Gang, went on the lam with girlfriend Catherine Greig and eluded federal authorities for more than 16 years. In 2011, he was finally caught: He had been living the life of a retiree in a modest two-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica, California.

Bulger, who hated his nickname, inspired the 2015 movie, Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp. However, Bulger said he had no plans to watch it. “Johnny Depp might as well have been playing the Mad Hatter all over again as far as James Bulger is concerned,” Bulger's lawyer Hank Brennan told PEOPLE at the time.

David Berkowitz, Summer of Sam

For more than a year starting in 1976, David Berkowitz — the self-styled Son of Sam — began a reign of terror, killing six people and wounding seven in eight separate shootings in New York City's outer boroughs.

During his rampage, the postal worker sent taunting letters to the police and a newspaper columnist, but he was arrested after police traced him to the crimes after he was issued a parking ticket. After he was caught, Berkowitz claimed a dog spoke to him and told him to kill. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six consecutive life terms. While in prison, he rechristened himself the “Son of Hope,” and claimed to be a born-again Christian.

A movie about the panic he caused became the subject of Spike Lee's 1999 movie, Summer of Sam, starring John Leguizamo and Adrien Brody.

Robert Durst, All Good Things

Real estate scion Robert Durst was the inspiration behind Andrew Jarecki's 2010 film, All Good Things, starring Ryan Gosling. However, it was Jarecki's HBO’s six-part documentary series The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst that put the reclusive multimillionaire on the map and into the clutches of Los Angeles police.

The series focused on the 1982 disappearance of Durst’s first wife, Kathleen Durst, and examined Durst's good friend Susan Berman’s 2000 execution-style killing. In the final episode of the series, Durst appeared to mumble on audio captured by the show that he’d “killed them all, of course." A day before the final episode aired, Durst was arrested and charged with murder in Berman's death.

He now sits in a Los Angeles County jail awaiting trial.

Richard Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, In Cold Blood

It was the crime that made rural Americans start locking their doors at night. Truman Capote’s bestselling book, In Cold Blood, told the story of Richard Hickock and Perry Edward Smith, the killers behind the slaughter of Herbert Clutter, his wife, Bonnie Mae, their 16-year-old daughter, Nancy, and 15-year-old son Kenyon in their rural Kansas home in 1959.

Smith and Hickock were later convicted and put to death and Capote's book was turned into a 1967 movie starring Robert Blake. Blake himself was charged with the killing of his second wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, who was shot and killed outside the Studio City restaurant where she and Blake had dined. Blake was later acquitted of the charges but found liable in civil court for her death.

The Zodiac Killer, Zodiac

Perhaps the most famous unsolved serial killing case in United States history, the Zodiac killer was linked to five deaths in Northern California in the late 1960s. During his reign of terror, he sent coded letters to newspapers and threatened to shoot up a school bus full of children, using a cross within a circle as his insignia.

Several suspects were questioned and there have been dozens of theories about who the killer is, but the Zodiac has never been caught. The case later became the subject of David Fincher's 2007 film Zodiac starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo.

Bernie Tiede, Bernie

On the same day the bullet-riddled body of 81-year-old wealthy Texas widow Marjorie Nugent was found in her freezer beneath packages of frozen food, her killer, Bernie Tiede, confessed to the 1996 slaying.

Tiede, a popular undertaker and Sunday School teacher who met Nugent at her husband's funeral, was convicted for the murder in 1999, but was later granted an appeal based on the theory that he was in a dissociative state because of abuse he'd suffered years earlier. However, in 2016, a second jury ruled he should go back to prison, where he still remains. The bizarre case was propelled into the spotlight with the 2011 dark comedy, Bernie, directed by Richard Linklater and starring Jack Black.

Pamela Smart, To Die For

Pamela Smart, a former New Hampshire school administrator, was convicted in 1991 for convincing her then 16-year-old student lover, William "Billy" Flynn, to fatally shoot her husband Gregg.

Flynn was released from prison in 2015 after serving nearly 25 years, but Smart remains behind bars serving a life sentence. Smart's actions inspired the 1995 Gus Van Sant movie, To Die For, starring Nicole Kidman.