Billy Gohl

William "Billy" Gohl (February 6, 1873 - March 3, 1927) was an American serial killer who, while working as a union official, would murder sailors passing through Aberdeen, Washington. He murdered for an unknown period of time and was a suspect in dozens of murders until his capture in 1910. Spared from the death penalty by a request for leniency by the jury, he was sentenced to life in prison at Walla Walla State Penitentiary where he died in 1927 from lobar pneumonia and erysipelas complicated by dementia paralytic caused by syphilis. Nothing of substance is known about Billy Gohl's first 40 years, and the stories he told in response to occasional questions were riddled with holes, contradictions, and some outright lies. By his own...