10 Murderers Who Killed Again After Being Freed from Prison

Prison is meant to rehabilitate those convicted of crimes while they are held far from society. In an ideal world, prisoners do the time, reform themselves, and then are released as functional members of society. Sadly, things don’t always happen that way. Many prisoners commit crimes on the inside and never return home. Many more fall back into their life of crime on the outside and offend again. And in the worst cases, these acts lead to fatal consequences for innocent victims.

While many murderers are locked away for life upon being convicted, many more will serve decades-long sentences and then be released. And some of them kill again. In this list, you’ll learn about ten tragic cases in which convicted killers served time and were released from prison early, only to kill again on the outside.

Related: 10 Terrifying Serial Killers from Centuries Ago

10 Albert Flick

Albert Flick was an average Joe in 1979 when his wife, Sandra Flick, served him with divorce papers. But while she prepared to leave, he stewed. Weeks after being served, he stabbed Sandra 14 times in front of her 12-year-old daughter. The little girl ran to get help from a neighbor. When the bystander arrived, Sandra told them her husband had stabbed her—and then died. Flick was arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to a 30-year prison term. However, he only served 21 years before being released.

Then, in 2007, he was arrested again. That time, he punched and stabbed a woman, though she survived. He served a few years in prison on that aggravated assault, but again, he was released. In 2010, he was again arrested in Maine for threatening to kill another woman with a screwdriver. In that case, a Maine judge gave him only two years of jail time despite his earlier offenses. “At some point, Mr. Flick is going to age out of his capacity to engage in this conduct,” Justice Robert E. Crowley wrote, “and incarcerating him beyond the time that he ages out doesn’t seem to me to make good sense.”

By 2018, Flick developed an obsession with a woman named Kimberly Dobbie. She didn’t care for him, though. Enraged at the rejection, Flick stabbed her to death. Horrifically, the murder was again witnessed by a child—two of them, actually. The testimony of Dobbie’s 11-year-old twins and a surveillance camera combined to make for an easy conviction. Finally, Flick was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Elsie Clement, the daughter of his first 1979 murder victim, spoke to the media after that long-overdue sentence. “There is no reason this man should have been on the streets in the first place,” she said.^[1]

9 Jimmy Lee Gray

Jimmy Lee Gray was a troubled man in Arizona in the late 1960s when he got into a relationship with a 16-year-old girl named Elda Prince. The duo fought endlessly, and as their relationship worsened, Gray lashed out. During one argument in 1968, he slashed Prince’s throat. She bled to death.

Gray was caught by cops, convicted of her murder, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. But he was out of jail just seven years into his term. The judge who had overseen Gray’s trial asked the parole board to keep him in prison, but they declined. Gray was released despite having killed the woman less than a decade earlier.

Not long after, Gray kidnapped a three-year-old girl named Deressa Jean Scales. He assaulted her before killing her and dumping her body. Cops caught up to Gray and arrested him once more. And once again, he was found guilty of murder. But this time, he was sentenced to death. In 1983, Mississippi carried out his execution.

The fact that he’d been convicted of killing before, gotten released, and killed again wasn’t lost on Scales’s family. Her father, Richard, spoke to the media about it: “Even in prison, he had been able to talk, to breathe, and to laugh, and he had taken all these things from my little girl. He didn’t have the right to continue living.”^[2]

8 Graeme Burton

Graeme Burton first killed someone outside a nightclub in 1992. The man had been denied entrance into a New Zealand club one evening by Paul Anderson, the event hall’s lighting technician. Enraged at not being allowed inside, Burton stabbed Anderson to death. The first blow to Anderson’s stomach was so brutal that it lifted the man off the ground. Burton kept stabbing until Anderson bled to death.

The ruthless killer was arrested and sentenced to prison, where he remained for more than a decade. But on July 10, 2006, he was paroled. Anderson’s sister, Janet, testified that parole was a mistake. “If Burton is released, the same pain will be released on a whole new set of people,” Janet said. “This cannot happen again.”

Sadly, it did. Burton killed again, not even a year after he was paroled. In early April 2007, Burton shot a man named Karl Kuchenbecker, then attacked and wounded “a handful of others” with a gun and a knife. He fought back against cops who rushed to arrest him, too. In that melee, Burton was shot in the leg. He eventually had to have that leg amputated. But justice did prevail… the second time.

After Kuchenbecker’s murder, Burton was sentenced to life in prison. He made the news again years later, in 2020, when another inmate attacked him. Burton was stabbed more than 40 times in the face, head, and body. He survived the attack, though, and continued on to serve his lifetime prison term.^[3]

7 Arthur Shawcross

Arthur Shawcross will forever be known as the Genesee River Killer because of his actions, murdering women in upstate New York in the late 1980s. But what many serial killer aficionados may not know is that Shawcross actually killed long before his notorious murder spree. And he was jailed—and released—after those earlier murders.

In a four-month span in 1972, he killed a 10-year-old boy and an eight-year-old girl. He was caught and sentenced to a 25-year prison sentence. But after 15 years, prison officials in New York chose to parole him. He was released in 1987 and moved upstate to settle in Rochester. Once he got back on the street, he began to kill again. Over the next three years, his notorious string of serial murders turned him into one of America’s most prolific human hunters.

From 1987 to 1990, Shawcross killed more than a dozen women in Rochester. The women were prostitutes whom he would pick up in cars he borrowed from friends. Shawcross’s murder method was to either suffocate or strangle the woman once they got in the car. When he was finally caught, prosecutors could tie him to 11 murders. However, police say they are certain he killed at least several more. Regardless, Shawcross was tried for the 11 killings.

When his murderous past came up during the trial, prosecutors acknowledged he shouldn’t have been released after the earlier killings. “Every prosecutor in New York State can recount three or four horror stories about people who never should have been paroled and were,” one district attorney told the media. At least they got the second sentence right. That time, a judge handed down a 250-year prison sentence. Shawcross would never be allowed to walk free again. And he didn’t. In 2008, he died in prison.^[4]

6 Louise Peete

Suspicious deaths seemed to follow Louise Peete for her entire life. She grew up in Waco, Texas, but abruptly left that town after a boyfriend mysteriously wound up dead. So, she rushed to Los Angeles in 1920. There, she linked up with wealthy mining magnate Jacob Denton. But after just a few months alongside Denton, he mysteriously disappeared, too. When Peete was interrogated about it, she claimed he’d been feuding with a “Spanish-looking woman” and gone into hiding to avoid her wrath.

Cops were skeptical, but before they could act, Louise left town. Months later, they finally dug up Denton’s body. It had been buried in the basement of his own home. By then, Peete was in Colorado. She had changed her name and remarried, but cops tracked her down and arrested her. She was convicted of Denton’s murder and jailed in California. However, she spent less than 20 years in prison and was released in 1939.

Upon her release, Peete took up with a couple named Arthur and Margaret Logan. The Logans had been tasked with watching Peete’s daughter, Betty, while the killer was in prison. But months after Louise became a free woman in 1939, Margaret disappeared. Then, Arthur—who’d been slowly fading in old age due to dementia—was sent to an insane asylum by a woman claiming to be his “sister.”

Asylum officials eventually figured out Peete was the “sister.” She’d forged documents and faked signatures to get Arthur committed. But by then, Louise was gone again. And this time, she had absconded with all of the Logans’ money. After hiding out for a while, though, Louise’s luck ran dry. Cops nabbed her again, charged her with Margaret’s murder, and jailed her once more. This time, prosecutors didn’t miss: Peete was convicted of the murder. And in 1947, she was just the second woman ever executed in California’s San Quentin Prison.^[5]

5 John Lawrence Miller

John Lawrence Miller was an antisocial person long before he became an adult. Just thirteen years into his life, he had already been arrested multiple times for burglary. And he was just 15 when he moved on to a much worse crime: murder. The year was 1957, and Miller had been given a weekend pass home from the reform school where he’d been sent for punishment on the burglary charges.

One night during that brief stay, he came upon a two-year-old girl named Laura Wetzel. She was playing out in front of a house Miller had been planning to rob. While casing the joint before the robbery, Miller took a perverse interest in the little girl. So, instead of breaking in so he could steal money and guns, as he initially wanted to do, Miller snuck up on Wetzel, took her into the home by force, and then beat and smothered her to death.

Miller fled Los Angeles and made it all the way to Reno before he was recognized. Cops there arrested him and shipped him back. When LAPD interrogators got hold of Miller, he confessed to the crime. “I always wanted to kill somebody,” the 15-year-old said. “I was always meeting somebody, some man I didn’t like and wanted to kill.”

Prosecutors were horrified by Miller’s thoughts, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison. However, after less than 20 years in jail, he was freed on parole. It didn’t take long for the murderous boy-turned-man to pick up where he left off. Two months after leaving prison, Miller turned up at his parents’ home and shot them to death. Cops rearrested him and charged him with that double murder. This time, he was given a life sentence. Miller reportedly died in prison in 1987.^[6]

4 John McRae

When John McRae was just 15, he murdered an eight-year-old boy. The teen’s shocking crime horrified his home state of Florida, and he was quickly arrested, charged, and convicted. But because he was so young, a judge left open the possibility of parole. In 1971, after McRae had spent several decades in prison, he was released, and he started his own family.

Flash forward sixteen years, and McRae found himself in Clare County, Michigan. He had a teenage son, and one of the boy’s friends was a local kid from the small town of Midland named Randy Laufer. One day in 1987, Laufer vanished. His body wouldn’t be found until a decade later. However, there was one chilling detail to go on: the boy had been last seen sitting in a car with a bumper sticker that read “Don’t Let Your Child Go With Strangers.”

After the murder, McRae and his son quickly moved to Arizona. At the time, cops didn’t think much of it. The Michigan officers hadn’t known about McRae’s past in Florida. Plus, he didn’t initially warrant suspicion as Laufer’s murderer. Other than being his son’s friend, Laufer had no connection to McRae. But Florida investigators heard about the unsolved murder, looked up McRae’s whereabouts, and learned he lived in the area. They called Michigan police and told them about McRae’s past. Suddenly, local cops were intrigued.

In 1997, construction workers dug up Laufer’s remains in a side yard at McRae’s old Michigan home. The findings confirmed what investigators were already certain of: Laufer had been murdered. Down in Arizona, McRae and his son were both arrested and charged with murder. The now-adult son was charged as an accessory to the crime, but since he was a minor when it took place, prosecutors couldn’t pursue a life sentence against him.

The elder McRae, on the other hand, was found guilty (again) and sentenced to life in prison (again). This time, he didn’t get out. In 2005, McRae died in a Michigan prison cell.^[7]

3 Kenneth McDuff

Kenneth McDuff was just 18 when his horrific crime spree started. It was 1965, and the teen had been arrested on burglary charges. When he was interrogated by Texas cops, he claimed to have killed at least one woman and attempted the murder of several more. Cops didn’t have enough evidence to get him on those charges, and he knew it. “Killing a woman is like killing a chicken,” McDuff bragged. “They both squawk.” Prosecutors were able to convict McDuff on the burglary charges, but they had an ominous feeling that something worse was looming. When he was paroled a few years later, they were proven right.

McDuff was out of jail for just ten months before three small-town Texas teens turned up dead. One had suffered a broken neck caused by severe strangulation with a broom handle. McDuff was arrested for the crimes, tried, and convicted. This time, prosecutors thought they had their man locked away for good, and he was given the death penalty.

But in 1972, the death penalty was overturned nationwide, and it nixed McDuff’s sentence. He was still facing life in prison, but by 1976, he was suddenly eligible for parole. He worked hard for his freedom, too. In 1988, it was granted. That’s right—a man who the cops knew killed three teens and at least attempted the murder of several more people was back on the street.

When McDuff was released in 1988, one small-town Texas sheriff was shocked. “I don’t know if it’ll be next week or next month or next year,” the sheriff lamented, “but one of these days, dead girls are gonna start turning up.” The sheriff was wrong about one thing: it wasn’t next week. It was just three days later. Not even 72 hours after his release, McDuff killed a woman named Sarafia Parker. This time, he went into hiding for months. By the time police finally tracked him down, McDuff had killed at least eight more women.^[8]

2 Arthur Bomar

Arthur Bomar committed his first murder in Las Vegas in 1978 during a disagreement over a parking space. He was arrested for the cruel, casual act of violence, and prosecutors were able to convict him, but his punishment didn’t last long. Just 11 years after the killing, Bomar was back on the street. At that point, he moved to Pennsylvania to be closer to family. Probation officers hoped it would allow him to start fresh and live a hopeful future. Sadly, they were wrong.

Three years after his release, Bomar was convicted on assault charges. That alone should have been enough to revoke his parole and send him back to jail for life, but it didn’t work. His probation officer wasn’t notified of his Pennsylvania arrest. Bomar went free after just a few years in prison on the new charge. “Unfortunately, the system is not perfect,” one detective later lamented. “Some things happen that slip through the cracks.”

College student Aimee Willard found that out the hard way. In June 1996, the 22-year-old vanished while she was visiting family in the Philadelphia area. Her body had been dumped in a vacant lot in north Philadelphia. Medical examiners determined she had been raped, beaten, and murdered.

Bomar was a person of interest after Willard’s body was found when a woman called the police and reported a man had intentionally hit her car from behind and aggressively tried to get her to pull off the road. Over the next week, he tried to break into her apartment, too. Cops caught the guy red-handed and learned it was Bomar. They took his DNA and other evidence, linked it to Willard’s body, and figured out they were dealing with a convicted killer. Bomar was charged with murder, and in 1998, a jury found him guilty and gave him the death penalty.^[9]

1 David Edward Maust

David Edward Maust was just nine when he first tried to kill another human. The target was his younger brother. Maust set the boy’s bed on fire while he was sleeping in it. Then, when that didn’t work, he reportedly tried to drown the boy in a nearby lake. That didn’t work either, and by then, David’s parents had had enough. They placed him in the care of the state. He remained in foster homes until he turned 17, at which point he shipped off to Vietnam.

While stationed in Germany later in his military service, Maust admitted to killing a German man near the military base. In his military diaries, he recounted other supposed times where he had killed people in prior years, too. He was only convicted on a manslaughter charge in Germany, though. After serving three years in prison, he was released and discharged from the military.

Back home, Maust continued to wage war. First, he was tried for attempted murder, but he was acquitted. Then, he killed a 15-year-old named Donald Jones and led police on a violent chase from Illinois all the way to Texas. He was finally caught, jailed, and extradited. Back in Illinois, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison. But once again, he got out early.

This time, Maust was paroled in 1999 after serving only 17 years for Jones’ murder. Over the next four years, he killed at least three more teen boys. Finally, in 2003, he was arrested for the new crop of murders. During that investigation, he confessed to two more murders police hadn’t yet pinned on him. By 2005, a jury showed no hesitation in convicting Maust. He never got out of prison again. Later that year, Maust hanged himself in his jail cell.^[10]