Serial killer Harvey Murray Glatman was born December 10, 1927, in The Bronx, New York. He started his killing spree in the late 1950s. He became known in the media as The Lonely Hearts Killer and The Glamour Girl Slayer as he would pose as a professional photographer to lure his victims with the promise of a modeling career.
Early life
Harvey Glatman showed early signs of antisocial and sadomasochistic sexual tendencies. His fascination with bondage came from a very young age and was only aggravated throughout his teenage years. Harvey Glatman was very much interested in breaking into women’s apartments so he could tie them up, molest them and take pictures as souvenirs. Early on in his adolescence, he was arrested by the police for attempted burglary in 1945. Barely less than a month after being released on bail awaiting his trial, Harvey kidnapped another woman and molested her before letting her go; she went to the police immediately and Glatman was promptly prosecuted and sentenced to 8 months prison time.
After spending 8 months in prison, Harvey Glatman moved to Albany, New York. Eventually, he was arrested again for a series of muggings in 1947 and imprisoned at Sing-Sing Correctional Facility to serve a 5–10 year sentence. There psychiatrists determined that Glatman was a psychopath. Nonetheless, he was a model prisoner while serving time at Sing Sing and was released early in 1956.
Murders
Harvey Glatman, who moved to Los Angeles back in 1957, began preying upon young ladies looking to become models by contacting them with offers of work for pulp fiction magazines. He would then lure them into his apartment and rape them while taking pictures of his crimes. His victims were strangled and buried nearby in a desert plot.
Glatman was considered a suspect in the slaying of Jane Doe whose unidentified body was discovered by hikers near Boulder, Colorado in 1954. Her identity remained a mystery for 55 years until she was identified with the help of DNA by researchers at Mitotyping Technologies Inc On October 5th, 2009, Jane Doe’s identity was possibly revealed to be Dorothy Gay Howard 18, who disappeared from Phoenix on February 16th, 1954.
Harvey Glatman was in Colorado when Dorothy died and he was driving a 1951 Dodge Coronet. Dorothy’s body had consistent damage from being hit with the same car.
Arrest and Conviction
Harvey Glatman was arrested in 1958, stopped in the act of kidnapping what would have been his fourth known victim, Lorraine Vigil. He confessed to the murders of the other three women. A jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and he was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison on September 18, 1959.
