Carroll Edward Cole: The Man Who Asked to Be Stopped

Carroll Edward Cole was convicted of murdering at least thirteen women across California, Nevada, Wyoming, and Texas between 1971 and 1980, making him one of the most prolific and underdocumented serial killers of the twentieth century. Despite repeated contact with law enforcement, psychiatric evaluation at multiple state hospitals, and documented confessions of violent homicidal urges, Cole was discharged and released each time, enabling a decade-long killing spree that left investigators scrambling to connect cases spanning half the country.

This is not a story about a killer who hid in the shadows. Carroll Cole walked into police stations and told officers exactly what he planned to do. He sat across from psychiatrists and described his compulsions with clinical precision. He asked, repeatedly and explicitly, across twenty years, to be locked up before he hurt anyone. The system heard him every time and let him go anyway. What follows is one of the most infuriating true crime cases you will ever hear, and it is a story about a broken system every bit as much as it is about a broken man.

#CarrollEdwardCole #SerialKiller #TrueCrime #MentalHealthFailure #TrueCrimePodcast #SerialKillerHistory #ColdCase

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