Carroll Cole, 8 Years Old
1985: Carroll Cole Final Interview Before Execution
Born on May 9th, 1938, in Sioux City, Iowa, Carroll Cole was a serial killer who started
killing at the young age of 8. After his family moved to Richmond, California, Cole was
emotionally abused by his younger sister at home and often teased at school. In 1947,
he retaliated against a classmate, 8-year-old Duane, by drowning him in a lake.
Although at the time, authorities ruled it as an accident, Cole confessed years later in an
autobiography that it was intentional.
As a teenager, Cole committed several petty crimes, was discharged from the Army for
bad conduct, and in 1960 attacked two couples in parked cars on lover’s lane. He
attempted to strangle numerous women in the years following, including an 11-year-old
girl in Missouri. This crime led him to a five-year prison sentence.
Since his first murder at 8, Cole didn’t successfully kill again until May 7th, 1971, when
he strangled Essie L. Buck to death. However, it wasn’t until November 1980 that police
arrested Cole for fatally strangling three women in Texas. The courts convicted Cole of
the three murders on April 9th, 1981, and he was executed by lethal injection on
December 6th, 1985. Before his death, Cole claimed he had gotten away with
the murders of at least fourteen other women in the nine years prior to 1980.