Larry Hall (criminal)

Larry DeWayne Hall (born December 11, 1962) is an American kidnapper, rapist, murderer, and suspected serial killer. An aficionado of the American Revolution and Civil War, Hall traveled around the Midwest for historical reenactments and is believed to have abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered dozens of girls and women.
Hall came to police attention after the discovery of a 15-year-old's remains in November 1993, and was convicted of her kidnapping. He later confessed to that and an additional murder, though recanted his confessions of both crimes. Since his arrest, Hall has confessed to more than thirty-five murders, recanting them all. However, authorities believe he could be responsible for the deaths and disappearances of between forty and fifty young women, which would place him among the most prolific serial killers in American history.
Larry Hall was born in Wabash, Indiana, on December 11, 1962, to parents Robert Hall, a gravedigger at Wabash's Falls Cemetery, and Aera Hall, a homemaker. He spent his first few days in a neonatal intensive care unit due to lack of oxygen after his identical twin brother Gary "fed on him in the womb" in a monochorionic pregnancy.
Hall and his brother attended West Ward Elementary School, where Hall displayed antisocial behavior and struggled academically due to his low intelligence quotient, reportedly in the 80s. According to Gary, Hall didn't form platonic or romantic relationships. Despite his brother's efforts to be a positive influence, Hall tried to kill him several times. Hall was often teased throughout school for being slower than the other children, in addition to his frequent night terrors, various speech impediments, and compulsive bedwetting.
At age 12, Larry began digging graves with his father, which desensitized him to the presence of human cadavers and resulted in him stealing valuables from the coffins. Larry's father lost his job when his aggressive alcoholism caused him to put cadavers in the wrong gravesites, forcing the family to leave the house allocated for them in the cemetery and move to a shack with just one bedroom.
At the age of 15, Larry and his brother were both arrested for breaking the windows of a downtown storefront. Larry is also suspected of committing additional acts of arson, burglary, and other petty crimes during his adolescence. After high school, Larry got a job as a janitor and began traveling around the country to take part in American Civil War re-enactments. Gary later claimed that his Civil War guise was a way to cover his lack of personal hygiene and to act upon his violent urges.
The FBI believes that Hall began killing in the early 1980s. Over the subsequent decade, numerous female corpses, some young and unidentified, were discovered and later attributed to Hall due to their bodies being strangled and sexually mutilated. Hall frequented historical re-enactment sites around the U.S. and would select victims from nearby towns and cities. He abducted his victims, who were primarily but not exclusively young white girls and adult women, and would often, but not always, rape and torture them, and then stab or strangle them to death. He usually dismembered their bodies post-mortem and engaged in sexual acts with their corpses.
In 1998, the FBI reached out to a Chicago businessman named James Keene, who was serving a ten-year prison sentence on a drug conspiracy charge. After having learned of Keene's affability and charisma, and worrying that Hall could win his appeal against his conviction for the Roach kidnapping, the bureau offered to totally commute and erase Keene's sentence if he agreed to be transferred to the same maximum security prison as Hall to befriend him and obtain the locations of the bodies of his victims. Keene agreed to the proposition and Hall eventually confessed to him that he had killed Reitler. Hall showed Keene a map he was working on of the American Midwest with red dots and names over it representing his victims.
In response, Keene yelled at Hall, calling him "one of the most despicable forms of human life on this planet." Subsequently, unable to reach his government contacts or prove his true identity, Keene was placed in solitary confinement for two weeks before being released. The map was never recovered by authorities. Hall's eventual appeal was denied and Keene was released from his sentence. Hall is serving life without the possibility of parole in Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.
The 2022 American crime drama miniseries Black Bird depicts Keene and Hall's relationship in prison. Hall is portrayed by Paul Walter Hauser. Developed by Dennis Lehane, it is based on the 2010 autobiographical novel In with the Devil: a Fallen Hero, a Serial Killer, and a Dangerous Bargain for Redemption by James Keene with Hillel Levin. The six-episode miniseries premiered on July 8, 2022, on Apple TV+.