March & April: Singing Serial Killer Sentenced to Death

Now here is something you do not hear about every day -- a singing serial killer!

Self-confessed Indonesian serial killer Verry Idham Henyansyah, 31, who also goes by the name of "Ryan," not only penned a gruesome tell-all autobiography called Confessions: The Untold Story of Ryan earlier this year, but he also recorded an album consisting of 12 pop songs entitled, My Last Performance, scheduled for release this month while the singer sits on Indonesia's death row.

Ryan, who typically dresses in black pants, a long white robe and a black Muslim skullcap, wrote the autobiography while in prison and it was reportedly released in February 2009. The former Koran recital teacher and would-be model has achieved a certain amount of prison popularity and is regularly visited by teenage girls who want their photo taken with him in his holding cell. Although some people think that he is insane, he was found guilty in an Indonesian court of murdering and dismembering Hery Santoso and dumping his body parts, which he had placed inside a suitcase and a plastic travel bag, alongside a Jakarta road in 2008. Ryan, who had stabbed and bludgeoned Santoso to death, had cut Santoso's body into seven pieces in a murder that has been described as having been motivated by jealousy -- apparently Santoso had offered Ryan a car and cash as payment for sex with Ryan's boyfriend. One of the songs on Ryan's album, Please Understand, Beloved, was written for Ryan's boyfriend.

Santoso, however, was not the only person that Ryan has confessed to murdering. An additional 10 bodies, including that of a mother and her three-year-old child, were found buried in Ryan's parents' backyard in East Java last year, following his arrest for Santoso's murder. Although Ryan has confessed to murdering 11 people, the case involving Santoso was the first to have gone to trial. Just before entering the courtroom, he sang Please Understand, Beloved for the benefit of reporters, and announced that he was ready for any sentence as he hugged his parents. Prosecutors demanded the death sentence for Santoso's murder and dismemberment.

"His crime was sadistic and merciless," prosecutor Budi Hartawan Panjaitan said in arguing for a sentence of death. "He was fully aware and not hallucinating when he committed the murder and is not remorseful…there was some fear after each killing, but when nobody would find out he would do it again and again…he is not a psychopath. He knew what he was doing and knew the consequences. He wanted Hery Santoso to die and he planned for it…he cut the body into seven parts, stuffed them into a suitcase and a plastic travel bag and threw them away."

"His acts were sadistic and inhuman and caused deep sadness to the victims' families and anxiety in the community," the chief judge said at his trial for killing Santoso. "His acts show he does not value life, which is given by God."

Of course it was not surprising that the judge sentenced Ryan to death for Santoso's murder. He appeared calm as the sentence was read, and said afterward that "everyone has to die, and I'm ready." He smiled at reporters as he was led out of the courtroom.

"He is insane, so he should not be sentenced to death," his father said. "I'd never gone near him. I'd been slapped before."

An appeal of the sentence is certain. It is not clear yet, however, whether he will be tried on the other murders to which he has purportedly confessed. He will face a firing squad when, or rather if, his sentence is carried out. It was not immediately known where his book or CD could be purchased.

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