Robert Andrew Berdella Jr. (January 31, 1949 – October 8, 1992) was an American serial killer who kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered at least six young men after forcing his victims to endure periods of up to six weeks of captivity.

As a result, he became increasingly withdrawn, and further immersed himself in the solitary activities he had participated in since childhood such as painting, collecting coins and stamps, and writing to foreign pen pals.

[14] Shortly before Berdella moved into his Charlotte Street address, he began working as a short-order cook in various restaurants around Kansas City, in part to help pay lawyer fees and fines accrued from his previous drug arrests.

[4]: 266 Sheldon was drugged with sedatives and held captive in the second-floor bedroom for three days, enduring forms of torture such as the swabbing of drain cleaner in his left eye,[4]: 266  the insertion of needles beneath his fingertips,[4]: 268  the binding of his wrists with piano wire with the intention of permanently damaging the nerves in his hands,[4]: 271  and filling his ears with caulking to reduce his hearing capacity.

The following June, Berdella found Mark Wallace (a very casual acquaintance who had previously helped him with yard work) hiding in his tool shed to seek shelter from a severe thunderstorm.

As had been the case with Robert Sheldon, Berdella invited him inside his house, and, noting Wallace's acute state of tenseness and depression, volunteered to inject him with chlorpromazine with the explanation this would "calm down and relax" him.

According to Berdella, one hour after his "experimenting" with hypodermic needles by inserting them into various muscles upon his victim's back, Mark Wallace died through a combination of "the drugs, the gag, and the lack of oxygen".

[4]: 300 Berdella brought Ferris home and drugged him with crushed tranquilizers concealed in a meal, then tied him to his bed before torturing him almost constantly for approximately 27 hours.

As the two "[drove] around" Kansas, the young man began jokingly referring to his practice of robbing gay men in Wichita; this disclosure finalized Berdella's decision to hold Pearson captive.

On the fifth day of his captivity, having by this stage endured torture such as the repeated administration of electrical shocks with the transformer, and the breaking of several hand bones with an iron rod to render him submissive,[4]: 311  Berdella deduced Pearson had earned his trust as to his continued cooperation in his sexual and physical abuse.

In response, Berdella killed Pearson by first bludgeoning him into unconsciousness with a tree limb,[23] then suffocating him with a bag and ligature, before driving to the hospital to receive treatment for his wound.

At 1:00 a.m. on March 29, 1988, Berdella abducted his last victim, a 22-year-old male prostitute named Christopher Bryson, whom he lured to his house upon the promise of payment for sex.

"[4]: 15 By the third day of his capture, Bryson had earned sufficient trust from Berdella to persuade him to establish a daily regime of tying his hands in front of him after his sexual abuse rather than to the bed above his head, upon the excuse that his doing so was restricting the circulation to his arms.

[4]: 17 Questioned at the scene by four officers, Bryson initially claimed he had been hitchhiking when abducted by Berdella, who had kidnapped, raped, and tortured him for four days before he escaped by jumping from a window on the second floor of the property.

[26] Berdella had kept him bound to a bed on the second floor of the house throughout much of the time, repeatedly sodomizing him, drugging him, and injecting his throat with drain cleaner to diminish his ability to speak loudly.

[4]: 24–25 During later questioning at the KCPD,[n 5] Bryson divulged that his captor had shown him Polaroid images of men who appeared to be deceased,[4]: 20  and that he was told that he would never leave the property and that if he became a nuisance or threat, he would either be subjected to greater levels of torture than what he had already endured, or simply be killed.

Officers also discovered a stenographer's pad containing detailed torture logs that Berdella had maintained for each victim lying atop a chest of drawers.

This task force extensively researched Berdella's history, discovering that he was well known among Kansas City's male hustlers, having earned a reputation for preying on transient young men.

Several of these male prostitutes were also reluctant to accept him as a client both because of his penchant for drugging, injecting, and torturing his sexual partners and acquaintances, and also because he had long been considered a suspect in the disappearance of the two men whose personal possessions had been found in his house (Jerry Howell and James Ferris).

[11] Despite this threat, Kellogg stated that numerous male prostitutes and addicts had been reluctant to engage in any form of contact with Berdella because of rumors of his links to the 1984 disappearance of Jerry Howell.

Nonetheless, investigators did discover that in August 1987, Berdella had filed an assault report from a hospital room, alleging that a man named "Larry Person" had deeply bitten his penis during oral sex, causing a serious laceration.

[4]: 316–317  An interview with Robert Sheldon's employers at a Kansas City manufacturing plant confirmed that although the young man had been a reliable employee, he had suddenly ceased attending work in April 1985.

(Investigators later sought to obtain handwriting samples from Berdella in an effort to prove he had written the notes found within the various stenographer's pads discovered at his house; he refused to cooperate and was sentenced to six months in jail for contempt of court.

He was assigned a temporary public defender as his legal representative, and held in protective custody in a Jackson County jail in lieu of $500,000 bail (the equivalent of approximately $1,333,400 as of 2025[update]).

[n 8][12] In late April, the skull found inside Berdella's closet was identified via dental X-rays obtained via subpoena from the University of Kansas Medical Center as that of Robert Sheldon.

The prosecution team assigned to the case accepted the plea, with assistant prosecutor Pat Hall later explaining this decision as being "in the best interest of our client, the people of the state of Missouri".

Nonetheless, he did claim that he had tried to prevent any of his victims from developing any form of malnutrition or infection by occasionally administering antibiotics, or nutrients intravenously as his abuse and torture escalated.

[4]: 300 The methods of torture exhibited against his victims had included the administration of high-voltage electrical shocks, starvation, the application of alkali-based detergents to their throats, vocal cords, or eyes, and the bludgeoning of their hands with the intention of rendering these body parts unusable.

He also wrote several letters to a local minister claiming that prison officials knew of his high blood pressure, yet were not providing him with his prescribed heart medication.

[47] Moreover, despite his claims to journalists whom he had contacted in the years of his incarceration, Berdella never expressed any degree of remorse for his actions and tersely referred to his victims as "play toys" in an interview he granted shortly before his death.