'Is he giving them exclusive knowledge, facts only the killer could know, or is he vague? If he's vague, that should set off alarm bells.' According to Browne, his weapons include a knife, screwdriver and ice pick he cut up some of the victims and dumped their bodies in lakes, rivers, trash bins and ditches.īut how can police determine whether or not he's simply making it all up? Gregg McCrary, a former FBI profiler and author of 'The Unknown Darkness: Profiling the Predators Among Us,' says authorities must carefully scrutinize the details Browne provides. 'It was just a lie.'īrowne claims to have killed 17 people in Louisiana, nine in Colorado, seven in Texas, five in Arkansas, three in Mississippi, two each in New Mexico, Oklahoma and California, and one in Washington. 'He led the police on a complete wild goose chase,' says Fox. He led police and the FBI to Texas and Arizona looking for bodies. In the early 1990s a Mississippi man named Donald Leroy Evans, already convicted of a murder, claimed to have killed about 70 people.

'Once they are in custody facing life imprisonment or death,'-Browne is serving two life sentences in Colorado-'there is no disincentive to start bragging about other crimes.' And dissembling can result in better treatment, personal amusement, sometimes even the ability to leave the prison confines for a while. 'It should be no surprise that serial killers sometimes lie,' says James Alan Fox, a Northeastern University criminologist and author of six books about serial killers.įalse confessions are common, Fox says. And there's no guarantee that Browne's claims are on the level. But is he really a mass murderer? Verifying that he is responsible for all of the deaths, some of which took place more than 30 years ago, will be a difficult task. If Colorado convict Robert Charles Browne's claim to have killed 48 people over three decades is true, he would rank among the nation's most prolific serial killers.

Colorado serial killers list