[OVERVIEW]
Ahmad Suradji was an Indonesian serial killer who admitted to killing 42 girls and women between 1986 and 1997. His victims ranged in age from 11 to 30, and were strangled after being buried up to their waists in the ground as part of a ritual. He buried his victims in a sugarcane plantation near his home, with their heads facing his house, which he believed would give him extra power.
Now this is unusual but I won't have a backstory as I can't find anything about how his life was growing up. This is very strange because with any killer it's pretty easy to find out what their life was like but not this guy. I can't find jack shit. I can't even tell you his parents names.
And unfortunately I can't even tell you the victims names either as majority of them were to the point that they couldn't identify them.
[MURDERS]
On 24 April 1997, 21-year-old Sri Kemala Dewi asked a 15-year-old rickshaw puller named Andreas to take her to "Datuk". She informed him to keep it a secret and never requested to be picked up. Three days later, Dewi's naked and decomposing body was found in a sugarcane field by a man and was later dug up by a group of people who then called the police. Andreas reported to the police and Dewi's family that he had dropped her off at Suradji's house three days earlier, and so police visited Suradji for confrontation. Although he denied any links with Dewi's killing, police found Dewi's handbag, dress and bracelet in his home. He was later arrested on 30 April 1997. During interrogation, Suradji slowly confessed to Dewi's murder but also revealed that he had killed up to 42 girls in the same fashion and an excavation process had to be carried out in the sugarcane field where Dewi's body was located. Throughout the process, 42 bodies had been found with some being so decomposed to the point where they were unidentifiable.
He told police that he had a dream in 1986 in which his father's ghost directed him to drink the saliva of 70 dead young women so that he could become a mystic healer. Suradji thought that it would take him too long to encounter 70 dead women singly and so he took up the initiative to kill. As a sorcerer, or dukun, women came to him for spiritual advice for such things like making themselves more beautiful or richer or so Suradji could cast a spell on their spouses so they'll never have an affair. He would take them into a sugarcane field and bury them up to their waist, claiming it was part of the ritual. He would then strangle them until they were dead and proceed to drink their saliva. After, he would strip the clothes from their bodies to accelerate decomposition and bury them back into the ground with their heads pointing toward his house.
[ARREST & DEATH]
He was arrested on April 30, 1997. His three wives were also arrested, all of them sisters. One of his wives, Tumini, was tried as an accomplice and sentenced to death as well, but that was eventually reduced to a life sentence.
He was sentenced to death by firing squad and executed on July 10, 2008.