Woman reveals dark hobby of seducing infamous serial killers by mail
By Dana Kennedy
A couple in Yonkers had a dark hobby for decades: seducing serial killers by mail.
For more than 20 years, at least 100 of the country’s most vicious serial and celebrity murderers — including John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Ramirez, “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz, Charles Manson, Arthur Shawcross, Edmund Kemper, Karla Faye Tucker, Robert John Bardo and Gerard Schaefer, among others — eagerly corresponded with Barbara and Richie Dickstein.
To “hook” the criminals, Barbara and Richie wrote letters pretending to be whatever turned on the killers — like when she sent photos of a local stripper and pretended it was her to tantalize Ramirez.
“If you look at most of these serial killers’ childhoods, they never had any love. I think they thought that with us, ‘Here’s someone willing to show me love and I’ll try it with them,’ ” Barbara told The Post.