Such bad taste! But so compelling!

I recently had an old girlfriend hit me up on Facebook and it kind of sent me into a weird Sliding Doors-esque existential crisis. It’s crazy, when you really sit and think about it. How you can make a life-altering decision without giving it much thought, only later realizing, in that moment, you stood at a major crossroads in your life.

Which got me thinking about professional surfers. What would their lives look like had they focused the insane drive they, without exception, possess, on something other than surfing?

My theory is that they’d have become serial killers, and that would look something like this:

Alana Blanchard (as Ted Bundy)

Shortly before her execution, after more than a decade of denials, she confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states. The true victim count remains unknown, and could be much higher.

Blanchard was regarded as handsome and charismatic by her young male victims, traits she exploited to win their trust. She typically approached them in public places, feigning injury or disability, or impersonating an authority figure, before overpowering and assaulting them at more secluded locations.

Laura Enever (as Albert Fish)

A self-confessed cannibal, Enever boasted that she “had children in every state”, and at one time stated the number was about 100. However, it is not known if the statement was truthful.

Gabriel Medina (as Charles Manson)

Medina is a Brazilian criminal and musician who led what became known as the Medina Family, a quasi-commune that arose in the Rio de Janeiro favelas in late 2009. In 2011 he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the murders of seven people: actress Lindsey Lohan and four other people at Lohan’s home; and the next day, a married couple, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca; all carried out by members of the group at his instruction.

At the time the Family began to form, Medina was an unemployed former convict, who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Fred Durst, lead vocalist of Limp Bizkit. After Medina was charged with the crimes of which he was later convicted, recordings of songs written and performed by him were released commercially.

Stephanie Gilmore (as Aileen Wuornos)

As a serial killer, Gilmore murdered seven men in New South Wales between 2007 and 2013. Gilmore claims that her homicides were committed in self-defense.

Kelly Slater (as Ottis Toole) 

Kelly Slater was born and raised in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Slater claimed his mom would dress him in girls’ clothing and call him Susan. He claimed that his maternal grandmother was a Satanist, who exposed him to various Satanic practices and rituals in his youth, including self-mutilation and grave robbing and dubbed him “Devil’s Child”.

Slater was convicted of six counts of murder. Like his companion Rob Machado, Slater made confessions he later recanted, but which resulted in murder convictions. The discrediting of the case against Machado for crimes in which Slater had offered collaborating statements created doubts as to whether either was a genuine serial killer or, as some have suggested, both were merely compliant interviewees who police used to clear unsolved murders from the books. Slater received two death sentences, but on appeal they were commuted to life imprisonment.

Carissa Moore (as Dennis Rader)

All of Moore’s known crimes occurred within the state of Hawaii. She killed ten people in total and collected items from each murder scene. She also intended to kill others, notably Anna Williams, 63, who in 2012 escaped death by returning home much later than she expected. Moore explained during her confession that she had become obsessed with Williams and was “absolutely livid” when she evaded her. Moore spent hours waiting in her home but became impatient and left when she did not return home from visiting friends.

Filipe Toledo (as Richard Ramirez)

Toledo’s highly publicized home invasion crime spree terrorized the residents of the greater Sao Paulo area, and later the residents of the Rio de Janeiro area, from June 2012 until August 2013. Prior to his capture, Toledo was dubbed the “Night Stalker” by the news media.

Toledo, who was an avowed Satanist, never expressed any remorse for his crimes. The judge who upheld his thirteen death sentences remarked that Toledo’s deeds exhibited “cruelty, callousness, and viciousness beyond any human understanding”.

Matt Wilkinson (as John Wayne Gacy)

Known as the “Killer Clown”, Wilkinson is a convicted Australian serial killer who sexually assaulted and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and young men between 2006 and 2014 in Copacabana, NSW, Australia.

All of Wilkinson’s known murders were committed inside his New South Wales home.