Michael Bruce Ross

Michael Bruce Ross
Nov. 21, 1998 mugshot
Born	Michael Bruce Ross (1959-07-26)July 26, 1959 Putnam, Connecticut
Died	May 13, 2005(2005-05-13) (aged 45) Somers, Connecticut
Cause of death	Lethal Injection
Other names	The Roadside Strangler
Criminal penalty	Death penalty
Killings
Victims	8
Span of killings	May 12, 1981–June 13, 1984
Country	United States
State(s)	Connecticut and New York
Date apprehended	June 29, 1984

Michael Bruce Ross (July 26, 1959 – May 13, 2005) was an American serial killer. In 2005, he was executed by the state of Connecticut, making it the first execution in Connecticut (and the whole of New England) since 1960, and the last execution in Connecticut before the state repealed capital punishment in 2012.

Ross was born in Putnam, Connecticut on July 26, 1959 to Patricia Hilda Laine and Dan Graeme Ross. The oldest of four children, having two younger sisters and a younger brother, he grew up on a chicken farm in Brooklyn, Connecticut. Ross's home life was extremely ; his mother, who had abandoned the family at least once and had been institutionalized, beat all four of her children, saving the worst for him. Some family and friends have suggested that he was also molested by his teenaged uncle, who committed suicide when Ross was six. He was a bright boy who performed well in school. He graduated from Killingly High School in Killingly, Connecticut in 1977, and graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he studied agriculture, in May 1981. He became an insurance salesman. He exhibited antisocial behavior from a young age. Ross began stalking women in his sophomore year of college and, in his senior year, he committed his first rape. His first murder followed soon after.

Between 1981 and 1984, Ross murdered eight girls and women aged between 14 and 25 in Connecticut and New York. He raped seven out of his eight murder victims. He also was alleged to have raped, but not killed a 21-year-old woman named Vivian Dobson in 1983. Plainfield police rejected the possibility that Ross had been Vivian Dobson's rapist. They did not press charges and Ross made no confession. Ross confessed to each of the eight murders and was convicted for the last four of them. He was sentenced to death on July 6, 1987 and spent the next 18 years on death row.