US: Killer 'Dirty Mike' admits killing 16 fellow drifters on America's railroads

A homeless killer calling himself 'Dirty Mike' or 'Crazy Mike', has admitted murdering 16 drifters on America's railways. Despite his trail of brutal killings, Michael Elijah Adams said he is "proud" of taking the lives of fellow travellers.

The 48-year-old, who was born in Michigan, was a drifter himself since the age of 14 after leaving what he describes as an "abusive" home. After joining the Freight Train Riders Association (FTRA), he began moving heroin across the US at up to a kilo a time.

The notorious FTRA was a group of drifters and homeless disaffected Vietnam veterans, who used the railways to shift large amounts of drugs, according to Adams. He says that he killed 16 drifters with a range of weapons including pistols, axe handles and planks of wood, in a 30-year crime spree on the rails after a number of botched drug deals.

Adams is already serving 15 years to life for the killing of John Owens in Placer County, California and has announced he is looking forward to his "retirement" in a Virginia prison after claiming to have killed homeless Robert Allen Chassereau in 2006.

In an interview with WTVR TV, He said: "We were the big dogs. We stayed on the border. We were the violent ones, I mean, guns, drugs and girls. Who suspects a bum with a kilo? All good things must come to an end. It started getting hot, bodies started stacking up, questions started getting asked. I'm proud of what I did. I'm a necessary part of society."

Adams says he confessed to the murder of Chassereau to avoid spending time in so-callled "gladiator" prisons in California. He is currently waiting for the Governor of California to sign a plea deal which would see him serving the remainder of his life sentence in Virginia.

He told the TV station: "Society labels me as a serial killer. Other people label me as an enforcer. And other people just think I'm psychotic."

The detective investigating the Chassereau murder, Thomas Holsinger, said he was sure Adams killed him, as some details about Chassereau's clothing and injuries would have only been known by the killer.

Adams is now being investigated over the 1999 killing of Edward Northington, a gay homeless man whose decapitated head was found on a footbridge in Henrico County, Virginia.