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Craving of 'horror film' murderer
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By the age of 24, Gonzalez had become bored and frustrated with his life. Unemployed, friendless and using drugs regularly, he spent most of his time watching horror films and playing computer games at his home in Woking, Surrey.
But this relatively innocuous background belied the chilling truth: Gonzalez wanted to be a famous serial killer.
He wanted to make newspaper headlines and he wanted to spend a day being Freddy Krueger - a fictitious child-murderer from the film A Nightmare on Elm Street.
To do this, he believed he would have to kill 10 people - so, on 15 September 2004, he set out on a campaign of murder.
Voices in the head
Marie Harding, a 73-year-old ticket-seller for Brighton and Hove Albion Football Club, became his first victim.
Kevin Molloy (L) and Marie Harding were Gonzalez's first two victims
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Gonzalez, who had tried and failed to kill a couple who were out walking their dog earlier that day, fatally stabbed Mrs Harding as she walked near her home in Southwick, West Sussex.
In a note to himself he described Mrs Harding's murder as "one of the best things I've done in my life".
After spending the night at home, Gonzalez resolved to continue killing, this time travelling to London where he spent much of the next day drinking.
In the early hours of 17 September, he arrived in Tottenham armed with two kitchen knives, looking for someone - anyone - to kill.
He came across Kevin Molloy, a 46-year-old pub landlord, and stabbed him repeatedly in the stomach.
He later told police: "I had to do it cos I wouldn't be able to have been satisfying [sic] myself otherwise... The voice in my head, it was just really bad that time you know."
Frenzied attack
As dawn approached, Gonzalez plotted his next attack. Realising another street stabbing would attract attention, he instead broke into a house in nearby Hornsey where Christina Constantinou and her husband, Koumis, were sleeping.
He launched a frenzied attack on the couple, both in their 50s, but they managed to fight him off - Mr Constantinou punching Gonzalez while his wife ran outside screaming for help.
Gonzalez wanted to be like Freddy Krueger for a day
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Gonzalez fled - but his night of bloodshed was far from over.
Leaving the terrified Constantinous behind, he moved on to Highgate, where he was noticed randomly ringing doorbells.
Retired paediatrician Derek Robinson, 75, and his 68-year-old wife were trusting enough to let the killer into their flat.
Their bodies were discovered by a decorator who arrived minutes later.
He first noticed blood on the walls of the flat. Then the bodies of Mr and Mrs Robinson. He then saw Gonzalez, naked and covered in blood.
The decorator ran from the flat and called the police - who caught the killer later that day.
Gonzalez admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility - claiming he was a schizophrenic and voices in his head told him to act like Freddy Krueger.
But the jury dismissed his story and convicted him of murder.
Gonzalez's childish fascination with horror films may briefly have given him the newspaper headlines he craved - but it could not excuse the real-life horror of his crimes.