Criminal profiler Pat Brown says serial killers are usually reported as white because serial killers usually target victims of their own race, and argues the media typically focuses on 'All-American' white and pretty female victims who were the targets of white male offenders; that crimes among minority offenders in urban communities, where.
- Majority Of Serial Killers Race And Zodiac Sign
- List Of Serial Killers
- Serial Killers Race Statistics
- Serial Killers In The Us
- Samuel Little Serial Killer Race
- Serial Killers Of The 2000s
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- Serial Killers Percentage by Race. 'Does the notion that a majority of murders and robberies in your jurisdiction are committed by blacks fit with your.
- In the United States, a majority of known and reported serial killers are Caucasian males in their 20s and 30s. Though white males comprise the majority of reported serial killer cases, according to the FBI they are not statistically more likely to be serial killers.
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people,[1] usually in service of abnormal psychological gratification, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them.[1][2] Different authorities apply different criteria when designating serial killers.[3] For example, while most authorities set a threshold of three murders,[1] others extend it to four or lessen it to two.[3] The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) defines serial killing as 'a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone'.[4]
Although psychological gratification is the usual motive for serial killing, and most serial killings involve sexual contact with the victim,[5] the FBI states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking.[6] The murders may be attempted or completed in a similar fashion. The victims may have something in common, for example, demographic profile, appearance, gender or race.[7] A serial killer is neither a mass murderer, nor a spree killer, although there may be conceptual overlaps between serial killers and spree killers.
- 3Characteristics
- 3.1Development
- 4Motives
- 4.3Hedonistic
- 5In popular culture
- 5.1Theories
- 6Investigation
- 6.1FBI: Issues and practices
Etymology and definition[edit]
The English term and concept of serial killer are commonly attributed to former FBISpecial agentRobert Ressler who used the term serial homicide in 1974 in a lecture at Bramshill Police Academy in Britain.[8] Author Ann Rule postulates in her book, Kiss Me, Kill Me (2004), that the English-language credit for coining the term goes to LAPD detective Pierce Brooks, who created the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) system in 1985.[9] There is ample evidence the term was used in Europe and the United States earlier.
The German term and concept were coined by criminologist Ernst Gennat, who described Peter Kürten as a Serienmörder ('serial-murderer') in his article 'Die Düsseldorfer Sexualverbrechen' (1930).[10] The earliest usage attested of the specific term serial killer listed in the Oxford English Dictionary was from a 1960s[clarification needed] German film article written by Siegfried Kracauer, about the German expressionist film M (1931), portraying a pedophilicSerienmörder.[clarification needed]
In his book, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004), criminal justice historian Peter Vronsky notes that while Ressler might have coined the English term 'serial homicide' within law in 1974, the terms serial murder and serial murderer appear in John Brophy's book The Meaning of Murder (1966).[11] The Washington DC newspaper Evening Star, in a 1967 review of the book:[12]
There is the mass murderer, or what he [Brophy] calls the 'serial' killer, who may be actuated by greed, such as insurance, or retention or growth of power, like the Medicis of Renaissance Italy, or Landru, the 'bluebeard' of the World War I period, who murdered numerous wives after taking their money.
This use of 'serial' killer to paraphrase Brophy's serial murderer does not appear to have been influential at the time.[citation needed]
In his more recent study, Vronsky states that the term serial killing first entered into broader American popular usage when published in The New York Times in the spring of 1981, to describe Atlanta serial killer Wayne Williams. Subsequently, throughout the 1980s, the term was used again in the pages of The New York Times, one of the major national news publication of the United States, on 233 occasions. https://deligreat967.weebly.com/windows-hdd-speed-test.html. By the end of the 1990s, the use of the term had increased to 2,514 instances in the paper.[13]
When defining serial killers, researchers generally use 'three or more murders' as the baseline,[1] considering it sufficient to provide a pattern without being overly restrictive.[14] Independent of the number of murders, they need to have been committed at different times, and are usually committed in different places.[15] The lack of a cooling-off period (a significant break between the murders) marks the difference between a spree killer and a serial killer. The category has, however, been found to be of no real value to law enforcement, because of definitional problems relating to the concept of a 'cooling-off period'.[16] Cases of extended bouts of sequential killings over periods of weeks or months with no apparent 'cooling off period' or 'return to normality' have caused some experts to suggest a hybrid category of 'spree-serial killer'.[11]
In 2005, the FBI hosted a multi-disciplinary symposium in San Antonio, Texas, which brought together 135 experts on serial murder from a variety of fields and specialties with the goal of identifying the commonalities of knowledge regarding serial murder. The group also settled on a definition of serial murder which FBI investigators widely accept as their standard: 'The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s) in separate events.'[16] The definition does not consider motivation for killing nor define a cooling-off period.
History[edit]
The 'Nemesis of Neglect': Jack the Ripper depicted as a phantom stalking Whitechapel, and as an embodiment of social neglect, in a Punch cartoon of 1888.
Historical criminologists have suggested that there may have been serial murders throughout history, but specific cases were not adequately recorded. Some sources suggest that legends such as werewolves and vampires were inspired by medieval serial killers.[17] In Africa, there have been periodic outbreaks of murder by Lion and Leopard men.[18]
Liu Pengli of China, nephew of the Han Emperor Jing, was made Prince of Jidong in the sixth year of the middle period of Jing's reign (144 BC). According to the Chinese historian Sima Qian, he would 'go out on marauding expeditions with 20 or 30 slaves or with young men who were in hiding from the law, murdering people and seizing their belongings for sheer sport'. Although many of his subjects knew about these murders, it was not until the 29th year of his reign that the son of one of his victims finally sent a report to the Emperor. Eventually, it was discovered that he had murdered at least 100 people. The officials of the court requested that Liu Pengli be executed; however, the emperor could not bear to have his own nephew killed, so Liu Pengli was made a commoner and banished.[19]
In the 15th century, one of the wealthiest men in Europe and a former companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais, sexually assaulted and killed peasant children, mainly boys, whom he had abducted from the surrounding villages and had taken to his castle.[20] It is estimated that his victims numbered between 140 and 800.[21] The Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory, born into one of the wealthiest families in Transylvania, allegedly tortured and killed as many as 650 girls and young women before her arrest in 1610.[22]
Members of the Thuggee cult in India may have murdered a million people between 1740 and 1840.[23]Thug Behram, a member of the cult, may have murdered as many as 931 victims.[24]
In his 1886 book, Psychopathia Sexualis, psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing noted a case of a serial murderer in the 1870s, a Frenchman named Eusebius Pieydagnelle who had a sexual obsession with blood and confessed to murdering six people.[25]
The unidentified killer Jack the Ripper, who has been called the first modern serial killer,[26]killed at least five women, and possibly more, in London in 1888. He was the subject of a massive manhunt and investigation by the Metropolitan Police, during which many modern criminal investigation techniques were pioneered. A large team of policemen conducted house-to-house inquiries, forensic material was collected and suspects were identified and traced.[27] Police surgeon Thomas Bond assembled one of the earliest character profiles of the offender.[28]
The Ripper murders also marked an important watershed in the treatment of crime by journalists.[29] While not the first serial killer in history, Jack the Ripper's case was the first to create a worldwide media frenzy.[29] The dramatic murders of financially destitute women in the midst of the wealth of London focused the media's attention on the plight of the urban poor and gained coverage worldwide. Jack the Ripper has also been called the most infamous serial killer of all time, and his legend has spawned hundreds of theories on his real identity and many works of fiction.[30]
H. H. Holmes was one of the first documented modern serial killers in the United States, responsible for the death of at least nine victims in the early 1890s. The case gained notoriety and wide publicity through possibly sensationalized accounts in William Randolph Hearst's newspapers. At the same time in France, Joseph Vacher became known as 'The French Ripper' after killing and mutilating 11 women and children. He was executed in 1898 after confessing to his crimes.[31][32]
https://deligreat967.weebly.com/tomtom-gps-watch-app.html. 76% of all known serial killers in the 20th century were from the United States.[33]
Characteristics[edit]
Some commonly found characteristics of serial killers include the following:
- They may exhibit varying degrees of mental illness or psychopathy, which may contribute to their homicidal behavior.[34]
- For example, someone who is mentally ill may have psychotic breaks that cause them to believe they are another person or are compelled to murder by other entities.[35]
- Psychopathic behavior that is consistent with traits common to some serial killers include sensation seeking, a lack of remorse or guilt, impulsivity, the need for control, and predatory behavior.[16] Unlike people with major mental disorders such as schizophrenia, psychopaths can seem normal and often quite charming, a state of adaptation that psychiatristHervey Cleckley called the 'mask of sanity'.[36]
- They were often abused—emotionally, physically, or sexually—by a family member.[7]
- Serial killers may be more likely to engage in fetishism, partialism or necrophilia, which are paraphilias that involve a strong tendency to experience the object of erotic interest almost as if it were a physical representation of the symbolized body. Individuals engage in paraphilias which are organized along a continuum; participating in varying levels of fantasy perhaps by focusing on body parts (partialism), symbolic objects which serve as physical extensions of the body (fetishism), or the anatomical physicality of the human body; specifically regarding its inner parts and sexual organs (one example being necrophilia).[37]
- A disproportionate number exhibit one, two, or all three of the Macdonald triad of predictors of future violent behavior:
- Many are fascinated with fire setting.[7]
- They are involved in sadistic activity; especially in children who have not reached sexual maturity, this activity may take the form of torturing animals.[7]
- More than 60 percent, or simply a large proportion, wet their beds beyond the age of 12.[7][38]
- They were frequently bullied or socially isolated as children or adolescents.[7] For example, Henry Lee Lucas was ridiculed as a child and later cited the mass rejection by his peers as a cause for his hatred of everyone. Kenneth Bianchi was teased as a child because he urinated in his pants, suffered twitching, and as a teenager was ignored by his peers.[7]
- Some were involved in petty crimes, such as fraud, theft, vandalism, or similar offenses.[39]
- Often, they have trouble staying employed and tend to work in menial jobs. The FBI, however, states, 'Serial murderers often seem normal; have families and/or a steady job.'[16] Other sources state they often come from unstable families.[7]
- Studies have suggested that serial killers generally have an average or low-average IQ, although they are often described, and perceived, as possessing IQs in the above-average range.[7][16][40] A sample of 202 IQs of serial killers had a median IQ of 89.[41]
There are exceptions to these criteria, however. For example, Harold Shipman was a successful professional (a General Practitioner working for the NHS). He was considered a pillar of the local community; he even won a professional award for a children's asthma clinic and was interviewed by Granada Television's World in Action on ITV.[42]Dennis Nilsen was an ex-soldier turned civil servant and trade unionist who had no previous criminal record when arrested. Neither was known to have exhibited many of the tell-tale signs.[43]Vlado Taneski, a crime reporter, was a career journalist who was caught after a series of articles he wrote gave clues that he had murdered people.[44]Russell Williams was a successful and respected career Royal Canadian Air Force Colonel who was convicted of murdering two women, along with fetish burglaries and rapes.[45]
Mug shot of serial killer, cannibal, and necrophileOttis Toole.
German serial killer Fritz Haarmann with police detectives, November 1924
Development[edit]
Many serial killers have faced similar problems in their childhood development. Hickey's Trauma Control Model explains how early childhood trauma can set the child up for deviant behavior in adulthood; the child's environment (either their parents or society) is the dominant factor determining whether or not the child's behavior escalates into homicidal activity.[46]
Family, or lack thereof, is the most prominent part of a child's development because it is what the child can identify with on a regular basis.[47] 'The serial killer is no different from any other individual who is instigated to seek approval from parents, sexual partners, or others.'[48] This need for approval is what influences children to attempt to develop social relationships with their family and peers. 'The quality of their attachments to parents and other members of the family is critical to how these children relate to and value other members of society.'[49]
Wilson and Seaman (1990) conducted a study on incarcerated serial killers, and what they concluded was the most influential factor that contributed to their homicidal activity.[50] Almost all of the serial killers in the study had experienced some sort of environmental problems during their childhood, such as a broken home caused by divorce, or a lack of a parental figure to discipline the child. Nearly half of the serial killers had experienced some type of physical or sexual abuse, and more of them had experienced emotional neglect.[51] When a parent has a drug or alcohol problem, the attention in the household is on the parents rather than the child. This neglect of the child leads to the lowering of their self-esteem and helps develop a fantasy world in which they are in control. Current p2p software. Hickey's Trauma Control Model supports how the neglect from parents can facilitate deviant behavior, especially if the child sees substance abuse in action.[52] This then leads to disposition (the inability to attach), which can further lead to homicidal behavior, unless the child finds a way to develop substantial relationships and fight the label they receive. If a child receives no support from anyone, then he or she is unlikely to recover from the traumatic event in a positive way. As stated by E. E. Maccoby, 'the family has continued to be seen as a major—perhaps the major—arena for socialization'.[53]
Chromosomal make up[edit]
There have been recent studies looking into the possibility that an abnormality with one's chromosomes could be the trigger for serial killers. Two serial killers, Bobby Joe Long and Richard Speck, came to attention for reported chromosomal abnormalities. Long had an extra X chromosome. Speck was erroneously reported to have an extra Y chromosome; in fact, his karyotype was performed twice and was normal each time. Hellen Morrison, an American forensic psychiatrist, said in an interview that while researchers have not identified a specific causal gene, the fact that the majority of serial killers are male leads researchers to believe there is 'a change associated with the male chromosome make up.'[54]
Fantasy[edit]
Children who do not have the power to control the mistreatment they suffer sometimes create a new reality to which they can escape. This new reality becomes their fantasy that they have total control of and becomes part of their daily existence. In this fantasy world, their emotional development is guided and maintained. According to Garrison (1996), 'the child becomes sociopathic because the normal development of the concepts of right and wrong and empathy towards others is retarded because the child's emotional and social development occurs within his self-centered fantasies. A person can do no wrong in his own world and the pain of others is of no consequence when the purpose of the fantasy world is to satisfy the needs of one person' (Garrison, 1996). Boundaries between fantasy and reality are lost and fantasies turn to dominance, control, sexual conquest, and violence, eventually leading to murder. Fantasy can lead to the first step in the process of a dissociative state, which, in the words of Stephen Giannangelo, 'allows the serial killer to leave the stream of consciousness for what is, to him, a better place'.[55]
Criminologist Jose Sanchez reports, 'the young criminal you see today is more detached from his victim, more ready to hurt or kill .. The lack of empathy for their victims among young criminals is just one symptom of a problem that afflicts the whole society.'[47] Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of Gangster (2001), explains how potential criminals are labeled by society, which can then lead to their offspring also developing in the same way through the cycle of violence. The ability for serial killers to appreciate the mental life of others is severely compromised, presumably leading to their dehumanization of others. This process may be considered an expression of the intersubjectivity associated with a cognitive deficit regarding the capability to make sharp distinctions between other people and inanimate objects. For these individuals, objects can appear to possess animistic or humanistic power while people are perceived as objects.[56] Before he was executed, serial killer Ted Bundy stated media violence and pornography had stimulated and increased his need to commit homicide, although this statement was made during last-ditch efforts to appeal his death sentence.[51] However, correlation is not causation (a disturbed physiological disposition, psychosis, lack of socialization, or aggressiveness may contribute to both fantasy creation and serial killing without fantasy creation generally contributing to serial killing for instance). There are exceptions to the typical fantasy patterns of serial killers, as in the case of Dennis Rader, who was a loving family man and the leader of his church.
Organized, disorganized, and mixed[edit]
Ted Bundy in custody, Florida, July 1978 (State Archives of Florida)
The FBI's Crime Classification Manual places serial killers into three categories: organized, disorganized, and mixed (i.e., offenders who exhibit organized and disorganized characteristics).[57] Some killers descend from being organized into disorganized as their killings continue, as in the case of psychological decompensation or overconfidence due to having evaded capture, or vice versa, as when a previously disorganized killer identifies one or more specific aspects of the act of killing as his/her source of gratification and develops a modus operandi structured around those.[citation needed]
Organized serial killers often plan their crimes methodically, usually abducting victims, killing them in one place and disposing of them in another. They often lure the victims with ploys appealing to their sense of sympathy. Others specifically target prostitutes, who are likely to go voluntarily with a stranger. These killers maintain a high degree of control over the crime scene and usually have a solid knowledge of forensic science that enables them to cover their tracks, such as burying the body or weighing it down and sinking it in a river. They follow their crimes in the news media carefully and often take pride in their actions, as if it were all a grand project. Often, organized killers have social and other interpersonal skills sufficient to enable them to develop both personal and romantic relationships, friends and lovers and sometimes even attract and maintain a spouse and sustain a family including children. Among serial killers, those of this type are in the event of their capture most likely to be described by acquaintances as kind and unlikely to hurt anyone. Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are examples of organized serial killers.[58] In general, the IQs of organized serial killers tend to be near normal range, with a mean of 94.7. Organized nonsocial offenders tend to be on the higher end of the average, with a mean IQ of 99.2.[59]
Disorganized serial killers are usually far more impulsive, often committing their murders with a random weapon available at the time, and usually do not attempt to hide the body. They are likely to be unemployed, a loner, or both, with very few friends. They often turn out to have a history of mental illness, and their modus operandi (M.O.) or lack thereof is often marked by excessive violence and sometimes necrophilia or sexual violence.[60] Disorganized serial killers have been found to have a slightly lower mean IQ than organized serial killers, at 92.8.[59]
Medical professionals[edit]
Some people with a pathological interest in the power of life and death tend to be attracted to medical professions or acquiring such a job.[61] These kinds of killers are sometimes referred to as 'angels of death'[62] or angels of mercy. Medical professionals will kill their patients for money, for a sense of sadistic pleasure, for a belief that they are 'easing' the patient's pain, or simply 'because they can'.[63] Perhaps the most prolific of these was the British doctor Harold Shipman. Another such killer was nurse Jane Toppan, who admitted during her murder trial that she was sexually aroused by death.[64] She would administer a drug mixture to patients she chose as her victims, lie in bed with them and hold them close to her body as they died.[64]
Another medical profession serial killer is Genene Jones. It is believed she killed 11 to 46 infants and children while working at Bexar County Medical Center Hospital in San Antonio, Texas.[65] She is currently serving a 99-year sentence for the murder of Chelsea McClellan and the attempted murder of Rolando Santos,[65] and became eligible for parole in 2017 due to a law in Texas at the time of her sentencing to reduce prison overcrowding.[65]
A 21st-century example is Canadian nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer who murdered elderly patients in the nursing homes where she worked.
Female[edit]
Highway prostitute Aileen Wuornos killed seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990
Female serial killers are rare compared to their male counterparts.[66] Sources suggest that female serial killers represented less than one in every six known serial murderers in the United States between 1800 and 2004 (64 females from a total of 416 known offenders), or that around 15% of U.S. serial killers have been women, with a collective number of victims between 427 and 612.[67] The authors of Lethal Ladies, Amanda L. Farrell, Robert D. Keppel, and Victoria B. Titterington, state that 'the Justice Department indicated 36 female serial killers have been active over the course of the last century.'[68] According to The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, there is evidence that 16% of all serial killers are women.[69]
Kelleher and Kelleher (1998) created several categories to describe female serial killers. They used the classifications of black widow, angel of death, sexual predator, revenge, profit or crime, team killer, question of sanity, unexplained, and unsolved. In using these categories, they observed that most women fell into the categories of black widow or team killer.[70] Although motivations for female serial killers can include attention seeking, addiction, or the result of psychopathological behavioral factors,[71] female serial killers are commonly categorized as murdering men for material gain, usually being emotionally close to their victims,[66] and generally needing to have a relationship with the victim,[70] hence the traditional cultural image of the 'black widow.' In describing murderer Stacey Castor, forensic psychiatrist James Knoll offered a psychological perspective on what defines a 'black widow' type. In simple terms, he described it as a woman who kills two or more husbands or lovers for material gain. Although Castor was not officially defined as a serial killer, it is likely that she would have killed again.[72]
One 'analysis of 86 female serial killers from the United States found that the victims tended to be spouses, children or the elderly'.[72][70] Other studies indicate that since 1975, increasingly strangers are marginally the most preferred victim of female serial killers,[73] or that only 26% of female serial killers kill for material gain only.[74] Sources state that each killer will have her own proclivities, needs and triggers.[75][70] A review of the published literature on female serial murder stated that 'sexual or sadistic motives are believed to be extremely rare in female serial murderers, and psychopathic traits and histories of childhood abuse have been consistently reported in these women.'[72][70] A study by Eric W. Hickey (2010) of 64 female serial killers in the United States indicated that sexual activity was one of several motives in 10% of the cases, enjoyment in 11% and control in 14%, and that 51% of all U.S. female serial killers murdered at least one woman and 31% murdered at least one child.[76] In other cases, women have been involved as an accomplice with a male serial killer as a part of a serial killing team.[75][70] A 2015 study published in The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology found that the most common motive for female serial killers was for financial gain and almost 40% of them had experienced some sort of mental illness.[77]
Peter Vronsky in Female Serial Killers (2007) maintains that female serial killers today often kill for the same reason males do: as a means of expressing rage and control. He suggests that sometimes the theft of the victims' property by the female 'black widow' type serial killer appears to be for material gain, but really is akin to a male serial killer's collecting of totems (souvenirs) from the victim as a way of exerting continued control over the victim and reliving it.[78] By contrast, Hickey states that although popular perception sees 'black widow' female serial killers as something of the Victorian past, in his statistical study of female serial killer cases reported in the United States since 1826, approximately 75% occurred since 1950.[79]
The methods that female serial killers use for murder are frequently covert or low-profile, such as murder by poison (the preferred choice for killing).[72][80] Other methods used by female serial killers include shootings (used by 20%), suffocation (16%), stabbing (11%), and drowning (5%).[71] They commit killings in specific places, such as their home or a health-care facility, or at different locations within the same city or state.[81] A notable exception to the typical characteristics of female serial killers is Aileen Wuornos,[82] who killed outdoors instead of at home, used a gun instead of poison, killed strangers instead of friends or family, and killed for personal gratification.[83] The most prolific female serial killer in all of history is allegedly Elizabeth Báthory. Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian, August 7, 1560 – August 21, 1614) was a countess from the renowned Báthory family. Before her husband's death, Elizabeth took great pleasure in torturing the staff, by jamming pins under the servants fingernails or stripping servants and throwing them into the snow.[84] After her husband's death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and young women, with one witness attributing to them over 600 victims, though the number for which they were convicted was 80. Elizabeth herself was neither tried nor convicted. In 1610, however, she was imprisoned in the Csejte Castle, where she remained bricked in a set of rooms until her death four years later.[85]
A 2010 article by Perri and Lichtenwald addressed some of the misperceptions concerning female criminality.[86] In the article, Perri and Lichtenwald analyze the current research regarding female psychopathy, including case studies of female psychopathic killers featuring Münchausen syndrome by proxy, cesarean section homicide, fraud detection homicide, female kill teams, and a female serial killer.[86]
Juvenile[edit]
Juvenile serial killers are rare. There are three main categories that juvenile serial killers can fit into: primary, maturing, and secondary killers. There have been studies done to compare and contrast these three groups and to discover similarities and differences between them.[87] Although these types of serial killers are less common, oftentimes adult serial killers may make their debut at an early age and it can be an opportunity for researchers to study what factors brought about the behavior. Though it is rare, the youngest felon on death row is in fact, a juvenile serial killer named Harvey Miguel Robinson.[88]
Ethnicity and demographics in the United States[edit]
The racial demographics regarding serial killers are often subject to debate. American pie beta house free online. In the United States, the majority of reported and investigated serial killers are white males, from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in their late 20s to early 30s.[7][16] However, there are African American, Asian, and Hispanic (of any race) serial killers as well, and, according to the FBI, based on percentages of the U.S. population, whites are not more likely than other races to be serial killers.[16]Criminal profilerPat Brown says serial killers are usually reported as white because serial killers usually target victims of their own race, and argues the media typically focuses on 'All-American' white and pretty female victims who were the targets of white male offenders; that crimes among minority offenders in urban communities, where crime rates are higher, are under-investigated; and that minority serial killers likely exist at the same ratios as white serial killers for the population. She believes that the myth that serial killers are always white might have become 'truth' in some research fields due to the over-reporting of white serial killers in the media.[89]
According to some sources, the percentage of serial killers who are African American is estimated to be between 13% and 22%.[90][91] Another study has shown that 16% of serial killers are African American, what author Maurice Godwin describes as a 'sizeable portion'.[92] A 2014 Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database annual statistics report indicated that for the decades 1900–2010, the percentage of white serial killers was 52.1% while the percentage of African American serial killers was 40.3%.[59] In a 2005 article Anthony Walsh, professor of criminal justice at Boise State University, argued a review of post-WWII serial killings in America finds that the prevalence of minority serial killers has typically been drastically underestimated in both professional research literature and the mass media. As a paradigmatic case of this media double standard, Walsh cites news reporting on white killer Gary Heidnik and African-American killer Harrison Graham. Both men were residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; both imprisoned, tortured, and killed several women; and both were arrested only months apart in 1987. 'Heidnik received widespread national attention, became the subject of books and television shows, and served as a model for the fictitious Buffalo Bill in Silence of the Lambs', writes Walsh, while 'Graham received virtually no media attention outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, despite having been convicted of four more murders than Heidnik'.[93]
Outside the United States[edit]
There is not much research about serial homicide in non-Western countries, or outside the U.S. In one study of serial homicide in South Africa, many patterns were similar to established patterns in the U.S., with some exceptions: no offenders were female, offenders were lower educated than in the U.S., and both victims and offenders were predominantly black.[94]
Motives[edit]
The motives of serial killers are generally placed into four categories: visionary, mission-oriented, hedonistic, and power or control; however, the motives of any given killer may display considerable overlap among these categories.[95]
Visionary[edit]
Visionary serial killers suffer from psychotic breaks with reality, sometimes believing they are another person or are compelled to murder by entities such as the Devil or God.[96] The two most common subgroups are 'demon mandated' and 'God mandated'.[35]
Herbert Mullin believed the American casualties in the Vietnam War were preventing California from experiencing the Big One. As the war wound down, Mullin claimed his father instructed him via telepathy to raise the number of 'human sacrifices to nature' in order to delay a catastrophic earthquake that would plunge California into the ocean.[97]David Berkowitz ('Son of Sam') may also be an example of a visionary serial killer, having claimed a demon transmitted orders through his neighbor's dog and instructed him to commit murder.[98] Berkowitz later described those claims as a hoax, as originally concluded by psychiatrist David Abrahamsen.[99]
Mission-oriented[edit]
Mission-oriented killers typically justify their acts as 'ridding the world' of certain types of people perceived as undesirable, such as the homeless, ex-cons, homosexuals, drug users, prostitutes, or people of different ethnicity or religion; however, they are generally not psychotic.[100] Some see themselves as attempting to change society, often to cure a societal ill.[101]
Hedonistic[edit]
This type of serial killer seeks thrills and derives pleasure from killing, seeing people as expendable means to this goal. Forensic psychologists have identified three subtypes of the hedonistic killer: 'lust', 'thrill', and 'comfort'.[102]
Lust[edit]
Paul Durousseau raped and murdered at least seven young women.
Sex is the primary motive of lust killers, whether or not the victims are dead, and fantasy plays a large role in their killings. Their sexual gratification depends on the amount of torture and mutilation they perform on their victims. The sexual serial murderer has a psychological need to have absolute control, dominance, and power over their victims, and the infliction of torture, pain, and ultimately death is used in an attempt to fulfill their need.[103] They usually use weapons that require close contact with the victims, such as knives or hands. As lust killers continue with their murders, the time between killings decreases or the required level of stimulation increases, sometimes both.[104]
Kenneth Bianchi, one of the 'Hillside Stranglers', murdered women and girls of different ages, races and appearance because his sexual urges required different types of stimulation and increasing intensity.[105]Jeffrey Dahmer searched for his perfect fantasy lover—beautiful, submissive and eternal. As his desire increased, he experimented with drugs, alcohol, and exotic sex. His increasing need for stimulation was demonstrated by the dismemberment of victims, whose heads and genitals he preserved, and by his attempts to create a 'living zombie' under his control (by pouring acid into a hole drilled into the victim's skull).[106] Dahmer once said, 'Lust played a big part of it. Control and lust. Once it happened the first time, it just seemed like it had control of my life from there on in. The killing was just a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. That's why I tried to create living zombies with … acid and the drill.' He further elaborated on this, also saying, 'I wanted to see if it was possible to make—again, it sounds really gross—uh, zombies, people that would not have a will of their own, but would follow my instructions without resistance. So after that, I started using the drilling technique.'[107] He experimented with cannibalism to 'ensure his victims would always be a part of him'.[108]
Thrill[edit]
The primary motive of a thrill killer is to induce pain or terror in their victims, which provides stimulation and excitement for the killer. They seek the adrenaline rush provided by hunting and killing victims. Thrill killers murder only for the kill; usually the attack is not prolonged, and there is no sexual aspect. Usually the victims are strangers, although the killer may have followed them for a period of time. Thrill killers can abstain from killing for long periods of time and become more successful at killing as they refine their murder methods. Many attempt to commit the perfect crime and believe they will not be caught.[109]Robert Hansen took his victims to a secluded area, where he would let them loose and then hunt and kill them.[110] In one of his letters to San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in San Francisco, California, the Zodiac Killer wrote '[killing] gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl'.[111]Coral Watts was described by a surviving victim as 'excited and hyper and clappin' and just making noises like he was excited, that this was gonna be fun' during the 1982 attack.[112] Slashing, stabbing, hanging, drowning, asphyxiating, and strangling were among the ways Watts killed.[113]
Comfort (profit)[edit]
Material gain and a comfortable lifestyle are the primary motives of comfort killers. Usually, the victims are family members and close acquaintances. After a murder, a comfort killer will usually wait for a period of time before killing again to allow any suspicions by family or authorities to subside. They often use poison, most notably arsenic, to kill their victims. Female serial killers are often comfort killers, although not all comfort killers are female.[114]Dorothea Puente killed her tenants for their Social Security checks and buried them in the backyard of her home.[115]H. H. Holmes killed for insurance and business profits.[116] Professional killers ('hitmen') may also be considered comfort serial killers.[117]Richard Kuklinski charged tens of thousands of dollars for a 'hit', earning enough money to support his family in a middle-class lifestyle (Bruno, 1993).[118]
Some, like Puente and Holmes, may be involved in or have previous convictions for theft, fraud, non-payment of debts, embezzlement and other crimes of a similar nature. Dorothea Puente was finally arrested on a parole violation, having been on parole for a previous fraud conviction.[119]
In 2016, the oldest prosecution and conviction of a suspected serial killer (Felix Vail) took place in Louisiana. He was convicted of murder 54 years after his wife's death in 1962, which had originally been ruled an accidental drowning, and which occurred only months after Vail took out two life insurance policies on her.[120] He is a suspect in the disappearances of two other women – his girlfriend in 1973 and his second wife in 1984.[121] The prosecutors were allowed to present evidence of the two disappearances under the Doctrine of chances.[122]
Power/control[edit]
A policeman discovering the body of prostitute Catherine Eddowes, one of Jack the Ripper's victims
The main objective for this type of serial killer is to gain and exert power over their victim. Such killers are sometimes abused as children, leaving them with feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy as adults. Many power- or control-motivated killers sexually abuse their victims, but they differ from hedonistic killers in that rape is not motivated by lust (as it would be with a lust murder) but as simply another form of dominating the victim.[123]Ted Bundy is an example of a power/control-oriented serial killer. He traveled around the United States seeking women to control.[124]
Media influences[edit]
Many serial killers claim that a violent culture influenced them to commit murders. During his final interview, Ted Bundy stated that hardcore pornography was responsible for his actions. Others idolise figures for their deeds or perceived vigilante justice, such as Peter Kürten, who idolized Jack the Ripper, or John Wayne Gacy and Ed Kemper, who both idolized the actor John Wayne.[7]
Killers who have a strong desire for fame or to be renowned for their actions desire media attention as a way of validating and spreading their crimes; fear is also a component here, as some serial killers enjoy causing fear. An example is Dennis Rader, who sought attention from the press during his murder spree.[125]
In popular culture[edit]
Many movies, books, and documentaries have been created, detailing serial killers' lives and crimes. For example, the biographical movie Bundy (2002) focuses on serial killer Ted Bundy's personal life in college, leading up to his execution, and Dahmer (2002) tells the story of Jeffrey Dahmer.
Serial killers are also portrayed in fictional media, oftentimes as having substantial intelligence and looking for difficult targets, despite the contradiction with the psychological profile of serial killers.[126]
Theories[edit]
Biological and sociological[edit]
Theories for why certain people commit serial murder have been advanced. Some theorists believe the reasons are biological, suggesting serial killers are born, not made, and that their violent behavior is a result of abnormal brain activity. Holmes and Holmes believe that 'until a reliable sample can be obtained and tested, there is no scientific statement that can be made concerning the exact role of biology as a determining factor of a serial killer personality.'[127] The 'Fractured Identity Syndrome' (FIS) is a merging of Charles Cooley's 'looking glass self' and Erving Goffman's 'virtual' and 'actual social identity' theories. The FIS suggests a social event, or series of events, during one's childhood or adolescence results in a fracturing of the personality of the serial killer. The term 'fracture' is defined as a small breakage of the personality which is often not visible to the outside world and is only felt by the killer.[128]
'Social Process Theory' has also been suggested as an explanation for serial murder. Social process theory states that offenders may turn to crime due to peer pressure, family, and friends. Criminal behavior is a process of interaction with social institutions, in which everyone has the potential for criminal behavior.[[[Wikipedia:Citing_sources|page needed]] ]-129'>[129] A lack of family structure and identity could also be a cause leading to serial murder traits. A child used as a scapegoat will be deprived of their capacity to feel guilt. Displaced anger could result in animal torture, as identified in the Macdonald triad, and a further lack of basic identity.[130]
![Serial killers race statistics Serial killers race statistics](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126448585/384989694.png)
Military[edit]
A dishonorably discharged Marine, Charles Ng participated in the kidnapping, sadistic torture, rape and murder of numerous victims
The 'military theory' has been proposed as an explanation for why serial murderers kill, as some serial murderers have served in the military or related fields. According to Castle and Hensley, 7% of the serial killers studied had military experience.[131] This figure may be a proportional under-representation when compared to the number of military veterans in a nation's total population. For example, according to the United States census for the year 2000, military veterans comprised 12.7% of the U.S. population;[132] in England, it was estimated in 2007 that military veterans comprised 9.1% of the population.[133] Though by contrast, about 2.5% of the population of Canada in 2006 consisted of military veterans.[134][135]
There are two theories that can be used to study the correlation between serial killing and military training: Applied learning theory states that serial killing can be learned. The military is training for higher kill rates from servicemen while training the soldiers to be desensitized to taking a human life.[136]Social learning theory can be used when soldiers get praised and accommodated for killing. They learn, or believe that they learn, that it is acceptable to kill because they were praised for it in the military. Serial killers want accreditation for the work that they have done.[137]
In both military and serial killing, the offender or the soldier may become desensitized to killing as well as compartmentalized; the soldiers do not see enemy personnel as 'human' and neither do serial killers see their victims as humans.[138] The theories do not imply that military institutions make a deliberate effort to produce serial killers; to the contrary, all military personnel are trained to recognize when, where, and against whom it is appropriate to use deadly force, which starts with the basic Law of Land Warfare, taught during the initial training phase, and may include more stringent policies for military personnel in law enforcement or security.[139] They are also taught ethics in basic training.
Investigation[edit]
FBI: Issues and practices[edit]
In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a handbook titled Serial Murder which was the product of a symposium held in 2005 to bring together the many issues surrounding serial murder, including its investigation.[140]
Identification[edit]
Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, who was a FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitive
According to the FBI, identifying one, or multiple, murders as being the work of a serial killer is the first challenge an investigation faces, especially if the victim(s) come from a marginalized or high risk population and is normally linked through forensic or behavioral evidence (FBI 2008).[140] Should the cases cross multiple jurisdictions, the law enforcement system in the United States is fragmented and thus not configured to detect multiple similar murders across a large geographic area (Egger 1998).[141] The FBI suggests utilizing databases and increasing interdepartmental communication. Keppel (1989)[142] suggests holding multi-jurisdictional conferences regularly to compare cases giving departments a greater chance to detect linked cases and overcome linkage blindness. One such collaboration, the Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database Project[143] was proposed at the 2012 FDIAI Annual Conference.[144] Utilizing Radford's Serial Killer Database as a starting point, the new collaboration,[145] hosted by FGCU Justice Studies, has invited and is working in conjunction with other Universities to maintain and expand the scope of the database to also include spree and mass murders. Utilizing over 170 data points, multiple-murderer methodology and victimology; researchers and Law Enforcement Agencies can build case studies and statistical profiles to further research the Who, What, Why and How of these types of crimes.
Leadership[edit]
Leadership, or administration, should play a small or virtually non-existent role in the actual investigation past assigning knowledgeable or experienced homicide investigators to lead positions. The administration's role is not to run the investigation but to establish and reaffirm the primary goal of catching the serial killer, as well as provide support for the investigators. The FBI (2008) suggests completing Memorandums of Understanding to facilitate support and commitment of resources from different jurisdictions to an investigation.[140] Egger (1998) takes this one step further and suggests completing mutual aid pacts, which are written agreements to provide support to each other in a time of need, with surrounding jurisdictions. Doing this in advance would save time and resources that could be used on the investigation.[141]
Organization[edit]
Organization of the structure of an investigation is key to its success, as demonstrated by the investigation of Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. Once a serial murder case was established, a task force was created to track down and arrest the offender. Over the course of the investigation, for various reasons, the task force's organization was radically changed and reorganized multiple times – at one point including more than 50 full-time personnel, and at another, only a single investigator. Eventually, what led to the end of the investigation was a conference of 25 detectives organized to share ideas to solve the case.[146]
The FBI handbook provides a description of how a task force should be organized but offers no additional options on how to structure the investigation. While it appears advantageous to have a full-time staff assigned to a serial murder investigation, it can become prohibitively expensive. For example, the Green River Task Force cost upwards of $2 million per year,[146] and as was witnessed with the Green River Killer investigation, other strategies can prevail where a task force fails.
Albert De Salvo, who claimed to be the 'Boston Strangler', after being caught in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1967.
A common strategy, already employed by many departments for other reasons, is the conference, in which departments get together and focus on a specific set of topics.[147] With serial murders, the focus is typically on unsolved cases, with evidence thought to be related to the case at hand.
Similar to a conference is an information clearing-house in which a jurisdiction with a suspected serial murder case collects all of its evidence and actively seeks data which may be related from other jurisdictions.[147] By collecting all of the related information into one place, they provide a central point in which it can be organized and easily accessed by other jurisdictions working toward the goal of arresting an offender and ending the murders.
Already mentioned was the task force,[147] FBI 2008,[140] Keppel 1989[142] which provides for a flexible, organized, framework for jurisdictions depending on the needs of the investigation. Unfortunately due to the need to commit resources (manpower, money, equipment, etc.) for long periods of time it can be an unsustainable option.
In the case of the investigation of Aileen Wournos, the Marion County Sheriff coordinated multiple agencies without any written or formal agreement.[141] While not a specific strategy for a serial murder investigation, this is certainly a best practice in so far as the agencies were able to work easily together toward a common goal.
Finally, once a serial murder investigation has been identified, utilization of an FBI Rapid Response Team can assist both experienced and inexperienced jurisdictions in setting up a task force. This is completed by organizing and delegating jobs, by compiling and analyzing clues, and by establishing communication between the parties involved.[141]
Resource augmentation[edit]
During the course of a serial murder investigation it may become necessary to call in additional resources; the FBI defines this as Resource Augmentation. Within the structure of a task force the addition of a resource should be thought of as either long term, or short term. If the task force's framework is expanded to include the new resource, then it should be permanent and not removed. For short term needs, such as setting up road blocks or canvassing a neighborhood, additional resources should be called in on a short term basis. The decision of whether resources are needed short or long term should be left to the lead investigator and facilitated by the administration (FBI 2008).[140] The confusion and counter productiveness created by changing the structure of a task force mid investigation is illustrated by the way the Green River Task Force's staffing and structure was changed multiple times throughout the investigation. This made an already complicated situation more difficult, resulting in the delay or loss of information, which allowed Ridgeway to continue killing (Guillen 2007).[146] The FBI model does not take into account that permanently expanding a task force, or investigative structure, may not be possible due to cost or personnel availability. Egger (1998) offers several alternative strategies including; using investigative consultants, or experienced staff to augment an investigative team. Not all departments have investigators experienced in serial murder and by temporarily bringing in consultants, they can educate a department to a level of competence then step out. This would reduce the initially established framework of the investigation team and save the department the cost of retaining the consultants until the conclusion of the investigation.[141]
Communication[edit]
The FBI handbook (2008)[140] and Keppel (1989)[142] both stress communication as paramount. The difference is that the FBI handbook (2008)[140] concentrates primarily on communication within a task force while Keppel (1989)[142] makes getting information out to, and allowing information to be passed back from patrol officers a priority. The FBI handbook (2008)[140] suggest having daily e-mail or in person briefings for all staff involved in the investigation and providing periodic summary briefings to patrol officer and managers. Looking back on a majority of serial murderer arrests, most are exercised by patrol officers in the course of their every day duties and unrelated to the ongoing serial murder investigation (Egger 1998,[141] Keppel 1989).[142] Keppel (1989)[142] provides examples of Larry Eyler, who was arrested during a traffic stop for a parking violation, and Ted Bundy, who was arrested during a traffic stop for operating a stolen vehicle. In each case it was uniformed officers, not directly involved in the investigation, who knew what to look for and took the direct action that stopped the killer. By providing up to date (as opposed to periodic) briefings and information to officers on the street the chances of catching a serial killer, or finding solid leads, are increased.
Data management[edit]
A serial murder investigation generates staggering amounts of data, all of which needs to be reviewed and analyzed. A standardized method of documenting and distributing information must be established and investigators must be allowed time to complete reports while investigating leads and at the end of a shift (FBI 2008).[140] When the mechanism for data management is insufficient, leads are not only lost or buried but the investigation can be hindered and new information can become difficult to obtain or become corrupted. During the Green River Killer investigation, reporters would often find and interview possible victims or witnesses ahead of investigators. The understaffed investigation was unable to keep up the information flow, which prevented them from promptly responding to leads. To make matters worse, investigators believed that the journalists, untrained in interviewing victims or witnesses of crimes, would corrupt the information and result in unreliable leads (Guillen 2007).[146]
Memorabilia[edit]
Notorious and infamous serial killers number in the hundreds, and a subculture revolves around their legacies. That subculture includes the collection, sale, and display of serial killer memorabilia, dubbed 'murderabilia' by one of the best-known opponents of collectors of serial killer remnants, Andrew Kahan. He is the director of the Mayor's Crime Victims Office in Houston and is backed by the families of murder victims and 'Son of Sam laws' existing in some states that prevent murderers from profiting from the publicity generated by their crimes.[148]
Such memorabilia includes the paintings, writings, and poems of these killers.[149] Recently, marketing has capitalized even more upon interest in serial killers with the rise of various merchandise such as trading cards, action figures, and books such as The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers by Harold Schechter, and The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Schecter and David Everitt. Some serial killers attain celebrity status in the way they acquire fans, and may have previous personal possessions auctioned off on websites like eBay. A few examples of this are Ed Gein's 150-pound stolen gravestone and Bobby Joe Long's sunglasses.[150]
See also[edit]
Footnotes[edit]
- ^ abcdA serial killer is most commonly defined as a person who kills three or more people for psychological gratification; reliable sources over the years agree. See, for example:
- 'Serial killer'. TheFreeDictionary.com. Retrieved June 15, 2016.
A person who murders 3+ people over a period of > 30 days, with an inactive period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.
- Holmes & Holmes 1998, Serial murder is the killing of three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period between the murders [..] The baseline number of three victims appears to be most common among those who are the academic authorities in the field. The time frame also appears to be an agreed-upon component of the definition.
- Petherick 2005, p. 190 Three killings seem to be required in the most popular operational definition of serial killing since they are enough to provide a pattern within the killings without being overly restrictive.
- Flowers 2012, p. 195 in general, most experts on serial murder require that a minimum of three murders be committed at different times and usually different places for a person to qualify as a serial killer.
- Schechter 2012, p. 73 Most experts seem to agree, however, that to qualify as a serial killer, an individual has to slay a minimum of three unrelated victims.
- 'Serial killer'. TheFreeDictionary.com. Retrieved June 15, 2016.
- ^Burkhalter Chmelir 2003, p. 1.
- ^ abHough & McCorkle 2016, p. 73 Serial killing has been defined by different researchers or groups as either two or more, three or more or even four or more people killed over at least one month with a cooling off period between each of the murders.
- ^Burkhalter Chmelir 2003, p. 1, Morton 2005, pp. 4, 9
- ^Geberth 1995, p. ? 'The base population was 387 serial murderers, who killed (under various motivations), three or more persons over a period of time with cooling-off periods between the events. The author identified 232 male serial murderers who violated their victims sexually'.
- ^Morton 2005, p. 4, 9.
- ^ abcdefghijkScott, Shirley Lynn. 'What Makes Serial Killers Tick?'. truTV. Archived from the original on July 28, 2010. Retrieved 2011-01-09.
- ^Ressler & Schachtman 1993, p. 29, Schechter 2003, p. 5
- ^Rule 2004, p. 225.
- ^Gennat 1930, pp. 7, 27–32, 49–54, 79–82.
- ^ abVronsky 2004
- ^'Review: The Meaning of Murder'. Evening Star. Washington DC. May 30, 1967. p. 12, col. 4.
- ^Vronsky 2013.
- ^Petherick 2005, p. 190.
- ^Flowers 2012, p. 195.
- ^ abcdefgMorton 2005
- ^Schlesinger 2000, p. 5.
- ^'Tanganyika: Murder by Lion'. Time. November 4, 1957. Archived from the original on June 28, 2011. Retrieved April 13, 2014.
- ^Qian 1993, p. 387.
- ^Vronsky 2004, p. 45-48.
- ^Vronsky 2004, p. 47.
- ^Vronsky 2007, p. 78.
- ^Rubinstein 2004, pp. 82–83.
- ^Newton 2006, p. 117.
- ^Norder, Vanderlinden & Begg 2004.
- ^'Jack The Ripper: The First Serial Killer'.
- ^Canter 1994, pp. 12–13.
- ^Canter 1994, pp. 5–6.
- ^ abDavenport-Hines 2004, Woods & Baddeley 2009, pp. 20, 52
- ^Bardsley, Marilyn. 'Jack the Ripper – the most famous serial killer of all time'. truTV.com. Archived from the original on June 1, 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-03.
- ^Ramsland, Katherine. 'The Werewolf Syndrome: Compulsive Bestial Slaughterers. Vacher the Ripper'. truTV.com. Archived from the original on July 16, 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-03.
- ^'French 'Ripper' Guillotined – Joseph Vacher, Who Murdered More Than a Score of Persons, Executed at Bourg-en-Bresse'. The New York Times. 1899-01-01. p. Page 7. Retrieved 2009-08-03.
- ^Newton 2006, p. 95.
- ^Morton 2005, Skeem et al., pp. 95–162
- ^ abBartol & Bartol 2004, p. 145.
- ^Morse, Stephen J. 'Psychopathy – What Is Psychopathy?'. Law Library – American Law and Legal Information. Crime and Justice Vol 3. Archived from the original on 2008-10-09. Retrieved 2008-09-25.
- ^Silva, Leong & Ferrari 2004, p. 794.
- ^Singer & Hensley 2004, pp. 48, 461–476.
- ^Mount 2007, pp. 131–133.
- ^Holloway, Lynette. Of Course There Are Black Serial KillersArchived 2013-10-13 at the Wayback Machine. The Root.
- ^Serial Killer Information Center: Serial Killer I.Q.Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^'UK | Harold Shipman: The killer doctor'. BBC News. 2004-01-13. Retrieved 2010-07-29.
- ^'CrimeLibrary.com/Serial Killers/Sexual Predators/Dennis Nilsen – Growing Up Alone – Crime Library on'. Trutv.com. 1945-11-23. Archived from the original on January 6, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-29.
- ^Testorides, Konstantin (2008-06-24). ''Serial murder' journalist commits suicide'. The Independent. London. Retrieved 2010-07-29.
- ^Mellor 2012.
- ^Holmes & Holmes 2000, p. 107.
- ^ abTithecott 1997, p. 38.
- ^Hale 1993, p. 41.
- ^Hasselt 1999, p. 166.
- ^Wilson & Seaman 1992.
- ^ abHasselt 1999, p. 162.
- ^Hickey 2010, p. 107.
- ^Maccoby 1992, pp. 1006–17.
- ^Rodgers, Abby. 'A Terrifying Glimpse into The Mind of a Serial Killer'. Business Insider. Retrieved 20 April 2014.
- ^Giannangelo 1996, p. 33.
- ^Silva, Leong & Ferrari 2004, p. 790, Tithecott 1997, p. 43
- ^Vronsky 2004, pp. 99–100.
- ^Ressler & Schachtman 1993, p. 113.
- ^ abcAamodt, Dr. Mike. 'Serial Killer Statistics'(PDF). Radford University/FGCU Serial Killer Database. Retrieved February 14, 2015.
- ^'Serial Killers'. Archived from the original on March 9, 2009. Retrieved May 21, 2009.
- ^Sitpond 2000, p. [page needed], Whittle & Ritchie 2000, p. [page needed], Linedecker & Burt 1990, p. [page needed], Hickey 2010, p. 142
- ^Wires, Linda (2015). 'Angels of Death'. New Scientist. 225 (3007): 40–43. Bibcode:2015NewSc.225..40W. doi:10.1016/S0262-4079(15)60268-8. Archived from the original on December 18, 2008. Retrieved 30 December 2008.
- ^Holmes & Holmes 1998, p. 204.
- ^ abRamsland, Katherine (2007-03-22). 'When Women Kill Together'. The Forensic Examiner. American College of Forensic Examiners Institute. Archived from the original on 2010-08-29. Retrieved 2009-08-02.
- ^ abc'Genene Jones Biography'.
- ^ abKelleher & Kelleher 1998, p. 12, Wilson & Hilton 1998, pp. 495–498, Frei et al. 2006, pp. 167–176
- ^Hickey 2010, pp. 187, 257,266, Vronsky 2007, p. 9, Farrell, Keppel & Titterington 2011, pp. 228–252
- ^Farrell, Keppel & Titterington 2011, pp. 228–252
- ^Newton 2006
- ^ abcdefFrei et al. 2006, pp. 167–176
- ^ abEducated attempt to provide specific information about a certain type of suspect. Department of Psychology, Concordia University. 2008. Archived from the original(PPT) on April 26, 2012. Retrieved 2010-07-01.
- ^ abcd'Your Questions Answered About Black Widow Case. Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. James Knoll Answers Viewers' Questions About Stacey Castor'. ABC News. April 27, 2009. Retrieved April 27, 2009.
- ^Vronsky 2007, p. 41.
- ^Hickey 2010, p. 267.
- ^ abWilson & Hilton 1998, pp. 495–498
- ^Hickey 2010, p. 265.
- ^Harrison et al., pp. 383–406.
- ^Vronsky 2007.
- ^Eric W. Hickey, (2010).
- ^Wilson & Hilton 1998, pp. 495–498, Frei et al. 2006, pp. 167–176, Holmes & Holmes 1998, p. 171, Newton 2006
- ^Vronsky 2007, pp. 1, 42–43, Schechter 2003, p. 312
- ^Schechter 2003, p. 31, Fox & Levin 2005, p. 117
- ^Schmid 2005, p. 231, Arrigo & Griffin 2004, pp. 375–393
- ^Yardley & Wilson 2015, pp. 1–26.
- ^Vronsky 2007, p. 73.
- ^ abPerri & Lichtenwald 2010, pp. 50–67
- ^Kirby 2009.
- ^'Youngest Serial Killer on Death Row'. Psychology Today. Retrieved 2018-03-02.
- ^Brown 2008, p. 12.
- ^N. R. Kleinfield And Erica Goode (2002-10-28). 'RETRACING A TRAIL: THE SNIPER SUSPECTS; Serial Killing's Squarest Pegs: Not Solo, White, Psychosexual or Picky'. The New York Times. Montgomery County (Md); Washington (Dc). Retrieved 2011-03-05.
- ^Schechter 2012, p. 42.
- ^Godwin 2008, p. 60.
- ^Walsh 2005, pp. 271–291.
- ^Salfati, Gabrielle; et al. (2015). 'South African Serial Homicide: Offender and Victim Demographics and Crime Scene Actions'(PDF). Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling (12:18-43). Retrieved 2019-08-15.
- ^Holmes & Holmes 1998, pp. 43–44, Bartol & Bartol 2004, p. 284
- ^Holmes & Holmes 1998, p. 62.
- ^Ressler & Schachtman 1993, p. 146.
- ^Schechter 2003, p. 291.
- ^Abrahamsen, David (1 July 1979). 'The Demons of 'Son of Sam''. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 101 (168). pp. 2G, 5G.
- ^Holmes & Holmes 1998, p. 43.
- ^Holmes & Holmes 2002, p. 112.
- ^Bartol & Bartol 2004, p. 146.
- ^Myers et al. 1993, pp. 435–451.
- ^Bartol & Bartol 2004, p. 146, Holmes & Holmes 2001, p. 163, Dobbert 2004, pp. 10–11
- ^Dobbert 2004, p. 10-11.
- ^Giannangelo 2012, Fulero & Wrightsman 2008, Dvorchak & Holewa 1991
- ^MacCormick 2003, p. 431.
- ^Dobbert 2004, p. 11.
- ^Bartol & Bartol 2004, p. 146, Howard & Smith 2004, p. 4
- ^Howard & Smith 2004, p. 4.
- ^Graysmith 2007, pp. 54–55.
- ^'A Deal With the Devil?'. 60 Minutes. October 14, 2004. Retrieved June 28, 2008.
- ^Mitchell 2006, pp. 207–208.
- ^Bartol & Bartol 2004, p. 146, Schlesinger 2000, p. 276, Holmes & Holmes 2000, p. 41
- ^Holmes & Holmes 2000, p. 44.
- ^Holmes & Holmes 2000, p. 43.
- ^Holmes & Holmes 1998, p. 7.
- ^Bruno 1993, p. 142.
- ^'Dorothea Puente, Killing for Profit – Easy Money – Crime Library on'. Trutv.com. Archived from the original on January 14, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-29.
- ^Andrews, Travis M. (2016-08-12). 'Felix Vail guilty in first wife's 1962 La. murder. For over 50 years, his romantic partners have died or vanished'. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2016-08-17.
A jury found Felix Vail guilty Friday in the 1962 homicide of his first wife, Mary Horton Vail.
- ^Mitchell, Jerry (2016-07-08). 'Oldest prosecution of serial killer suspect is Aug. 8'. Clarion Ledger. Retrieved 2016-08-16.
The Louisiana Supreme Court is allowing the disappearances of these two women as evidence in the trial.
- ^McConnaughey, Janet (August 8, 2016). 'Trial: Man, 76, accused of killing 1st wife in October 1962'. Associated Press. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
- ^Egger, Steven A. (2000). 'Why Serial Murderers Kill: An Overview'. Contemporary Issues Companion: Serial Killers.
- ^Peck & Dolche 2000, p. 255.
- ^'Dennis Rader'. Biography. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved January 1, 2016.
- ^Goldberg & Crespo 2003.
- ^Holmes & Holmes 2010, p. 55-56.
- ^'SERIAL KILLERS'. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Archived from the original on May 20, 2010. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
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- Norder, Dan; Vanderlinden, Wolf; Begg, Paul (2004). Ripper Notes: Madmen, Myths and Magic. Inklings Press. ISBN9780975912911.
- Peck, Dennis L.; Dolche, Norman Allan (2000). Extraordinary Behavior: A Case Study Approach to Understanding Social Problems. Greenwood. ISBN978-0-275-97057-4.
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Further reading[edit]
- Borgeson; Kristen Kuehnle (2010). Serial Offenders: Theory and Practice. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. ISBN978-0-7637-7730-2.
- Brady, Ian; Colin Wilson (Introduction); Peter Sotos (Afterword) (2001). The Gates of Janus: Serial Killing and Its Analysis. Feral House. ISBN978-0922915736.
- Douglas, John; Mark Olshaker (1997). Journey into Darkness. Pocket Books. ISBN978-0-671-00394-4.
- Douglas, John; Mark Olshaker (1997). Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit. Pocket Books. ISBN978-0-671-01375-2.
- Douglas, John E.; Allen G. Burgess; Robert K. Ressler; Ann W. Burgess (2006). Crime Classification Manual: A Standard System for Investigating and Classifying Violent Crimes (Second ed.). Wiley. ISBN978-0-7879-8501-1.
- Haggerty, Kevin D. (2009). 'Crime, Media, Culture: Modern Serial Killer'. Crime, Media, Culture. 5 (2): 1–21. doi:10.1177/1741659009335714.
- Holmes, Ronald M.; Stephen T. Holmes (1998). Contemporary Perspectives on Serial Murder. SAGE Publications. ISBN978-0-7619-1421-1.
- Holmes, Ronald M.; Stephen T. Holmes (2000). Murder in America (Second ed.). Sage. ISBN978-0-7619-2092-2.
- Jensen, Sybil (2014). Top 10 American Serial Killers:Inside The Minds of Psychopaths. Haselton Media Group. ASINB00KGDUJ2U.
- Kiam, O.M. (2013). The Second One: A Serial Killer's Account of His First Two Kills. Milford Press.
- Lane, Brian (2006). The New Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (2nd ed.). Facts on File. ISBN978-0816061952.
- Leyton, Elliott (1986). Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer. McClelland & Stewart. ISBN978-0-7710-5025-1.
- Lukin, Grigory (2013). Madmen's Manifestos: Chris Dorner, Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh and others. ASINB00BM5L2HW.
- MacDonald, J. M (1963). 'American Journal of Psychiatry'. American Psychiatric Association. Archived from the original on 2013-06-16. Retrieved 2011-05-31.Cite journal requires
|journal=
(help) - Newitz, Annalee (2006). Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture. Duke University Press. ISBN978-0-8223-3745-4.
- Norris, Joel (1990). Serial Killers: The Growing Menace. Arrow Books. ISBN978-0-09-971750-8.
- Panzram, Carl (2002) [1970]. Gaddis, Thomas E.; Long, James O. (eds.). Killer: A Journal of Murder. Amok Books.
- Ramsland, Katherine (2007). Inside the Minds of Healthcare Serial Killers: Why They Kill. Praeger. ISBN978-0-275-99422-8.
- Ramsland, Katherine; Karen Pepper. 'Serial Killer Culture'. Tru.tv Crime Library. Archived from the original on April 16, 2010. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- Ramsland, Katherine; Karen Pepper. 'Serial Killer Culture'. Tru.tv Crime Library. Archived from the original on April 10, 2010. Retrieved April 2, 2010.
- Reavill, Gil (2007). Aftermath, Inc.: Cleaning Up After CSI Goes Home. Gotham. ISBN978-1-59240-296-0.
- Robinson, Bryan (2006-01-07). 'Serial Killer Action Figures For Sale'. ABC News. Retrieved April 1, 2010.
- Rosner, Lisa (2010). The Anatomy Murders. Being the True and Spectacular History of Edinburgh's Notorious Burke and Hare and of the Man of Science Who Abetted Them in the Commission of Their Most Heinous Crimes. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN978-0-8122-4191-4.
- Roy, Jody M. (2002). Love to Hate: America's Obsession with Hatred and Violence. Columbia University Press. ISBN978-0-231-12569-7.
- Rushby, Kevin (2003). Children of Kali: Through India in Search of Bandits, the Thug Cult, and the British Raj. Walker & Company. ISBN978-0-8027-1418-3.
- Seltzer, Mark (1998). Serial Killers: Death and Life in America's Wound Culture. Routledge. ISBN978-0-415-91481-9.
- Vronsky, Peter (2004). Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters. Penguin Group/Berkley. ISBN978-0-425-19640-3.
- Wilson, Colin (1995). A Plague of Murder. Constable & Robinson. ISBN978-1-85487-249-4.
- Yudofsky, Stuart C. (2005). Fatal Flaws: Navigating Destructive Relationships with People with Disorders of Personality and Character. American Psychiatric Publishing. ISBN9781585626588.
External links[edit]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Serial killers. |
- Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators Official FBI publication
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serial_killer&oldid=919627969'
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, in two or more separate events over a period of time, for primarily psychological reasons.[1][2] There are gaps of time between the killings, which may range from a few days to months, or many years.[2] This list shows serial killers from the 20th century to present day by number of victims. In many cases, the exact number of victims assigned to a serial killer is not known, and even if that person is convicted of a few, there can be the possibility that they killed many more.
Organization and ranking of serial killings is made difficult by the complex nature of serial killers and incomplete knowledge of the full extent of many killers' crimes. To address this, multiple categories have been provided in order to more accurately describe the nature of certain serial murders. This is not a reflection of an individual's overall rank, which may or may not vary depending on personal opinion concerning the nature and circumstances of their crimes. The fourth column in the table states the number of victims definitely assigned to that particular serial killer, and thus the table is in order of that figure. The fifth column states the number of possible victims the killer could have murdered. Some of these crimes are unsolved, but were included because they are the work of a serial killer, despite nobody being caught.
This list does not necessarily include war criminals or members of democidal governments, such as Adolf Hitler, Hideki Tojo, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, or Pol Pot. Only serial killers with 10 confirmed or suspected murders should be included on this list.
Serial killers with the highest known victim count
Majority Of Serial Killers Race And Zodiac Sign
The most prolific modern serial killer is Harold Shipman, with 218 proven kills and possibly as many as 250 (see 'Medical professionals', below). Excluding these 'Medical professionals and pseudo-medical professionals', with their ability to kill simply and in plain sight, and Serial killer groups and couples (below), this list is a compilation of modern serial killers currently with the highest verifiable murder count.
Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Luis Garavito | Colombia Ecuador[3] Venezuela[3] | 1992 to 1999[3] | 138 | 172–300+ | Child-murderer, torture-killer, and rapist known as 'La Bestia' ('The Beast'). Confessed to killing 140 boys between eight and 16 years old over a seven-year period in Colombia and neighboring countries.[3] He is suspected of murdering over 300 victims, mostly street children.[4][5] |
Pedro López | Colombia Peru Ecuador | 1969 to 1979 | 110 | 300+ | Child-murderer and rapist, known as 'The Monster of the Andes'. Targeted young girls, between the ages of eight and 12. Arrested in 1980 and convicted in 1983 of killing three young girls, but claimed to have killed hundreds. Despite being believed to be one of the most prolific serial killers of the twentieth century, he was released in the late 1990s.[6] |
Javed Iqbal | Pakistan | 1998 to 1999 | 100 | 100 | Child-murderer and rapist, known as “Kukri”, Iqbal murdered 100 street children by strangling them and covering up his crimes by dissolving the bodies with acid. He was arrested in 1999 thanks to a letter he sent a newspaper, and was set to be executed in the manner described by the judge who stated, 'You will be strangled to death in front of the parents whose children you killed, Your body will then be cut into 100 pieces and put in acid, the same way you killed the children.'[7] However, he died in custody before he could be executed.[8] |
Mikhail Popkov | Russia | 1992 to 2010 | 78 | 81 | Serial rapist-killer nicknamed 'The Werewolf', who was active for two decades in Angarsk, Irkutsk and Vladivostok. After being convicted of 22 murders in 2015, he confessed to an additional 59 murders, of which he was convicted of 56 in 2018.[9][10] |
Daniel Camargo Barbosa | Colombia Ecuador Brazil(alleged)[11] | 1974 to 1986 | 72 | 180[11] | Child and woman murderer, believed to have possibly raped and killed over 150 victims, primarily targeting female children as they were more likely to be virgins. Confessed to killing 72 victims. He strangled young girls in Colombia and was arrested, but he escaped from prison and he started killing in Ecuador; rearrested in 1986, he was incarcerated in the same Ecuadorian prison as 300+ serial killer Pedro López.[citation needed] Camargo was killed in jail by the nephew of one of his victims.[11][12] |
Pedro Rodrigues Filho | Brazil | 1967 to 2003 | 71 | 100+ | He claimed to have killed over 100 victims, 47 of them inmates. He also killed his father and ate a piece of his heart. He killed his first two victims at the age of 14; he was first arrested in 1973. Convicted and sentenced to 128 years, but the maximum one can serve in Brazil is 30 years.[13] |
Kampatimar Shankariya | India | 1977 to 1978 | 70 | 70+ | This mysterious Indian serial killer used a hammer to kill over 70 men and women between 1978 and 1979, his last words were, 'I have murdered in vain,' he declared. 'Nobody should become like me.'[14][15][16] |
Yang Xinhai | China | 2000 to 2003 | 67 | 67 | Known as the 'Monster Killer'. Would enter victims' homes at night and kill using axes, meat cleavers, hammers, and shovels. Executed by gunshot in 2004.[17] |
Samuel Little | United States | 1970 to 1982, 1989 to 2005 | 8 | 93 | Was convicted of killing three women, but later investigations linked 31 other murders to him. Little is now thought to be America's most prolific serial killer. He claims he killed as many as 93 victims total, three above his initial confession of 90. The investigation into his crimes are ongoing.[18] |
Andrei Chikatilo | Soviet Union | 1978 to 1990 | 53 | 56 | Known as 'The Butcher of Rostov', 'The Red Ripper' or 'The Rostov Ripper'. Convicted of the murder of 53 women and children between 1978 and 1990. One man was previously convicted and executed for his first murder. Executed by gunshot in 1994.[19] |
Anatoly Onoprienko | Soviet Union Ukraine | 1989 to 1996 | 52 | 52+ | Known as 'The Beast of Ukraine', 'The Terminator' and 'Citizen O'. Convicted of the murders of nine people in 1989 and 43 people in 1995–1996. Traveled throughout Europe illegally from 1990 to 1995; whether he killed during this time is unknown. Sentenced to death, later commuted to imprisonment for life. Died from heart failure in 2013.[19] |
Florisvaldo de Oliveira | Brazil | 1982 | 50 | 50+ | Known as 'Cabo Bruno'; former police officer and vigilante who murdered criminals in the outskirts of São Paulo; murdered by unknown assailants in 2012.[20] |
Robert Pickton | Canada | 1983 to 2002 | 49 | 49 | Nicknamed 'The Butcher'; Robert Pickton was a Canadian serial killer who killed 49 women and disposed of their bodies by feeding them to his pigs. He was convicted of only 6 murders but charged for his proven 49 victims. Unfortunately, much to the anger of the victims families, the remaining 43 charges were stayed or dropped. |
Gary Ridgway | United States | 1982 to 2000 | 49 | 71–90+ | Truck painter who confessed to killing 71 women. Also known as The Green River Killer. He almost exclusively targeted sex workers from Seattle. Suspected of killing over 90 victims, confessed to 71, convicted of 49.[21] Sentenced to life without parole and currently imprisoned in ADX Florence in Colorado.[22] |
Alexander Pichushkin | Russia | 1992 to 2006 | 48 | 60 | Known as the Chessboard Killer. Convicted of murdering 48 victims and suspected of killing 60. Claimed to have murdered 62 people, because he did not know that two of his victims had survived; stated goal of becoming Russia's most prolific serial killer.[23] Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
Wang Qiang | China | 1995 to 2003 | 45 | 60+ | Killed 45 and raped 10 from 1995 to 2003.[24] Executed in 2005. |
Ahmad Suradji | Indonesia | 1986 to 1997 | 42 | 70–80+ | Convicted of strangling at least 42 women and girls in a series of ritual slayings he believed would give him magical powers. Executed by firing squad in 2008.[25] |
Raman Raghav | India | 1965 to 1968 | 41 | 41 | In the late 1960s Raman Raghav went on a violent rampage in Mumbai, India. He bludgeoned 41 people to death inside their huts while they slept. |
Tiago Henrique Gomes da Rocha | Brazil | 2011 to 2014 | 39 | ~39 | Brazilian security guard who confessed to the murders of 39 people. Attempted suicide in prison. Sentenced to 25 years.[26] |
Moses Sithole | South Africa | 1994 to 1995 | 38 | 38+ | Known as South Africa's Ted Bundy. Preyed on unemployed women, posing as a businessman and luring his victims with the prospects of a job, before leading them to an isolated place, where he raped, tortured, and murdered them. Sentenced to 2410 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 930 years.[27] |
Serhiy Tkach | Soviet Union Ukraine | 1984 to 2005 | 36 | 80–100 | A former Ukrainian police criminal investigator, suffocated girls aged between eight and 18 and performed sexual acts on their bodies after they were dead. Claims to have killed 100. Sentenced to imprisonment for life. Died from heart failure in 2018.[28] |
Gennady Mikhasevich | Soviet Union | 1971 to 1985 | 36 | 43–55+ | Strangled females. Besides killing, he also robbed his victims of money and valuable items (that he would sometimes give to his wife as a gift). Executed by firing squad in 1987.[29] |
Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi | Morocco | 1906 and earlier | 36 | 36+ | Known as 'Marrakesh Arch-Killer'; drugged, mutilated and murdered women; executed 1906. |
Vera Renczi | Romania Yugoslavia Hungary (alleged) | 1920 to 1930 | 35 | ~35 | Romanian serial killer nicknamed, 'The Black Widow' convicted of killing 35 men through arsenic poisoning but confessed to only killing 32 victims. Renczi is the world's most prolific female serial killer. However, there is very little information about Renczi and her crimes because personal information (criminal history, academic records, and etc.) were not cataloged as well as they are today, making some criminologists believe she was a figure of Romanian folklore rather than an actual person.[30] |
Ted Bundy | United States | 1974 to 1978 | 35 | 36+ | American serial killer known for his charisma and good looks. Bundy officially confessed to 30 homicides, but had confessed to killing 35–36 women in the past, and some estimates run upwards of 100 or more. Infamous for escaping from prison twice and murdering multiple victims in one day; sometimes abducting women from the same location within hours of one another.[31] He was executed by electric chair in 1989.[32][33] |
John Wayne Gacy | United States | 1972 to 1978 | 33 | 34+ | Known to have murdered a minimum of 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978, 26 of whom he buried in the crawl space of his Chicago home. Gacy was known as the 'Killer Clown' due to the fact he often entertained children at social events dressed in a self devised clown costume. Executed by lethal injection in 1994.[34] |
Ali Asghar Borujerdi | Ottoman Empire Iraq Persia | 1907 to 1934 | 33 | 33 | Known as 'Asghar the Murderer'. Killed 33 young adults in Iraq and Iran. Executed by hanging in 1934.[35] |
Vasili Komaroff | Soviet Union | 1921 to 1923 | 33 | 33 | Known as 'The Wolf of Moscow'; horse trader who killed 33 men. Executed by firing squad in 1923. |
Fernando Hernández Leyva | Mexico | 1982 to 1999 | 33 | 100+ | Confessed to 100 murders and six kidnappings at the time of his arrest in 1999 (he had been arrested previously in 1982 and 1986, the second time for murder, but escaped from prison), but later retracted and claimed that he had been beaten by the police and his family threatened in order to force him to confess. Accused of as many as 137 murders in five southern Mexican states, convicted of 33 murders and sentenced 50 years in prison. Tried unsuccessfully to kill himself in prison. If his claim of 100+ victims were true then Leyva would be one of the world's worst murders, currently he is Mexico's worst documented serial killer.[36] |
Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansour | Egypt | 1999 to 2006 | 32 | 32+ | Gang leader known as al-Tourbini ('The Express Train'). Raped and tortured homeless children, mostly boys aged 10 to 14 years old, aboard the trains between Cairo, Alexandria, Qalyubia and Beni Sueif. The victims were usually thrown off the moving train when they were dead or in agony; other times they were thrown into the Nile or buried alive. Executed in 2010.[37] |
Volga Maniac | Russia | 2011 to 2012 | 32 | 32 | Killed elderly women in several Russian regions; Kazakhstani native Pavel Shayakhmetov, found guilty of killing two elderly women in Samara, was arrested on suspicion of committing these murders, but police forces believe that the real perpetrator, possibly originating from Tatarstan, is out there.[38] |
Serial killers with 15 to 30 victims
This part of the list contains all serial killers with 15 to 30 proven victims who acted alone and were neither medical professionals nor contract killers.
Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Karl Denke | German Empire Germany | 1900 to 1924 | 30 | 42+ | Killed and cannibalized poor travelers and homeless vagrants. Kept a ledger recording his murders with at least 31 names in it (including Vincenz Olivier, his only surviving victim), thus confirming at least 30 victims. But due to the massive amount of human remains found in his apartment, his kill count is suspected by many to exceed 42 victims. Committed suicide by hanging himself in his holding cell before he could be tried.[39] |
Francisco das Chagas Rodrigues de Brito | Brazil | 1989 to 2003 | 30 | 42 | Pedophile who sexually abused, murdered and mutilated children in Maranhão and Pará; sentenced to 217 years imprisonment.[40] |
Luis Gregorio Ramírez Maestre | Colombia | 2010 to 2013 | 30 | 30 | Killed motorists in various municipalities before his 2012 capture.[41] |
David Thabo Simelane | Swaziland | 2000 to 2001 | 28 | 45 | Sexually assaulted women he befriended in forests, stabbing or strangling them afterward; sentenced to death.[42] |
Zhang Jun | China | 1993 to 2000 | 28 | 28 | Robbed 22 stores in several Chinese provinces, killing 28 people in the process. Executed in 2001.[43] |
Cedric Maake | South Africa | 1996 to 1997 | 27 | 35+ | Known as the 'Wemmer Pan Killer' and 'Hammer Killer'. He killed his victims with different instruments such as guns, rocks, a knife, and a hammer. Authorities attributed the murders to two serial killers because of the inconsistent modus operandi. In some cases he killed his victims with a rock, in others he shot them, and in others he murdered tailors with a hammer. Maake was arrested after Moses Sithole was found guilty of 38 killings and sentenced to 1,340 years in prison.[44] |
Bruce George Peter Lee | United Kingdom | 1973 to 1979 | 26 | 26 | Epilepticarsonist who killed people in the town of Hull; sentenced to life imprisonment, but was later institutionalized.[45] |
The Stoneman | India | 1985 to 1989 | 25 | 25+ | 12 homeless people were murdered in their sleep in Bombay between 1985 and 1987, and 13 in Calcutta in 1989—in all cases, by dropping a large rock over their head (an additional victim escaped, but could not identify the attacker). No one was ever charged with any of the murders.[46] |
Juan Corona | United States | 1971 | 25 | 25+ | Corona was convicted of murdering ranch laborers and burying them in orchards. He was sentenced to 25 terms life imprisonment.[47] Died from natural causes in 2019. |
Fritz Haarmann | Germany | 1918 to 1924 | 24 | 27+ | Also known as the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover, because of his preferred method of killing by biting through his victim's throat, sometimes while sodomizing them. He would then dump the bodies in the nearby river Leine. Believed to have been responsible for the murder of 27 boys and young men, he was convicted, found guilty of 24 murders and executed by guillotine in 1925.[48] |
Béla Kiss | 1912 to 1916 | 24 | 24+ | Evaded arrest and conviction after the discovery of 24 bodies hidden in large metal drums on his property in 1916. At that time he was serving in the Austro-HungarianArmy, and deserted when the military was notified of the murders by civilian authorities. His final whereabouts and fate are unknown, as is his final victim count.[49] | |
Majid Salek Mohammadi | Iran | 1981 to 1985 | 24 | 24 | Killed mainly women he considered unfaithful to their husbands, sometimes the children accompanying them too; committed suicide before he could be sentenced.[50] |
Yvan Keller | France Germany (suspected) Switzerland (suspected) | 1989 to 2006 | 23 | 150 | Known as the 'Pillow Killer'; killed and robbed old women in France's Alsace region, but also confessed to up to 150 murders, including in Germany and Switzerland; committed suicide before trial.[51] |
Ronald Dominique | United States | 1997 to 2006 | 23 | 23+ | Louisianian serial killer, known locally as the Bayou Strangler and murdered victims in the Terrebonne Parish, Lafourche Parish, Iberville Parish and Jefferson Parish. Sentenced to eight life terms.[52] |
Juan Fernando Hermosa | Ecuador | 1991 to 1992 | 23 | 23 | Known as 'Niño del Terror'; youth gang leader who murdered mostly taxi drivers and homosexuals in Quito; murdered on his 20th birthday by unknown assailants.[53] |
Earle Nelson | United States Canada | 1926 to 1927 | 22 | 25 | Necrophiliac who primarily targeted boarding houselandladies on the US West Coast during 1926; he was also known as 'Gorilla Killer' or 'the Dark Strangler'. Captured after two murders in a small (now ghost) town in southern Manitoba. Found guilty, hanged by Canadian authorities in January 1928.[54] |
Mikhail Novosyolov | Soviet Union Russia Tajikistan | 1977 to 1995 | 22 | 22 | Known as the 'Necrophile Rebel'; killed his victims with blows from heavy objects, then had sexual intercourse with their corpses; sentenced to civil commitment.[55] |
Manuel Octavio Bermúdez | Colombia | 1999 to 2003 | 21 | 50+ | Colombian pedophile and serial killer. Known as 'El Monstruo de los Cañaduzales' (The Monster of the Cane Fields). He confessed to killing 21 children in remote areas of Colombia.[56] Sentenced to 40 years in prison. |
Patrick Kearney | United States | 1965 to 1977 | 21 | 43+ | Would pick up young male hitch-hikers or young men from gay bars near Redondo Beach, California, and kill them.[57] Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
William Bonin | United States | 1979 to 1980 | 21 | 36+ | Bonin and three accomplices are known to have murdered a minimum of 21 youths aged between 12 and 19 in and around Los Angeles. As the majority of his victims were discarded alongside various southern California freeways, Bonin became known as the Freeway Killer. Convicted of 14 of the freeway murders, he was executed by lethal injection in 1996.[58] |
Vasile Tcaciuc | Romania | 1917 to 1935 | 21 | 26+ | Romanian man who lured victims and then murdered them with an axe. He was arrested in 1935 after a dog found a dead body in his house. He confessed to having committed at least 26 murders. He was shot dead by a policeman while trying to escape from prison.[59] |
Yoo Young-chul | South Korea | 2003 to 2004 | 21 | 26 | Used a hammer to murder mostly older victims, until his focus shifted to the decapitation and mutilation of escorts after being dumped by a girlfriend who worked in that profession.[60] Was sentenced to death and currently incarcerated.[61][62] |
Francisco Guerrero Pérez | Mexico | 1880 to 1908 | 21 | 21 | Known as 'El Chaquero'; the first captured serial killer in Mexico, who killed prostitutes in Mexico City; died in 1910 from cerebral thromboembolism and another, unspecified cause.[63] |
Abdullah Shah | Afghanistan | 1990s | 20 | 20+ | Killed travelers on the road from Kabul to Jalalabad serving under Zardad Khan. Also killed his wife. Executed by gunshot in 2004.[64] |
José Paz Bezerra | Brazil | 1960s to 1970s | 20 | 20+ | Known as the 'Morumbi Monster'; sexually violated, tortured and then murdered at least 20 women in São Paulo and Pará; sentenced to 30 years imprisonment and later released in 2001.[65] |
Bulelani Mabhayi | South Africa | 2007 to 2012 | 20 | 20 | Known as the 'Monster of Tholeni'; killed women and children in the village of Tholeni; sentenced from 25 years to life imprisonment.[66] |
Mohan Kumar | India | 2005 to 2009 | 20 | 20 | Lured female victims with promises of marriage and gave them cyanide, claiming they were contraceptive pills, Sentenced to death in 2013.[67] |
Alexander Spesivtsev | Russia | 1991 to 1996 | 19 | 82+ | Cannibal known as 'The Novokuznetsk Monster'; admitted to 19 murders, but 82 bloody sets of clothes were found in his home, along with jewels and photographs of possibly unidentified victims. Found insane and interned in a mental hospital. His mother was sentenced to 16 years in prison for luring Spesivtsev's victims to their home.[68] |
Larry Eyler | United States | 1982 to 1984 | 19 | 23+ | Known as 'The Interstate Killer'; sentenced to death for the 1984 murder and dismemberment of 15-year-old Daniel Bridges. He confessed to other homicides of young men and boys in five separate states. Died of AIDS complications in 1994.[69] |
Georgia Tann | United States | 1924 to 1950 | 19 | 19+ | Child trafficker who sold children to the black market; multiple children died due to the harsh abuse caused by Tann; died of uterine cancer before she could be arrested.[70] |
El Psicópata | Costa Rica | 1986 to 1996 | 19 | 19+ | ('The Psychopath') Unidentified serial killer who killed 19 people with an M3 submachine gun in three Costa Rican towns, always south of the Florencio del Castillo Highway.[71] |
Sergei Ryakhovsky | Soviet Union Russia | 1988 to 1993 | 19 | 19+ | Known as the Balashikha Ripper, he was convicted for the murders of at least 19 victims. Died from tuberculosis in 2005.[72] |
Yevgeny Chuplinsky | Russia | 1998 to 2006 | 19 | 19+ | Known as the 'Novosibirsk Maniac'; killed prostitutes in Novosibirsk; despite extensive police search and the capture of another serial killer, he was only arrested in 2016; sentenced to life imprisonment.[73] |
M. Jaishankar | India | 2008 to 2011 | 19 | 19+ | Accused of killing at least 19 women. Charged with 13 murders, he escaped during a trial transport. Killed eight more people in two months before he was recaptured. Sentenced to 27 years. Committed suicide by slashing his wrists with a shaving blade in prison on 27 February 2018.[74] |
Ansis Kaupēns | Latvia | 1920 to 1926 | 19 | 19 | Army deserter who committed 30 robberies and killed 19 people; the most infamous Latvian criminal; executed by hanging in 1927.[75] |
Vadim Ershov | Russia | 1992 to 1995 | 19 | 19 | Known as the 'Krasnoyarsk Beast'; committed 70 crimes around the Krasnoyarsk area, including 19 murders and eight attempted murders; sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment.[76] |
Velaphi Ndlangamandla | South Africa | 1998 | 19 | 19 | Known as 'The Saloon Killer'; robbed who murdered people around Mpumalanga in his crime spree; sentenced to 137 years imprisonment.[77] |
Yavuz Yapıcıoğlu | Turkey | 1994 to 2002 | 18+ | 40+ | Killed in various cities of Turkey. 18 murders proven and accused of more than 40 by eyewitnesses and relatives.[78] |
Paul John Knowles | United States | 1974 | 18 | 35+ | Killed 18 people in various states in 1974. Claimed 35 murders. Known as the 'Casanova Killer'; shot dead by FBI agents.[79] |
Thierry Paulin | France | 1984 to 1987 | 18 | 21 | Known as 'The monster of Montmartre'. Killed and robbed elderly women. Died of AIDS in 1989 in prison before trial.[80] |
Randall Woodfield | United States | 1979 to 1981 | 18 | 44 | Known as 'The I-5 Killer' and 'The I-5 Bandit.' Suspected of as many as 44 murders.[81] Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
Umesh Reddy | India | 1996 to 2002 | 18 | 18+ | Confessed to 18 rapes and murders. Sentenced to death.[82] |
Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode | South Africa | 1994 to 1995 | 18 | 18+ | Known as 'Donnybrook Serial Killer' murdered 18 people in Donnybrook, KwaZulu Natal from 1994–1995.[83] |
Asande Baninzi | South Africa | 2001 | 18 | 18 | Killed 18 people in three months, including a family of four; given 19 life sentences and 189 years of imprisonment.[84] |
Huang Yong | China | 2001 to 2003 | 17 | 25 | Lured and murdered 17 teenage boys, although he is suspected of 25 murders between September 2001 and 2003.[85] Executed by firing squad in 2003. |
Pedro Pablo Nakada Ludeña | Peru | 2005 to 2006 | 17 | 25 | Known as 'El Apóstol de la Muerte' ('The Apostle of Death'). Convicted of 17 murders and claimed 25. Sentenced to 35 years in prison.[86] |
Darbara Singh | India | 2004 | 17 | 23 | Sexually assaulted and then murdered children of non-Punjabi immigrants; died in 2018 while serving a life sentence.[87] |
Sergei Dovzhenko | Ukraine | 1992 to 2002 | 17 | 19 | Killed people because they were 'mocking' him; sentenced to life imprisonment.[88] |
Donato Bilancia | Italy | 1997 to 1998 | 17 | 17 | Burglar who murdered 17 people, mainly prostitutes, between 1997 and 1998, during a six-month period. Known as the 'Prostitutes Killer' and the 'Liguria Monster'. Sentenced to imprisonment for life.[89] |
Irina Gaidamachuk | Russia | 2002 to 2010 | 17 | 17 | Known as 'Satan in a skirt'. Killed 17 elderly women between 2002 and 2010. Sentenced to 20 years in prison. |
Randy Steven Kraft | United States | 1971 to 1983 | 16 | 65–67 | Convicted of 16 counts of murder but left a cryptic 'score card' referring to at least 65 victims. May have had an accomplice.[90] Sentenced to death. |
Mohammed Bijeh | Iran | 2004 | 16 | 20 | Raped and killed at least 16 boys and teenagers. Nicknamed the 'Tehran Desert Vampire'. Was convicted and executed after being lashed in front of a crowd in 2005.[91] |
Michel Fourniret | France Belgium | 1987 to 2001 | 16 | 19 | Known as the Ogre or Beast of Ardennes. He was caught after a failed kidnapping in 2003.[92] |
Sipho Agmatir Thwala | South Africa | 1996 to 1997 | 16 | 19 | Nicknamed the Phoenix Strangler after the area in which he committed his crimes; he raped and strangled 19 females; arrested, he was found guilty of 16 murders.[93] |
Saeed Hanaei | Iran | 2000 to 2001 | 16 | 19 | Confessed to luring 16 prostitutes to his home and killing them in an attempt to 'cleanse' the city of Mashhad. His actions were dubbed 'The Spider Murders'. Executed by hanging in 2002.[94] |
Jeffrey Dahmer | United States | 1978 to 1991 | 16 | 17 | Dahmer ate some of his victims and kept their body parts in his freezer. Was sentenced to life imprisonment; murdered in prison in 1994.[95] |
José Antonio Rodríguez Vega | Spain | 1987 to 1988 | 16 | 16+ | Nicknamed El Mataviejas (The Old Lady Killer), he raped and killed at least 16 elderly women, aged from 61 to 93 years old, in and around Santander, Cantabria. He went unrecognized for over a year because he moved his victims into their beds after they were killed; no autopsies were made and the deaths were attributed to natural causes. He also took trophies from his victims that he held in a particular room of his home; about 10 percent of these trophies remained unclaimed, implying the existence of other victims.[96] He was stabbed to death by two inmates while incarcerated in 2002. |
Elias Xitavhudzi | South Africa | 1950s | 16 | 16 | Nicknamed Panga man for his use of a machete (locally known as a 'panga'). He stabbed and robbed his victims between 1953 and 1959; arrested, he was executed by hanging in 1960.[97] |
Jimmy Maketta | South Africa | 2005 | 16 | 16 | Pleaded guilty to and convicted of 16 murders and 19 rapes committed over the nine-month period of April to December 2005.[98] |
Jack Mogale | South Africa | 2008 to 2009 | 16 | 16 | Raped and strangled females in the Donnybrook area. Convicted of 16 murders and 19 rapes, nine kidnappings, robbery and assault.[99] |
Robert Lee Yates | United States | 1975 to 1998 | 16 | 16 | Killed prostitutes in the 'Skid Row' area of E. Sprague Avenue in Spokane, Washington. Sentenced to 408 years in prison and two death sentences.[100] |
Carroll Cole | United States | 1948 to 1980 | 16 | 16 | Killed 16 people in California, Nevada, Texas.[101] Executed by lethal injection in 1985. |
Charles Ray Hatcher | United States | 1969 to 1982 | 16 | 16 | A habitual criminal, confessed to the rape and murder of over 20 young and adolescent males. Escaped from prison several times and was declared a 'manipulative institutionalized sociopath'.[102] Sentenced to life; committed suicide by hanging himself in prison in 1984. |
Yuri Ivanov | Soviet Union | 1974 to 1987 | 16 | 16 | Known as the 'Ust-Kamenogorsk Maniac'; Kazakhstani rapist who killed girls and women who spoke negatively of men; executed 1987.[103] |
Vladimir Mirgorod | Russia | 2003 to 2004 | 16 | 16 | Known as 'The Strangler'; raped and strangle women in Moscow, also killing one of the victims' son; sentenced to life imprisonment.[104] |
Dorángel Vargas | Venezuela | 1997 to 1999 | 15 | Homeless cannibal known as 'The People Eater' (El Comegente) and 'The Hannibal Lecter of the Andes'. Murdered a homeless man and was institutionalized. After escaping the institution, he went on to kill ten other men and was arrested. In 2016, he and several other inmates killed three others and Vargas fed their remains to them.[105][106] | |
Ravinder Kumar | India | 2008 to 2015 | 15 | 30+ | Serial rapist who killed children of poor families.[107] |
Atlanta Ripper | United States | 1911 | 15 | 21 | Unidentified serial killer(s) who killed at least 15 Atlanta women in 1911, possibly as many as 21 in total.[108] |
Robert Hansen | United States | 1980 to 1983 | 15 | 21 | Prostitutes he kidnapped were released into the Alaskan wilderness for him to hunt down like animals. Based on discovered remains, police suspect him of six murders in addition to the 15 for which he was convicted. Sentenced to 461 years plus life. Died from unspecified health problems in 2014.[109] |
Ángel Maturino Reséndiz | United States Mexico | 1986 to 1999 | 15 | 18 | Known as the 'Railroad Killer' because his killings were committed near the railroad tracks he used to traverse the country. He was charged with and/or confessed to 15 murders occurring from 1986 to 1999 in Texas, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, and Kentucky. He was also suspected in a 1997 California murder case and claimed two additional killings he refused to elaborate on. Executed by lethal injection in 2006.[110] |
Chester Turner | United States | 1987 to 1998 | 15 | 15+ | Convicted of killing 15 people in Los Angeles, California in the 1980s and 1990s. Sentenced to death.[111] |
Elifasi Msomi | South Africa | 1950s to 1956 | 15 | 15 | Killed his victims with an axe or a knife in the 1950s; executed by hanging in 1956.[112] |
Florencio Fernández | Argentina | 1950s | 15 | 15 | Stalked his victims, then would beat and bite them while they were asleep. Died from natural causes a few years after his 1960 arrest. |
Bai Baoshan | China | 1983 to 1997 | 15 | 15 | Robber who killed 15 people while robbing several police stations; executed by gunshot in 1998. |
Maurizio Minghella | Italy | 1978 to 2001 | 15 | 15 | Killed five prostitutes; imprisoned and released, after which he killed 10 more; sentenced to life imprisonment.[113] |
Alexander Labutkin | Soviet Union | 1933 to 1935 | 15 | 15 | Known as the 'One-Armed Bandit'; killed people in the forest near the Prigorodny settlement using a revolver; executed 1935.[114] |
Serial killers with 10 to 14 proven victims
This part of the list contains all serial killers with less than 15 proven victims who acted alone and were neither medical professionals nor contract killers.
Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Carl Eugene Watts | United States | 1974 to 1982 | 14 | 80+ | Believed to have killed over 80 women in multiple states, in 1982 Watts accepted a plea bargain in Texas in which he would plead guilty to a lesser charge and be granted immunity from murder charges in exchange for providing information on his victims; as a result he confessed to 12 murders and was sentenced to 60 years in prison on the lesser charge. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in separate trials in Michigan in 2004 and 2007, and died of cancer a week after the 2007 sentence was handed down.[115] |
Philipp Tyurin | Soviet Union | 1945 to 1946 | 14 | 29 | Known as the 'Leningrad Maniac' and the 'Hellraiser'; murdered people for monetary reasons at his hut in Leningrad; executed 1947.[116] |
Zdzisław Marchwicki | Poland | 1964 to 1970 | 14 | 21+ | Also known as Vampire of Zagłębie. Killed 14 women in 1964–1970 in Poland's region of Dąbrowa Basin. Zdzisław Marchwicki was most likely the man responsible for the killings; however, his guilt remains in dispute. Executed in 1977.[117] |
Monster of Florence | Italy | 1968 to 1985 | 14 | 16 | Unidentified killer who shot couples in lovers lanes and mutilated the women, taking their sexual organs and in the last two cases, also their left breast. 69-year-old farmer Pietro Pacciani was controversially convicted of 14 crimes in 1994 and sentenced to life in prison, but he was released following allegations that the scant evidence had been planted in an attempt to close the case, which was by then the largest and most mediatic in Italy's criminal history. Pacciani was scheduled for retrial in 1998 when he died after taking medication contraindicated to his heart problems. Pacciani's two alleged accomplices, Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti, were sentenced to life and 30 years in prison, respectively. Some believe that none of the accused were guilty, and that Lotti incriminated himself and the other two because he was homeless and wanted to live in prison.[118][119] |
Joachim Kroll | West Germany | 1955 to 1976 | 14 | Known as the 'Ruhr Cannibal' and 'The Duisburg Man-Eater'; died from a heart attack in prison in 1991.[120] | |
Arthur Shawcross | United States | 1972 to 1989 | 14 | Committed arson and burglary, served two years of a five-year sentence. Within a year of his release, he raped and murdered two children in 1972. Under a plea bargain, he was sentenced to 25 years. Released after serving 141/2 years, he began killing again a year later, targeting prostitutes. Known as the 'Genesee River Killer', 'Genesee River Strangler', 'Rochester Strangler', and 'Monster of the Rivers,' he strangled and battered his victims. Sentenced to life without parole. Died of cardiac arrest in 2008.[121] | |
The Doodler | United States | 1974 to 1975 | 14 | Unidentified serial killer who sketched then stabbed to death 14 gay men in San Francisco. Surviving victims did not wish to testify, so the killer was not identified.[122] | |
Marcelo Costa de Andrade | Brazil | 1991 | 14 | Known as The Vampire of Niterói. Raped and killed 14 children in Rio de Janeiro and Niterói. Drank the blood of his victims. Found not guilty by reason of insanity. | |
Julio Pérez Silva | Chile | 1998 to 2001 | 14 | Known as The Psychopath from Alto Hospicio; killed 14 women. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004.[123] | |
Sergey Shipilov | Russia | 1995 to 1999 | 14 | Known as the 'Velsk Chikatilo'; killed female hitchhikers in the town of Velsk, most of them while out on prison leave; sentenced to life imprisonment.[124] | |
Abdufatto Zamanov | Russia | 2002 to 2004 | 14 | Killed people out of personal hostility; also raped two young girls; sentenced to life imprisonment.[125] | |
Jeong Nam-gyu | South Korea | 2004 to 2006 | 14 | Kidnapped, raped and murdered people; committed suicide.[126] | |
Amir Qayyum | Pakistan | 2005 | 14 | Known as 'The brick killer'. Killed 14 homeless men with rocks or bricks when they were asleep. Sentenced to death in May 2006.[127] | |
Jake Bird | United States | 1930s to 1947 | 13 | 44 | Sentenced to death for the murders of two people; confessed to 44 other murders; 11 were substantiated and he was suspected in the others.[128] Executed by hanging in 1949. |
Belle Gunness | United States | 1900? to 1908? | 13 | 40+ | Norwegian-born murder-for-profit killer who murdered her suitors and relatives in Indiana. High possibility of committing over 40 murders. May have faked her own death in the fire that destroyed her home in 1908; her children had died of strychnine poisoning before the fire, and the woman's body found next to them was decapitated and, reportedly, smaller than Gunness' own.[129] Ultimate fate unknown. |
Cleveland Torso Murderer | United States | 1934 to 1938 | 13 | 40+ | Unidentified serial killer, also known as 'The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run', who targeted drifters and derelicts, of whom only two were identified, between 1934 and 1938 in Cleveland, Ohio.[130] |
Kaspars Petrovs | Latvia | 2003 | 13 | 38+ | Confessed to strangling 38 elderly residents of Riga, Latvia, in 2003. Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the robbery and murder of 13.[131] |
Richard Ramirez | United States | 1984 to 1985 | 13[132] | 20 | Killed 13 people between 28 June 1984, and 24 August 1985, in Los Angeles. Known as the 'Night Stalker'.[132][133] Ramirez was sentenced to death in 1989, and died of B-cell lymphoma in 2013 while still on death row. |
Sleepy Hollow Killer | South Africa South Africa | 1990s to 2007 | 13 | 16+ | Raped and murdered women, mostly sex workers, around Pietermaritzburg and the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal.[134] |
Peter Sutcliffe | United Kingdom | 1975 to 1980 | 13 | 15 | Killed 13 women between 30 October 1975, and 17 November 1980. Most victims were killed by a combination of bludgeoning and stabbing, and all but two were killed in the county of Yorkshire. Owing to the modus operandi and location of the murders, Sutcliffe became known as the 'Yorkshire Ripper.'[135] Sentenced to 20 concurrent life sentences. After three years he was sent to a secure psychiatric facility, where he served 25 years before being found 'fit to leave' in 2009. Government officials and courts ruled in 2010 that he will never be released. In 2015, he was declared 'no longer mentally ill,' and transferred to a maximum security prison. |
Francisco Antonio Laureana | Argentina | 1974 to 1975 | 13 | 13+ | Raped 15 women in San Isidro, killing 13 of them. Shot and killed during a firefight with police.[136] |
Tamara Samsonova | Russia | 1995 to 2015 | 13 | 13+ | Known as the 'Granny Ripper'; killed and allegedly cannibalized people in her apartment; committed to a psychiatric clinic.[137][138] |
Herbert Mullin | United States | 1972 to 1973 | 13 | Despite detailed confessions, prosecutors decided not to try him for the first three crimes, instead focusing on crimes that conflicted with his insanity plea. Sentenced to imprisonment for life.[139] | |
Boston Strangler | United States | 1962 to 1964 | 13 | Although Albert DeSalvo was widely thought to be the Boston Strangler, police and others analysing the case have long doubted the truth of his confession.[140] Sentenced to life for a series of rapes, he was murdered in prison. DeSalvo's body was exhumed for DNA testing, and compared to a substance found on the exhumed body of the Boston Strangler's last victim. In 2001, it was declared not to match, but in 2013 officials announced that improvements in DNA extraction technology produced viable samples from the degraded evidence. DeSalvo's body was reexhumed and found to match. | |
Lorenzo Gilyard | United States | 1977 to 1993 | 13 | Known as 'The Kansas City Strangler'. Killed up to 13 prostitutes in the Kansas City area from 1977 to 1993. Sentenced to life in 2007.[141] | |
Vladimir Storozhenko | Soviet Union | 1978 to 1981 | 13 | Known as the 'Smolensky Strangler'; tortured and murdered women for sexual pleasure; four other inncent men were initially convicted for his crimes; executed 1984.[142] | |
Vasiliy Kulik | Soviet Union | 1984 to 1986 | 13 | Known as the Irkutsk Monster;[143] killed at least 13 victims from 1984–1986. Executed by firing squad in 1989. | |
Nikolai Dudin | Soviet Union Russia | 1987 to 2002 | 13 | Known as the 'Grim Maniac'; killed his father in 1987, and after release, killed 12 more people while intoxicated; sentenced to life imprisonment.[144] | |
Denis Pischikov | Russia | 2002 to 2003 | 13 | Known at the 'Shivering Creature'; robbed and killed elderly people around the Moscow Oblast and Vladimir Oblast; sentenced to life imprisonment.[145] | |
Nikolay Shubin | Russia | 2004 to 2006 | 13 | Paranoid schizophrenic who killed people who beat him in chess games; sentenced to compulsory treatment.[146] | |
Johannes Mashiane | South Africa | 1982 to 1989 | 13 | Known as 'The Beast of Atteridgeville', he was found guilty of 13 counts of murder and 12 counts of sodomy from 1982–1989. Committed suicide by throwing himself under a bus while being pursued by police in 1989.[147] | |
Mukosi Freddy Mulaudzi | South Africa South Africa | 1990 to 2006 | 13 | Known as 'The Limpopo Serial Killer'; escaped convict, originally responsible for two murders, who murdered 11 more after his prison escape; given 11 life sentences.[148] | |
Thozamile Taki | South Africa | 2007 | 13 | Known as the 'Sugar cane serial killer',[149] he murdered 13 women. Convicted in 2010. | |
Rainbow Maniac | Brazil | 2007 to 2008 | 13 | Unidentified serial killer who shot gay men in the head (except one, who was bludgeoned) in the Paturis Park of Carapicuiba.[150] | |
Naceur Damergi | Tunisia | 1980s to 1988 | 13 | Raped and killed minors in the Nabeul region; executed by hanging in 1990.[151] | |
Adolf Seefeldt | German Empire Weimar Republic Nazi Germany | 1908 to 1935 | 12 | 100 | Known as the 'Sandman'; sexually abused young boys in their sleep, then poisoned them; suspected of 100 murders in total.[152] Executed by guillotine in 1936. |
Donald Henry Gaskins | United States | 1953 to 1982 | 12 | 31–80+ | Known as 'The Meanest Man in America', Gaskins was convicted of nine murders committed in South Carolina between 1973 and 1975. He was suspected of 31 murders. Two victims had been murdered while Gaskins had been incarcerated—one while Gaskins had been on death row. Later claimed on death row that he had murdered between 80 and 110 victims. Executed by electric chair in 1991.[153][self-published source] |
William Suff | United States | 1986 to 1992 | 12 | 22 | Previously served 10 years of a 70-year sentence for beating his baby daughter to death. Beginning two years after his release, this county store clerk raped, stabbed, strangled, and sometimes mutilated 12 or more prostitutes in Riverside County, California. Known as the 'Riverside Prostitute Killer' and the 'Lake Elsinore Killer.' Sentenced to death.[154] |
Vladimir Romanov | Soviet Union Russia | 1991 to 2005 | 12 | 20 | Known as the 'Kaliningrad Maniac'; pedophile who raped and murdered girls and young women in the Kaliningrad Oblast; committed suicide while imprisoned.[155] |
Maury Travis | United States | 2000 to 2002 | 12 | 17 | Killed prostitutes in the St. Louis area from 2000 to 2002. Caught when he mailed an Expedia.com map showing where to find a body to a St. Louis newspaper. Committed suicide by hanging in prison.[156] |
Dennis Nilsen | United Kingdom | 1978 to 1983 | 12 | 15–16[157] | Picked up young men in London between 1978 and 1983 and dismembered them, keeping various body parts around his home.[158] Died from surgical complications in 2018. |
Kenneth Bianchi | United States | 1977 to 1978 | 12 | 15 | Convicted of strangling 12 females aged 12 to 28 and suspected in another three cases. One of the 'Hillside Stranglers'.[159] Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
Charles Sobhraj | Thailand Nepal India Malaysia | 1975 to 1976 | 12 | 13 | French con man known as 'The Bikini Killer' or 'The Serpent' that targeted Western tourists in vacation spots of South-east Asia, often with the help of female accomplices. Imprisoned in India from 1976 to 1997, and from 2004 serving a life sentence in Nepal.[160] |
Abdallah al-Hubal | Yemen | 1990 to 1998 | 12 | Killed seven people after a Yemeni reunion; fled prison, then proceeded to kill a young couple and three more people; killed during a shootout with police.[161] | |
Nikolai Shestakov | Soviet Union | 1975 | 12 | Known as the 'Luberetsky Maniac'; truck driver who raped and killed girls and young women; supposedly executed in 1977.[162] | |
Anatoly Sedykh | Russia | 1998 to 2003 | 12 | Raped and killed women around Lipetsk, then robbed their corpses; sentenced to life imprisonment.[163] | |
Joseph Christopher | United States | 1980 to 1981 | 12 | Known as 'The Midtown Slasher'; racist who killed 12 people, all but one of them African Americans, in 1980 and 1981, between upstate New York and Georgia, mutilating two of them. Sentenced to life imprisonment, died in prison age 33 of breast cancer.[164] | |
'Paraquat murders' killer | Japan | 1985 | 12 | Unidentified serial killer who carried out a series of indiscriminate poisonings in Japan in 1985 that killed 12. | |
Enriqueta Martí | Spain | c.1900 to 1912 | 12 | Unknown | Self-proclaimed witch that abducted, prostituted, murdered and made potions with the bodies of small children that she sold in Barcelona. Remains of 12 different children were identified in her home, but she is believed to have murdered more. Murdered in prison by fellow immates while awaiting trial in 1913.[165] |
Herb Baumeister | United States | 1990 to 1996 | 11–16 | 25+ | Strangled gay men and buried their bodies in his backyard in Indiana and Ohio; 11 men were found in the yard but only five were identified. Committed suicide by shooting himself when faced with arrest.[166] |
John Bunting | Australia | 1992 to 1999 | 11 | Ringleader in the Snowtown murders (aka Bodies in the Barrels Murders); sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.[167] | |
Sergey Golovkin | Soviet Union Russia | 1986 to 1992 | 11 | 40+ | Killed at least 11 boys in the Moscow area between 1986 and 1992.[168] Executed by gunshot in 1998; last person executed in Russia before the death penalty was abolished. |
Juana Barraza | Mexico | late 1990s to 2006 | 11 | 29–49 | Female wrestler who bludgeoned or strangled elderly women to rob them. Sentenced to 759 years.[169] |
Zhang Yongming | China | 2008 to 2012 | 11 | 17–20 | Sold flesh of his victims as 'ostrich meat' and kept eyeballs in wine. Executed.[170] |
Jack Unterweger | Austria United States Czechoslovakia | 1974 to 1992 | 11 | 15 | Served 14 years in Austrian prison because of a murder in 1974; killed at least nine prostitutes after his release. Was a small media star in Austrian media in the early 1990s and, on behalf of Austrian police, was arrested in the US, where he may have killed another three prostitutes. Hanged himself in 1994 after being sentenced to life in prison.[171] |
Vaughn Greenwood | United States | 1964 to 1975 | 11 | 13 | Known as the 'Skid Row Slasher'. Killed 11 people, suspected of two more. Cut victims' throats from ear to ear and may have drank their blood. Sentenced to imprisonment for life.[172] |
Benjamin Atkins | United States | 1991 to 1992 | 11 | Known as 'The Woodward Corridor Killer'. Raped and strangled his victims before abandoning their bodies in vacant buildings. Died in prison in 1997, age 29, from AIDS.[173] | |
Nannie Doss | United States | 1927 to 1954 | 11 | Responsible for 11 deaths between 1927 and 1954. Known as the 'Giggling Nanny', the 'Giggling Granny', and the 'Jolly Black Widow'. Sentenced to imprisonment for life. Died of leukemia in 1965, age 59.[174] | |
Clifford Olson | Canada | 1980 to 1981 | 11 | Considered a dangerous offender, meaning that Olson could never have been released from prison. He had three parole applications rejected.[175] Died from cancer in 2011. | |
Henri Désiré Landru | France | 1915 to 1919 | 11 | Unknown | Nicknamed 'Bluebeard', he put notes in the lonely hearts section of newspapers under different aliases, presenting himself as a widower that wanted to marry a war widow. He killed at least 10 women and the teenage son of one of them, and burned their bodies after he had gained access to their assets. Executed by guillotine in 1922.[176] |
West Mesa Killer | United States | 2003 to 2005 | 11 | Remains of 11 women, who disappeared between 2003 and 2005, were found buried in the desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2009 and attributed to a bone collector.[177] | |
Anthony Sowell | United States | 2007 to 2009 | 11 | Unknown | Known as The Cleveland Strangler, he was convicted of killing 11 women between 2007 and 2009, and is suspected in another series of murders in the 1980s, with the two sets of killings separated by a 15-year stint in prison. Sentenced to death.[178] |
Andre Crawford | United States | 1993 to 1999 | 11 | Murdered 11 women between 1993 and 1999. Sentenced to life in prison.[179] | |
Francisco García Escalero | Spain | 1987 to 1994 | 11 | Known as 'The Killer Beggar'. A necrophilic, schizophrenic homeless man found insane and confined to a psychiatric hospital after killing 11 prostitutes and other homeless people between 1987 and 1994.[180] Died in 2014. | |
Robledo Puch | Argentina | 1971 | 11 | Convicted of 11 murders and multiple other crimes including attempted murder and sexual assault. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1980.[181] | |
Adnan Çolak | Turkey | 1992 to 1995 | 11 | Killed 11 elderly women aged 68 to 95 and raped six others. Sentenced to death but commuted to life in prison after Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004. | |
Seisaku Nakamura | Japan | 1938 to 1942 | 11 | Teenage serial killer known as the 'Hamamatsu Deaf Killer' for having being born deaf. Murdered 11 people (including his brother) and attacked many others, among them his father, sister, brother-in-law and nephew. Tried as an adult and executed by hanging.[182] | |
Very Idham Henyansyah | Indonesia | 2008 and earlier | 11 | Known as the 'singing serial killer' and 'Ryan', the artistic name he adopted while awaiting his execution in prison, where he recorded an album and wrote his autobiography. 'Ryan' confessed to murdering 11 people including a toddler; 10 of his victims were buried in his parents' home backyard while the last one was butchered and hidden in a suitcase. Sentenced to death.[183] | |
Francisco de Assis Pereira | Brazil | 1997 to 1998 | 11 | Rapist and serial killer, known as 'O Maníaco do Parque' (The Park Maniac). He was arrested for the torture, rape and death of 11 women and for assaulting nine in a park in São Paulo, Brazil during the 1990s. Pereira found his victims by posing as a talent scout for a modeling agency. Sentenced to 268 years.[184] | |
Roshu Kha | Bangladesh | 2008 | 11 | Raped and murdered garment workers after being rejected by his lover. Sentenced to death.[185] | |
Gao Chengyong | China | 1998 to 2002 | 11 | Known as 'Chinese Jack the Ripper'; killed women and then mutilated their corpses.[186] Executed in 2019. | |
Marie Alexandrine Becker | Belgium | 1933 to 1936 | 11 | Poisoned wealthy clients while working as a seamstress. Died in prison in 1942. | |
Ruslan Khamarov | Ukraine | 2000 to 2003 | 11 | Seduced, raped and then killed women in his home; sentenced to life imprisonment.[187] | |
Yevgeny Petrov | Russia | 1998 to 2003 | 11 | Known as the 'Novouralsk Ripper'; pedophile who kidnapped, raped and killed young girls around Novouralsk, mutilating and burning their corpses afterwards; sentenced to life imprisonment.[188] | |
Rudolf Pleil | West Germany | 1946 to 1947 | 10 | 25 | Known as Der Totmacher ('The Deadmaker'). Convicted of killing a salesman and nine women. Claimed to have killed 25.[189] Committed suicide by hanging in 1958. |
Milton Johnson | United States | 1983 | 10 | 17 | Known as 'The Weekend Murderer' killed up to 17 people.[190] Sentenced to life without parole. |
Long Island serial killer | United States | 1996 to 2011 | 10 | 14 | Unidentified serial killer also known as 'The Gilgo Beach Killer'. Believed to have murdered 10 to 14 people associated with the sex trade over a period of 15 years.[191] |
Daniel Lee Siebert | United States | 1979 to 1986 | 10 | 13 | Convicted of a 1979 manslaughter; killed 10 people across America in three months in mid-1980s including two children and a Southside Slayer victim.[192] Sentenced to death; died from cancer in prison in 2008. |
Joseph James DeAngelo | United States | 1979 to 1986 | 12 | Top suspect in the murders committed by 'Golden State Killer', 'Original Night Stalker', and 'East Area Rapist'. Committed at least 12 murders, 50 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California in the 1970s and 1980s. He was identified and arrested in 2018 after DNA evidence confirmed it was him.[193] | |
Lonnie David Franklin Jr. | United States | 1985 to 2007 | 10 | 25[194][195][196] | Known as the 'Grim Sleeper' for the alleged 14-year hiatus he took from murdering between 1988 and 2002. Shot and strangled his victims, mostly women, around South Los Angeles. Sentenced to death.[194][195][196] |
Sergey Cherny | Russia | 1999 | 10 | 11 | Strangled women around Smolensk; suspected of the drowning death of another woman; died in 2001 from pneumonia while in a special psychiatric hospital.[197] |
Bobby Joe Long | United States | 1984 | 10 | 10+ | Known as 'The Classified Ad Rapist'; killed 10 women in Tampa Bay, Florida in 1984. Sentenced to death. Executed by lethal injection on 23 May 2019.[198] |
Stewart Wilken | South Africa | 1990 to 1997 | 10 | 10+ | Known as 'Boetie Boer'; raped, sodomised and murdered 10 victims from 1990–1997. Sentenced to seven life terms.[199] |
David Randitsheni | South Africa | 2004 to 2008 | 10 | 10+ | Kidnapped 19 people, raped 17, and murdered 10. Sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences plus 220 years in prison; hanged himself three weeks after conviction.[200] |
Edmund Kemper | United States | 1964 to 1973 | 10 | Called 'The Co-ed Butcher.' At age 15, he confessed to murdering his grandparents and served six years as a criminally insane juvenile. He was released in 1969. In 1972 and 1973, he murdered and dismembered six young women, then killed his mother and her friend. He was sentenced to eight counts of seven years to life.[201] | |
Dennis Rader | United States | 1974 to 2004 | 10 | Known as the BTK Killer. Murdered 10 people in Sedgwick County (in and around Wichita), Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for 175 years.[202] | |
Ali Kaya | Turkey | 1997 to present | 10 | Known as 'the baby faced killer'; responsible for 10 murders. Escaped from prison and later recaptured.[203] | |
Robert Wagner | Australia | 1992 to 1999 | 10 | Secondary ringleader in the Snowtown murders and best friend of John Justin Bunting; sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.[167] | |
Jeanne Weber | France | 1905 to 1908 | 10 | Transient baby-sitter who strangled children in her care. Declared insane. Hanged herself in prison in 1918.[204] | |
Henry Louis Wallace | United States | 1990 to 1994 | 10 | Confessed to 10 murders in Charlotte, North Carolina. The victims were all women that he knew.[205] Sentenced to death. | |
Angelo Buono Jr. | United States | 1977 to 1979 | 10 | Convicted of strangling 10 females. One of the 'Hillside Stranglers'. Died in prison from a heart attack in 2002.[206] | |
Hwaseong killer | South Korea | 1986 to 1991 | 10 | The victims, females aged 14 to 71, were bound, gagged, and strangled to death with their own clothes in most cases. The largest criminal case in South Korea with two million officers mobilized and over 21,000 suspects investigated.[207] A suspect was identified in 2019, but he could not be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. | |
Satish | India | 1995 to 1998 | 10 | Killed 10 girls who were between the ages of five and nine. He was arrested from Bahadurgargh, Haryana after a long chase by Haryana police.[208] | |
Zhou Kehua | China | 2004 to 2012 | 10 | A former soldier who targeted ATM users. He killed 10 people and evaded the law for eight years, before being shot in a shootout with police after a year-long manhunt.[209] | |
Kang Ho-sun | South Korea | 2006 to 2008 | 10 | Sentenced to death in 2010 for killing 10 women, including his wife and mother-in-law.[210] | |
Eduard Shemyakov | Russia | 1996 to 1998 | 10 | Known as the 'Resort Maniac'; Ukrainian who raped, killed and dismembered women in St. Petersburg, supposedly cannibalizing one of the victims; sentenced to compulsory treatment.[211] | |
Oleg Kuznetsov | Soviet Union Russia Ukraine | 1991 to 1992 | 10 | Robbed, raped and killed people around Russia and Ukraine; sentenced to death but commuted to life imprisonment.[212] | |
Stanislav Rogolev | Soviet Union | 1980 to 1982 | 10 | Known as 'Agent 000'; killed and raped women, managing to avoid capture through suspected knowledge of the investigation against him; executed by firing squad in 1984.[213] | |
Volker Eckert | West Germany Germany France Spain Czech Republic (suspected) Italy (suspected) | 1974 to 2006 | 9–13 | 19+ | German trucker who confessed to having abducted, tortured and killed five prostitutes through his route in Western Europe, plus strangling a 14-year-old girl in his native West Germany in 1974, when he was 15. Police considered him perpetrator of nine murders (with four more being possible); he hanged himself in prison before being convicted. |
Louis van Schoor | South Africa | 1986 to 1989 | 9 | 100 | Former security guard who was convicted of seven murders and two assassinations, but confessed to a reporter that he murdered 100 people; sentenced to 20 years in prison and released on parole in 2004.[214] |
Peter Kürten | German Empire Weimar Germany | 1913 to 1930 | 9 | 79 | Charged with nine murders and seven attempted murders. Dubbed 'The Vampire of Düsseldorf' by the contemporary media. Executed by guillotine in 1931.[215] |
Roger Dale Stafford | United States | 1974 to 1978 | 9 | 34 | Killed nine people in two states, including a family of three; his wife implicated him in 34 total murders in different states; executed by lethal injection in 1995.[216] |
Norman Afzal Simons | South Africa | 1986 to 1994 | 9 | 22 | Known as the 'Station Strangler', convicted of only one of 22 cases of murder and sodomy of young children near Cape Town.[217] Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
Francis Heaulme | France | 1984 to 1992 | 9 | 20 | Convicted of killing nine people, but suspected in the murder of dozens. He is known as the 'Criminal Backpacker' due to his travels throughout France. He left a trail of bodies wherever he went.[218] |
Joel Rifkin | United States | 1989 to 1993 | 9 | 17 | Known as 'The Drifter',[219] killed prostitutes in New York City, most of them drug addicts. Convicted of nine murders but believed to have committed 17; also suspected of being the unidentified Long Island serial killer. Sentenced to 203 years to imprisonment for life. |
Dagmar Overbye | Denmark | 1913 to 1920 | 9 | 15 | Murdered between nine and 25 children—of which one was her own—during a seven-year period. In 1921, she was sentenced to death in one of the most talked about trials in Danish history, that changed legislation on childcare. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Overbye was working as a professional child minder, caring for babies born outside of marriage, murdering her charges. She strangled them, drowned them or burned them to death in her masonry heater. The corpses were either cremated, buried or hidden in the loft.[220] Died in prison in 1929. |
Kenneth McDuff | United States | 1966 to 1992 | 9 | 14+ | Known as 'The Broomstick Killer'; death sentence for 1966 triple-murder was commuted. Killed again three days after 1989 parole and 10 further times in Waco, Texas until 1992. Executed by lethal injection in 1998.[221] |
Robert Joseph Silveria Jr. | United States | 1981 to 1996 | 9 | 14+ | Known as 'The Boxcar Killer'; freight train rider convicted of beating to death fellow transients and confessed to dozens more.[222] |
Richard Biegenwald | United States | 1958 to 1983 | 9 | 11+ | Known as 'The Thrill Killer'. Killed at least nine people in Monmouth County, New Jersey and is suspected in at least two other murders.[223] Died of respiratory and kidney failure in 2008. |
Alexander Bychkov | Russia | 2009 to 2012 | 9 | 11 | Described in his personal diary how he killed 11 men who were alcoholics and tramps. Confessed to eating body parts of his victims. Found guilty of nine murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.[224] |
New Bedford Highway Killer | United States | 1988 to 1989 | 9 | 11 | Unidentified serial killer who killed nine women and disappearance of two others between 1988 and 1989.[225] |
Maryvale serial shooter | United States | 2015 to 2016 | 9 | 11 | Motorist who shot 12 people in separate events in Phoenix, Arizona, killing nine. Aaron Saucedo was charged with the shootings and two additional murders in 2017.[226] |
Viktor Fokin | Russia | 1996 to 2000 | 9 | 10+ | Known as the 'Grandfather Ripper'; pensioner who lured, killed and then dismembered prostitutes and alcohol abusers in his home, disposing of the remains in garbage containers after; died while imprisoned at a corrective labor colony.[227] |
Edgecombe County Serial Killer | United States | 2000s | 9 | 10 | Unidentified serial killer who killed nine women and possibly another who disappeared since 2005 around Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Antwan Pittman was convicted in one case.[228] |
Joseph Paul Franklin | United States | 1977 to 1980 | 8–15 | 20 | White supremacist shooter who confessed to 20 murders and several attempted murders. Executed by lethal injection in 2013.[229] |
Yoshio Kodaira | China Japan | 1928? to 1946 | 8–11+ | Unknown | A serial rapist, Kodaira killed his father-in-law in 1932 and eight to 10 women in Japan between 1945 and 1946, engaging in necrophilia after the fifth murder. Previously (1920s) he had been deployed to Northern China as a sailor in the Imperial Japanese Navy, where he was free to target the locals. Hanged in 1949.[230] |
Keith Hunter Jesperson | United States | 1990 to 1995 | 8 | 160 | Dubbed the 'Happy Face Killer', Jesperson was convicted of killing eight women by strangulation.[231] |
Rodney Alcala | United States | 1971 to 1979 | 8 | 130+ | Known as the 'Dating Game Killer' for appearing on the game show The Dating Game in the middle of his killing years. Was convicted of at least five murders, though his actual total is estimated to be much higher. |
Kiyotaka Katsuta | Japan | 1982 to 1983 | 8 | 22 | Strangled or shot people to rob them, using a gun he had stolen from a policeman after running him over with his car. Hanged in 2000.[232] |
Pierre Chanal | France | 1980 to 1988 | 8 | 17 | Military instructor suspected of killing boys and men in Marne; committed suicide before trial.[233] |
Christopher Wilder | United States | 1984 | 8 | 13+ | Killed eight women during a spree before accidentally shooting himself; suspected in the disappearance and murder of more than five more.[234] |
Axeman of New Orleans | United States | 1918 to 1919 | 8 | 12+ | Unidentified serial killer of at least eight people in the New Orleans area from May 1918 to October 1919.[235] |
Vladimir Retunsky | Russia | 1990 to 1996 | 8 | 12 | Known as the 'Povorinsky Maniac'; kidnapped, raped and killed hitchhikers in his hometown of Povorino, possibly abusing their corpses; initially sentenced to death, but later reduced to 15 years imprisonment and released in 2015.[236] |
Gilbert Paul Jordan | Canada | 1965 to 1987 | 8 | 10 | Known as the 'Boozing Barber', he would typically find alcoholic women in bars in Vancouver's destitute Downtown Eastside, buy them drinks or pay them for sex and encourage them to drink with him. When they passed out, he would pour more liquor down their throats. The resulting deaths were reported as alcohol poisoning and generally ignored by police as the intentional murders blended in with the common occurrence in that neighbourhood. Died in 2006.[237] |
Nikolai Dzhumagaliev | Soviet Union | 1980 and earlier | 7 | 50–100 | Lured women in a park at night and hacked them with an axe as part of a plan to rid the world of prostitution. Also cooked parts of his victims and ate them himself or served them to other people as part of ethnic dishes. Found innocent by reason of insanity and interned in a mental institution.[238] |
Manuel Delgado Villegas | Spain France(claimed) Italy(claimed) | 1964 to 1971 | 7 | 48 | Wandering criminal known as El Arropiero ('The Arrope Trader') and El Estrangulador del Puerto ('The Strangler of Puerto'). Confessed to the impulsive murders of 48 people of different sex, age, wealth and sexual orientation in three countries (including his girlfriend, whom he strangled during sex), but police only investigated him for 22 murders in Spain and was considered proven author of seven. Some of his victims were killed with hand to hand combat techniques that he had learned in the Spanish Foreign Legion. Diagnosed with XYY syndrome and interned in a mental institution until his death in 1998.[239] |
Ershad Sikder | Bangladesh | 1991 to 1999 | 7 | 43+ | Career criminal and corrupt politician responsible for numerous torture murders in the 1990s; convincted on seven counts and executed 2004.[240] |
Ivan Milat | Australia | 1990s | 7 | 23–37 | Convicted of the Backpacker murders; sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences plus 18 years without the possibility of parole. May have had accomplices.[241] |
Michael Wayne McGray | Canada United States | 1980s to 2010s | 7 | 18 | Convicted of the murder of six people in the late 1990s, including a woman and her 11-year-old daughter. Claims to have killed 11 others, including murders committed while on parole and while on a three-day pass from prison. Finally imprisoned for life, killed a cellmate in 2010.[242] |
Kenneth Erskine | United Kingdom | 1986 | 7 | 11 | Known as 'The Stockwell Strangler', he was a burglar who raped and strangled at least seven elderly women after breaking into their homes.[243] |
David Carpenter | United States | 1979 to 1981 | 7 | 11 | Known as 'The Trailside Killer'; murdered women on San Francisco-area hiking trails between 1979 and 1981. Sentenced to death.[244] |
Vladimir Kuzmin | Russia | 1997 | 7 | 11 | Raped, murdered and robbed mostly young boys and men in Moscow; assisted in his first two murders by Denis Kalistratov; sentenced to life imprisonment.[245] |
Bruce McArthur | Canada | 2008 to 2017 | 7 | 10–100 | Gay serial murderer and rapist who would target homosexual men, and hide their bodies in garden planters.[246] |
Tommy Recco | France | 1960 to 1980 | 7 | 10 | Murdered his godfather in 1960; after release, killed six cashiers in two separate store raids; also suspected of murdering a trio of German tourists.[247] |
Ohio Prostitute Killer | United States | 1981 to 2004 | 7 | 10 | Supposedly murdered prostitutes and exotic dancers; his first victim was Marcia King, who was identified in 2018.[248][249] |
Derrick Todd Lee | United States | 2002 | 7 | 10 | Known as the 'Baton Rouge or South Louisiana Serial Killer' convicted of three murders. Believed to have murdered several other women in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Sentenced to death, died in 2016.[250] |
Tomás Maldonado Cera | Colombia | 2002 to 2018 | 7 | 10 | Known as 'The Satanist'; killed people in Barranquila for the purpose of satanic rituals.[251] |
Tommy Lynn Sells | United States | 1980 to 1999 | 6 | 70? | Drifter active throughout the United States who specialized in killing children and multiple victims after breaking into their homes. Caught when a 10-year-old girl survived his attack and provided a description of him. Executed in 2014.[252] |
Władysław Mazurkiewicz | Poland | 1950s | 6 | 30 | Known as 'The Gentleman Killer'. Indicted of, and confessed to having committed 30 murders; convicted of six and hanged in 1957.[253] |
Gong Runbo | China | 2005 to 2006 | 6 | 20+ | Found guilty of the murders of six children and teenagers aged between nine and 16 from 2005 to 2006; executed in 2007.[254] |
Cristopher Chávez Cuellar | Colombia | 1990s to 2015 | 6 | 15+ | Known as 'The Soulless'; killed between 6 and at least 15 people starting from the 1990s, including 4 underage brothers; sentenced to 40 years imprisonment.[255] |
András Pándy | Belgium | 1986 to 1990 | 6 | 14+ | Former clergyman nicknamed 'Father Bluebeard', killed his two wives and four of his children with the help of a fifth he was having an incestuous affair with, and whom denounced him to the authorities seven years later. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002.[256] |
John Wayne Glover | Australia | 1989 to 1990 | 6 | 13 | British ex-pat living in Australia. Known by the media as 'The Granny Killer' as he targeted elderly women; committed suicide while in prison in 2005.[257] |
Alexander Sergeychik | Belarus | 2000 to 2006 | 6 | 12 | Killed between six and 12 people under the influence of alcohol. Executed in 2007.[258] |
Adrián Arroyo Gutiérrez | Costa Rica | 2014 to 2015 | 6 | 11 | Known as 'The Southern Psychopath'; raped and strangled drug-addicted prostitutes in San José; sentenced to 110 years imprisonment.[259] |
Joseph Naso | United States | 1977 to 1994 | 6 | 10 | A freelance photographers who raped and strangled to death women in California. Arrested in 2011 and sentenced to death two years later. Known as 'The Double Initial Killer' since first four victims to be identified bore double initials.[260] |
Richard Cottingham | United States | 1977 to 1980 | 5 | 85–100 | Killer operating in New York and New Jersey who often targeted prostitutes and utilized mutilation as well as dismemberment in his killings. Known as the 'Torso Killer', convicted of five murders. He made claims of victim count as up to a hundred, however, there was no evidence to support this and is considered unsubstantiated.[261] |
Zodiac Killer | United States | 1962 to 1977 | 5 | 37 | Targeted young couples. Remains unsolved but open in the California jurisdictions where the five certain Zodiac murders occurred. Potentially 37 total victims claimed but unverified.[262] |
John Floyd Thomas Jr. | United States | 1957 to 2009 | 5 | 17–25 | Serial murderer and rapist with one of the longest criminal careers in the US.[263] |
Carl Panzram | United States Portuguese Angola | 1915 to 1929 | 5 | 22 | From 1920 to 1928, he claimed in a posthumous autobiography to have committed over 22 killings, and sodomy of more than 1000 young men. Executed in 1930 by hanging.[264] |
Steve Wright | United Kingdom | 2006 | 5 | 5–22 | Referred to as 'Suffolk murders', 'Ipswich murders', 'Ipswich Ripper', 'Suffolk Ripper', 'Suffolk Strangler', 'East Anglia Ripper', 'Red Light Ripper' and 'the Suffolkator'. Murdered five prostitutes, all of whom worked in Ipswich in 2006. There are possible links to previous Suffolk prostitute killings.[265] |
Michel Peiry | Switzerland France United States Yugoslavia (suspected) Italy (suspected) | 1981 to 1987 | 5 | 11 | Known as the 'Sadist of Romont'; Swiss soldier who sexually abused and murdered at least 5 hitchhikers in several countries; sentenced to life imprisonment.[266] |
Hubert Pilčík | Czechoslovakia | 1948 to 1951 | 5 | 10+[267] | Made money smuggling people across the Czechoslovakia-Germany border, but killed most of his customers. Total number of his victims is unknown. |
Joe Metheny | United States | 1976 to 1996 | 5 | 10 | Butchered his victims, then served them at BBQs at his roadside stand; died in prison.[268] |
Serial killers with fewer than five proven victims
This part of the list contains all serial killers with fewer than five proven victims who acted alone and were neither medical professionals nor contract killers.
Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Charlie Brandt | United States | 1971 to 2004 | 4 | 29 | Committed suicide by hanging after murdering his wife and niece. The latter was also decapitated and eviscerated in a manner strongly similar to 26 unsolved murders of women in Florida, starting in 1973, the year Brandt moved to the state. Brandt was later considered the culprit in one of these murders, due to his strong resemblance to a suspect who was filmed by a traffic camera near the place where one body was found. He could not be officially tied to the other crimes due to lack of evidence. Previously, when he was 13 years old in 1971, he attempted to murder his whole family with a gun, for no apparent reason. His mother (who was pregnant) died in this attack, but his father survived, and his sister escaped.[269] |
Robert Black | United Kingdom Ireland(suspected) Germany(suspected) Netherlands(suspected) France(suspected) | 1981 to 1986 | 4 | 18+ | Convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering four girls aged between five and 11. Suspect in other earlier child murders in the UK and other European countries. Died weeks before he was to be charged with a fifth child murder.[270] |
Max Gufler | Austria | 1946 to 1958 | 4 | 18 | Poisoned and drowned four women, but suspected of killing 18 in total. |
Ernesto Picchioni | Kingdom of Italy Italy | 1949 and earlier | 4 | 16 | Murdered people who approached his home; died of cardiac arrest in 1967.[271] |
Baekuni | Indonesia | 1993 to 2010 | 4 | 14 | Pedophile who raped and killed young boys; initially sentenced to life imprisonment, but changed to the death sentence.[272] |
Igor Chernat | Soviet Union | 1985 to 1986 | 4 | 13 | Known as the 'Evil Spirit of Kaukjarvi'; Ukrainian soldier who raped and killed women in Kamenka, selling their stolen items afterwards; executed 1987.[273] |
Ricky Lee Green | United States | 1985 to 1986 | 4 | 12 | Bisexual drifter who killed people he met in bars; his wife assisted in two of the murders; executed in 1997.[274] |
Robert Hicks Murray | United Kingdom | 1912 and earlier | 4 | 11+ | Bigamist who murdered his wife and three children in a murder-suicide; posthumously revealed to have killed previous wives as well.[275] |
Dallen Bounds | United States | 1999 | 4 | 4+ | Murdered a Radio Shack manager, and a florist at their respective places of business. Then murdered two acquaintances before taking two others hostage and committing suicide. Suspected of additional murders in the Pacific Northwest. |
Ted Kaczynski | United States | 1978 to 1996 | 3 | 3 | Domestic terrorist and serial bomber known as the ‘Unabomber’, Kaczynski was responsible for more than two dozen bombings of universities and one airline bombing from 1978 to 1996, justified by Kaczynski by his philosophy that technological advancements would destroy humanity. Arrested in 1996 due to his brother David recongnizing the then unidentified Unabomber's manifesto titled: Industrial Society and Its Future, as the work of Kaczynski. Currently imprisoned at ADX Florence.[276] |
Richard Kuklinski | United States | 1948 to 1986 | 3 | 100–250 | Hitman for hire known as 'the Iceman',[277] believed to have killed not only as a hitman but also on his own initiative.[278] |
Robert Ben Rhoades | United States | 1989 to 1990 | 3 | 50+ | Convicted of murdering three women in Texas and Illinois between 1989 and 1990. Sentenced to life imprisonment.[279] |
Peter Tobin | United Kingdom | 1991 to 2006 | 3 | 48 | Scottish rapist and serial killer known to have killed at least three young women. Also a suspect in the Bible John murders, committed in Glasgow during the late 1960s.[280] |
Pedro Padilla Flores | Mexico | 1986 | 3 | 30 | Killed three women in 1986; fled to the US but recaptured and deported back to Mexico; main suspect in the Ciudad Juárez Murders.[281] |
Billy Glaze | United States | 1986 to 1987 | 3 | 20+ | Known as 'Butcher Knife Billy'. Killer convicted of raping and murdering three Native American prostitutes in Minneapolis in 1986 and 1987.[282] |
Bertha Gifford | United States | 1909 to 1928 | 3 | 17 | Found not guilty by reason of insanity of three arsenic poisonings and suspected of 14 other killings, mostly children, in Missouri.[283] |
Bernhard Prigan | Allied-occupied Germany West Germany | 1947 to 1952 | 3 | 16 | Killed women near highways; confessed to a total of 16 murders.[284] |
Stephen Griffiths | United Kingdom | 2009 to 2010 | 3 | 14 | Known to have killed three prostitutes, but claims to have killed 14 to beat 'Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe. Dubbed himself the 'Crossbow Cannibal' as he killed his victims with a hammer and crossbow and then later ate parts of them.[285] |
Koos Hertogs | Netherlands | 1979 to 1980 | 3 | 12 | Dutch serial killer convicted of abducting, torturing, raping and killing three girls. Suspected of killing a further three to nine girls and young women in the 1970s. |
Chisako Kakehi | Japan | 2007 to 2013 | 3 | 10 | Poisoned her husband and two other men to death, but suspected in another seven deaths; sentenced to death.[286] |
Dorothea Puente | United States | 1982 to 1988 | 3 | 9–25 | Ran a boarding house in Sacramento where she poisoned tenants and buried them in the yard in order to steal their social security checks.[287] |
Patrick Mackay | United Kingdom | 1973 to 1975 | 3 | 12 | Burglar suspect of 12 violent murders during robberies, charged with five and convicted of three. Bragged that he had killed 11 people. In prison for life.[288] |
Medical professionals and pseudo-medical professionals
Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Harold Shipman | United Kingdom | 1975 to 1998 | 218 | 250[289] | Convicted of 15 murders and responsible for the deaths of 218 patients identified by inquiry but is believed to have killed up to 250 people.[290][291] He injected diamorphine into his patients and then falsified the medical records, reporting that his patient had been in poor health. Hanged himself in prison. |
Miyuki Ishikawa | Japan | 1940s | 103+ | 169 | Killed more than 103 newborn children. As a maternity nurse she killed infants born to parents unwilling to care for them during the prohibition of abortion in Japan. Arrested in 1948 and sentenced to four years in prison.[292] |
Niels Högel | Germany | 1999 to 2005 | 85+ | 300[293] | Nurse who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of more than 85 people.[294][295] In November 2017, German prosecutors said that the number of victims was at least 106,[296] with Högel admitting, in October 2018, to murdering 100 patients.[11] By May 2019, he was believed to be the most prolific serial killer in peacetime Germany with up to 300 victims over fifteen years.[293] |
Louay Omar Mohammed al-Taei | Iraq | 2005 to 2006 | 43 | Medical doctor found to have killed 43 wounded policemen, soldiers and officials in Kirkuk; was a member of an insurgent cell.[297] | |
Donald Harvey | United States | 1970 to 1987 | 37 | 57–87 | Self-professed Angel of Death. Worked as an orderly in Cincinnati-area hospitals and preyed on his patients. Claimed to have killed 87 patients starting at age 18. Active 1970–1987. Sentenced to 28 life sentences in Ohio.[298] |
Jane Toppan | United States | 1885 to 1901 | 31 | Nurse that confessed to poisoning 31 patients for her own sexual gratification. After overdosing them she would get in bed and lie with them as they died. Found not guilty by reason of insanity and interned in a mental institution until her death in 1938.[299] | |
Stephan Letter | Germany | 2003 to 2004 | 29 | 29+ | Nurse who killed 29 patients; sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006.[300] |
Anders Hansson | Sweden | 1978 to 1979 | 27 | A Nurse Aide who poisoned victims with gevisol and ivisol. His actions were called 'The Hospital Murders' (Swedish: Sjukhusmorden).[301] | |
Marcel Petiot | France | 1926 to 1944 | 26 | 63 | Active 1926 and from 1942 to 1944. Petiot is suspected of having killed up to 63 in total. Executed in 1946.[302] |
Arnfinn Nesset | Norway | 1983 and earlier | 22 | 27–138+ | Norwegian nurse and most prolific known serial killer in Scandinavian history, convicted in 1983 of poisoning at least 22 patients with Curacit; however he initially confessed to 27 murders; after he retracted his confessions and he told he had killed 138 patients. Was released from prison in 2004 after serving 21 years, the maximum punishment possible by Norwegian law.[303] |
Roger Andermatt | Switzerland | 1995 to 2001 | 22 | 22 | Known as the 'Death-Keeper of Lucerne'; nurse who killed 22 patients; most prolific Swiss serial killer in history; sentenced to life imprisonment.[304] |
Charles Cullen | United States | 1988 to 2003 | 18–29 | 35–400+ | Nurse in New Jersey and Pennsylvania who murdered at least 29 patients between 1988 and 2003, but experts believe the number could be as high as 400. Cullen has admitted to more murders, which authorities believe are likely, but the murders cannot be verified due to lack of records.[305] |
Sonya Caleffi | Italy | 2003 to 2004 | 15 | 18 | Nurse who poisoned terminally-ill patients; sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.[306] |
Maxim Petrov | Russia | 2000 to 2002 | 12 | 19 | Doctor who killed his patients in St. Petersburg. Suspected of 19 murders.[307] |
Ann Arbor Hospital Killer | United States | 1975 | 10 | 10 | Poisonings of 10 patients at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in 1975. Filipino nurses Filipina Narciso and Leonora Perez were tried for the crimes.[308] |
Ludivine Chambet | France | 2012 to 2013 | 10 | 10 | Known as 'The Poisoner of Chambéry'; nurse's aide who poisoned elderly patients; sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.[309] |
Petr Zelenka | Czech Republic | 2006 | 7 | 21[310] | Killed his victims with a lethal injection of heparin from May to September 2006. Ten people survived his murder attempt. Suspected of up to 14 additional murders. |
Orville Lynn Majors | United States | 1993 to 1995 | 6 | 130 | LPN in Vermillion County Ind., Preyed on elderly patients—thought to have killed many of them with injections of potassium chloride. Sentenced to 360 years in Indiana.[311] |
Efren Saldivar | United States | 1989 to 1997 | 6 | 50+ | Respiratory therapist who killed six patients, possibly as many as 120.[312] |
Christine Malèvre | France | 1998 and earlier | 6 | 30 | Nurse who killed terminally ill patients claiming that they had asked her to help them die, something denied by their families. Sentenced to 12 years in prison for six murders and suspect of 30.[313] |
Antoinette Scieri | France | 1924 to 1925 | 6 | 12+ | Nurse who poisoned her elderly patients. Death sentence was commuted to life in prison and she died in prison.[314] |
Kristen Gilbert | United States | 1990 to 1996 | 5 | 70+ | Nurse at a MassachusettsVeterans Medical Center who injected male patients with epinephrine, causing heart attacks. Sentenced to life without parole.[315] |
Amy Archer-Gilligan | United States | 1910 to 1917 | 5 | 48+ | A nursing home proprietor believed to have poisoned as many as 60 patients from her homes and her second husband. Charged with five murders originally, this was lowered to just one following her admission of guilt, and was found guilty of second degree murder. Died in a mental hospital in 1962.[316] |
Michael Swango | United States Zimbabwe | 1981 to 1997 | 4 | 35–60+ | Murderer and serial killer suspect.[317] |
Kermit Gosnell | United States | 1989? to 2011 | 4 | 100+ | Gosnell, who ran an abortion clinic, was charged with eight and convicted of four murders. Three babies were born alive, then killed by cutting the infant's spine with scissors. One mother died due to complications. Testimony indicated hundreds of similar procedures carried out by Gosnell and his staff. |
Edson Izidoro Guimarães | Brazil | 1999 and earlier | 4 | 131 | Nurse who injected patients with potassium chloride or removed their oxygen mask. Confessed to five murders which he claimed to be mercy killings and was convicted of four in 2000; sentenced to 76 years in prison. He may have killed as many as 131 patients for money, as he was paid $60 for informing local funeral homes of a patient's death so that they could contact the deceased's relatives first.[318] |
Richard Angelo | United States | 1987 | 4 | 25 | Known as 'The Angel of Death'. New York nurse convicted of four murders, linked to six other deaths. Suspected of killing up to 25 people.[319] |
Andrés Ulises Castillo Villarreal | Mexico | 2009 to 2015 | 3 | 12+ | Known as 'The Chihuahua Ripper'; drugged, raped and then killed men in Chihuahua; sentenced to 120 years imprisonment.[320] |
Elfriede Blauensteiner | Austria | 1981 to 1995 | 3 | 10+ | Known as 'The Black Widow'; poisoned people for material gain; died from a brain tumor in 2003.[321] |
Macario Alcala Canchola | Mexico | 1960 to 1962 | 2 | 12+ | Jack the Ripper copycat who killed women in Mexico City; sentenced to 60 years imprisonment.[322] |
Marie Fikáčková | Czechoslovakia | 1957 to 1960 | 2 | 10+ | Nurse who was executed by hanging in 1961 for murdering babies. |
Felícitas Sánchez Aguillón | Mexico | 1930 to 1941 | 1 | 50+ | Known as 'The Ogress of Roma neighborhood'; nurse, midwife and baby farmer responsible for possibly 50 murder victims during the 1930s, in Mexico City.[323] |
Genene Jones | United States | 1971 to 1984 | 1 | 50+ | Pediatric nurse who poisoned infants in her care; convicted of only one murder but suspected of many more.[324] |
Linda Hazzard | United States | 1908 to 1911? | 1 | 13–40+ | Self-declared doctor and fasting specialist, which she advertised as a panacea for every medical ailment. Up to 40 patients may have died of starvation in her 'sanitarium' in Olalla, Washington. Imprisoned for one death in 1912, was paroled in 1915 and continued to practice medicine without a license in New Zealand (1915–1920) and Washington (1920–1935). Died in 1938 while attempting a fasting to cure herself.[325] |
Serial killer groups and couples
Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Murder Incorporated | United States | 1920's to 1940 | 400 | 1000+ | Murder Incorporated or Murder Inc. for short, was large criminal enterprise of small contract-killing groups that were collectively known as Murder Inc. Run by Albert 'The Mad Hatter' Anastasia and or his close associates, the organization was responsible for the assassinations of key witnesses of early Cosa Nostra activities, so as to make them 'disappear' and break the case against the lead mobsters whenever they went to trial. In 1941 the group was exposed by former member Abe 'Kid Twist' Reles and subsequently ceased to exist. |
Philadelphia poison ring | United States | 1931 to 1938 | 114 | Gang of 16 that poisoned Italian immigrants with arsenic in order to collect their life insurance. The leaders, cousins Herman and Paul Petrillo, were executed in the electric chair in 1941 while the rest were given life sentences.[326] | |
Delfina and María de Jesús González | Mexico | 1955 to 1964 | 91+ | Two sisters who ran a brothel in Mexico, hired numerous prostitutes and murdered at least 80 of them after they were deemed useless during the span of 10 years. They also killed 11 men. Probably the work of four of the sisters, sentenced to 40 years in prison. Body count varies due to the combined work of the sisters being impossible to assign to them individually.[19] | |
Peng Miaoji, Ding Yunjia and Su Xiaoping | China | 1998 to 1999 | 77 | 84 | Fleeing to Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Henan provinces and 21 provinces and cities 33 administrative villages; during 38 burglaries, killed 77 people, seriously injured three others.[327][328] |
David Avendaño Ballina and his followers | Mexico | 1997 to 2007 | 70 | 70 | Sex servant gang who robbed and then poisoned their clients; the leader Ballina was arrested in 2008.[329] |
Angel Makers of Nagyrév | 1911 to 1929 | 50 | 300+ | 26 women who poisoned their husbands (sometimes also their parents, lovers and children) with arsenic under the guidance of midwife Júlia Fazekas and her accomplice, Susi Oláh.[330] | |
Long Zhimin and Yan Shuxia | China | 1983 to 1985 | 48 | 48+ | Shaanxi Province Wang Shou villagers Long Zhimin and Yan Shuxia in the home has killed 48 people.[331] |
Bian kuang, Fu Xinyuan and Luo Lianshun | China | 2001 to 2002 | 41 | Manufacturing 51 cases of murder, robbery, rape, killing 41 people. Bian Kuang personally killed 39 people.[332] | |
Ryno-Skachevsky gang | Russia | 2006 to 2007 | 37 | Racist skinhead gang, led by Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, who killed people from non-European ethnicities or backgrounds; both sentenced to 10 years of penal labour.[333] | |
Gang of Amazons | Russia | 2003 to 2013 | 30 | Family of robbers and serial killers, led by the parents Inessa Tarverdiyeva and Roman Podkopaev.[334] | |
Dean Corll, David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley | United States | 1970 to 1973 | 28 | 29+ | Corll, known as 'The Candy Man', killed at least 28 teenage boys and young men in Houston between 1970 and 1973. Corll was then shot and killed by one of the two teenage accomplices he recruited to assist him in the abductions of the victims on 8 August 1973. This accomplice, Elmer Wayne Henley, informed the police of the trio's murders the same day Corll was murdered.[335][336] |
Brabant killers | Belgium France | 1982 to 1985 | 28 | 40+ | Gang made up by at least three extremely violent robbers, none of whom was ever identified or apprehended. Their bloodlust increased dramatically in their last year of activity, when they began shooting passersby before a robbery, including children, for no seeming reason. Some have theorized links to Operation Gladio.[337] |
Adolfo Constanzo and Sara Aldrete | Mexico | 1987? to 1989 | 25+ | 'The Godparents of Matamoros'. Leader and second-in-command of a drug-smuggling cult that abducted men to perform human sacrifices.[338] | |
Shankill Butchers | United Kingdom | 1975 to 1982 | 23 | 23+ | Ulster Royalist gang led by Lenny Murphy, who killed people in sectarian attacks.[339] |
Viktor Sayenko and Igor Suprunyuk | Ukraine | 2007 | 21 | 'The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs'. A pair of 19-year-olds who, over the course of less than a month, attacked and murdered passersby while out on walks. They recorded videos of some of the murders, including one which subsequently leaked to the Internet.[340] | |
Marcelo de Jesus Silva and his death squad | Brazil | ? to 2010? | 20+ | Brazilian man convicted of 20 counts of murder, robbery, drug trafficking and death squad. As he had 1.28m in height, he was nicknamed Chucky and Pigmeu. Murdered in 2010 by rivals traffickers. | |
Surinder Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher[disputed] | India | 2005 to 2006 | 19 | 30+ | Between 2005 and 2006, businessman Moninder Singh Pandher and his domestic servant, Surender Koli, kidnapped, raped, murdered, and dismembered 19 people, mostly children. Convicted.[341] |
Wang Zongfang and Wang Zongwei | China | 1983 | 19 | Killed soldiers using various arms in three provinces. Executed in 1983.[342] | |
Anísio Ferreira de Sousa and followers | Brazil | 1989 to 1992 | 19 | Satanic ring that abducted, mutilated and sacrificed children in Altamira, Brazil. The leader, Ferreira de Sousa, was convicted to 77 years in prison for four murders and two ateempted murders.[343] | |
Ripper Crew | United States | 1981 to 1982 | 18 | Abducted women, mostly prostitutes, then raped, tortured and killed them in Chicago, Illinois.[344] | |
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo | United States | 2002 | 17 | Killed seven people from February to September 2002 and 10 in the Beltway sniper attacks of October 2002. Muhammad was executed in 2009, while Malvo received life imprisonment. | |
Vladyslav Volkovich and Volodymyr Kondratenko | Ukraine | 1991 to 1997 | 16 | 20+ | 'The Nighttime Killers'. Murdered homeless men and lone drivers with a variety of weapons.[345] |
Death Angels | United States | 1973 to 1974 | 16 | Four African-Americans who killed 16 white people and injured between eight and 10 in San Francisco (Zebra murders).[346] | |
Lainz Angels of Death | Austria | 1983 to 1989 | 15 | 49–200+ | Known as the 'Lainz Angels of Death'; Waltraud Wagner, Irene Leidolf, Stephanija Mayer, and Maria Gruber were nurses at the Lainz General Hospital in Vienna who admitted to murdering 49 patients.[347] |
The Cleaners | Russia | 2014 to 2015 | 15 | 15+ | Neo-Nazi gang, led by Pavel Voitov and Elena Lobacheva, who murdered alcoholic tramps and beggars; Voitov sentenced to life imprisonment and Lobacheva to 13 years in a penal colony.[348] |
Fred West and Rosemary West | United Kingdom | 1967 to 1987 | 12 | 20 | Mainly targeted young females but were also found guilty of the murder of their own daughter. Also found guilty of raping another daughter. Buried the victims around their house and local area. Shortly before he committed suicide in 1995, Fred West said there were more victims.[349] |
Briley Brothers | United States | 1971 to 1979 | 12 | Three brothers and an accomplice responsible for 12 murders in the 1970s in Richmond, Virginia.[350] | |
Mailoni Brothers | Zambia | 2007 to 2013 | 12 | Three brothers who killed at least 12 people from 2007 to 2013. Killed by Zambia Army Commandos in 2013.[351] | |
Leonard Lake and Charles Ng | United States | 1982 to 1985 | 11 | 25 | Abducted women, used them as sex slaves, and then murdered them, together with any men, women, and children who got in their way. Lake committed suicide upon arrest, but Ng was later convicted of killing 11 people. Between 1982 and 1985, Lake and Ng were believed to have abducted and killed as many as 25 victims, as evidenced by human remains found on Lake's California ranch.[352] |
Shen Changyin and Shen Changping | China | 1999 to 2004 | 11 | Found guilty of the murders of 11 prostitutes.[353] | |
Polatbay Berdaliyev and Abduseit Ormanov | Uzbekistan Kazakhstan | 2011 to 2012 | 11 | Raped, robbed and murdered women along desolate roads; both sentenced to life imprisonment in both countries.[354] | |
Wolfgang Abel and Marco Furlan | Italy Germany Netherlands | 1977 to 1984 | 10 | 27 | The victims, seemingly chosen at random and killed by different methods, were found next to letters written in Italian, signed 'Ludwig' and containing Nazi imagery, that gave a reason for why the murder had been committed. Abel and Furlan were arrested in Castiglione delle Stiviere while dousing a crowded discothèque with gasoline and sentenced in 1987 to 30 years in prison for all crimes (later reduced to 27).[355] |
Juan Carlos Hernández and Patricia Martínez | Mexico | 2012 to 2018 | 10 | 20 | Known as the 'Monsters of Ecatepec'; couple who raped, murdered and cannibalized women.[356] |
Joshi-Abhyankar serial murderers | India | 1976 to 1977 | 10 | Four Punecommercial art students (Rajendra Jakkal, Dilip Sutar, Shantaram Kanhoji Jagtap and Munawar Harun Shah) that broke into random people's homes and businesses and strangled them with a nylon rope. Executed by hanging in 1983.[357] | |
Gerald and Charlene Gallego | United States | 1978 to 1980 | 10 | Killed 10 victims in Sacramento, California. Gerald Gallego died of cancer before his death sentence could be carried out. Charlene Gallego was released July 1997.[358] | |
Viña del Mar psychopaths | Chile | 1980 to 1981 | 10 | Jorge Sagredo and Carlos Topp committed 10 murders and four rapes from 5 August 1980 to 1 November 1981 in the city of Viña del Mar. Executed by firing squad in 1985, they became the last people executed in Chile.[359] | |
Yevgeny Nagorny and Sergei Stavitsky | Russia | 1998 | 10 | Killed clients with expensive cars in their autoshop in order to sell them; sentenced to life imprisonment.[360] | |
National Socialist Underground | Germany | 2000 to 2007 | 10 | Neo-Nazi group who killed 10 ethnic Turks in the Bosphorus serial murders from 2000 to 2007. Most victims were small business owners killed in broad daylight with a gunshot to the face. Two of the suspects committed suicide and a third, Beate Zschäpe, was apprehended in 2011.[361] | |
Tadeusz Grzesik and the Bureaucrats Gang | Poland | 1991 to 2007 | 8 | 20+ | Robbed and killed people in several Polish voivodeships, mainly owners of exchange offices.[362] |
Edgar Álvarez Cruz and Francisco Granados | Mexico | 1993 to 2003 | 8–10 | 14+ | Kidnapped, drugged, raped and then killed women in cotton fields.[363] |
The Ciudad Juárez Rebels | Mexico | 1995 to 1996 | 8 | 10–14 | Gang of serial killers, led by Sergio Armendáriz Diaz and Juan Contreras Jurado, who killed women in Ciudad Juárez; claimed to work for Abdul Latif Sharif.[364] |
The Manson Family cult killings | United States | 1967 to 1969 | 7 | 7 | A California desert cult formed by Charles Manson in 1967, the ‘Manson Family’ committed a series of murders in name of promoting Manson's goal of causing a race war that he called Helter Skelter. |
Ray and Faye Copeland | United States | 1986 to 1989 | 5 | 12 | Oldest couple ever sentenced to death in the United States at the ages of 75 and 69; convicted of killing five men; modus operandi was to hire unskilled drifters as farmhands and later kill them.[365] |
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley | United Kingdom | 1963 to 1965 | 5 | 12 | Responsible for the 'Moors murders': they abducted, raped, tortured and murdered at least five children in the Manchester area before burying their victims on Saddleworth Moor as part of an experiment in 'existential experience'. The case became a media event, especially in the United Kingdom. Five victims were identified although Brady periodically claimed that there were up to twelve. |
The Skin Hunters | Poland | 2002 and earlier | 5 | Unknown | Hospital crew that killed patients in order to get bribes from nearby funeral homes. Two doctors and two paramedics were convicted for the murder of five patients, but the investigation is continuing, with over 40 remaining suspects.[366] |
Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine | United States | 1984 to 1999 | 4 | 19+ | Known as the 'Speed Freak Killers'; California duo initially convicted of four murders from 1984 to 1999.[367] |
Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck | United States | 1947 to 1949 | 3 | 20 | Known as the 'Lonely Hearts Killers', Fernandez and Beck extorted women Fernandez met through lonely hearts advertisements. Both were arrested in Michigan in 1949 for the murders of a woman and her two-year-old daughter, but Michigan authorities waived prosecution and extradited the pair to New York to face trial for a murder that occurred there because New York had the death penalty while Michigan did not. They were convicted of that murder and executed in 1951.[368] |
Weather Underground | United States | 1969 to 1977 | 3 | 3 | A Marxist–Leninist terrorist organization formed in 1969, Weather Underground advocated for the use of violence as a means of protest to U.S involvement in the Vietnam War. The 'Weathermen' as they were called came to national attention after their bombing of a Greenwich townhouse in 1970 which killed 3. |
Beasts of Satan | Italy | 1998 to 2004 | 3 | 18 | Cult members responsible for ritualistic murders, and are suspected in other cases, including suicides.[369] |
Dmitry and Natalia Baksheevy | Russia | 1999 to 2017 | 1 | 30 | Couple from Krasnodar who killed and then cannibalized a woman, but suspected of committing other similar crimes in the region; currently awaiting sentencing.[370] |
List Of Serial Killers
Disputed cases
Serial Killers Race Statistics
Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mariam Soulakiotis | Greece | 1939 to 1951 | 27 | 27+ | Known as 'The Woman Rasputin'; convent abbot believed to have murdered wealthy women and children who came into her church; the true number of her victims is a matter of debate. She officially murdered 27 and killed an additional 150 children through neglect.[371] |
Ivomoku Bakusuba | Burundi | 1940s | 67 | Confessed to killing 67 children by strangling them with a bedsheet. Committed suicide, 'probably in late 1940s or in early 1950s'. As information on this serial killer was only revealed by a police officer in 2018 during a conversation with a Brazilian writer, and there is no information on his conviction, the confirmation that he was a serial killer is debatable. | |
Bruno Lüdke | German Reich Nazi Germany | 1928 to 1943 | 51 | 86 | Mentally disabled, Lüdke was arrested after being discovered with a corpse. Police declared him insane and imprisoned him in a psychiatric hospital, where he died when he was experimented on. The only evidence tying him to the crimes was a confession that may have been physically coerced. He was never given a trial and he is generally[by whom?] considered innocent.[372] |
'Highway of Tears' Killer | Canada | 1969 to 2018 ? | 18 | 83 | All the victims were young women and were last seen on Highway 16 in British Columbia between Prince George and Prince Rupert. If they were all victims of the same person, it would be one of the most proficient serial killers in Canada and one with the longest career in the world. Some of the murders have been linked to American criminal Bobby Jack Fowler, although he was in prison at the time others were committed.[373] |
Gerald Stano | United States | 1969 to 1980 | 22+ | 41 | Confessed to killing 41 women in mostly Florida and New Jersey areas. Some controversy surrounds the case as he is believed by some to have been a serial confessor.[375] |
Orlando Sabino | Brazil | 1966 ? - 1971 ? | 12 | Suspected of murdering 12 people in Minas Gerais and Goiás, as well as mutilating several animals; sentenced to 38 years imprisonment and died from a heart attack in 2013. There are many theories that he was actually framed by the Military Dictatorship in Brazil, who did the murders for political reasons.[376] | |
Pedro Rosa da Conceição | Brazil | 1904 to 1911, ??? | 3 | 17 | Brazilian mass murderer who killed three people and wounded thirteen others on April 22, 1904. Killed his cellmate and a guard in 1911, and is said to have murdered a family of twelve people in an unspecified date and year. Died in 1919. The family murders are not verified. |
Henry Lee Lucas | United States | 1960 to 1983 | 3 | 3000+ | Confessed to killing at least 600 people but later recanted and is suspected of lying about a majority of the murders. He originally offered a list of 77 women from 19 different states, but as he confessed to more and more murders, the details became increasingly more bizarre. Some included dismemberment, necrophilia, even cannibalism. Lawmen linked Lucas and Ottis Toole to 81 murders only. Convicted of 11 murders.[377] The true number of murders committed by Lucas is unknown, but it is likely Lucas was not nearly as prolific a serial killer as he initially claimed to be, as most of his murder confessions were thoroughly discredited, and he himself claimed only one murder—that of his mother.[378][379][380] |
Charles Quansah | Ghana | 1993 to 2001 | 8 | 34 | Quansah, who had been in prison for rape twice, was held as a suspect in the deaths of 34 women across the country, including his girlfriend who was strangled in 2000, and eventually confessed to eight murders. He later denied the killings, claiming that the confessions had been extracted under torture, and that the police had also tried unsuccessfully to force him to implicate a number of politicians including former president Jerry Rawlings, his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman and an unidentified member of president John Kufuor's administration.[381][382] |
Ottis Toole | United States | 1980 to 1983 | 7 | 100–125 | Initially convicted of three counts of murder, later pleading guilty to four more murders before dying in prison. A sometime accomplice of convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, Toole admitted to—and retracted multiple times—over 100 counts of murder, rape, arson and cannibalism, and was the suspect in several other unsolved murders. In 2008, police announced that they had identified Toole as the likely murderer of Adam Walsh, and would be closing the case as a result.[383] |
Wayne Williams | United States | 1979 to 1981 | 2 | 24–31 | Believed to have perpetrated the Atlanta murders of 1979–1981. After being convicted of two murders and sentenced to life imprisonment, authorities closed 22 other unsolved murders, declaring Williams to have been the perpetrator. Williams has maintained his innocence and the case was reopened in 2005.[384] |
Joe Ball | United States | 1937 to 1938 | 2 | 20 | Bootlegger and barman known as the 'Butcher of Elmendorf', the 'Bluebeard of South Texas', and 'the Alligator Man' because of the alligator pit he had in the back of his bar and where he entertained clients by throwing live animals to the reptiles. Ball killed two barmaids but he shot himself fatally in the chest when police came to question him and was never arrested or interrogated. Yellow press and pulp magazines later exaggerated his exploits, claiming that he had killed up to 20 women and fed them to the alligators, but this was never proven and caused some of Ball's relatives to sue such publications. Police investigated about a dozen women that had worked at Ball's place and were missing at the time of his suicide; some were found alive in San Antonio, but others could not be accounted for.[385] |
Abdul Latif Sharif | Mexico | 1995 | 1 | 18–20 | Egyptian chemist known as 'The Jackal of Ciudad Juárez'. After migrating to the United States in the 1970s, Sharif served 14 years in prison for several rapes but fled to Mexico when he was about to be deported to his home country. There, he was accused of up to 20 of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez but was convicted of only one, to 30 years in prison, where he died of natural causes in 2006. As the high rate of female murders has continued to this day in Ciudad Juárez, it has been claimed that Sharif was used as a scapegoat by the Mexican police.[386] |
Daisuke Mori | Japan | 2000 and earlier | 1 | 11+ | Nurse that was sentenced to life imprisonment for one murder but suspected of killing at least 10 others. He might have confessed to some of the murders in order to protect others.[387] |
Bevan Spencer von Einem | Australia | 1979? to 1983 | 1 | 10 | Arrested for three and convicted of one of 'The Family Murders', where four teenagers and one young adult, all male, were drugged, kidnapped, raped and mutilated for several weeks before their bodies were abandoned in the countryside near Adelaide. Police believed that von Einem had several accomplices, none of whom was publicly identified or detained, and at the time of his trial it was widely reported that the murders had been committed by a group of four to 12 high-profile Australian men; von Einem himself claimed to be the victim of a conspiracy. He has also been considered a suspect in the disappearance of two girls near the Adelaide Oval in 1973 and the high-profile Beaumont children disappearance in 1966.[388] |
Edgar Matobato | Philippines | 1988 to 2013 | 0 | Hundreds | Self-confessed hitman and serial killer claiming to have killed people as part of the Davao Death Squad; his claims' authenticity has been challenged.[389] |
John Bodkin Adams | United Kingdom | 1946 to 1956 | 0 | 163 | Acquitted in a highly unusual trial in 1957 of murder but later found guilty of fraud. Archive evidence shows that he was almost certainly a killer but that his prosecution was botched for political reasons.[390] |
The Man from the Train | United States | 1898 to 1912 | 0 | 40–100+ | Murdered entire families in their sleep, arriving and departing by train. Existence (and probable but not proven identity) discovered more than 100 years after the murders, by analysis of contemporary records, showing a markedly common modus operandi for many previously unconnected murders.[391] |
David Parker Ray | United States | 1950 to 1999 | 0 | 60 | Torture-murderer possibly aided by numerous accomplices, including his girlfriend. Targeted victims in the Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, area. Convicted of attempted killing of three victims and is suspected of 60 murders, even though no bodies were ever found. Known as the 'Toybox Killer' for the self-built mobile home he used in the rape, torture, and killing of women.[392] |
Smiley Face Killer | United States | 1990s to 2000s | 0 | 40+ | Theoretical serial killer(s) thought by some sources to have drowned college-aged young men across the northern part of the country since 1997; most experts suggest that the deaths were accidental.[393] |
Marie Besnard | France | 1927 to 1949 | 0 | 13 | Charged with the murders of 13 relatives with arsenic, all of whom had Besnard as their sole designated heir, but acquitted of all charges after three high-profile trials that lasted a decade.[394] |
Serial Killers In The Us
* Proven victims being victims the serial killer was tried for, explained by the killer in a detailed confession, or victims most scholars of the subject agree upon.
See also
Samuel Little Serial Killer Race
References
Serial Killers Of The 2000s
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A person who murders 3+ people over a period of > 30 days, with an inactive period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.
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- ^James, Bill and Rachel (2017). The man from the train: The Solving of a Century-Old Serial Killer Mystery. Simon and Schuster.
- ^Proctor, Jeff (19 November 2011). 'Updated: Victim Tells of Captivity'. www.abqjournal.com. Albuquerque, N.M.: Albuquerque Journal. Journal Staff. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
- ^'FBI Statement Regarding Midwest River Deaths' (Press release). fbi.gov.
- ^Darnton, Robert (5 April 1973). 'French History: The Case of the Wandering Eye'. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 12 October 2014.
External links
- Media related to Serial killers at Wikimedia Commons
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