Serial Killers

United States of America

• Joe Ball – aka "The Alligator Man"; killed at least 20 women in the early 20th century in Texas
• Herb Baumeister – suspected of killing 20+ men along I-70; fled and committed suicide after remains of eleven were found on his Westfield, Indiana property
• David Berkowitz – aka "Son of Sam" and "The .44 Caliber Killer"; convicted of six murders in New York
• Bloody Benders – family who killed guests at their inn in Labette County, Kansas in 1872
• Robert Berdella – convicted of killing six men in 1988 in Kansas City, Missouri; sexually tortured and dismembered his victims
• Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Jr. – aka the "Hillside Strangler"; killers of 13 women and possibly involved in three other killings
• Richard Biegenwald – convicted of killing five people in the early 1980s in the Asbury Park, New Jersey area; suspected in at least six other murders
• Arthur Gary Bishop – Utah man who murdered five young boys; executed in 1988
• Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris - kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered five girls in 1979
• Terry Blair – Kansas City serial killer and rapist; active 1982–2004
• William Bonin – aka "The Freeway Killer"; with several accomplices, claimed the lives of 20 boys in California
• Robert Charles Browne – convicted of two murders in Colorado; confessed to 48 murders
• Jerry Brudos – aka "The Lust Killer" and "Shoe Fetish Slayer"; killed at least five women in Oregon
• Ted Bundy – law student who raped and murdered more than 35 women in six states; executed in Florida State Prison on January 24, 1989
• David Carpenter – aka the "Trailside Killer"; murdered five women on San Francisco-area hiking trails between 1979 and 1981
• Michael Bear Carson and Suzan Carson – nomadic hippie killers involved in the counter-culture movement; suspects in 12 homicides; sentenced to life imprisonment for three San Francisco Bay Area murders in 1983
• Dean Carter – murdered at least four women
• Richard Chase – aka "The Vampire of Sacramento"; murdered six people in California the 1970s
• Doug Clark and Carol M. Bundy – aka "Sunset Strip Killers"; killed at least seven people during 1980
• Carroll Cole – killed 16 people between 1948 and 1980; executed in 1985
• Alton Coleman – multi-state killer whose killings took place during two months in 1984 aided by Debra Denise Brown; was convicted of murder in three states
• Ray Copeland and Faye Copeland – 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 farm hands and later kill them
• Dean Corll, Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks – committed the Houston Mass Murders in the 1970s
• Juan Corona – California killer convicted of murdering 25 men in 1971
• Charles Cullen – nurse in New Jersey and Pennsylvania who killed as many as 40 patients through lethal injection
• Andrew Cunanan – murdered five people, including fashion designer Gianni Versace, in a cross-country journey during a three-month period in 1997, ending with Cunanan's suicide, at the age of 27
• Jeffrey Dahmer – Milwaukee, Wisconsin cannibal who kept heads, skulls and body parts in his apartment for sexual gratification; convicted of 15 murders, but believed responsible for at least two others
• Albert DeSalvo – aka "The Boston Strangler"; convicted of unrelated rapes. DeSalvo was never indicted for the Strangler murders, although he did confess to them.
• Nannie Doss – aka "The Giggling Granny" and "The Jolly Black Widow"; serial poisoner who killed 11 family members
• Paul Durousseau – murdered 7 in southeast United States between 1997 and 2003; may have killed while stationed in Germany with the Army
• Mack Ray Edwards – convicted of murdering three children after confessing to the murders of six in Los Angeles County between 1953 and 1969; claimed at one point to have killed as many as 18
• Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck – the "Lonely Hearts Killers"; killed at least three women and one child in the 1940s but suspected in up to 20 murders in New York and Michigan
• Albert Fish – aka the "Werewolf of Wisteria"; sadist and pedophile who cannibalized several children; convicted of one murder, confessed to two others
• Wayne Adam Ford – aka "Wayward Wayne"; confessed to murdering four women; believed to have killed others
• Kendall Francois – serial killer from Poughkeepsie, New York who targeted prostitutes; after strangling the women, he would store them in various crawl spaces in and around his home
• Joseph Paul Franklin – racist serial killer who targeted interracial couples and attempted to assassinate Larry Flynt and Vernon Jordan; convicted of 11 murders and confessed to nine others
• John Wayne Gacy – aka "Killer Clown"; killer of at least 33 men and boys; kept bodies buried under his Chicago home
• Gerald Gallego Jr. and Charlene Williams – aka the "Gallego Sex Slaves Killers"; kidnapped, raped and killed victims in the late 1970s; most of them were teenagers
• Carlton Gary – convicted of the murders of seven elderly women in Georgia
• Donald Henry Gaskins – aka "Meanest Man in America"; convicted of nine murders; confessed to more than 200; executed on September 6, 1991
• Ed Gein – two known victims, one suspected victim, four missing persons; elements of Gein's life and crimes have inspired, at least in part, the films Psycho and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and the novel/movie The Silence of the Lambs
• Janie Lou Gibbs – Georgia poisoner who killed five family members
• Kristen Gilbert – aka the "Angel of Death"; nurse convicted of killing four by epinephrine injection
• Lorenzo Gilyard – killed up to 13 prostitutes in the Kansas City area 1977 to 1993
• Harvey Glatman – Californian rapist and killer of three women; lured women to pose for "bondage photographs"; executed September 18, 1959
• Jeffrey Gorton – convicted of two rape-murders in Michigan, suspected of more
• Dana Sue Gray – convicted of murder of three elderly women and attempted murder of a fourth in California
• Belle Gunness – murder-for-profit killer who murdered her suitors and children in Indiana
• Robert Hansen – Alaskan baker who killed prostitutes at his cabin; convicted of four murders but admitted to 11 others
• Donald Harvey – aka "Angel of Death"; hospital orderly; confessed to more than 80 "mercy killings" with 37 confirmed killings
• William Heirens – aka "The Lipstick Killer"; confessed to three murders spanning from June 1945 to January 1946
• Waneta Hoyt – New York woman who murdered her five children
• Michael Hughes – killed four women in the Los Angeles area between 1992 and 1993; charged in 2008 with raping and murdering four additional women between 1986 and 1993
• Leslie Irvin – aka "Mad Dog"; convicted of killing six people in Indiana in the mid-1950s; his Supreme Court case set a precedent for fair trials of highly publicized defendants
• Phillip Carl Jablonski – killed at least four women in California and Utah
• Keith Hunter Jesperson – Canadian serial killer convicted in the United States
• Vincent Johnson – aka the "Brooklyn Strangler"; a homeless crack addict who killed at least five prostitutes
• Genene Jones – Texas pediatric nurse who poisoned infants in her care. Convicted of only one murder but suspected of 10 or more others
• Patrick Kearney – necrophiliac convicted of 21 murders in California and admitted to seven other murders
• Edmund Kemper – started killing when he was 15 years old in Santa Cruz, California; convicted of six murders and implicated in four others
• Tillie Klimek – Chicago woman who poisoned five husbands; sentenced to life imprisonment
• Paul John Knowles – raped and murdered 18 people
• Randy Kraft – convicted of the murders of 16 young men and boys; suspected of 51 others in California
• Timothy Krajcir – confessed to killing more than nine women—five in Missouri and four others in Illinois and Pennsylvania
• Peter Kudzinowski – killed children in New Jersey in the 1920s
• Leonard Lake and Charles Ng – ex-Marines and survivalists; killed at least 11 people and suspected of 25; collected and murdered female sex slaves
• Derrick Todd Lee – aka the "Baton Rouge Serial Killer"; convicted of two murders; linked by DNA evidence to five others
• Henry Lee Lucas – convicted of 11 murders and confessed to approximately 3000 others, although most of his confessions are considered outlandish; a task force set up to investigate his claims suggested that the true number of his murders may be as high as 213
• Rhonda Belle Martin – Alabama poisoner who murdered six family members; suspected of poisoning at least nine; executed in 1957
• Michigan murders (John Norman Collins and Gary Leiterman) – committed separately in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor between 1967 and 1969
• Frederick Mors - Austrian who killed seventeen elderly patients by poisoning in New York
• Herman Mudgett – better known as H.H. Holmes; active from 1890 to 1894 during Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; convicted of only one murder but definitively tied to at least 8 more and confessed to a total of 27
• John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo – aka "Beltway Snipers"; Muhammad is convicted of seven murders so far and awaiting prosecution for nine others; Malvo was convicted of, plead guilty to, or confessed to at least nine murders
• Herbert Mullin – schizophrenic in Santa Cruz, California who killed people to prevent earthquakes; convicted of 10 murders and confessed to three others
• Earle Nelson – aka "Gorilla Man"; necrophiliac convicted and hanged for one murder; implicated in about 20 others
• Marie Noe – murdered eight of her children between 1949 and 1968
• Gordon Stewart Northcott – aka the "Wineville Chicken Coop Murders"; California man who confessed to kidnapping, raping and murdering nine young boys with the aid of his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott in the 1920s; suspected of the murder of nearly 30, executed in 1930
• Carl Panzram – murderer, rapist and arsonist; convicted of two murders; confessed to 19 others; executed in 1930
• Christopher Peterson – aka the "Shotgun Killer", confessed to shooting seven people with a shotgun in a killing spree spanning from October 30, 1990 to December 18, 1990 in Indiana.
• Dorothea Puente – convicted of three killings in Sacramento, California during the 1980s; suspected of six others
• Dennis Rader – aka the "BTK Killer"; killed ten people between 1974 and 1991
• Richard Ramirez – aka the "Night Stalker"; terrorized Los Angeles in 1984 and 1985; convicted of 14 murders
• David Parker Ray – convicted of rape and torture and sentenced to 224 years in prison; FBI believes he was responsible for the deaths of 60 women in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
• Paul Dennis Reid – killed seven people during armed robberies between February and April 1997
• Ángel Maturino Reséndiz – killed nine people in Texas, Kentucky, and Illinois
• Gary Ridgway – aka the "Green River Killer"; convicted of murdering 48 women in Washington state
• Joel Rifkin – murdered 17 women in the New York City and Long Island areas
• John Edward Robinson – aka the "Cyber Sex Killer"; lured victims through the internet; convicted of murdering six women in Missouri and Kansas
• Dayton Leroy Rogers – murdered at least six women in Oregon
• Danny Rolling – pleaded guilty to murdering five students in Florida; executed in 2006
• Michael Bruce Ross – raped and murdered seven women in Connecticut
• Efren Saldivar – respiratory therapist who killed six patients, possibly as many as 120
• Altemio Sanchez – aka the "Bike Path Rapist"; responsible for three murders and numerous rapes spanning over a 25-year period in Buffalo, New York; currently serving three consecutive 75 years-to-life sentences for the murders
• Heriberto Seda – New York City copycat killer of the "Zodiac Killer" active from 1990 to 1994; convicted of shooting eight individuals, killing three; sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998
• Gerard John Schaefer – Florida police officer who killed up to 34 women and girls
• Tommy Lynn Sells – convicted of only one murder; admitted to murdering dozens of people across the United States, possibly in excess of 70 although only six are confirmed
• Arthur Shawcross – aka "The Genesee River Killer"; convicted of 12 murders; confessed to one more
• Robert Shulman – convicted of murdering five prostitutes between 1991 and 1996
• Lemuel Smith – confessed to the murders of five people, including an on-duty female prison guard
• Morris Solomon Jr. – handyman who killed six young women between 1986 and 1987 in Sacramento, California
• Gerald Stano – convicted murderer of 41 women; executed in 1998
• Cary Stayner – killed four women in Yosemite, California
• Michael Swango – physician and surgeon who poisoned over 30 of his patients and colleagues
• William Suff – aka the "Riverside Killer"; killed up to 19 women near Riverside, California
• Marybeth Tinning – New York woman who smothered nine of her children to death
• Ottis Toole – Henry Lee Lucas' accomplice; convicted of six murders in Florida; confessed to but never tried for Adam Walsh's murder
• Maury Travis – St. Louis area torture killer of 12-17 prostitutes from 2000 to 2002
• Chester Turner – murderer of women in Los Angeles, California; convicted of 12 murders and linked through DNA evidence to another
• Henry Louis Wallace – Charlotte, North Carolina killer of at least nine young women from 1992 to 1994
• Coral Eugene Watts – convicted of two murders; admitted to killing 80 people in Texas and Michigan; possibly guilty of 100 murders
• Nathaniel White – convicted of stabbing to death six women in the Hudson Valley, New York area from 1991 to 1992
• Wayne Williams – convicted of two murders; police claim his arrest solved 23 others in a string of 29
• Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood – Michigan duo who murdered five elderly nursing home residents in their care and claimed to have killed another
• Randall Woodfield – aka the "The I-5 Killer" and "The I-5 Bandit"; convicted of four murders; believed responsible for 14 others
• Aileen Wuornos – shot six men dead in Florida; executed in 2002
• Robert Lee Yates – murdered at least 13 women in Spokane County, Washington

 Venezuela

• Dorangel Vargas – killed and cannibalized at least 10 men