Serial Killers

Beverley Allitt – aka "Angel of Death"; paediatric nurse who killed four babies in her care and injured at least nine others; sentenced to life imprisonment in 1991

Valeriy Asratyan – arrested in 1990 and convicted of three murders and dozens of cases of sexual abuse; executed

Leslie Bailey – killed at least three young boys in and around London in the 1980s

Joe Ball – aka "The Alligator Man"; killed at least 20 women in the early 20th century in Texas

Francisca Ballesteros – between 1990 and 2004 killed her family and attempted to kill her surviving son

Daniel Camargo Barbosa – aka "The Beast of the Andes"; 71 alleged victims (most of his victims were killed in Ecuador)

Juana Barraza – aka "Mataviejitas" ("Old Lady Killer"); operated within the metropolitan area of Mexico City until January 25, 2006

Jürgen Bartsch – killed four, one escaped; died by wrongful overdose during castration surgery

Erzsébet (Elizabeth) Báthory – countess who killed servant girls; rumored to have killed more than 600

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

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

Lucia de Berk – nurse convicted of killing at least seven and attempting three murders in the 2000s (2008: case reopened by the Dutch supreme court)

David Berkowitz – aka "Son of Sam" and "The .44 Caliber Killer"; convicted of six murders in New York

Paul Bernardo – aka the "Scarborough Rapist"; Ontario man who killed three teenage girls (including his wife's sister) with the aid of his wife Karla Homolka

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

Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Jr. – aka the "Hillside Strangler"; killers of 13 women and possibly involved in three other killings

Mohammed Bijeh – aka the "Tehran Desert Vampire"; killed at least 16 young boys near Tehran; executed in 2005

Donato Bilancia – murdered 17 people in seven months between 1997 and 1998

David and Catherine Birnie – couple responsible for the murders of four women

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

Robert Black – Scottish schoolgirl killer; convicted of three murders, suspected of many more

Terry Blair – Kansas City serial killer and rapist; active 1982–2004

Elfriede Blauensteiner – poisoner of three individuals

Wayne Boden – serial killer active from 1968–1971

Nicolai Bonner – killed four people in 2005 in Haifa, three of them homeless; sentenced to life imprisonment

William Bonin – aka "The Freeway Killer"; with several accomplices, claimed the lives of 20 boys in California

Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers – French poisoner; executed in 1676

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley – aka "Moors Murderers"; murdered five children, aged between 10 and 17 and buried them in Saddleworth Moor

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

Abraão José Bueno‎ – nurse who killed four child patients

Ted Bundy – law student who raped and murdered more than 35 women in six states; executed in Florida State Prison on January 24, 1989

William Burke and William Hare – notorious body snatchers in Edinburgh in the 19th century

José Luis Calva – cannibal; police found the remains of multiple female victims in his house; committed suicide on December 11, 2007

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

Dean Carter – murdered at least four women

Pierre Chanal – serial killer who committed suicide in 2003

Shen Changyin and Shen Changping – found guilty of the murders of 11 prostitutes

George Chapman – poisoned three women; suspected by some authors of being Jack the Ripper

Richard Chase – aka "The Vampire of Sacramento"; murdered six people in California the 1970s

Luigi Chiatti – aka the "Monster of Foligno"; victims were children

Andrei Chikatilo – aka "The Rostov Ripper"; killed 52 women and children throughout the Soviet Union; arrested, convicted and executed in 1994

John Childs – murdered six people between 1974 and 1978; sentenced to life imprisonment

John Christie – killed seven women (including his wife) and disputably one infant between 1943 and 1953 and hid them in his house and garden at 10 Rillington Place

Leonarda Cianciulli – aka "Soap-Maker of Correggio"; murderess of three women

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

Adolfo Constanzo – aka "The Godfather of Matamoros"; serial killer and cult leader in Mexico; committed suicide in 1989

Eric Edgar Cooke – killed at least seven people; last person to be hanged in Western Australia

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

António Luís Costa – ex-GNR officer who murdered three women between 2005 and 2006

Mary Ann Cotton – British Victorian killer; said to have poisoned more than 20 victims

John Martin Crawford – convicted in 1996 for the murders of three women

Thomas Neill Cream – aka "Lambeth Poisoner"; began his killing spree in the United States then moved to London; hanged in 1892

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

Antonis Daglis - aka the "Athens Ripper"; convicted in 1997 of the strangulation murders and dismemberment of three women and the attempted murder of six others

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

Karl Denke – cannibal; allegedly killed 30 people

Paul Denyer – aka "Frankston Serial Killer"; murdered three women in 1993 in the Melbourne suburb of Frankston

Albert DeSalvo – aka "The Boston Strangler"; convicted of unrelated rapes. DeSalvo was never indicted for the Strangler murders, although he did confess to them.

Léopold Dion – aka "Monster of Pont-Rouge"; raped and killed four young boys in 1960; murdered in 1972

Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs (Viktor Sayenko, Alexander Hanzha and Igor Suprunyuck) - three 19-year-olds who murdered 21 people during a one-month period in 2007

Nannie Doss – aka "The Giggling Granny" and "The Jolly Black Widow"; serial poisoner who killed 11 family members

Peter Dupas – serving three life sentences for multiple murders and rape charges

Paul Durousseau – murdered 7 in southeast United States between 1997 and 2003; may have killed while stationed in Germany with the Army

Marc Dutroux – child molester and killer

Amelia Dyer – murdered infants in her care; executed in 1896

Volker Eckert – accused of 19 murders between 1974 and 2006

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

Kenneth Erskine – aka "Stockwell Strangler"; sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988 for murdering seven pensioners

Francisco Garcia Escalero – beggar convicted of 11 murders

Donald (Pee Wee) Henry Gaskins – aka "Meanest Man in America"; convicted of nine murders; confessed to more than 200; executed on September 6, 1991

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

Marie Fikáčková – female nurse who was executed by hanging in 1961 for the murders of 10 babies

Pedro Rodrigues Filho – aka "Pedrinho Matador"; convicted and sentenced to 128 years imprisonment for 70 murders; however, the maximum one can serve in Brazil is 30 years; claimed to have killed more than 100 victims, including 40 prison inmates

Albert Fish – aka the "Werewolf of Wisteria"; sadist and pedophile who cannibalized several children; convicted of one murder, confessed to two others

Kathleen Folbigg – murdered four of her infants

Wayne Adam Ford – aka "Wayward Wayne"; confessed to murdering four women; believed to have killed others

Michel Fourniret – confessed to nine murders; allegedly killed 10 more

Leonard Fraser – convicted of killing three people in Rockhampton, Queensland

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

Wolfgang Abel and Mario Furlan – German-Italian duo found guilty of 10 of 27 counts of murder in 1987

Sataro Fukiage – raped and killed at least seven girls in the early 20th century

William Patrick Fyfe – convicted of killing five women in Montreal; suspect in several other murders

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

Luis Garavito – admitted to killing and raping 172 people (also killed victims in Ecuador)

Carlton Gary – convicted of the murders of seven elderly women in Georgia

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

Guy Georges – aka the "Beast of the Bastille"; serving a life sentence for 7 murders between 1991 and 1997

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

John Wayne Glover – aka "The Granny Killer"; killed six elderly women on Sydney's North Shore; committed suicide in 2005.

Santos Cayetano Godino  – aka "Petiso Orejudo" ("Big Eared Midget"); at 16, killed four children in 1912; died in prison in 1944

Delfina and María de Jesús González – aka "Las Poquianchis"; killed a total of 91; arrested and sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1964

Jeffrey Gorton – convicted of two rape-murders in Michigan, suspected of more

Gesche Gottfried – serial poisoner who murdered 15 people in Hanover and Bremen; publicly executed in 1831

Dana Sue Gray – convicted of murder of three elderly women and attempted murder of a fourth in California

Steven Grieveson – aka "The Sunderland Strangler"; murdered three teenage boys in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear in 1993 and 1994

Caroline Grills – aka "Auntie Thally"; serial poisoner of at least four family members

Karl Grossmann – killed women and sold their flesh on the black market

Edson Isidoro Guimarães – nurse who killed four patients but suspected of 131 deaths in total

Belle Gunness – murder-for-profit killer who murdered her suitors and children in Indiana

Matti Haapoja – convicted murderer of three people, admitted to the murders of 18

Fritz Haarmann – preyed on young men and boys; executed in 1925

John George Haigh – aka the "Acid Bath Murderer" and the "Vampire of London"; active in England during the 1940s; convicted of six murders, but claimed to have killed 9; executed in 1949

Saeed Hanaei – aka "The Spider Killer"; killed at least 16 women around Mashhad; executed in 2002

Robert Hansen – Alaskan baker who killed prostitutes at his cabin; convicted of four murders but admitted to 11 others

Anthony Hardy – aka the "Camden Ripper"; convicted of three murders; suspected of at least four

Trevor Hardy – aka "The Beast in the Night"; killed three teenage girls in Manchester from 1974 to 1976

Donald Harvey – aka "Angel of Death"; hospital orderly; confessed to more than 80 "mercy killings" with 37 confirmed killings

Francis Heaulme – serving a life sentence for 20 murders between 1984 and 1992

William Heirens – aka "The Lipstick Killer"; confessed to three murders spanning from June 1945 to January 1946

Gregorio Cárdenas Hernández – aka "Goyo" and the "Strangler of Tacuba"; raped and killed four women in 1942; hailed as a successful case of rehabilitation and pardoned in 1976

Hiroaki Hidaka – killed four prostitutes in 1996; executed on December 25, 2006

Fritz Honka – murdered four women in Hamburg and kept the bodies in his apartment

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

The Skin Hunters - four medics in Łódź who killed patients

Javed Iqbal – believed to have killed 100 boys

Colin Ireland – aka "Gay Slayer"; killed five gay men in the early 1990s

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

Miyuki Ishikawa – murdered an estimated 103, but could have been up to 169 infants in the 1940s

Phillip Carl Jablonski – killed at least four women in California and Utah

Mark Jefferies – responsible for the murders of four people

Hélène Jégado – domestic servant who poisoned at least 23 people between 1833 and 1851; executed in 1852

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

Gilbert Paul Jordan – killed between eight and 10 women by alcohol poisoning

Kiyotaka Katsuta – 22 alleged murders but convicted of eight; executed in 2000

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

Béla Kiss – murdered at least 24 women; escaped justice in the confusion of World War I

Tillie Klimek – Chicago woman who poisoned five husbands; sentenced to life imprisonment

Paul John Knowles – raped and murdered 18 people

Yoshio Kodaira – rapist thought to have killed 11 people in Japan and Chinese people as a soldier

Surender Koli and Moninder Singh Pandher – murdered and then raped 17 children in the Noida serial killings; sentenced to death in 2009

Julian Koltun – raped and murdered women in eastern Poland

Lam Kor-wan – sexual sadist who murdered and dismembered four women in the 1980s; sentenced to life imprisonment

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

Joachim Kroll – claimed 13 victims over three decades

Peter Kudzinowski – killed children in New Jersey in the 1920s

Vasiliy Kulik – killed 13 people aged between seven months and 75 years; executed

Genzo Kurita – killed six women and two children and engaged in rape and necrophilia

Peter Kürten – aka the "Vampire of Düsseldorf"; executed in 1932

Lam Kwok-wai – murdered three women

Lainz Angels of Death (Maria Gruber, Irene Leidolf, Stephanija Meyer, Waltraud Wagner) – nurses at the Lainz General Hospital in Vienna who admitted to murdering 49 patients

Leonard Lake and Charles Ng – ex-Marines and survivalists; killed at least 11 people and suspected of 25; collected and murdered female sex slaves

Henri Désiré Landru – killed 11 people; inspired the character of Monsieur Verdoux played by Charlie Chaplin

Bruce George Peter Lee – serial arsonist and killer

Derrick Todd Lee – aka the "Baton Rouge Serial Killer"; convicted of two murders; linked by DNA evidence to five others

Allan Legere – aka "Monster of the Miramichi"; killer of five individuals

Eddie Leonski – aka "Brownout Strangler"; American serviceman who killed at least four people in Melbourne; executed on November 9, 1942

Stephan Letter – male nurse who killed 29 patients; arrested in 2006

Pedro López – aka "The Monster of the Andes"; 360 alleged victims (also killed victims in Ecuador and Peru)

Émile Louis – preyed on young handicapped women

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

Michael Lupo – aka "Wolf Man"; convicted of four murders and two attempted murders

Cedric Maake – aka the "Wemmer Pan Killer"; serial rapist; murdered at least 27 people

William MacDonald – aka "the Mutilator"; killed at least five men between June 1961 and April 1963

Patrick Mackay – charged with the murders of five individuals, convicted of three; confessed to killing 11 people

Hiroshi Maeue – aka "Suicide Website Murderer"; lured people from suicide clubs promising to kill himself with his victims

Christine Malèvre – nurse sentenced for the murders of at least 30 terminally ill patients

Peter Manuel – Scottish murderer of seven, suspected of killing 15; executed in 1958

Zdzisław Marchwicki – aka "Zagłębie Vampire"; convicted of murdering 14 women; executed in 1976

Raúl Osiel Marroquín – aka "El Sádico"; killed four male homosexuals in Mexico City

Enriqueta Martí – self-proclaimed witch who murdered and cannibalized six children in Barcelona; executed in 1912

Rhonda Belle Martin – Alabama poisoner who murdered six family members; suspected of poisoning at least nine; executed in 1957

Futoshi Matsunaga and Junko Ogata – aka "House of Horror"; tortured and murdered at least seven people between 1996 and 1998, including Ogata's family

Robert Maudsley – killer of four; killed three in prison

Władysław Mazurkiewicz – aka "The Gentleman Killer"; killed up to 30 women

Michigan Murders (John Norman Collins and Gary Leiterman) – committed separately in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor between 1967 and 1969

Ivan Milat – killed at least seven tourists in Belanglo State Forest, New South Wales; suspected in similar disappearances in Newcastle

Daisy de Melker – poisoner; killed two husbands and one son; executed in 1932

Tsutomu Miyazaki – aka "The Otaku Murderer", "The Little Girl Murderer" and "Dracula"; killed four preschool-age girls and ate a hand of a girl; executed in 2008

Stanisław Modzelewski – murdered seven women in Łódź during the 1960s; executed in 1970

Peter Moore – businessman who killed four men at random in Wales

Frederick Mors - Austrian who killed seventeen elderly patients by poisoning in New York

Václav Mrázek – convicted of the murders of seven women; executed in 1957

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

Truro Murders (James Miller and Christopher Worrell) – convicted of killing six victims

Norio Nagayama – killed four people with a handgun at the age of 19; a novelist in prison

Seisaku Nakamura – aka "Hamamatsu Deaf Killer", murdered at least nine people

Donald Neilson – aka "Black Panther; killed four people, including heiress Lesley Whittle

Earle Nelson – aka "Gorilla Man"; necrophiliac convicted and hanged for one murder; implicated in about 20 others

Arnfinn Nesset – geriatric assistant nurse who poisoned 22 dwellers at the Orkdal Alders-Og Sjukeheim institution over a period of years before being convicted in 1984

Nighttime Killers (Vladislav Volkovich and Vladimir Kondratenko) – charged with shooting, stabbing and bludgeoning 16 victims to death in Kiev between 1991 and 1997; Kondratenko committed suicide in prison during the trial; Volkovich was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment

Dennis Nilsen – killer of 15 (possibly 16) men between 1978 and 1983

Akira Nishiguchi – killed five people and engaged in fraud

Marie Noe – murdered eight of her children between 1949 and 1968

Marianne Nölle – female nurse who was convicted of killing seven patients between 1984 and 1992; suspected of killing 17; sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993

Colin Norris – nurse convicted of killing four patients in Leeds hospitals

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

Clifford Olson – murdered 11 children in British Columbia

Kiyoshi Okubo – raped and murdered eight young women during 41 days in 1971

Anatoly Onoprienko – aka "The Terminator"; murdered 59 people from 1989 until his capture in 1996

Dagmar Overbye – childcare provider who killed between nine and 25 children; sentenced to death in 1921 then reprieved

Pietro Pacciani – aka the "Monster of Florence"; victims were young couples

William Palmer – aka "Palmer the Poisoner"; doctor suspected of numerous murders, convicted of one; hanged on June 14, 1856

András Pándy – aka "Vader Blauwbaard"; convicted of the murder and rape of his two wives and four children

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.

Thierry Paulin – aka the "Beast of Montmartre"; preyed on the elderly in the 1980s

Leszek Pękalski – aka the "Vampire of Bytów"; killed up to 17 women

Liu Pengli – king of Jidong and cousin of Emperor Jing of Han; went on marauding expeditions murdering people for sheer sport; more than 100 confirmed victims

Marcel Petiot – doctor who killed 63 would-be refugees from the Nazis; executed in 1946

Maxim Petrov – doctor who killed 12 patients

Kaspars Petrovs – convicted of murdering 13 elderly Riga women in 2005; confessed to killing 38

Alexander Pichushkin – aka "The Chessboard Killer"; convicted of 48 murders; confessed to killing 63

Robert Pickton – charged with the first degree murders of 26 women; allegedly confessed to 49 murders; convicted December 9, 2007 of six charges; reduced to second degree murder

Silvo Plut – killed three women; committed suicide in prison in 2007

Norbert Poehlke – police officer and serial killer

Robledo Puch – killed 11 people before his arrest in 1972; sentenced to life imprisonment in 1980

Dorothea Puente – convicted of three killings in Sacramento, California during the 1980s; suspected of six others

Charles Quansah – convicted of the strangulation deaths of nine women in Accra; suspected of killing 34; sentenced to death in 2003.

Thomas Quick – aka "Sätermannen"; child molester; convicted of eight murders

Raman Raghav – killed homeless people and others in their sleep

Dennis Rader – aka the "BTK Killer"; killed ten people between 1974 and 1991

Gilles de Rais – 15th century demonolator and child killer

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

Vera Renczi – poisoned two husbands, one son and 32 of her suitors in the 1920s and 1930s

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

Ion Rîmaru – murdered and raped young women in Bucharest from 1970 to 1971; executed in 1971

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

Gong Runbo – found guilty for the murders of six children and teenagers aged between 9 and 16 from 2005 to 2006

Sergei Ryakhovsky – aka "The Hippopotamus"; convicted of the murders of 19 people aged between 14 and 78

Gert Van Rooyen – abducted at least six girls from 1988 to 1989 who were never found

Mark Rowntree – 19 year old who killed four people at random

Amelia Sach and Annie Walters – murdered an unknown number of babies put up for adoption

Raya and Sakina – Egypt's most famous serial killers and the first Egyptian women to be executed by the modern state of Egypt

Efren Saldivar – respiratory therapist who killed six patients, possibly as many as 120

Darya Saltykova – 18th century countess who tortured and killed serfs on her estate

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

San Francisco Bay Area murders in 1983

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

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

Gerard John Schaefer – Florida police officer who killed up to 34 women and girls

Auto Shankar – murdered 9 teenage girls in Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai. During a period of six months in 1988.

Abdul Latif Sharif – Egyptian national alleged to be responsible for dozens of murders in Ciudad Juárez

Arthur Shawcross – aka "The Genesee River Killer"; convicted of 12 murders; confessed to one more

Harold Shipman – doctor convicted of 15 murders; a later inquiry stated he had killed at least 215 and possibly up to 457 people over a 25-year period

Robert Shulman – convicted of murdering five prostitutes between 1991 and 1996

Moses Sithole – believed to have killed at least 38 young women

Anatoly Slivko – convicted of killing seven young boys; executed

Snowtown murders (John Bunting, Robert Wagner, Mark Haydon, James Vlassakis) – convicted of, or assisted with, the murders of 11 people between 1992 and 1999

George Joseph Smith – aka "The Brides in the Bath"; killer of three women

Lemuel Smith – confessed to the murders of five people, including an on-duty female prison guard

Sasha Spesivtsev – cannibal convicted of the murders of 19 women

Gerald Stano – convicted murderer of 41 women; executed in 1998

Cary Stayner – killed four women in Yosemite, California

Łucjan Staniak – aka "The Red Spider" and "The Red Ripper"; killed up to 20 women

John Straffen – child killer and Britain's longest serving prisoner until his death on November 19, 2007

Roberto Succo – murdered at least five people, including his parents

William Suff – aka the "Riverside Killer"; killed up to 19 women near Riverside, California

Ahmad Suradji – admitted to killing 42 women; sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on July 10, 2008

Peter Sutcliffe – aka the "Yorkshire Ripper"; convicted in 1981 of murdering 13 women and attacking seven more from 1975 to 1980

Charles Sobhraj – killed at least 12 Western tourists in Southeast Asia during the 1970s

Morris Solomon Jr. – handyman who killed six young women between 1986 and 1987 in Sacramento, California

Anísio Ferreira de Sousa – gynaecologist who was convicted of the murder of three children but linked to the disappearance of a total of 19

Peter Stumpp – self-proclaimed werewolf who killed 16 people during the 1500s

Michael Swango – physician and surgeon who poisoned over 30 of his patients and colleagues

Maria Swanenburg – killed 27 with arsenic in the 1880s

Antti Taskinen – poisoner of three men; sentenced to life imprisonment

Alexander Tchayka – killed four women between January 1994 and February 1994

Sipho Thwala – aka the "Phoenix Strangler"; raped and murdered 19 women in sugarcane fields from 1996 to 1997

Marybeth Tinning – New York woman who smothered nine of her children to death

Serhiy Tkach – convicted of raping and murdering 36 women, but claims the total is 100

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

Metod Trobec – raped and killed at least five women; committed suicide in prison in 2006

Chester Turner – murderer of women in Los Angeles, California; convicted of 12 murders and linked through DNA evidence to another

Jack Unterweger – author and sexual sadist; convicted of 10 murders; believed to have killed 12 women

Joseph Vacher – aka "The French Ripper"; 19th century serial killer of 11 people

Dorangel Vargas – killed and cannibalized at least 10 men

Henry Louis Wallace – Charlotte, North Carolina killer of at least nine young women from 1992 to 1994

José Antonio Rodriguez Vega – raped and killed at least 16 women

Manuel Delgado Villegas – 48 alleged murders; convicted of eight

Coral Eugene Watts – convicted of two murders; admitted to killing 80 people in Texas and Michigan; possibly guilty of 100 murders

Jeanne Weber – convicted of the murders of 10 children in Germany

Fred West and Rosemary West – aka "House of Horrors"; she was convicted of 10 murders; both are believed to have tortured and murdered at least 12 young women between 1967 and 1987, many at the couple's home in Gloucester; he committed suicide in 1995 while awaiting trial

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

Peter Woodcock – murdered three children in 1956–1957 and a fellow psychiatric institute patient in 1991

Randall Woodfield – aka the "The I-5 Killer" and "The I-5 Bandit"; convicted of four

Aileen Wuornos – shot six men dead in Florida; executed in 2002murders; believed responsible for 14 others

Steve Wright – aka "The Suffolk Strangler" or "The Ipswich Ripper"; killed 5 women in six weeks around Ipswich in late 2006

Robert Lee Yates – murdered at least 13 women in Spokane County, Washington

Huang Yong – between September 2001 and 2003 killed at least 17 teenage boys; executed in 2003

Graham Young – aka "The Teacup Poisoner"; killed three people from 1962 to 1971

Yoo Young-chul – cannibal; killed 21 people from September 2003 to July 2004, mainly young women and rich men.

Shi Yuejun – between September 24, 2006 and September 29, 2006 he murdered 12 people and wounded four others

Yang Xinhai – confessed to killing 65 people between 2000 and 2003; executed in 2004

Elias Xitavhudzi – murdered 16 people in Atteridgeville in the 1960s

Petr Zelenka – male nurse convicted of seven murders to "test" doctors

Anna Maria Zwanziger – Bavarian poisoner; killer of four people; executed in 1811