The world is full of people who will not hesitate to wrong others for their benefit, but some people even kill others for the sheer sadistic joy of seeing them in pain. They are whom we know as “Serial killers.” They kill person after person because they like killing people and some of them are so vicious that history cannot forget them even if it wanted to.
Here Are Top 15 Notorious Serial Killers History Will Remember:
1. Dr. Death
Harold Shipman, nicknamed as ‘Dr. Death’ killed 218 patients of his while working as a famous physician. From 1972 to 1998, the serial killer continued his grotesque killing spree by overdosing his patients, mostly older women, with diamorphine. He was sentenced to life without parole in 2000. He killed himself in jail in 2004 and never admitted to having committed any of the charged crimes.
2. Lady Bluebeard
Belle Gunness, a serial killer who married to kill. She killed up to 15 men to collect their insurance, many of them she married while others she lured in by an advertisement in the newspaper for a suitable groom. She however met an end more grisly than any of her victims- her body was found decapitated in her burned down Indiana farmhouse, the investigation of which lead to the bodies or rather remains of her victims.
3. Ed Gein
The inspiration behind Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was this serial killer. He was an abused son of a debauched father and after the death of the rest of his family, all within 5 years, he lost his mental stability completely. He brutally murdered 2 people and 9 corpses mutilated and dug up from graves were found in his house, their various body parts on display about his house like decoration, even a vest made from human skin was found in his house.
4. John Wayne Gacy
He worked and performed as a clown in children’s birthday parties. Who would have known a person as friendly and sweet-natured as Gacy could do something so heinous and horrible? John Gacy raped and murdered 29 teenage boys and disposed of their bodies, all 29 of them, in a 4-foot crawl space of the basement of his house. After being captured he also admitted to having murdered several other men and thrown their bodies in a nearby lake confirming the killing of 33 men in all.
5. Ted Bundy
A handsome man with high education and a good job, Ted Bundy was someone no one could ever imagine committing a crime. But in reality, his beautiful face was a mask to cover up his dark side. During his killing spree, Ted murdered and raped many women, the true number was never revealed and most probably never found. Ted majorly aimed his own colleagues, giving them an illusion of a romantic relationship and soon raping and killing them.
6. Jack The Ripper
Jack, the ripper was never really captured by the police and for that matter, no strong suspects were interrogated either. In 1888, the streets of London were terrorized by this vicious serial killer who lured prostitutes into dark alleys and slit their throats before mutilating their bodies with a knife in a cold-blooded and gruesome manner. Not only this, but this person also sent the police taunting letters saying that they were useless and describing in detail how he would kill his next victim.
As is said before, the culprit was never found, only general suspects were picked up who were more than one hundred in number. With hindered technology and assets, the police was at an immense loss and the case was finally shut down in 1892.
7. H.H. Holmes
H.H. Holmes is one of the first names that pops up in one’s head when the history of gruesome murderers is discussed. This pharmacist literally built a Murder Castle. He built a three-story inn whose rooms were more than just rooms. Some rooms had hidden peepholes, gas lines, trapdoors, etc while others were equipped with secret passages, doorways, and tunnels that led to dead ends, there was also a greased chute that lead straight into the basement where Holmes had a surgical table, a furnace and even a rack- the medieval ones.
He lured his victims, mostly young women into his inn and asphyxiate them with poisoned gas. He then took them to his basement for horrendous experiments. To dispose of the body, he simply just threw them into the furnace or skinned them and sold the skeletons to medical students (easy money!). He was initially convicted of four murders but then it was revealed that 27 more people were killed by him.
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8. Jeffrey Dahmer
Dahmer killed his first victim at the ripe young age of 18. He lived an unsettling life, dropping out of college and then the army, working for some person or the other when finally he was kicked out of her grandma’s house and settled into his apartment in Milwaukee. From here his killing binge started, he is said to have murdered 17 people before an African-American man was able to get out of his clutches and hail a police car.
When he led the police to the killer’s lair, the police found disturbing photographs of bodies, mutilated genitalia of men, and a tub full of acid that Jeffrey used to dispose of some of his victim’s bodies. He was also convicted of eating the parts of his victims and necrophilia. He was sentenced to 957 years in jail but was killed by an inmate in 1994, just two years of his sentence completed.
9. Pedro Lopez
Pedro Lopez, although he was convicted of the murder of more than 300 people, still roams free today after only 20 years of the sentence. Most of Pedro’s victims were the tribal women of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. After he was arrested in 1980, the graves of more than 50 of his victims were found and he later confessed to killing 240 people. He was released from prison for Good Behavior in just 20 years. This means that he is still out there perhaps biding his time, perhaps still committing crimes undetected.
10. The Zodiac Killer
This self-named serial killer was also known to send taunting letters to the bay area press, he even sent them ciphers to be decoded so they could catch him but out of all four he sent, only one was solved. He claimed to have killed 37 victims in total but the newspapers reported only 7, the case remains open to this day.
11. The Hitchhikers’ Killer
Donald Henry Gaskins, a cold-blooded serial killer would pick up hitchhikers along the coastal highways of South America and murder and mutilate them. He was convicted of killing about 80 to 90 people during his killing spree that started in 1969. He was sentenced to death which turned into a life sentence without parole and then during his jail time, he killed one more person, the last he would ever kill, an inmate of the jail. After which he became and still remains the only man to have ever killed an inmate during a death row.
12. The Human Dracula
Tsutomu Miyazaki was named The Human Dracula because of the crimes he committed and the name makes them pretty clear. He would abduct little girls and torture them immensely before killing them. This sadist Serial killer mutilated body parts of his victims and kept them as trophies around his house. He sent postcards to the victims’ families describing in detail the murder of their loved ones. On one occasion he even drank the blood from the corpse of his victim and even ate the girl’s hand. He was also convicted of necrophilia. He was hanged in 2008 at the age of 45.
13. Luis Garavito
Luis Garavito is still in prison today completing his sentence of 30 years in jail. He confessed to torturing, raping and murdering 147 young boys but the actual number may be up to 300. The Colombian killer could have been sentenced to 1,853 years of the sentence but the Colombian law limited it to 30 years.
14. Ahmad Suradji
This cattle breeder from Indonesia tortured and killed 42 girls and women during his killing binge between 1986 to 1997. He insisted that this was a part of a ritual that he was performing which will ultimately give him power beyond imagination. He buried his victims up to the neck in his sugarcane field nearby where all their bodies were found facing towards the house of their murderer. He was sentenced to death by the firing squad in 2008.
15. The Chessboard Killer
Alexander Pichushkin, also known as the chessboard killer, killed 49 people most of who were homeless men he lured into his house with vodka. He killed his victims with repeated hammer blows to their skulls and then inserted vodka bottles in the skull wounds he caused. He was called the chessboard killer because he confessed he wanted to complete the squares of a chessboard in the field of killing meaning he wanted to kill 64 people in total. He was said to be rivalling with another serial killer, Russian Andrei Chikatilo, who was found guilty of 53 murders and also started his killings the same year as Alexander.
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