Worst serial killer history

Yet, psychologists have long tried to understand why some people become serial killers. Is there a genetic component? Or is it a combination of factors that turns some people into terrifying killers? While every case is different, psychologists have tried to point to a variety of factors that might mold someone into a serial killer.

It is important to note that there is no particular cause of serial killing , but the traits below tend to be common amongst serial killers:.

And while these traits appear to be common, there is no blueprint for what makes a serial killer, nor is there a certain set of experiences that can be pointed to as definitively creating a serial killer. As such, the study of serial murderers is both highly important and extremely fascinating. The job of a psychologist is to study human behavior, learn how to describe and explain it, predict it, and then control it.

The goal is to figure out why this behavior occurs so that it can be controlled. The difficulty, of course, is that serial killing is the result of many different complex processes and experiences.

Instead, psychologists have to rely on research, studies, and interviews with convicted serial killers to try to connect the dots — some of the dots, anyway — to see what they can learn about why serial killers develop.

There are plenty of terrifying serial killers that have stolen newspaper headlines over the years, and some of them have been studied by psychologists seeking answers about the causality of serial killing. What psychologists have learned from their studies can perhaps be boiled down to one horrible truth — under the right conditions, anyone can become a serial killer.

They are some of the most horrifying individuals to ever walk the earth. Bundy is easily one of the most deranged serial killers not to mention kidnappers, rapists, burglars, and necrophiles of all time. His modus operandi included kidnapping his female victims, raping them, and then dismembering them.

He often kept their heads as souvenirs. Before he was executed in , Bundy admitted to kidnapping and murdering 30 women, though this number is almost certainly much higher. In reality, the number of people he murdered is likely much higher. As a practicing physician, Shipman had easy access to potential victims, which is why he was able to be such a prolific killer without raising suspicion. However, because Shipman was involved in so many cases in which patients died, people eventually began to suspect foul play.

Most of his victims were elderly women, whom he said had died in their sleep. But many of these women died during the day, which struck some as odd. Additionally, Shipman asked for an unusually large number of cremation certificates, which caught the attention of an undertaker who reported the odd circumstances of the cremations. He lured or forced victims into the back of his van, before tying them up, raping and torturing them. As the killings made major headlines, police received a tip about Bonin and caught him in the act in the back of his blood-splattered van.

He was convicted of 14 murders though his actual death toll is thought to be much higher and became the first person to be executed by lethal injection in California in Andrei Chikatilo was a serial killer in Russia known for brutally stabbing and slashing more than 50 victims.

Chikatilo had an unhappy childhood, plagued by poverty, starvation, and abuse. He witnessed wartime horrors in the s and later suffered from crippling shyness and impotence. After becoming a teacher, Chikatilo sexually assaulted several of his students before being forced to resign.

His first murder came in when he lured a 9-year-old girl into his home to rape her, before strangling and stabbing the child. Chikatilo killed upward of 56 victims in total, both boys and girls. He usually murdered by stabbing the victim many times, mutilating their bodies even after their deaths and cutting out their eyes. He later admitted to removing and chewing on various body parts. Police started to link the savage crimes in and launched a major investigation.

Chikatilo was questioned twice and placed on a suspect list by the police, but continued to kill until He was eventually caught and confessed to killing 56 people under intense questioning.

In a controversial trial, he was sentenced to 86 years in prison plus the death penalty. After two unsuccessful appeals, Chikatilo was executed with a gunshot to the head in Pedro Rodrigues Filho has racked up a huge number of murder victims — but typically only targets criminals and wrongdoers.

Filho is one of the more fascinating serial killers of all time — a brazen murderer who mainly kills bad guys. He killed for the first time when he was just 14, shooting the deputy mayor of his hometown with a shotgun, right in front of City Hall. Before murdering his father, Filho had also tortured and killed a host of drug dealers and traffickers in Brazil. Filho was arrested and sentenced to years in jail in — but did not stop killing criminals.

He murdered a further 47 people while in prison, all fellow inmates. This bumped his sentence up to years. However, the law in Brazil caps prison sentences at 30 years. Filho served 30 years, plus an extra four years for the murders committed behind bars. He was released in One of the most notorious serial killers of all time, Richard Ramirez broke into the homes of his victims at night and spread fear through the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas.

In , Ramirez claimed his first victim — a nine-year-old girl who he raped, beat, stabbed, and then hanged. Soon afterward, he started his spree of home invasion murders. Ramirez picked targets at random, killing men and women of all ages.

His varied murder weapons included guns, knives, machetes, and hammers. Sometimes he killed people while they were asleep, surprising others while they were awake. He often sexually assaulted women and sometimes stole valuables from the homes. Police finally identified Ramirez from evidence found at the crime scenes. They released his picture to the media, and Ramirez was cornered by a group of residents that recognized him from the newspaper pictures.

Famous murderer Ramirez, who claimed to be a Satanist, was convicted and sentenced to death. The Los Angeles serial killer was on death row for 23 years before dying of cancer aged The fearsome Luis Garavito has the most confirmed victims of any known serial killers in history.

Garavito was beaten and molested as a child. He fled from his abusive home life at an early age, choosing to live on the streets instead. It is thought that he started killing around when a large number of young boys aged began disappearing from the streets of Colombia. His targets were mostly poor or homeless children.

Garavito would tie the youngsters up and sexually abuse them before killing his victims. In total, he is believed to have murdered about children. But it was several years before a serious investigation was launched, as many of the disappearances went unreported.

In , several mass graves were discovered. The following year, evidence left at another crime scene led police to Garavito. They linked him to the crimes with DNA evidence and discovered journals detailing his horrific killing spree. Garavito was convicted of murders and sentenced to 1, years in jail…but could be out as early as Prison sentences in Colombia cannot exceed 40 years, and his sentence was cut to 22 years for helping police find the bodies of his victims. More than 50 years later, people are still fascinated by the mystery of the Zodiac — a notorious serial killer who was never caught or conclusively identified.

The first Zodiac murders took place a few days before Christmas in near San Francisco, when two people in a parked car were shot. A string of similar attacks followed in the next few months. But the killings gained attention when several letters were sent to the media by the murderer.

Zodiac letters coined his iconic pseudonym and contained codes and cryptograms with taunting messages from the killer. Only seven victims have been conclusively linked to The Zodiac, two of whom survived.

But in his final letter in , the killer claimed he had committed 37 murders. Police formed a sketch of the victim from survivor accounts and sifted through a mountain of evidence — from handwriting analysis to hotline tips.

They identified several key suspects, but no one was ever charged. The Zodiac case has been the subject of movies, documentaries, podcasts and much more. Despite recent attempts to trace DNA from the Zodiac letter stamps, it is considered a cold case. Alexander Pichushkin is a prolific Russian serial killer who is believed to have murdered 62 people over 14 years.

It is believed this may have affected his impulse control, but he also became increasingly hostile as he was bullied throughout his youth. He first killed when he was just 18, and went on to murder a huge number of people.

He started by luring victims into the sewers to kill them. He later switched to a more bold and brutal method, killing using a hammer. Police captured Pichushkin in after retracing the steps of his final victim and finding surveillance footage of her leaving a train with her killer. Pichushkin was taught to play chess by his grandfather and was an outstanding player.

When police raided his home, they found a chessboard with dates written in 62 of the 64 squares — believed to represent each of his murders. In he was convicted of 49 murders and jailed for life, with the first 15 years of his sentence ordered to be in solitary confinement. Hamilton Howard Fish — known as Albert Fish — was a highly disturbed serial killer who committed a series of brutal crimes in the New York area.

Fish spent some of his childhood in an orphanage and blamed his later behavior on the abuse he suffered there. When he was 20, he moved to New York City and started working as a prostitute.

At this time, Fish also started sexually abusing young boys and developed an obsession with mutilation, self-harm, and cannibalism. Albert Fish claimed to have killed more than people, though police only linked him conclusively to five murders using physical evidence.

He was said to target victims who were mentally handicapped, who he said would not be missed, as well as women and children. He used knives and cleavers to mutilate and torture his victims.

After killing his final victim — a young woman named Grace Budd — he sent a letter to her mother describing how he ate her remains. It was through this letter that police traced and caught Fish.

He was convicted of murder and executed by electric chair in Randall Woodfield is a multi-state serial killer who claimed the lives of up to 44 people through Portland, Oregon, and California.

How many serial killers start out as NFL hopefuls? At least one, as Woodfield was once a talented football star. He is from an affluent family and was a star athlete in high school, with coaches and teammates describing him as soft-spoken and gentlemanly.

But it was at this time that he started displaying dysfunctional behavior. After his footballing failures, Woodfield moved back to Portland and was jailed in for sexually assaulting and robbing women at knifepoint. After release, his crimes escalated.

Woodfield killed for the first time in , before committing a series of robberies at gunpoint along the I-5 interstate corridor, sometimes wearing a fake beard as a disguise.

He also committed several murders in early , with most victims being sexually assaulted and shot in the head. Woodfield was caught after being identified by surviving robbery victims.

He was investigated and charged with murder, rape, kidnapping and armed robbery, receiving a life sentence plus an additional 90 years. Woodfield was only convicted of one murder, but evidence has later linked him to as many as 44 killings.

Jack the Ripper is one of the most famous unidentified serial killers ever — a murderer who stalked the streets of London, murdering and mutilating a series of women and evading capture.

The infamous Ripper murders are steeped in legend. They start with five victims who were killed between August and November Each of the victims is believed to have been a prostitute. They had their throats cut and were mutilated in increasingly vicious ways.

In some cases, the Ripper removed organs from the bodies, leading to suspicions that the culprit was a surgeon or butcher. Several other murders from have been linked to Jack the Ripper, but experts believe they are unconnected due to the differences in M. The nickname Jack the Ripper was first signed in letters supposedly written by the killer and sent to the police.

However, it is widely believed that they were fakes, written by journalists to boost interest in the case. Police investigated more than suspects, but Jack the Ripper was never caught. Larry Eyler was a serial murderer who targeted teenage boys and young men, dumping their bodies along interstates throughout the Midwest.

Openly homosexual, Eyler was well known in the Indianapolis gay scene in the s, known to be quiet and laid back, but with a well-hidden sadistic and violent streak.

When he started killing in , Eyler usually plied victims with alcohol, before stabbing, slashing, and mutilating them — dumping the bodies along interstates in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin. Many of the victims were homosexual. After receiving a tip, a special police taskforce started to investigate Eyler.

He was eventually charged, but several key pieces of evidence were excluded because officers failed to follow proper police procedures. Eyler was bailed…but killed a year-old boy just six months later.

He dumped the dismembered body in several different trash bags in the bins outside his apartment but was caught by the janitor. This time, the case against him was conclusive and he was sentenced to death. Before his death, he confessed to more than 20 murders in total.

Juan Corona was a Mexican serial killer who slew his victims with a machete and then buried their remains on a farm. Corona first entered the U. But he suffered a mental breakdown just five years later and was deported after being treated for paranoid schizophrenia with shock therapy. He moved back to California legally with a green card in Though he had anger problems, nobody suspected Corona as a mass murderer until By that time, he worked as a coordinator who contracted migrant laborers to work on local farms.

But Corona was killing some of these workers — hacking them to death with a machete and then burying them in shallow graves on one of the farms. Corona was caught when a farm owner spotted a fresh hole filled in on his property. Police found a body in the grave, before discovering the remains of 24 other men who had been killed from February-May It is suspected that further victims existed but were not found.

Officers found evidence linking the crimes to Corona, both in the graves and at his home. He was found guilty and given 25 life sentences. After appeal, he was found guilty again in a second trial. Corona later suffered from dementia and died in prison in , aged David Berkowitz was a serial killer who gunned down a string of victims and spread fear through New York City in the s.

Postal worker Berkowitz was obsessed with starting fires as a child, before moving on to violent crimes. Berkowitz botched his first murder attempt when he tried to stab two women on Christmas Eve, After his initial failure, Berkowitz went on a shooting rampage throughout New York. He typically targeted pairs of people sitting together, usually in parked cars. The shooter killed seven people in total, leaving others with serious gunshot wounds.

He appeared to have a type — women with long dark hair — and many women changed their look to avoid being targeted. The murders left New York in a state of panic. Berkowitz was eventually caught after his car was discovered filled with guns, ammo, and maps linking him to the shootings. He submitted a guilty plea and is now serving life in prison. Gary Ridgway is the second most prolific American serial killer, murdering 49 confirmed victims over a reign of terror spanning more than 15 years.

Ridgway has a low IQ and suffered psychological problems from childhood. He fantasized about killing his mother and stabbed a youngster when he was just 16, though his six-year-old victim survived. Later he joined the Navy and saw combat in Vietnam. While he was married three times and became devoutly religious, Ridgway was obsessed with having sex with prostitutes. When he started killing through the 80s and 90s, most of his victims were also sex workers.

He would have sex with the woman, then strangle her, usually with his bare hands. Ridgway dumped the bodies of his victims in wooded areas around the Green River.

Sometimes he crossed into other states or purposefully contaminated dumping scenes to confuse the police. He also often returned to sexually assault the bodies. A suspect in the killings as early as due to his penchant for prostitutes, police only managed to link Ridgway to the murders using DNA evidence in He confessed to killing 71 people to avoid the death penalty and was convicted of 49 murders. Pickton owned the farm near Vancouver with his siblings.

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These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. Focusing primarily on attractive college co-eds, Bundy committed a series of murders across the Pacific Northwest. He continued on to Utah and Colorado, killing several more women before being arrested.

Despite being convicted of kidnapping, he managed to escape police custody not once, but twice, while awaiting trial in Colorado. He moved to Florida, where he killed several members of a sorority and his final victim, a year-old girl who he raped and murdered.

When Bundy was finally apprehended while driving a stolen car a week after his last murder, his trial quickly became a media sensation. It was the first murder trial to be fully televised, and featured Bundy front-and-center acting as one of his own defense attorneys. He became a media star, welcoming journalists to his cell, receiving letters of admiration from lovelorn fans and even marrying one of them and providing an endless list of clues about additional murders he may have committed, in the hopes of delaying his execution.

The unidentified madman lured prostitutes into darkened squares and side streets before slitting their throats and sadistically mutilating their bodies with a carving knife. That summer and fall, five victims were found butchered in the downtrodden East End district, sparking a media frenzy and citywide manhunt.

A number of letters were allegedly sent by the killer to the London Metropolitan Police Service also known as Scotland Yard , taunting officers about his gruesome activities and speculating on murders to come. After taking his final victim in November, the killer seemed to disappear like a ghost. The case was finally closed in , but Jack the Ripper has remained an enduring source of fascination. Over possible suspects have been proposed. American pharmacist and convicted serial killer Herman Webster Mudgett, better known by his alias H.

Some rooms were equipped with hidden peepholes, gas lines, trap doors and soundproofed padding, while others featured secret passages, ladders and hallways that led to dead ends. There was also a greased chute that led to the basement, where Holmes had installed a surgical table, a furnace and even a medieval rack. He then either disposed of the bodies in his furnace or skinned them and sold the skeletons to medical schools. At the same time, Holmes worked insurance scams—collecting money from life insurance companies.

Holmes was finally caught when one of his co-conspirators tipped off the police after Holmes failed to deliver his pay-out.