Serial killers obviously fascinate us, judging from the popularity of books, movies, TV shows, and true crime podcasts about them. They likely tend to excite our interest more than more conventional murderers – even mass murderers – do, at least in part because their psychology poses so many questions: What leads them to take their first life, and then what motivates them to continue killing? Are they, by definition, insane? How do they choose their victims? Are their killings, though tragically real, also somehow symbolic to them? Why do so many of them, at least if we believe fictional depictions, want to be caught?
As the FBI puts it in its report “Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators.” “Serial murder is a relatively rare event, estimated to comprise less than one percent of all murders committed in any given year.
The agency defines serial murder is “The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.” Though they claimed many victims, then, killers like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who massacred 13 people at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999, or Robert Gregory Bowers, who took 11 lives at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha
synagogue in 2018, don’t qualify, because their actions were single, more or less spontaneous, expressions of hatred and not planned sequences of murder.
A lot of what we “know” about serial killers, based mostly on fiction (or on amateur analyses of real-life cases), is wrong, according to the FBI, which identifies all these commonly held beliefs as being false: Serial killers are all dysfunctional loners; they’re all white males; they’re motivated only by sex; they all travel and operate interstate; they cannot stop killing; they’re all insane or evil geniuses; they want to get caught.
While these beliefs certainly hold true for some serial killers, the FBI’s point is that there are many exceptions.
To compile a list of 30 notorious serial killers and how they killed – a group whose ranks include women, African-Americans, Hispanics, and other supposed anomalies – 24/7 Tempo reviewed articles on the subject from sources including Britannica, Biography, Mysteries Unsolved, Serial Killers, and Capital Punishment in Context, as well as various news sites.
Though there were doubtless serial killers in the distant past, documentation of their identities and crimes is sparse, so only one figure whose crimes predated the late 19th century is included here – but she was a monster who may have claimed as many as 600 lives. (Here is a list of history’s most evil female serial killers.)
Here is a list of 30 notorious serial killers and their modus operandi:
Elizabeth Bathory
- Victims: 600 people
- Method of killing: Various methods of torture
- Location: Central Europe
- Time period of crimes: 1600s
- Killer’s fate: Died in Castle Čachtice in 1614
Belle Gunness
- Victims: 40 people
- Method of killing: Poisoning
- Location: Indiana
- Time period of crimes: 1884-1908
- Killer’s fate: Disappeared
Jack the Ripper
- Victims: 4 women
- Method of killing: Stabbing
- Location: London
- Time period of crimes: 1888
- Killer’s fate: Unknown
Henry Holmes
- Victims: About 200 murders
- Method of killing: Poisoning, strangulation
- Location: Chicago
- Time period of crimes: 1890s
- Killer’s fate: Executed in 1896
Ed Gein
- Victims: 2 women
- Method of killing: Stabbing
- Location: Wisconsin
- Time period of crimes: 1954-1957
- Killer’s fate: Died in mental institution in 1984
Henry Gaskins
- Victims: Claimed to have killed 90 hitchhikers
- Method of killing: Stabbing, homemade bomb
- Location: Southern states
- Time period of crimes: 1955-1977
- Killer’s fate: Executed in 1991
Pedro Rodriguez Filho
- Victims: 71 people, 47 while in jail
- Method of killing: Beating, stabbing, shooting
- Location: Brazil
- Time period of crimes: 1960s-1970s
- Killer’s fate: Released from prison in 2011
Edmund Kemper
- Victims: 12 college-age women and family members
- Method of killing: Shooting, stabbing, beating
- Location: North Carolina, California
- Time period of crimes: 1964-1973
- Killer’s fate: Serving eight concurrent life sentences
Ted Bundy
- Victims: Confessed to killing 30 women
- Method of killing: Strangulation, stabbing
- Location: Across US
- Time period of crimes: 1966-1978
- Killer’s fate: Executed in 1989
Zodiac (identity unknown)
- Victims: Claims to have killed 37
- Method of killing: Shooting
- Location: California
- Time period of crimes: Late 60s, early 70s
- Killer’s fate: Unknown
Harold Shipman
- Victims: 218 patients
- Method of killing: Drug overdoses
- Location: England
- Time period of crimes: 1970s
- Killer’s fate: Committed suicide in prison in 2004
Robert Hansen
- Victims: 17 women
- Method of killing: Stabbing, shooting
- Location: Alaska
- Time period of crimes: 1971-1983
- Killer’s fate: Died in 2014 serving life sentence
John Wayne Gacy
- Victims: At least 33 men and boys
- Method of killing: Stabbing
- Location: Chicago area
- Time period of crimes: 1972-1978
- Killer’s fate: Executed in 1994
Paul Knowles
- Victims: 18 to 35 people
- Method of killing: Stabbing, strangulation
- Location: East Coast of US
- Time period of crimes: 1974
- Killer’s fate: Killed in 1974 trying to escape FBI
Peter Sutclilffe
- Victims: 13 women
- Method of killing: Bludgeoning
- Location: England
- Time period of crimes: 1975-1980
- Killer’s fate: Died in prison in 2020 from various health problems exacerbated by COVID-19
David Berkowitz (“Son of Sam”)
- Victims: 6 young women and men
- Method of killing: Shooting
- Location: New York City
- Time period of crimes: 1976-1977
- Killer’s fate: In jail
Jeffrey Dahmer
- Victims: 17 boys and youngmen
- Method of killing: Stabbing
- Location: Milwaukee
- Time period of crimes: 1978-1991
- Killer’s fate: Killed in prison
William Bonin
- Victims: At least 21 young men
- Method of killing: Beating, stabbing
- Location: Southern California
- Time period of crimes: 1979-1980
- Killer’s fate: Executed in 1996
Andrei Chikatilo
- Victims: 53 women and children
- Method of killing: Stabbing, strangulation
- Location: Soviet Union
- Time period of crimes: 1979-1990
- Killer’s fate: Executed in 1994
Clifford Olson
- Victims: 11 children
- Method of killing: Strangulation, beating
- Location: Vancouver region
- Time period of crimes: Early 1980s
- Killer’s fate: Serving 11 concurrent life sentences
Richard Ramirez
- Victims: 13 men and women
- Method of killing: Stabbing, shooting
- Location: Los Angeles area
- Time period of crimes: 1984-1985
- Killer’s fate: Died of complications of lymphoma while on death row in 2013
Charles Edmund Cullen
- Victims: 40 elderly patients
- Method of killing: Poisoning
- Location: New Jersey
- Time period of crimes: 1984-2003
- Killer’s fate: Serving life sentence
Tommy Lynn Sells
- Victims: Claimed to have killed 70 people
- Method of killing: Stabbing
- Location: Texas
- Time period of crimes: 1985-1999
- Killer’s fate: Executed in 2014
Ahmad Suradji
- Victims: 42 women and girls
- Method of killing: Strangulation
- Location: Indonesia
- Time period of crimes: 1986-1997
- Killer’s fate: Executed in 2008