The Most Prolific Serial Killers in History

Serial killers are a rare breed of criminal. Compared to lone murderers, mass murderers, and spree killers, serial killers are pathologically motivated criminals who usually keep committing murders until they are caught or die. Some, however, have earned the distinction of the most prolific serial killers of all time.

The FBI defines a serial killer as someone who kills three or more people over the course of a month, usually with a “cooling off” period in between each murder. Serial killers are usually motivated by anger, thrill-seeking, attention seeking, financial gain, as well as sexual fulfillment.

As law enforcement officials have investigated more serial killing crimes, the knowledge of their habits has grown. While many serial killers kill victims that share similar characteristics (race, class, type of employment) and operate with a relatively-fixed modus operandi (M.O.), many also have a signature.

A signature is defined as an aspect of the killing that is not required to commit the crime. Instead, it serves some emotional or psychological need of the killer. This often manifests as some type of torture, dismemberment, or sexual abuse of the victim in the process of the murder. (These are 25 of the most brutal criminals who ever lived.)

Many serial killers also share certain troubling developmental points. These adverse childhood experiences include sexual or physical abuse, an early obsession with fire or torturing small animals, as well as bed-wetting late into adolescence. Usually, serial killers start off with petty crimes such as theft or voyeurism, before steadily graduating to murder.

Methodology

To compile a list of the most prolific serial killers in history, 24/7 Tempo confused various sources including Biography, Britannica, Murderpedia, The Crime Wire, The FBI Vault, as well as various news sources like the BBC.

As evidenced by this list, the most prolific serial killers are usually found in countries without a well-developed law enforcement apparatus. This allows the killers to get away with their crimes for longer periods of time, often going unnoticed until they are caught in the act or outright confess. (These are the most infamous and still unsolved crimes in history.)

Luis Garavito (La Bestia)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 193, Suspected of 300+
• Method of killing: Stabbing, Strangulation
• When the murders occurred: 1992-1999
• Where it happened: Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela
• Outcome: Died at age 66

Luis Garavito has the most confirmed kills of anyone in history. Born amid strife in his native Colombia, Garavito’s early life was marked by violence, sexual abuse, alcoholism, and his own burgeoning mental illness. He claimed his historic rampage started after contacting the devil via an Ouija board, who told him to kill. Scores of children soon went missing or turned up dead. Garavito accomplished this by luring children with promises of work or food, before whisking them away to a secluded location to perform his heinous acts. His status as a drifter made investigations stall until he was finally arrested in April, 1999. Garavito died at age 66.

Pedro Alonso Lopez (Monster of the Andes)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 110, Suspected of 300+
• Method of killing: Strangulation
• When the murders occurred: 1969-1980
• Where it happened: Colombia, Peru, Ecuador
• Outcome: Released from Prison

Born in Colombia in 1948, Pedro Alonso Lopez was the seventh child of a prostitute. He was kicked out of the house at age eight for molesting his younger sister. After roving the streets, joining gangs, and serving time in prison for auto theft, Lopez was soon free to bring a scourge upon South America. Little girls kept going missing in towns he drifted through until he was finally arrested and sentenced to 16 years in Ecuadorian prison. Since then, this most prolific serial killer has become a ghost, with only a few verifiable sightings of him since 1999.

Javid Iqbal (Kukri)

• Number of victims: Confirmed/Suspected 100
• Method of killing: Strangulation, Dismemberment
• When the murders occurred: 1998-1999
• Where it happened: Pakistan
• Outcome: Executed in same manner he killed

Javid Iqbal came from a relatively normal family, even attending the Government Islamia College in Lahore, Pakistan. His vicious series of murders was unknown to authorities until Iqbal sent a letter to the police and Lahor newspaper editor, confessing to the murder and rape of 100 runaway boys. In these letters, Iqbal detailed his gruesome strangling, rape, and dismemberment of each. When he was arrested, Iqbal claimed to be motivated by his erroneous arrest on sodomy charges years earlier. A judge ruled him to be executed like he did his victims; strangled, dismembered, and put in a barrel of acid.

Mikhail Popkov (The Werewolf)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 78, Suspected 83+
• Method of killing: Stabbing, Blunt Force Trauma
• When the murders occurred: 1992-2010
• Where it happened: Russia
• Outcome: Life in Prison

Known as the “The Werewolf” and the “Angarsk Maniac”, Mikhail Popkov was a Russian police officer and one of the most prolific serial killers of all time. Over the course of 20 years, Popkov killed dozens of women, usually ones he considered to be immoral, claiming he “wanted to cleanse the streets of prostitutes.” Popkov accomplished this by using his police authority to offer his victims rides in his car, before killing and raping them in remote locations. Only after extensive DNA testing by Russian authorities was Popkov captured. Two years after his arrest, Popkov confessed to nearly 60 more killings. He is currently serving a sentence of life in prison.

Daniel Carmago Barbosa

• Number of victims: Confirmed 72, Suspected of 180
• Method of killing: Stabbing, Strangulation
• When the murders occurred: 1974-1986
• Where it happened: Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil (allegedly)
• Outcome: Stabbed in Prison

Abused as a child, Daniel Carmago Barbosa had a long history of petty crimes. His killing spree was the result of a love triangle. Though he was de facto married to a woman and had two kids with her, he sought another woman to marry, but found out she wasn’t a virgin. Barbosa told this second woman he would stay with her if she brought him young virgins to rape. This eventually landed him in prison, but in 1984 he escaped to Ecuador. There he would commit the bulk of his murders, usually manipulating young girls to follow him into the woods. He was finally arrested in 1986, later being stabbed to death in prison in 1994.

Pedro Rodrigues Filho

• Number of victims: Confirmed 71, Suspected of 100+
• Method of killing: Mostly Shooting
• When the murders occurred: 1967-2003
• Where it happened: Brazil
• Outcome: Killed in Drive-By Shooting

A child of the favelas in Brazil, Pedro Rodrigues Filho was no stranger to violence. However, his historic killing spree was motivated after the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, after which, he hunted down and killed the entire gang he believed to be responsible. Officially sentenced for 71 murders, Filho claimed more than 100 victims, almost all drug dealers, murderers and rapists themselves. He was later released and began a successful YouTube personality career, but was gunned down in a drive-by shooting earlier this year.

Kampatimar Shankariya

• Number of victims: Confirmed 70, Suspected of more
• Method of killing: Hammer
• When the murders occurred: 1977-1978
• Where it happened: India
• Outcome: Executed by Hanging

Kampatimar Shankariya was an Indian serial killer and one of the most prolific serial killers of all time. Born in 1952, information is scarce on Shankariya’s life. He didn’t surface again until 1973 when people across the Haryana and Punjab areas of India were found dead with their necks broken. Apparently, Shankariya would hide under a blanket in dark alleys, before surprising victims and hitting them under the ear with a hammer. Though his killing spree only lasted a year, he took the lives of at least 66 people in the period. Finally in 1974, he was arrested, before being hung a few years later. His last words were reportedly, “I have murdered in vain. Nobody should become like me.”

Yang Xinhai (Monster Killer)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 67
• Method of killing: Hammer, Axes, Shovels
• When the murders occurred: 1999-2003
• Where it happened: China
• Outcome: Executed by Firing Squad

Chinese serial killer Yang Xinhai was born in 1968 to the poorest family in the village. At age 17, he left home and began wandering around China, often working as a laborer. After serving time in a labor camp for attempted rape, Yang began his killing spree. He would enter farmer’s homes at night, bludgeoning all the occupants with axes, shovels, or hammers, often killing whole families. He was finally arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad in 2004. While police claim his motive was a bad break-up, Yang himself said, “When I killed people I had a desire. This inspired me to kill more. I don’t care whether they deserve to live or not.”

Samuel Little

• Number of victims: Confirmed 60, Suspected of 93
• Method of killing: Strangulation, Blunt Force Trauma
• When the murders occurred: 1970-2005
• Where it happened: United States
• Outcome: Died in LA Hospital

Samuel Little is perhaps the most recent addition to the list of most prolific serial killers. He was born to a teenage prostitute and spent most of his life in and out of jail for various crimes, before eventually earning a life sentence for murder. At some point, Little began confessing to dozens of murders, eventually reaching 93. Police were incredulous, but after the FBI got involved, it seemed that many of these confessions were credible. Unfortunately, Little died in 2020 before more information about his potentially historic murder spree could be confirmed.

Mohammed Bijeh

• Number of victims: Confirmed 54
•  Method of killing: Blunt Force Trauma
• When the murders occurred: 2002-2004
• Where it happened: Iran
• Outcome: Executed by Lashings then Hanging

Persian serial killer Mohammed Bijeh claimed his vicious murder spree was revenge for being raped at the age of 11 as well as the early death of his mother. Starting in 2002, he killed nearly one young boy a month until his capture in September 2004. Bijeh claimed he would have kept going until he had killed 100 boys. Sentenced to be executed, Bijeh was taken to a desert area near where many of the killings were killed. There he was strung up to an iron post and lashed, before the relative of one victim managed to stab him. Finally he was hoisted up by a crane and hanged.

Andrei Chikatilo (The Rostov Ripper)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 53, Suspected of more
• Method of killing: Stabbing, Strangulation
• When the murders occurred: 1989-1996
• Where it happened: Soviet Union, Ukraine
• Outcome: Executed by single gunshot

Born during the Holodomor, the Great Ukrainian Famine between 1932 and 1933, Andrei Chikatilo witnessed untold horror during his childhood. Constantly bullied, Chikatilo turned inward. Though he eventually became a schoolteacher, this only provided him a pool of victims. After enough mutilated bodies turned up in various Russian forests, the police began investigating. Chikatilo was suspected of the murders, and even arrested multiple times, but it was not until his confession of 53 murders, that the charges stuck and earned him the title of one of the most prolific serial killers ever. For the crimes, Chikatilo was executed by a single gunshot on Valentines Day, 1994

Florisvaldo de Oliveira (Cabo Bruno)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 50, Suspected of more
• Method of killing: Mostly Shooting
• When the murders occurred: 1982-1996
• Where it happened: Brazil
• Outcome: Killed by unknown assailants

Unlike the other most prolific serial killers on this list, Brazilian serial killer Florisvaldo de Oliveira (Cabo Bruno) was a true vigilante, in his mind. Oliveira killed anyone who he felt deserved justice. He picked his victims due to the slightest attributes, including tattoos, which Oliveira perceived as criminal. Though eventually caught, Oliveira went through 12 separate court trials before being sentenced to 113 years in prison. For good behavior he was released after 27 years. Though he eventually became evangelical and renounced his crimes, he was later shot by unknown assailants in the city of Sao Paulo.

Gary Ridgway (The Green River Killer)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 48, Suspected of 71-90+
• Method of killing: Strangulation
• When the murders occurred: 1982-2000
• Where it happened: United States
• Outcome: Life in Prison

Gary Ridgeway had a relatively normal upbringing, though he suffered from various learning disabilities. During Vietnam, he joined the Navy where he saw combat and was frequenting sex workers. After he returned home, he began killing them at an alarming rate in the areas around Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. Believed to have killed up to 71 young women and girls working as sex workers, Ridgeway went relatively unnoticed during his extended killing spree. Though a longtime suspect, it took a DNA test to finally match him to the crimes. Arrested in 2001, Ridgeway eventually pled guilty to 48 murder charges, which earned him life in prison.

Alexander Pichushkin (Chessboard Killer)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 49, Suspected of 60
• Method of killing: Strangulation, Blunt Force Trauma
• When the murders occurred: 1992-2006
• Where it happened: Russia
• Outcome: Life in Prison

Plagued by a severe head injury in early childhood as well as learning disabilities, Alexander Pichuskin always was a loner. He was very close to his grandfather, who fostered in him a love of chess. After his grandfather’s death, however, he became violent and set out to kill 64 people, one for each square on a chessboard. He was eventually arrested in 2006, and quickly led police to where many of the bodies were located. Eventually, Pichushkin was convicted of 49 murders, and sentenced to life in prison. He currently resides in solitary confinement in the Arctic Penal Colony, Polar Owl.

Wang Qiang

• Number of victims: Confirmed 45, Suspected of 60+
• Method of killing: Strangulation, Stabbing
• When the murders occurred: 1995-2003
• Where it happened: China
• Outcome: Executed

Born to an abusive father who kept him out of school, Wang Qiang was marked for alienation. At the age of 20, Qiang committed his first murder. He went on to kill at least 45 young girls and women, often raping them in the course of the murder. After eight years of killing, he was finally arrested in July 2003. Convicted of 45 murders and 10 rapes, making him one of the most prolific serial killers, Qiang was eventually executed for his crimes.

Ahmad Suradji

• Number of victims: Confirmed 42
• Method of killing: Strangulation, Burying Alive
• When the murders occurred: 1986-1997
• Where it happened: Indonesia
• Outcome: Executed by Firing Squad

Ahmad Suradji worked as a cattle-breeder and dukun, which is an Indonesian word for a shaman with supernatural powers. In 1986, he claimed his dead father visited him in a dream and told him to kill 70 women as part of a black magic ritual. Suradji obliged this vision, and killed many of the young women who visited him for spiritual advice. He would take his victims to a field, bury them up to the waist, strangle them, and drink their saliva. He was finally arrested, along with his three wives who acted as accomplices in a murder spree that makes him one of the most prolific serial killers ever. Suradji was executed by firing squad in 2008.

Raman Raghav

Mumbai, India

• Number of victims: Confirmed 41
• Method of killing: Blunt Force Trauma
• When the murders occurred: 1965-1968
• Where it happened: India
• Outcome: Life in Prison

A homeless drifter, Raman Raghav had a long history of arrests, including a five-year stint in prison for robbery. Though a suspect in the growing list of fellow homeless people found murdered, Raghav was not arrested until he was caught in a renewed investigation into the crimes by police. What makes him one of the most prolific serial killers ever is he eventually confessed to 41 murders, claiming he killed due to people trying to change his gender as well as persecution by the government. Though he was found to be mentally ill, Raghav was given life in prison. In 1995, he died of kidney failure.

Moses Sithole (South Africa’s Ted Bundy)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 38, Suspected of 76
• Method of killing: Strangulation, Blunt Force Trauma
• When the murders occurred: 1994-1995
• Where it happened: South Africa
• Outcome: Sentenced to 930 years in prison

Moses Sithole spent much of his childhood in an orphanage, where he claims he and his sisters were mistreated. He was arrested for rape as a teenager, and spent a few years in prison, which he claimed caused him to murder. To those who knew him as an adult, he was a mild-mannered man who ran an organization devoted to eradicating child abuse. During this time, however, he killed up to 76 women who interviewed for job positions at his charity. In 1995, he confessed to the crimes to a journalist. After a shootout with police, he was arrested and tried. Sithole was sentenced to 50 years for each murder. He is currently housed in Mangaung Prison.

Omar Abdul Razeq Abdullah Rifai

• Number of victims: Confirmed 38
• Method of killing: Assault Rifle
• When the murders occurred: 2008-2013
• Where it happened: Egypt
• Outcome: Killed by local villagers

Omar Abdul Razeq Abdullah Rifai was an ex-convict and unemployed poultry dealer in Egypt. Though sentenced to prison for his involvement in a family feud that resulted in the deaths of 23 people, he was later released. Sometime after being freed, Rifai shot another 15 people and wounded many others, before being killed by local villagers. It is believed he killed up to 38 people over the course of five years.

Serhiy Tkach

• Number of victims: Confirmed 37, Suspected of 100+
• Method of killing: Strangulation
• When the murders occurred: 1984-2005
• Where it happened: Soviet Union, Ukraine
• Outcome: Died in Prison

Serhiy Tkach was a police investigator in the Soviet area of Kemerovo Oblast. Ostensibly moving up the ranks, he was forced to resign after being caught falsifying evidence. He eventually became a police investigator in a different part of the Soviet Union, where many young girls and women began to disappear. Using knowledge gained as a police officer, Tkach evaded capture until he was recognized at one of his victim’s funerals. Soon after, he was arrested at his home and admitted to up to 100 murders. He demanded the death penalty but was given life in prison instead. Tkach died of heart failure in 2018.

Gennady Mikhasevich

• Number of victims: Confirmed 36, Suspected of 43-55+
• Method of killing: Strangulation/Smothering
• When the murders occurred: 1971-1985
• Where it happened: Soviet Union
• Outcome: Executed by Firing Squad

Gennady Mikhasevich claimed his murder spree started after he arrived home from the army to find his girlfriend had left him. Though planning on killing himself, he chanced upon a young girl, who he decided to direct his anger and resentment towards instead. This started a long series of killings. The murders went unnoticed until police began to believe these seemingly separate murders were connected. Concerned, Mikhasevich sent a letter to the newspaper to redirect attention away from him. He had left a similar letter next to one of his victims, however, which led to his arrest. He later confessed and was executed by firing squad in 1987.

Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi (Marrakesh Arch-Killer)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 36, Suspected of more
• Method of killing: Drugging then Stabbing
• When the murders occurred: 1900-1906
• Where it happened: Morocco
• Outcome: Executed by Various Torture

A shoemaker and trader, Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi would incapacitate women who visited his shop by drugging them, before decapitating them with a knife. He was caught after one victim’s family traced her movements to Mesfewi’s store. Subsequently, Mesfewi was arrested and confessed to the murders, claiming to have committed them to take their money. Initially sentenced to be crucified, public sentiment led police to have him walled-up. There, the public threw rotting meat at him before he was entombed alive.

Vera Renczi (The Black Widow)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 32, Suspected of 35
• Method of killing: Poisoning
• When the murders occurred: 1920-1930
• Where it happened: Kingdom of Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary (allegedly)
• Outcome: Life in Prison

Vera Renczi, the only female serial killer on this list, was born in Romania in 1903. Increasingly uncontrollable as a youth, she later married a wealthy Austrian banker. Soon, however, she began to suspect he was unfaithful, so she poisoned his dinner and killed him. This began a long series of relationships where Renczi would eventually kill her partners. She was arrested, convicted of 35 murders, and sentenced to death. Since Yugoslavia did not execute women, Renczi received life in prison instead. She died in 1960.

Fernando Hernández Leyva

• Number of victims: Confirmed 33, Suspected of 137
• Method of killing: Various
• When the murders occurred: 1982-1999
• Where it happened: Mexico
• Outcome: Suicide in Prison

Little is known about the upbringing of Mexican serial killer Fernando Hernández Leyva. He was an organized killer, but nomadic, killing in five different Mexican states before being arrested. Though arrested twice for his crimes, both times he escaped from jail. In 1999, he was arrested for the third and final time. He attempted suicide in his cell, but failed, and eventually confessed to killing more than 100 people. Leyva currently resides in La Palma Prison, where he is due to be released in 2049.

John Wayne Gacy (Killer Clown)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 33, Suspected of 45+
• Method of killing: Strangulation
• When the murders occurred: 1972-1978
• Where it happened: United States
• Outcome: Executed by Lethal Injection

One of the most prolific serial killers, John Wayne Gacy was abused as a child and constantly accused of being a homosexual by his father. He found a home however in politics, and began working his way up the societal ladder. Eventually, Gacy began inviting young men to his house for stag parties or under the auspices of working for his construction company. This would result in the murders of at least 33 young men, many of whom he buried in the crawlspace of his home. After being surveilled for years, and arrested on more minor charges, Gacy finally confessed to most of the murders. He was sentenced to death, and executed by lethal injection in 1994. (Here’s a list of the most memorable serial killers on TV.)

Ali Asghar Borujerdi (Asghar the Murderer)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 33
• Method of killing: Drowning
• When the murders occurred: 1907-1934
• Where it happened: Ottoman Empire, Iraq, Iran
• Outcome: Executed by Hanging

Born into a criminal family, Ali Asghar Borujerdi became acquainted with violence at a young age. As a teenager, Borujerdi would pretend to sell candy to children, but rob and sexually assault them instead. This eventually landed him in prison, but he was released at the age of 27. From there, he graduated to murder, killing two dozen children in Iraq as well as eight people in Iran. Finally, he was arrested in 1933, and confessed to the crimes, claiming he committed these murders due to his hatred for the enemies of society. Borujerdi was executed in July 1934.

Vasili Komaroff (The Wolf of Moscow)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 33
• Method of killing: Blunt Force Trauma, Stabbing
• When the murders occurred: 1921-1923
• Where it happened: Soviet Union
• Outcome: Executed by Firing Squad

A horse-trader, Vasili Komaroff began committing his murders after private enterprise was made legal in the Soviet Union. He would kill prospective horse clients, before dumping their bodies in the Moscow River. After his wife discovered his crimes, she began killing with him. In 1923, the police discovered a body under a stack of hay on his property. Subsequently, Komaroff and his wife were arrested, confessed to the crimes, and executed by firing squad in 1923.

Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansour (The Express Train)

• Number of victims: Confirmed 32, Suspected of more
• Method of killing: Torture, Blunt Force Trauma
• When the murders occurred: 1999-2006
• Where it happened: Egypt
• Outcome: Executed by Hanging

Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansour joined a street gang in his native Egypt, eventually rising through the ranks to gang leader. As leader, Mansour and his other gang members would kidnap children, rape and torture them, before throwing them off of moving trains. His crimes only came to light after one of his fellow gang members was arrested and confessed. Mansour was soon arrested as well and confessed to the murders, claiming his bloodlust was due to being possessed by a female jinn. Mansour and his accomplices were convicted to death and executed by hanging in 2010. (For a similar list, but of only women, here are the most evil female serial killers in history.)