The 10 most famous serial killers in history

The human being is capable of killing others. This is something that we would like it not to be so, but sadly it is the reality. Men and women can threaten the lives of others by committing the most reprehensible act of all: murder.

Not all killers are the same. Some are by accident, when a fight got out of hand for example. Others simply followed orders, although that does not take away the reprehensibility of their actions.

Others, on the other hand, kill for fun, for pure entertainment or for financial gain. There are those who kill to kill, such as serial killers. Next we will discover most famous serial killers summarizing their cases.

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The 10 most famous serial killers

It is a sad reality that human beings are capable of harming others in the most cruel and vile ways. Many people attempt against the lives of other individuals of their own species, committing the most unforgivable act: murder. A specific type of murderers are the ones that have attracted the most attention from the media and pop culture: serial killers. The most accepted definition of this is that they are individuals who have killed a minimum of 3 people, at different times and places, presenting periods of inactivity.

The term "serial killer" as we know it today did not come into use until the 1980s.. Before, it was common to call him "murderer of strangers", "assassinated in pattern" or "multicide". Although this term is believed to have been coined by John Douglas, it would be FBI agent and behavioral profiler Robert K. Ressler who would popularize the term, who explained that the killers' behavior reminded him of the description of some films in short episodes that were seen in the afternoon, in the 1930s and 1940s: the series of adventure.

These series consisted of making the viewer always return to the cinema the following week, since each episode had an unfinished ending, a hook. Ressler understood that the same thing happened to serial killers, that when they killed they felt a tension that kept them hooked on the desire to commit another murder, one that is even closer to his fantasies or that serves to release all their emotional load and sexual.

The number of serial killers that have existed throughout history is very long. The human being has killed his kind since time immemorial and, although they themselves did not know the term, more than one has done it following the patterns of a serial killer. Let's see the 10 most famous.

1. Ted Bundy (1946-1989)

Ted Bundy was the author of 30 murders during a period of 4 years, from 1974 to 1978, although the death toll could be higher. He is believed to be responsible for another 40 unsolved disappearances.

All of his victims, at least the ones he confessed to, were young women between the ages of 12 and 22, many of them college graduates. He tricked them by pretending to be disabled, or someone with social superiority, such as a politician. Once he murdered, raped and dismembered them, making Bundy one of the most macabre serial killers of the 20th century. And from some of his victims he came to keep memories, like the heads.

During his early formative years he led a relatively normal life. He was a good student and graduated in Psychology and Law, studies that motivated him so that, when he was arrested in 1979 for his atrocities, he decided to defend himself and, with his charisma also playing his part, he managed to delay his execution several times. But the justification ended up being harsh with him, being executed in the electric chair on January 24, 1989, at the age of 42.

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2. John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994)

John Wayne Gacy was a sexual predator. He has gone down in serial killer history as "The Killer Clown.", Well, Gacy made a living acting at children's parties dressed as a clown. He himself had chosen as stage name in such events the nice nickname of "Pogo, the clown".

He was originally sentenced in 1968 to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting two young men. However, for his good behavior, his sentence was reduced to only 18 months. After leaving prison he married for the second time. Leaving him free was a huge mistake because, 6 years after he was released, he was arrested again for an alleged kidnapping case.

As a result of the investigation it was discovered that this subject had kidnapped, raped and killed 33 young men between the ages of 14 and 21: hitchhikers, beggars, gigolos and local youth. It was Gacy himself who, in 1978, confessed to the murders by telling the police, indicating the location of some of the bodies. Most of the bodies were in his own house, in the basement, and since he ran out of space, he began burying them in the Des Plaines River, near his residence.

John Wayne Gacy was executed on May 10, 1994, aged 52, after being sentenced to various life sentences and death sentences. The option they ultimately opted for to end his life was lethal injection.

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3. Charles Manson (1934-2017)

Charles Manson is one of the best known serial killers of all time. He was the leader of a sect organized by himself called the Manson Family, whose crimes were committed mostly in the state of California.

Manson is credited with two deaths where his involvement was direct, although he is believed to have instigated at least 7 more murders., in addition to other crimes such as robbery and armed robbery.

His murders were brutal. The best known is the one he perpetrated by entering director Roman Polanski's house in 1969 when a party was being held. In the events, the Manson Family killed several friends of the director, in addition to killing his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Tate was 26 years old and 8 months pregnant.

Charles Manson was sentenced to life in prison in 1972. The society called for him to be executed, but he was put on trial after the death penalty was removed from the state of California. Manson spent the rest of his life in prison, dying on November 19, 2017, at the age of 83 from colon cancer and cardiac arrest.

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4. Andrei Chikatilo (1936-1994)

Andrei Chikatilo, also known as "The Red Ripper" and "The Rostov Butcher", he is considered the biggest serial killer in the history of the former Soviet Union. He is credited with having committed various crimes, including the most serious sexual assaults, murders and mutilations of women and children between 1979 and 1990.

During his childhood Andrei Chikatilo was introverted, insecure and self-conscious about his myopia. He was especially shy around women, something that took its toll on his love relationships. After graduating as a teacher he began to be attracted to children under 12 years of age, sneaking into the dorms of the residence halls to masturbate while he watched the children sleep.

His criminal career began in 1978 with the kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl whom he convinced to go to a cabin outside the city. Upon reaching her and forcing her to undress her, she scratched him. Seeing the blood flow Chikatilo felt a great erection, being the moment that changed everything. From that moment on, his murders would be marked by the search for sexual pleasure through stabbings, mutilations, bites and cries of terror from his victims.

Andrei Chikatilo practiced cannibalism typical of a wild beast. He howled with delight as he gouged out the eyes and nipples of his victims. He became an expert in removing the wombs of girls and the testicles of boys, sexual organs that he kept as a trophy after ejaculating on their corpses.

When he was arrested, Chikatilo he confessed to having carried out at least 56 homicides, being tried in April 1992 for 53 of them. He was executed in 1994.

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5. Dorothea Bridge (1929-2011)

Dorothea Helen Gray, better known as Dorothea Puente, was a boarding house owner who would go on to her history for what she did to be sentenced to life imprisonment, nothing in keeping with the appearance of her cute granny. In her youth she had some other problem. She married for the first time at age 16 and had two daughters whom she gave up for adoption. This process would be repeated several times, getting married four times, giving 3 girls up for adoption and aborting once. Gray was arrested several times for tax fraud and running a brothel.

However, the crimes that led to her life sentence would not begin until 1982 when she, already owning her guest house, she overdosed on one of her friends and business partner. She tried to convince the authorities that it was a suicide, saying that her friend was going through a depression. Shortly after, a retiree from the pension called the police accusing Dorothea of ​​drugging and robbing him.

Later, Dorothea killed her new boyfriend and asked a friend to help her carry a box full of heavy books to her new home. However, halfway through the journey, she asked her friend to stop and dump all the contents in a landfill, claiming that it was really just garbage. During the following months, Dorothea she kept the victim's pensions while she told her family that she was sick.

History would repeat itself over and over again. For years, Dorothea kept herself in charge of a death hostel, where she cheated, robbed and murdered her most defenseless guests. She was especially good at taking advantage of the elderly, the disabled, and former drug addicts. His modus operandi was to put his victims to sleep with pills, suffocate them and hire other people to bury them in the garden of his hostel.. For this reason, that place was known as "The House of Horrors" once what had happened there was made public.

6. Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper is probably the most famous serial killer in history, even though we don't know who he was., when he was born, when he died… Because we don't know we don't know if he was a man or a woman, although it has always been suggested that he was a man. His fame is so enormous that many works, both written and cinematographic, have been inspired by him.

The murders attributed to him were carried out in London, specifically in Whitechapel during 1888. Most of his victims were female prostitutes. Despite the efforts of the London police, the culprit could not be identified, although more than 100 suspicious men were considered.

The reason we know him as Jack the Ripper is because in one of the three letters attributed to him he signed with that pseudonym. It is also worth mentioning that this name ended up penetrating due to his bloody way of killing and mutilating his victims, something which made researchers of the time suspect that Jack the Ripper might have knowledge of butchery or medicine.

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7. The Zodiac Killer

In this list we include another murderer whose identity is unknown. The killer of the Zodiac or Zodiac acted between 1968 and 1969 in California. 7 victims are attributed to him, 4 men and 3 women, although in a letter allegedly authored by him, he himself confessed to having murdered 37 people. Most of the time, he chose couples to be his victims.

Since the investigation began, the police have had different suspects. One of the best known was Arthur Leigh Allen, although after an analysis of his DNA and that found in the letters, it was ruled out because they did not match. Nor is it certain that these murders were not committed by one person, but by several, whether they were imitators of the original murderer or followers.

The case went dormant in 2004 when Leigh Allen died at age 90. Everything pointed to the fact that this legendary serial killer would never be known, so it was decided that it was best to close the case. But nevertheless, the case was reopened in 2007 due to social pressure for wanting to discern once and for all who was the murderer of the Zodiac.

8. Jeffrey Dahmer (1960-1994)

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, "the butcher of Milwaukee", was an American serial killer whose victims were young men. He caught them offering them money in exchange for taking pictures of them, having sex with them, or watching pornography with them. He committed his murders between 1978 and 1991, having as victims 17 men whom he killed and later raped and dismembered. Dahmer confessed that he had also cannibalized the occasional victim.

It is believed that some of his victims managed to escape, but only one managed to reach the police. When the police showed up at Dahmer's home and entered, he discovered a terrifying creation that earned him the nickname of the Milwaukee Butcher: amputated remains of his victims that he had joined together into a macabre work of art made of human flesh.

When he was arrested by the police and after confessing to his murders, he explained to the investigators that his purpose was to get the victims to stay with him. He wanted to turn the men he stayed with into his servants, to obey all his orders.

Since he had already earned a very bad reputation in the prison community, upon being incarcerated, he was not allowed to associate with other prisoners to protect him from possible attacks. However, he himself asked to have contact with other inmates and, when he got it, everything seemed to be going well and he even did chores in the company of others. However, one day he had a fight with one of the prisoners and both ended up badly injured. Another prisoner, Christopher Scarver, confessed to killing him.

9. Richard Ramirez (1960-2013)

Ricardo Leyva Ramírez Muñoz, "The Night Stalker", perpetrated his murders between 1984 and 1985 in the city of Los Angeles. In his first crimes he limited himself to beating and raping, but later his behavior became more sadistic, very much due to his link with Satanism. 14 deaths are attributed to him, people he killed indistinctly, without taking into account his sex, age or race.

One of his victims was able to contact the police., explaining that her husband had been murdered and she had been raped by Ramírez, who had left town. He immediately went on a search and seizure, wallpapering the entire city with his face. Upon returning, unaware that he was being searched for in a city littered with photographs of his face, he was intercepted and lynched by mobs.

The people of Los Angeles wanted him dead, so when he came the police not only did it to arrest Ramírez, but also to prevent him from being beaten to death. In 1989 he was found guilty and sentenced to death but was never executed. He died of liver failure on June 7, 2013, at the age of 53.

10. Peter Kurten (1883-1931)

Peter Kürten was a serial killer and sex offender from Germany, who acted during the year 1929. His way of acting consisted of raping, murdering and beheading his victims. When he was arrested he even confessed that, on some occasion, he had drunk the blood of his victims, which is why he is known as "The Vampire of Düsseldorf".

He was arrested on May 24, 1930, being charged with 9 murders and 7 attempts. He was found guilty of all these crimes and an attempt was made not to reduce his sentence by alluding to mental problems. Finally, he was executed on July 2, 1931 by beheading.

If in life his story was murky, it is also after his death. As his last wish, he asked that after his head was cut off, the executioners be silent for a few seconds, since she was excited to hear how his own blood dripped on the floor. After his execution, his head was dissected and mummified; today it is exhibited in a museum in Wisconsin, United States.