Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Charles Manson: These are the worst murderers of all time

John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer who raped and murdered 33 boys and young men between 1972 and 1978. He was executed in 1994.

Ted Bundy killed at least 30 young women and girls between 1974 and 1978. After his arrest, he was sentenced to death and executed in Florida. He is known for the intensive media coverage of his case and numerous film adaptations.

Gary Ridgway is a serial killer from Seattle who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2003 for 48 confessed murders of women. He became known as the ‘Green River Killer’ because he killed his first victims in or near the Green River.

The three letters BTK have terrorised Wichita in the US state of Kansas for more than 20 years. Dennis Rader, one of the most brutal serial killers, gave himself this name. The letters stand for ‘bind, torture, kill’.

David Berkowitz, known as the ‘Son of Sam’, terrorised New York City from 1976 to 1977 by randomly shooting couples and young women. He claimed to be guided by demons, left cryptic notes and mocked the police.

Edmund Kemper shot his grandparents at the age of 15 and, after a stay in a reform centre in 1972, began murdering women, whom he strangled and dismembered. His series of murders culminated in the killing of his mother and her friend in 1973. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for eight counts of murder.

Charles Manson was seen as the epitome of evil. In the late 1960s, the failed musician set up a commune and led his followers to commit gruesome murders.

Aileen Wuornos was an American serial killer who killed 6 men between December 1989 and November 1990. She was executed 12 years after her arrest in Florida, although there were doubts about her mental health.

Andrei Chikatilo was a Soviet serial killer from Rostov who killed 53 people between 1978 and 1990. The sexually sadistic psychopath claimed to have murdered a total of 56 people. He was executed in 1994.

Richard Ramirez was an American serial killer who murdered 13 people and raped at least 11 between 1984 and 1985. He also became known as the ‘Night Stalker’.

Charles Sobhraj is a French serial killer who targeted Western travellers on the Hippie Trail in Asia, particularly in the 1970s. He was dubbed the ‘Bikini Killer’ by the media due to the clothing worn by his victims, who were often discovered wearing bikinis.
 

The Frenchman Michel Fourniret, known as the ‘virgin murderer’, received a life sentence. His wife Monique Olivier also received the maximum sentence. She had assisted him in the abduction of five of his seven victims.

‘Jack the Ripper’ is the pseudonym of a serial killer to whom the murders of at least five women in the East End of London in the autumn of 1888 are attributed. This criminal was never caught.

Anders Behring Breivik is a right-wing extremist and Islamophobic mass murderer. On 22 July 2011, he carried out attacks in Oslo and on the island of Utøya, in which 77 people lost their lives.

After his arrest in July 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer was found guilty of 16 murders committed against young men and teenagers between 1978 and 1991. Most of them belonged to the homosexual community in Milwaukee.

Former British GP Harold Shipman was accused of being responsible for the deaths of up to 260 patients between the 1970s and 1990s.

Herman Webster Mudgett, also known as H.H. Holmes, is regarded as the first serial killer in the USA. His infamous ‘Murder Castle’ in Chicago is said to have been the scene of countless atrocities.

Thomas Holst, known as the ‘Heidemörder’, is a German serial killer who killed 3 women between 1987 and 1989. He was sentenced to life imprisonment followed by preventive detention. In 1995, his therapist helped him escape from the high-security prison. After her arrest, Holst handed himself in to the police.

Niels Högel worked as a nurse in hospitals in Oldenburg and Delmenhorst, Germany, from 1999 to 2005, where he committed numerous murders of patients while on duty. 

Fritz Honka murdered four women, mutilated their bodies and was only discovered by chance in Hamburg. Fritz Honka has been known throughout Germany since the film adaptation of the novel ‘The Golden Glove’ in 2019.
 

Colombian serial killer Luis Garavito sexually assaulted at least 200 people between 1992 and 1999. He murdered 193 people. He was nicknamed ‘The Beast’ by Colombian authorities. 

Nicknamed the ‘Boston Strangler’, Albert DeSalvo murdered 13 women in the 1960s. After confessing his crimes in 1965, he was killed in prison in a stabbing attack in 1973.

Rodney Alcala was convicted of murdering nine women and girls in the 1970s. Before his arrest, he appeared on the dating TV show The Dating Game, as shown in the eponymous film made by Anna Kendrick. He died in prison while awaiting his death sentence in 2021.

Peter Sutcliffe, also known as the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’, terrorized Northern England between 1965 and 1970. He was convicted of murdering at least 13 women. The police notoriously interviewed him nine times before his arrest. During his trial, the serial killer said:

‘It was just a miracle they did not apprehend me earlier—they had all the facts.’

Joel Rifkin brutally killed and dismembered his first victim in 1989. He is believed to have murdered at least 17 women before 1993, when he was finally arrested. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. 

Alexander Pichushkin, a Russian serial killer, murdered at least 51 people in the early 2000s. He earned his nicknamed due to the police finding a chessboard in his flat, containing dates for his killings. He had nearly filled the whole board. 

The Zodiac Killer terrorized Northern California between the 1960s and 1970s. The police claim he killed five people, but he claims to have murdered 37. His identity remains a mystery to this day.

Ed Gein, nicknamed the ‘Butcher of Plainfield’, was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's classic Psycho, as well as many other horror films such as The Chainsaw Massacre. He was arrested in 1957 after killing at least two women, and snatching bodies from cemeteries to make ‘trophies’. He died in prison in 1984. 

Albert Fish was also known as the ‘Gray Man’. He confessed to sexually assaulting and murdering several children. He was caught after sending one of his victims' family a letter detailing the murder. He was executed by an electric chair in 1936.