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Serial killers and their gruesome crimes have sparked terror and intrigue for centuries.
From Hungarian countess Elizabeth Báthory in the 1600s to more recent examples such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, these murderers have confounded investigators and the morbidly curious. Their shocking acts are the subject of movies, music, and academic study, as researchers have tried to piece together an explanation. In some cases, the true toll of their violent outbursts remains unknown.
Here are 10 of the most infamous serial killers who left their bloody mark on history.
Elizabeth Barthory
An Hungarian Noble woman. She was alleged to have killed hundreds of girls and women. She now holds the dreadful nickname of the “Blood Countess.” Although she wasn’t convicted of a crime—and much of her alleged blood lust stems from questionable witness testimony—the Guinness Book of World Records cites Bathory as the most prolific female murderer in history with 600 victims. Báthory might have even helped inspire Bram Stoker’s 1897 vampire novel Dracula.
Belle Gunnes
Serial killer Belle Gunness is reported to have murdered more than forty people between 1884 and 1908 before possibly disappearing without a solid trace.
She was a serial killer who lived in both Illinois and Indiana around the turn of the 20th century. Her original name was Brynhild Paulsdatter Strseth and she was born in Norway in 1859. She immigrated to the US in 1881 and married her first husband a mere three years later.
After this, the crimes of Belle Gunness began. She committed insurance fraud, killed upwards of 40 people – including her own family members – and possibly faked her own death.
H.H Holmes
H. H. Holmes, was among the first documented American serial killers. During the 1893 Chicago World Exposition, Holmes, already numbering several murder victims, opened a hotel which he had designed and built for himself specifically with murder in mind, and which was the location of many of his murders.
He personified evil. Above all, Holmes was motivated by possession and holding power over other people.
Today, he would be diagnosed as a psychopath. He felt no sympathy and very little emotion, except for satisfaction when he exerted control over others, especially young, timid women.
Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper, an unidentified serial killer who terrorized London in 1888, remains one of history’s most infamous figures.
Between August and November 1888,the Whitechapel area of London was the scene of five brutal murders. The killer was dubbed ‘Jack the Ripper’. All the women murdered were prostitutes, and all except for one – Elizabeth Stride – were horribly mutilated. The first murder, of Mary Ann Nicholls, took place on 31 August.
Albert DeSalvo
Albert Henry DeSalvo (1931 – 1973) was an American murderer and rapist who was active in Boston, Massachusetts, in the early 1960s.
He is known to have confessed to being the “Boston Strangler”, a serial killer who murdered thirteen women in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964.
Lack of physical evidence supported his confession, and he was only prosecuted in 1967 for a series of unrelated rapes, for which he was convicted and imprisoned until his death in 1973. His confessing to having murdered multiple women was disputed, and debates continued regarding which crimes he truly had committed.
He died in a prison stabbing attack in November 1973.
John Wayne Gacy
He became known as the Killer Clown due to his public performances as a clown prior to the discovery of his crimes. Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Stateville Correctional Center, Illinois, U.S. Gacy committed all of his known murders inside his ranch-style.
During the 1970s, he murdered at least 33 young men and teenage boys at his home in Norwood Park, Illinois, often torturing and then strangling victims.
In March 1980, a jury required less than two hours to find Gacy guilty of the killings, for which he received the death penalty. Gacy was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.
Rodney Alcala
In 1978, a man named Rodney James Alcala appeared on The Dating Game, broadcast on national television in the United States — and no one knew he was in the midst of a murder spree.
While he has been conclusively linked to eight murders, Alcala’s true number of victims remains unknown and could be much higher – the actual number could be as high as 130.
Alcala compiled a collection of more than 1,000 photographs of women, teenage girls and boys, many in sexually explicit poses. In 2016 he was charged with the 1977 murder of a woman identified in one of his photos.
Dennis Rader
Dennis Lynn Rader (born March 9, 1945), also known as BTK (an abbreviation he gave himself for “bind, torture, kill”), is an American serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991.
Rader wasn’t arrested until February 2005 and pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder. Now serving 10 life sentences, Rader regularly corresponds from prison through letters.
Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy (born November 24, 1946, Burlington, Vermont, U.S.—died January 24, 1989, Starke, Florida) was an American serial killer and rapist, one of the most notorious criminals of the late 20th century.Bundy confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven different states between 1974 and 1978.
Despite the appalling nature of his crimes, Bundy became something of a celebrity.
During his trial his charm and intelligence drew significant public attention. His case inspired a series of popular novels and films devoted to serial murder. It also galvanized feminist criminologists, who contended that the popular media had transformed Bundy into a romantic figure.
Peter Sutcliffe
Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020), also known as Peter Coonan, was an English serial killer.
From 1975 to 1980, Peter William Sutcliffe terrorized the people of Yorkshire, England, with his bizarre serial killing style – viciously attacking young woman and teenage girls with a hammer and a screwdriver.
Sutcliffe murdered at least 13 women and girls and seriously injured several others, and the brutality of his killings and assaults reminded many Britons of one of the most famous English serial killers in history, Jack the Ripper.
Because of the similarities between the crimes committed by Jack the Ripper and Peter Sutcliffe, the media dubbed the then-unidentified perpetrator of the crimes the “Yorkshire Ripper.”
