25 most brutal serial killers in history (26 photos)

Serial killer stories are both repulsive and endearing at the same time. strange attraction. No wonder so many films have been made and written about them. so many books. How ordinary people become monsters, and what motivates them take the life of another person, no one knows for sure. May be, why are the mysteries of monsters so interesting to humanity? One way or another, their examples show that a person is capable of terrible deeds.





David Berkowitz



serial killer known as Son of Sam or .44 Killer, David Berkowitz carried out a series of shootings in the summer of 1976. Using a revolver Bulldog .44, he shot six people and wounded seven. Berkowitz sent a series of derisive letters to the police and the press, promising further shootings, terrorizing New Yorkers. In the end, captured in August 1977, Berkowitz confessed to all the murders and was sentenced to 25 years in prison for each murder. It is unlikely that Berkowitz will ever be released.

Edmund Kemper



Edmund Kemper - American serial killer and necrophile who committed a series of brutal murders in California in the 1970s. He killed his grandparents when he was 15 and then killed and dismembered six hitchhikers in the Santa Cruz area. Then he killed his mother and one of her friends, and a few days later surrendered to the police. November 1973 he was found guilty of eight counts of murder. He asked for the death penalty but received a life sentence instead without the possibility of parole.

Larry Bittaker and Roy Norris



Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, aka the "Tool Killers" two American serial killers who together killed five young women in California in 1979. Bittaker and Norris lured victims into their van and taken to secluded places where they raped and tortured, before than to kill them. In 1981, Bittaker and Norris were charged with murder, kidnapping and rape. Bittaker was sentenced to death execution is still on death row to this day.

Ian Brady and Mira Hindley



Ian Brady and Myra Hindley killed five children between 1963 and 1965 in Greater Manchester, England. Victims aged 10 to 17 sexually assaulted before being brutally murdered. Three victims were found in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor, and the body the latest victim was found at Brady's house. Location of the fourth the victim, Keith Bennett, remains unknown. Later Brady and Hindley sentenced to life imprisonment. Hindley died in prison in 2002. year, and Brady is still in Ashworth High Security Hospital.

Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono



Between late 1977 and early 1978, cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono staged a reign of terror in California. Cousins kidnapped, raped and killed 10 girls aged 12 to 28, strangling every victim in the hills above Los Angeles. The killing method led to that they became known as the "hill stranglers". Bianchi tried to claim of his innocence due to insanity, but it was discovered that he feigns mental illness, so agreed instead plead guilty and testify against Buono. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment. Buono died of a heart attack in his cell in 2002.

Dennis Rader



Dennis Rader killed 10 people in Sedgwick County, Kansas between 1974 to 1991 Obsessed with the desire to become famous, Rader sent to stinging letters to the police under the name BTK, which stood for "Tie, torture, kill." The raider pursued his victims before break into their homes, then tie them up and choke them. Disappeared in 1988 BTK resurfaced in 2005 when it sent a floppy disk to the press, which it was calculated. Raider was arrested and charged with the murders, which he immediately confessed. He is serving 10 consecutive life sentences with the earliest possible release date of 26 February 2180.

Donald Henry Gaskins



In 1969, Gaskins started killing. He killed some hitchhikers picked up while driving along the coastal highways in the American South, torturing and maiming their victims. He claimed to have killed 80 to 90 people. He was arrested in 1975 when a criminal accomplice confessed to police, that he had witnessed the murder of two young men by Gaskins. He was recognized guilty of eight murders and sentenced to death, which later commuted to life imprisonment without parole liberation. Notably, Gaskins committed another murder in maximum security prison by killing a cellmate. He is the only person who has ever killed a prisoner on death row.

Peter Manuel



American-born Scottish serial killer who known to have killed nine people in the south of Scotland between 1956 to 1958, Manuel is suspected of killing as many as 18 people. The police could not prove him guilty until his last murders, when the investigation was able to establish that some banknotes that Manuel used to pay for drinks in Glasgow pubs were stolen from one of the his victims. He confessed to the murders after his mother met him at the police station where he was being held. Manuel was hanged at Barlinney Prison in Glasgow for his crimes in July 1958 of the year. He was one of the last prisoners to be hanged in Scotland before how the death penalty was abolished.

John George Hay



John George Hay, known as the "Acid Bath Killer", killed in England in the 1940s. He was convicted of killing six people, though claimed to have killed nine. A professional con man, he pursued rich people and charmed them into believing that he was successful businessman. He lured his victims to an abandoned warehouse and killed from firearms. Then he dissolved their bodies in sulfuric acid, before forging documents to sell their property and take them saving. Despite the absence of victims' bodies, forensic evidence was enough to convict Hay of the murders. In 1949 he was sentenced to death and hanged at Wandsworth Prison.

Fred and Rose West



Between 1967 and 1987, Fred West and his wife Rose tortured, raped and killed at least 11 young women and girls. The couple was finally apprehended and charged in 1994 after the police received a search warrant and found several human bones, buried in the garden and under the floorboards of their house. During Fred West's trial hanged himself before he was convicted. In 1995 Rose West was sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of 10 murders.

Arthur Shawcross



Known as the Genesee River Killer, Shawcross first killed in 1972, raping and killing a 10-year-old boy after luring him into wooded area in Watertown, New York. Then he raped and killed an eight-year-old girl, for which he was captured and convicted for manslaughter. After serving 14 years in prison, he was released in 1988, after which 12 female prostitutes aged from 22 to 59 years old. In the end, Shawcross was captured in his place last murder, confessed to all 12 murders and was sentenced to 250 years in prison. . He died in prison from cardiac arrest in 2008.

Peter Sutcliff



Peter William Sutcliffe is a British serial killer known as "Yorkshire Ripper". Sutcliffe was convicted of murder in 1981. 13 women and the attempted murder of seven more people. He attacked prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford, creating an atmosphere of fear in northern England. When he was arrested in January 1981 (for driving with fake license plates), the police questioned him about the murders, and he confessed. At trial, he attempted to dismiss the charges on the grounds insanity, but his defense was rejected by the jury. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole and remains in a high-security psychiatric hospital to this day Broadmoor.

Richard Ramirez



Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez was an American serial killer and Satan worshiper who has terrorized Los Angeles since 1984 to 1985. Ramirez, nicknamed "Night o"hotnik" broke into his houses victims, shot, stabbed, beaten and maimed them. Him the victims ranged in age from a nine-year-old girl to a married woman couples in their sixties. It is noteworthy that he painted pentagrams on the walls of their crime scenes. Captured in 1985 Ramirez was sentenced to death and remained on death row for California for 23 years until he died from complications caused by B-cell lymphoma, in June 2013.

Jeffrey Dahmer



Jeffrey Dahmer, known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, killed and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991 He also practiced necrophilia and ate portions of his later victims, dismembering and preparing them. Finally Dahmer was caught after how a potential victim managed to overpower him and warn the police. In 1992, Dahmer was found guilty of 15 murders and sentenced to 15 life terms. However, after only two years after his sentencing, he was beaten to death by a cellmate penitentiary in Colombia.

Dennis Nielsen



Dennis Nielsen was a homosexual killer who killed 15 gay men in London between 1978 and 1983. He opened up the bodies of his victims, and then burned or flushed the remains down the toilet. This led to his capture after human flesh was found in his sewers. Nielsen was convicted in 1983 on six counts of murder. in two attempted murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. He remains in Full Sutton Maximum Security Prison in Yorkshire, England, without release opportunities.

Ted Bundy



One of the most widely known assassins of the 20th century, Ted Bundy was American serial killer and rapist who kidnapped and murdered many young women and girls in the 1970s. Bundy usually fit to his victims in a public place, lured them into secluded corners, where he sexually harassed and killed them. He beheaded not less than 12 victims and kept severed heads in his apartment as trophies. He was repeatedly arrested, twice managed to escape from police and courthouse, after which he committed three more murders. Convicted of several murders, he was sentenced to death and executed in the electric chair in 1989.

Charles Ng and Leonard Lake



Charles Ng and his accomplice Leonard Lake were raped, tortured and killed by 11 to 25 victims at Lake Ranch in Calaveras County, California. About them crimes came to light in 1985 when Lake committed suicide suicide after his arrest, and Ng was caught stealing from a store store. Police searched Lake's ranch and found human remains. Ng was identified as Lake's partner in crime, but he tried avoid arrest by fleeing to Canada. After a lengthy extradition to United States in 1998, he stood trial for twelve counts of murder and was convicted in 1999. At present time Ng is on death row in the state prison San Quentin.

John Wayne Gacy



John Wayne Gacy raped and killed 33 teenage boys in the series murders between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. He lured victims to their homes with the promise of jobs or money, and then killed them by strangulation with a tourniquet. Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the basement under his house, and disposed of later victims by throwing the bodies into the river Des Plains. Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death executions. He spent 14 years on death row before being released on May 10, 1994 he was executed by lethal injection.

Andrey Chikatilo



Chikatilo, nicknamed "Rostov butcher" raped and killed, at least at least 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990. Assuming that he was the killer, the police were monitoring Chikatilo, which in the end eventually gave sufficient grounds for his arrest. In total he confessed to 56 murders and was tried in April 1992 for 53 of these murders. Relatives of the victims demanded that the authorities release him so they could kill him themselves. He was convicted and sentenced to death penalty for 52 murders in October 1992 andconsequences shot in February 1994.

Tommy Lynn Sells



Claimed to have killed at least 70 people, Tommy Lynn Sells considered one of the most dangerous criminals in Texas. He was condemned for several brutal murders between 1985 and 1999, including for 16 stab wounds inflicted on a 13-year-old girl. In the end Sells was captured after breaking into the bedroom of a 10-year-old girl stabbed her and left her for dead. Despite her injuries, the girl managed to survive and warn the neighbors. She gave the police a detailed description of Sells, which ultimately led to his capture. Sentenced to death, he remains on death row in jail high security in Livingston, Texas.

Gary Ridgway



One of the most massive serial killers in the United States, Gary Ridgway was arrested in 2001 for four murders, although he confessed to killing at least 70 women in Washington state in the 1980s and 1990s. He avoided the death penalty by providing detailed confessions and leading the police to the burial sites of their victims, five of whom he dropped into the Green River, causing the press to nickname him "The Killer with Green River. He was found guilty of 49 murders and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

Pedro Rodriguez Filho



Pedro Rodriguez Filho is a Brazilian serial killer. Arrested in 1973 year, he was convicted in 2003 of murdering at least 71 people and sentenced to 128 years in prison (although the Brazilian legislation prohibits someone from spending more than 30 years behind bars, an exception was made for him). Having committed his first murder in ages 14 years old, Filho started a series of burglaries and a series of murders local drug dealers. By the age of 18, he had killed 10 people. Being in prison, he killed his own father, who was also serving time for murder. It is noteworthy that in custody he killed at least 47 prisoners. His ongoing killings led to new sentences, increased its term to 400 years. He was released from prison in 2007 after serving 34 years, but was later re-arrested in 2011.

Daniel Camargo Barbosa



Barbosa was a serial killer believed to have raped and murdered over 150 young girls in Colombia and Ecuador in the 1970s and 1980s years. He confessed to killing 72 girls in Ecuador after fleeing Colombian prison. After his arrest in Quito, he led the authorities to the places burials of those victims whose bodies have not yet been discovered. He was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to 16 years in prison, which is the maximum penalty available in Ecuador. In November 1994 he was killed in prison by the cousin of one of his victims.

Harold Shipman



Dr. Harold Fredrik Shipman was an English physician and one of the most prolific serial killers in the world in the history of mankind. On his account - up to 250 murders. An experienced doctor doctor, he enjoyed great respect in the local community, but colleagues and local undertakers began to express concern about the high mortality rate in area and a large number of cremation forms for older women, which he signed. Several bodies were later exhumed, and an autopsy showed diamorphine in their bodies. Later it was found that Shipman deliberately administered lethal doses of the drug to large numbers of patients, leading to their death. Then he forged their wills to inherit large sums of money, and to fulfill cremation requests, to destroy the bodies of the victims. The trial judge sentenced him to 15 consecutive life sentences and recommended never to be released. Shipman later hanged himself in January 2004 in his cell in prison. Wakefield.

Pedro Alonso Lopez



Pedro Alonso López is a Colombian serial killer accused of rape and murder of over 300 girls across South America. He lured them to secluded places or inside unoccupied buildings, where he raped and killed by a variety of brutal methods, most notably strangulation. Lopez was arrested when another victim's attempted kidnapping failed. succeeded, and he was trapped by market traders. He confessed to more than 300 murders, but the police only believed him whenwhen a flash flood discovered a mass grave with many of its victims. In the end, 53 bodies were found. Imprisoned in 1980, he served 18 years before being released from an Ecuadorian prison and deported to Colombia, where he was re-arrested in 2002 sentenced to life imprisonment.