| Name |
Country |
Proven Victims (either in court, by detailed confession, or according to most scholars) |
Possible Victims |
Notes |
| Erzsébet Báthory |
Hungary |
600-650 |
20-2,000 |
born 1560, died 1614 number of deaths is conjectured, but 600 or so is the most common accusation. There was no public trial. - see article. |
| Thug Behram |
India |
125 |
931 |
from 1790 to 1830 - He confessed to 125 murders, and reported being present at 931. |
| Pedro Lopez |
Colombia |
? |
300 |
His existence is disputed |
| Dr Harold Shipman |
United Kingdom |
15 |
284 |
Convicted of 15, but believed to have killed many more |
| Henry Lee Lucas |
United States |
11 |
2-200 |
born 1936, died 2001. Confessed to about 3,000 murders, convicted of 11 of which at least some were highly dubious |
| Gilles de Rais |
France |
200 |
200 |
Testimony gained under torture and confession under threat of torture, as was customary. |
| H. H. Holmes |
USA |
27 |
20-200 |
Confessed to 27 murders, though only nine have been confirmed. Estimates vary wildly. |
| Hu Wanlin |
China |
196 |
196 |
Sentenced to 15 years on 1st October 2000. Killings may not have been murder. |
| Randy Steven Kraft |
USA |
67 |
67-100 |
Convicted on 15 counts of murder, left a cryptic list of 65 murders. May have had an accomplice. |
| Ted Bundy |
USA |
30 |
100+ |
Estimated that he may have killed more than 100. |
| Andrei Chikatilo |
USSR/Russia |
53 |
56 |
Convicted of the murder of fifty-two women and children between 1978 and 1990. 3 people were previously convicted & executed for his crimes |
| Anatoly Onoprienko |
Ukraine |
52 |
52+ |
Convicted of the murders of nine people in 1989, and 43 people in 1995-1996. Traveled through Europe illegally from 1990-1995, whether he killed during this time is unknown. |
| Zodiac Killer |
USA |
5 |
37 |
Targeted young couples, was never apprehended |
| Gary Leon Ridgway |
USA |
48 |
48 |
Truck painter who confessed to killing 48 women (mostly prostitutes), and dumping many of them along the Green River, near Seattle, Washington. |
| Charles Cullen |
USA |
18 |
40 |
Nurse in New Jersey and Pennsylvania who murdered 40 patients between 1988 and 2003. |
| John Wayne Gacy |
USA |
33 |
33 |
The 'Killer Clown' who kept bodies buried under his Chicago home |
| Joseph Paul Franklin |
USA |
8 |
20 |
Confessed to 20 murders and several attempted murders, awaiting trial for most of these crimes |
| Jeffrey Dahmer |
USA |
17 |
17 |
Dahmer ate some of them; he kept body parts in his freezer |
| Dennis Nilsen |
United Kingdom |
15 |
15 |
Picked up young men in London between 1978 and 1982 and dismembered them, keeping various body parts around his home. |
| Herbert Mullin |
United States |
13 |
13 |
Despite detailed confessions, prosecutors decided not to try him for the first three crimes, instead focusing on crimes that conflicted with his insanity plea. |
| Kaspars Petrovs |
Latvia |
13 |
38+ |
Confessed to strangling 38 elderly residents of riga, Latvia in 2003. Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the robbery and murder of 13. |
| John Wayne Glover |
Australia |
12 |
12 |
Targeted old women |
| Edmund Kemper |
United States |
10 |
10 |
A victim of Herbert Mullin was attributed to him originally. |
| Ivan Milat |
Australia |
7 |
7 |
Backpacker murders |
| Christopher Worrell |
Australia |
7 |
7 |
Died before capture |
| James Miller |
Australia |
6 |
7 |
Sentenced to life imprisonment for 6 murders |
| Kristen Gilbert |
United States |
5 |
5+ |
Targeted patients. Sentenced to life without parole. |
| Jack the Ripper |
Great Britain |
5 |
4-16 |
Nobody was ever caught for the murders, and the identity of the killer has never been discovered. Preyed on prostitutes in Whitechapel, London in 1888. |
| Ian Brady and Myra Hindley |
Great Britain |
5 |
5 |
The 'Moors Murderers'. Abducted children in northern England. They were found guilty of two and three murders respectively. |
| Peter Woodcock |
Canada |
4 |
4 |
born 1937. Sexual sadist and child rapist. Killed three young children in Toronto, Canada in the 1950s. Sentenced to a psychiatric facility. Murdered a fellow inmate in 1991. |
| Eddie Leonski |
Australia |
3 |
3 |
|
| Dennis Rader |
United States |
10 |
10 |
|
