- Ted Bundy
One of the most widely known murderers of the 20th century, Ted Bundy was an American serial killer and rapist who kidnapped or overpowered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s. Bundy typically approached his female victims in a public place and led them to secluded areas where he would sexually assault and kill them. He decapitated at least 12 victims and kept the severed heads in his apartment as trophies. Repeatedly captured, he twice managed to escape from police and court houses before going onto commit three further killings. Convicted of multiple murders he sentenced to death. He was executed by the electric chair in 1989.
Charles Ng and Leonard Lake
A Chinese-American serial killer, Charles Ng is believed to have raped, tortured and murdered between 11 and 25 victims with his accomplice Leonard Lake at Lake’s ranch in Calaveras County, California. They filmed themselves raping and torturing their victims. Their crimes became known in 1985 when Lake committed suicide after being arrested and Ng was caught shoplifting at a hardware store. Police searched Lake’s ranch and found human remains. Ng was identified as Lake’s partner in crime and attempted to evade police by fleeing to Canada. After a lengthy extradition to the United States He stood trial in 1998 on twelve counts of murder and was convicted in 1999. Ng is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison.
John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy sexual assaulted and murdered 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. He lured victims to his home with the promise of work or money before murdering them by strangulation with a tourniquet . Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space under his home, before disposing of later victims in the Des Plaines River. Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.
Andrei Chikatilo
Chikatilo was a Soviet serial killer, nicknamed The Butcher of Rostov. He committed the sexual assault, murder and mutilation of at least 52 women and children in Russia between 1978 and 1990. Believing he was the killer, police carried out surveillance Chikatilo which eventually provided adequate grounds to arrest him. He confessed to a total of 56 murders and was tried for 53 of these killings in April 1992. Victims relatives demanding that authorities release him so that they could kill him themselves. He was convicted and sentenced to death for 52 of these murders in October 1992 and subsequently executed by firing squad in February 1994.
Tommy Lynn Sells
Claiming to have killed at least 70 people, Tommy Lynn Sells is considered one of the most dangerous offenders in Texas, United States and has been convicted of several brutal murders between 1985 and 1999 including stabbing a 13 year old girl 16 times. Sells was eventually captured after breaking into the bedroom of a 10 year old girl and stabbing her, leaving her for dead but despite her injures the girl managed to survive and alert her neighbours. She provided a detailed description of Sells to police which eventually led to his capture. Sentenced to death he remains on death row at a high security prison in Livingston, Texas.
Gary Ridgway
One of the United States most prolific serial killers, Gary Ridgway was arrested in 2001 for 4 murders though confessed to killing at least 70 women in Washington state throughout the 1980′s and 1990′s. He avoided the death penalty by provided detailed confessions and led police to the dumping sites of his victims, five of whom he dumped in the Green River leading to the press nicknaming him The Green River Killer. He was convicted of 49 murders and sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
Pedro Rodrigues Filho
Pedro Rodrigues Filho is a Brazilian serial killer. Arrested in 1973, he was later convicted in 2003 of murdering at least 71 people and sentenced to 128 years imprisonment. Committing his first killing the age of 14 began a series of burglaries and carried out a murdering spree against local drug dealers, in revenge for his girlfriend being killed by criminals whilst he was in prison. By the age of 18 years old he had killed 10 people. Whilst imprisoned, he executed his own father who was also serving time for murder. Remarkably he went onto kill at least 47 inmates while imprisoned. Initially sentenced to just 30 years imprisonment, his continued killings have led to further convictions and his sentence has been increased to 400 years imprisonment.
Daniel Camargo Barbosa
Camargo was a Colombian serial killer who is believed to have raped and killed over 150 young girls in Colombia and Ecuador during the 1970s and 1980s. He calmly confessed to killing 71 girls in Ecuador after escaping from the Colombian prison. He led authorities to the dumping grounds of those victims whose bodies had not yet been recovered. After raping his victims, he had hacked the girls with a machete. He was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to just 16 years in prison, the maximum sentence available in Ecuador. In November 1994, he was murdered in prison by the cousin of one of his victims.
Dr Harold Shipman
Dr. Harold Fredrick Shipman was a English doctor and is one of the world’s most prolific serial killers in recorded history, proven to have been responsible for up 250 murders. A trusted doctor, he was well respected in his community, however colleagues and local undertakers began raising concerns over the high death rate in the area and the large number of cremation forms for elderly women that he had countersigned. Several bodies were later exhumed and post mortems revealed diamorphine within their system. It was later established Shipman had purposely injected fatal doses of the drug in a huge number of patients, causing their death. He then forged their wills so he could inherit large sums of money and completed cremation requests to destroy the victim’s bodies. The trial judge sentenced him to 15 consecutive life sentences and recommended that he never be released. Shipman later hanged himself in January 2004 in his cell at Wakefield Prison.
Pedro Alonso Lopez
Pedro Alonso López is a Colombian serial killer, accused of raping and killing more than 300 girls across South America was believed to have preyed on young and vulnerable girls in Peru. He lured them to secluded areas or inside unoccupied buildings where he raped each of them before killing them by a range of brutal methods, primarily strangulation. López was arrested when an attempted abduction failed and he was trapped by market traders. He confessed to over 300 murders. The police only believed him when a flash flood uncovered a mass grave containing many of his victims. Eventually 53 bodies were discovered. Imprisoned in 1980 he served just 18 years before being released from a Ecuadorian prison and was deported to Columbia where he was rearrested and in 2002 was sentenced to life.
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