Human beings are capable of killing others. This is something we would like not to be the case, but sadly it is reality. Men and women can threaten the lives of others by committing the most reprehensible act of all: murder.
Not all murderers are the same. Some are by accident, when a fight got out of hand for example. Others simply followed orders, although that does not take away from the reprehensibility of their actions.
Others, however, kill for fun, pure entertainment or to obtain financial gain. There are those who kill for the sake of killing, such as serial killers. Next we will discover the most famous serial killers summarizing their cases.
It is a sad reality that human beings are capable of harming others in the most cruel and vile ways. Many people attempt the lives of other individuals of their own species, going so far as to commit the most unforgivable act: murder. A specific type of murderer is the one that has attracted the most attention in the media and pop culture: serial killers. The most widely accepted definition of this is that they are individuals who have killed a minimum of 3 people, at different times and places, with periods of inactivity.
The term “serial killer” as we know it today did not come into use until the 1980s Before, it was common to call it “murderers of strangers”, “killed in a pattern” or “multicide”. Although this term is believed to have been coined by John Douglas, it would be FBI agent and behavioral profiler Robert K. Ressler who popularized the term, who explained that the behavior of the killers reminded him of the description of some movies in short episodes that are shown. They watched in the afternoon, in the 1930s and 1940s: adventure series.
These series consisted of making the viewer always return to the cinema the following week, since each episode had an unfinished ending, a hook. Ressler understood that the same thing happened to serial killers, that when killing they felt a tension that kept them hooked on the desire to commit another murder, one that is even closer to their fantasies or that helps them release all their emotional burden and sexual.
The number of serial killers that have existed throughout history is very large. Human beings have killed their fellow human beings since time immemorial and, although they themselves did not know the term, more than one has done it following the patterns typical of a serial killer. Let’s see the 10 most famous.
1. Ted Bundy (1946-1989)
Ted Bundy was the perpetrator of 30 murders over a period of 4 years, from 1974 to 1978, although the death toll could be higher. He is believed to be responsible for 40 other unsolved disappearances.
All of his victims, at least those he confessed to, were young women between 12 and 22 years old, many of them university students. He tricked them by pretending to be disabled, or someone with social superiority, such as a politician. Once he murdered them, he raped and dismembered them, which makes Bundy one of the most macabre serial killers of the 20th century. And he kept memories of some of his victims, like the heads.
During his first years of training he had a relatively normal life. He was a good student and graduated in Psychology and Law, studies that motivated him, when he was arrested in 1979 for his atrocities, to decide to defend himself and, with his charisma also playing his part, managed to delay its execution several times But justice ended up being harsh on him, and he was executed in the electric chair on January 24, 1989, at the age of 42.
2. John Wayne Gacy (1942-1994)
John Wayne Gacy was a sexual predator. He has gone down in the history of serial killers as “The Killer Clown.”, since Gacy made a living performing at children’s parties dressed as a clown. He himself had chosen as his stage name at such events the friendly nickname of “Pogo, the clown.”
He was originally sentenced in 1968 to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting two young men. However, because of his good behavior, his sentence was reduced to only 18 months. After leaving prison he married for the second time. Letting him free was a big mistake because, 6 years after he was released, he was arrested again for an alleged kidnapping case.
As a result of the investigation, it was discovered that this subject had kidnapped, raped and killed 33 young men between 14 and 21 years old: hitchhikers, beggars, gigolos and local youth. It was Gacy himself who, in 1978, confessed to the murders, telling the police, indicating the location of some bodies. Most of the bodies were in his own house, in the basement, and as he ran out of space, he began burying them in the Des Plaines River, near his residence.
John Wayne Gacy was executed on May 10, 1994, at the age of 52, after being sentenced to various life sentences and death sentences. The option they ultimately opted for to end his life was lethal injection.
3. Charles Manson (1934-2017)
Charles Manson is one of the most well-known serial killers of all time. He was the leader of a sect organized by himself called the Manson Family, whose crimes were committed mostly in the state of California.
Manson is attributed with two deaths where his participation was direct, although it is believed that he was the instigator of at least 7 more murders in addition to other crimes such as robberies and armed robberies.
Their murders were brutal. The best known is the one he committed when he entered the house of director Roman Polanski in 1969 when a party was being held. In the events, the Manson Family killed several of the director’s friends, in addition to killing his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Tate was 26 years old and 8 months pregnant.
Charles Manson was sentenced to life in prison in 1972. Society called for him to be executed, but he was tried after the death penalty was eliminated from the state of California. Manson spent the rest of his life in prison, dying on November 19, 2017, at the age of 83, due to colon cancer and cardiac arrest.
4. Andrei Chikatilo (1936-1994)
Andrei Chikatilo, also known as “The Red Ripper” and “The Butcher of Rostov”, He is considered the biggest serial killer in the history of the former Soviet Union He is credited with having committed various crimes, including the most serious sexual assaults, murders and mutilations of women and children between 1979 and 1990.
During his childhood, Andrei Chikatilo was introverted, insecure and self-conscious about his myopia. He was especially shy around women, something that took its toll on his romantic relationships. After graduating as a teacher, he began to feel attracted to children under 12 years old, sneaking into the dormitories of the student residences to masturbate while watching the children sleep.
His criminal career began in 1978 with the kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl whom he convinced to go to a cabin outside the city. When he reached for her and forced her to undress her, she scratched him. Seeing the blood gush out of her, Chikatilo felt a huge erection, being the moment that changed everything. From that moment on, her murders would be marked by the search for sexual pleasure through stabbings, mutilations, bites and screams of terror from her victims.
Andrei Chikatilo practiced cannibalism typical of a wild beast She howled with pleasure as she ripped out her victims’ eyes and nipples. He became an expert in removing the uteruses of girls and the testicles of boys, sexual organs that he kept as a trophy after ejaculating on their corpses.
When he was arrested, Chikatilo confessed to having carried out at least 56 homicides, being tried in April 1992 for 53 of them. He was executed in 1994.
5. Dorothea Puente (1929-2011)
Dorothea Helen Gray, better known as Dorothea Puente, was a boarding house owner who would go down in history for what she did and was sentenced to life in prison, not at all consistent with her appearance as a tender grandmother. In her youth she had some problems. She married for the first time at age 16 and had two daughters whom she gave up for adoption. This process would be repeated several times, getting married four times, giving up 3 girls for adoption and aborting once. Gray was arrested on several occasions for tax fraud and running a brothel.
However, the crimes that led to her life sentence would not begin until 1982 when, already the owner of her guest house, He killed one of his friends and business partner from an overdose She tried to convince the authorities that it was a suicide, saying that her friend was going through depression. Shortly after, a pensioner from the boarding house called the police accusing Dorothea of drugging and robbing him.
Later, Dorothea killed her new boyfriend and asked a friend to help her transport a box full of heavy books to her new home. However, halfway through the journey she asked her friend to stop and dump the entire contents into a landfill, claiming that it was actually just garbage. Over the next few months, she Dorothea He kept the victim’s pensions while telling his family that he was sick
History would repeat itself over and over again. For years Dorothea was in charge of a death hostel, where she deceived, robbed and murdered her most defenseless guests. She was especially good at taking advantage of the elderly, disabled people, and former drug addicts. His modus operandi was to put his victims to sleep with pills, suffocate them and hire other people to bury them in the garden of his hostel For this reason, that place was known as “The House of Horrors” once what had happened there became public.
6. Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper is probably the most famous serial killer in history, even though we don’t know who he was, when he was born, when he died… Because we don’t know, we don’t know if he was a man or a woman, although it has always been suggested that he was a man. His fame is so enormous that multiple works, both written and cinematographic, have been inspired by him.
The murders attributed to him were carried out in London, specifically in Whitechapel during 1888. The majority of his victims were female prostitutes. Despite the efforts of the London police, the culprit could not be identified, although more than 100 male suspects were considered.
The reason we know him as Jack the Ripper is because In one of the three letters attributed to him, he signed with that pseudonym It is also worth mentioning that this name ended up catching on due to his bloodthirsty way of killing and mutilating his victims, something that made researchers of the time suspect that Jack the Ripper might have knowledge of butchery or medicine.
You may be interested: “Jack the Ripper: analyzing the psychology of the famous criminal”
7. The Zodiac Killer
In this list we include another murderer whose identity is not known. The Zodiac Killer or Zodiac acted between 1968 and 1969 in California 7 victims are attributed to him, 4 men and 3 women, although in a letter allegedly authored by him, he himself confessed to having murdered 37 people. Most of the time, he chose couples to be his victims.
Since the investigation began, the police have had different suspects. One of the best known was Arthur Leigh Allen, although after an analysis of his DNA and that found in the letters it was ruled out because it did not match. Nor is it certain that these murders were not committed by one person, but by several, whether they were imitators of the original murderer or followers.
The case went dormant in 2004 when Leigh Allen died at age 90. Everything indicated that it would never be known who this legendary serial killer was, so it was decided that it was best to close the case. However, The case was reopened in 2007 due to social pressure to determine once and for all who the Zodiac killer was
8. Jeffrey Dahmer (1960-1994)
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, “the Butcher of Milwaukee,” was an American serial killer whose victims were young men He would recruit them by offering them money in exchange for taking photographs, having sexual relations or watching pornography with them. He committed his murders between 1978 and 1991, having as victims 17 men whom he killed and then raped and dismembered. Dahmer confessed that he had also cannibalized some victims.
It is believed that some of his victims managed to escape, but only one managed to reach the police. When the police showed up at Dahmer’s home and entered, he discovered a terrifying creation that earned him the nickname the Milwaukee Butcher: amputated remains of his victims that he had joined together into a macabre work of art made of human flesh.
When he was arrested by the police and after confessing to his murders, he explained to investigators that his purpose was to get the victims to stay with him. He wanted to turn the men he was with into his servants, who would obey all of his orders.
As he had already earned a very bad reputation in the prison community, upon being imprisoned, he was not allowed to interact with other prisoners to protect him from possible attacks. However, he himself asked to have contact with other inmates and, when he got it, everything seemed to go well and he even did tasks in the company of others. However, one day he had a fight with one of the prisoners and both ended up very badly injured. Another prisoner, Christopher Scarver, confessed to killing him.
9. Richard Ramirez (1960-2013)
Ricardo Leyva Ramírez Muñoz, “The Night Stalker”, committed his murders between 1984 and 1985 in the city of Los Angeles In his first crimes he was limited to beating and raping, but later his behavior became more sadistic, very reminiscent of his connection with Satanism. 14 deaths are attributed to him, people he killed indiscriminately, without taking into account their sex, age or race.
One of his victims was able to contact the police, explaining to her that her husband had been murdered and she had been raped by Ramírez, who had left town. She immediately set out to find and capture him, wallpapering the entire city with her face. When he returned, not knowing that he was being searched in a city full of photographs with his face, he was intercepted and lynched by the crowds.
The people of Los Angeles wanted him dead, so when the police came they not only came to arrest Ramírez, but also to prevent him from being beaten to death. In 1989 he was found guilty and sentenced to death but he was never executed. He died of liver failure on June 7, 2013, aged 53.
10. Peter Kürten (1883-1931)
Peter Kürten was a serial killer and sex offender from Germany, who acted during the year 1929 His way of acting was to rape, murder and cut the throats of his victims. When he was arrested he confessed that, on some occasion, he had drunk the blood of his victims, which is why he is known as “The Vampire of Düsseldorf.”
He was arrested on May 24, 1930, being accused of 9 murders and 7 attempts. He was found guilty of all these crimes and an attempt was made not to reduce his sentence on the grounds of mental problems. Finally, he was executed on July 2, 1931 by beheading.
If his story was murky in life, it is also murky after his death. As his last will, he asked that after his head was cut off the executioners were silent for a few seconds, because It made him excited to hear how his own blood dripped on the floor After his execution, she dissected and mummified his head; Today it is displayed in a museum in Wisconsin, United States.
