Who were some of the worst serial killers in history?

Not a worst, but a “worst cadre”: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, MaoTse-Tung, God, in no particular order.

When it comes to serial killers, Albert Fish, Ted Bundy and Ed Gein always stick out to me.

Toss in Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy with @Vunessuh‘s group and you have the killers who have kept me up the most at night.

Jeffrey Dahmer was creepy, but under the radar till they caught him.
The Zodiac got good media play.

Henry Lee Lucas is up there, even without his exaggerations.

I personally think that Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy weren’t as creepy as Ed Gein. Ed Gein has that small-town scariness to him. He’s the only one that has really made me want to puke everywhere when I heard about him.

I don’t think he really qualifies as a mass murderer, but my wife was completely terrified of Lawrence Singleton

BTK – Bind torture and kill murderer who was supposedly your average next door neighbor. I even hate seeing those letters on licence plates.

Robert Pickton from B.C., Canada killed 49 women

@aprilsimnel As far as HLL -Any bastard who is a proud abuser and sexual aggressor toward animals deserves a slow and painful death.

These men who hate women so much that they do the most horrific things to them really don’t disturb me anymore as much as they make me really want to kill them.

This question reminds me of this site .
Can you tell the difference between a computer programmer and a serial killer?

@filmfann That was a great website! Thanks for sharing it. I received a 9/10.

@filmfann I got 8/10!

What about Jack the Ripper? I find him (or her?!?!?) fascinating because so little is known about who the killer actually was, and it was so long ago….makes it extra creepy.

I love serial killers. In a….fascination sort of way. I do not actually love them. More I am just completely enamored by people who chop up other people.

@deni “enamored by people who chop up other people.”
Lmao.

@deni I really love studying serial killers. I’ve been watching thousands of documentaries the past few days. Gotta love ‘em.

Awww, noiw you got me watching clips of serial killer interviews on youtube….THANKS, Kate!

@ladymia69 Ohhhh! If you need any, I can give you a lot of links for the documentaries on Youtube!

@KatetheGreat and @deni You two should totally check out this book called “Bad Girls Do It! An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers”. I have loved that book since it was published in 1995. I cherish my copy.

gimme gimme

@ladymia69 I’ll PM them to you!

The Green River Killer
The Seattle Times: Green River killings
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/greenriverkillings/

In addition to the ones everyone else has mentioned Richard Ramirez The Night Stalker was pretty bad.

Charles Manson A lot of law enforcement people assume that he was guilty in other murders that he was never tried for.

Phillip Morris

Elizabeth Báthory, the Blood Countess:

“After her husband’s death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls, with one witness attributing to them over 650 victims, though the number for which they were convicted was 80.”

Here are some serial murderers rated by Stone’s Scale of Evil.

Marion Hedgepeth, aka Dr. Homes, is memorable. He built himself a deathtrap-hotel and gassed unsuspecting boarders while the World’s Fair was in Chicago and skeletonized a few of his victims in his secret basement morgue to sell to medicine supply companies. It’s more twisted and gothic than anything I’ve seen the gothic writing of the time. Dr. Holmes is generally considered America’s first serial killer.

@Vunessuh I second Albert Fish. That guy was uber-creepy. It’s really disturbing that parents left their kids alone with him. Ugh. Parents in the early 20th century, no sense at all.

@filmfann The Zodiac was so lame. He was almost caught that last time he killed. A kid at a birthday party saw him kill a taxi driver if I remember correctly. The cops literally passed him on the way to the scene and the Zodiac was too afraid to kill after that. But he kept pestering the police trying to convince them he was behind random killings for years. Lamest killer ever.

@KatetheGreat If I remember correctly Ed Gein probably shouldn’t be considered a serial killer. Honestly I’m not sure he actually killed anyone. He mostly just dug up graves did weird things with corpses. Honestly, I feel kinda sorry for the guy since he was obviously very mentally ill.

@fundevogel He actually did kill a few people. I watched the documentary yesterday. :)

@KatetheGreat Is that a recent documentary? It’s been a long time since I read about him.

@fundevogel It’s on Youtube, do you want me to link it?

@KatetheGreat oh! yes!

Here you go!

This is a pretty good one about Ed Gein.

It’s in 3 parts, but you can find the relative parts on the sidebar in the suggestions.

Let’s see, first off there is a distinction between a mass murderer and a serial killer (serial killer operates with an MO and more or less has direct contact with the victim) so there goes Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, MaoTse-Tung, William Tecumseh Sherman, Saddam Hussein, etc. Then since a serial killer must have at least 3 kills to be considered a serial killer, Ed Gein is immediately off the list as he only killed 2. so…

Andrei Chikatilo a Russian serial killer who got off on killing particularly underage girls, would go on to murder roughly 53 women before being apprehended and sentenced to death by firing squad.
Yoo Young-chul a South Korean serial killer a cannibal whose victims were either hookers or rich men
Hwaseong Killer another South Korean serial killer who, in this case, was never caught after raping and murdering ten women (one of which was carrying with her her 5 month old child who ended up as living food for ants). There are several witnesses, ten years after the killings, who claim that along the road upon which he killed his victims, they met a man standing by and looking into ditches. The few who approached him and asked him what he was doing recieved the reply, “Oh, just remembering something I did 10 years ago.”
Elizabeth Báthory, also known as History’s most prolific serial killer, her servants claim that she had about 650 victims, though only 80 were proven and used to condemn her.
Dean Corll “The Candy Man” killed 27 young boys after luring them to his house and torturing them to death. His reign of terror ended when he and an accomplice got into a heated argument during which his accomplice shot him.
John Gacy “Pogo the Clown” “The Killer Clown” The near perfect criminal, in everyday society, he appeared to be an upstanding citizen, a popular local political figure, former cop, and acquaintance with President Carter and his family. Convicted for the death of 33 young men that he also raped. Last words were “kiss my ass” before his execution.
Gary Ridgeway “The Green River Killer,” admitted to killing nearly 90 women, proven and convicted of around 40. The police force went to the extent of trying to ask Ted Bundy to assist them in catching Gary, though he didn’t help much. When he was finally caught, the joke was more on the police force than on Gary. Gary is considered legally retarded due to his IQ score of around 85.
Moses Sithole “The ABC Killer” Roughly 40 murders and an additional 40 rapes. South Africa’s most infamous serial killer he was known as the ABC Murder as he killed his victims in alphabetical order of towns. Here, the joke is on him as he was sentenced to life in prison, and then he contracted AIDS in prison.
Bruno Ludke a German serial killer so notorious that the Nazi’s Gestapo was even out on the hunt to catch him which they did near the end of WWII (so in a way, the Nazis did make the world a safer place… mind boggling ain’t it?) He killed roughly 85 women, raping, stabbing or strangling them, and then raping their corpses. This happened after he was caught assaulting a woman and being sterilized.
Henry Lee Lucas a serial killer who is as notorious as he is mysterious. Although there is only hard evidence to prove him of killing 4 people, his former accomplice, seeking a lighter sentence, confessed that Henry was easily guilty of a total of 213 murders with which he described almost all of their deaths eerily close to what the police deemed as to what happened. Though he was sentenced to death, he was commuted to life in prison. He has of recent died, keeping his true number of victims a secret with him to the grave.
Pedro Alonso Lopez “The Monster of the Andes” a serial killer with 300+ victims to his name deeming him as one of the most prolific serial killers ever. All of his killings were between 1970 and 1980 and he was apprehended and stuck in prison “for good” (he had been caught before, but was released shortly thereafter before) after police discovered several mass graves. Strangely enough, he was released from prison in 1998 for “good behavior, he has plenty of time to add more girls to his list of the dead.
Jeff Dahmer – no explanation needed
Ted Bundy – ditto
Jane Toppan “The Nightmare Nurse” confessed to a total of 31 killings with the intent to kill more helpless victims (patients) than anyone in history. She experimented with different meds on her victims, giving her plenty of time to kill them one by one slowly and painfully.
Hamilton FIsh “The Werewolf of Wysteria” “The Grey Man” “The Boogeyman” he had 4 known victims but easily many, many more as his spree lasted over eight years. He is well known for saying, “Happy is he that taketh thy little ones and dasheth their heads against the stones.” He was a sadomasochist, a cannibal, racist, religiously fanatical, and intelligent. He was known for occasionally raping his victims (all of which were children), killing them, eating them, and at times writing letters to the families informing them of the torture he inflicted upon the children, how he murdered them, and what he did with their carcasses.

I think that’s enough for now.

@Winters That’s a lot to write! But that was absolutely wonderful. I wish I could give you 10 GAs!

@KatetheGreat Thanks! (my fingers hurt… lol)

@Winters I bet! That was a workout! :P

Michael Myers

@Brian1946 A lot of those murders were propaganda built up by certain persons for political reasons. Don’t believe everything you read.

@ladymia69

“A lot of those murders were propaganda built up by certain persons for political reasons. Don’t believe everything you read.”

To what specific murders are you referring?
Should I apply your imperative admonition to your post? ;-)

Actually, while there may be only proof that Ed Gein killed two people, police think he killed around 15 including his brother.

@Brian1946 I was speaking ONLY of the murders that were attributed to Erzsebet Bathory…and yes, you should apply that to my post. ;)

@Vunessuh There’s more evidence pointing to that Ed’s bro died in the fire that both he and Ed set out to put out than the evidence that points to Ed murdering his own bro. And even if Ed did kill those 15, he really cannot be held accountable for those crimes. why? here’s the facts:
Ed was indeed legally mentally retarded by today’s standards.
Ed suffered from MPD, and considering his mommy issues, it more than likely sprouted from sexual and physical abuse from when he was a child.
Ed suffered from dependent personality disorder, thus why when his mother died, he had to keep his mother alive one way or another, which more than likely developed in his personality that imitated his overbearing/protective/zealous/fanatical and possibly sexually abusive mother from which he found a twisted form of solace.

If anything, his mother was the killer, not him. She killed her own son by removing him from society and doing god knows what with him from when he was an easily manipulated, retarded child. He never got the proper care nor support he needed until it was way way too late. Ed was a victim himself, dead as an individual before he ever could become an individual.

Indeed, your facts are correct, but a killer is a killer.

Isn’t there a serial killer on the loose right now in Long Island?

@deni Yes. Here is one news report.

@deni I think they believe it may be more than one killer. This was posted 2 hours ago.

@fundevogel I admit I am a little amused with the Zodiac, because I guy I knew was suspected of being the Zodiac. If I haven’t shared that story, I will soon.

Is a person truly a killer if they have lost their ability to control who they are, what is moral, and have completely broken into a state of shattered mental and emotional glass? Ed’s body may have killed those people, dug up those corpses, but Ed did not. There were witnesses who came forward who had seen Ed digging up corpses in the middle of the night, of which a few nights they saw him stop, break down and cry, try to put the dirt back, and flee. He, even despite his destroyed mind knew, something wasn’t right when he returned to the personality of Ed Gein and tried to hide it in a manner identical to that of which a 4 year old would if they broke a cookie jar in the attempt to get the cookies which lay within. Ed cannot and could not be held responsible for his actions. And this is one of the few cases that i agree with the plea of insanity on the perpetrators behalf. True a killer is a killer, but the killer was old Ms. Gein… it was never Ed.

@Vunessuh A BAG OF ARMS AND LEGS. WHAT. Jesus.

@Winters
“Is a person truly a killer if they have lost their ability to control who they are, what is moral, and have completely broken into a state of shattered mental and emotional glass?”
Absolutely.

“Ed’s body may have killed those people, dug up those corpses, but Ed did not.”
Yes, he did.

”Ed cannot and could not be held responsible for his actions.”
I completely disagree.

Gein can most certainly be held accountable for everything he has done. He did them. Not his mother. Yes, he may be insane, but he is still responsible for his actions and always will be regardless of his past. I sympathize to an extent for how his mother treated him and please don’t get me wrong…I do understand where you’re coming from, but I also know there are plenty of people with awful, abusive pasts and the last thing they did was murder people and fuck their dead bodies. Ed does not get to escape responsibility for that. Blaming it on his mother is a cop out. Therefore, I stand by a killer is just that…a killer. Even with lack of sanity.

@Vunessuh funny, several psychologists who have been working on yours truly have made it clear that an individual who performs certain actions while under the influence of another personality cannot be held responsible for what occurred while that other personality was in control. In Ed’s case, it was his mother, or his version of his mother.

By that logic, I don’t see how his mother can be blamed either. She was probably fucked up as a kid too. So now do we blame it on his grandmother?
His actions still came from him, insane or not.
I don’t understand why people use mental illness to justify things or avoid responsibility.
Most people have a mental disorder, whether it’s minor or not.
His mom is the problem? Probably. But a lot of people’s moms are the problem and it doesn’t manifest into dismembering human beings.

The Yorkshire Ripper. Certainly one I remember growing up. One sick bastard that’s for sure.

@Vunessuh

“Most people have a mental disorder, whether it’s minor or not.”

I’m proof of that, and about the worst thing I’ve ever done is accidentally hit a guy in the eye with a paper airplane. ;-)

I’m proof of that also, the and one of the issues that have developed with me is that I can no longer display anger in a healthy manner. Thus it is extremely hard for me to actually become angry. When I do become infuriated, I have no control over myself (as in I’m no longer the one in control) and God help who ever ends up on the receiving end of that rage. Other times, if the rage hasn’t built up enough for me to explode, it is reflected inwards and has slowly been destroying me these past 14 years. Doctors clearly state that when a person is switches into another personality, they are no longer themselves nor in control. Yes, I agree that not all mental disorders should be used as an excuse, BUT Multiple Personality Disorder is a legitimate reason. Hell, if it weren’t and if self defense wasn’t also a reasonable excuse to end up having to kill someone, I’d be sitting in prison as well.

OK, remind me not to piss off @Winters…let’s just not question him/her anymore, how’s about that?

@Winters If Edward Gein did indeed suffer from a mental disorder, then I agree that his mother did not help this in any way whatsoever.
However, if his condition was as bad as to go out and do the things he has done, then even had his life been totally different, some other factor would have triggered his dangerous predisposition, so in the end, is mom is hardly to blame. (like a kid who shoots up his school; we can blame it on video games, but if video games didn’t exist, that fucked up kid would have done something tragic either way)

We can attach the flair to his events, but I’m not entirely sure we can do the same with the source. In this case, his brother would have been just as fucked up if his mom was entirely to blame, since she tried the same with him that she did with Ed, only he was all like, fuck this dude.

Perhaps Ed didn’t understand the gravity of the situation in killing and digging up dead women, but one thing we have to keep in mind is that a lot of serial killers, while they understand that killing is wrong according to society, they don’t see it as wrong, or they don’t care, or they’re desperate and what have you. But as far as I’m concerned, no matter how messed up one might be, if you take the conscious decision to take away a life and act out on it, the fact remains that these were your own actions, and you know what you were doing, especially if one undertakes murder while trying not to get caught.

Now I don’t know that much about Gein, and I’ll gladly stand corrected. But I do believe that he was trying to ’‘recreate’’ his mother after she died, by using the bodies of women to ’‘decorate’’ his home or by wearing dead womens’ skin on himself. It was a way for him to reunite himself with mom, rather than mom taking over his mind and controlling him.

Not saying his mom is blameless, but she certainly wasn’t the sole cause of his actions.

@Winters Basically, what everyone is saying is that due to the instances of other males whose mothers smothered them and said males’ non-predilection for murder, your answer is discountable.

Ed wasn’t trying to recreate his mother, His mother like split personality was trying to come to completely break through and claim complete dominance over him. He did not know nor understand what the hell was going on as he was mentally retarded and had the intellect of no greater than a 10 year old at best. Yes, I know many mother’s have smothered their child as such but you need to apply the other factors into Ed’s equation. Ed’s mother was both his “protector” especially after his brother died, and his abuser. He was her Sybil experiment, not to mention that he was indeed mentally retarded. True, others can fight it off, shrug it off, push through and be as normal as possible, but not everyone is that strong, as I am currently witnessing in myself. Some people’s breaking points are a lot lower than others. Ed’s was pretty short, he probably broke under his mother’s will and developed a dependent personality disorder within a few years at most and then eventually MPD. Personally, mine was roughly 14 years before breaking completely down into a nihilistic, cynical, prankster with strong sociopathic, suicidal, disasscociative (though rarely to the extent of frequent MPD instances), antisocial, and narcissistic tendencies and a weak schizophrenic tendency. However, the difference there and here is that before I completely snapped, a few people caught on and I am currently getting help. With Ed, NO ONE CAUGHT ON until he was only a shell of what he could’ve been.

I can’t find anything on Wiki that’s relevant to Gein’s intents or mental disorders. (it says he did seem to relate to children much better than with any adult though) Any links? What I heard came from some documentaries that came along my special edition of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (one hour long doc)

@Winters You could do the world a great service by defending the serial killers that no other lawyer wants to defend.

Everything I know about serial killers came from books and articles I read a few years back. Sorry to say I cannot remember all the titles though I do believe a few were titled something along the line of, America’s Most Terrifying, The Serial Killers of the World, The Evils that could have Never Been, Ed Gein: A Thorough Mental Depiction of the Man who Influenced America’s take on Serial Killer, Analysis of of the Mind of Gein. I am not sure if these titles are exact, and I know that this is only a sample of what I read. I hope these guesstimated titles help you dig up what I did (hahaha there was a reason that kids in high school were split on voting me to either be Most Likely to be a Serial Killer/Mass Murderer, or Most Likely to be the Most Successful).

Hahaha, thing is I prefer playing the prosecution over the defense any day of the week. Though if I get to play the Devil’s Advocate, I may not mind too much…

@Winters

“BUT Multiple Personality Disorder is a legitimate reason.”

It might have been a legitimate reason for Gein if he had killed his mother, but not for killing an innocent person or innocent people.

Except that it was technically his mother who killed all of them, that personality killed them, not his own.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein#cite_note-1 , “After police found body parts in his house in 1957, Gein confessed to killing two women: tavern owner Mary Hogan in 1954, and a Plainfield hardware store owner, Bernice Worden, in 1957. Initially found unfit to stand trial, following confinement in a mental health facility, he was tried in 1968 for the murder of Worden and sentenced to life imprisonment, which he spent in a mental hospital.”

Although Gein’s mother treated him horribly, she was never implicated in those murders, never told him to kill Bernice or Mary, and died about 9 years before Gein killed Mary.

As you said, Gein had MPD, meaning that those personalities were his, not his mother’s.

Apparently the mental health authorities realized this, and confined Gein to a mental institution for life.

I am well aware that he was put into a mental institution, however that does not keep me from finding it very hypocritical that the court of law still tried to get him the death sentence. Humans are pathetic characters. Anyways, sure they were his MPD, but NO ONE has control over their own MPD without professional help. Believe me there is no way he could have been held truly responsible for what another completely different personality did. Get MPD and then we can talk.

What was hypocritical about the authorities seeking the death penalty for Gein?

It was one of Gein’s personalities, so he should be held responsible for it.

Apparently Shirley Ardell Mason had MPD, and she didn’t kill anybody.

Look, regardless of what disorder a human has, he still has a fucking choice. Humans are not unaccountable for their actions. If you kill someone in a drunk blackout (hey, they say alcoholism is just a disease), you are still accountable.

Yeah, but you had a choice about getting drunk. You don’t get a fucking choice about what your MPD is going to be like or whether or not you get it. Don’t compare choosing to be a drunken mess to having MPD. Sure there may be “accountability” but Gein needed mental and emotional help, not a fucking damn death sentence. Then again, I guess maybe I’m an exception when it comes to wanting to execute someone who is mentally 10 years old and suffering from a dependent personality disorder and MPD, guess the world has changed a shitload in the 10 weeks I was hospitalized. And don’t use the “oh, someone else had MPD, and they didn’t kill anyone,” how MPD develops in its victims is by taking in EVERYTHING that is occurring/occurred to the person and any deeply ingrained emotions that may be involved that the individual is pushed to so desperate of measures to try and run from it. If anything, the best way to hold “ACCOUNTA-FUCKING-BILITY” would be to give the person to the greatest extent the help they would need to quell the MPD. And if you have a damn issue with that, then it can come out of their own wallet/insurance instead of the taxpayer’s dollar.