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Dennis Lynn Rader, born on March 9th, 1945, was the BTK Killer. The letters “BTK” stood for “bind, torture, and kill.” Rader was an active serial killer in Wichita, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. During his youth, Rader hanged cats, reportedly. However, other than that, he led a normal life, joining the Air Force and marrying a woman named Paula. He even had children. In 1974, he would begin work for ADT Security Services. This year also marked the first of Rader’s murders. He killed the Oteros, taking a watch and a radio. In April of the same year, he killed Kathryn Bright and attempted to kill her brother, who survived the attack. Despite this eyewitness account, Rad…

On March 13, 1933, Donald Gaskins was born in Florence County, South Carolina. At a young age, Gaskins was teased and given the nickname “Pee Wee” as a result of his small body frame. Violence and ridicule followed him from his home where his stepfather beat him to his school where he fought with the other kids daily. This would ultimately lead to him becoming the most prolific serial killer in South Carolina. At age 11, Gaskins quit school and began working on cars at a local garage. While working there, he met two boys, Danny and Marsh. They were all around the same age and out of school, so they teamed up and called themselves “The Trouble Trio.” The trio burglarize…

On May 15, 1998, Donato Bilancia, confessed to a string of slayings in the Italian Riviera, saying he was mentally ill, suddenly flipped and could not explain his 90-day long serial killing spree. He spent seven hours through the night smoking and confessing to the magistrate in charge of his case to the tune of 18 murders, 15 of them since October. "He expressly asked for treatment because he is not able to realise what he has done. He cannot explain to himself what happened: something suddenly went off in him," the lawyer said. The confessed killer, who was arrested May 6, added that he had acted alone and on his own initiative. Prosecutors in Genoa said they now have e…

Dorothea Puente was a convicted serial killer who ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California in the 1980s. Puente cashed in the Social Security checks of the elderly and disabled boarders living in her house. Many of them ended up dead and buried in the boarding house’s yard. In April 1982, Puente’s friend and business partner, Ruth Monroe, began to rent out a space in an apartment she owned. Shortly after moving in, Monroe died from an overdose of codeine and Tylenol. When she was questioned by police, Puente said that Monroe had become depressed because of her husband’s illness. Police officially ruled the death a suicide. Several weeks later, 74-year-old Malcolm…

Elias Xitavhudzi murdered 16 women and men in Sunnyside and Magnolia Dale (Gauteng Province) in the 1960’s. As he murdered only white males and females in the strictly isolated “apartheid-era”, his murderous reign caused communal concern on both sides of the race spectrum. Waiting for his victims at various “lovers-lane” spots, he would accost the unsuspecting couple and brutally murder them. Shortly before his arrest, he acquired the nickname “Pangaman” (panga being a local word for the machete/long broad-bladed knife he used to hack his victims). Being swiftly tried and convicted of the murders in November of 1960 he was sentenced to death by hanging. Click here to v…

Known as South Africa's "Axe Killer", Elifasi Msomi, was hanged in Pretoria in January 1956 after being convicted of hacking 15 people to death. Msomi blamed his victims' deaths on the "tokoloshe" which, he said, would appear on his shoulder and order him to kill. He killed mostly in the Unkomaas and Umzimkuku valleys in Natal. Posing as a doctor, Elifasi charmed his victims into willingly going off with him. A Zulu man, Msomi was an unsuccessful young sangoma (shaman). Seeking professional assistance, he consulted with another sangoma. Msomi claims that during this exchange he was co-opted by an evil sprite, a tokoloshe. In August 1953, under the instruction of the to…

Little is known of Enriqueta Martí i Ripollés before she arrived in Barcelona in the early years of the 19th Century. What is known is that she did not arrive alone. She brought with her a brutal penchant for survival and an equally fierce desire to rise above a poverty that she would soon sadistically twist to her advantage. She preyed on young children from Barcelona’s destitute Raval Quarter. She would prostitute them to the pedophiles and deviants who had for so long protected and frequented her brothels. She could at once appear impoverished, dressed in rags to entice her prey and then as evening fell, attend the lavish galas of the El Liceu (Barcelona Opera House) a…

Francisco Antonio Laureana was an Argentine serial killer who raped and murdered 13 women in a six-month period from 1974 to 1975. He would strangle his victims and occasionally shoot them with a handgun. He was killed in a shootout with police on February 27, 1975. A composite sketch had been made of him by a man he had shot at after fleeing from a murder. Laureana was married and had three children. Click here to view the article

One of the most infamous vampire related mass murderers was Fritz Haarmann (1879-1925), who with his two accomplices was responsible for the deaths of at least twenty and as many as fifty young men. He was known as a vampire because of his cannibalism and habit of biting his victims in the throat. Born to a working-class couple in Hanover, Germany, Fritz was a sullen and slow-witted child whose favorite pastime was dressing up like a girl. At 17, he was committed to an asylum after being arrested for child molesting. Six months later, he escaped to Switzerland and made his way back to Hanover. Throughout his twenties, he was in and out of jail for offenses ranging from be…

Gary Leon Ridgway is famous for being the serial killer who has admitted to more murders than anyone else. He is linked to the deaths of 48 young women, most of who were strangled to death around the Seattle and Tacoma, Washington areas. It took nearly 20 years for Ridgway to be caught and brought to justice. He committed the majority of his murders between 1982 and 1983, during which time the bodies of many of his victims were found near Green River in Washington. This earned the then unknown assailant the title of “the Green River Killer.” Police officers discovered the bodies of many of Ridgeway’s victims naked along the river bank. They were often placed together in g…

Genene Ann Jones, born July 13th, 1950, is a female serial killer who worked as a pediatric nurse in Texas. She killed an unknown number of children (estimates suggest 46 at the highest) via poison. She is also known as an “Angel of Death” for her style of killing. Jones would inject digoxin, heparin, and other drugs to create a medical situation in a patient. She had meant to revive them, but many children did not survive the damage inflicted initially by the poisons. Jones aroused suspicion in Kerrville, near San Antonio, when a doctor found a puncture in a bottle of newly-diluted succinylcholine. The final straw came, however, when Chelsea McClellan, a baby, died after…

Gennady Mikhasevich does not fit the profile of the typical serial killer. He lived a relatively normal life, even after he began killing. Born in 1947, he spent time serving in the Soviet army, married and had two children, and was an active participant in the Communist Party and other volunteer organizations. The turning point, if Mikhasevich is to be believed, was after he left the army and returned home to find his girlfriend at the time had left him and remarried. He was planning on killing himself in May of 1971, even to the point of having a noose with him, when by chance he met a woman. His suicidal impulses instead turned murderous and he vented his anger by stra…

In 1928, southern California was booming. Agriculture and the movie industry had transformed this area into a lively metropolis. However a string of child abductions and murders in the small town of Wineville changed the views of the city. A man named Gordon Stewart Northcott kidnapped, sexually abused and murdered at least three, and possibly up to as many as twenty, young boys. It is believed that he had the help of his mother and his Canadian nephew to commit these crimes. On March 10, 1928, Walter Collins disappeared. This nine-year-old boy was last seen around 5 pm by a neighbor at the corner of Pasadena Avenue and North Avenue 23 in Lincoln Heights, Los Angeles. …

Gwendolyn Graham, born August 6th, 1964, is an American serial killer. Graham was a nursing aide in Michigan’s Alpine Manor. Cathy Wood, who also worked at the nursing home, befriended Graham, in 1986. Soon after, they became lovers. In the relationship, Graham was dominant over Wood, in all ways. However, Wood was not innocent. Together, the two created a terrible plan, based in their love. They would murder people whose initials would spell “murder.” They soon abandoned the spelling plan, but the murders continued as Graham tried to prove the love that she had for Wood. However, Wood and Graham parted ways soon after. Wood, feeling guilty, told her ex-husband about the …

Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi was a Moroccan serial killer who was found to have killed at least 36 women. He was a cobbler and public letter writer. The bodies of 26 women were found under his shop and an additional ten were found buried on property owned by Mesfewi. He was aided by a 70-year-old female accomplice named Rahali, also reported as Annah, during the course of the murders. They would lure young women to dinner, administer a narcotic, and then murder them in their sleep. The victims were then robbed of any valuables they possessed and subsequently buried. They were also mutilated with a dagger. Click here to view the article

In 1861, Herman Webster Mudgett was born in New Hampshire. It is said that at an early age he was fascinated with skeletons and soon became obsessed with death. It may have been this interest that led him to pursue medicine. After graduating high school at 16, Mudgett changed his name to Henry Howard Holmes, and later in life would be known as H.H. Holmes. Holmes studied medicine at a small school in Vermont before being accepted into the University of Michigan Medical School. While enrolled in medical school, Holmes stole cadavers from the laboratory, burned or disfigured them, and then planted the bodies making it look as if they had been killed in an accident. The scan…

Born into a strict Roman Catholic family, Herbert Mullin began life on April 18, 1947 in Fenton, California. Herbert was a good child, excelling in school quickly and was voted “most likely to succeed” by his high school chums. He was athletic, fit, and very handsome, always helpful and polite to others. His only strange distinction was his oddly close relationship with his best friend Dean Richardson. Just out of high school, at 17, Herbert became engaged to his longtime girlfriend, intending to begin a life with children and a little household. At 18, Herbert’s life suddenly crumbled when Dean was killed in a car accident. Devoted deeply to Dean, Herbert mourned th…

Hua Ruizhuo was a Chinese serial killer who was convicted of killing 14 female prostitutes from July 1998 to June 2001 in Chaoyang District, Beijing. He picked his victims up from the The Great Wall Sheraton Hotel in Beijing, handcuffed them in his van, raped them, beat them to death and left their bodies in garbage dumps. He began killing when he discovered that his girlfriend was a prostitute. He was executed by a single gunshot to the head on January 31, 2002. Click here to view the article

Huang Yong was a Chinese serial killer accused of murdering 17 teenage boys, although he is suspected of 25 murders, between September 2001 and 2003.In 2003, Huang Yong confessed to murdering 25 young men and boys. His motive: He wanted to know what it felt like to be an assassin. He specifically targeted young males, because older men were too vigilant and killing females would make him less of a “hero.” He began killing in September 2001 by luring boys from video halls and Internet cafes to his house under the guise of getting them jobs or funding their education. He would tie them to a noodle processing machine he called the “intelligent hobbyhorse” before suffocating …

Irina Gaidamachuk, a 41-year-old mother of two in the remote Urals region town of Krasnovfimsk, had a big thirst for vodka. But her husband Yury wouldn't give her money to buy the drink. So, Irina decided to earn it herself. From 2003 until June 2010, Gaidamachuk, by posing as a social worker, gained entry into the flats of women living on government pensions. Using this ruse, she used a hammer to smash the skulls of 17 women between the ages 61 and 89. Each murder brought a small amount of cash from the victims's purses. Following Gaidamachuk's arrest in June 2010, the accused serial killer confessed that she had murdered these women for vodka money. At her trial in…

Jack Mogale because he lured, raped and killed women at a factory near his home, was found guilty in the Johannesburg High Court on 52 of 61 charges. Judge Frans Kgomo found Mogale guilty of nine kidnappings, 19 rapes, 16 murders, an attempted murder, three robberies with aggravating circumstances, a fraud or theft, an assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, a sexual assault and an escape from lawful custody. Mogale (42) had pleaded not guilty to all the charges. He continually testified that police, witnesses and his common-law wife Charlotte Manaka were conspiring against him. Kgomo dismissed this claim as “far-fetched” and “fallacious”. Dubbed the “West-End …

Jake Bird was a convicted murdererand self-confessed serial killer. He started roaming in his nineteenth year and never settled anywhere for long, spending much of his time as a manual laborer and "gandy dancer" on various railroads. It was backbreaking work, but it built up Jake's strength and kept him in motion, trolling for human targets. By the time of his arrest in 1947, he would claim a body-count approaching one victim for each year of his life. On October 30, 1947, Bird was prowling through Tacoma, Washington, when he stopped at the home occupied by Bertha Kludt, 52, and her teenage daughter Beverly. Finding an ax in the woodshed, Bird reportedly stripped off his …

Jane Toppan, born 1857, was a serial killer in Massachusetts. She was born Honora Kelley. Toppan’s life goal was to “have killed more people – helpless people – than any other man or woman who ever lived.” Indeed, she killed at least thirty-one patients, although confessed to having killed more than one hundred. Toppan was a nurse who worked as a type of female serial killer known as an “angel of death.” She injected patients with morphine, and killed them via these injections. Toppan’s murderous career was discovered in 1901 when a family whose mother was friends with Jane – the Davis family. The mother died first while visiting Toppan. Shortly after, one daughter died a…

Jeffrey Dahmer, an American serial killer and sex offender, was born on May 21, 1960. Between the years of 1978 and 1991, Dahmer murdered 17 males. Rape, dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism were involved in his murders. He was beaten to death on November 28, 1994 by an inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution, where he had been incarcerated. By most accounts Dahmer had a normal childhood; however he became withdrawn and uncommunicative as he got older. He began showing little to no interest in hobbies or social interaction around the ages of 10 to 15. Dead animals became an interest of his and he also started drinking heavily during his high school years…

Jimmy Maketta is a South African rapist and serial killer who in 2007 plead guilty and was convicted on 16 counts of murder, 19 counts of rape.A state psychologist described him as a psychopath. Maketta described how, from April to December 2005, he would attack farm labourers from a hill on Friday evenings near the township of Philippi, Cape Town. Click here to view the article