What was the worst serial killer in history

He also raped, dismembered, and sometimes even ate his victims. Although Dahmer certainly would have been executed for his deranged crimes, he was beaten to death in prison in Fish was tried and found guilty of raping, killing, and cannibalizing three children in the early s. The letter detailed how he had lured the little girl, strangled her, and then cut her in to pieces to eat over the course of nine days. He would lure them to his home, kill them via either strangulation or asphyxiation, then bury them on his property.

Gacy was executed in May Jack the Ripper may be a name that everyone knows, but no one can be certain of his true identity. Whoever he or she really was, Jack the Ripper was definitely deranged.

In , Jack terrorized the Whitechapel neighborhood of London by slitting the throats and abdomens of at least five prostitutes and leaving them for dead. German serial killer Joachim Kroll murdered at least 14 people, including young children, between and After strangling his victims with his bare hands, Kroll would have sex with their corpses, then cut them up in pieces to eat.

Interestingly, Kroll was finally caught after a neighbor complained about a back up in the plumbing. The pipes were clogged with human guts. But despite an extensive search for the elusive Zodiac Killer, the person responsible for these crimes remains uncaptured. Over the years, suspects have come and gone, and many advances have been made in the case, but no arrests have ever been made.

Most recently, one of the Zodiac's ciphers has been solved by amateur code crackers - an incredible 51 years after it was originally sent to police. You can check out our Zodiac Killer cipher shirt here. Widely considered to be America's first serial killer, H. Holmes was a businessman and con artist in addition to being a murderous fiend.

In the late s, Holmes built a hotel commonly referred to as ' the Murder Castle ' to appease his twisted desires. Holmes's establishment was less of a hotel and more like Satan's den. Inside he built soundproof and airtight rooms, mazes of hallways seemingly leading nowhere, chutes which dropped into acid vats, torture rooms and even a crematorium.

Read next: 9 currently active unsolved serial killer cases. His plan was to kill, dismember and then sell the body parts and organs to medical schools. Holmes was caught after a failed insurance scam and was sentenced to death. He was hanged in Kemper, known as the Co-ed Killer , terrorized California throughout the s and 70s, abducting and killing college girls and hitchhikers.

Once secluded, Kemper would strangle his victims in his car, take them home and dismember their corpses. To conclude his reign of terror, Kemper killed his own mother and buried her head in his back garden.

Bizarrely, Kemper handed himself in to authorities. To say Albert Fish was a disturbed individual would be an understatement. Fish also had a penchant for extreme sado-masochism.

In the hours before his execution, Fish penned his final statement, resulting in several pages of handwritten notes. More famously known as the Green River Killer , Gary Ridgway amassed one of the highest serial killer body counts in U.

Ridgway focussed on sex workers and runaways, luring them into his car under the pretense of sleeping with them and then strangling them. He then disposed of their bodies in and around the Green River in Washington. Over the years, police discovered body parts and skeletal remains in the Green River, prompting the theory that a serial killer may have been using the area as a dumping ground. DNA evidence later linked Ridgway to several of the killings. It's widely believed that, in addition to the murders he was convicted for, Ridgway could have killed many more.

He also made our list of Washington State serial killers. We hope you enjoyed this list of the top serial killers! Who are we missing from the list? Let us know in the comments! Are you a true crime junkie?

Check out our collection of limited edition true crime clothing! Robert Rhoades the truck stop killer. He was 57 at the time. His regime spanned 15 years, starting in , Ludke was caught near the end of World War II by Nazi police, after they allegedly discovered him committing necrophilia on the corpse of one of his recently-deceased victims.

He subsequently confessed to a number of crimes and was declared insane, being sent to a hospital in Vienna where he was subjected to medical experiments which resulted in his death by lethal injection in Even after his sterilization due to having been previously caught molesting a young woman, he continued to assault and then murder a number of other women, often by stabbing and strangulation.

Originally confessing to thousands of murders with his accomplice, Ottis Toole, police then subsequently attributed roughly murder cases to his name although only 4 were ever solidly proven to have been committed by him, one of which included his own abusive mother , thanks to the information they garnered from Lucas. He was apprehended in and was then sentenced to death, but bizarrely enough, his sentence was commuted to life in prison by the then-Governor George W.

Many people believe that Lucas had simply been toying with the police, testing them, maybe hoping to embarrass them somehow, just to see how far he could go. Gein had an abusive childhood, and his alcoholic father and psychotic mother were not the best role models.

His family eventually died, and he was left alone in their house, turning a part of his home into a shrine dedicated to his mother. He even made a "woman suit" that would make him become like his mother. Police discovered numerous exhumed corpses at his property, as well as the trophies he made from their bones and skin.

Gein confessed to killing two women and was later declared insane, eventually dying at a mental health institute.

Belle Sorenson Gunness killed several of her boyfriends, husbands, and even children, all because of life insurance money. This Norwegian-American serial killer was active between the years and The authorities found her body in the fire remains in her family farmhouse, along with at least 11 additional people.

She was pronounced dead, but many speculate she framed her death and escaped. Bundy's victims were females. He would kidnap them, rape them and dismember them, sometimes even keeping their heads as souvenirs. He was executed in after he admitted murdering 30 victims. Richard Ramirez was notorious for breaking into people's homes in Los Angeles and murdering them with a variety of weapons that included handguns, knives, and even a tire iron.