10 of The Most Notorious Serial Killers The World Has Ever Seen

1. The Zodiac Killer - One of the famous Serial Killers. The killer fashioned this name for himself in taunting letters he sent to the Bay Area Press. He left ciphers to be decoded and out of the four he sent, only one was definitely solved. The killer operated in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His last letter said Me- 37 and SFPD San Francisco Police Dept.- 0. He claimed to have killed 37 victims but the newspapers confirmed only 7. The case file is still open.

2. Donald Henry Gaskins The Hitchhikers’ Killer - Gaskins has claimed to have killed between 80 to 90 people by torturing and mutilating them. He started killing in 1969, picking up hitchhikers on the coastal highways of the American South. A criminal associate witnessed him killing two young men and confessed to the police. He was sentenced to death which was later turned to life imprisonment without any parole. Gaskins added another murder to his name and became the only man to have ever killed an inmate on death row.

3. Tsutomu Miyazaki The Human Dracula - He is also one of the most famous serial killers. He got more names due to his hideous acts. Some of them were The Otaku Murderer, The Little Girl Murderer or Dracula Miyazaki. The reason for this being that he abducted little girls, killed them and indulged in sexual activities with their corpses. On one occasion, he not only drank the victim’s blood but ate her hand as well. He also preserved body parts as trophies and sent postcards to the families describing the murder. His father committed suicide and Miyazaki was hanged in 2008, aged 45.

4. Ted Bundy The Crazy Necrophile - Ted Bundy was an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, and necrophile. He operated in various states in the USA and confessed to killing 30 women. He revisited crime scenes and indulged in sexual acts with the corpses. Bundy decapitated at least 12 victims and kept their heads as trophies in his apartment. Aged 42, Bundy died on the electric chair in 1989. His own defence attorney said, “Ted, was the very definition of heartless evil.”

5. Jack the Ripper aka Whitechapel Murder - The real killers or killer were never identified. The name came into being because the victims had organs missing and judging by procedure the killer seemed to have surgical experience. Jack the Ripper who was later believed to be a single person killed female prostitutes in the slums of London between 1888-91.

6. Luis Garavito The Beast - Also dubbed by the media as the Le Bestia The Beast, the Colombian is probably one of the world’s worst serial killers. He confessed to the torture, rape and murder of 147 young boys. But the number is believed to be over 300. He was found guilty on 139 counts, which should amount to 1,853 years in prison. But Columbian law limits it to 30, which is what he was sentenced to in 1999. He may be released earlier for cooperation and good behaviour.

7. Ahmad Suradji The Sorcerer - The cattle-breeder from Indonesia admitted to killing 42 girls and women between 1986 to 1997. As a part of his ritual, he used to bury them waist deep. Bodies were found in a sugarcane field with their heads facing his house, which he believed would give him more power. Suradji was sentenced to death by a firing squad in 2008.

8. Alexander Pichushkin The Chessboard Killer - He was also known as the ‘Chessboard Killer’ and the ‘Bitsa Park Maniac’. His targets were homeless men whom he lured to his house with vodka. He is believed to have killed 49 people, most of them with repeated hammer blows to their heads and inserted a vodka bottle into the gaping skull wound. He initially said he wanted to complete the number of squares on a chessboard and kill 64 people. Also, it is believed that he was in competition with another Russian serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 for 53 killings. It was the very same year Alexander started killing.

9. Andrei Chikatilo The Butcher - Andrei, the Butcher of Rostov, said, “When I used my knife, it brought psychological relief. I know I have to be destroyed. I was a mistake of nature.” He was responsible for sexually assaulting, killing and mutilating 53 women and children between 1978 and 1990 in Russia. After being captured in 1992, he was ordered to be killed by a firing squad in 1994.

10. Charles Edmund Cullen The Angel Of Death - Cullen worked as a nurse in many hospitals but kept switching jobs as he was fired for suspicious behaviour from many of them. He confessed to murdering 40 elderly patients in New Jersey from 1984 to 2003. He did this by poisoning his patients to death with unprescribed medication. He stated that he wanted to relieve the patients from their suffering much like an angel would. Experts say he had more than 300 victims. Cullen has been imprisoned for life.