Unimaginable, horrific and unlawful acts have been committed by serial criminals, especially killers, throughout history.
Surrounding the murderous rampages that have occurred, there is much horror and mystery intertwined. Years after their crimes and convictions, certain individuals, like Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, have become a common conversation among true-crime followers and featured on podcasts. Their lives are the focal point of documentaries, scripted films, books, television shows and more.
These are some of the most notorious serial killers in history.
John Wayne Gacy is one of the most well-known serial killers in history. (Bureau of Prisons/Getty Images)
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- Jack the Ripper
- Jeffrey Dahmer
- Harold Shipman
- H.H. Holmes
- Ted Bundy
- Richard Ramirez
- Pedro Alonso López
- Albert Fish
- John Wayne Gacy
1. Jack the Ripper
Jack the Ripper killed at least five women between August and November 1888. On Aug. 31, 1888, Jack the Ripper claimed his first victim, Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, 43. She was last seen around 2:30 a.m. and her body was found on the street just over an hour later by a delivery driver who thought her body was a tarp.
The identity of the person who committed the murders remains unknown to this day, and the killings are some of the most famous unsolved mysteries to date.
The mutilated bodies of five sex workers, the “canonical five,” were found near the Whitechapel district of London’s East End.
Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly were all killed by the person who is now known by the pseudonym Jack the Ripper.
2. Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer was a convicted killer who took the lives of 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991.
Jeffrey Dahmer was killed in prison while serving his sentence of 15 consecutive life terms. (Curt Borgwardt/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)
Dahmer found most of his victims at bars and bus stops, according to the New York Times, and lured them to his home with promises of alcohol, money or posing for nude photography.
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After lacing victims’ drinks with drugs, he strangled them to death, consuming and storing the remains. An investigation led police to an apartment full of preserved human heads, body parts and photographs of mutilated men.
While serving his 15 life terms in prison, he was killed by inmate Christopher Scarver in 1994.
Several television shows and movies have been made about Dahmer. In 2022, a Netflix television series was released called “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” In the show, Evan Peters plays the killer.
During Dahmer’s 1992 trial, Tracy Edwards described how he escaped Dahmer and how the killer “was listening to my heart” at knife point. His story is described in the first episode of the series.
“At that point, he told me he was going to eat my heart,” Edwards told the court.
In 2023, Fox Nation produced “My Son Jeffrey: The Dahmer Family Tapes,” a four-episode docuseries featuring police and a high school friend of the serial killer.
3. Harold Shipman
Harold Shipman was a doctor who was believed to have killed at least 215 of his patients by injecting them with lethal doses of painkillers, according to Biography.com.
Shipman was a married man and father of four. His murderous acts were left unnoticed until the daughter of his last victim, Kathleen Grundy, brought a suspicious will to the police.
Shipman had forged the will, leaving Grundy’s money and estate to him. When Grundy’s body was exhumed, there was heroin found in her remains, according to the New York Times.
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He was first convicted of murdering 15 elderly patients. Further investigation unveiled that the doctor was responsible for 250 deaths, according to the Associated Press. While he was in prison throughout the investigations, he maintained his innocence, according to Biography.com.
Shipman was found dead in his Wakefeld, England, prison cell on Jan. 13, 2004, after hanging himself.
4. H.H. Holmes
H.H. Holmes, born Herman Webster Mudgett, admitted to the murder of at least 27 people, according to Smithsonian Magazine, but it’s suspected that the man was responsible for more than 200 deaths.
Most of the murders were committed in Holmes’ “Murder Castle,” a three-story hotel into which Holmes lured his victims. The castle stood during the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago as millions came to the city.
H.H. Holmes lured many of his victims into what was known as the “Murder Castle.” (Chicago History Museum/Getty Images)
According to the Crime Museum, the castle was built with chutes, elevators, trapdoors, peepholes and stairways leading to nowhere.
The basement served as his lab, which included a dissecting table, stretching rack and crematory.
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Holmes is widely thought to be America’s first serial killer. He was hung for his murderous acts in May 1896.
5. Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy was a convicted murderer who killed at least 30 women, but that number could have been higher.
Bundy’s killing spree went on from 1974 to 1978. His targets were often college girls. He lured in his victims through evoking sympathy. He often wore an arm sling or a leg cast, according to the Crime Museum. Impersonating authority was another common way he gained trust with his victims.
Once they reached his vehicle, Bundy would hit the women with a crowbar or pipe, handcuff them and throw them in the passenger side of his car, where he had removed the seat, according to the source.
He raped many of his victims, beat or strangled them and mutilated their bodies, per the Crime Museum.
Ted Bundy’s targets were often college girls. (Getty Images)
After his initial arrest in August 1975 for trying to flee from a police car, he was released but brought into custody again for kidnapping and assault.
While in custody, Bundy escaped twice, according to Biography.com. After his second escape in Colorado, he went to Florida, where he broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University and attacked four victims. Two of these women were killed.
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The killer was sentenced to death and died in the electric chair on Jan. 24, 1989.
There have been several movies made about Bundy, including “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” “No Man of God,” “The Deliberate Stranger” and “The Stranger Beside Me.”
6. Richard Ramirez
Richard Ramirez, known as “The Night Stalker,” went on a murderous rampage through California in 1984 and 1985.
Born in Texas, Ramirez is believed to be responsible for the deaths of at least 13. His first victim was 9-year-old Mei Leung, but this case wasn’t tied to him until 2009, according to The Independent.
Ramirez often left satanic symbols at the crime scenes. He was caught mainly through clues like fingerprints and footprints.
Richard Ramirez was a serial killer who took on the name “The Night Stalker.” (Getty Images)
The Night Stalker was convicted on 13 counts of murder, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults and 14 burglaries, according to The Independent. He was sentenced to death by gas chamber but died in 2013 before his execution.
7. Pedro Alonso López
Pedro Alonso López, also known as the “Monster of the Andes,” is a Colombian serial killer whose crimes occurred in Columbia, Peru and Ecuador.
López was first put in jail after stealing a car. He was arrested again in 1980. In July 1981, he pleaded guilty to 57 murders, according to Biography.com, but is believed to have murdered more than 300.
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After spending 14 years behind bars in Ambato, Ecuador, for a 16-year sentence, he was released for good behavior, according to Biography.com. He was deported to Colombia, where he was institutionalized and later set free.
8. Albert Fish
Albert Fish, known as “The Brooklyn Vampire” for cannibalizing and consuming human blood in his crimes, was found guilty after 10 days of trial, where he descriptively laid out the nature of his crimes. Fish was executed in 1936.
Fish’s targets were typically young boys. Even though he was believed to have killed 10, according to History.com, he was put on trial and convicted of young Gracie Budd’s murder, who he invited to accompany him to a birthday party. After accepting the offer, she never returned.
Albert Fish was convicted of murdering Gracie Budd, though he was believed to have killed 10 people in his life. (NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
Gracie’s family received a detailed handwritten note detailing her murder six years after her disappearance, which matched an earlier handwritten note they received from Fish, who was using the false name Frank Howard.
After many handwritten tests and detailed descriptions, detectives tracked down Fish and arrested him.
9. John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy, who often worked as “Pogo the Clown” at birthday parties, murdered 33 young men and boys throughout the Chicago area in the 1970s by luring them into his home, according to the Associated Press.
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It was December 1978, when police found a victim’s remains in a crawl space in his Chicago home, the Associated Press reported. In March 1980, he was convicted of killing 33 and was executed by lethal injection in 1994.
In the more recent years since his execution, more of his victims have been identified, the latest in 2021. However, there are still five victims whose identities are unknown, according to the Associated Press.
In 2021, there was a Peacock miniseries called “John Wayne Gacy: Devil in Disguise” about Gacy. It was reported by several outlets in February 2024 that the streaming service ordered a scripted series about the murderer.
Netflix put out a documentary about the killer in 2022 called “Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes.”