Most Notorious Serial Killers

Dennis Nilsen

 

Taking the lives of 15 boys and men over a five year period from 1978 to 1983, some being homeless, others who he met in pubs, Nilsen’s first victim’s fate was sealed on 29th December 1978 when he was invited to go to Nilsen’s garden flat after meeting him in a London pub.

In an effort to stop the man from leaving the next morning, Nilsen strangled him with a tie whilst he was still sleeping, before drowning him. He then proceeded to wash the victim prior to disposing of the body under the floorboards, something he came to use regularly, along with wardrobes, basin units and garden sheds.

By 1981, Nilsen had killed 12 people at his current flat and in 1982 he moved to a top floor flat in Muswell Hill, London. This flat meant that when he killed again – and he would, a further 3 times – he would have to find another way of disposing of the bodies.

To solve his problem, he took to boiling the heads of his victims and after dissecting the bodies into small pieces, he then incredibly either disposed of the parts in bags or flushed them down the toilet. Fortunately for the public, this was to be his downfall, as the human entrails blocked the drains and one of the other tenants at the address called a drain specialist company to investigate.

What the operative found gave him cause to contact the police who, on the evening of 9th February 1983, arrested Nilsen. His trial began on 24th October 1983 and 11 days later the man who became known as the ‘Muswell Hill Murderer’ was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 25 years.  He remains in HMP Full Sutton maximum security prison.

Luis Alfredo Garavito

 

Known as ‘La Bestia’ (‘The Beast’), Luis Alfredo Garavito is thought to be the worst serial killer in the world, as in a relatively short period of time between 1992 and 1998, he took the lives of 172 children, with the youngest being just 6 years old.

Garavito would find his victims – mostly street kids or peasant children – and make friends with them by giving them a small amount of cash or small gifts. He would take his new made friends for a walk away from prying eyes and brutally rape them before cutting their throats, torturing and dismembering them.

Found guilty of the murder of 138 of his 172 victims in 1999, which brought him a total jail sentence of 1,853 years, because of Columbian legal restrictions, the most that he could be imprisoned for was 30 years.

What’s more, as he assisted the authorities in locating the bodies, his sentence was shortened to only 22 years, meaning that in reality, La Bestia will serve around 58 days for each of the 138 poor children’s lives he so cruelly took.

Fred and Rose West

The house of 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, UK, may sound like a house in any other UK town, but it is the location where Fred West and his wife, Rose, lived and carried out the majority of the murders of at least 11 girls and young women between May 1973 and September 1979.

Involving the victims being tortured before being raped and ultimately murdered, they were then buried in the garden, under the patio or in fields in nearby Kempley village.

All of this came to light as a result of West filming himself raping one of his daughters in May 1992. The daughter told a friend, who told her mother and the mother contacted the police, who in turn began an investigation in August 1992. Unbelievably, the case collapsed.

However, after hearing about a joke concerning another of West’s daughters and her being buried under the patio, the police obtained a warrant to dig up the garden. Starting on 24th February 1994, the following day human bones were uncovered and Fred West was immediately arrested.

Both Fred and Rose West appeared in court on 30th June 1994 charged with 11 and 10 murders respectively, although Fred West was also later charged with another murder on the 3rd July 1994.

Fred West hanged himself whilst he was on remand at Winson Green Prison on New Year’s Day 1995, but Rose West continues to be an inmate at HMP Low Newton, Durham, UK.

 Yang Xinhai

Dubbed ‘The Monster Killer’ by the media, Yang Xinhai took the lives of 67 people and raped over 20 in China between 1999 and 2003. He would creep into the homes of his victims under the cover of darkness and brutally murder them using tools such as meat cleavers, axes and hammers.  His notoriety made him the most prolific serial killer that the country had ever known.

The police were keen to apprehend Xinhai and as they were carrying out routine investigations in local clubs in Cangzhou Hebei, he was arrested as they believed he appeared to be acting in a suspicious manner.

From his initial arrest, police discovered that Xinhai was wanted for murder in 4 provinces and further to interviewing, he confessed to 67 murders, 23 rapes and 5 attacks.

Found guilty of all 67 murders and 23 rapes, Yang Xinahi was executed by firing squad on February 14th 2004.

Steve Wright

 In little under six weeks between 31st October and 10th December 2006, Steve Wright murdered five women, all of whom were prostitutes in or around Ipswich, Suffolk, UK. Their naked bodies, found at several different locations in the area, showed no signs of any sexual assault, but the cause of death of two was certified as by asphyxiation.

Police officers from other forces around the country were seconded to help find the person responsible for these horrendous crimes and the investigation, codenamed Operation Sumac, eventually resulted in the arrest of Wright on 19th December. He was charged on the 21st December 2006 with the murder of all five women.

Wright’s trial began over a year later on 14th February 2008 and despite pleading to the contrary, on the 21st February 2008 he was found guilty of the murder of all five women. Sentenced the following day to life imprisonment, this included the recommendation – because of the substantial degree of pre-meditation and planning involved – that he should never be released.

Gary Ridgway

This 3 times married American, with a deep rooted hatred of prostitutes, is suspected of killing more than 90 over a 2 decade span. He would proposition them, drive them down to the banks of the Green River area and have them remove all of their clothing. It was then that he struck and strangled them to death.

Dumping the first 5 bodies nearby – hence the nickname ‘The Green River Killer’ – he carried out sexual acts on the dead corpses to satisfy himself, sometimes returning to the scene on several occasions.

Ridgway was questioned about the murders on several occasions, but was never at any time detained. Fortunately, his luck ran out on 30th November 2001, when he was arrested – due to DNA evidence – for the murders of 4 of the 5 women.

Charged with killing 71, to which he pleaded guilty to 48, this conviction found him facing 48 life sentences with no parole and the only reason he avoided the death sentence was the due to the fact that he told police the whereabouts of the unfound bodies.

Colin Ireland

Known as the ‘Gay Slayer’, as the five men Ireland strangled after picking them up in pubs were all homosexual, it is said that he told police he had decided to become a serial killer as a New Year resolution for 1993.

The unemployed Ireland began his killings in The Coleherne in West London, a pub which was part of the London gay scene. With the clientele wearing colour coded handkerchiefs as an indication of their sexual preferences and preferred roles, it was ideal for Ireland, as he could simply pick up the men who preferred the more passive role and sadomasochism.

After Ireland killed, he meticulously cleaned the victims flat to remove any evidence of him being there and even stayed until the next day with the body to avoid being seen leaving in the middle of the night. At the flat of one of his victims, however, he slipped up and left finger prints which would tie him to the murder.

The police charged him with two murders and Ireland confessed to the other three while he was in prison awaiting his trial. On the 20th December 1993, Ireland was found guilty of all five murders, receiving a life sentence for each, later to be changed to a whole of life tariff.

Colin Ireland died on 21st February 2012, while serving his sentence at Wakefield prison.

Andrei Chikatilo

This Ukrainian serial killer earned the nicknames ‘The Red Ripper’, ‘The Rostov Ripper’ and probably the most nerve-wracking, ‘The Butcher of Rostov’, due to the way Chikatilo killed and what he did to his victims afterwards.

Confessing to 56 murders – all children and women – each and every one was ruthlessly tortured before being stabbed, strangled or drowned. When his victims were dead, he would mutilate their genitalia before eating some of their flesh and drinking their blood.

In October 1992, Chikatilo was charged with 53 murders and although he confessed to 56, he was only ever convicted of 52. This conviction carried the death sentence and Andrei Chikatilo was duly executed in February 1994.

Moses Sithole

Known as the ‘ABC Killer’, this South African serial killer he started his murders in Atteridgeville, before moving onto Boksburg and finally the Johannesburg suburb of Cleveland. In total, Sithole killed 38 women in 1994 and 1995, largely by passing himself off as a business man and offering them the prospect of employment.

On the pretext that his victims were going to his business office, he lured them to a quiet location where his true intention came to light, first raping before torturing and murdering. To add insult to injury, in some of the cases he perversely called the victim’s family and taunted them.

When the police caught up with him, he attacked them wielding an axe, for which he was shot twice and wounded. At the end of his trial on December 5th 1997, Sithole was sentenced to a grand total of 2,410 years in jail, having to serve 930 years before becoming eligible for parole.

While there’s no one who would argue five or ten serial killers is five too many, unfortunately, the world – both at present and throughout history – has seen a vast number of serial killers ...