# List of serial killers by number of victims

A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, in two or more separate events over a period of time, for primarily psychological reasons. There are gaps of time between the killings, which may range from a few days to months, or many years.
This list shows all known serial killers from the 20th century to present day by number of victims, then possible victims, then date. For those from previous centuries, see List of serial killers before 1900. In many cases, the exact number of victims assigned to a serial killer is not known, and even if that person is convicted of a few, there can be the possibility that they killed many more.
Organization and ranking of serial killings is made difficult by the complex nature of serial killers and incomplete knowledge of the full extent of many killers' crimes. To address this, multiple categories have been provided in order to more accurately describe the nature of certain serial murders. This is not a reflection of an individual's overall rank, which may or may not vary depending on personal opinion concerning the nature and circumstances of their crimes. The fourth column in the table states the number of victims definitely assigned to that particular serial killer, and thus the table is in order of that figure. The fifth column states the number of possible victims the killer could have murdered. Some of these crimes are unsolved, but are included because they are the work of a serial killer, despite nobody being caught.
This list does not include mass murderers, spree killers, war criminals, members of democidal governments, or major political figures, such as Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Hideki Tojo, Suharto, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, or Pol Pot.

## Serial killers with the highest known victim count

Excluding these "Medical professionals and pseudo-medical professionals", with their ability to kill simply and in plain sight, and Serial killer groups and couples (below), this list is a compilation of modern serial killers currently with the highest verifiable murder count.
| Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
| Luis Garavito | Colombia Ecuador Venezuela | 1992–1999 | 193 | 194–300+ | Child-murderer, torture-killer, and rapist known as "La Bestia" ("The Beast"). Garavito confessed to killing 140 boys between six and sixteen years old, from October 1992 to April 1999 in Colombia and neighboring countries. He is suspected of murdering over 300 victims, mostly street children. Garavito was originally sentenced to 1,853 years in prison, but this was later reduced to 22 years, after he led police to many of the bodies of his victims. He was scheduled to become eligible for parole in 2023. He died on October 12, 2023. |
| Pedro López | Colombia Peru Ecuador | 1969–1980 | 110 | 300+ | Child-murderer and rapist, known as "The Monster of the Andes". López targeted young girls, between the ages of eight and twelve. Arrested in 1980 and convicted in 1983 of killing three young girls, but claimed to have killed hundreds. Despite being believed to be one of the most prolific serial killers of the twentieth century, he was released in the late 1990s. |
| Javed Iqbal | Pakistan | 1998–1999 | 100 | 100 | Child-murderer and rapist, known as "Kukri", Iqbal murdered 100 street children by strangling them and covering up his crimes by dissolving the bodies with acid. He was arrested in December 1999 after sending a letter to a newspaper, and was set to be executed in the manner described by the judge, who stated, "You will be strangled to death in front of the parents whose children you killed" and, "Your body will then be cut into 100 pieces and put in acid, the same way you killed the children." However, he died in custody before he could be executed. |
| Mikhail Popkov | Russia | 1992–2010 | 83 | 86+ | Serial rapist-killer nicknamed "The Werewolf", who was active for two decades in Angarsk, Irkutsk and Vladivostok. After being convicted of 22 murders in 2015, he confessed to an additional 59 murders, of which he was convicted of 56 in 2018. In July 2020, Popkov confessed to more killings, bringing the total number of admitted victims to 83. He was convicted of additional two killings in 2021 and another three in 2023. He was sentenced to life. |
| Daniel Camargo Barbosa | Colombia Ecuador Brazil (alleged) | 1974–1986 | 72 | 180 | Child and woman murderer, believed to have possibly raped and killed over 150 victims, primarily targeting female children, as they were more likely to be virgins. Confessed to killing 72 victims. He strangled young girls in Colombia and was arrested, but he escaped from prison, and started killing in Ecuador. He was rearrested in 1986, and was allegedly incarcerated in the same Ecuadorian prison as 300+ serial killer Pedro López. Camargo was killed in jail by the nephew of one of his victims. |
| Pedro Rodrigues Filho | Brazil | 1967–2003 | 71 | 100+ | Rodrigues Filho claimed to have killed over 100 victims, 47 of them inmates. He also killed his father (who had killed his mother) and ate a piece of his heart. He killed his first two victims at the age of 14. He was first arrested in 1973; he was convicted and sentenced to 128 years, but the maximum one can serve in Brazil is 30 years. He was released in 2018. He was murdered by two men in 2023. |
| Kampatimar Shankariya | India | 1977–1978 | 70 | 70+ | Shankariya was an Indian serial killer who used a hammer to kill over 70 men and women between 1978 and 1979. He was hanged in 1979; his last words were, "I have murdered in vain", he declared. "Nobody should become like me." |
| Hoshang Amini | Iran | 1954–1962 | 67 | 67 | Known as the "Ghost of the Qanat Wells". Murdered 67 people in the city of Varamin from 1954 to 1962, sometimes aided by accomplices. He earned his nickname by decapitating his victims post-mortem and then dumping their bodies into wells. |
| Yang Xinhai | China | 1999–2003 | 67 | 67 | Known as the "Monster Killer". Yang would enter victims' homes at night and kill using axes, meat cleavers, hammers, and shovels. He was executed by gunshot in 2004. |
| Abul Djabar | Afghanistan | 1970 and earlier | 65 | 300+ | Killed 65 men and boys by strangling them with turbans while raping them. Suspected of over 300 murders. Sentenced to death and hanged on October 21, 1970. |
| Samuel Little | United States | 1970–2005 | 60 | 93 | Little was convicted of killing three women, but later investigations linked 31 other murders to him. He claimed he killed as many as 93 victims total, three above his initial confession of 90; the FBI later confirmed a total of 60 murders linked to Little. The investigations into his crimes are ongoing. Sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on September 25, 2014. Died in prison on December 30, 2020, aged 80. |
| William Unek | Belgian Congo Tanganyika | 1954–1957 | 57 | 57 | Unek was a police constable who murdered 21 people with an axe in less than two hours before fleeing. Three years later, Unek, armed with rifle and axe, murdered 36 more people in the village of Malampaka before being mortally wounded by police with a smoke bomb that caught fire. |
| Mohammed Bijeh | Iran | 2002–2004 | 54 | 54 | Bijeh raped and killed at least 54 male children and teenagers. On November 27, 2004, he was sentenced to be executed. Bijeh said that if he was not arrested, he would kill 100 children. He was executed after being lashed in front of a crowd in 2005. |
| Andrei Chikatilo | Soviet Union | 1978–1990 | 53 | 56 | Known as "The Butcher of Rostov", "The Red Ripper" or "The Rostov Ripper". Chikatilo was convicted of the murder of 53 women and children between 1978 and 1990. One man was previously convicted and executed for his first murder. Chikatilo was executed by gunshot in 1994. |
| Anatoly Onoprienko | Soviet Union Ukraine | 1989–1996 | 52 | 52+ | Known as "The Beast of Ukraine", "The Terminator", and "Citizen O". Onoprienko was convicted of the murders of nine people in 1989, and 43 people in 1995–1996. He travelled throughout Europe illegally from 1990 to 1995; whether he killed during this time is unknown. He was sentenced to death, and was later commuted to imprisonment for life. He died from heart failure in 2013. |
| Florisvaldo de Oliveira | Brazil | 1982–1983 | 50 | 50+ | Known as "Cabo Bruno"; de Oliveira was a former police officer and vigilante who murdered criminals in the outskirts of São Paulo. He was murdered by unknown assailants in 2012. |
| Gary Ridgway | United States | 1982–1998 | 49 | 71–90+ | Ridgway was a truck painter who confessed to killing 71 women. He was also known as The "Green River Killer". He almost exclusively targeted sex workers from Seattle. Ridgway was suspected of killing over 90 victims; he confessed to 71, and was convicted of 49. He was sentenced to life without parole. |
| Alexander Pichushkin | Russia | 1992–2006 | 49 | 60 | Pichushkin was also known as the "Chessboard Killer". He was convicted of murdering 49 victims, and suspected of killing 60. He claimed to have murdered 62 people, because he did not know that two of his victims had survived; he stated that his goal was becoming Russia's most prolific serial killer. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Wang Qiang | China | 1995–2003 | 45 | 60+ | Wang killed 45 and raped 10 from 1995 to 2003. He was executed by firing squad in 2005. |
| Ahmad Suradji | Indonesia | 1986–1997 | 42 | 42 | Suradji was convicted of strangling at least 42 women and girls in a series of ritual slayings he believed would give him magical powers. He was executed by firing squad in 2008. |
| Raman Raghav | India | 1965–1968 | 41 | 41 | In the late 1960s, Raghav went on a violent rampage in Mumbai, India. He bludgeoned 41 people to death inside their shelters while they slept. He died of kidney failure in 1995. |
| Moses Sithole | South Africa | 1994–1995 | 38 | 76 | Known as South Africa's Ted Bundy. Sithole preyed on unemployed women, posing as a businessman and luring his victims with the prospects of a job, before leading them to an isolated place, where he raped, tortured, and murdered them. He was sentenced to 2,410 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 930 years. |
| Serhiy Tkach | Soviet Union Ukraine | 1984–2005 | 37 | 100+ | A former Ukrainian police criminal investigator, Tkach suffocated girls aged between eight and eighteen, and performed sexual acts on their bodies after they were dead. He claimed to have killed 100. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, and died from heart failure in 2018. |
| Gennady Mikhasevich | Soviet Union | 1971–1985 | 36 | 43–55+ | Mikhasevich killed women by strangling them. Besides killing, he also robbed his victims of money and valuable items (that he would sometimes give to his wife as a gift). He was executed by firing squad in 1987. |
| Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi | Morocco | 1906 and earlier | 36 | 36+ | Known as "Marrakesh Arch-Killer"; Mesfewi drugged, mutilated and murdered women; he was executed by immurement (walling) in 1906. |
| Vera Renczi | Kingdom of Romania Yugoslavia Hungary (alleged) | 1920–1930 | 35 | ~35 | Romanian serial killer nicknamed, "The Black Widow". Renczi was convicted of killing 35 men through arsenic poisoning, but confessed to only killing 32 victims. Renczi is one of the world's most prolific female serial killers. However, there is very little information about Renczi and her crimes, because personal information (criminal history, academic records, etc.) were not cataloged as well as they are today, making some criminologists believe she was a figure of Romanian folklore, rather than an actual person. |
| Fernando Hernández Leyva | Mexico | 1982–1999 | 33 | 137 | Hernández Leyva confessed to 100 murders and six kidnappings at the time of his arrest in 1999 (he had been arrested previously in 1982 and 1986, the second time for murder, but escaped from prison), but later retracted, and claimed that he had been beaten by the police and his family threatened in order to force him to confess. He was accused of as many as 137 murders in five southern Mexican states, was convicted of 33 murders, and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. He tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide in prison. If his claim of 100+ victims were true, then Leyva would be Mexico's most prolific documented serial killer. |
| John Wayne Gacy | United States | 1972–1978 | 33 | 34–45+ | Gacy is known to have murdered a minimum of 33 teenage boys and young men between 1972 and 1978, 26 of whom he buried in the crawl space of his Chicago home. He was known as the "Killer Clown", due to the fact he often entertained children at social events dressed in a self devised clown costume. Executed by lethal injection in 1994. |
| Ali Asghar Borujerdi | Ottoman Empire Iraq Iran | 1907–1934 | 33 | 33 | Known as "Asghar the Murderer". Borujerdi killed 33 young adults in Iraq and Iran. He was executed by hanging in 1934. |
| Vasili Komaroff | Soviet Union | 1921–1923 | 33 | 33 | Known as "The Wolf of Moscow"; Komaroff was a horse trader who killed 33 men. He was executed by firing squad in 1923. |
| Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansour | Egypt | 1999–2006 | 32 | 32+ | Mansour was a gang leader known as "al-Tourbini" ("The Express Train"). He had raped and tortured homeless children, mostly boys aged 10 to 14 years old, aboard the trains between Cairo, Alexandria, Qalyubia, and Beni Sueif. The victims were usually thrown off the moving train when they were dead or in agony; other times, they were thrown into the Nile or buried alive. Mansour was executed in 2010. |
| Radik Tagirov | Russia | 2011–2012 | 31 | 31 | Known as the "Volga Maniac". He murdered elderly women in several Russian regions. |

## Serial killers with 15 to 30 proven victims

This part of the list contains all serial killers with 15 to 30 proven victims who acted alone and were neither medical professionals nor contract killers.
| Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
| Karl Denke | Germany | 1900–1924 | 30 | 42+ | Killed and cannibalized poor travelers and homeless vagrants. Kept a ledger recording his murders with at least 31 names in it (including Vincenz Olivier, his only surviving victim), thus confirming at least 30 victims. But due to the massive amount of human remains found in his apartment, his kill count is suspected by many to exceed 42 victims. Killed himself by hanging in his holding cell before he could be tried. |
| Francisco das Chagas Rodrigues de Brito | Brazil | 1989–2003 | 30 | 42 | Serial killer of children, who also sexually abused and mutilated children in Maranhão and Pará; sentenced to 217 years imprisonment. |
| Monster of the Mangones | Colombia | 1963–1970s | 30 | 38 | Unidentified serial killer(s) who kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered at least 30 boys in Cali, Colombia. |
| Milton Sipalo | Zambia | 1980 | 30 | 31 | Known as "The Lusaka Strangler"; A soldier who raped and murdered women and girls in Lusaka. While awaiting trial, he jumped off of the roof of the police station where he was being interrogated, killing himself. |
| Luis Gregorio Ramírez Maestre | Colombia | 2010–2012 | 30 | 30 | Killed motorists in various municipalities before his 2012 capture. Was sentenced to 34 years in prison. |
| David Thabo Simelane | Swaziland | 2000–2001 | 28 | 45 | Sexually assaulted women he befriended in forests, stabbing or strangling them afterward; sentenced to death. |
| Zhang Jun | China | 1993–2000 | 28 | 28 | Robbed 22 stores in several Chinese provinces, killing 28 people in the process. Executed in 2001. |
| Mariam Soulakiotis | Greece | 1939–1951 | 27 | 177+ | Known as "Mother Rasputin"; abbess believed to have murdered wealthy women and children who came into her abbey. The true number of her victims is a matter of debate, but she was found guilty of 177 murders—150 through negligence (fraudulently claiming to offer free tuberculosis treatment when the 'treatment' only consisted of abiding in her high altitude convent) and 27 through starvation. Died in prison in 1954. |
| Cedric Maake | South Africa | 1996–1997 | 27 | 35+ | Known as the "Wemmer Pan Killer" and "Hammer Killer". He killed his victims with different instruments such as guns, rocks, a knife, and a hammer. Authorities attributed the murders to two serial killers because of the inconsistent modus operandi. In some cases he killed his victims with a rock, in others he shot them, and in others he murdered tailors with a hammer. Maake was arrested after Moses Sithole was found guilty of 38 killings and sentenced to 1,340 years in prison. |
| Robert Pickton | Canada | 1983–2002 | 26 | 49 | Known as the "Pig Farmer Killer" or the "Butcher", he killed women mostly from the Vancouver Downtown Eastside and would feed the remains to the pigs on his farm. In 2007, he was initially convicted for the deaths of 6 women but was later found guilty of the deaths of 20 other women in 2010; however, he confessed to 49 killings to an undercover police officer. In 2024, Pickton died of injuries received in an attack from another inmate. |
| Bruce George Peter Lee | United Kingdom | 1973–1979 | 26 | 26 | Epileptic arsonist who killed people in the city of Hull; sentenced to life imprisonment, but was later institutionalized. |
| The Stoneman | India | 1985–1989 | 25 | 25+ | 12 homeless people were murdered in their sleep in Bombay between 1985 and 1987, and 13 in Calcutta in 1989—in all cases, by dropping a large rock over their head (an additional victim escaped, but could not identify the attacker). No one was ever charged with any of the murders. |
| Juan Corona | United States | 1971 | 25 | 25+ | Corona was convicted of murdering ranch laborers and burying them in orchards. He was sentenced to 25 terms life imprisonment. Died from natural causes in 2019. |
| Fritz Haarmann | Germany | 1918–1924 | 24 | 27+ | Also known as the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover, because of his preferred method of killing by biting through his victim's throat, sometimes while sodomizing them. He would then dump the bodies in the nearby river Leine. Believed to have been responsible for the murder of 27 boys and young men, he was convicted, found guilty of 24 murders and executed by guillotine in 1925. |
| Béla Kiss | Austria-Hungary | 1912–1916 | 24 | 24+ | Evaded arrest and conviction after the discovery of 24 bodies hidden in large metal drums on his property in 1916. At that time he was serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and deserted when the military was notified of the murders by civilian authorities. His final whereabouts and fate are unknown, as is his final victim count. |
| Majid Salek Mohammadi | Iran | 1981–1985 | 24 | 24 | Killed mainly women he considered unfaithful to their husbands, sometimes the children accompanying them too; killed himself before he could be sentenced. |
| Yvan Keller | France Germany (suspected) Switzerland (suspected) | 1989–2006 | 23 | 150 | Known as the "Pillow Killer"; killed and robbed old women in France's Alsace region, but also confessed to up to 150 murders, including in Germany and Switzerland; killed himself before trial. |
| Ronald Dominique | United States | 1997–2006 | 23 | 23+ | Louisianian serial killer, known locally as the Bayou Strangler and murdered victims in the Terrebonne Parish, Lafourche Parish, Iberville Parish and Jefferson Parish. Sentenced to eight life terms. |
| Juan Fernando Hermosa | Ecuador | 1991–1992 | 23 | 23 | Known as "Niño del Terror"; youth gang leader who murdered mostly taxi drivers and homosexuals in Quito; murdered on his 20th birthday by unknown assailants. |
| Gerald Stano | United States | 1969–1980 | 22 | 88 | Confessed to killing 41 women, mostly in Florida and New Jersey. He was only convicted in 22 cases, and is suspected in the deaths of up to 88 victims. Some people have suggested that Stano was a serial confessor. |
| Earle Nelson | United States Canada | 1926–1927 | 22 | 25 | Necrophiliac who primarily targeted boarding house landladies on the US West Coast during 1926; he was also known as "Gorilla Killer" or "the Dark Strangler". Captured after two murders in a small (now ghost) town in southern Manitoba. Found guilty, hanged by Canadian authorities in January 1928. |
| Mikhail Novosyolov | Soviet Union Russia Tajikistan | 1977–1995 | 22 | 22 | Known as the "Necrophile Rebel"; killed his victims with blows from heavy objects, then had sexual intercourse with their corpses; sentenced to civil commitment. |
| Manuel Octavio Bermúdez | Colombia | 1999–2003 | 21 | 50+ | Colombian child rapist and serial killer. Known as "El Monstruo de los Cañaduzales" (The Monster of the Cane Fields). He confessed to killing 21 children in remote areas of Colombia. Sentenced to 40 years in prison. |
| Patrick Kearney | United States | 1965–1977 | 21 | 43+ | Would pick up young male hitch-hikers or young men from gay bars near Redondo Beach, California, and kill them. Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
| William Bonin | United States | 1979–1980 | 21 | 36+ | Bonin and three accomplices are known to have murdered a minimum of 21 youths aged between 12 and 19 in and around Los Angeles. As the majority of his victims were discarded alongside various southern California freeways, Bonin became known as the Freeway Killer. Convicted of 14 of the freeway murders, he was executed by lethal injection in 1996. |
| Vasile Tcaciuc | Romania | 1917–1935 | 21 | 26+ | Romanian man who lured victims and then murdered them with an axe. He was arrested in 1935 after a dog found a dead body in his house. He confessed to having committed at least 26 murders. He was shot dead by a policeman while trying to escape from prison. |
| Yoo Young-chul | South Korea | 2003–2004 | 21 | 26 | Used a hammer to murder mostly older victims, until his focus shifted to the decapitation and mutilation of escorts after being dumped by a girlfriend who worked in that profession. Was sentenced to death and currently incarcerated. |
| Francisco Guerrero Pérez | Mexico | 1880–1908 | 21 | 21 | Known as "El Chaquero"; the first captured serial killer in Mexico, who killed sex workers in Mexico City; died in 1910 from cerebral thromboembolism and another, unspecified cause. |
| Ted Bundy | United States | 1974–1978 | 20 | 35–100+ | Bundy was an American serial killer known for his charisma and good looks. He officially confessed to 30 homicides, but had confessed to killing 35–36 women in the past, and some estimates run upwards of 100 or more. He was infamous for escaping from prison twice and murdering multiple victims in one day; sometimes abducting women from the same location within hours of one another. He was executed by electric chair in 1989. |
| Abdullah Shah | Afghanistan | 1990s | 20 | 20+ | Killed travelers on the road from Kabul to Jalalabad serving under Zardad Khan. Also killed his wife. Executed on April 20, 2004. |
| Mohan Kumar | India | 2005–2009 | 20 | 20 | Lured female victims with promises of marriage and gave them cyanide, claiming they were contraceptive pills, Sentenced to death in 2013. |
| Bulelani Mabhayi | South Africa | 2007–2012 | 20 | 20 | Known as the "Monster of Thuleni"; killed 20 women and children from 2007 to 2012. Sentenced to 25 life sentences on September 3, 2013. |
| Larry Eyler | United States | 1982–1984 | 19 | 23+ | Known as "The Interstate Killer"; sentenced to death for the 1984 murder and dismemberment of 15-year-old Daniel Bridges. He confessed to other homicides of young men and boys in five separate states. Died of AIDS complications in 1994. |
| Cape Town Prostitute Killer | South Africa | 1992–1996 | 19 | 20 | Unidentified serial killer who, on rainy nights, picked up sex workers and domestic workers in his vehicle, strangled them in parking lots, and dumped their bodies in rural, preselected spots. |
| "El Psicópata" | Costa Rica | 1986–1996 | 19 | 19+ | ("The Psychopath") Unidentified serial killer who killed 19 people with an M3 submachine gun in three Costa Rican towns, always south of the Florencio del Castillo Highway. |
| Sergei Ryakhovsky | Soviet Union Russia | 1988–1993 | 19 | 19+ | Known as the Balashikha Ripper, he was convicted for the murders of at least 19 victims. Died from tuberculosis in 2005. |
| Yevgeny Chuplinsky | Russia | 1998–2006 | 19 | 19+ | Known as the "Novosibirsk Maniac"; killed sex workers in Novosibirsk; despite extensive police search and the capture of another serial killer, he was only arrested in 2016; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| M. Jaishankar | India | 2008–2011 | 19 | 19+ | Accused of killing at least 19 women. Charged with 13 murders, he escaped during a trial transport. Killed eight more people in two months before he was recaptured. Sentenced to 27 years. Killed himself by slashing his wrists with a shaving blade in prison on 27 February 2018. |
| Ansis Kaupēns | Latvia | 1920–1926 | 19 | 19 | Army deserter who committed 30 robberies and killed 19 people; one of the most infamous Latvian criminals; executed by hanging in 1927. |
| Vadim Ershov | Russia | 1992–1995 | 19 | 19 | Known as the "Krasnoyarsk Beast"; committed 70 crimes around the Krasnoyarsk area, including 19 murders and eight attempted murders; sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment. |
| Velaphi Ndlangamandla | South Africa | 1998 | 19 | 19 | Known as "The Saloon Killer"; robber who murdered people around Mpumalanga in his crime spree; sentenced to 137 years imprisonment. |
| Valery Kopytov | Russia | 2000–2004 | 19 | 19 | Known as "The Barnaul Chikatilo"; homeless man who killed other homeless people in Altai Krai. |
| Randall Woodfield | United States | 1979–1981 | 18 | 44 | Known as "The I-5 Killer" and "The I-5 Bandit." Suspected of as many as 44 murders. Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
| Yavuz Yapıcıoğlu | Turkey | 1994–2002 | 18 | 40 | Killed in various cities of Turkey. 18 murders proven and accused of more than 40 by eyewitnesses and relatives. Was sentenced to 74 years in prison. |
| Paul John Knowles | United States | 1974 | 18 | 35+ | Killed 18 people in various states in 1974. Claimed 35 murders. Known as the "Casanova Killer"; shot dead by FBI agents. |
| Thierry Paulin | France | 1984–1987 | 18 | 21 | Known as "The monster of Montmartre". Killed and robbed elderly women. Died of AIDS in 1989 in prison before trial. |
| Richard Nyauza | South Africa | 2002–2006 | 18 | 19 | Known as "The Quarry Murderer"; bludgeoned, beat, strangled, and stabbed 16 women and two unborn children to death and left their bodies in or around a quarry. Given 16 life sentences. |
| Umesh Reddy | India | 1996–2002 | 18 | 18+ | Confessed to 18 rapes and murders. Sentenced to death. |
| Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode | South Africa | 1994–1995 | 18 | 18+ | Known as "Donnybrook Serial Killer" murdered 18 people in Donnybrook, KwaZulu Natal from 1994 to 1995. Was given 140 years (5 life sentences). |
| Kotakethana murders | Sri Lanka | 2008–2015 | 18 | 18+ | 18 mysterious murders of women in the Rathnapura district of Sri Lanka. One middle age man suspect was arrested in 2015 and his DNA matched with six murders. Nine other cases remain unsolved. |
| Asande Baninzi | South Africa | 2001 | 18 | 18 | Killed 18 people in three months, including a family of four; given 19 life sentences and 189 years of imprisonment. |
| Vladimir Mirgorod | Russia | 2002–2004 | 18 | 18 | Known as "The Strangler"; raped and strangle women in Moscow, also killing one of the victims' son; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Richard Cottingham | United States | 1967–1980 | 17 | 85–100 | Killer operating in New York and New Jersey who often targeted sex workers and utilized mutilation as well as dismemberment in his killings. Known as the "Torso Killer", with 17 confirmed homicide victims including nine convictions and a further eight official confessions. He has made unsubstantiated claims of up to a hundred victims. |
| Huang Yong | China | 2001–2003 | 17 | 25 | Lured and murdered 17 teenage boys, although he is suspected of 25 murders between September 2001 and 2003. Executed by firing squad in 2003. |
| Pedro Pablo Nakada Ludeña | Peru | 2005–2006 | 17 | 25 | Known as "El Apóstol de la Muerte" ("The Apostle of Death"). Convicted of 17 murders and claimed 25. Sentenced to 35 years in prison. |
| Darbara Singh | India | 2004 | 17 | 23 | Sexually assaulted and then murdered children of non-Punjabi immigrants; died in 2018 from an illness while serving a life sentence. |
| Robert Hansen | United States | 1971–1983 | 17 | 21 | Sex workers he kidnapped were released into the Alaskan wilderness for him to hunt down like animals. Based on discovered remains, police suspect him of six murders in addition to the 17 for which he was convicted. Sentenced to 461 years plus life. Died from unspecified health problems in 2014. |
| Sergei Dovzhenko | Ukraine | 1992–2002 | 17 | 19 | Killed people because they were "mocking" him; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Donato Bilancia | Italy | 1997–1998 | 17 | 17 | Burglar who murdered 17 people, mainly sex workers, between 1997 and 1998, during a six-month period. Known as the "Prostitutes Killer" and the "Liguria Monster". Sentenced to imprisonment for life, he died due to COVID-19 in 2020. |
| Irina Gaidamachuk | Russia | 2002–2010 | 17 | 17 | Known as "Satan in a skirt". Killed 17 elderly women between 2002 and 2010. Sentenced to 20 years in prison. |
| Chen Fuzhao | China | 2003 | 17 | 17 | Alleged Falun Gong fanatic who fatally poisoned 17 people in 2003. |
| Randy Steven Kraft | United States | 1971–1983 | 16 | 67 | Convicted of 16 counts of murder but left a cryptic "score card" referring to at least 65 victims. May have had an accomplice. Sentenced to death. |
| Juana Barraza | Mexico | Late 1990s–2006 | 16 | 49 | Mexican female wrestler who bludgeoned or strangled elderly women to rob them. Sentenced to 759 years. |
| Michel Fourniret | France Belgium | 1987–2001 | 16 | 19 | Known as the Ogre or Beast of Ardennes. He was caught after a failed kidnapping in 2003. Sentenced to life and died of respiratory problems while in prison in 2021. |
| Sipho Agmatir Thwala | South Africa | 1996–1997 | 16 | 19 | Nicknamed the Phoenix Strangler after the area in which he committed his crimes; he raped and strangled 19 women; arrested, he was found guilty of 16 murders and sentenced to life. |
| Saeed Hanaei | Iran | 2000–2001 | 16 | 19 | Confessed to luring 16 sex workers to his home and killing them in an attempt to "cleanse" the city of Mashhad. His actions were dubbed "The Spider Murders". Executed by hanging in 2002. |
| Maina Ramulu | India | 2003–2020 | 16 | 18 | Convicted of murdering 16 women between 2003 and 2013 during three separate murder sprees. He was released from prison in 2020, and allegedly murdered two more women. |
| Jeffrey Dahmer | United States | 1978–1991 | 16 | 17 | Dahmer ate some of his victims and kept their body parts in his freezer. Was sentenced to life imprisonment; murdered in prison in 1994. |
| José Antonio Rodríguez Vega | Spain | 1987–1988 | 16 | 16+ | Nicknamed El Mataviejas (The Old Lady Killer), he raped and killed at least 16 elderly women, aged from 61 to 93 years old, in and around Santander, Cantabria. He went unrecognized for over a year because he moved his victims into their beds after they were killed; no autopsies were made and the deaths were attributed to natural causes. He also took trophies from his victims that he held in a particular room of his home; about 10 percent of these trophies remained unclaimed, implying the existence of other victims. He was stabbed to death by two inmates while incarcerated in 2002. |
| Carroll Cole | United States | 1948–1980 | 16 | 16 | Killed 16 people in California, Nevada, and Texas. Executed by lethal injection in 1985. |
| Elias Xitavhudzi | South Africa | 1950s | 16 | 16 | Nicknamed Panga man for his use of a machete (locally known as a "panga"). He stabbed and robbed his victims between 1953 and 1959; arrested, he was executed by hanging in 1960. |
| Charles Ray Hatcher | United States | 1969–1982 | 16 | 16 | A habitual criminal, confessed to the rape and murder of over 20 young and adolescent males. Escaped from prison several times and was declared a "manipulative institutionalized sociopath". Sentenced to life; killed himself by hanging himself in prison in 1984. |
| Yuri Ivanov | Soviet Union | 1974–1987 | 16 | 16 | Known as the "Ust-Kamenogorsk Maniac"; Kazakhstani rapist who killed girls and women who spoke negatively of men; executed 1987. |
| Robert Lee Yates | United States | 1975–1998 | 16 | 16 | Killed sex workers in the "Skid Row" area of E. Sprague Avenue in Spokane, Washington. Sentenced to 408 years in prison and two death sentences. |
| Farid Baghlani | Iran | 2004–2008 | 16 | 16 | Known as the "Cyclist killer"; murdered 15 women and 1 boy. Executed by hanging on November 13, 2010. |
| Jimmy Maketta | South Africa | 2005 | 16 | 16 | Pleaded guilty to and convicted of 16 murders and 19 rapes committed over the nine-month period of April to December 2005. |
| Jack Mogale | South Africa | 2008–2009 | 16 | 16 | Raped and strangled women in the Donnybrook area. Convicted of 16 murders and 19 rapes, nine kidnappings, robbery and assault. |
| Donald Henry Gaskins | United States | 1953–1982 | 15 | 100+ | Known as "The Meanest Man in America", Gaskins was convicted of nine murders committed in South Carolina between 1973 and 1975. He was suspected of 31 murders. Two victims had been murdered while Gaskins had been incarcerated—one while Gaskins had been on death row. Later claimed on death row that he had murdered between 100 and 110 victims. Executed by electric chair in 1991. |
| Ravinder Kumar | India | 2008–2015 | 15 | 30+ | Serial rapist who killed children of poor families. |
| Atlanta Ripper | United States | 1911 | 15 | 21 | Unidentified serial killer(s) who killed at least 15 Atlanta women in 1911, possibly as many as 21 in total. |
| Ángel Maturino Reséndiz | United States Mexico | 1986–1999 | 15 | 18 | Known as the "Railroad Killer" because his killings were committed near the railroad tracks he used to traverse the country. He was charged with and/or confessed to 15 murders occurring from 1986 to 1999 in Texas, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, and Kentucky. He was also suspected in a 1997 California murder case and claimed two additional killings he refused to elaborate on. Executed by lethal injection in 2006. |
| Chester Turner | United States | 1987–1998 | 15 | 15+ | Convicted of killing 15 people in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s. Sentenced to death. |
| Alexander Labutkin | Soviet Union | 1933–1935 | 15 | 15 | Known as the "One-Armed Bandit"; killed people in the forest near the Prigorodny settlement using a revolver; executed 1935. |
| Florencio Fernández | Argentina | 1950s | 15 | 15 | Stalked his victims, then would beat and bite them while they were asleep. Died from natural causes a few years after his 1960 arrest. |
| Elifasi Msomi | South Africa | 1953–1956 | 15 | 15 | Killed his victims with an axe or a knife in the 1950s; executed by hanging in 1956. |
| Abdullah Aksoy | Turkey | 1962–1967 | 15 | 15 | Known as "The Monster of Çumra"; killed fifteen men in Çumra from 1962 to 1967 after having sexual intercourse with them, then buried their bodies in his home; committed suicide in prison before being tried. |
| Maurizio Minghella | Italy | 1978–2001 | 15 | 15 | Killed five sex workers; imprisoned and released, after which he killed 10 more; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Bai Baoshan | China | 1983–1997 | 15 | 15 | Robber who killed 15 people while robbing several police stations; executed by gunshot in 1998. |
| Lee Choon-jae | South Korea | 1986–1994 | 15 | 15 | Also known as the Hwaseong serial murders. Most of the victims were bound, gagged, and strangled to death with their own clothes. It sparked the largest criminal case in South Korea with two million officers mobilized and over 21,000 suspects investigated. A suspect was identified in 2019, but he could not be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. He later confessed to killing 15 people, in addition to the murder of his sister-in-law. |

## Serial killers with 5 to 14 proven victims

This part of the list contains all serial killers with five to fourteen proven victims who acted alone and were neither medical professionals nor contract killers.
| Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
| Carl Eugene Watts | United States | 1974–1982 | 14 | 100+ | Believed to have killed over 80 women in multiple states, in 1982 Watts accepted a plea bargain in Texas in which he would plead guilty to a lesser charge and be granted immunity from murder charges in exchange for providing information on his victims; as a result he confessed to 12 murders and was sentenced to 60 years in prison on the lesser charge. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in separate trials in Michigan in 2004 and 2007, and died of cancer a week after the 2007 sentence was handed down. Watts is now suspected to have killed more than 100 women, which would make him the most prolific serial killer in American history. |
| Belle Gunness | United States | 1884–1908 | 14 | 40 | Norwegian-born murder-for-profit killer who murdered her suitors and relatives in Indiana. High possibility of committing over 40 murders. May have faked her own death in the fire that destroyed her home in 1908; her children had died of strychnine poisoning before the fire, and the woman's body found next to them was decapitated and, reportedly, smaller than Gunness' own. Ultimate fate unknown. |
| Philipp Tyurin | Soviet Union | 1945–1946 | 14 | 29 | Known as the "Leningrad Maniac" and the "Hellraiser"; murdered people for monetary reasons at his hut in Leningrad; executed 1947. |
| Zdzisław Marchwicki | Poland | 1964–1970 | 14 | 21+ | Also known as Vampire of Zagłębie. Killed 14 women in 1964–1970 in Poland's region of Dąbrowa Basin. Zdzisław Marchwicki was most likely the man responsible for the killings; however, his guilt remains in dispute. Executed in 1977. |
| Julio Pérez Silva | Chile | 1998–2001 | 14 | 19 | Known as The Psychopath from Alto Hospicio; killed 14 women. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 2004. |
| Monster of Florence | Italy | 1968–1985 | 14 | 16 | Unidentified killer who shot couples in lovers lanes and mutilated the women, taking their sexual organs and in the last two cases, also their left breast. 69-year-old farmer Pietro Pacciani was controversially convicted of 14 crimes in 1994 and sentenced to life in prison, but he was released following allegations that the scant evidence had been planted in an attempt to close the case, which was by then the largest and most mediatic in Italy's criminal history. Pacciani was scheduled for retrial in 1998 when he died after taking medication contraindicated to his heart problems. Pacciani's two alleged accomplices, Mario Vanni and Giancarlo Lotti, were sentenced to life and 30 years in prison, respectively. Some believe that none of the accused were guilty, and that Lotti incriminated himself and the other two because he was homeless and wanted to live in prison. |
| Joachim Kroll | West Germany | 1955–1976 | 14 | 14 | Known as the "Ruhr Cannibal" and "The Duisburg Man-Eater"; died from a heart attack in prison in 1991. |
| Arthur Shawcross | United States | 1972–1989 | 14 | 14 | Committed arson and burglary, served two years of a five-year sentence. Within a year of his release, he raped and murdered two children in 1972. Under a plea bargain, he was sentenced to 25 years. Released after serving 14½ years, he began killing again a year later, targeting sex workers. Known as the "Genesee River Killer", "Genesee River Strangler", "Rochester Strangler", and "Monster of the Rivers", he strangled and battered his victims. Sentenced to life without parole. Died of cardiac arrest in 2008. |
| Naceur Damergi | Tunisia | 1980–1988 | 14 | 14 | Raped and killed minors in the Nabeul region; executed by hanging in 1990. |
| Muthukutty Chandran | India | 1985–1986 | 14 | 14 | Committed 14 robbery-murders between 1985 and 1986 in Kerala, executed by hanging on 6 July 1991. |
| Marcelo Costa de Andrade | Brazil | 1991 | 14 | 14 | Known as The Vampire of Niterói. Raped and killed 14 children in Rio de Janeiro and Niterói. Drank the blood of his victims. Found not guilty by reason of insanity. |
| Sergey Shipilov | Russia | 1995–1999 | 14 | 14 | Known as the "Velsk Chikatilo"; killed female hitchhikers in the town of Velsk, most of them while out on prison leave; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Dorángel Vargas | Venezuela | 1997–1999 | 14 | 14 | Homeless cannibal known as "The People Eater" (El Comegente) and "The Hannibal Lecter of the Andes". Murdered a homeless man and was institutionalized. After escaping the institution, he went on to kill ten other men and was arrested. In 2016, he and several other inmates killed three others and Vargas fed their remains to them. |
| Hua Ruizhuo | China | 1998–2001 | 14 | 14 | Was responsible for the murders of 14 sex workers in Beijing's Chaoyang District. |
| Denis Pischikov | Russia | 2002–2003 | 14 | 14 | Known at the "Shivering Creature"; robbed and killed elderly people around the Moscow Oblast and Vladimir Oblast; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Abdufatto Zamanov | Russia | 2002–2004 | 14 | 14 | Killed people out of personal hostility; also raped two young girls; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Jeong Nam-gyu | South Korea | 2004–2006 | 14 | 14 | Kidnapped, raped and murdered people; killed himself. |
| Amir Qayyum | Pakistan | 2005 | 14 | 14 | Known as "The brick killer". Killed 14 homeless men with rocks or bricks when they were asleep. Sentenced to death in May 2006. |
| Denis Kazungu | Rwanda | 2023 | 14 | 14 | Murdered 14 people at his home in Kigali, arrested and pleaded guilty in September 2023. |
| Sararat Rangsiwuthaporn | Thailand | 2015–2023 | 14 | 14 | Sentenced to death in 2024 for poisoning 14 people with cyanide. |
| Jake Bird | United States | 1930–1947 | 13 | 46 | Sentenced to death for the murders of two people; confessed to 44 other murders; 11 were substantiated and he was suspected in the others. Executed by hanging in 1949. |
| Cleveland Torso Murderer | United States | 1934–1938 | 13 | 40+ | Unidentified serial killer, also known as "The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run", who targeted drifters and derelicts, of whom only two were identified, between 1934 and 1938 in Cleveland, Ohio. |
| Kaspars Petrovs | Latvia | 2003 | 13 | 38+ | Confessed to strangling 38 elderly residents of Riga, Latvia, in 2003. Convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the robbery and murder of 13. |
| Peter Sutcliffe | United Kingdom | 1975–1980 | 13 | 33 | Killed at least 13 women between 30 October 1975 and 17 November 1980. Most victims were killed by a combination of bludgeoning and stabbing, and all but two were killed in the county of Yorkshire. Owing to the modus operandi and location of the murders, Sutcliffe became known as the "Yorkshire Ripper." Sentenced to 20 concurrent life sentences. After three years he was sent to a secure psychiatric facility, where he served 25 years before being found "fit to leave" in 2009. Government officials and courts ruled in 2010 that he would never be released. In 2015, he was declared "no longer mentally ill", and transferred to a maximum security prison. After his 1981 conviction police investigated 60 unsolved murders and attempted murders across Britain they thought Sutcliffe could be responsible for, but were able to eliminate him from 40. He has since also been linked by several investigators to the murder of Carol Wilkinson, for which an innocent man spent many years in prison. Sutcliffe died in hospital on 13 November 2020 at age 74, after being diagnosed with COVID-19. |
| Fosaville Serial Killer | South Africa | 1999–2003 | 13 | 26 | Kidnapped, bound, and strangled at least 13 women in Fosaville, South Africa. He may also be responsible for the "Riverman" murders. |
| William Suff | United States | 1986–1992 | 13 | 23 | Previously served 10 years of a 70-year sentence for beating his baby daughter to death. Beginning two years after his release, this county store clerk raped, stabbed, strangled, and sometimes mutilated 12 or more sex workers in Riverside County, California. Known as the "Riverside Prostitute Killer" and the "Lake Elsinore Killer." Sentenced to death. |
| Richard Ramirez | United States | 1984–1985 | 13 | 20 | Killed 13 people between 28 June 1984, and 24 August 1985, in Los Angeles. Known as the "Night Stalker". Ramirez was sentenced to death in 1989, and died of B-cell lymphoma in 2013 while still on death row. |
| Sleepy Hollow Killer | South Africa | 1990s–2007 | 13 | 16+ | Raped and murdered women, mostly sex workers, around Pietermaritzburg and the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. |
| Francisco Antonio Laureana | Argentina | 1974–1975 | 13 | 13+ | Raped 15 women in San Isidro, killing 13 of them. Shot and killed during a firefight with police. |
| Joseph James DeAngelo | United States | 1979–1986 | 13 | 13+ | Known as the "Golden State Killer", "Original Night Stalker", and "East Area Rapist". A police officer who committed at least 13 murders, 50 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California in the 1970s and 1980s. He was identified and arrested in 2018 after DNA evidence confirmed it was him. In 2020, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. |
| Tamara Samsonova | Russia | 1995–2015 | 13 | 13+ | Known as the "Granny Ripper"; killed and allegedly cannibalized people in her apartment; committed to a psychiatric clinic. |
| Boston Strangler | United States | 1962–1964 | 13 | 13 | Although Albert DeSalvo was widely thought to be the Boston Strangler, police and others analysing the case have long doubted the truth of his confession. Sentenced to life for a series of rapes, he was murdered in prison. DeSalvo's body was exhumed for DNA testing, and compared to a substance found on the exhumed body of the Boston Strangler's last victim. In 2001, it was declared not to match, but in 2013 officials announced that improvements in DNA extraction technology produced viable samples from the degraded evidence. DeSalvo's body was reexhumed and found to match. |
| Herbert Mullin | United States | 1972–1973 | 13 | 13 | Despite detailed confessions, prosecutors decided not to try him for the first three crimes, instead focusing on crimes that conflicted with his insanity plea. Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
| Vladimir Storozhenko | Soviet Union | 1978–1981 | 13 | 13 | Known as the "Smolensky Strangler"; tortured and murdered women for sexual pleasure; four other innocent men were initially convicted for his crimes; executed 1982. |
| Johannes Mashiane | South Africa | 1982–1989 | 13 | 13 | Known as "The Beast of Atteridgeville", he was found guilty of 13 counts of murder and 12 counts of sodomy from 1982 to 1989. Killed himself by throwing himself under a bus while being pursued by police in 1989. |
| Vasiliy Kulik | Soviet Union | 1984–1986 | 13 | 13 | Known as the Irkutsk Monster; killed at least 13 victims from 1984 to 1986. Executed by firing squad in 1989. |
| Nikolai Dudin | Soviet Union Russia | 1987–2002 | 13 | 13 | Known as the "Grim Maniac"; killed his father in 1987, and after release, killed 12 more people while intoxicated; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Mukosi Freddy Mulaudzi | South Africa | 1990–2006 | 13 | 13 | Known as "The Limpopo Serial Killer"; escaped convict, originally responsible for two murders, who murdered 11 more after his prison escape; given 11 life sentences. |
| Duan Guocheng | China | 1999–2001 | 13 | 13 | Nicknamed "The Red-dress killer" or "The Red-dress slasher" because his victims were lone women walking alone either wearing red-dresses or another type of red. He sparked panic among women in Central China, with public officials warning them to stop wearing red during the years which he was at large. |
| Nikolay Shubin | Russia | 2004–2006 | 13 | 13 | Paranoid schizophrenic who killed people who beat him in chess games; sentenced to compulsory treatment. |
| Thozamile Taki | South Africa | 2007 | 13 | 13 | Known as the "Sugar cane serial killer", he murdered 13 women. Convicted in 2010. |
| "Rainbow Maniac" | Brazil | 2007–2008 | 13 | 13 | Unidentified serial killer who shot gay men in the head (except one, who was bludgeoned) in the Paturis Park of Carapicuiba. |
| Li Wenxiang | China | 1991–1996 | 13 | | Known as "The Guangzhou Ripper". Killed 13 female sex workers in Guangzhou. Executed. |
| Adolf Seefeldt | Germany | 1908–1935 | 12 | 100 | Known as the "Sandman"; sexually abused young boys in their sleep, then poisoned them; suspected of 100 murders in total. Executed by guillotine in 1936. |
| José Manuel Martínez | United States | 1978–2013 | 12 | 36 | Mexican-American self-confessed hitman who admitted to committing 36 murders in twelve different states, sometimes on the orders of his cartel bosses and sometimes out of personal animosity. Ultimately convicted or pleaded guilty to a total of twelve murders in three different states. |
| Charles Sobhraj | Thailand Nepal India Malaysia | 1975–1976 | 12 | 30 | French con man known as "The Bikini Killer" or "The Serpent" that targeted Western tourists in vacation spots of South-east Asia, often with the help of female accomplices. Imprisoned in India from 1976 to 1997, and sentenced to life imprisonment in Nepal in 2004. He was released from prison in Nepal in 2022. |
| Slamet Tohari | Indonesia | 2020–2023 | 12 | 24+ | Swindler who was convicted of 12 murders by cyanide poisoning committed in Central Java between 2020 and 2023. He confessed to "dozens" of murders. Sentenced to death in 2024. |
| Vladimir Romanov | Soviet Union Russia | 1991–2005 | 12 | 20 | Known as the "Kaliningrad Maniac"; a child rapist who murdered girls and young women in the Kaliningrad Oblast; killed himself while imprisoned. |
| Maury Travis | United States | 2000–2002 | 12 | 17 | Killed sex workers in the St. Louis area from 2000 to 2002. Caught when he mailed an Expedia.com map showing where to find a body to a St. Louis newspaper. Killed himself by hanging in prison. |
| Dennis Nilsen | United Kingdom | 1978–1983 | 12 | 15–16 | Picked up young men in London between 1978 and 1983 and dismembered them, keeping various body parts around his home. Died from surgical complications in 2018. |
| Kenneth Bianchi | United States | 1977–1978 | 12 | 15 | Convicted of strangling 12 female victims aged 12 to 28 and suspected in another three cases. One of the "Hillside Stranglers". Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
| Enriqueta Martí | Spain | c. 1900–1912 | 12 | 12+ | Self-proclaimed witch that abducted, prostituted, murdered and made potions with the bodies of small children that she sold in Barcelona. Remains of 12 different children were identified in her home, but she is believed to have murdered more. Murdered in prison by fellow inmates while awaiting trial in 1913. Recent investigations by writer Jordi Corominas and historian Elsa Plaza question the popular version of the black legend of Enriqueta Martí and warned about multiples misinformation, because Enriqueta "was never formally charged with murder nor was any corpse of a child found in her home." |
| Abdallah al-Hubal | Yemen | 1990–1998 | 12 | 12 | Killed seven people after Yemeni unification; fled prison, then proceeded to kill a young couple and three more people; killed during a shootout with police. |
| Nikolai Shestakov | Soviet Union | 1975 | 12 | 12 | Known as the "Luberetsky Maniac"; truck driver who raped and killed girls and young women; supposedly executed in 1977. |
| Joseph Christopher | United States | 1980–1981 | 12 | 12 | Known as "The Midtown Slasher"; racist who killed 12 people, all but one of them African Americans, in 1980 and 1981, between upstate New York and Georgia, mutilating two of them. Sentenced to life imprisonment, died in prison age 33 of breast cancer. |
| "Paraquat murders" killer | Japan | 1985 | 12 | 12 | Unidentified serial killer who carried out a series of indiscriminate poisonings in Japan in 1985 that killed 12. |
| Siswanto | Indonesia | 1994–1996 | 12 | | Alias Robot Gedek. Homeless man that killed 12 boys. Sentenced to death on May 21, 1997. Died in prison on March 26, 2007. |
| Sergey Golovkin | Soviet Union Russia | 1986–1992 | 11 | 40+ | Killed at least 11 boys in the Moscow area between 1986 and 1992. Executed by gunshot in 1996; last person executed in Russia before the death penalty was abolished. |
| Tiago Henrique Gomes da Rocha | Brazil | 2011–2014 | 11 | 39 | Gomes da Rocha was a Brazilian security guard who confessed to the murders of 39 people. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison for 11 murders, and attempted suicide while incarcerated. |
| Herb Baumeister | United States | 1990–1996 | 11 | 23 | Strangled gay men and buried their bodies in his backyard in Indiana and Ohio; 11 men were found in the yard but only five were identified. Died after shooting himself when faced with arrest. |
| Zhang Yongming | China | 2008–2012 | 11 | 17–20 | Sold flesh of his victims as 'ostrich meat' and kept eyeballs in wine. Executed. |
| Jack Unterweger | Austria United States Czechoslovakia | 1974–1992 | 11 | 15 | Served 14 years in Austrian prison because of a murder in 1974; killed at least nine sex workers after his release. Was a small media star in Austrian media in the early 1990s and, on behalf of Austrian police, was arrested in the US, where he may have killed another three sex workers. Hanged himself in 1994 after being sentenced to life in prison. |
| Vaughn Greenwood | United States | 1964–1975 | 11 | 13 | Known as the "Skid Row Slasher". Killed 11 people, suspected of two more. Cut victims' throats from ear to ear and may have drunk their blood. Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
| Anthony Sowell | United States | 2007–2009 | 11 | 11+ | Known as The Cleveland Strangler, he was convicted of killing 11 women between 2007 and 2009, and is suspected in another series of murders in the 1980s, with the two sets of killings separated by a 15-year stint in prison. Sentenced to death. |
| Henri Désiré Landru | France | 1915–1919 | 11 | 11 | Nicknamed "Bluebeard", he put notes in the lonely hearts section of newspapers under different aliases, presenting himself as a widower that wanted to marry a war widow. He killed at least 10 women and the teenage son of one of them, and burned their bodies after he had gained access to their assets. Executed by guillotine in 1922. |
| Nannie Doss | United States | 1927–1954 | 11 | 11 | Responsible for 11 deaths between 1927 and 1954. Known as the "Giggling Nanny", the "Giggling Granny", and the "Jolly Black Widow". Sentenced to imprisonment for life. Died of leukemia in 1965, age 59. |
| Marie Alexandrine Becker | Belgium | 1933–1936 | 11 | 11 | Poisoned wealthy clients while working as a seamstress. Died in prison in 1942. |
| Seisaku Nakamura | Japan | 1938–1942 | 11 | 11 | Teenage serial killer known as the "Hamamatsu Deaf Killer" for having been born deaf. Murdered 11 people (including his brother) and attacked many others, among them his father, sister, brother-in-law and nephew. Tried as an adult and executed by hanging. |
| Robledo Puch | Argentina | 1971 | 11 | 11 | Convicted of 11 murders and multiple other crimes including attempted murder and sexual assault. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1980. |
| Clifford Olson | Canada | 1980–1981 | 11 | 11 | Considered a dangerous offender, meaning that Olson could never have been released from prison. He had three parole applications rejected. Died from cancer in 2011. |
| Francisco García Escalero | Spain | 1987–1994 | 11 | 11 | Known as "The Killer Beggar". A necrophilic, schizophrenic homeless man found insane and confined to a psychiatric hospital after killing 11 sex workers and other homeless people between 1987 and 1994. Died in 2014. |
| Henry Louis Wallace | United States | 1990–1994 | 11 | 11 | Murdered 11 black women in Charlotte, North Carolina. The victims were all women that he knew. |
| Benjamin Atkins | United States | 1991–1992 | 11 | 11 | Known as "The Woodward Corridor Killer". Raped and strangled his victims before abandoning their bodies in vacant buildings. Died in prison in 1997, age 29, from AIDS. |
| Adnan Çolak | Turkey | 1992–1995 | 11 | 11 | Killed 11 elderly women aged 68 to 95 and raped six others. Sentenced to death but commuted to life in prison after Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004. |
| Andre Crawford | United States | 1993–1999 | 11 | 11 | Murdered 11 women between 1993 and 1999. Sentenced to life in prison. |
| Francisco de Assis Pereira | Brazil | 1997–1998 | 11 | 11 | Rapist and serial killer, known as "O Maníaco do Parque" (The Park Maniac). He was arrested for the torture, rape and death of 11 women and for assaulting nine in a park in São Paulo, Brazil during the 1990s. Pereira found his victims by posing as a talent scout for a modeling agency. Sentenced to 268 years. |
| Barnaul Maniac | Russia | 1997–2000 | 11 | 11 | The Barnaul Maniac was an unidentified Russian serial killer who murdered nine women and two girls in the city of Barnaul and the village of Buranovo. The main suspect was arrested in October 2000 but killed himself in jail in November that year. |
| Gao Chengyong | China | 1998–2002 | 11 | 11 | Known as "Chinese Jack the Ripper"; killed women and then mutilated their corpses. Executed in 2019. |
| Yevgeny Petrov | Russia | 1998–2003 | 11 | 11 | Known as the "Novouralsk Ripper"; a child rapist who kidnapped and killed young girls around Novouralsk, mutilating and burning their corpses afterwards; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Ruslan Khamarov | Ukraine | 2000–2003 | 11 | 11 | Seduced, raped and then killed women in his home; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| West Mesa Killer | United States | 2003–2005 | 11 | 11 | Remains of 11 women, who disappeared between 2003 and 2005, were found buried in the desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2009 and attributed to a bone collector. |
| Very Idham Henyansyah | Indonesia | 2006–2008 | 11 | 11 | Known as the "singing serial killer" and "Ryan", the artistic name he adopted while awaiting his execution in prison, where he recorded an album and wrote his autobiography. "Ryan" confessed to murdering 11 people including a toddler; 10 of his victims were buried in his parents' home backyard while the last one was butchered and hidden in a suitcase. Sentenced to death. |
| Roshu Kha | Bangladesh | 2008 | 11 | 11 | Raped and murdered garment workers after being rejected by his lover. Sentenced to death. |
| Martin Lecián | Czechoslovakia | 1927 | 11 | | Responsible for killing 10 policemen and 1 prison officer. Executed in 1927. |
| Lonnie David Franklin Jr. | United States | 1985–2007 | 10 | 25+ | Known as the "Grim Sleeper" for the alleged 14-year hiatus he took from murdering between 1988 and 2002. Shot and strangled his victims, mostly women, around South Los Angeles. Sentenced to death. On March 28, 2020, Franklin was found dead in his cell. |
| Rudolf Pleil | West Germany | 1946–1947 | 10 | 25 | Known as Der Totmacher ("The Deadmaker"). Convicted of killing a salesman and nine women. Claimed to have killed 25. Killed himself by hanging in 1958. |
| Milton Johnson | United States | 1983 | 10 | 17 | Known as "The Weekend Murderer" killed up to 17 people. Sentenced to life without parole. |
| Long Island serial killer | United States | 1996–2010 | 10 | 16 | Unidentified serial killer also known as "The Gilgo Beach Killer". Believed to have murdered 10 to 14 people associated with the sex trade over a period of 15 years. |
| Daniel Lee Siebert | United States | 1979–1986 | 10 | 13 | Convicted of a 1979 manslaughter; killed 10 people across America in three months in mid-1980s including two children and a Southside Slayer victim. Sentenced to death; died from cancer in prison in 2008. |
| Sergey Cherny | Russia | 1999 | 10 | 11 | Strangled women around Smolensk; suspected of the drowning death of another woman; died in 2001 from pneumonia while in a special psychiatric hospital. |
| Jeanne Weber | France | 1905–1908 | 10 | 10+ | Transient baby-sitter who strangled children in her care. Declared insane. Hanged herself in prison in 1918. |
| Nikolai Dzhumagaliev | Soviet Union | 1979–1991 | 10 | 10+ | Lured women in a park at night and hacked them with an axe as part of a plan to rid the world of prostitution. Also cooked parts of his victims and ate them himself or served them to other people as part of ethnic dishes. Found innocent by reason of insanity and interned in a mental institution. |
| Bobby Joe Long | United States | 1984 | 10 | 10+ | Known as "The Classified Ad Rapist"; killed 10 women in Tampa Bay, Florida in 1984. Sentenced to death. Executed by lethal injection on 23 May 2019. |
| Stewart Wilken | South Africa | 1990–1997 | 10 | 10+ | Known as "Boetie Boer"; raped, sodomised and murdered 10 victims from 1990 to 1997. Sentenced to seven life terms. |
| Viktor Fokin | Russia | 1996–2000 | 10 | 10+ | Known as the "Grandfather Ripper"; pensioner who lured, killed and then dismembered sex workers and alcohol abusers in his home, disposing of the remains in garbage containers after; died while imprisoned at a corrective labor colony. |
| David Randitsheni | South Africa | 2004–2008 | 10 | 10+ | Kidnapped 19 people, raped 17, and murdered 10. Sentenced to 16 consecutive life sentences plus 220 years in prison; hanged himself three weeks after conviction. |
| Edmund Kemper | United States | 1964–1973 | 10 | 10 | Known as "The Co-ed Butcher." At age 15, he confessed to murdering his grandparents and served six years as a criminally insane juvenile. He was released in 1969. In 1972 and 1973, he murdered and dismembered six young women, then killed his mother and her friend. He was sentenced to eight counts of seven years to life. |
| Dennis Rader | United States | 1974–2004 | 10 | 10 | Known as the BTK Killer. Murdered 10 people in Sedgwick County (in and around Wichita), Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole for 175 years. |
| Stanislav Rogolev | Soviet Union | 1980–1982 | 10 | 10 | Known as "Agent 000"; killed and raped women, managing to avoid capture through suspected knowledge of the investigation against him; executed by firing squad in 1984. |
| Oleg Kuznetsov | Soviet Union Russia Ukraine | 1991–1992 | 10 | 10 | Robbed, raped and killed people around Russia and Ukraine; sentenced to death but commuted to life imprisonment. |
| Satish | India | 1995–1998 | 10 | 10 | Killed 10 girls who were between the ages of five and nine. He was arrested from Bahadurgargh, Haryana after a long chase by Haryana police. |
| Eduard Shemyakov | Russia | 1996–1998 | 10 | 10 | Known as the "Resort Maniac"; Ukrainian who raped, killed and dismembered women in St. Petersburg, supposedly cannibalizing one of the victims; sentenced to compulsory treatment. |
| Ali Kaya | Turkey | 1997–2014? | 10 | 10 | Known as "The Baby Faced Killer"; responsible for 10 murders. Escaped from prison and later recaptured. |
| Chen Yongfeng | China | 2003 | 10 | 10 | Known as "The Butcher"; killed and dismembered 10 people at his house in the city of Wenzhou in the Zhejiang province within the span of a few months. |
| Zhou Kehua | China | 2004–2012 | 10 | 10 | A former soldier who targeted ATM users. He killed 10 people and evaded the law for eight years, before being shot in a shootout with police after a year-long manhunt. |
| Kang Ho-sun | South Korea | 2006–2008 | 10 | 10 | Sentenced to death in 2010 for killing 10 women, including his wife and mother-in-law. |
| Masten Wanjala | Kenya | 2015–2021 | 10 | 10 | Described as a "bloodthirsty vampire"; confessed to killing and drinking the blood of multiple children in Nairobi and led police to the bodies of some of the victims. Wanjala escaped from police custody while awaiting trial, but was later found in Bungoma County and murdered by angry locals. |
| Louis van Schoor | South Africa | 1986–1989 | 9 | 100 | Former security guard who was convicted of seven murders and two assassinations, but confessed to a reporter that he murdered 100 people; sentenced to 20 years in prison and released on parole in 2004. |
| Peter Kürten | German Empire Germany | 1913–1930 | 9 | 79 | Charged with nine murders and seven attempted murders. Dubbed "The Vampire of Düsseldorf" by the contemporary media. Executed by guillotine in 1931. |
| Roger Dale Stafford | United States | 1974–1978 | 9 | 34 | Killed nine people in two states, including a family of three; his wife implicated him in 34 total murders in different states; executed by lethal injection in 1995. |
| Norman Afzal Simons | South Africa | 1986–1994 | 9 | 22 | Known as the "Station Strangler", convicted of only one of 22 cases of murder and sodomy of young children near Cape Town. Sentenced to imprisonment for life. |
| Francis Heaulme | France | 1984–1992 | 9 | 20 | Convicted of killing nine people, but suspected in the murder of dozens. He is known as the "Criminal Backpacker" due to his travels throughout France. He left a trail of bodies wherever he went. |
| Joel Rifkin | United States | 1989–1993 | 9 | 17 | Known as "The Drifter", killed sex workers in New York City, most of them drug addicts. Convicted of nine murders but believed to have committed 17; also suspected of being the unidentified Long Island serial killer. Sentenced to 203 years to imprisonment for life. |
| Dagmar Overbye | Denmark | 1913–1920 | 9 | 15 | Murdered between nine and 25 children—of which one was her own—during a seven-year period. In 1921, she was sentenced to death in one of the most talked about trials in Danish history, that changed legislation on childcare. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison. Overbye was working as a professional child minder, caring for babies born outside of marriage, murdering her charges. She strangled them, drowned them or burned them to death in her masonry heater. The corpses were either cremated, buried or hidden in the loft. Died in prison in 1929. |
| Kenneth McDuff | United States | 1966–1992 | 9 | 14+ | Known as "The Broomstick Killer"; death sentence for 1966 triple-murder was commuted. Killed again three days after 1989 parole and 10 further times in Waco, Texas until 1992. Executed by lethal injection in 1998. |
| Robert Joseph Silveria Jr. | United States | 1981–1996 | 9 | 14+ | Known as "The Boxcar Killer"; freight train rider convicted of beating to death fellow transients and confessed to dozens more. |
| Dr. No | United States | 1981–1990 | 9 | 12 | Supposedly murdered sex workers and exotic dancers; his first victim was Marcia King, who was identified in 2018. |
| Richard Biegenwald | United States | 1958–1983 | 9 | 11+ | Known as "The Thrill Killer". Killed at least nine people in Monmouth County, New Jersey and is suspected in at least two other murders. Died of respiratory and kidney failure in 2008. |
| New Bedford Highway Killer | United States | 1988–1989 | 9 | 11 | Unidentified serial killer who killed nine women and disappearance of two others between 1988 and 1989. |
| Alexander Bychkov | Russia | 2009–2012 | 9 | 11 | Described in his personal diary how he killed 11 men who were alcoholics and tramps. Confessed to eating body parts of his victims. Found guilty of nine murders and sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Maryvale serial shooter | United States | 2015–2016 | 9 | 11 | Motorist who shot 12 people in separate events in Phoenix, Arizona, killing nine. Aaron Saucedo was charged with the shootings and two additional murders in 2017. |
| Edgecombe County Serial Killer | United States | 2000s | 9 | 10 | Unidentified serial killer who killed nine women and possibly another who disappeared since 2005 around Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Antwan Pittman was convicted in one case. |
| Sergei Martynov | Russia | 1992–2010 | 9 | 9+ | Convicted of raping and murdering a woman in 1992. Sentenced to life imprisonment for killing eight more women during a violent crime spree between 2005 and 2010. |
| Lloyd Gomez | United States | 1950–1951 | 9 | 9 | Known as "The Phantom Hobo Killer"; homeless man who killed other homeless men across California in the early 1950s. |
| Timothy Krajcir | United States | 2000s | 9 | 9 | Killed nine women across Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri (five in Cape Girardeau) in the 1970s and 1980s. |
| Anatoly Utkin | Soviet Union | 1968–1973 | 9 | | Known as "Ulyanovsky maniac"; killed 8 girls and 1 man from 1968 to 1973; executed 1975. |
| Gilberto Chamba | Ecuador Spain | 1988–2004 | 9 | | Taxi driver known as "The Monster of Machala", between 1988 and 1993 abducted 10 of his passengers (all lone female students) in this Ecuadorian city and killed 8, often raping them after with a stick. Though sentenced to 16 years in prison, he benefitted from an amnesty campaign in 2000 that also cleared his criminal record and moved to Spain, where he was arrested for the rape and murder of another student and the attempted rape and murder of a prostitute in 2004. Sentenced in 2005 to 45 years in prison. |
| Ondrej Rigo | Czechoslovakia Germany Netherlands | 1990–1992 | 9 | | Slovak serial killer and necrophile who committed his murders during the early 1990s in Slovakia, Germany and the Netherlands. He was arrested in 1992 and received a life sentence in 1994. He remains the murderer with the biggest number of victims in the modern history of Slovakia. |
| Alfred Gaynor | United States | 1995–1998 | 9 | | Crack cocaine addict. Killed nine women in Massachusetts. Sentenced to life in prison on May 19, 2000. |
| Mark Goudeau | United States | 2005–2006 | 9 | | Known as "The Baseline Killer"; convicted of nine murders in Phoenix, Arizona. |
| Keith Hunter Jesperson | United States | 1990–1995 | 8 | 160 | Dubbed the "Happy Face Killer", Jesperson was convicted of killing eight women by strangulation. |
| Rodney Alcala | United States | 1971–1979 | 8 | 130+ | Known as the "Dating Game Killer" for appearing on the game show The Dating Game in the middle of his killing years. Was convicted of at least five murders, though his actual total is estimated to be much higher. |
| Ottis Toole | United States | 1980–1983 | 8 | 100–125 | Initially convicted of three counts of murder, later pleaded guilty to four more murders before dying in prison. A sometime accomplice of convicted serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, Toole admitted to—and retracted multiple times—over 100 counts of murder, rape, arson and cannibalism, and was suspected in several other unsolved murders. In 2008, police announced that they had identified Toole as the likely murderer of Adam Walsh, and would be closing the case as a result. |
| Kiyotaka Katsuta | Japan | 1982–1983 | 8 | 22 | Strangled or shot people to rob them, using a gun he had stolen from a policeman after running him over with his car. Hanged in 2000. |
| Joseph Paul Franklin | United States | 1977–1980 | 8 | 20+ | White supremacist shooter who confessed to 20 murders and several attempted murders. Executed by lethal injection in 2013. |
| Pierre Chanal | France | 1980–1988 | 8 | 17 | Military instructor suspected of killing boys and men in Marne; killed himself before trial. |
| Christopher Wilder | United States | 1984 | 8 | 13+ | Killed eight women during a spree before accidentally shooting himself; suspected in the disappearance and murder of more than five more. |
| Axeman of New Orleans | United States | 1918–1919 | 8 | 12+ | Unidentified serial killer of at least eight people in the New Orleans area from May 1918 to October 1919. |
| Vladimir Retunsky | Russia | 1990–1996 | 8 | 12 | Known as the "Povorinsky Maniac"; kidnapped, raped and killed hitchhikers in his hometown of Povorino, possibly abusing their corpses; initially sentenced to death, but later reduced to 15 years imprisonment and released in 2015. |
| Gilbert Paul Jordan | Canada | 1965–1987 | 8 | 10 | Known as the "Boozing Barber", he would typically find alcoholic women in bars in Vancouver's destitute Downtown Eastside, buy them drinks or pay them for sex and encourage them to drink with him. When they passed out, he would pour more liquor down their throats. The resulting deaths were reported as alcohol poisoning and generally ignored by police as the intentional murders blended in with the common occurrence in that neighbourhood. Died in 2006. |
| Frankford Slasher | United States | 1985–1990 | 8 | 9 | Allegedly responsible for nine murders in the Frankford neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Leonard Christopher was convicted of one murder; another murder was committed in same style while he was incarcerated; believed to still be at large. |
| Kendall Francois | United States | 1996–1998 | 8 | 9 | Admitted to killing eight sex workers in Poughkeepsie, New York, but denied involvement with the disappearance of a ninth prostitute. |
| Hilda Nilsson | Sweden | 1915–1917 | 8 | 8+ | Known as the "baby farming" killer; she killed babies she received custody of by drowning them in a wash basin. Convicted for the murder of seven infants and the manslaughter of an eighth. She was the last Swede sentenced to death whose sentence was not commuted. |
| Yoshio Kodaira | China Japan | 1932–1946 | 8 | 8+ | A serial rapist, Kodaira killed his father-in-law in 1932 and seven to 10 women in Japan between 1945 and 1946, engaging in necrophilia after the fifth murder. Previously (1920s) he had been deployed to Northern China as a sailor in the Imperial Japanese Navy, where he was free to target the locals. Hanged in 1949. |
| John Christie | United Kingdom | 1943–1953 | 8 | 8+ | Serial killer and alleged necrophile active during the 1940s and early 1950s. He murdered at least eight people—including his wife, Ethel—by strangling them in his flat at 10 Rillington Place, Notting Hill, London. The bodies of three of Christie's victims were found in a wallpaper-covered kitchen alcove soon after Christie moved out of Rillington Place during March 1953. The remains of two more victims were discovered in the garden, and his wife's body was found beneath the floorboards of the front room. Christie was arrested and convicted of his wife's murder, for which he was hanged. |
| Eric Edgar Cooke | Australia | 1958–1963 | 8 | 8+ | Known as the "Night Caller" and later the "Nedlands Monster"; killed at least eight people and attempted to kill at least fourteen in and around Perth between 1959 and 1963; he was the last person to be hanged in Western Australia. |
| Forest City Killer | Canada | 1969–1970 | 8 | 8+ | Unidentified serial killer from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Based on the number of unsolved murders of women in the era, there is probably at least one other victim. |
| John Edward Robinson | United States | 1984–2000 | 8 | 8+ | Known as "The Slavemaster"; lured victims through the internet. |
| Bruce McArthur | Canada | 2010–2017 | 8 | 8 | One of the oldest known serial killers, active at 65, he lured men to secret sexual encounters involving drugs and bondage, killed them and dismembered their bodies which he hid in garden planters. |
| Paul Ogorzow | Germany | 1940–1941 | 8 | | Known as the "S-Bahn murderer"; SA sergeant convicted of raping and murdering eight women by throwing them off trains in Berlin during blackouts in 1941 and 1942. Executed by guillotine at the Plötzensee Prison on July 26, 1941. |
| Genzo Kurita | Japan | 1948–1952 | 8 | | Serial rapist and murderer, engaging in necrophilia in two of his murders. Two other victims were the children of the woman he targeted, who Kurita threw off a cliff (a third child survived). Hanged in 1959. |
| Marie Noe | United States | 1949–1968 | 8 | | Murdered eight of her children between 1949 and 1968. |
| Kiyoshi Okubo | Japan | 1971 | 8 | | Raped and murdered eight women aged 17 to 21 upon his release from prison, where he had been for previous rapes. Hanged in 1976. |
| Marybeth Tinning | United States | 1972–1983 | 8 | | Suffocated eight of her nine children during the 1970s. One daughter died of natural causes shortly after birth, the first of the Tinning children to die. |
| Michael Bruce Ross | United States | 1981–1984 | 8 | | Ross confessed to all of the murders, and was convicted of four of them. He was executed by the state of Connecticut on May 13, 2005 by lethal injection, making it the first execution in Connecticut and the whole of New England since 1960. |
| Gary C. Evans | United States | 1985–1998 | 8 | | Befriended the Son of Sam killer while incarcerated. Released in 1984, he proceeded to burglarize and kill while in and out of jails for over 13 years. Aided investigators in a high profile murder case before dodging parole and being chased. The manhunt finally ended when he jumped to his death off a bridge. |
| Colonial Parkway Killer | United States | 1986–1989 | 8 | | Believed to have murdered at least eight people in Virginia between 1986 and 1989; left three couples dead and one couple missing and presumed dead. |
| Sean Vincent Gillis | United States | 1994–2003 | 8 | | Kidnapped, raped, and mutilated the corpses of Louisiana women. |
| Vladimir Mukhankin | Russia | 1995–1996 | 8 | | Known as "The pupil of Chikatilo"; he killed 8 women. |
| Manuel Delgado Villegas | Spain France (claimed) Italy (claimed) | 1964–1971 | 7 | 48 | Wandering criminal known as El Arropiero ("The Arrope Trader") and El Estrangulador del Puerto ("The Strangler of Puerto"). Confessed to the impulsive murders of 48 people of different sex, age, wealth and sexual orientation in three countries (including his girlfriend, whom he strangled during sex), but police only investigated him for 22 murders in Spain and was considered proven author of seven. Some of his victims were killed with hand to hand combat techniques that he had learned in the Spanish Foreign Legion. Diagnosed with XYY syndrome and interned in a mental institution until his death in 1998. |
| Ershad Sikder | Bangladesh | 1991–1999 | 7 | 43+ | Career criminal and corrupt politician responsible for numerous torture murders in the 1990s; convicted on seven counts and executed 2004. |
| Diego Alexánder Ruiz Restrepo | Chile | 2018–2020 | 7 | 27 | Known as the "Psycopath of Meiggs". Illegal Colombian immigrant who has been living in Chile since 2013, often resorting to robbing and killing homeless people. Although he has had only 8 confirmed victims, he is currently being investigated for 20 more, which, if confirmed, would turn him into the most murderous serial killer in Chilean history. |
| Ivan Milat | Australia | 1990s | 7 | 23–37 | Convicted of the Backpacker murders; sentenced to seven consecutive life sentences plus 18 years without the possibility of parole. May have had accomplices. |
| Reta Mays | United States | 2017–2018 | 7 | 20 | Nursing assistant who killed elderly military veterans at a VA hospital in Clarksburg, West Virginia by injecting them with lethal doses of insulin. |
| Stockton serial shootings | United States | 2021–2022 | 7 | 8 | On October 15, 2022, a Stockton man, Wesley Brownlee, was arrested in connection to the shootings. |
| Michael Wayne McGray | Canada United States | 1985–1988 | 7 | 18+ | Convicted of the murder of six people in the late 1990s, including a woman and her 11-year-old daughter. Claims to have killed 11 others, including murders committed while on parole and while on a three-day pass from prison. Finally imprisoned for life, killed a cellmate in 2010. |
| Łódź Gay Murderer | Poland | 1988–1993 | 7 | 7 | Unidentified serial killer who killed gay men in Łódź, estimated to have killed 7 people. |
| John Floyd Thomas Jr. | United States | 1957–2009 | 7 | 15+ | Serial murderer and rapist with one of the longest criminal careers in the US. |
| Kenneth Erskine | United Kingdom | 1986 | 7 | 11 | Known as "The Stockwell Strangler", he was a burglar who raped and strangled at least seven elderly women after breaking into their homes. |
| David Carpenter | United States | 1979–1981 | 7 | 11 | Known as "The Trailside Killer"; murdered women on San Francisco-area hiking trails between 1979 and 1981. Sentenced to death. |
| Vladimir Kuzmin | Russia | 1997 | 7 | 11 | Raped, murdered and robbed mostly young boys and men in Moscow; assisted in his first two murders by Denis Kalistratov; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Tommy Recco | France | 1960–1980 | 7 | 10 | Murdered his godfather in 1960; after release, killed six cashiers in two separate store raids; also suspected of murdering a trio of German tourists. |
| Derrick Todd Lee | United States | 2002 | 7 | 10 | Known as the "Baton Rouge or South Louisiana Serial Killer" convicted of three murders. Believed to have murdered several other women in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Sentenced to death, died in 2016. |
| Tomás Maldonado Cera | Colombia | 2002–2018 | 7 | 10 | Known as "The Satanist"; killed people in Barranquilla for the purpose of satanic rituals. |
| Peter Manuel | United Kingdom | 1956–1958 | 7 | 9 | Hanged in 1958 after being convicted of seven murders at a sensational trial in Glasgow, may have committed two more. |
| Terry Blair | United States | 1982–2004 | 7 | 9 | Kansas City serial killer and rapist; active 1982–2004. Sentenced to life. |
| Doug Clark | United States | 1980 | 7 | 8+ | Boiler operator who killed sex workers in Los Angeles. One of the "Sunset Strip Killers". |
| Stanisław Modzelewski | Poland | 1952–1967 | 7 | 8 | Known as "The Vampire of Gałkówek". Confessed to strangling eight women, but convicted of seven because one of the bodies was never found. |
| Michael Hughes | United States | 1986–1993 | 7 | 8 | Killed six women and a schoolgirl in the South Los Angeles area between 1986 and 1993. |
| Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Killer | United States | 1972–1973 | 7 | 7+ | "Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders": Series of at least seven unsolved homicides involving female hitchhikers that took place in Sonoma County and Santa Rosa of the North Bay area of California in 1972 and 1973. |
| Roger Kibbe | United States | 1977–1987 | 7 | 7+ | Known as "The I-5 Strangler", killed 7 women between 1977 and 1987. 6 along I-5 near Sacramento, and one in Walnut Creek, California. He was tried for the Walnut Creek murder by the Grand Jury before the body was found but in exchange for helping to find the body Kibbe was spared the death penalty and received life in prison. It took detectives 34 years to find the body. |
| Connecticut River Valley Killer | United States | 1978–1987 | 7 | 7+ | Believed responsible for a series of similar knife murders mostly in and around Claremont, New Hampshire, and the Connecticut River Valley, primarily in the 1980s. |
| Paul Durousseau | United States | 1997–2003 | 7 | 7+ | A former soldier who strangled several women between the ages of 17 and 26 in the southeastern United States. He had the moniker of the Jacksonville Ripper and had the reputation of being a lewd womanizer. |
| Todd Kohlhepp | United States | 2003–2016 | 7 | 7+ | A registered sex offender; Shot up a motorcycle shop in 2003, killing 4; killed 3 more victims in 2015 and 2016; is currently serving 7 life sentences for the crimes. |
| Darren Deon Vann | United States | 2014 and earlier | 7 | 7+ | Confessed to the murders of at least seven women. |
| Aileen Wuornos | United States | 1989–1990 | 7 | 7 | Sex worker that shot her victims at point blank range. Executed in 2002. |
| Hu Daoping | China | 2003–2005 | 7 | 7 | Career criminal who, following a jail escape in 1998, killed seven people during robberies. |
| Nikos Metaxas | Cyprus | 2016–2018 | 7 | 7 | A 35-year-old Cypriot Army officer who killed five women and two children between September 2016 and August 2018. These became known as the "Mitsero murders." Sentenced to 7 life sentences. |
| José Misael Roldán Concha | Chile | 1954–1957 | 7 | 7 | Killed an iron mine worker in 1954. After being free on parole, he killed a woman and five of her seven children. Originally sentenced to death, but was later imprisoned for life after a presidential pardon. |
| Sataro Fukiage | Japan | 1906–1924 | 7 | | Killed seven girls aged 11 to 16 and raped between 93 and 100. Hanged in 1926. |
| Joseph Taborsky | United States | 1950–1957 | 7 | | Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky was sentenced to death after brutal robberies and murders in Connecticut during the 1950s. |
| Václav Mrázek | Czechoslovakia | 1951–1956 | 7 | | Killed 7 women in Chomutov. Executed in 1957. |
| Anatoly Slivko | Soviet Union | 1961–1985 | 7 | | As a member of the Young Pioneers (Soviet Boy Scouts), Slivko gained the trust of 43 young boys over almost three decades, asphyxiated them until they fell unconscious, and then ritually molested, filmed, photographed and resuscitated them. The seven boys that didn't wake up were dismembered and burned. Minutes before his execution in 1989, police asked Slivko for advice in the investigation of Andrei Chikatilo's crimes. |
| Cincinnati Strangler | United States | 1965–1966 | 7 | | Raped and strangled seven mostly elderly women in Cincinnati, Ohio between 1965 and 1966. Believed to be Posteal Laskey, who was convicted of one murder and died in prison on May 29, 2007. |
| Émile Louis | France | 1975–1978 | 7 | | Bus driver that preyed on young handicapped women (seven murders) in the 1970s. Sentenced to life in prison on November 25, 2004. |
| Paul Steven Haigh | Australia | 1978–1991 | 7 | | Sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for the murders of seven people in Victoria. |
| Aleksey Sukletin | Soviet Union | 1979–1985 | 7 | | Known as "The Alligator"; killed and cannibalized at least 7 girl and women from 1979 to 1985; executed 1987. |
| Roberto Succo | Italy France | 1981–1988 | 7 | | In 1986 he escaped the mental hospital where he was recluded in for murdering his parents five years earlier and began a crime spree in Europe that included burglary, hijacking, kidnapping, rape and murder and earned him the Public Enemy Number One spot in Italy, France and Switzerland. Committed suicide in prison after failing to escape a second time. |
| Walter E. Ellis | United States | 1986–2007 | 7 | | Known as "The Milwaukee North Side Strangler"; convicted of killing 7 sex workers in Wisconsin between 1986 and 2007. Died in prison on December 1, 2013. |
| Harrison Graham | United States | 1987 | 7 | | Convicted of killing seven women in Philadelphia and keeping their bodies in his apartment. |
| Guy Georges | France | 1991–1997 | 7 | | Known as the "Beast of the Bastille"; serving a life sentence for seven murders between 1991 and 1997. |
| Motta Navas | India | 1996–2012 | 7 | | Active in Kollam, Kerala, Navas was arrested and imprisoned for his first two murders in 1996 and 2007. During his final crime spree in 2012, he bludgeoned to death five elderly pavement dwellers in their sleep, always after midnight. He feigned a mental illness to avoid suspicion by the police in at least two occasions. |
| Paul Dennis Reid | United States | 1997 | 7 | | Reid killed the employees of restaurants he targeted for a series of robberies. |
| Samuel Sidyno | South Africa | 1998–1999 | 7 | | Known as the "Capital Hill Serial Killer" murdered 7 people in Pretoria from 1998–1999. |
| Ripper Jayanandan | India | 2003–2006 | 7 | | Killed seven people during robberies. Sentenced to death. |
| Sibusiso Duma | South Africa | 2007 | 7 | | Murdered 7 people in the Pietermaritzburg area of KwaZulu Natal in 2007. |
| Tommy Lynn Sells | United States | 1980–1999 | 6 | 22–70 | Drifter active throughout the United States who specialized in killing children and multiple victims after breaking into their homes. Caught when a 10-year-old girl survived his attack and provided a description of him. Executed in 2014. |
| Volker Eckert | East Germany Germany France Spain Czech Republic (suspected) Italy (suspected) | 1974–2006 | 6 | 19+ | German trucker who confessed to having abducted, tortured and killed five sex workers through his route in Western Europe, plus strangling a 14-year-old girl in his native West Germany in 1974, when he was 15. Police considered him perpetrator of nine murders (with four more being possible); he hanged himself in prison before being convicted. |
| Lorenzo Gilyard | United States | 1977–1993 | 6 | 13+ | Known as "The Kansas City Strangler". Killed up to 13 sex workers in the Kansas City area from 1977 to 1993. Sentenced to life in 2007. |
| Władysław Mazurkiewicz | Poland | 1950s | 6 | 30 | Known as "The Gentleman Killer". Indicted of, and confessed to having committed 30 murders; convicted of six and hanged in 1957. |
| Gong Runbo | China | 2005–2006 | 6 | 20+ | Found guilty of the murders of six children and teenagers aged between nine and 16 from 2005 to 2006; executed in 2007. |
| The Doodler | United States | 1974–1975 | 6 | 16 | Unidentified serial killer who sketched then stabbed to death 14 gay men in San Francisco. Surviving victims did not wish to testify, so the killer was not identified. |
| Cristopher Chávez Cuellar | Colombia | 1990s–2015 | 6 | 15+ | Known as "The Soulless"; killed between 6 and at least 15 people starting from the 1990s, including 4 underage brothers; sentenced to 40 years imprisonment. |
| András Pándy | Belgium | 1986–1990 | 6 | 14+ | Former clergyman nicknamed "Father Bluebeard", killed his two wives and four of his children with the help of a fifth he was having an incestuous affair with, and whom denounced him to the authorities seven years later. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002. |
| John Wayne Glover | Australia | 1989–1990 | 6 | 13 | British ex-pat living in Australia. Known by the media as "The Granny Killer" as he targeted elderly women; killed himself while in prison in 2005. |
| Alexander Sergeychik | Belarus | 2000–2006 | 6 | 12 | Killed between six and 12 people under the influence of alcohol. Executed in 2007. |
| Adrián Arroyo Gutiérrez | Costa Rica | 2014–2015 | 6 | 11 | Known as "The Southern Psychopath"; raped and strangled drug-addicted sex workers in San José; sentenced to 110 years imprisonment. |
| Joseph Naso | United States | 1977–1994 | 6 | 10 | A freelance photographer who raped and strangled to death women in California. Arrested in 2011 and sentenced to death two years later. Known as "The Double Initial Killer" since first four victims to be identified bore double initials. |
| John George Haigh | United Kingdom | 1944–1949 | 6 | 9 | Called the "Acid Bath Murderer" for dissolving his victims in sulphuric acid under the belief that he could not be prosecuted for murder if no body was found. He would then forge papers to sell the victims possessions. Confessed nine murders, convicted of six and hanged. |
| Jack the Stripper | United Kingdom | 1964–1965 | 6 | 8 | Murdered at least six sex workers in London and may have been responsible for the deaths of two others before that. Remains unidentified. |
| Morris Solomon Jr. | United States | 1986–1987 | 6 | 7 | Handyman who killed six young women between 1986 and 1987 in Sacramento, California. Sentenced to death on September 16, 1992. |
| Mack Ray Edwards | United States | 1953–1970 | 6 | 6+ | Molester. Murdered 2 young girls and 4 young boys. Claimed at one point to have killed as many as 18. |
| Terry Peder Rasmussen | United States | 1978–2002 | 6 | 6+ | Known as the "Chameleon Killer"; main suspect in the Bear Brook murders, as well as other murders. |
| Robert Berdella | United States | 1984–1987 | 6 | 6+ | Berdella abducted, raped, tortured, and murdered at least six men. |
| Juan Chavez | United States | 1986–1990 | 6 | 6+ | Murdered six men in Los Angeles County in what he claimed was a retaliation against the AIDS epidemic. |
| David Berkowitz | United States | 1976–1977 | 6 | 6 | Known as "Son of Sam", he went after young women and couples killing 6 people and wounding 7 others with a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver. He was caught when an eyewitness to his last murder saw he had a parking ticket on his car. He was sentenced to life in prison with parole in 1978. |
| Richard Chase | United States | 1977–1978 | 6 | 6 | Known as "The Vampire of Sacramento" because he drank his victims' blood and cannibalized their remains. He killed six people in the span of a month in Sacramento, California. The 1987 film Rampage was loosely based on based on Chase's crimes. |
| Michael Terry | United States | 1985–1986 | 6 | 6 | Murdered six men in Atlanta, Georgia in a 10-month period, via stabbing or shooting. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1988. |
| Lázaro Barbosa de Sousa | Brazil | 2006–2021 | 6 | 6 | Convicted of a double murder in 2007; later escaped from prison and murdered a family of 4 before dying in a shootout with the police. |
| Alfredo Galán | Spain | 2003 | 6 | 6 | Shot random people over the course of three months, killing six and wounding three. He would sometimes leave a Spanish playing card at the scene of the crime as a signature. |
| Friedrich Schumann | Germany | 1918–1920 | 6 | | Killed six people and executed in 1921. |
| Eugen Weidmann | France | 1937 | 6 | | German who strangled and robbed American dancer Jean de Koven, shot a former accomplice, and shot dead and robbed four other people around Paris in 1937. |
| Rhonda Belle Martin | United States | 1937–1951 | 6 | | Alabama poisoner who murdered six family members; executed in 1957. |
| Leslie Irvin | United States | 1954–1955 | 6 | | Known as "The Mad Dog Killer"; Killed six people in robberies in the mid-1950s; his Supreme Court case set a precedent for fair trials of highly publicized defendants. |
| Lemuel Smith | United States | 1958–1981 | 6 | | Confessed to the murders of five people, including an on-duty female prison guard. Sentenced to death on June 10, 1983. Commuted to life in 1984. |
| Freeway Phantom | United States | 1971–1972 | 6 | | Raped and strangled six young women and girls in Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s, dumping their bodies by freeways. |
| David Mason | United States | 1980–1982 | 6 | | Strangled four elderly neighbors, his cellmate when imprisoned on lesser charges; shot his boyfriend. |
| Dayton Leroy Rogers | United States | 1983–1987 | 6 | | Killed street women, usually addicts, sex workers and runaways. He would tie, rape, and kill them in a forest. |
| Norbert Poehlke | West Germany | 1984–1985 | 6 | | Known as "The Hammer-Killer", German police officer who was found, after his suicide in 1985, to have committed several bank robberies and murders. |
| Wolfgang Schmidt | East Germany Germany | 1989–1991 | 6 | | Known as the "Beast of Beelitz". Killed five women and a 3 month old baby from 1989 to 1991. Currently in a psychiatric hospital. |
| Cleophus Prince Jr. | United States | 1990 | 6 | | Known as "The Clairemont Killer"; raped and killed six women in San Diego in 1990. |
| Nathaniel White | United States | 1991–1992 | 6 | | Convicted of stabbing to death six women in the Hudson Valley, New York area from 1991 to 1992. |
| Samuel Bongani Mfeka | South Africa | 1993–1996 | 6 | | Killed 6 women from 1993 to 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Gary Ray Bowles | United States | 1994 | 6 | | Beat and strangled six men to death to steal their credit cards in 1994. |
| Rory Enrique Conde | United States | 1994–1995 | 6 | | Known as "The Tamiami Trail Strangler". Killed 6 sex workers in Florida. Sentenced to death on March 7, 2000. |
| Nicholas Lungisa Ncama | South Africa | 1997 | 6 | | Murdered 6 people in the Eastern Cape, 1997. |
| Aleksandr Rubel | Estonia | 1997–1998 | 6 | | He was intoxicated on gasoline vapour during his murders. Sentenced as a minor to the maximum punishment allowed by law — eight years imprisonment — he was released in 2006. |
| Céline Lesage | France | 2000–2007 | 6 | | Killed seven of her newborn babies and sentenced to 15 years in prison. |
| Filiberto Hernández Martínez | Mexico | 2010–2013 | 6 | | Killed six people from 2010 to 2013 in Tamuín. |
| Zodiac Killer | United States | 1968–1969 | 5 | 37 | Targeted young couples. Remains unsolved but open in the California jurisdictions where the five certain Zodiac murders occurred. Potentially 37 total victims claimed but unverified. |
| Carl Panzram | United States Portuguese Angola | 1915–1929 | 5 | 22 | From 1920 to 1928, he claimed in a posthumous autobiography to have committed over 22 killings, and sodomy of more than 1000 young men. Executed in 1930 by hanging. |
| Steve Wright | United Kingdom | 2006 | 5 | 22 | Referred to as "Suffolk murders", "Ipswich murders", "Ipswich Ripper", "Suffolk Ripper", "Suffolk Strangler", "East Anglia Ripper", "Red Light Ripper" and "the Suffolkator". Murdered five sex workers, all of whom worked in Ipswich in 2006. There are possible links to previous East Anglia prostitute killings. |
| Stephen Akinmurele | United Kingdom | 1995–1998 | 5 | 15 | Nigerian man who killed himself after being charged for the murders of 5 elderly people in Blackpool and Isle of Man. He confessed to the murders. Links to 10 other unsolved murders in the areas were investigated by police. |
| Joe Metheny | United States | 1976–1996 | 5 | 13 | Butchered his victims, then served them at BBQs at his roadside stand; died in prison. |
| Michel Peiry | Switzerland France United States Yugoslavia (suspected) Italy (suspected) | 1981–1987 | 5 | 11 | Known as the "Sadist of Romont"; Swiss serial killer who sexually abused and murdered at least 5 hitchhikers in several countries; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Hubert Pilčík | Czechoslovakia | 1948–1951 | 5 | 10+ | Made money smuggling people across the Czechoslovakia-Germany border, but killed most of his customers. Total number of his victims is unknown. |
| Melvin Rees | United States | 1957–1959 | 5 | 9 | Known as "The Sex Beast"; shot and defiled a woman in 1957, torture-murdered a family of four in 1959 and suspected in four other killings. |
| David Maust | West Germany United States | 1974–2003 | 5 | 9 | Killed teenage boys; caught when bodies of three boys were found in the concrete floor of his basement in Hammond, Indiana. Committed suicide in prison in 2006. |
| William Patrick Fyfe | Canada | 1979–1999 | 5 | 9 | Convicted of killing five women in the Montreal area of Quebec, although he claims to have killed four others. Serving a life sentence in West Canada. |
| Willem van Eijk | Netherlands | 1971–2001 | 5 | 8 | Dutch serial killer known as "Het Beest van Harkstede" (The Beast of Harkstede). All proven victims he killed were all sex workers. Sentenced to 18 years imprisonment for his first two murders and killed 3 more after his release. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002 and died in 2019 in prison. Suspected of having killed 3 more sex workers. |
| Danny Rolling | United States | 1989–1990 | 5 | 8 | Known as the "Gainesville Ripper"; murdered five students in August 1990. Executed on October 6, 2006. Shortly before his execution, he gave a handwritten confession to authorities for a triple homicide of an elderly man, his adult daughter, and young grandson that occurred years earlier in Rolling's hometown of Shreveport, LA. Although Rolling was never officially charged or extradicted to LA to stand trial for the "Grissom Murders", Shreveport Police had confirmed even before the confession that Rolling had long been considered the lone suspect and the case was closed. |
| Allan Joseph Legere | Canada | 1989 | 5 | 7+ | Convicted of killing five people in the Miramichi area, New Brunswick. Legere is now serving a life sentence Canada's only super maximum prison (Special Handling Unit). |
| Joseph E. Duncan III | United States | 1996–2005 | 5 | 7 | Convicted of killing a California boy in 1997 and four members of an Idaho family in 2005. Confessed to two 1996 murders in Washington state, but was not formally charged. Died while awaiting execution on U.S. federal death row. |
| Vincent Johnson | United States | 1999–2000 | 5 | 6 | "The Brooklyn Strangler". |
| Vinko Pintarić | SR Croatia | 1973–1990 | 5 | 5+ | Murdered five people, including his wife, between 1973 and 1990. Escaped from custody three times, killed in a 1991 shootout with the police. |
| Edward Edwards | United States | 1977–1996 | 5 | 5+ | Shot a young couple in 1977 and stabbed and strangled another in 1980; died months prior to execution on April 7, 2011, for shooting his foster son in 1996 insurance murder. |
| Thomas Dillon | United States | 1989–1992 | 5 | 5+ | Killed outdoorsmen in rural Ohio by sniping them from afar with a hunting rifle. |
| Marc Dutroux | Belgium | 1995–1996 | 5 | 5+ | Child molester who killed 4 of possibly 11 victims. He was also convicted for murdering one of his partners in crime. |
| William Dathan Holbert | Panama | 2010 and earlier | 5 | 5+ | Known as "Wild Bill"; American expatriate who had the bodies of five other Americans buried on his property. He would kill people to get their money and properties. His wife, Laura Michelle Reese, was also arrested. |
| Sek Kim Wah | Singapore | 1983 | 5 | 5 | Sek Kim Wah, who was of Chinese Singaporean descent, was 19 years old when he killed five victims in two separate robbery cases, using raffia string to strangle them. Other methods employed were hitting their heads with a heavy object (like a wooden stool) and electrocution (which was unsuccessful). He robbed and killed a couple before abandoning their corpses at Seletar Reservoir on 30 June 1983 and then, on 23 July 1983, killed three more people at Andrew Road with an accomplice who did not take part in the killings. He was arrested and indicted for murder six days later and was sentenced to death on 14 August 1985; he lost an appeal and he was hanged on 9 December 1988. |
| Jerome Dennis | United States | 1991–1992 | 5 | 5 | Killed Newark women while on parole. |
| Belize Ripper | Belize | 1998–2000 | 5 | 5 | The Belize Ripper was an unidentified Belizean serial killer who abducted and murdered five young girls in Belize City between 1998 and 2000. |
| Elroy Chester | United States | 1997–1998 | 5 | 5 | Murdered four white people in racially-motivated attacks, and also admitted to the murder of his brother-in-law. In addition, he was linked to four non-fatal shootings and three rapes. |
| Elisabeth Wiese | Germany | 1902–1903 | 5 | | Known as the "Angel Maker of St. Pauli"; baby farmer who poisoned her grandchild and four others with morphine and burned their bodies in a stove in 1902 and 1903. |
| Phantom Killer | United States | 1946 | 5 | | Believed to have committed the Texarkana Moonlight Murders in Texas between February 23 and May 4, 1946. |
| San Mateo slasher | United States | 1976 | 5 | | Known as the "Gypsy Hill killings"; five unsolved killings, of young women in San Mateo County, California during early 1976. |
| Honolulu Strangler | United States | 1985–1986 | 5 | | Raped and strangled five young women in Hawaii in 1985 and 1986. |
| Anthony Kirkland | United States | 1987–2009 | 5 | | Kirkland murdered four females between 2006 and 2009, three of them children, following a 16-year prison term for the murder of another woman. |
| William MacDonald | Australia | 1961–1962 | 5 | | Murdered derelicts in Sydney and Brisbane between 1960 and 1962; sentenced to five consecutive life sentences. |
| Harry Powers | United States | 1931 | 5 | | "Lonely Hearts" swindler and conman. Killed two women and three children in Quiet Dell, West Virginia. Arrested after the bodies were found buried near his garage in 1931 and hanged in 1932. |
| Anna Marie Hahn | United States | 1933–1937 | 5 | | German-born murder-for-profit killer who poisoned five elderly men; executed in 1938. |
| Robert Nixon | United States | 1936–1938 | 5 | | Killed 5 women in the 1930s with bricks. Executed by electrocution in Illinois on June 15, 1939. |
| Waneta Hoyt | United States | 1965–1971 | 5 | | New York woman who murdered her five children. |
| Janie Lou Gibbs | United States | 1966–1967 | 5 | | Georgia poisoner who killed five family members. Sentenced to life. Died in prison on February 7, 2010. |
| South Dade Killer | United States | 1975 | 5 | | Known as the "Flat-Tire murders". Killed 5 women in 1975. |
| Gerald Parker | United States | 1978–1979 | 5 | | Known as "The Bedroom Basher" raped and murdered five women and killed the unborn baby of a sixth woman in Orange County, California. |
| Phillip Carl Jablonski | United States | 1978–1991 | 5 | | convicted of killing five women in California and Utah between 1978 and 1991. Sentenced to death in 1994. |
| Arthur Gary Bishop | United States | 1979–1983 | 5 | | Utah man who murdered five young boys; executed in 1988. |
| Faryion Wardrip | United States | 1984–1986 | 5 | | Killed five young women around Wichita Falls, Texas between 1984 and 1986. |
| Timothy Wilson Spencer | United States | 1984–1987 | 5 | | Known as "The Southside Strangler"; raped and killed five women in Virginia. Executed in the electric chair on April 27, 1994. |
| Robert Shulman | United States | 1991–1996 | 5 | | Convicted of murdering five sex workers between 1991 and 1996. |
| Elias Abuelazam | United States | 2009–2010 | 5 | | Known as "The Serial Slasher". Israeli-Arab immigrant that stabbed victims to death. Sentenced to life on June 25, 2012. |
| Joachim Knychała | Poland | 1975–1982 | 5 | | Known as "The Vampire of Bytom" or "Frankenstein", who murdered five women between 1975 and 1982. |
| Archibald Hall | United Kingdom | 1977 | 5 | | Called "The Monster Butler". Died in prison in 2002. |
| Colin Ireland | United Kingdom | 1993 | 5 | | Called "The Gay Slayer". A highly organized serial killer, Ireland picked passive masochist gay men in the Coleherne public house, accompanied them home, and murdered them after they were voluntarily restrained. He then cleaned the house of forensic evidence and left when he was sure of not appearing suspicious. |
| Claude Lastennet | France | 1993–1994 | 5 | | Convicted of murdering 5 old women between August 1993 and January 1994. |
| Metod Trobec | SR Slovenia | 1976–1978 | 5 | | Raped, killed and cremated five women in his home. Also tried to murder two other immates while in prison before committing suicide in his cell in 2006. |
| Romulus Vereş | Romania | 1970s | 5 | | Known as "The Hammer Man". Institutionalized. |
| Akira Nishiguchi | Japan | 1963 | 5 | | Fraudster, murdered two people while engaging in confidence scams and killed three others while on the run from justice. Hanged in 1970. |
| Boris Gusakov | Soviet Union | 1964–1968 | 5 | | Known as "Student Hunter"; committed 15 sexual assaults, including 5 murders, on girls and young women from 1964 to 1968. |
| Anatoly Biryukov | Soviet Union | 1977 | 5 | | Known as "The Hunter of Babies": responsible for the kidnappings and subsequent murders of five infants from Moscow in the fall of 1977. |
| Süleyman Aktaş | Turkey | 1986–1994 | 5 | | Known as "The Nailing Killer": responsible for the murders of five people in 1986 and 1994. |
| B1 Butcher | Namibia | 2005–2007 | 5 | | Murdered at least five women between 2005 and 2007, with all murders related to the National Road B1. |

## Serial killers with fewer than five proven victims

This part of the list contains all serial killers with fewer than five proven victims who acted alone and were neither medical professionals nor contract killers.
| Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
| Alexander Spesivtsev | Russia | 1991–1996 | 4 | 82+ | Cannibal known as "The Novokuznetsk Monster"; admitted to 19 murders, but 82 bloody sets of clothes were found in his home, along with jewels and photographs of possibly unidentified victims. Found insane and interned in a mental hospital. His mother was sentenced to 16 years in prison for luring Spesivtsev's victims to their home. |
| Charlie Brandt | United States | 1971–2004 | 4 | 29 | Killed himself by hanging after murdering his wife and niece. The latter was also decapitated and eviscerated in a manner strongly similar to 26 unsolved murders of women in Florida, starting in 1973, the year Brandt moved to the state. Brandt was later considered the culprit in one of these murders, due to his strong resemblance to a suspect who was filmed by a traffic camera near the place where one body was found. He could not be officially tied to the other crimes due to lack of evidence. Previously, when he was 13 years old in 1971, he attempted to murder his whole family with a gun, for no apparent reason. His mother (who was pregnant) died in this attack, but his father survived, and his sister escaped. |
| Scott Lee Kimball | United States | 2003–2004 | 4 | 21 | A skilled forger who, while he ran a legitimate business buying and selling organic beef, primarily enriched himself by passing bad checks on the accounts of others and using forged documents; by 2003 he had faced criminal charges in four Western states. These white-collar crimes also enabled his murders, by allowing him to create evidence that his victims were still alive after he had killed them; he also used their checking accounts and credit cards to further his schemes once they were dead. For the first year of his murder activity, he worked as an informant for the FBI, which both paid him and protected him from facing justice over some of his fraud schemes. |
| Robert Black | United Kingdom Ireland (suspected) West Germany (suspected) Netherlands (suspected) France (suspected) | 1981–1986 | 4 | 18+ | Convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering four girls aged between five and 11. Suspect in other earlier child murders in the UK and other European countries. Died weeks before he was to be charged with a fifth child murder. |
| Max Gufler | Austria | 1946–1958 | 4 | 18 | Poisoned and drowned four women, but suspected of killing 18 in total. |
| Ernesto Picchioni | Italy | 1949 and earlier | 4 | 16 | Murdered people who approached his home; died of cardiac arrest in 1967. |
| Baekuni | Indonesia | 1993–2010 | 4 | 14 | Child rapist who killed young boys; initially sentenced to life imprisonment, but changed to the death sentence. |
| Igor Chernat | Soviet Union | 1985–1986 | 4 | 13 | Known as the "Evil Spirit of Kaukjarvi"; Ukrainian soldier who raped and killed women in Kamenka, selling their stolen items afterwards; executed 1987. |
| Ricky Lee Green | United States | 1985–1986 | 4 | 12 | Bisexual drifter who killed people he met in bars; his wife assisted in two of the murders; executed in 1997. |
| Robert Hicks Murray | United Kingdom | 1912 and earlier | 4 | 11+ | Bigamist who murdered his wife and three children in a murder-suicide; posthumously revealed to have killed previous wives as well. |
| William Dean Christensen | United States Canada | 1982–1983 | 4 | 10+ | Known as "The American Jack the Ripper"; murdered and mutilated three women and one man; Canadian and US authorities also investigated him as a suspect in a total of ten murders, but he died before any of these claims could be confirmed. |
| Angus Sinclair | United Kingdom | 1961, 1967–1982 | 4 | 10 | Scottish man who was originally convicted of murdering a 7-year-old girl when he was 16. As well as being convicted of the murders of three women in 1977 and 1978, police suspect he was responsible for four other murders of women in Glasgow in these years. Also a suspect in two other murders in 1970 and 1979 respectively. |
| John Cooper | United Kingdom | 1985–1998 | 4 | 9 | Psychopathic Welsh burglar who was convicted in 2011 of the double shotgun murders of a couple on the Pembrokeshire coast in 1989 and another during a botched burglary nearby in 1985. Police believed he killed at least one other woman in 1989, and investigated the possibility he could also have been responsible for another double shotgun murder in Bridgend in 1993. A forensic pathologist also claimed to police that he could have been responsible for two murders of elderly siblings in Pembrokeshire in 1976. |
| Cary Stayner | United States | 1999 | 4 | 9 | Known as "The Yosemite Killer". Killed four women in Yosemite, California. Sentenced to death. Brother of kidnapping victim Steven Stayner. |
| Tony Costa | United States | 1968–1969 | 4 | 8 | Dismembered and mutilated 4 women in Cape Cod in the late 1960s; linked to at least 4 other deaths and disappearances. |
| Carlton Gary | United States | 1975–1978 | 4 | 8 | Gary was convicted of raping and strangling three elderly women in Columbus, Georgia between 1977 and 1978, although police and prosecutors believe him to be responsible for up to seven rape-murders in Columbus. DNA also linked him to an additional murder in Syracuse, New York, but prosecutors did not charge him because he was already on death row. |
| Oakland County Child Killer | United States | 1976–1977 | 4 | 7–11 | Unidentified person or persons who abducted and murdered at least four children in Oakland County, Michigan, between 1976 and 1977. |
| Robert Rozier | United States | 1981–1986 | 4 | 7 | Former NFL player that was convicted of four murders but confessed to seven as a member of the Nation of Yahweh. |
| Leonard Fraser | Australia | 1998–1999 | 4 | 7 | Serial rapist and pedophile who murdered four women in Rockhampton. Sentenced to five consecutive life sentences plus 25 years without the possibility of parole; died in prison of a heart attack in 2007. |
| Christopher Peterson | United States | 1990 | 4 | 7 | Peterson was convicted of four fatal shootings by the so-called "Shotgun Killer" that occurred between October and December 1990. He was charged in three other murders related to the killing spree but was acquitted. |
| Ricardo Caputo | United States Mexico | 1971–1983 | 4 | 6 | Was No. 1 of the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives during his time as a fugitive in the 1980s. Surrendered himself to justice in 1994 and died of cardiac arrest in prison three years later. |
| Anthony Allen Shore | United States | 1986–1995 | 4 | 5 | Known as "The Tourniquet Killer"; convicted of strangling a woman with an unusual ligature in 1992 and confessed to killing three girls including two with same MO. |
| Daytona Beach killer | United States | 2005–2007 | 4 | 5 | Murdered four, possibly five, women in Daytona Beach, Florida between 2005 and 2007. |
| Jozef Slovák | Czechoslovakia | 1978–1991 | 4 | 4+ | Suspected by investigators of more murders, but only four could be proven. |
| Monster of Udine | Italy | 1980–1989 | 4 | 4+ | Killed at least 4 victims in the Province of Udine, Italy. |
| John Martin Crawford | Canada | 1981–1992 | 4 | 4+ | Convicted in 1996 for the murders of three native women. |
| Oba Chandler | United States | 1989–1990 | 4 | 4+ | Convicted for the June 1989 murders of Joan Rogers and her two daughters, whose bodies were found floating in Tampa Bay, Florida with their hands and feet bound. Autopsies showed the victims had been thrown into the water while still alive, with ropes tied to a concrete block around their necks. Chandler was executed in 2011. In February 2014, DNA evidence also identified Chandler as the murderer of Ivelisse Berrios-Beguerisse, who was found dead in Coral Springs, Florida, on November 27, 1990. |
| Dallen Bounds | United States | 1999 | 4 | 4+ | Murdered a Radio Shack manager, and a florist at their respective places of business. Then murdered two acquaintances before taking two others hostage and committing suicide. Suspected of additional murders in the Pacific Northwest. |
| Wayne Adam Ford | United States | 1997–1998 | 4 | 4+ | Confessed to murdering four women; believed to have killed others. |
| Heinrich Pommerenke | Germany | 1959 | 4 | 4+ | Killed four women. |
| Robert Mone | United Kingdom | 1967–1976 | 4 | 4 | Scottish man who shot dead a teacher at his former school in Dundee in 1967. Later escaped from a secure hospital in 1976 and killed three more. |
| Jerry Brudos | United States | 1968–1969 | 4 | 4 | Brudos was a necrophiliac who had a fascination with women's shoes, and would often dress his victims' corpses in women's clothing. |
| Robert Maudsley | United Kingdom | 1974–1978 | 4 | 4 | Sentenced to life without parole in 1974 for murdering a man who had shown him pictures of young boys he had sexually abused. Subsequently, killed another child sex offender in Broadmoor high-security hospital and two more, including a child sex offender, in prison. Has been held in solitary confinement since 1983. |
| Aalt Mondria | Netherlands | 1978–1997 | 4 | 4 | Dutch criminal and serial killer who committed four murders and was responsible for a large number of assaults. Mondria was considered extremely violent and aggressive. After a notorious murder of his girlfriend's 10-year-old son, he was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment in 1998, after initially receiving life imprisonment for three murders in 1978, for which he also received 15 years imprisonment. |
| Tsutomu Miyazaki | Japan | 1988–1989 | 4 | 4 | Japanese man who murdered four young girls between August 1988 and June 1989 popularly known as the Otaku Killer. He was active in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture. |
| Cody Legebokoff | Canada | 2009–2010 | 4 | 4 | Canadian serial killer convicted in 2014 by the British Columbia Supreme Court of murdering three women and one teenage girl, between 2009 and 2010, in or near the city of Prince George, British Columbia. He is one of Canada's youngest convicted serial killers. |
| Stephen Port | United Kingdom | 2014–2015 | 4 | 4 | Nicknamed "The Grindr Killer", Port met his victims via online gay social networks. He used gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), a date rape drug, adding it to drinks given to his victims, raped them, and murdered four of them in his flat in Barking, east London. |
| Howell Donaldson III | United States | 2017 | 4 | 4 | Murdered four people in the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa, Florida in October and November 2017. All four victims were shot dead seemingly at random. Sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without parole in May 2023. |
| Arnold Sodeman | Australia | 1930–1935 | 4 | 4 | Sodeman was convicted of murdering four children between 1930 and 1935. He would abduct children, gag them and tie their hands behind their back with their own clothing and then strangle them to death. Sodeman was one of the last eleven people to be executed in Victoria. |
| Craig Price | United States | 1987–1989 | 4 | 4 | Murdered four people during violent attacks in their homes in Warwick, Rhode Island when he was a teenager. |
| Fritz Honka | Germany | 1970–1975 | 4 | 4 | Strangled sex workers who refused to service him in the way that he wanted. |
| Cayetano Santos Godino | Argentina | 1912 | 4 | | Known as Petiso Orejudo ("the Big-eared Midget"). Teenage arsonist, animal killer and child murderer with congenital syphilis. Arrested at age 16 in 1912 for killing 4 children, although he tried to kill seven more, the first one when he was seven himself. Interned in 1913 in a reformatory, where he tried to kill other immates, and from 1915 in prison. Died in jail in 1948. |
| Eastbound Strangler | United States | 2006 | 4 | | Killed four women in October and November 2006 in Atlantic City, NJ. Each was placed about sixty feet apart in a drainage ditch filled with shallow water. They were facing east and missing their socks. |
| Caroline Grills | Australia | 1947–1953 | 4 | | Poisoned four people (most of them relatives) with thallium hidden in tea and scones she had given them in Sydney. Sentenced to five consecutive life sentences (including one for attempting to poison another family member); died from peritonitis in 1960. |
| Gordon Cummins | United Kingdom | 1942 | 4 | | Raped three of his victims and robbed the remaining one. Also attacked two other women. Sentenced to death by hanging. |
| Marc Sappington | United States | 2001 | 4 | | Schizophrenic serial killer who heard voices telling him to kill after extended daily PCP use. He cannibalized part of his last victim. |
| Peter Woodcock | Canada | 1956–1991 | 4 | | Sexual sadist and child rapist. Killed three young children in Toronto in the 1950s. Sentenced to a psychiatric facility, where he murdered a fellow inmate in 1991. |
| Léopold Dion | Canada | 1963 | 4 | | Known as the "Monster of Port-Rouge". Canadian sex offender and serial killer who was active in Quebec. Sentenced to hang but stabbed to death on November 17, 1972, by fellow inmate Normand "Lawrence d'Arabie" Champagne, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity. |
| John Ingvar Lövgren | Sweden | 1958–1963 | 4 | | Confessed to four murders committed between 1958 and 1963 in the Stockholm region. |
| Lam Kor-wan | Hong Kong | 1980s | 4 | | Taxi driver and one of Hong Kong's only two known serial killers. Famous for keeping body parts in his parents' home. |
| Jürgen Bartsch | West Germany | 1962–1966 | 4 | | Killed four, one escaped; died by wrongful overdose during castration surgery. |
| Wayne Boden | Canada | 1968–1971 | 4 | | Known as "the Vampire Rapist" killed 4 women between 1968 and 1971; died in prison 2006 |
| Ion Rîmaru | Romania | 1970–1971 | 4 | | Known as "The Vampire of Bucharest". Attacked 15 lone waitresses as they returned from work with a hammer, hatchet, knife or iron bar, always after midnight and under unusual weather (snowstorms, fog, hard rain, etc.). Four were killed. |
| David Meirhofer | United States | 1967–1974 | 4 | | Killed three children and an ex-girlfriend between 1967 and 1974; first serial killer apprehended by offender profiling. |
| Donald Neilson | United Kingdom | 1971–1975 | 4 | | Armed robber and murderer known as the "Black Panther". Died in prison in 2011. |
| Thor Nis Christiansen | United States | 1977–1979 | 4 | | Shot dead and committed necrophilia on 4 young women in Isla Vista, California in the late 1970s. Stabbed to death in prison on March 30, 1981; killer unknown. |
| Michael Lupo | United Kingdom | 1986 | 4 | | Called himself "The Wolf Man". Murdered four men after being diagnosed with HIV, died in prison in 1995. |
| Peter Lundin | Denmark | 1991–2000 | 4 | | Killed his mother in 1991, then killed his mistress and her two children 9 years later; Sentenced to prison. |
| James Swann | United States | 1993 | 4 | | Known as The Shotgun Stalker; killed 4 and injured 5 in Washington D.C. in 1993. |
| Steven Grieveson | United Kingdom | 1993–1994 | 4 | | Murdered four boys in an attempt to conceal his homosexuality. |
| Frank Gust | Germany | 1994–1998 | 4 | | Kill four women form 1994 to 1998. Sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Alexander Tchayka | Russia | 1994 | 4 | | All the victims were women wearing fur coats and were stabbed multiple times (21 in one case). |
| Peter Moore | United Kingdom | 1995 | 4 | | Stabbed and mutilated four men. Imprisoned for life since 1996. |
| Hiroaki Hidaka | Japan | 1996 | 4 | | Killed and robbed four women. Hanged in 2006. |
| Nicolai Bonner | Israel | 2005 | 4 | | Born in Moldova, Bonner beat to death four fellow immigrants from the former Soviet Union, three of whom were homeless, and then tried to set them on fire. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007. |
| Raúl Osiel Marroquín | Mexico | 2005 | 4 | | Called "The Sadist". Lured men in gay bars and strangled them, abandoning their bodies inside suitcases all over Mexico City. Two other victims were released after demanding a ransom from their families. |
| Dale Cregan | United Kingdom | 2012 | 4 | | |
| Richard Kuklinski | United States | 1948–1986 | 3 | 100–250 | |
| Harvey Miguel Robinson | United States | 1992–1993 | 3 | 3 | An American serial killer who murdered three women when he was only 18 years-old. |
| Albert Fish | United States | 1924–1932 | 3 | 9–100+ | American serial killer and child rapist who confessed to three murders for which he was convicted and sentenced to death. |
| Robert Ben Rhoades | United States | 1989–1990 | 3 | 50+ | Convicted of murdering three women in Texas and Illinois between 1989 and 1990. Sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Peter Tobin | United Kingdom | 1991–2006 | 3 | 48 | Scottish rapist and serial killer known to have killed at least three young women. Was also previously a suspect in the Bible John murders committed in Glasgow during the late 1960s, although police have now dismissed the theory. |
| Pedro Padilla Flores | Mexico | 1986 | 3 | 30 | Killed three women in 1986; fled to the US but recaptured and deported back to Mexico; main suspect in the Ciudad Juárez Murders. |
| Stephen Morin | United States | 1981 | 3 | 30 | Convicted of murdering three women within a period of five weeks in 1981. Sentenced to the death penalty. |
| Dorothea Puente | United States | 1982–1988 | 3 | 9–25 | Ran a boarding house in Sacramento where she poisoned tenants and buried them in the yard in order to steal their social security checks. |
| Billy Glaze | United States | 1986–1987 | 3 | 20+ | Known as "Butcher Knife Billy". Killer convicted of raping and murdering three Native American sex workers in Minneapolis in 1986 and 1987. |
| Sidney Cooke | United Kingdom | c. 1960–1989 | 3 | 20 | Described by The Guardian newspaper in 1999 as "Britain's most notorious paedophile", Cooke and his infamous paedophile ring were convicted of the murder of 14-year-old Jason Swift in 1984. They were also known by police to have been responsible for the abductions and murders of children Barry Lewis and Mark Tildesley. Cooke was the ringleader of the gang, who are believed to have murdered up to 20 children, possibly including Vishal Mehrotra and Martin Allen. |
| Bertha Gifford | United States | 1909–1928 | 3 | 17 | Found not guilty by reason of insanity of three arsenic poisonings and suspected of 14 other killings, mostly children, in Missouri. |
| Bernhard Prigan | Allied-occupied Germany West Germany | 1947–1952 | 3 | 16 | Killed women near highways; confessed to a total of 16 murders. |
| Ronald Janssen | Belgium | 1990s–2010 | 3 | 15+ | |
| Patrick Mackay | United Kingdom | 1973–1975 | 3 | 13 | Burglar suspect of 12 violent murders during robberies, charged with five, convicted of three. The two other cases were left to lie on file, and proof was later found by police that he had killed one of these victims. Confessed to police that he had killed 13 people. Has been eligible for parole since 1995 and since 2017 has been held in an open prison with day release provisions. Now known as 'David Groves'. |
| Koos Hertogs | Netherlands | 1979–1980 | 3 | 12 | Dutch serial killer convicted of abducting, torturing, raping and killing three girls. Suspected of killing a further three to nine girls and young women in the 1970s. |
| Michael Gargiulo | United States | 1993–2008 | 3 | 10 | Dubbed "The Hollywood Ripper", Gargiulo stabbed 3 women to death, and tried to kill a fourth woman. Sentenced to death in 2021 but still on death row. |
| Chisako Kakehi | Japan | 2007–2013 | 3 | 10 | Poisoned her husband and two other men to death, but suspected in another seven deaths; sentenced to death. |
| Heriberto Seda | United States | 1990–1996 | 3 | 8+ | Considered to be a copycat of the Zodiac Killer. Claimed to have killed people based on their zodiac signs, and only killed when certain star formations were out. |
| Anthony Hardy | United Kingdom | 2002 | 3 | 8 | Known as the "Camden Ripper", killed and dismembered three sex workers in Camden, London in 2002. Police believe he could be responsible for the murders of three other sex workers in London in the 1990s and two others in Nottinghamshire. One other unsolved murder he was linked to was solved in 2011 when her former partner John Sweeney was convicted of her murder. |
| Michael Lee Lockhart | United States | 1987–1988 | 3 | 6+ | Multi-state serial killer who received death sentences in three states (Florida, Indiana, and Texas). He was executed in 1997 in Texas. |
| Peter Dupas | Australia | 1997–1999 | 3 | 6 | Sexual sadist from Melbourne, who murdered three women and is suspected of at least three further killings. Was convicted of 16 separate acts of sexual violence before his first murder charge. Serving three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. |
| Stephen Griffiths | United Kingdom | 2009–2010 | 3 | 6 | Known to have killed three sex workers, but claimed to police to have killed 6. Has been a suspect in one other murder. Dubbed himself the "Crossbow Cannibal" as he killed his victims with a hammer and crossbow and then later ate parts of them. |
| Levi Bellfield | United Kingdom | 2002–2004 | 3 | 6 | West London serial killer convicted of two fatal hammer attacks on women and the murder of Milly Dowler. Also a suspect in the murders of his childhood girlfriend Patsy Morris in 1980, Judith Gold, who was hit over the head in 1990, and Elizabeth Chau, who disappeared in 1999 and whose murder Bellfield has allegedly confessed to. |
| Hans van Zon | Netherlands | 1967 | 3 | 5+ | After the relationship between Hans van Zon and his girlfriend ended in April 1967, van Zon alleged that she continued to impose on him. To put an end to this, he went into her house and killed her with a self-made lead pipe. He also killed an 80-year-old shopkeeper, and a milkman in robberies. In addition to the murders he was tried for, van Zon was also suspected of several other murders, including the lust murder of Elly Segov in 1964 and the murder of the English homosexual film director Claude Berkeley in 1965. |
| Judy Buenoano | United States | 1971–1980 | 3 | 5 | Poisoned her husband, boyfriend and son with arsenic; drowned the son in 1980 but caught in 1983 after poisoning and car bombing a fiancée. |
| Martin Ney | Germany | 1992–2004 | 3 | 5 | Wore a mask while killing 3 and sexually assaulting at least 40 children. |
| Paul Denyer | Australia | 1993 | 3 | 5 | The "Frankston Killer", sentenced to three consecutive life sentences with a non-parole period of 30 years. |
| Bandali Debs | Australia | 1997–1998 | 3 | 5 | Convicted of the murder of Kirsty Harty at Upper Beaconsfield in 1997, and of the Moorabbin Police murders 14 months later to avoid arrest for a string of armed robberies; sentenced to three consecutive life sentences plus 27 years without the possibility of parole. |
| Gordon Northcott | United States | 1928 | 3 | 4–20 | Pedophile who abducted and murdered boys aged between 10 and 12 in Los Angeles and then disposed of the bodies with the help of his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, and his underage nephew Sanford Clark, whom Northcott had repeatedly threatened and sexually abused. Police considered Northcott a suspect in the disappearance of as many as 20 missing boys in the area that Northcott admitted to have molested, but not murdered; one of these boys surfaced years later alive and confirmed Northcott's version. According to Clark, only four boys were held and murdered in Northcott's property; the three LA children whose remains were found and for whom Northcott was hanged, and an unidentified Mexican boy that Northcott beheaded and disposed of the body near La Puente, California. |
| Peter Kudzinowski | United States | 1924–1928 | 3 | 4 | Convicted and executed for the murder of an adult in Scranton, Pennsylvania and two children in New Jersey. Also suspect in the death of two other children in New York City, although Albert Fish later confessed to have murdered one of them himself. |
| Harvey Glatman | United States | 1957–1958 | 3 | 4 | Known as "The Lonely Hearts Killer"; Californian rapist and killer; lured women to pose for "bondage photographs"; executed in the gas chamber on September 18, 1959. |
| Martha Ann Johnson | United States | 1977–1982 | 3 | 4 | Convicted of smothering three of her children in Atlanta between 1977 and 1982. Sentenced to life in prison on May 5, 1990. |
| Vlado Taneski | Republic of Macedonia | 2005–2008 | 3 | 4 | A crime journalist, Taneski came under suspicion when his articles on the rape and murder of three elderly women included information that had not been disclosed by the police. All the victims were poor, uneducated cleaners and knew Taneski's mother. Taneski killed himself in prison before he could be interrogated for the murder of a fourth woman. |
| Özkan Zengin | Turkey | 2008 | 3 | 4 | Slit the throats of three confirmed victims before dumping the bodies in wells. Reportedly confessed to an additional murder. |
| Khalil Wheeler-Weaver | United States | 2016 | 3 | 4 | American serial killer from Orange, New Jersey, Wheeler-Weaver lured his victims using dating apps and murdered three women and attempted to kill a fourth between August 2016 and November 2016. One of the victim's friends created a fake account and lured him to a meeting before notifying police. |
| William Henry Hance | United States | 1977–1978 | 3 | 4 | Hance murdered three women in and around military bases in the late 1970s. He attempted to blame two of the murders on white vigilantes outraged over a series of murders later attributed to Carlton Gary. Hance was also blamed for the murder of a fourth woman at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana but was never brought to trial for this crime. |
| "Charlie Chop-off" | United States | 1972–1973 | 3 | 4 | Unidentified assailant who attacked young black and Puerto Rican boys and mutilated their genitals with a straight razor, killing three and leaving one castrated. Another suspected victim was killed but did not have his genitals mutilated. A single suspect was arrested for attempting to abduct another boy, confessed to one of the murders and was hesitantly identified by the surviving victim, but was found unfit for trial and may have been in a mental hospital during the murders. |
| François Vérove | France | 1986–1994 | 3 | 3–9+ | Nicknamed "Le Grêlé" ("the pockmarked man"), Verove a former police officer is blamed for four murders and a series of rapes since 1986. His confessed was found on his suicide note alongside body after he killed himself in 2021. The crimes include the 1986 murder of an 11-year-old child, Cécile Bloch, in Paris. |
| Louise Peete | United States | 1912–1942 | 3 | 3+ | Convicted of murdering a man and woman decades apart, four other acquaintances died suspiciously and four husbands committed suicide. |
| Westley Allan Dodd | United States | 1989 | 3 | 3+ | Dodd had an extensive arrest record for molesting children by the time his behavior escalated to include murder. Refusing to appeal his death sentence, he stated that he "should be punished to the full extent of the law, as should all sex offenders and murderers", and that if he ever escaped, he would immediately return to "killing and raping kids". Executed in 1993; his hanging was the first in the United States in 28 years. |
| Scott Erskine | United States | 1989–1993 | 3 | 3+ | Convicted of raping and murdering a woman in 1989 and the torture-murders of 2 boys in 1993. May be linked to other murders. |
| Donald Leroy Evans | United States | 1985–1991 | 3 | 3+ | Murdered a young girl and two women. Suspected of another dozen murders but recanted confessions to over 70 more. Stabbed to death by another death row inmate on January 5, 1999. |
| John Martin | United Kingdom | 1995 | 3 | 3+ | (Birth name John Martin Scripps, alias Simon James Davis) While on the run after escaping Britain, Martin killed at least three tourists between 8 and 14 March 1995 and robbed them of their possessions and money: one in Singapore and two in Thailand. He also dismembered their bodies and dumped them in various areas, such as the sea or abandoned places. Martin was also alleged to have killed at least three more people in other countries, such as the US, but these were unconfirmed. He was arrested in Changi Airport when he returned to Singapore on 19 March 1995, and was charged with murder. Martin was found guilty of the one murder he committed in Singapore and thus sentenced to death in November 1995. Martin was executed on 19 April 1996, after he declined to appeal against his sentence. |
| Richard Evonitz | United States | 1996–1997 | 3 | 3+ | Abducted and killed 3 girls in Spotsylvania County, Virginia in 1996 and 1997 |
| Harvey Carignan | United States | 1949–1974 | 3 | 3+ | Serving a life sentence at the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Faribault for the murders of two women. He had been previously convicted for a 1949 rape and murder he committed while stationed in the U.S. Army, in Anchorage, Alaska. |
| John Joubert | United States | 1982–1983 | 3 | 3+ | Joubert killed a young boy in Maine and two boys in Nebraska. He was executed by the State of Nebraska in 1996. |
| Akku Yadav | India | 2004 and earlier | 3 | 3+ | Murdered at least three people and dumped their bodies on the railroad tracks; lynched by a mob of around 200 women. |
| Michael Madison | United States | 2012–2013 | 3 | 3+ | American serial killer from East Cleveland, Ohio who committed at least three murders. |
| "Bible John" | United Kingdom | 1968–1969 | 3 | 3 | Unidentified serial killer who murdered three women in Glasgow, Scotland. Convicted serial killer Peter Tobin was suspected in the murders, but has since been eliminated as a suspect. |
| Andrew Dawson | United Kingdom | 1982–2010 | 3 | 3 | Killed an elderly man during a burglary in 1982. Following his release from prison, he stabbed two of his neighbors to death in separate incidents, describing himself as an "Angel of Mercy". He is currently Derby's only serial killer. |
| Leonarda Cianciulli | Italy | 1939–1940 | 3 | 3 | Murdered three women in the town of Correggio, Reggio Emilia, and turned their bodies into soap and cakes. |
| Sharon Kinne | United States | 1960–1964 | 3 | 3 | Sociopathic serial killer that murdered romantic partners with a handgun. Currently still at large since her escape from prison in 1969. |
| Ted Kaczynski | United States | 1978–1995 | 3 | 3 | Domestic terrorist and serial bomber known as the "Unabomber", Kaczynski was responsible for more than two dozen bombings of universities and one airline bombing from 1978 to 1996, justified by Kaczynski by his philosophy that technological advancements would destroy humanity. Arrested in 1996 due to his brother David recognizing the then unidentified Unabomber's manifesto titled Industrial Society and Its Future as the work of Kaczynski. Died in prison on June 10, 2023. |
| Leon Dorsey | United States | 1994 | 3 | 3 | Murdered three people from 4 April-11 September 1994. He was serving 60 years for the murder of an Ellis County convenience store employee when surveillance camera footage linked him to the murders of two other people. He was convicted and sentenced to death in June 2000, and executed on 12 August 2008. |
| Ronald Jebson | United Kingdom | 1970–1974 | 3 | 3 | Jebson, a prolific child molester, was convicted of raping and killing the eight-year-old daughter of acquaintances in 1974. While serving his sentence he pled guilty to molesting and murdering two other children, Susan Blatchford and Gary Hanlon, in 1970. |
| Charles Albanese | United States | 1980–1981 | 3 | 3 | Albanese poisoned his wife's mother and grandmother and his father with arsenic in order to obtain inheritance money, and unsuccessfully tried to poison his brother and mother. He was sentenced to death in two separate trials and ultimately executed in 1995. |
| Jason Thornburg | United States | 2017–2021 | 3 | 2 | Thornburg was convicted of three counts of capital murder for killing his roommate and two more women as part of religious sacrifices in Texas in September 2021, and even dismembered the bodies and cannibalise the victims' flesh. Thornburg was sentenced to death for the serial killings in December 2024, and he additionally confessed to killing his girlfriend in Arizona in 2017 and another roommate in May 2021 in Texas. |
| George Chapman | United Kingdom | 1897–1902 | 3 | | Poisoned three consecutive mistresses with tartar emetic. Considered the possible identity of Jack the Ripper at the time of his execution (1903). |
| Martha Rendell | Australia | 1907–1908 | 3 | | Killed three stepchildren with hydrochloric acid in the 20th century; last woman to be hanged in Western Australia. |
| George Joseph Smith | United Kingdom | 1912–1914 | 3 | | Known as "The Brides in the Bath Murders"; killer of three women. Executed by hanging on August 13, 1915. |
| Daisy de Melker | South Africa | 1923–1932 | 3 | | Poisoner; killed two husbands and one son from 1923 to 1932. |
| Eddie Leonski | Australia | 1942 | 3 | | Confessed to three murders after being picked out of a line of American servicemen by witnesses. Sentenced to death and hanged. |
| William Heirens | United States | 1945–1946 | 3 | | Burglar who stabbed three females between. Known as "The Lipstick Killer". |
| John Straffen | United Kingdom | 1951–1952 | 3 | | Killed his third victim after escaping from the mental hospital where he was recluded for the first two murders. Longest-held prisoner in modern British history at the time of his death in 2007. |
| Richard Laurence Marquette | United States | 1961–1975 | 3 | | First 11th name on FBI 10 Most Wanted for killing, mutilating and dismembering a woman in 1961; killed two more with same MO upon 1973 release. |
| Graham Young | United Kingdom | 1962–1971 | 3 | | Called the "Teacup Poisoner". Poisoned over 70 people, 3 of whom died. |
| Charles Schmid | United States | 1964–1965 | 3 | | Known as "The Pied Piper of Tucson"; murdered three teenage girls in 1964 and 1965 and buried them in the desert. |
| Lee Roy Martin | United States | 1967–1968 | 3 | | Known as "The Gaffney Strangler"; killed two women and two girls in South Carolina in 1967 and 1968. |
| Erwin Hagedorn | East Germany | 1969–1971 | 3 | | Killed three boys ages 9 to 12. Was convicted and executed in 1972. |
| Karl F. Warner | United States | 1969–1971 | 3 | | Convicted of murdering three teenage girls, in two separate incidents, in the San Francisco Bay Area communities of San Jose and Saratoga, he was briefly suspected of being the notorious Zodiac Killer, but was soon ruled out as a suspect in that case. |
| Howard Arthur Allen | United States | 1974–1987 | 3 | | Killed three elderly people, as well as assault, burglary, and arson. Sentenced to death June 11, 1988. |
| Trevor Hardy | United Kingdom | 1974–1976 | 3 | | Called "The Monster of Manchester". Died in prison in 2012. |
| Steven David Catlin | United States | 1976–1984 | 3 | | Poisoned three people from 1976 to 1984. Sentenced to death in 1990. |
| Paul Michael Stephani | United States | 1980–1982 | 3 | | Known as "The Weepy-Voiced Killer"; would call police and ask for help after murders. Killed 3 women in the cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota. |
| Dámaso Rodríguez Martín | Spain | 1981–1991 | 3 | | Serial rapist and voyeur known as "The Warlock". After being sentenced to 55 years for murdering a man and raping his girlfriend in 1981, he escaped from prison in 1991 and fled to the Anaga mountains in Tenerife, where he killed a couple of German hikers (the woman was also raped). Cornered in an abandoned house, Martín shot himself unsuccessfully and was then shot dead by law enforcement. |
| Altemio Sanchez | United States | 1981–2006 | 3 | | Known as "The Bike Path Rapist" for murdering three women and raping at least 14 others in and around the Buffalo, New York area. Sentenced to 75 years in prison without the possibility of parole. |
| Gregory Brazel | Australia | 1982–1990 | 3 | | Shot dead a woman in 1982 armed robbery and murdered two sex workers in 1990. |
| Brian Dugan | United States | 1983–1985 | 3 | | Convicted of murdering 2 girls and a woman between 1983 and 1985. |
| Valery Asratyan | Soviet Union | 1988–1990 | 3 | | Raped dozens of women in Moscow, murdering three. Executed. |
| Francisca Ballesteros | Spain | 1990–2004 | 3 | | "The Black Widow of Valencia". Poisoned her husband and three children, one of whom survived. Sentenced to 85 years in prison in 2005. |
| Silvo Plut | SR Slovenia Serbia and Montenegro Slovenia | 1990–2006 | 3 | | After serving 13 years in prison in Slovenia for a rape and murder, Plut murdered a second woman in Serbia in 2004 and fled back to Slovenia, where a Serbian petition of extradition was turned down by the government. Plut was then arrested for attacking a couple (wife died, husband survived) and sentenced to 30 years in prison. Committed suicide in 2007. |
| Gabriel Garza Hoth | Mexico | 1991–1998 | 3 | | Known as "The Black Widower", killed 3 women between 1991 and 1998, his victims were wives and lovers. |
| Robert Napper | United Kingdom | 1992–1993 | 3 | | Rapist and murderer who mutilated one of his victims so badly that the policeman who found her was put into therapy for two years. Suspected of up to 70 violent sexual attacks in South East London attributed to the unidentified "Green Chain Rapist". |
| Antonis Daglis | Greece | 1992–1995 | 3 | | "The Athens Ripper". A serial rapist with antecedents for violence, Daglis upgraded to raping, strangling and dismembering three sex workers with a hacksaw in 1992, and tried to kill six more women. In his trial he claimed to hate all sex workers. Killed himself in prison in 1997. |
| Gustavo Romero Tercero | Spain | 1993–1998 | 3 | | "The Valdepeñas Killer". Armed robber and rapist, he killed a couple after the woman recognized him in 1993, and another woman in 1998 after accidentally hitting her with his car, fearing that a possible investigation would link him to the other crimes. Confessed and was sentenced to 83 years in prison for all crimes in 2003, after his ex-wife denounced him. |
| Peter Bryan | United Kingdom | 1993–2004 | 3 | | A paranoid schizophrenic, Bryan was recluded in a mental institution after killing a shop assistant with a hammer in 1993. Released 11 years later after psychiatrists noted his "continued improvement", Bryan immediately killed a friend and was apprehended when he was frying his brains on a pan. Months later, Bryan killed a fellow mental patient, declaring that he didn't eat him solely because he was caught first. Currently imprisoned for life. |
| Lam Kwok-wai | Hong Kong | 1993 | 3 | | Convicted of 10 rapes and 3 murders that he committed with his bare hands. One of two only known serial killers in Hong Kong. |
| Dana Sue Gray | United States | 1994 | 3 | | Convicted of murder of three elderly women and attempted murder of a fourth in California. |
| Robin Ligus | United Kingdom | 1994 | 3 | | Died in a mental institution in 2012. |
| Jack Owen Spillman | United States | 1994–1995 | 3 | | Known as "The Werewolf Butcher"; killed two girls and the mother of one of them in Washington State in 1994 and 1995. |
| Scott Williams | United States | 1997–2006 | 3 | | Killed and mutilated three women between 1997 and 2006. Sentenced to life. |
| Juan Covington | United States | 1998–2005 | 3 | | Shot and killed 3 people. |
| Matthew James Harris | Australia | 1998 | 3 | | Strangled a friend's brother, a female friend and a male neighbour to death over five weeks in 1998 in Wagga Wagga. |
| Yukio Yamaji | Japan | 2000–2005 | 3 | | Murdered his own mother in 2000, and then murdered a 27-year-old woman and her 19-year-old sister in 2005. |
| Hiroshi Maeue | Japan | 2005 | 3 | | Called the "Suicide Website Murderer" for finding his victims in an online suicide community. Maeue offered to painlessly kill themselves together by charcoal burning in a car, but once together he strangled them with his bare hands instead, as this excited him sexually. Hanged in 2009. |
| António Luís Costa | Portugal | 2005–2006 | 3 | | Ex-soldier, suffocated three women (and mutilated the first one) in Santa Comba Dao. |
| Özgür Dengiz | Turkey | 2007 | 3 | | Known as "The Cannibal of Ankara" for eating one of his victims; a third victim survived. Interned in a mental institution after his conviction to two life sentences was overturned. |
| Mario Alberto Sulú Canché | Mexico | 2007–2008 | 3 | | Killed 3 women from 2007 to 2008; later committing suicide by hanging in prison. |
| Joanna Dennehy | United Kingdom | 2013 | 3 | | Carried out the Peterborough ditch murders. Over a period of two weeks, murdered her landlord and two of her house mates by stabbing them. With the help of accomplices she dumped the bodies in ditches, then attempted to kill two strangers in broad daylight by stabbing them. Given whole life tariff on 28 February 2014. |
| Kimberly McCarthy | United States | 1988–1997 | 3 | | Executed for murdering her neighbour, 71-year-old Dorothy Booth; DNA evidence proved she had murdered two other elderly women, but she was never charged. |
| David Burgess | United Kingdom | 1966—1967 | 3 | | Stabbed and strangled three young girls in Beenham over a two-year period. |
| Larry Hall | United States | 1980–1994 | 2 | 50+ | Hall traveled around the American Midwest as part of his interest in historical reenactments, which he would also use as a cover for stalking, raping, and murdering teenage girls. It is believed his first murders were committed when he was 18 years old. Although he was convicted of kidnapping 15-year-old Jessica Roach, Hall has never been charged with murder. Authorities have tied 15 murders to Hall, though only been able to confirm two, he has admitted to (and recanted) committing 39, though the FBI believes he could have committed as many as 50 in at least three states. |
| Alejandro Máynez | Mexico | 1980s–1990s | 2 | 50+ | Killed at least two women in Ciudad Juárez, but believed to be 50. Supposedly, along with Ana Benavides and Melchor Máynez. |
| Billy Gohl | United States | 1901–1913 | 2 | 40–140+ | Alleged to have killed from 40 to 140 seamen in Aberdeen, Washington |
| Gerard John Schaefer | United States | 1969–1973 | 2 | 30+ | Florida police officer who killed up to 34 women and girls. Stabbed to death by fellow inmate Vincent Faustino Rivera on December 3, 1995. |
| Macario Alcala Canchola | Mexico | 1960–1962 | 2 | 12+ | Known as "Mexican Jack"; convicted of the murders of two sex workers but suspected of at least twelve more murders. |
| Bruce Lindahl | United States | 1974–1981 | 3 | 12+ | Accidentally killed himself while stabbing one of his victims; posthumously connected to various rape-murders in Dupage County. |
| Robert Zarinsky | United States | 1958–1974 | 2 | 10 | Killed people between 1958 and 1974. |
| Ed Gein | United States | 1950–1957 | 2 | 2 | Famous for using/storing body parts of his victims to make household furniture, clothing and other miscellaneous household items. |
| José Luis Calva | Mexico | 2007 | 2 | 8 | Killed and cannibalized women. Hanged himself in prison after being convicted to 84 years for two murders. |
| Shirley Winters | United States | 1979–2007 | 2 | 7 | Confessed in 2008 to killing 2 children (including her 5-month old son), 27 years apart. Plea agreement for those murders included clause stopping investigation of her role in a fire that killed 2 previous children in 1979. Is also a suspect in a separate fire that killed 3 children of a friend in 1979. |
| Richard Rogers | United States | 1973–1993 | 2 | 7 | Rogers, a gay man, was convicted of two murders and implicated by forensics in two others. He was also suspected of murdering two other men, and was charged but acquitted for murdering a college student in 1973. |
| Rabidin Satir | Malaysia | 2009–2012 | 2 | 6 | Nicknamed "Rambo Bentong". Rabidin had raped and murdered a 17-year-old schoolgirl Annie Kok Yin Cheng in March 2009 and battered 31-year-old forestry department employee Khairul Hazri Jamaludin to death in November 2012. Rabidin was convicted of both these murders and given two death sentences in 2014 and 2015 respectively. Rabidin was suspected of killing three to four more people: a nine-year-old girl, an elderly married couple in their 70s and a 63-year-old man between 2010 and 2012. |
| Castration serial murders | United States | 1980–1986 | 2 | 5 | Unidentified perpetrator who kidnapped young men, castrated them and shot them in the back of the head. Forensics proved at least two of the victims were killed by the same person. |
| Steven Brian Pennell | United States | 1987–1988 | 2 | 5 | Known as "The Corridor Killer" and "The Route 40 Killer"; convicted of torture-murdering two women, pleaded no contest to two more and suspected of a fifth in Delaware in 1987 and 1988. Executed by lethal injection March 14, 1992. |
| Glen Rogers | United States | 1995–1999 | 2 | 5 | His capture in Kentucky ended a nationwide manhunt that began with the "Cross-Country Killer's" crime spree that stretched from coast to coast and left four women and one man from five different states dead. Rogers was convicted and sentenced to death by electric chair in Florida in 1997 for the stabbing death of Tina Marie Cribbs. He was later convicted and given a second death penalty in California for the September 1995 murder of Sandra Gallagher. Also known as the "Casanova Killer", Rogers is the lone suspect in the stabbing deaths of two other women (Linda Price in Jackson, Mississippi and Andy Jiles Sutton in Bossier City, Louisiana), both of whom—like Cribbs and Gallagher—he'd met and befriended in bars. The earliest homicide Rogers is suspected of is that of an elderly Ohio man, Mark Peters, with whom Rogers had lived for a short time. In 1994, Peters' remains were discovered in a Rogers "family cabin" in Kentucky. |
| Mary Elizabeth Wilson | United Kingdom | 1955–1957 | 2 | 4 | "The Merry Widow of Windy Nook". Believed to have poisoned her four husbands in a period of only two years. Sentenced to death for two murders but changed to life in prison, where she died in 1963. |
| Bradley Edwards | Australia | 1996–1997 | 2 | 3 | Murders of two young women and the disappearance of a third in 1996 and 1997. |
| Hadden Clark | United States | 1986–1992 | 2 | 2+ | Killed and cannibalized a 6-year-old victim and a 23-year-old victim, and confessed to the murder of an unidentified woman nicknamed Lady of the Dunes. |
| Gary M. Heidnik | United States | 1986–1987 | 2 | | Kidnapped, tortured, raped and imprisoned six women in his Philadelphia, Pennsylvania basement, killing two. |
| Ronny Rieken | Germany | 1996–1998 | 2 | | Raped and killed two girls ages 11 and 13. He was caught as a result of mass DNA screening and sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Johann Otto Hoch | United States Austria (alleged) France (alleged) United Kingdom (alleged) | 1888–1905 | 1 | 50+ | Swindler who married several women under different aliases, most of whom died after a few months; others disappeared without a trace. Convicted of one murder by poisoning and hanged. |
| Carl Großmann | Germany | 1918–1921 | 1 | 50+ | Known as "The Berlin Butcher". Killed women and sold their flesh on the black market. Only one body found. Hanged himself in his cell after being sentenced to death. |
| Sailson Jose das Gracas | Brazil | 2005–2014 | 1 | 41 | Claims to have murdered 41 people in a nine-year killing spree that started at the age of 17. |
| Bobby Jack Fowler | United States Canada | 1969–1996 | 1 | 20 | One murder proven, suspected of up to 20 more. Suspect in the Highway of Tears murders. |
| Leszek Pękalski | Poland | 1984–1992 | 1 | 17 | Called "The Vampire of Bytów". Charged with 17 murders but convicted of only one (to 25 years in prison) for faulty collection of evidence. During the investigation he admitted to killing 80 people but later retracted his confession. |
| Daniel Conahan | United States | 1994–1996 | 1 | 12+ | Convicted of one murder and has been linked to over a dozen murders. |
| Tillie Klimek | United States | 1914–1921 | 1 | 6+ | Chicago woman who poisoned her husbands; only convicted of the murder of her third husband. Sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Lyda Southard | United States | 1915–1920 | 1 | 6 | Suspected of killing her brother-in-law, four husbands and a daughter, but was only convicted of killing her fourth husband, Edward Meyer. |
| John Norman Collins | United States | 1969 | 1 | 6 | Convicted of the murder of Karen Sue Beineman, suspected in the murder of at least five other young women in the vicinity of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Michigan. |
| Velma Barfield | United States | 1971–1978 | 1 | 5–6 | Confessed to five poisonings with arsenic but was only tried and convicted for one. First woman to be executed in the United States after the 1976 resumption of capital punishment, receiving lethal injection in 1984. |
| Raymond Morris | United Kingdom | 1962–1971 | 1 | 3 | Known as the "A34 Killer"; convicted of one murder, considered to have committed at least two more. |
| Robert Anthony Buell | United States | 1981–1983 | 1 | 3 | Sentenced to death for the murder of a young girl and chief suspect in the murders of two others. Executed by lethal injection in 2002. |
| Hensley Anthony Neville | Singapore Malaysia (suspected) | 1984–1986 | 1 | 3 | A Singaporean sentenced to death for the 1984 rape and murder of a 19-year-old interior engineer in Singapore and chief suspect of a 1986 double murder in Malaysia. Executed by hanging on 28 August 1992. |

## Medical professionals and pseudo-medical professionals

| Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
| Harold Shipman | United Kingdom | 1975–1998 | 218 | 250 | Convicted of 15 murders and found to be responsible for the deaths of 218 patients identified by inquiry, but is believed to have killed around 250 people. He injected diamorphine into his patients and then falsified the medical records, reporting that his patient had been in poor health. Hanged himself in prison in 2004. |
| Steven Massof | United States | 2003–2008 | 100+ | | Massof, who worked at Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic, testified that he snipped the spines of more than 100 babies after seeing them show signs of life. |
| Niels Högel | Germany | 1999–2005 | 85+ | 300 | Nurse who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of more than 85 people. In November 2017, German prosecutors said that the number of victims was at least 106, with Högel admitting, in October 2018, to murdering 100 patients. By May 2019, he was believed to be the most prolific serial killer in peacetime Germany with up to 300 victims over fifteen years. |
| Baba Anujka | Kingdom of Yugoslavia | c. 1890s–1928 | 50 | 150 | Anujka was an accomplished amateur chemist from the village of Vladimirovac, Yugoslavia (modern day Serbia). She poisoned at least 50 people and possibly as many as 150 in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1929 but released after eight years due to old age. |
| Kermit Gosnell | United States | 1989?–2010 | 48+ | 200+ | Kermit Gosnell is an American serial-killer and former physician who ran an abortion clinic known as the "House of Horrors." Authorities discovered the remains of at least 47 late-term aborted children stored in bags or cartons, several of which appeared to be killed after birth. He was convicted in 2011 for 3 counts of first-degree murder of babies he delivered alive and then severed the spinal cords of, 1 count of manslaughter for the death of a woman he performed an abortion on, and over 200 counts of other abortion-related laws. Testimony indicated hundreds of similar procedures carried out by Gosnell and his staff. |
| Louay Omar Mohammed al-Taei | Iraq | 2005–2006 | 43 | | Medical doctor found to have killed 43 wounded policemen, soldiers and officials in Kirkuk; was a member of an insurgent cell. |
| Donald Harvey | United States | 1970–1987 | 37 | 57–87 | Self-professed Angel of Death. Worked as an orderly in Cincinnati-area hospitals and preyed on his patients. Claimed to have killed 87 patients starting at age 18. Active 1970–1987. Sentenced to 28 life sentences in Ohio. |
| Jane Toppan | United States | 1885–1901 | 31 | | Nurse that confessed to poisoning 31 patients. Found not guilty by reason of insanity and interned in a mental institution until her death in 1938. |
| Charles Cullen | United States | 1988–2003 | 29 | 400+ | Nurse in New Jersey and Pennsylvania who murdered at least 29 patients between 1988 and 2003, but experts believe the number could be as high as 400. Cullen has admitted to more murders, which authorities believe are likely, but the murders cannot be verified due to lack of records. |
| Stephan Letter | Germany | 2003–2004 | 29 | 29+ | Nurse who killed 29 patients; sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006. |
| Anders Hansson | Sweden | 1978–1979 | 27 | | A Nurse Aide who poisoned victims with gevisol and ivisol. His actions were called "The Hospital Murders" (Swedish: Sjukhusmorden). |
| Marcel Petiot | France | 1926–1944 | 26 | 63 | Active 1926 and from 1942 to 1944. Petiot is suspected of having killed up to 63 in total. Executed in 1946. |
| Arnfinn Nesset | Norway | 1983 and earlier | 22 | 27–138+ | Norwegian nurse and most prolific known serial killer in Scandinavian history, convicted in 1983 of poisoning at least 22 patients with Curacit; however he initially confessed to 27 murders; later he retracted his confessions and claimed he had killed 138 patients. Was released from prison in 2004 after serving 21 years, the maximum punishment possible by Norwegian law. |
| Roger Andermatt | Switzerland | 1995–2001 | 22 | 22 | Known as the "Death-Keeper of Lucerne"; nurse who killed 22 patients; most prolific Swiss serial killer in history; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Linda Hazzard | United States | 1908–1912 | 15 | 17 | Quack doctor and swindler who manipulated her patients into fasting until they starved themselves to death. 17 deaths were attributed to this practice, with evidence of 15 being presented at her trial. She was pardoned after serving two years imprisonment with hard labour and later starved herself to death attempting her own fasting cure. |
| Maxim Petrov | Russia | 2000–2002 | 12 | 19 | Doctor who killed his patients in St. Petersburg. Suspected of 19 murders. |
| Joan Vila Dilmé | Spain | 2009–2010 | 11 | 15 | Nursing home worker who fatally poisoned 11 elderly residents or more in Olot. In the trial he claimed they were mercy kills intended to spare the victims of further suffering, although three of them were administered caustic cleaning materials that caused severe burns and a long agony. |
| Vickie Dawn Jackson | United States | 2000–2001 | 10 | 20 | Vocational nurse at Nocona General Hospital who murdered patients who irritated her with injections of Mivacron. She was convicted of 10 murders, although law enforcement suspected her in around 20 suspicious deaths. |
| Ann Arbor Hospital Killer | United States | 1975 | 10 | 10 | Poisonings of 10 patients at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in 1975. Filipino nurses Filipina Narciso and Leonora Perez were tried for the crimes. |
| Ludivine Chambet | France | 2012–2013 | 10 | 10 | Known as "The Poisoner of Chambéry"; nurse's aide who poisoned elderly patients; sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. |
| Frederick Mors | United States | 1914–1915 | 8 | 8+ | Born Carl Menarik, Austrian who killed 8 elderly patients by poisoning in New York. Sent to an asylum and escaped. Never caught. |
| Elizabeth Wettlaufer | Canada | 2007–2018 | 8 | 8 | Confessed to murdering eight senior citizens and attempting to murder six others in southwestern Ontario. With a total of fourteen victims either killed or injured by her actions, she is described as one of the worst serial killers in Canadian history. |
| Petr Zelenka | Czech Republic | 2006 | 7 | 21 | Killed his victims with a lethal injection of heparin from May to September 2006. Ten people survived his murder attempt. Suspected of up to 14 additional murders. |
| Marianne Nölle | Germany | 1984–1992 | 7 | 17 | Nurse who was convicted of killing seven patients between 1984 and 1992; suspected of killing 17; sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993. |
| Lucy Letby | United Kingdom | 2015–2016 | 7 | 7 | Nurse convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder another six while working at Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England. Following her conviction, a number of doubts about the reliability of the evidence have been raised, with Letby continuing to maintain her innocence. |
| Orville Lynn Majors | United States | 1993–1995 | 6 | 130 | LPN in Vermillion County Ind., Preyed on elderly patients—thought to have killed many of them with injections of potassium chloride. Sentenced to 360 years in Indiana. |
| Efren Saldivar | United States | 1989–1997 | 6 | 50+ | Respiratory therapist who killed six patients, possibly as many as 120. |
| Christine Malèvre | France | 1998 and earlier | 6 | 30 | Nurse who killed terminally ill patients claiming that they had asked her to help them die, something denied by their families. Sentenced to 12 years in prison for six murders and suspect of 30. |
| Antoinette Scieri | France | 1924–1925 | 6 | 12+ | Nurse who poisoned her elderly patients. Death sentence was commuted to life in prison and she died in prison. |
| Ahmad Ahmadi | Imperial State of Iran | 1931–1944 | 6 | | Responsible for killing political prisoners at Qasr prison during the reign of Reza Shah. |
| Kristen Gilbert | United States | 1990–1996 | 5 | 70+ | Nurse at a Massachusetts Veterans Medical Center who injected male patients with epinephrine, causing heart attacks. Sentenced to life without parole. |
| Frans Hooijmaijers | Netherlands | 1970–1975 | 5 | 259 | Nurse who was convicted for killing five patients at a hospital in Kerkrade, the Netherlands from 1970 to 1975, but was suspected to have killed approximately 259 people. |
| Miyuki Ishikawa | Japan | 1946–1948 | 5 | 84 | Killed 84 newborn children at maximum. As a midwife, she killed infants born to parents unwilling to care for them during the prohibition of abortion in Japan. Arrested in 1948, and sentenced to four years imprisonment in 1953 as final decision. |
| Amy Archer-Gilligan | United States | 1910–1917 | 5 | 48+ | A nursing home proprietor believed to have poisoned as many as 60 patients from her homes and her second husband. Charged with five murders originally, this was lowered to just one following her admission of guilt, and was found guilty of second degree murder. Died in a mental hospital in 1962. |
| Sonya Caleffi | Italy | 2003–2004 | 5 | 18 | Nurse who poisoned terminally-ill patients; sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. |
| Aino Nykopp-Koski | Finland | 2004–2009 | 5 | | Nurse who killed five elderly patients using sedatives and opiates in Finland. |
| Kimberly Clark Saenz | United States | 2008 | 5 | | Killed five patients by using syringes to inject bleach into their dialysis lines. |
| Michael Swango | United States Zimbabwe | 1981–1997 | 4 | 35–60+ | Medical Doctor who killed patients. |
| Edson Izidoro Guimarães | Brazil | 1999 and earlier | 4 | 131 | Nurse who injected patients with potassium chloride or removed their oxygen mask. Confessed to five murders which he claimed to be mercy killings and was convicted of four in 2000; sentenced to 76 years in prison. He may have killed as many as 131 patients for money, as he was paid $60 for informing local funeral homes of a patient's death so that they could contact the deceased's relatives first. |
| Richard Angelo | United States | 1987 | 4 | 25 | Known as "The Angel of Death". New York nurse convicted of four murders, linked to six other deaths. Suspected of killing up to 25 people. |
| Colin Norris | United Kingdom | 2002 | 4 | 18 | Convicted of murdering four elderly women and attempting to murder another in two Leeds hospitals during 2002 while working as a nurse. He had injected the women, who were only in hospital due to broken hips, with massive overdoses of insulin. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years in 2008. |
| Beverley Allitt | United Kingdom | 1991 | 4 | | Convicted of murdering four children and attacking another six in the Lincolnshire hospital where she worked as a nurse. Given 13 life sentences. |
| Abraao Jose Bueno | Brazil | 2005 | 4 | | Nurse who injected young children with sedatives until they stopped breathing. He would then alert doctors in an attempt to earn the respect of his colleagues for being the first one to notice that something was wrong. Convicted of 4 deaths and 4 more murder attempts to 110 years in prison. |
| Andrés Ulises Castillo Villarreal | Mexico | 2009–2015 | 3 | 12+ | Known as "The Chihuahua Ripper"; drugged, raped and then killed men in Chihuahua; sentenced to 120 years imprisonment. |
| Elfriede Blauensteiner | Austria | 1981–1995 | 3 | 10+ | Known as "The Black Widow"; poisoned people for material gain; died from a brain tumor in 2003. |
| Genene Jones | United States | 1970–1982 | 2 | 60 | Nurse convicted of murdering two infants via lethal injection. Accused of up to 60 murders. |
| Benjamin Geen | United Kingdom | 2003–2004 | 2 | 12 | Nurse convicted in 2006 of murdering two patients and causing grievous bodily harm to another 15 at Horton General Hospital in Banbury, Oxfordshire between 2003 and 2004. Induced illness in the patients with overdoses of drugs, in order to enjoy the 'thrill' of resuscitating them. Given 17 life sentences and ordered to serve at least 30 years imprisonment. 9 other cases were originally investigated. |
| Marie Fikáčková | Czechoslovakia | 1957–1960 | 2 | 10+ | Nurse who was executed by hanging in 1961 for murdering babies. |
| Victorino Chua | United Kingdom | 2011 | 2 | 5 | Poisoned several patients at Stepping Hill Hospital with insulin. |
| Christopher Duntsch | United States | 2011–2013 | 2 | | Neurosurgeon known as "Dr. Death"; injured 33 out of 38 patients in two years resulting in two deaths. |
| Felícitas Sánchez Aguillón | Mexico | 1930–1941 | 1 | 50+ | Known as "The Ogress of Roma neighborhood"; Nurse, midwife and baby farmer responsible for an unknown number of murders number during the 1930s, maybe 50 victims, in Mexico City. |
| Robert George Clements | United Kingdom | 1920–1947 | 1 | 4 | Believed to have murdered his four wives, all of whom died young and had their death certificates signed by Clements himself. Clements committed suicide with a morphine overdose when police came to arrest him for the murder of his fourth wife, who had died of the same cause. |

## Serial killer groups and couples

| Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
| Philadelphia poison ring | United States | 1931–1938 | 114 | | Gang of 16 that poisoned Italian immigrants with arsenic in order to collect their life insurance. The leaders, cousins Herman and Paul Petrillo, were executed in the electric chair in 1941 while the rest were given life sentences. |
| Abboud and Khajawa | Iraq | ?–1917 | 100+ | | Married couple who resorted to cannibalism during a famine in Mosul. They would use their young son to lure children into their home before beating them to death, dismembering them and eating their remains or serving them to members of the public at their restaurant. They also killed and ate one adult neighbour but found that her body contained too much fat. |
| Delfina and María de Jesús González | Mexico | 1955–1964 | 91+ | | Two sisters who ran a brothel in Mexico, hired numerous sex workers and murdered at least 80 of them after they were deemed useless during the span of 10 years. They also killed 11 men. Probably the work of four of the sisters, sentenced to 40 years in prison. Body count varies due to the combined work of the sisters being impossible to assign to them individually. |
| Peng Miaoji, Ding Yunjia and Su Xiaoping | China | 1998–1999 | 77 | 84 | Fleeing to Shaanxi, Jiangsu, Anhui, and Henan provinces and 21 provinces and cities 33 administrative villages; during 38 burglaries, killed 77 people, seriously injured three others. |
| David Avendaño Ballina and his followers | Mexico | 1997–2007 | 70 | 70 | Sex servant gang who robbed and then poisoned their clients; the leader Ballina was arrested in 2008. |
| Hassan Orangi and Abbas Ali Zarifian | Iran | 1945–1951 | 62 | | Raped and murdered 62 women in Mashhad from 1945 to 1951. After his arrest, Orangi was tried, convicted, sentenced to death and later executed, while Zarifian was sentenced to 15 years for his role in the crimes. |
| Angel Makers of Nagyrév | Hungary | 1911–1929 | 50 | 300+ | 26 women who poisoned their husbands (sometimes also their parents, lovers and children) with arsenic under the guidance of midwife Júlia Fazekas and her accomplice, Susi Oláh. |
| Long Zhimin and Yan Shuxia | China | 1983–1985 | 48 | 48+ | Shaanxi Province Wang Shou villagers Long Zhimin and Yan Shuxia in the home has killed 48 people. |
| Bian Kuang, Fu Xinyuan and Luo Lianshun | China | 2001–2002 | 41 | | Manufacturing 51 cases of murder, robbery, rape, killing 41 people. Bian Kuang personally killed 39 people. |
| Ivanova and Olga Tamarin | Russia | 1909 | 40 | 130 | A mother and daughter who used accomplices to lure victims to their home. Tortured, murdered, and cannibalized at least 40 people before they were apprehended. |
| Ryno-Skachevsky gang | Russia | 2006–2007 | 37 | | Racist skinhead gang, led by Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, who killed people from non-European ethnicities or backgrounds; both sentenced to 10 years of penal labour. |
| Gang of Amazons | Russia | 2003–2013 | 30 | | Family of robbers and serial killers, led by the parents Inessa Tarverdiyeva and Roman Podkopaev. |
| Dean Corll, David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley | United States | 1970–1973 | 28 | 29+ | Corll, known as "The Candy Man", killed at least 28 teenage boys and young men in Houston between 1970 and 1973. Corll was then shot and killed by one of the two teenage accomplices he recruited to assist him in the abductions of the victims on 8 August 1973. This accomplice, Elmer Wayne Henley, informed the police of the trio's murders the same day Corll was murdered. |
| Brabant killers | Belgium France | 1982–1985 | 28 | 40+ | Gang made up by at least three extremely violent robbers, none of whom was ever identified or apprehended. Their bloodlust increased dramatically in their last year of activity, when they began shooting passersby before a robbery, including children, for no seeming reason. Some have theorized links to Operation Gladio. |
| Adolfo Constanzo and Sara Aldrete | Mexico | 1986–1989 | 25+ | | "The Godparents of Matamoros". Leader and second-in-command of a drug-smuggling cult that abducted men to perform human sacrifices. |
| Shankill Butchers | United Kingdom | 1975–1982 | 23 | 23+ | Ulster Loyalist gang led by Lenny Murphy, who killed people in sectarian attacks. |
| Viktor Sayenko and Igor Suprunyuk | Ukraine | 2007 | 21 | | "The Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs". A pair of 19-year-olds who, over the course of less than a month, attacked and murdered passersby while out on walks. They recorded videos of some of the murders, including one which subsequently leaked to the Internet. |
| Marcelo de Jesus Silva and his death squad | Brazil | ?–2010 | 20+ | | Brazilian man convicted of 20 counts of murder, robbery, drug trafficking and death squad. As he was only 1.28m tall, he was nicknamed Chucky and Pigmeu. Murdered in 2010 by rivals traffickers. |
| Wang Zongfang and Wang Zongwei | China | 1983 | 19 | | Killed soldiers using various arms in three provinces. Executed in 1983. |
| Anísio Ferreira de Sousa and followers | Brazil | 1989–1992 | 19 | | Satanic ring that abducted, mutilated and sacrificed children in Altamira, Brazil. The leader, Ferreira de Sousa, was convicted to 77 years in prison for four murders and two attempted murders. |
| Ripper Crew | United States | 1981–1982 | 18 | | Abducted women, mostly sex workers, then raped, tortured and killed them in Chicago, Illinois. |
| John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo | United States | 2002 | 17 | | Killed seventeen people from February to September 2002 and 10 in the Beltway sniper attacks of October 2002. Muhammad was executed in 2009, while Malvo received life imprisonment. |
| Death Angels | United States | 1973–1974 | 16 | 73 | Four African-Americans who killed at least 16 white people and injured between eight and 10 in San Francisco (Zebra murders). |
| Vladyslav Volkovich and Volodymyr Kondratenko | Ukraine | 1991–1997 | 16 | 20+ | "The Nighttime Killers". Murdered homeless men and lone drivers with a variety of weapons. |
| Lainz Angels of Death | Austria | 1983–1989 | 15 | 49–200+ | Known as the "Lainz Angels of Death"; Waltraud Wagner, Irene Leidolf, Stephanija Mayer, and Maria Gruber were nurses at the Lainz General Hospital in Vienna who admitted to murdering 49 patients. |
| The Cleaners | Russia | 2014–2015 | 15 | 15+ | Neo-Nazi gang, led by Pavel Voitov and Elena Lobacheva, who murdered alcoholic tramps and beggars; Voitov sentenced to life imprisonment and Lobacheva to 13 years in a penal colony. |
| José Miculax Bux and Mariano Macú Miculax | Guatemala | 1946 | 15 | | Cousins who killed 15 boys in 1946. |
| Fred West and Rosemary West | United Kingdom | 1967–1987 | 12 | 30 | Mainly targeted young women but were also found guilty of murdering two of their own daughters. Also found guilty of raping another daughter. Buried the victims around their house and local area of Gloucester. Shortly before he killed himself in 1995, Fred West said there were more victims. At one point he confessed to killing up to 30. |
| Briley Brothers | United States | 1971–1979 | 12 | | Three brothers and an accomplice responsible for 12 murders in the 1970s in Richmond, Virginia. |
| John Justin Bunting, Robert Joe Wagner and James Spyridon Vlassakis | Australia | 1992–1999 | 12 | | The bodies of eight victims were found in plastic barrels in a disused bank vault in Snowtown, South Australia. Bunting was found guilty of 11 murders, Wagner pleaded guilty to three and was convicted of a further seven murders. |
| Mailoni Brothers | Zambia | 2007–2013 | 12 | | Three brothers who killed at least 12 people from 2007 to 2013. Killed by Zambia Army Commandos in 2013. |
| Leonard Lake and Charles Ng | United States | 1982–1985 | 11 | 25 | Abducted women, used them as sex slaves, and then murdered them, together with any men, women, and children who got in their way. Lake killed himself upon arrest, but Ng was later convicted of killing 11 people. Between 1982 and 1985, Lake and Ng were believed to have abducted and killed as many as 25 victims, as evidenced by human remains found on Lake's California ranch. |
| Bloody Benders | United States | 1871–1873 | 11 | 20 | The Bender family, more well known as the Bloody Benders, were a family of serial killers in Labette County, Kansas, United States, from May 1871 to December 1872. Estimates report that the Benders killed at least a dozen travelers, and perhaps as many as twenty before they were discovered. The family's fate remains unknown, with theories ranging from a lynching to a successful escape. |
| Shen Changyin and Shen Changping | China | 1999–2004 | 11 | | Found guilty of the murders of 11 sex workers. They were executed in 2006. |
| Polatbay Berdaliyev and Abduseit Ormanov | Uzbekistan Kazakhstan | 2011–2012 | 11 | | Raped, robbed and murdered women along desolate roads; both sentenced to life imprisonment in both countries. |
| Wolfgang Abel and Marco Furlan | Italy West Germany Netherlands | 1977–1984 | 10 | 27 | The victims, seemingly chosen at random and killed by different methods, were found next to letters written in Italian, signed "Ludwig" and containing Nazi imagery, that gave a reason for why the murder had been committed. Abel and Furlan were arrested in Castiglione delle Stiviere while dousing a crowded discothèque with gasoline and sentenced in 1987 to 30 years in prison for all crimes (later reduced to 27). |
| Juan Carlos Hernández and Patricia Martínez | Mexico | 2012–2018 | 10 | 20 | Known as the "Monsters of Ecatepec"; couple who raped, murdered and cannibalized women. |
| Hillside Stranglers | United States | 1977–1979 | 10 | 10 | Initially believed to be one person, two perpetrators were eventually discovered to be cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono Jr. Convicted of kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering 10 women and girls ranging in age from 12 to 28. |
| Joshi-Abhyankar serial murderers | India | 1976–1977 | 10 | | Four Pune commercial art students (Rajendra Jakkal, Dilip Sutar, Shantaram Kanhoji Jagtap and Munawar Harun Shah) that broke into random people's homes and businesses and strangled them with a nylon rope. Executed by hanging in 1983. |
| Gerald and Charlene Gallego | United States | 1978–1980 | 10 | | Killed 10 victims in Sacramento, California. Gerald Gallego died of cancer before his death sentence could be carried out. Charlene Gallego was released July 1997. |
| Viña del Mar psychopaths | Chile | 1980–1981 | 10 | | Jorge Sagredo and Carlos Topp committed 10 murders and four rapes from 5 August 1980 to 1 November 1981 in the city of Viña del Mar. Executed by firing squad in 1985, they became the last people executed in Chile. |
| Yevgeny Nagorny and Sergei Stavitsky | Russia | 1998 | 10 | | Killed clients with expensive cars in their autoshop in order to sell them; sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| National Socialist Underground | Germany | 2000–2007 | 10 | | Neo-Nazi group who killed 10 ethnic Turks in the Bosphorus serial murders from 2000 to 2007. Most victims were small business owners killed in broad daylight with a gunshot to the face. Two of the suspects killed themselves and a third, Beate Zschäpe, was apprehended in 2011. |
| The Manson Family cult killings | United States | 1967–1969 | 9 | 21―35 | A California desert cult formed by Charles Manson in 1967, the 'Manson Family' committed a series of murders in name of promoting Manson's goal of causing a race war that he called Helter Skelter. |
| Song Jinghua and Yan Jinguang | China | 2005–2007 | 9 | 9 | Robbed and killed women in Beijing out of revenge for Song's brother, who was previously executed for an unrelated crime. |
| Tadeusz Grzesik and the Bureaucrats Gang | Poland | 1991–2007 | 8 | 20+ | Robbed and killed people in several Polish voivodeships, mainly owners of exchange offices. |
| Edgar Álvarez Cruz and Francisco Granados | Mexico | 1993–2003 | 8–10 | 14+ | Kidnapped, drugged, raped and then killed women in cotton fields. |
| The Ciudad Juárez Rebels | Mexico | 1995–1996 | 8 | 10–14 | Gang of serial killers, led by Sergio Armendáriz Diaz and Juan Contreras Jurado, who killed women in Ciudad Juárez; claimed to work for Abdul Latif Sharif. |
| The Hernández Brothers Sect | Mexico | 1963 | 8 | | Originally a scam intended to extort money and sexual favors from the poor, illiterate inhabitants of the small village of Yerba Buena, who were promised favors from "Inca gods" in the mountains, the cult came to include Aztec-inspired human sacrifices after prostitute Magdalena Solís took over as high priestess. 15 people were sentenced to 30 years in prison for their participation in the ritual murders of seven villagers and one police officer. |
| Rudolfo Infante and Anna Villeda | Mexico | 1991 | 8 | | Responsible for 8 murders. |
| Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman | United States | 2006 | 8 | | Known as the "Serial Shooter". Responsible for 8 murders in random drive-by shootings in 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona. |
| Futoshi Matsunaga and Junko Ogata | Japan | 1996–1998 | 7 | 9 | Matsunaga and Ogata tortured and killed seven people who Matsunaga held prisoner through blackmail, six of whom were members of the Ogata family. Matsunaga was also investigated in the death of a woman he defrauded and one of her children but no evidence was found to prove he had murdered them. |
| Christopher Worrell and James Miller | Australia | 1976–1977 | 7 | 7 | Known as the "Truro Murderers"; Worrell was killed in a car accident and the killings stopped. Later Miller was convicted of killing seven people in 1976–1977. |
| Fa Ziying and Lao Rongzhi | China | 1996–1999 | 7 | 7 | A pair of Chinese serial killers. The two met in 1993 and later became lovers. The prosecution accused them of kidnapping, robbery, and murder in Nanchang, Wenzhou, and Hefei from 1996 to 1999. A total of 7 people were killed. Ziying was arrested on 23 July 1999 in Hefei and subsequently sentenced to death, deprived of political rights for life, and fined by the Hefei Intermediate People's Court. On 28 December 1999, Ziying was executed by being shot. |
| Johannes van Rooyen and Dumisani Makhubela | South Africa | 2005 | 7 | 7 | Two South African men who raped, robbed and murdered multiple victims, including a family of four. Sentenced to four centuries in prison after a two-year trial. |
| Auto Shankar's Gang | India | 1988–1989 | 6 | 9 | Nine men who collaborated to abduct and murder at least 6 teenage girls in Chennai; their bodies were cremated and thrown into the sea or buried under residential homes. Leader Auto Shankar and two accomplices were sentenced to death by hanging in 1991, his brother Auto Mohan to three consecutive life sentences in prison and five other collaborators to six months in prison. |
| Gert van Rooyen and Joey Haarhof | South Africa | 1988–1989 | 6 | 8 | Their victims were never found; the pair shot dead a police officer and then committed suicide when faced with arrest after the escape of their last kidnap victim. |
| Kiss brothers and Zsolt István Pető | Hungary | 2008–2009 | 6 | 6 | A series of murders perpetrated by three Neo-Nazis (with an accomplice István Csaba Csontos) against people of Roma ethnicity, occurring between July 2008 and August 2009. It is regarded as one of the worst crimes in the country's history after the war. |
| Hermann Duft and Hans Wilhelm Bassenauer | Greece | 1969 | 6 | | German serial killers who murdered six persons in Greece, within a short period in 1969, were captured, tried, sentenced to death and executed. |
| David Alan Gore and Fred Waterfield | United States | 1981–1983 | 6 | | Cousins connected to the murders of six females. Gore was executed in 2012 and Waterfield was sentenced to life imprisonment. |
| Artyom Alexandrovich Anoufriev and Nikita Vakhtangovich Lytkin | Russia | 2010–2011 | 6 | | Teenaged thrill-killers of random people. |
| The Skin Hunters | Poland | 2002 and earlier | 5 | 40–1200+ | Hospital crew that killed patients in order to get bribes from nearby funeral homes. Two doctors and two paramedics were convicted for the murder of five patients, but the investigation is continuing, with over 40 remaining suspects. There are also suspicions that due to the heavy use of pancuronium bromide, scoline and potassium chloride in 1998–2001, the number of victims could be as high as 1200. |
| Ray and Faye Copeland | United States | 1986–1989 | 5 | 12 | Oldest couple ever sentenced to death in the United States at the ages of 75 and 69; convicted of killing five men; modus operandi was to hire unskilled drifters as farmhands and later kill them. |
| Ian Brady and Myra Hindley | United Kingdom | 1963–1965 | 5 | 12 | Responsible for the "Moors murders": they abducted, raped, tortured and murdered at least five children in the Manchester area before burying their victims on Saddleworth Moor as part of an experiment in "existential experience". The case attracted much media coverage long after the two were sentenced, especially in the United Kingdom, as Hindley sought release from prison from the 1980s but was refused and died in prison. Five victims were identified although Brady periodically claimed that there were up to twelve. |
| Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris | United States | 1979 | 5 | 5 | The "Toolbox Killers"; they kidnapped, raped, tortured and murdered five female hitchhikers in southern California over a five-month period in 1979. |
| "The Family" | Australia | 1979–1983 | 5 | | An alleged group of up to 12 Australian men, believed to include unspecified high-profile figures, responsible for the abduction, torture and murder of five Australian teenagers and young adults who died from being sodomized with blunt instruments. One member of the group, Bevan Spencer von Einem, was convicted of the final murder, but police believe more unidentified people to have been involved in the crimes. The group has also been linked to upwards of 150 sexual assaults and rapes against teenage boys. |
| James Gregory Marlow and Cynthia Coffman | United States | 1986 | 5 | | Killed four women and one man in 1986. |
| Gwendolyn Graham and Catherine May Wood | United States | 1987 | 5 | | Nurses who killed five elderly women in Grand Rapids, Michigan. |
| Chijon family | South Korea | 1993 | 5 | | South Korean gang of cannibals that was sentenced to death for killing five people. |
| Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine | United States | 1984–1999 | 4 | 19 | Known as the "Speed Freak Killers"; California duo initially convicted of four murders from 1984 to 1999. |
| David and Catherine Birnie | Australia | 1986 | 4 | 4–8 | Australian couple who raped and murdered four women in their home and attempted to murder a fifth in Perth in 1986. Both were sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole; David Birnie hanged himself in prison on October 7, 2005. |
| John Duffy and David Mulcahy | United Kingdom | 1985–86 | 3 | 100+ | Known as the "Railway Rapists". Duffy and Mulcahy stalked and raped women near train stations in London, killing at least three of the victims. Duffy was found guilty in 1988 of two murders and four rapes. He later confessed to another murder and implicated Mulcahy in his crimes, leading to his conviction. After Mulcahy's trial, the police announced that they were investigating possible links between the two men and hundreds of unsolved rape and murder cases. |
| Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck | United States | 1947–1949 | 3 | 20 | Known as the "Lonely Hearts Killers", Fernandez and Beck extorted women Fernandez met through lonely hearts advertisements. Both were arrested in Michigan in 1949 for the murders of a woman and her two-year-old daughter, but Michigan authorities waived prosecution and extradited the pair to New York to face trial for a murder that occurred there because New York had the death penalty while Michigan did not. They were convicted of that murder and executed in 1951. |
| Beasts of Satan | Italy | 1998–2004 | 3 | 18 | Cult members responsible for ritualistic murders, and are suspected in other cases, including suicides. |
| James Paster and Stephen McCoy | United States | 1980–1981 | 3 | 5 | Texas duo convicted of three murders from 1980 to 1981, and both subsequently executed. Shortly before his execution Paster confessed to having committed two additional murders. |
| Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka | Canada | 1990–1992 | 3 | 5 | Bernardo, a serial rapist, and his girlfriend Homolka were responsible for the murders of three teenage girls, including Homolka's sister Tammy Homolka, who were kidnapped and raped by Bernardo before being killed by Bernardo and Homolka. Homolka received a light sentence in return for testifying against Bernardo as part of a controversial plea bargain; it was proved after the bargain that her involvement in the murders was greater than previously believed. Bernardo has also been suggested as a suspect in a 1991 death with similarities to his modus operandi, and is the prime suspect in the 1990 disappearance and probable murder of Elizabeth Bain, which her boyfriend Robert Baltovich was wrongly convicted of before being exonerated in 2008. |
| Michael Bear Carson and Suzan Carson | United States | 1981–1983 | 3 | 3+ | Nomadic hippie killers involved in the counter-culture movement; sentenced to life imprisonment for three San Francisco Bay Area murders in 1983. |
| Joseph and Michael Kallinger | United States | 1974–1975 | 3 | | Joseph Kallinger murdered three people and tortured four families with his 13-year-old son Michael in New Jersey. |
| Silvia Merez Cult | Mexico | 2009–2012 | 3 | | Ritually murdered three people in sacrifices to Santa Muerte. |
| Raya and Sakina and their husbands | Egypt | 1919–1920 | 2 | Unknown | Gang of four that rented a house for women and killed them to rob their money and jewellery. Raya and Sakina were the first women executed in the modern state of Egypt, in 1921. |
| Amelia Sach and Annie Walters | United Kingdom | 1900–1903 | 1 | 300+ | Sach and Walters, known as the "Finchley baby farmers", would take in unwanted babies from young women, collect a fee and then discreetly murder the children. They were executed in 1903, the only double hanging of women in British history. |

## Disputed cases

| Name | Country | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
| Bruno Lüdke | Germany | 1928–1943 | 51 | 86 | Mentally disabled, Lüdke was arrested after being discovered with a corpse. Police declared him insane and imprisoned him in a psychiatric hospital, where he died when he was experimented on. The only evidence tying him to the crimes was a confession that may have been physically coerced. He was never given a trial and he is generally considered innocent. |
| "Highway of Tears" Killer | Canada | 1980–present | 18 | 83 | All the victims were young women and were last seen on Highway 16 in British Columbia between Prince George and Prince Rupert. If they were all victims of the same person, it would be one of the most prolific serial killers in Canada and one with the longest career in the world. Some of the murders have been linked to American criminal Bobby Jack Fowler, although he was in prison at the time others were committed. |
| Orlando Sabino | Brazil | 1966?–1971? | 12 | | Suspected of murdering 12 people in Minas Gerais and Goiás, as well as mutilating several animals; sentenced to 38 years imprisonment and died from a heart attack in 2013. Conspiracy theorists allege that the victims were killed by the military government, which framed Sabino. |
| Charles Quansah | Ghana | 1993–2001 | 8 | 34 | Quansah, who had been in prison for rape twice, was held as a suspect in the deaths of 34 women across the country, including his girlfriend who was strangled in 2000, and eventually confessed to eight murders. He later denied the killings, claiming that the confessions had been extracted under torture, and that the police had also tried unsuccessfully to force him to implicate a number of politicians including former president Jerry Rawlings, his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman and an unidentified member of President John Kufuor's administration. |
| Redhead murders | United States | 1978–1992 | 8+ | | Series of unsolved homicides believed to have been committed by an unidentified serial killer in Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. |
| Jeff Davis 8 | United States | 2005–2009 | 8 | | The bodies of eight women, all of whom had an involvement with drugs or prostitution, were found in swamps and canals surrounding Jennings, Louisiana. Originally thought to be a serial killer, but multiple suspects may be involved. |
| The Beer Man | India | 2006–2007 | 7 | | Purported unidentified serial killer that operated in Mumbai and left a beer bottle next to each body as his signature, hence the nickname. A suspect was charged with three of the murders and convicted of one in 2008, but the sentence was overturned by the High Court in 2009 because the evidence presented was deemed inadmissible. |
| Pedro Rosa da Conceição | Brazil | 1904–1911 | 5 | 17 | Brazilian mass murderer who killed three people and wounded thirteen others on 22 April 1904. Killed his cellmate and a guard in 1911, and is said to have murdered a family of twelve people in an unspecified date and year. Died in 1919. The family murders are not verified. |
| Earl Bramblett | United States | 1977–1994 | 4 | 6 | Mass murderer who murdered four members of the Hodges family in their home in Vinton, Virginia in August 1994. He was a suspect in the 1977 disappearances of Tammy Akers and Angela Rader, who were both 14 years old and worked for him at the time, but not enough evidence to charge him was found before his execution for the Hodges murders in 2003. |
| Henry Lee Lucas | United States | 1960–1983 | 3 | 600+ | Confessed to killing 3,000 and later 600 people but later recanted and is suspected of lying about a majority of the murders. He originally offered a list of 77 women from 19 different states, but as he confessed to more and more murders, the details became increasingly more bizarre. Some included dismemberment, necrophilia, even cannibalism. Lawmen linked Lucas and Ottis Toole to 81 murders only. Convicted of 11 murders. The true number of murders committed by Lucas is unknown, but it is likely Lucas was not nearly as prolific a serial killer as he initially claimed to be, as most of his murder confessions were thoroughly discredited, and he himself claimed only one murder—that of his mother. |
| José Pedro Guedes | Portugal | 1992–1993 | 3 | 3–21+ | Confessed and was arrested for the "Lisbon Ripper" murders in 2011, but could not be prosecuted because the Portuguese statute of limitations had already run out. Also suspected of similar murders in Lisbon and Aveiro, Portugal, as well as Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Czech Republic and the 1988 New Bedford Highway Killings in Massachusetts, USA. |
| "Bowraville Murders" Killer | Australia | 1990–1991 | 3 | | Proposed serial killer responsible of the murders of three Aboriginal children in the same area, all bludgeoned to death. Thomas Jay Hart was tried for one of the murders and acquitted, and held as a suspect in another for which he did not face prosecution. |
| Wayne Williams | United States | 1979–1981 | 2 | 24–31 | Believed to have perpetrated the Atlanta murders of 1979–1981. After being convicted of two murders and sentenced to life imprisonment, authorities closed 22 other unsolved murders, declaring Williams to have been the perpetrator. Williams has maintained his innocence and the case was reopened in 2005. |
| Kieran Patrick Kelly | United Kingdom | c. 1953–1983 | 2 | 31 | Irish vagrant who operated in London, England. He was convicted of two murders but confessed to many more, claiming he used a variety of methods from pushing people in front of trains to setting them on fire to poisoning them, and said he had been murdering for a period of some thirty years. In 2015 former detective George Platt published a book about Kelly claiming he could be responsible for 31 murders, prompting the chief of the Metropolitan Police Bernard Hogan Howe to promise a re-investigation into his crimes. However, in 2019 Irish journalist Robert Mullhern published a book raising serious questions about Platt's claims, concluding that Kelly was only responsible for 5 or 6 murders. |
| Christopher Halliwell | United Kingdom | 1985–2011 | 2 | 28–60 | Halliwell pleaded guilty in 2012 to abducting and murdering Sian O'Callaghan the previous year. He also confessed to the 2003 murder of Becky Godden-Edwards, but his confession was ruled inadmissible and he could not be convicted until 2016, when new evidence was found. Halliwell is a person of interest in 26 other murders, and a collection of articles of women's clothing which included some taken from his victims may link him to up to 60 murders. |
| Allan Grimson | United Kingdom | 1986–1998 | 2 | 22 | Homosexual Royal Navy sailor Grimson was convicted of the partially sexually-motivated murders of two other (non-homosexual) Royal Navy sailors while docked in Portsmouth on 12 December 1997 and 12 December 1998. Strongly suspected of being responsible for up to 20 other murders across different navy bases of the world, including in Gibraltar and New Zealand. Also the prime suspect in the disappearance of fellow Royal Navy sailor Simon Parkes from Gibraltar in 1986, in part because he disappeared on 12 December, the date on which Grimson was known to have always killed his victims, and because Grimson was docked in Gibraltar with the navy at this time. Grimson's 2001 trial judge told him that he was "a serial killer in nature if not in number". |
| Billy Edwin Reid | United States | 1989 | 2 | 21 | Reid was arrested in 2006 after a successful DNA profiling test proved his responsibility in the murders of two sex workers in 1989 in Denver, Colorado. It is thought he might have been responsible for many murders, including some from the Denver Prostitute Killer – an unidentified single, or multiple serial killers responsible 17–27 murders between 1975 and 1995. |
| Joe Ball | United States | 1937–1938 | 2 | 20 | Bootlegger and barman known as the "Butcher of Elmendorf", the "Bluebeard of South Texas", and "the Alligator Man" because of the alligator pit he had in the back of his bar and where he entertained clients by throwing live animals to the reptiles. Ball killed two barmaids but he shot himself fatally in the chest when police came to question him and was never arrested or interrogated. Yellow press and pulp magazines later exaggerated his exploits, claiming that he had killed up to 20 women and fed them to the alligators, but this was never proven and caused some of Ball's relatives to sue such publications. Police investigated about a dozen missing women who had worked at Ball's place; some were found alive in San Antonio, but others could not be accounted for. |
| Alun Kyte | United Kingdom | 1984–1997 | 2 | 12 | Kyte was found guilty of raping and murdering two sex workers in 1993 and 1994. He reportedly boasted to fellow inmates while serving time on a rape charge that he had killed a total of 12 women and police have linked him to a number of unsolved murders of women although he has been ruled out in many cases in which he was initially suspected. |
| Larry Gene Bell | United States | 1975–1985 | 2 | 5 | Bell abducted and killed two women, Shari Smith and Debra Helmick, in May and June 1985. He was also a suspect in the disappearances of Denise Porch, Sandee Cornett and Beth Hagen. Bell was executed for murdering Smith and Helmick in 1996. |
| Michael Stone | United Kingdom | 1976–1996 | 2 | 4 | Stone, who was convicted of the 1996 double murder of Lin and Megan Russell, is suspected of two other murders. His conviction is controversial and his legal team blame confirmed serial killer Levi Bellfield for the 1996 murders, although members of Stone's family believe he committed one additional murder. |
| David Smith | United Kingdom | 1988–1999 | 2 | 4 | Smith was jailed for life in 1999 for murdering prostitute Amanda Walker. It was widely reported that he had previously been acquitted of the "almost identical" murder of another prostitute, Sarah Crump. Smith's acquittal was overturned in 2023 and he was found guilty of murdering Crump after he bragged to fellow inmates about how he had "got away with it". Smith is also suspected of murdering two other women prior to his initial conviction. |
| James Otto Earhart | United States | 1981–1987 | 2 | 3 | Earhart murdered Virginia Freeman in Brazos County, Texas on 1 December 1981. He also murdered nine-year-old Kandy Kirtland in 1987, and was executed for the murder in 1999. Posthumous DNA testing later proved that he was responsible for Freeman's murder, and he is also suspected of killing another woman in 1986. |
| Jeffrey Willis | United States | 1996–2014 | 2 | 3 | Willis was convicted of the 2013 murder of Jessica Heeringa, whose body was never found, and of the 2014 murder of Rebekah Bletsch. Both women had had their photos included in a file on Willis' computer labelled "vics" (short for victims). Willis is also a person of interest in the unsolved murder of Angela Thornburg in 1996. |
| Ángel Nieves Díaz | United States Puerto Rico | 1978–1979 | 2 | 3 | Díaz was convicted of killing a store clerk in a robbery in Miami in 1979, having escaped from prison in Puerto Rico the previous year after being convicted of murdering another man. Police also suspected him of involvement in a third murder committed while he was on the run. |
| Pam Hupp | United States | 2011–2016 | 1–2 | 3 | Hupp is the prime suspect in the 2011 murder of cancer patient Betsy Faria, who was stabbed to death shortly after making Hupp the sole beneficiary of a sizable life insurance policy. Faria's husband Russ was wrongfully convicted of her murder but was exonerated in 2015 and mobile data placed Hupp at the scene of the crime. After Russ was released, Hupp murdered a man named Louis Gumpenberger in 2016 and attempted to frame Russ for hiring him to kill her, but was caught and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder. Hupp is currently awaiting trial for the murder of Betsy Faria, and is also suspected of having murdered her mother Shirley Neumann for inheritance in 2013. |
| Clementine Barnabet | United States | 1911 | 1 | 35 | Barnabet was convicted of one murder but confessed as a total of 35. She was believed to have murdered entire families in their sleep, but doubt has been cast on the extent of her involvement. Sentenced to life imprisonment but released in 1923. |
| Jessie McTavish | United Kingdom | 1974 | 1 | 24 | British nurse who was convicted in 1974 of the murder of a patient with insulin after being inspired by the plot of A Man Called Ironside. She was released on appeal in 1975, despite three appeal court judges saying there was ample evidence to support the conviction, as the trial judge had inadvertently misled the jury in his final summary. The appeal court judges said that it was an omission that "a few words could have cured." Apart from the case prosecuted, another 23 cases were deemed suspicious by investigators. Although acquitted, McTavish's case often is mentioned in lectures at medical colleges in Britain, and is cited in textbooks and academic papers about forensic science and medical malpractice. McTavish, now known as Jessie Gordon, is believed to have been the inspiration for serial killer nurse Colin Norris. |
| Abdul Latif Sharif | Mexico | 1995 | 1 | 18–20 | Egyptian chemist known as "The Jackal of Ciudad Juárez". After migrating to the United States in the 1970s, Sharif served 14 years in prison for several rapes but fled to Mexico when he was about to be deported to his home country. There, he was accused of up to 20 of the female homicides in Ciudad Juárez but was convicted of only one, to 30 years in prison, where he died of natural causes in 2006. As the high rate of female murders has continued to this day in Ciudad Juárez, it has been claimed that Sharif was used as a scapegoat by the Mexican police. |
| Daisuke Mori | Japan | 2000 and earlier | 1 | 11+ | Nurse that was sentenced to life imprisonment for one murder but suspected of killing at least 10 others. He might have confessed to some of the murders in order to protect others. |
| Thomas Henry McMonigle | United States | 1945 and before | 1 | 11 | McMonigle was executed in 1948 for the murder of Thora Afton Chamberlain three years before, having admitted to shooting her and throwing her off a cliff after trying to rape her. While awaiting execution he claimed to have committed eleven murders, but these claims could not be verified. |
| Bevan Spencer von Einem | Australia | 1979–1983 | 1 | 10 | Arrested for three and convicted of one of "The Family Murders", where four teenagers and one young adult, all male, were drugged, kidnapped, raped and mutilated for several weeks before their bodies were abandoned in the countryside near Adelaide. Police believed that von Einem had several accomplices, none of whom was publicly identified or detained, and at the time of his trial it was widely reported that the murders had been committed by a group of four to 12 high-profile Australian men; von Einem himself claimed to be the victim of a conspiracy. He has also been considered a suspect in the disappearance of two girls near the Adelaide Oval in 1973 and the high-profile Beaumont children disappearance in 1966. |
| Paul Bateson | United States | 1975–1977 | 1 | 10 | Bateson, known for his involvement in The Exorcist, stabbed film journalist Addison Verrill to death after having sex with him in 1977. While imprisoned for the murder he allegedly bragged about committing the "bag murders", a series of murders of six gay men in New York City who were dismembered and dumped in the Hudson River, and supposedly admitted three other murders to an acquaintance prior to Verrill's murder. However he was never charged with any crimes apart from Verrill's murder due to lack of evidence. |
| Derek Percy | Australia | 1965–1969 | 1 | 9 | Percy abducted and murdered 12-year-old Yvonne Tuohy in 1969 and was remanded indefinitely after being found mentally unfit for trial. A wider investigation found that his movements around the country and physical description linked him to multiple unsolved murders and disappearances of children, including the Wanda Beach Murders in 1965, the Beaumont children disappearance and the murder of Allen Redston in 1966 and two other unsolved cases in 1968; Percy himself claimed to be unable to remember if he had killed anybody else. |
| Brian Field | United Kingdom | 1968–1996 | 1 | 5 | Field raped and murdered 13-year-old Roy Tutill in 1968, but was not convicted until 2001, in the interim serving time in prison for sex offences against children. He is the prime suspect in the disappearance of Patrick Warren and David Spencer in 1996, and a person of interest in the 1985 disappearance of Lee Boxell and the murder of another child, Mark Billington, in 1984. |
| Lowell Amos | United States | 1979?–1994 | 1 | 4 | Detroit businessman sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 for the murder of his third wife. Suspected of, but never charged with the deaths of two previous wives and his mother, all of whom died under suspicious circumstances and left life insurance policies to Amos that, at least in one case, Amos himself had bought against the will of the insured. |
| Robert Durst | United States | 1971–2001 | 1 | 3–6 | Durst was a suspect in the 1982 disappearance of his wife Kathleen McCormack, who vanished after arguing with Durst. He murdered his longtime friend Susan Berman, who had provided him with an alibi for the disappearance, in 2000, and in 2001 killed and dismembered a neighbour named Morris Black but was acquitted on grounds of self-defense. He was convicted of murdering Susan Berman in 2021 and was also charged with the murder of Kathleen McCormack, but died before he could stand trial for that crime. Durst was also investigated as a suspect in the 1971 disappearance of Lynne Schulze and the disappearances of Karen Mitchell and Kristen Modafferi in 1997. |
| Charles Albright | United States | 1990–1991 | 1 | 3 | Albright was convicted of the 1991 murder of prostitute Shirley Williams, who was shot twice in the head and had her eyeballs removed by the killer. He was accused of two similar murders of sex workers but was not convicted. |
| John Cannan | United Kingdom | 1986–1987 | 1 | 3 | Cannan, a serial rapist, is serving a life sentence for the 1987 kidnap, rape and murder of Shirley Banks. Police have also named Cannan as the prime suspect in the disappearance of Suzy Lamplugh and the murder of Sandra Court, both of which took place in 1986. |
| Bennett Clark Hyde | United States | 1909 | 1 | 3 | Hyde was accused of murdering Thomas H. Swope and two members of his family under the guise of treating them for a typhoid epidemic in order that his wife would inherit a sizable amount of money. He was convicted of the murder of Thomas Swope, but his conviction was overturned on a technicality, two further trials ended in a mistrial and a fourth trial was not proceeded with. |
| David Moor | United Kingdom | 1970s–1999 | 0 | 300 | British doctor who was prosecuted for the "euthanasia" of a patient. He was found not guilty, but then admitted in a press interview to having "helped" 300 people to die. Some press reports referred to him as "Britain's greatest serial killer" and "Doctor Death". If the 300 victims are accepted as murder victims, he would have killed more than the most prolific serial killer known to the world, fellow British doctor Harold Shipman. |
| Edgar Matobato | Philippines | 1988–2013 | 0 | Hundreds | Self-confessed hitman and serial killer claiming to have killed people as part of the Davao Death Squad; his claims' authenticity has been challenged. |
| John Bodkin Adams | United Kingdom | 1946–1956 | 0 | 163 | Acquitted in a highly unusual trial in 1957 of murder but later found guilty of fraud. Archive evidence shows that he was almost certainly a killer but that his prosecution was sabotaged for political reasons. |
| The Man from the Train | United States | 1898–1912 | 0 | 40–100+ | Murdered entire families in their sleep, arriving and departing by train. Existence (and probable but not proven identity) discovered more than 100 years after the murders, by analysis of contemporary records, showing a markedly common modus operandi for many previously unconnected murders. |
| Ivomoku Bakusuba | Ruanda-Urundi | 1940s | 0 | 67 | Confessed to killing 67 children by strangling them with a bedsheet. Killed himself, "probably in late 1940s or in early 1950s." As information on this serial killer was only revealed by a police officer in 2018 during a conversation with a Brazilian writer, and there is no information on his conviction, the confirmation that he was a serial killer is debatable. |
| Manchester Pusher | United Kingdom | Since 2007 | 0 | 61+ | Alleged serial killer supposedly responsible for the deaths of dozens of people drowned in canals in Manchester. Proponents of the theory point to the "alarming" number of deaths occurring in the Rochdale, Ashton and Bridgewater Canals since the early 2000s, with many of the victims being young gay men (as Manchester's canals have historically been used as gay cruising areas), but police have dismissed the serial killer theory and maintain that the deaths are unrelated. |
| David Parker Ray | United States | 1950–1999 | 0 | 60 | Torture-murderer possibly aided by numerous accomplices, including his girlfriend. Targeted victims around Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. Convicted of attempted killing of three victims and is suspected of 60 murders, even though no bodies were ever found. Known as the "Toybox Killer" for the self-built mobile home he used in the rape, torture, and killing of women. |
| Smiley Face Killer | United States | 1990s–2000s | 0 | 40+ | Theoretical serial killer(s) thought by some sources to have drowned college-aged young men across the northern part of the country since 1997; most experts suggest that the deaths were accidental. |
| Howard Martin | United Kingdom | 1977–2010 | 0 | 18+ | British doctor who was prosecuted in 2005 for the deaths of three patients but was acquitted. However, the General Medical Council then struck him off as a doctor in 2010 for "hastening" the death of 18 people. He admitted to a newspaper to have killed two of these individuals. |
| Marie Besnard | France | 1927–1949 | 0 | 13 | Charged with the murders of 13 relatives with arsenic, all of whom had Besnard as their sole designated heir, but acquitted of all charges after three high-profile trials that lasted a decade. |
| Dr. X killings | United States | 1966 | 0 | 9+ | Suspicious deaths of nine people at Riverdell Hospital in Oradell, New Jersey. Mario Enrique Jascalevich was acquitted in 1978. |
| Alfred Leonard Cline | United States | 1930–1945 | 0 | 9 | Suspected of poisoning his eight wives and one man with sedative-laced buttermilk. Not enough evidence could be found to prosecute him for murder, but he was convicted of forging his victims' wills and died in prison in 1948. |
| Nathaniel Bar-Jonah | United States | 1973–1999 | 0 | 5 | Child molester sentenced to hundreds of years in prison for sexual offences. He was tried for abducting and murdering Zach Ramsey in 1999; though not convicted, he is widely considered responsible for the crime, and is suspected to have also cannibalized Ramsey. Police have additionally linked Bar-Jonah to the abduction and possible murder of four other children and teenagers. |
* Proven victims being either victims the serial killer was convicted of killing, victims declared by the killer in a detailed confession, or those whose status as a victim most scholars of the subject agree upon.