David Berkowitz was a serial killer active in the 1970s in New York City and was known by the name Son of Sam.
1953-
Kenneth Bianchi, known as the Hillside Strangler, is a serial killer best known for working with his cousin Angelo Buono to commit 15 rapes and murders.
1951-
Ian Brady was a Scottish serial killer who murdered multiple children with his girlfriend, Myra Hindley.
1938-
Jerome Brudos was a serial murderer and necrophile who murdered four women in Oregon during the 1960s. He was known as the "The Lust Killer" and "The Shoe Fetish Slayer."
1939-2006
American serial killer and rapist Ted Bundy was one of the most notorious criminals of the late 20th century.
1946-1989
Andrei Chikatilo was a former school teacher who murdered more than 50 young people in the Soviet Union.
1936-1994
British serial killer John Christie murdered at least six women, including his wife, before being arrested and hanged in 1953.
1899-1953
Andrew Cunanan was a serial murder who killed fashion designer Gianni Versace, and at least four other people, before commiting suicide in a Miami houseboat.
1969-1997
Notorious sex offender and serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 men between from 1978 to 1991. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life terms, and then murdered by a fellow prison inmate in 1994.
1960-1994
Alberto DeSalvo is best known for confessing to be the Boston Strangler.
1931-1973
John Duffy was a British serial killer who, in partnership with childhood friend David Mulcahy, murdered multiple women the 1980s.
1959-
John Wayne Gacy is credited as one of the most vicious serial killers in U.S. history, with 33 victims.
1942-1994
Ed Gein was a notorious serial killer and grave robber. He inspired the creation of several film characters, including Norman Bates (Psycho), Jame Gumb (The Silence of the Lambs) and Leatherface (Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
1906-1984
H.H. Holmes was the alias of one of America's first serial killers. During the 1893 Columbian Exposition, he lured victims into his elaborate "murder castle."
1861-1896
A serial killer, Edmund Kemper killed six young, college-age women in the Santa Cruz, California, area and several members of his family.
1948-
The Zodiac Killer is believed to be responsible for at least five killings between 1968 and 1969 in and around the San Francisco area.
1909-1944
1944-
Donald Neilson is best known as "The Black Panther", the English armed robber and murderer.
1936-
Dennis Nilsen is best known as the English murderer of many young men in the late 1970's and early 80's.
1945-
Serial killer. Born Pedro Alonzo Lopez in 1949 in Tolmia, Colombia. The son of a prostitute, Lopez grew up in a world of poverty and political violence. His mother kicked him out at age eight, forcing him to fend for himself on the streets. After being
German serial killer Peter Kürten, known as the "Dusseldorf Vampire", murdered at least nine people before surrendering to police in 1931.
1883-1931
Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin, nicknamed "The Chessboard Killer," was caught in Moscow and convicted in 2007 of killing 48 people.
1974-
Known as the "BTK Killer"—which stands for "bind, torture, and kill"—Dennis Rader terrorized the Witchita, Kansas, area from the 1970s to the '90s.
1945-
1960-
1949-
Serial killer Joel Rifkin killed 17 women in the 1990s before the police tried to pull him over for a missing license plate (and discovered his latest victim).
1959-
Serial killer Arthur Shawcross murdered 11 women from 1988 to 1990 in upstate New York, earning the nickname "The Genessee River Killer."
1945-2008
Considered one of South Africa's worst serial killers, Moses Sithole was found guilty of 38 murders and 40 rapes in 1997.
1964-
Charles Sobhraj was a famous serial killer in the 1970's, known for drugging and killing between 12 and 24 western tourists in Asia. His several successful escapes from prison coined him the nickname, "The Serpent."
1944-
Jack Unterweger was an Austrian serial killer who murdered several women before committing suicide in 1994.
1950-1994
1941-1995
Dan White assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, a gay rights activist, in 1978.
1946-1985
1958-
An abused child who later earned her living as a sex worker, Aileen Wuornos was found guilty of killing six men and was later executed in a Florida prison.
1956-2002