There are no prerequisites to make into the 10 most evil serial killers ever club, other than horribly murdering a bunch of people. In fact, the more ordinary you look, the better, since the scariest thing about a serial killer is that they could be just about anyone. When we hear or read about some gruesome murder in the news, we tend to imagine the aggressor as some ugly, unhinged monster, with bloodshot eyes and a bloody ax for a banner. Sadly, serial killers are rarely so. Instead, they are real-life, flesh and blood, regular looking people: they could be your neighbor, a teacher, the nurse down at the hospital, or the clown you hired for your kid’s birthday party (who is still pretty frightening needless to be a murderer). What makes them so terrifying is the knowledge we’re unable to recognize them until it’s too late, but it’s also what makes them so terribly interesting.
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Another factor that makes these nightmare creators so disturbing is that in the last century there have been more than 4,743 caught in the US alone, so just imagining throughout the whole history of the world what the total count must be is enough to cost anyone quite a few sleepless nights. Not to even mention the ones who were never caught. If you’re still reading this instead of hiding in your closet, then you might be interested in watching some of the 11 best serial killer documentaries on Netflix streaming in 2015, but beware, your dreams will never be the same again.
Technically speaking, the FBI defines serial killing as “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone”, but there are many variations to this description. With the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant break -a “cooling off period”- between them, it is not to be confused with mass murdering, or killing sprees, however, they can overlap. With their behavior triggered by psychological causes, the assailants have almost always been found out to have suffered some kind of abuse –emotional, physical, or sexual- themselves, at some point in their lives. Now that you know the basics, let’s take a look at some of the most evil serial killers ever.
10. John Wayne Gacy, aka “The Killer Clown”
We are starting off our list of most evil serial killers ever with Gacy, from Chicago, Illinois, who was bullied by his schoolmates and father as a child for being unfit and made to feel like a failure, a sensation which grew into self-hatred and the rejection of his homosexual impulses. A beloved neighbor, he frequently entertained children’s parties as his alter ego “Pogo the Clown”. Having worked as a fast food restaurant manager in the 60s, he was accused of sexually abusing several young boys and even spent a couple of years in jail for it, but it was not until he got out that the killings began. Under the promise of construction work, he lured his victims, mostly teenage boys, into his home, where he sexually assaulted them and then strangled them with a rope, sometimes dressed in his costume. He then buried the bodies underneath the house, causing a foul smell, which raised suspicion. Pogo was convicted for 33 murders between 1972 and 1978 and sentenced to death by needle, making it into the 10 most evil serial killers ever.
See? I told you clowns were scary.
9. Richard Chase, aka “The Vampire of Sacramento”
Beaten by his father as a kid, he became a teenage alcoholic and soon started showing a fondness for torturing animals. In his young adult years he was committed several times to mental institutions, but always released.
Convinced that the Nazis were trying to turn his blood to dust by placing poison under his soap dish (yes, really), this man murdered 6 people in the span of a month, drank their blood, and ate their internal organs to “prevent his grim fate”, thus earning himself the well-deserved nickname: the Vampire of Sacramento. Sometimes he made “smoothies” out of his victims and, not surprisingly, he also had sex with some of the bodies while stabbing them, which kind of comes with the package really. Once caught, he was charged with the six murders and given several life sentences, but bullied and incited by his cellmates (who were in good reason afraid of him), he committed suicide in 1980. And now, let’s see what else we have on our list of most evil serial killers ever.
8. Elizabeth Báthory, aka “The Bloody Countess”
This XVI century noblewoman is considered to be one of the most prolific serial killers of all times, since she’s believed to have murdered over 600 young maidens in her homeland Hungary. Her modus operandi was to either kidnap or lure peasant women under the promise of work and once she got them back to her castle inflict pain on them in any way imaginable before ending their lives. Not only did she kill and torture them, but also drained their blood and then took a nice, long bath in it. The reason? Eternal youth. She believed doing this would help preserve her beauty and reignite her youthful glow. However, in order to do this, the girls had to be virgins, she was picky like that. Beginning this practice in 1585 she kept at it for 25 years, until she was imprisoned in 1610, and died 4 years later.
7. Ted Bundy
Unwanted, Theodore Bundy who ranks 7th in our list of most evil serial killers ever was regarded as a shame by his mother since before he was born and grew up a shy and lonesome child, with a difficulty to make friends and an alarming interest in knives. However, as years went by he proved to be exceedingly intelligent and developed into a very handsome young man, he became more outspoken and even got involved in politics. While studying psychology at the University of Washington he fell in love with a beautiful, wealthy young woman who would later break his heart, something he’d never get over. It has been reported that his victims would often present physical similarities to her, such as her long, dark hair.
Although nothing was suspected yet, by the time he moved to Utah to study Law, he had already raped and beat many girls to death. He was sleek and appealed to women’s sensibility and eagerness to help by often pretending to be hurt, or asking for help in a humbling manner. He was apprehended for the first time in 1978, after one of his victims got away, and was convicted of kidnapping, but managed to escape. He would then be re-captured and would re-escape, only to break into a Chi Omega sorority house and bludgeon four young women with a blunt object, killing two of them. His final victim was a 12-year-old girl he kidnapped from school and murdered, for which he was sentenced to death by electrocution.
6. Ed Kemper, aka “The Co-ed Killer”
Remember when I said serial killers didn’t look that scary? Well, there are some exceptions. Edmund Kemper, one of the most evil serial killers ever, was a 6’9’’, 300 pounds, 130 IQ, violent schizophrenic with a childhood fantasy for the death penalty, who at age 15 killed both his grandparents “to see what it would feel like”. He then called his mother, who incited him to turn himself in, which he did, because good boys do as their mothers say. That’s just the beginning.
After being released from psychiatric care at age 21, the number 6 in our list of most evil serial killers ever moved back in with his mom and took a job at the State of California’s Department of Public Works/Division of Highways. In 1972 he was injured in an accident and, unable to work, he turned his attention to student female hitchhikers, who he would pick up, take to secluded rural spots, and violently murder. Afterward, he would take the bodies back to his place, where he’d practice necrophilia, dissect them, and later dump or bury them in the fields. He repeated this operation six times before taking it out on his own mother, whom he beat to death with a claw hammer, cut off her head, had sex with it, and later used it as a dartboard. As if this wasn’t enough, he then called her best friend, had her come over, and strangled her. When he was done, he fled, but later called the police from the road and turned himself in, like a good momma’s boy. Sadly for Kemper, whose lifelong dream was to be executed, he only got life in prison.
5. H.H. Holmes, aka “The Beast of Chicago”
We are continuing our list of most evil serial killers ever with Holmes who was a well raised, educated young man, who came from an affluent and happy family, and from a very early age, he showed signs of being extremely intelligent. As a teenager, he turned an eye to science, deciding to become a doctor, but also indulging in worrisome behavior, like performing surgery on animals or later, in med school, stealing corpses to perpetrate insurance scams.
In 1886 he moved to Chicago, Illinois, and began working at a pharmacy over which he soon took over, the original owner never to be seen again. He did well and soon purchased a lot across the street, where he had a three story building constructed that occupied most of the block. The ground floor was normal, space devoted to commercial ends mainly, the other two, however, which held his office and personal chambers, were an intricate maze of rooms, doors and hallways, fake exits and booby traps, basically the most evil serial killer ever dream house. He constantly kept hiring and firing construction workers, complaining about their incompetence, whereas the truth was he wanted to be the only one to fully understand the labyrinth of death he was creating. He would target female employees and mistresses, and seclude them in rooms to starve, suffocate, or hang them in “the hanging room”, among the many torture lounges in his palace. On occasion, his home would become a hotel, but the guests that left were never as many as checked in.
Paradoxically, the motive of the arrest of one of the most evil serial killers ever was not related to his unspeakable crimes, but to insurance fraud. It was only after he fell under investigation that evidence began to surface and the whole thing unraveled, resulting in his death sentence. The “Murder Castle”, as it was called, mysteriously burst into flames in 1895.
4.&3. Fred & Rosemary West
And now, for the lucky couple. Fred West was not a smart man to begin with, and throughout his life he suffered two head injuries that may have caused him brain damage, which made him unpredictable and violent. Rose was quite a piece of work herself, being the result of a difficult pregnancy, and a horrid and turbulent marriage between her parents who were both ill and mentally unstable.
They first met when she was very young; he was married, had two children, and had already murdered a woman who was pregnant with his baby. She became with a child almost immediately, but soon after he went to jail and she, a teenager, was left to care of the whole progeny. It is believed that at that time she murdered West’s eldest daughter, and when his ex-wife came looking for her child she too was killed, dismembered, and buried. Soon after they secretly got married in Gloucester, had another girl, and moved into a bigger house, where they fitted the cellar as a torture chamber and tried it out with West’s remaining daughter, who was raped by Fred, while Rose held her down. In 1972 they kidnapped and abused a nanny, who managed to escape and reported the incident, but since West convinced a court magistrate that she had consented, and she was too scared to testify, it led to no conviction. After that, they embarked on a rampage of raping, torturing and killing, bodies buried under the cellar. It lasted for years and in the meantime, Rose kept having children.
When West’s eldest moved out, his lust for his daughters did not dwindle, but switched focus to his youngest, who would not indulge in her father’s desires, and talk to a friend at school about the weird things that occurred at her house. This resulted in her murder and dismemberment by both her parents. Still, their rates of abuse, rape and torture were so high they couldn’t possibly get rid of all the victims, and in 1992 they were exposed and Fred was convicted after which he became very cooperative and told the police where all the –literal- bodies were buried. He was charged with 12 counts of murder and hung himself in his cell. Rose tried to distance herself from him, claiming she too was a victim but was not believed and was sentenced to life in prision. And now, let’s see the top two most evil serial killers ever.
2. Gilles De Rais
In spite of being a celebrated captain of the French army who fought alongside Joan of Arc and thus became a war hero, this nobleman from the XV century drifted into a life of obscurity and sadism. He developed a taking for very young blue eyed boys, who he would at first pamper and offer an opulent meal, but when dinner was over the true nature of his intentions was revealed. As the child was locked in a room with Gilles and his accomplices, the growing fear excited the sick captain. He would hang them by ropes, abuse them sexually and psychologically by being violent, then taking them down pretending it would be okay, and immediately recurring in aggression. He would then kill them in various manners, and disposed of their bodies as he pleased, he would stab and mutilate them in the most heinous ways, always ending up covered in their blood. His servants (who would later testify against him), picked up whatever remains were left and burned them. However, being a deeply religious man, De Rais often felt conflicted after such acts and would pray compulsively and engage in acts of masochism in hope to rid himself of sin.
One of the most evil serial killers ever kept this going for a very long time, but in 1440 he abducted a cleric and was found out. Once accused of kidnaping the testimonies against him kept dropping, and he was sentenced to death by hanging and burning, as well as his servants.
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1. Charles Manson
Last but not least in our 10 most evil serial killers ever inventory is a man whose name alone has inspired countless nightmares across the US. As young as 6, little Charlie Manson would already manifest signs of psychopathy by convincing peer students, often girls, to beat up classmates he disliked, and also turning violent himself on occasion. His constant blaming of others for his deliberate misbehaving would satisfy his urge of being the center of attention, so what happened later didn’t come as much of a shocker to the people in his hometown.
After a couple of imprisonments one of the most evil serial killers ever moved to San Francisco and started “a family”, The Manson Family, which sounds like a tv show from the 80s, but it’s not. It’s really, really not. He made some sort of guru out of himself, convinced a number of female followers (and some men) to move in with him, and rode around with them in a hippie-styled school bus filled with rugs and pillows, gathering more and more followers to later settle in a deserted ranch in the San Fernando Valley. By then his amount of servants rounded the 100.
And then it happened. Charles hand selected among his faithful, those who would perpetuate Hollywood’s most infamous crime and on August 9, 1965, commanded them to break into the house the Polanski’s were renting, while Roman was away on business. It was a bloodbath. There was a dinner party going on, 6 people, including Roman Polanski’s 8-month-pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, who was repeatedly stabbed in the stomach, blood used to smear the word “PIG” on the front door. Needless to say, no one survived. The next day, it happened again, at the LaBianca’s family house.
Funnily enough, it was not the suspicion for the murders that got them detained, but the destruction of public property at the Death Valley National Park a few months prior. Of course, once they were under custody it all kind of added up and everyone went to jail, although no one got the death penalty. And where is little Charlie today, you wonder? He’s still in prison, 80 years old, and engaged to be married to a 26-year-old girl. Now that puts all of your poor judgment into perspective, doesn’t it?
This wraps it up in our list of most evil serial killers ever.
