List of serial killers in the United States
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
This is a list of serial killers in the United States. The list is by no means complete.
Contents
Convicted serial killers
- Charles Albright: also known as "The Eyeball Killer"; convicted of murdering three prostitutes in Dallas, Texas; sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994
- Rodney Alcala: also known as "The Dating Game Killer"; convicted rapist and serial killer, born in San Antonio, Texas, killed at least eight women in California, New York and Washington
- Howard Arthur Allen: killed three elderly people, as well as assault, burglary, and arson
- Richard Angelo: Also known as "The Angel of Death". New York nurse convicted of 4 murders; also linked to 6 other deaths. Suspected of killing up to 25 people
- Amy Archer-Gilligan: poisoned a husband and four of her nursing home's residents with arsenic or strychnine in Windsor, Connecticut in the 1910s; total could possibly be 48 to 60
- Benjamin Atkins: also known as "The Woodward Corridor Killer"; mission-oriented killer who raped and strangled eleven women in Highland Park, MI in 1991 and 1992
- Joe Ball: also known as "The Alligator Man"; killed at least 20 women in the early 20th century in Texas
- Velma Barfield: two husbands and two boyfriends died mysteriously with two proving to be arsenic poisoning; confessed to killing three more victims—including her mother
- Herb Baumeister: suspected of killing 20+ men along the I-70; fled and committed suicide after the remains of 11 victims were found on his Westfield, Indiana property
- Robert Berdella: convicted in 1988 of killing six men in Kansas City, Missouri between 1984 and 1987; sexually tortured and dismembered his victims. In his prison psychiatric profile, Berdella spoke of his rough childhood in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio (Just outside Cleveland) Specifically, he mentioned his rape at age 16, an act that triggered his desire to move to Kansas City. Berdella died in prison just four years after his arrest.
- David Berkowitz: also known as the "Son of Sam"; convicted of killing 6 people in New York City in 1976–1977
- Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, Jr.: also known as "The Hillside Stranglers"; killers of 12 young women in Los Angeles in 1977 and 1978. Possibly involved in three other killings
- Richard Biegenwald: convicted of killing five people in the early 1980s in the Asbury Park, New Jersey area; suspected in at least six other murders
- Jake Bird: Sentenced to death for the murders of two people; confessed to 44 other murders
- Arthur Gary Bishop: Utah man who murdered five young boys; executed in 1988
- Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris: kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered five teenage girls in 1979
- Terry Blair: Kansas City serial killer and rapist; active 1982–2004
- William Bonin: also known as "The Freeway Killer"; with several accomplices, claimed the lives of a minimum of 21 boys in California
- Dallen Bounds: killed two strangers, his girlfriend and her ex-husband in 1999
- Gary Ray Bowles: beat and strangled six men to death to steal their credit cards in 1994
- Briley Brothers: three brothers and an accomplice responsible for 11 murders in the 1970s in Richmond, Virginia
- Jerry Brudos: also known as "The Lust Killer" and "Shoe Fetish Slayer"; killed at least 4 women in Oregon between 1968 and 1969
- Judy Buenoano: poisoned her husband, boyfriend and son with arsenic in the 1970s; drowned the son in 1980, but caught in 1983 after poisoning and car bombing a fiancee
- Ted Bundy: law student who raped and murdered more than 35 women in six states; escaped from prison twice before being executed in 1989
- Ricardo Caputo: also known as "The Lady Killer"; strangled 4 women across North America in the 1970s becoming one of the FBI 10 Most Wanted
- Harvey Carignan: also known as "The Want-Ad Killer"; raped and beat 4 young women to death in 1972 and 1973 having escaped hanging for a 1949 killing on a technicality
- David Carpenter: also known as "The Trailside Killer"; murdered 5 women on San Francisco-area hiking trails between 1979 and 1981
- Michael Bear Carson and Suzan Carson: nomadic hippie killers involved in the counter-culture movement; suspects in 12 homicides; sentenced to life imprisonment for three San Francisco Bay Area murders in 1983
- Steven David Catlin: poisoned three people from 1976 to 1984; sentenced to death in 1990
- Richard Chase: also known as "The Vampire of Sacramento"; murdered 6 people in California in the late 1970s. Consumed the blood of three of his victims
- Thor Nis Christiansen: Shot dead and committed necrophilia on 4 young women in Isla Vista, California in the late 1970s
- Joseph Christopher: Also known as "The Midtown Slasher"; killed 12 people, all but one of them African Americans, in 1980 and 1981, between upstate New York and Georgia, mutilating 2 of them
- Douglas Clark and Carol M. Bundy: also known as "The Sunset Strip Killers"; killed at least 7 prostitutes during 1980
- Cynthia Coffman: Kidnapped 4 women by ATMs before accomplice James Gregory Marlow strangled them in five weeks in 1986
- Carroll Cole: Murdered a young boy and 6 women, suspected of a further 9 murders.
- Alton Coleman: Multi-state killer who along with his accomplice murdered a man and injured another, murdered 4 women, 3 young girls and raped a young girl
- John Norman Collins: also known as "The Co-Ed Killer". Convicted of the murder of the final victim linked to the Co-Ed Killer; strongly suspected of committing the other five victims linked to the series (committed between 1967 and 1969). Victims' bodies discovered within a 15-mile radius of Washtenaw County
- Daniel Conahan: Was convicted of one murder, but was associated with more than a dozen of torture and murders committed between 1994 and 1996
- Rory Enrique Conde: also known as "The Tamiami Trail Strangler". Killed 6 prostitutes in Florida. Sentenced to death on March 7, 2000
- Ray and Faye Copeland: oldest couple ever sentenced to death in the United States at the ages of 75 and 69; convicted of killing 5 men; modus operandi was to hire unskilled drifters as farm hands and later kill them
- Dean Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley: Along with David Owen Brooks, committed the "Houston Mass Murders"; abducted, raped, tortured and murdered a minimum of 28 teenage boys and young men between 1970 and 1973
- Juan Corona: California killer convicted of murdering 25 men of all ages in 1971. Majority of victims had been transient workers
- Tony Costa: Killed, dismembered and mutilated 4 women in Cape Cod in the late 1960s; linked to at least 4 other deaths and disappearances
- Richard Cottingham: also known as "The Torso Killer"; convicted of murdering 6 women around New York City between 1967 and 1980
- Juan Covington: Shot and killed 2 men. Shot 2 other men
- Andre Crawford: Murdered 11 women between 1993 and 1999
- Charles Cullen: A nurse in New Jersey and Pennsylvania who killed as many as 40 patients through lethal injection
- Jeffrey Dahmer: Milwaukee cannibal who retained various body parts of his victims for masturbation stimulus and to adorn a shrine; murdered 17 teenage boys and young men between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia
- Thomas Dillon: Serial sniper who killed 5 men in southeastern Ohio between 1989 and 1992
- Westley Allan Dodd: Raped and murdered three young boys in 1989; executed in 1993
- Ronald Dominique: Confessed to raping and murdering at least 23 men in Louisiana; sentenced to eight life sentences in 2008
- Nannie Doss: also known as "The Giggling Granny" and "The Jolly Black Widow"; serial poisoner who killed 11 family members
- Brian Dugan: convicted of murdering 2 girls and a woman between 1983 and 1985
- Joseph E. Duncan III: Raped at least 17 young boys and 3 young girls. Murdered a man and 2 boys, woman and 2 young girls. Suspected of a murder of another young boy.
- Paul Durousseau: Brutally raped and murdered 3 women, 2 of whom were pregnant, and 1 young girl. May have killed while stationed in Germany with the Army
- Edward Edwards: Shot a young couple in 1977 and stabbed and strangled another in 1980; sentenced to die for shooting his foster son in 1996 insurance murder, but died of natural causes before he was to be executed.
- Mack Ray Edwards: Molester. Murdered 2 young girls and 4 young boys between 1953 and 1969. Claimed at one point to have killed as many as 18
- Walter E. Ellis: also known as "The Milwaukee North Side Strangler"; convicted of killing 7 prostitutes in Wisconsin between 1986 and 2007
- Scott Erskine: Convicted of raping and murdering a woman in 1989 and the torture-murders of 2 boys in 1993
- Felipe Espinosa: Killed two dozen people in the Colorado Territory during the summer of 1863
- Donald Leroy Evans: Murdered a young girl and two women. Suspected of another dozen murders but recanted his confessions to over 70 more.
- Gary Evans: antique thief who shot to death two shop owners and three accomplices who he suspected of stealing from him between 1985 and 1997
- Richard Evonitz: abducted and killed 3 girls in Spotsylvania County, Virginia in 1996 and 1997. Two of his victims were sisters
- Larry Eyler: also known as "The Interstate Killer"; convicted of murdering 2 young men and confessed to stabbing and mutilating 20 more between 1982 and 1983
- Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck: also known as "The Lonely Hearts Killers"; killed at least 3 women and 1 child in the late 1940s but suspected in up to 20 murders in New York and Michigan
- Albert Fish: also known as the "Werewolf of Wysteria". A sadist and pedophile who cannibalized several children. Convicted of one murder, confessed to two others. Claimed to have molested 100 children.
- Wayne Adam Ford: also known as "Wayward Wayne"; confessed to murdering four women; believed to have killed others
- Bobby Jack Fowler: convicted of one murder, suspected of up to 20 more.
- Kendall Francois: serial killer from Poughkeepsie, New York who targeted prostitutes; after strangling the women, he would store their bodies in various crawl spaces in and around his home
- Joseph Paul Franklin: racist serial killer who targeted African Americans and interracial couples. Also attempted to assassinate Larry Flynt and Vernon Jordan; convicted of 11 murders and confessed to nine others; executed in 2013
- Lonnie David Franklin, Jr., also known as "Grim Sleeper" for the alleged 14-year hiatus he took from murdering between 1988 and 2002. He shot and strangled his 11 victims, mostly women, around South Los Angeles. Also known as "The Strawberry murders"; Franklin was charged after DNA evidence linked him with ten murders in Los Angeles since 1985. He was convicted on all counts in May 2016 and is awaiting sentencing.
- John Wayne Gacy: also known as "The Killer Clown"; killer of at least 33 men and boys; buried the majority of his victims' bodies in the crawl space of his Chicago home; executed in 1994
- Gerald and Charlene Gallego: also known as "The Gallego Sex Slaves Killers"; kidnapped, raped and killed victims in the late 1970s; most of their victims were teenagers
- Carlton Gary: convicted of the murders of seven elderly women in Georgia
- Donald Henry "Peewee" Gaskins: also known as "The Meanest Man in America"; convicted of nine murders; confessed to more than 100; executed in September, 1991
- Alfred Gaynor: Crack cocaine addict. Killed nine women in Massachusetts. Sentenced to life in prison on May 19, 2000
- Ed Gein: From La Crosse, Wisconsin; Ed Gein committed his crimes in Plainfield, Wisconsin; two known victims, one suspected victim, four missing persons; elements of Gein's life and crimes have inspired, at least in part, the novels/films Psycho and The Silence of the Lambs, and the 1973 movie The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
- Janie Lou Gibbs: Georgia poisoner who killed five family members
- Bertha Gifford: found not guilty of three arsenic poisonings by reason of insanity and suspected of 14 other killings, mostly of children, in Missouri
- Kristen Gilbert: also known as "The Angel of Death"; nurse convicted of killing four by epinephrine injection
- Sean Vincent Gillis: convicted of killing and mutilating seven women in Baton Rouge in competition with Derrick Todd Lee between 1994 and 2004
- Lorenzo Gilyard: killed up to 13 prostitutes in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area area between 1977 and 1993
- Harvey Glatman: also known as "The Lonely Hearts Killer"; Californian rapist and killer of three women; lured women to pose for "bondage photographs"; executed in 1959
- Billy Glaze: mission-oriented killer convicted of raping and murdering three Native American prostitutes in Minneapolis in 1986 and 1987
- Billy Gohl: union official linked with the disappearances of over 40 sailors in Aberdeen, Washington in the early 20th century
- Mark Goudeau: also known as "The Baseline Killer"; convicted of nine murders in Phoenix, Arizona
- David Alan Gore and Fred Waterfield: also known as "The Killing Cousins"; connected to the murders of six females; Gore was executed in 2012 and Waterfield was sentenced to life imprisonment
- Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood: Michigan duo who murdered five elderly nursing home residents in their care and claimed to have killed another
- Dana Sue Gray: convicted of murder of three elderly women and attempted murder of a fourth in California
- Vaughn Greenwood: convicted of nine counts of murder, including eight of the "Skid Row Slasher" killings in southern California
- Samuel Green: Robber and serial killer; executed in 1822.
- Belle Gunness: Norwegian-born murder-for-profit killer who killed her suitors and children in Indiana
- Anna Marie Hahn: German-born murder-for-profit killer who poisoned five elderly men; executed in 1938
- William Hance: also known as "The Forces Of Evil"; soldier who used the murders of Carlton Gary as an excuse for killing four women around military bases in 1977 and 1978
- Robert Hansen: Alaskan baker who killed prostitutes at his cabin; convicted of four murders but confessed to the murder of 17 women and the kidnap and rape of another 30. Authorities believe there were many more. Their cases are still open
- Harpe Brothers: also known as "Bloody Harpes"; Micajah "Big" Harpe (1768? – August 1799) and Wiley "Little" Harpe (1770? – January 1804), America's first known serial killers were credited with the murders of 40 men, women, and children
- Donald Harvey: also known as "The Angel of Death"; hospital orderly; confessed to more than 80 "mercy killings" with 37 confirmed killings
- Charles Ray Hatcher: convicted of two child murders in 1978 and 1982, having killed an 11-year-old boy in 1969; also stabbed to death a fellow inmate and another man 20 years apart
- Dale Hausner: Convicted of killing 6 people in random drive-by shootings in 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona
- Linda Hazzard: Attributed to 13 deaths (which she claimed was medical treatment) and was convicted of manslaughter in one death, in which she additionally forged the victim's will and stole her valuables
- William Heirens: also known as "The Lipstick Killer"; confessed to the murders of two women and a child between June 1945 and January 1946
- Loren Herzog and Wesley Shermantine: also known as "Speed Freak Killers"; California duo initially convicted of 7 murders, and suspected in the deaths of as many as 15 people from 1984 to 1999
- Johann Otto Hoch: also known as "The Stockyard Bluebeard"; German who married dozens of US women around the turn of the 20th century, before poisoning them with arsenic
- Dr. H. H. Holmes: active from 1890 to 1894 during Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition; convicted of only one murder, but definitively tied to at least eight more. Confessed to a total of 27
- Waneta Hoyt: New York woman who murdered her five children
- Michael Hughes: killed six women and a schoolgirl in the South Los Angeles area between 1986 and 1993, including a Southside Slayer victim
- Leslie Irvin: also known as "Mad Dog"; convicted of killing six people in Indiana in the mid-1950s; his Supreme Court case set a precedent for fair trials of highly publicized defendants
- Phillip Carl Jablonski: killed at least four women in California and Utah
- Keith Hunter Jesperson: also known as "The Happy Face Killer"; killed 8 women between 1990 and 1995
- Martha Ann Johnson: convicted of smothering three of her children in Atlanta between 1977 and 1982
- Milton Johnson: also known as the "The Weekend Murderer"; killed 10 people
- Vincent Johnson: also known as "The Brooklyn Strangler"; a homeless crack addict who killed at least five prostitutes
- Genene Jones: Texas pediatric nurse who poisoned infants in her care; convicted of only one murder, but suspected of 10 or more others
- John Joubert: also known as "The Nebraska Boy Snatcher"; stabbed three boys to death in 1982 and 1983. Executed in 1996
- Joseph Kallinger: murdered three people and tortured four families with his 13-year-old son Michael
- Patrick Kearney: necrophiliac convicted of 21 murders in California and admitted to seven other murders
- Edmund Kemper: also known as "The Co-Ed Killer"; started killing when he was 15 years old in Santa Cruz, California; convicted of six murders and implicated in four others
- Israel Keyes: 3 confirmed victims. Linked to 11 victims in 4 states. Committed suicide on December 2, 2012
- Scott Lee Kimball: also known as "Joe Snitch"; FBI informant who pleaded guilty to two of at least four murders in Colorado including those of his uncle and three female acquaintances
- Roger Kibbe also known as "The I-5 Strangler", killed seven women between 1977 and 1987 (six along Interstate 5 near Sacramento, and one to the west in Walnut Creek, California)
- Tillie Klimek: Chicago woman who poisoned five husbands; sentenced to life imprisonment
- Paul John Knowles: Child killer, rapist; murdered five young girls, seven women, and two men in 1974
- Anthony Kirkland killed 5 women between 1987 and 2009
- Randy Steven Kraft: convicted of the murders of 16 young men and boys; suspected of 51 others in California. Murders committed between 1971 and 1983
- Timothy Krajcir: confessed to killing more than nine women—five in Missouri and four others in Illinois and Pennsylvania
- Peter Kudzinowski: killed three children in New Jersey between 1924 and 1928
- Richard Kuklinski: American serial killer that joined the mafia as a contract killer for financial support
- Leonard Lake and Charles Ng: ex-Marines and survivalists; killed at least 11 people and suspected of 25 in Wilseyville, California; collected and murdered female sex slaves
- Delphine LaLaurie: Tortured and maimed her slaves
- Derrick Todd Lee: also known as "The Baton Rouge Serial Killer"; convicted of two murders; linked by DNA evidence to five others
- Bobbie Joe Long: also known as "The Classified Ad Rapist"; killed 10 women in Tampa Bay, Florida in 1984
- Michael Lee Lockhart: killed people in multiple states
- Henry Lee Lucas: convicted of 11 murders and confessed to approximately 3,000 others, although most of his confessions are considered outlandish; a task force created to investigate his claims suggested that the true number of his murders may be as high as 213
- Orville Lynn Majors: nurse convicted of murdering six patients in Clinton, Indiana; suspected of 130 killings between 1993 and 1995
- Richard Laurence Marquette: first 11th name on FBI 10 Most Wanted for killing, mutilating and dismembering a woman in 1961; killed two more with same modus operandi upon 1973 release
- Lee Roy Martin: also known as "The Gaffney Strangler"; killed two women and two girls in South Carolina in 1967 and 1968
- Rhonda Belle Martin: Alabama poisoner who murdered six family members; suspected of poisoning at least nine; executed in 1957
- David Mason: strangled four elderly neighbours in 1980 and his cellmate in 1982 having been imprisoned on lesser charges; suspected of shooting dead his boyfriend
- David Edward Maust: convicted of killing five teenage boys; one in Germany in 1974, another in 1981, and three he buried in his basement in Hammond, Indiana in 2003
- Kenneth McDuff: also known as "The Broomstick Killer"; death sentence for 1966 triple-murder commuted; killed three days after 1989 parole and ten further times in Waco, Texas until 1992; executed in 1998
- David Meirhofer: killed three children and an ex-girlfriend between 1967 and 1974; first serial killer apprehended by offender profiling
- Stephen Morin: killed three women and was suspected in over 30 unsolved crimes; executed in 1985
- Frederick Mors: Austrian who killed 8 elderly patients by poisoning in New York
- John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. Also known as "The Beltway Snipers". Spree killers who terrorized the Washington D.C. area with a series of sniper attacks in 2002.
- Herbert Mullin: Schizophrenic in Santa Cruz, California who killed people to prevent earthquakes; convicted of 10 murders and confessed to three others
- Joseph Naso: killed four women in California, suspect in another 6; also considered a person of interest in the 1971-1973 New York Alphabet murders[1]
- Robert Nixon: killed 5 women in the 1930s
- Earle Nelson: also known as "Gorilla Man"; necrophiliac convicted and hanged for one murder; implicated in about 20 others
- Marie Noe: murdered eight of her children between 1949 and 1968
- Gordon Northcott: also known as "The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders"; California man who confessed to kidnapping, raping and murdering young boys with the aid of his mother, Sarah Louise Northcott, in the 1920s. Convicted of 3 murders, suspected of perhaps 20; executed in 1930
- Carl Panzram: murderer, rapist and arsonist; convicted of two murders; confessed to 19 others; executed in 1930
- Gerald Parker: also known as "The Bedroom Basher" raped and murdered five women and killed the unborn baby of a sixth woman in Orange County, California
- Louise Peete: convicted of murdering a man and woman decades apart, four other acquaintances died suspiciously and four husbands committed suicide
- Steven Brian Pennell: also known as "The Corridor Killer"; convicted of torture-murdering two women, pleaded no contest to two more murders committed in 1987 and 1988. Also suspected of a fifth in Delaware
- Christopher Peterson: also known as "The Shotgun Killer", confessed to shooting seven people with a shotgun in a killing spree spanning from October 30, 1990 to December 18, 1990 in Indiana
- Craig Price: also known as "The Warwick Slasher"; teenager who stabbed two women and two children in Rhode Island in the late 1980s
- Jesse Pomeroy: also known as "The Boy Torturer"; Convicted of murdering two small children in Boston, Massachusetts
- Harry Powers; also known as The West Virginia Bluebeard killed two women and three children in 1931
- Cleophus Prince Jr.: also known as "The Clairemont Killer"; raped and killed six women in San Diego in 1990
- Marion Albert Pruett: killed four women in three states; executed in 1999
- Dorothea Puente: convicted of three killings in Sacramento, California during the 1980s; suspected of six others
- Dennis Rader: also known as "The BTK Killer"; killed ten people between 1974 and 1991 in Sedgwick County, Kansas
- Richard Ramirez: also known as "The Night Stalker"; terrorized Los Angeles in 1984 and 1985; convicted of 14 murders; died in prison in June, 2013
- David Parker Ray: convicted of rape and torture and sentenced to 224 years in prison; FBI believes he was responsible for the deaths of 60 women in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico
- Melvin Rees: also 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
- Paul Dennis Reid: killed seven people during armed robberies between February and April 1997
- Ángel Maturino Reséndiz: killed nine people in Texas, Kentucky, and Illinois
- Robert Ben Rhoades: convicted of murdering 3 women in Texas and Illinois between 1989 and 1990
- Stephen Richards: nicknamed "The Nebraska Fiend"; murdered at least six people, including three children, in Nebraska in 1878
- Gary Ridgway: also known as "The Green River Killer"; convicted of murdering 49 women in Washington state
- Joel Rifkin: murdered 17 women in the New York City and Long Island areas
- Harvey Miguel Robinson: teenager who stalked, raped and killed three women in Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1992 and 1993
- John Edward Robinson: also known as "The Cyber Sex Killer"; lured victims through the internet; convicted of murdering six women in Missouri and Kansas
- Dayton Leroy Rogers: murdered at least six women in Oregon
- Glen Edward Rogers: known as the "Cross Country Killer" and "Casanova Killer". Rogers operated around the United States between 1995 and 1999
- Danny Rolling: pleaded guilty to murdering five students in Florida; executed in 2006
- Michael Bruce Ross: raped and murdered seven women in Connecticut; executed in 2005
- Robert Rozier: former NFL player that confessed to seven murders while a member of the Nation of Yahweh
- Kimberly Clark Saenz: killed five patients by using syringes to inject bleach into their dialysis lines
- Efren Saldivar: respiratory therapist who killed six patients, possibly as many as 120
- Altemio Sanchez: also known as "The Bike Path Rapist"; responsible for three murders and numerous rapes spanning a 25-year period in Buffalo, New York; currently serving three consecutive 75 years-to-life sentences for the murder
- Gerard John Schaefer: Florida police officer who killed up to 34 women and girls
- Charles Schmid: also known as "The Pied Piper of Tucson"; murdered three teenage girls in 1964 and 1965 and buried them in the desert
- Heriberto Seda: New York City copycat killer of the "Zodiac Killer" active from 1990 to 1993; convicted of shooting eight individuals, killing three; sentenced to life imprisonment in 1998
- Tommy Lynn Sells: convicted of only one murder; admitted to murdering dozens of people across the United States, possibly in excess of 70 although, only six are confirmed; executed in 2014
- Arthur Shawcross: also known as "The Genesee River Killer"; convicted of 12 murders; confessed to one more
- Lydia Sherman: poisoned four husbands and seven children.
- Anthony Allen Shore: also 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
- Robert Shulman: convicted of murdering five prostitutes between 1991 and 1996
- Daniel Lee Siebert: convicted of 1979 manslaughter; killed nine people across America in three months in mid-1980s, including two children and a Southside Slayer victim
- Robert Joseph Silveria, Jr.: also known as "Sidetrack"; freight train rider convicted of beating to death four fellow transients in 1995 and confessed to dozens more
- Lemuel Smith: confessed to the murders of five people, including an on-duty female prison guard
- Morris Solomon Jr.: handyman who killed six young women between 1986 and 1987 in Sacramento, California
- Lyda Southard: first and fourth husbands' 'typhoid' deaths due to arsenic; first husband's brother poisoned and daughter died; two other husbands died of 'flu'
- Anthony Sowell: also known as "The Cleveland Strangler" and "The Imperial Avenue Murderer"; convicted of raping and murdering 11 women between 2007 and 2009, leaving their bodies in his house in Cleveland, Ohio
- Timothy Wilson Spencer: also known as "The Southside Strangler"; raped and killed five women in Virginia between 1984 and 1987
- Jack Owen Spillman: also known as "The Werewolf Butcher"; killed two girls and the mother of one of them in Washington State in 1994 and 1995
- Edward Spreitzer: also known as "The Chicago Rippers"; as part of a satanic cult, raped and mutilated at least four women and also killed a man in Chicago
- Gerald Stano: convicted murderer of 41 women; executed in 1998
- Cary Stayner: killed four women in Yosemite, California
- Paul Michael Stephani: also known as "The Weepy-Voiced Killer"; killed 3 women in the cities of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota
- William Suff: also known as "The Riverside Prostitute Killer"; killed 12 women near Riverside, California
- Michael Swango: physician and surgeon who poisoned over 30 of his patients and colleagues
- James Swann: also known as "The Shotgun Stalker"; schizophrenic who killed four people in drive-by shootings in Washington, D.C. in 1993 because he heard the voice of Malcolm X
- Joseph "Mad Dog" Taborsky: was sentenced to death after a string of brutal robberies and murders in Connecticut during the 1950s.
- John Floyd Thomas, Jr.: also known as "The Southland Strangler" and The "Westside Rapist"; convicted of raping and murdering seven elderly women in Los Angeles between 1972 and 1986 and suspected of 10–15 more
- Ottis Toole: Henry Lee Lucas' accomplice; convicted of six murders in Florida; confessed to but never tried for Adam Walsh's murder
- Jane Toppan: nurse and lust murderer who poisoned at least 31 patients and relatives in Massachusetts up to the turn of the 20th century
- Maury Travis: St. Louis area torture killer of 12–17 prostitutes from 2000 to 2002
- Chester Turner: convicted of murdering ten women and a viable unborn baby in South Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998
- Abdul Latif Sharif: raped and murdered women in both the USA and Mexico
- Henry Louis Wallace: Charlotte, North Carolina killer of at least nine young women from 1992 to 1994
- Faryion Wardrip: killed five young women around Wichita Falls, Texas between 1984 and 1986
- Karl F. Warner: convicted of murdering three teenage girls, in two separate incidents (between 1969–1971), in the San Francisco Bay Area communities of San Jose and Saratoga
- Coral Eugene Watts: convicted of two murders; admitted to killing 80 people in Texas and Michigan; possibly guilty of 100 murders. Died of prostate cancer only eight days after going to prison
- Nathaniel White: convicted of stabbing to death six women in the Hudson Valley, New York area from 1991 to 1992
- Christopher Wilder: also known as "The Beauty Queen Killer"; millionaire Australian realtor who killed eight women in seven weeks in 1984
- Scott Williams: killed and mutilated three women between 1997 and 2006
- Wayne Williams: convicted of two murders; police claim his arrest solved 23 in the string of 28 Atlanta child murders
- Shirley Winters: confessed in 2008 to killing 2 children; suspected of killing her two older children in a 1979 fire and suspected in a separate fire that killed three children of a friend in 1979
- Randall Woodfield: also known as "The I-5 Killer" and "The I-5 Bandit"; convicted of one murder and linked by DNA to six others; believed responsible for an additional 14 murders
- Aileen Wuornos: shot six men to death in Florida between 1989 and 1990; executed in 2002
- Robert Lee Yates: murdered at least 16 women in Spokane County, Washington
- Robert Zarinsky: Convicted of killing two teenage girls. Suspected of murdering several other individuals—predominantly teenage girls—between 1958 and 1974
Unidentified or unconvicted serial killers
This is a list of unidentified serial killers. It includes suspects who have been charged but not convicted.
Name | Years active | Proven victims | Possible victims | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Alphabet murders | 1971 to 1973 | 3 | 3 | Also known as "The Double Initial Murders"; murders of three young girls in the Rochester, New York area during the early 1970s |
Ann Arbor Hospital Murders | 1975 | 10 | 10 | Poisonings of ten patients at the Veteran's Administration Hospital in 1975 |
Atlanta Ripper | 1911 | 15 | 15-21 | Mystery murderer(s) of fifteen Atlanta women in 1911 |
Bloody Benders | 1869 to 1873 | 11 | 12+ | Family who killed guests at their inn in Labette County, Kansas in 1872 |
Boston Strangler | 1962 to 1964 | 13 | 13 | 1960s deaths of 13 women (five young, eight older), mostly with their own stockings as ligature. Albert DeSalvo confessed to the murders, but was never indicted; DNA evidence has recently suggested his guilt in one of the cases |
Charlie Chop-off | 1972 to 1974 | 6 | 6 | Murders of five boys in Manhattan in 1972 and 1973. A mental patient confessed to one slashing death. Four stabbings also involving mutilation remain unsolved |
Cincinnati Strangler | 1965 to 1966 | 7 | 7 | Raped and strangled seven mostly elderly women in Cincinnati, Ohio between 1965 and 1966 |
Cleveland Torso Murderer | 1934 | 13 | 40+ | Also known as "The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run"; responsible for 12–13 murders in the Cleveland, Ohio area in the 1930s |
Colonial Parkway Killer | 1986 to 1989 | 8 | 0 | 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 |
Connecticut River Valley Killer | 1978 to 1987 | 7 | 7+ | Stabbed at least six women to death in New England in the 1980s, severely injured one[1] |
Daytona Beach killer | 2005 to 2007 | 4 | 5 | Murdered four, possibly five, women in Daytona Beach, Florida between 2005 and 2007 |
The Doodler | 1974 to 1975 | 14 | 0 | Sketched then stabbed to death 14 gay men in San Francisco in the 1970s |
Eastbound Strangler | 2006 | 4 | 0 | Killed at least four victims in October and November 2006 in Atlantic City, NJ. Each was placed about sixty feet apart in a ditch filled with shallow water. They were facing east and missing their socks[2] |
Edgecombe County Serial Killer | 2000s | 9 | 10 | Murders of nine women and disappearance of another since 2005 around Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Antwan Pittman has been convicted in one case |
Neal Falls | ?–2015? | 0 | 10+ | Killed up to 10 women before being killed in self defense. |
Flat-Tire murders | 1975 | 5 | 5+ | Killed 5 women in 1975 |
Frankford Slasher | 1985 to 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 |
Freeway Phantom | 1971 to 1972 | 6 | 7 | Raped and strangled six young women and girls in Washington, D.C. in the early 1970s, dumping their bodies by freeways |
Gypsy Hill killings | 1976 | 5 | 0 | Known as the "San Mateo slasher"; five unsolved killings, of young women in San Mateo County, California during early 1976 |
Honolulu Strangler | 1985 to 1986 | 5 | 0 | Raped and strangled five young women in Hawaii in 1985 and 1986 |
Jeff Davis 8 | 2005 to 2009 | 8 | 0 | The bodies of eight women were found in swamps and canals surrounding Jennings, Louisiana. Originally thought to be a serial killer, but multiple suspects may be involved |
Long Island serial killer | 1996-2010 | 10 | 17 | Suspected of killing eight women, a man and a child since 1996 and dumping their bodies along remote beaches in Suffolk and Nassau County, New York. The killer has been referred to as the Gilgo Beach killer because of the location where the first bodies were found |
Michael Gargiulo | 1993 to 2008 | 3 | 6 | Also known as the "Hollywood Ripper"; murdered at least 3 people including Ashton Kutcher's former girlfriend Ashley Ellerin |
Michael Madison | 2012 to 2013 | 3 | 0 | Suspected American serial killer from East Cleveland, Ohio who is currently being held in custody as a suspect in at least three murders |
New Bedford Highway Killer | 1988 to 1989 | 9 | 11 | Murders of nine women and disappearance of two others between 1988 and 1989 |
Oakland County Child Killer | 1976 to 1977 | 4 | 4+ | Also known as "The Babysitter"; responsible for the murders of four or more children in Oakland County, Michigan in 1976 and 1977 |
Original Night Stalker | 1979 to 1986 | 10 | 13 | Also known as "The East Area Rapist"; killer and rapist who murdered ten people in Southern California from 1979 through 1986 |
Phantom Killer | 1946 | 5 | 0 | Believed to have committed the Texarkana Moonlight Murders in Texas between February 23 and May 4, 1946 |
Redhead murders | 1978 to 1992 | 8 | 8+ | Series of unsolved homicides believed to have been committed by an unidentified serial killer in Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Pennsylvania |
Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders | 1972 to 1973 | 7 | 7+ | A 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 |
Servant Girl Annihilator | 1884–1885 | 8 | 8 | Also known as "The Austin Axe Murderer"; responsible for at least seven murders in Austin, Texas between 1884 and 1885 |
Smiley face murder theory | 1990s to 2000s | 0 | 40+ | Theoretical serial killer(s) thought by some sources[4] to have drowned college-aged young men across the northern part of the country since 1997; most experts suggest that the deaths were accidental |
Texas Killing Fields | 1970s to 2000s | 1 | 30+ | Since the early 1970s roughly 30 bodies have been extracted from the fields, mainly consisting of young girls. May have been the work of multiple killers. Convicted murderer Edward Harold Bell, 72 years old in November 2011, claimed in a letter to police in 1998 to have murdered 11 girls in Galveston County. Kevin Edison Smith was sentenced to life imprisonment for one of the murders in 2012 |
Darren Deon Vann | 2014 and earlier | 7 | 7+ | Confessed to the murders of at least seven women. |
West Mesa murders | 2003-2009 | 11 | 11+ | Remains of 11 women, who disappeared between 2003 and 2005, found buried in desert in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2009 and attributed to a bone collector |
Zodiac Killer | 1968 to 1974 | 5 | 37 | Targeted young couples. Remains unsolved but open in the California jurisdictions the 5 certain Zodiac murders occurred. Potentially 37 total victims claimed but unverified. |