A serial killer is defined as someone who murders at least two people in separate events that occur at different times.
While there is no legal definition of "serial murder," the crimes of serial killers have frequently been seized on by the media and the public consciousness.
Especially when there are multiple victims or the murders are carried out in a gruesome manner.
The following list delves into some of the world's most notorious serial killers.
#1: Jack the Ripper
We call him "Jack the Ripper," but we don't know who was behind one of the most notorious murder sprees in history.
In 1888, the killer appeared in London's Whitechapel district and murdered and mutilated five women, all prostitutes.
The killer was thought to be a surgeon, butcher, or someone skilled with a scalpel, according to police.
By sending letters outlining the crimes, the killer mocked the community and the police.
Despite the fact that numerous suspects have been named over the years, the killer has never been identified.
#2: Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Dahmer began killing at the age of eighteen in 1978 and wasn't arrested for murder until 1991, when a would be victim escaped and led police back to Dahmer's Milwaukee, Wisconsin, home.
Some of the gruesome details of his killing life were revealed through photos of mutilated bodies and body parts strewn throughout the apartment.
He even had an acid vat in which he disposed of victims.
Dahmer killed seventeen people in total, the majority of whom were young black men.
He was imprisoned twice, once for molestation and once for murder, and was killed by a fellow inmate in 1994.
#3: Harold Shipman
Harold Shipman, also known as "Dr. Death," is suspected of murdering at least two hundred eighteen patients, though the total is likely to be closer to two hundred and fifty.
Between 1972 and 1998, this doctor worked in two different offices in London, killing the entire time.
He wasn't caught until several people raised red flags, including an undertaker who was surprised by the sheer number of cremation certificates Shipman was a part of.
Not to mention the fact that the majority of the cases involved elderly women who died in bed during the day rather than at night.
The investigation was botched, and Shipman continued to kill until he became greedy and attempted to forge a will for a victim that named him beneficiary.
This prompted the victim's daughter to become suspicious.
He was convicted in 2000 and committed suicide in prison in 2004.
#4: John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy was an outgoing construction worker who was involved in politics and even worked as a clown for birthday parties.
He wasn't a clown.
Gacy was arrested in 1978 after a fifteen year old boy who was last seen with him went missing.
It wasn't the first time families of missing boys pointed fingers at Gacy, but it was the first time authorities took their concerns seriously.
Soon after, police were granted access to the Gacy home, where they smelled nearly thirty bodies buried in a four foot crawl space beneath his house.
He was found guilty of thirty three counts of murder, as well as rape and torture, and was executed by lethal injection in 1994.
#5: H.H. Holmes
H.H. Holmes, the pharmacist who turned a hotel into a torture castle, was one of Chicago's most infamous serial killers.
Before the 1893 World's Fair, Holmes relocated to Chicago and began outfitting a three story hotel with a variety of nefarious devices.
Things like gas lines, secret passages and trapdoors, hallways to dead ends, chutes to the basement, soundproofed padding, and torture devices strewn throughout a maze.
The gas enabled Holmes to knock out his guests before the worst of what was to come, which was frequently on his surgical tables.
He then burned the bodies in the furnace of the building, selling skeletons to medical schools and committing life insurance fraud.
He confessed to more than thirty murders before being hanged in 1896, only after a fellow con artist turned him in for failing to meet a financial agreement.
#6: Pedro Lopez
One of the world's most prolific serial killers could still be alive and well.
Pedro Lopez has been linked to over three hundred murders in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
One third of those murdered were tribal women.
Police discovered the graves of more than fifty of Lopez's preteen victims after his arrest in 1980.
He was later found guilty of murdering one hundred ten girls in Ecuador and confessed to two hundred forty more in Colombia and Peru.
The "Monster of the Andes" was released in 1998 for good behavior after only twenty years in prison.
His whereabouts have remained unknown for more than twenty years.
#7: Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy relished the attention his murders brought him, and many people in the United States were happy to oblige.
The western United States was his hunting ground, with an undetermined number of murders, mostly of college age women, accumulating from Washington and Oregon all the way to Utah and Colorado.
Bundy was arrested and convicted of kidnapping in Colorado, but he escaped and moved to Florida, where he killed multiple times more.
Bundy's final arrest and its aftermath captivated the nation, as the accused murderer acted as his own lawyer during what is thought to be the first televised murder trial.
It welcomed interviews, and boasted of the fans he had created.
In 1989, he was finally executed by electric chair.
#8 Charles Manson
Charles Manson, born November 12th, 1934, was the leader of the Manson Family cult in the 1960's and 1970's.
The cult, comprised primarily of young white women, was responsible for a number of murders, assaults, and minor crimes.
The most well known of these was the 1969 murder of pregnant Hollywood actress Sharon Tate and four others, in which Manson was not present.
Manson, who was born in Cincinnati, was convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the deaths of seven people in 1971, including Sharon Tate.
On November 19th, 2017, he died in Mercy Hospital, California, of acute cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, and metastatic colon cancer, at the age of eighty three.
#9: David Berkowitz
David Berkowitz, better known as the Son of Sam, was a serial killer whose spree lasted from July 1976 to July 1977.
The media initially dubbed him the forty four caliber killer, after his preferred weapon, which he used to murder six people in New York.
Son of Sam was a nickname he gave himself in a letter to the police in which he claimed Sam was ordering him to kill.
When Cacilia Davis walked past his crime scene and Berkowitz, she tipped off the cops, who discovered a rifle in his car and arrested him.
Berkowitz claimed during questioning that his neighbor Sam's possessed dog was telling him to carry out the murders, but he later changed his story, claiming it was a hoax.
Berkowitz pleaded guilty in 1978 and was sentenced to six twenty five year life sentences; however, he has applied for parole several times, with the most recent denial coming in 2018.
#10: Richard Ramirez
Richard Ramirez, also known as The Night Stalker, was a serial killer who operated from July 1984 to August 1985.
Ramirez was sentenced to death on thirteen counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder, eleven sexual assaults, and fourteen burglaries.
Despite being sentenced to death row in 1989, Ramirez died on June 7th, 2013 from complications from B-cell lymphoma.
Ramirez, who was born in Texas, allegedly learned some of the military skills he used in his crimes from his cousin when he was in his teens.
The Night Stalker became interested in Satanism and the occult, as well as frequently using cocaine, which he would fund through his burglaries.
Ramirez used a variety of weapons, including guns, knives, and hammers, as well as punching and strangling victims; in one extreme case, he stomped a victim to death while she slept.
He was apprehended after the police publicly identified him and he was seen re-entering LA after failing to meet up with his brother.
Following a chase across a freeway and over several fences by citizens, the killer was apprehended by police.
This concludes are list of ten of the world's most notorious serial killers.
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