10 Of The Most Evil Serial Killers

#10 Dennis Nilsen

The British equivalent of Jeffrey Dahmer, Dennis Nilsen was a homosexual killer who murdered 15 gay men within home in London, England between 1978 and 1983. He retained his victims’ bodies before dissecting their remains and disposing of their bodies by burning or flushing the remains down the toilet, which led to his capture when human flesh was discovered in his sewage system. Nilsen was convicted in 1983 of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He remains imprisoned at Full Sutton maximum security prison in Yorkshire, England without the chance of release.

#9 Fred & Rose West

Between 1967 and 1987 Fred West and his wife Rose tortured, raped and murdered at least 11 young women and girls, many at the couple’s homes at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester which was later nicknamed the house of horrors. The pair were finally apprehended and charged in 1994 after police obtained a search warrant and located several human bones buried within the garden and under the floor boards. Having been arrested and during his trial, Fred West hanged himself in his prison cell prior to being convicted. In 1995 Rose West was jailed for life having been found guilty on 10 counts of murder. Their house at Cromwell Street was demolished in 1996 to discourage souvenir hunters.

#8 David Berkowitz

Known as the Son of Sam or the .44 Caliber Killer, David Berkowitz carried out a series of shootings in the summer of 1976. Using a .44 calibre Bulldog revolver, he shot 6 people dead and wounded 7 others. Berkowitz sent a series of taunting letters to police and the press promising further shootings, terrorising the people of New York City. Eventually captured in August 1977, Berkowitz confessed to all of the killings and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each murder, to be served consecutively and is unlikely ever to be released.

#7 Larry Bittaker and Roy Norris

Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris, nicknamed ‘The Tool Box Killers’ are two American serial killers who together murdered 5 young women in California in 1979. Luring victims into their van and driving them to secluded areas where they both raped and torturedthem horrifically with a number of tools before murdering them. In 1981 Bittaker and Norris were charged with murder, kidnapping and rape. Bittaker was sentenced to death and remains on death row to this day.[update] Norris was spared execution in return for his testimony against Bittaker and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

#6 Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono (The Hillside Stranglers)

Between late 1977 to early 1978 cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono carried out a reign of terror in California, kidnapping, raping and killing 10 girls aged between 12 and 28 years old, strangling each victim in the hills above Los Angeles which led to them being known as ‘the Hillside Stranglers’. Bianchi attempted to plead not guilty by way of insanity but was found to be faking mental illness, so instead agreed to plead guilty and testify against Buono. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment. Buono died of a heart attack in his cell in 2002.

#5 Donald Henry Gaskins

In 1969, Gaskins began killing a series of hitchhikers he picked up while driving around the coastal highways of the American South, torturing and mutilating his victims. He claimed to have killed eighty to ninety people. He was arrested in 1975, when a criminal associate confessed to police that he had witnessed Gaskins killing two young men. He was convicted of 8 murders and was sentenced to death which was later commuted to life imprisonment without parole. Remarkably Gaskins went on to commit a further murder within the high security prison, killing a fellow inmate. He is the only man to have ever killed an inmate on death row.

#4 Charles Ng and Leonard Lake

A Chinese-American serial killer, Charles Ng is believed to have raped, tortured and murdered between 11 and 25 victims with his accomplice Leonard Lake at Lake’s ranch in Calaveras County, California. They filmed themselves raping and torturing their victims. Their crimes became known in 1985 when Lake committed suicide after being arrested and Ng was caught shoplifting at a hardware store. Police searched Lake’s ranch and found human remains. Ng was identified as Lake’s partner in crime and attempted to evade police by fleeing to Canada. After a lengthy extradition to the United States He stood trial in 1998 on twelve counts of murder and was convicted in 1999. Ng is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

#3 John Wayne Gacy

John Wayne Gacy sexual assaulted and murdered 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. He lured victims to his home with the promise of work or money before murdering them by strangulation with a tourniquet . Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space under his home, before disposing of later victims in the Des Plaines River. Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.

#2 Jeffrey Dahmer

Known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. He also committed necrophilia and ate parts of his later victims, dismembering and cooking parts of their bodies within his home. Dahmer was eventually caught after a would-be victim managed to overpower him and alert police. In 1992 Dahmer was convicted of 15 of the murders and sentenced to 15 terms of life imprisonment. However just two years into his sentence he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution.

#1 Ted Bundy

One of the most widely known murderers of the 20th century, Ted Bundy was an American serial killer and rapist who kidnapped or overpowered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s. Bundy typically approached his female victims in a public place and led them to secluded areas where he would sexually assault and kill them. He decapitated at least 12 victims and kept the severed heads in his apartment as trophies. Repeatedly captured, he twice managed to escape from police and court houses before going onto commit three further killings. Convicted of multiple murders he sentenced to death. He was executed by the electric chair in 1989.