35 Serial Killers the World Wants to Forget

The Hillside Stranglers, tortured and murdered women before dumping their bodies around the Los Angeles hillsides. No one was off limits to Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker’s, rapes, assaults and murders around California. Paranoid schizophrenic Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, committed sexual homicide against women in the north of England.

Chester Turner, according to LAPD, is the most prolific serial killer in the history of Los Angeles. Joanna Dennehy became only the third woman in UK history to be jailed forever without parole for her brutal murders of three men. In Sydney, the most vulnerable of residents were at risk from the “Granny Killer”.

Fostering an image as a kindly medical professional, Dr Shipman had for years cunningly disguised his addiction to drugs and killing his patients. Dorothea Puente appeared to be a mild care home manager. So when police detective John Cabrera knocked on her door it was for information and not the haul of bodies he would eventually find.

Between 1986 and 1987, the bodies of missing young women were dug up around Sacramento, California. The locations all shared a trait: handyman Maurice Solomon Jr had either worked or lived there. For 13 months, violent ex-con Mark Goudeau murdered, kidnapped, sexually assaulted and robbed around Baseline Road in Phoenix, Arizona.

Richard Chase was labelled the Vampire of Sacramento by police. He had a lust for blood whose depravity would include rape, murder, mutilation, cannibalism and necrophilia. Roger and Verna Stafford were armed robbers responsible for what would be the worst killings in the State of Oklahoma for nearly 20 years.

Army veteran and ex-police officer, Dennis Nilsen asphyxiated young men, stored their bodies before dismembering them. Rodney Alcala was a sadistic rapist and serial killer who had murdered 4 women by the time he appeared on the popular television show, the Dating Game. Thrill Killer J R Chavez terrorised Dallas, shooting dead 5 people in one night.

With his IQ of 155, Michael Bruce Ross, the Roadside Strangler, snatched girls off the road to murder and sexually assault them. Detectives closed in on Serial Shooters, Dale Hausner and Samuel Dieteman who were vying for airtime against another serial killer in the most heinous possible way–by randomly shooting people dead on the street.

Gerald Gallego and Charlene Williams were a toxic mix that led to the rape, bludgeoning and murder of 10 people in just over two 2 years. During LA’s crack epidemic, there were few clues to hint that neighbourhood ‘go-to-guy’, Lonnie Franklin would be ‘The Grim Sleeper’ who raped and murdered women over three decades.

Randy Kraft predated on dozens of young men in California, drugging them before committing sadistic acts of torture and murder. Eric Royce Leonard shot dead 6 people within a few weeks, creating city-wide panic. The lethal combination of Douglas Clark and Carol Bundy brought murder, mutilation, and necrophilia to the streets of LA.

The brutality of the murders of five young girls at the hands of the Toolbox Killers brought a courtroom to tears and continues to haunt. During one London winter, a small studio flat belonging to Anthony Hardy, a sexually dysfunctional sadist, turned into a slaughter house.

As news of the awful fate of Jack the Ripper’s victims emerged from London’s deprived East End and travelled around the world, the killer and his crimes may have as well. Against the backdrop of flower power, demonic cult leader Charles Manson ordered his followers to murder, leaving seven people dead over two nights.

Roger Kibbe roamed California’s major freeway in his urge to rape and strangle unsuspecting young women. A London Summer was stained when murderer and necrophiliac, Kenneth Erskine preyed on the city’s elderly. Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer strangled, dismembered and ate 17 boys and men, before serving them to guests.

Either side of the globe, two cities lost their innocence after the harrowing crimes of serial killers. Eric Edgar Cook terrorised the Western Australian city of Perth over 4 years, killing 8 people. Manchester was never the same after Ian Brady and Myra Hindley tortured and murdered 5 children and buried them in the Settleworth Moors.