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.