“Powerful you have become, the dark side I sense in you”
The above-mentioned quote by “Yoda” from the famous Star Wars movie series, portrays sentiments reflecting the eternal battle between good and evil that has been raging from time immemorial. For most silver screen versions & other facets of the entertainment industry, this fight is between different people, groups, or nations that fight for good reasons against evil & the story always ends with the triumph of good over evil. However, the real world is a much more complex place.
In the real world, the fight does not always take place between two different entities or persons, but sometimes, also within the same individual. In the real world, good doesn’t always triumph over evil & not always, people get what they deserve.
This is the story of those people, who have gone down in history as individuals, whose dark side, eclipsed not just their persona, but also cast a dark shadow in society as a whole. This story about the worst serial killers in history, from around the world, over the centuries, just shows how evil transcends all geographical and time barriers.
More than 5 centuries before the Star Wars series was released, there lived a person who had crossed into the dark side, as the popular movie series of Star Wars showed many times. From his role as a companion in arms of the legendary Joan of Arc & a hero of France to his hanging after being convicted as a mass murderer, his fall from grace was astounding. Our list of worst serial killers in history starts with Gilles de Rais.
Born around 1405 AD in a noble family, Gilles de Rais lost both of his parents, by the time he was 10 years old. Forced to stay with his grandfather, he was married off when he was just 15 years old, a relationship, which made him quite rich. Soon Gilles de Rais would join politics and power struggle of the time, which brought him quite close to Joan of Arc, who at the time was at the peak of her glory. However, the changing fortunes of Joan of Arc ended with her burning at stake in May 1431 to the shocking disbelief of Gilles de Rais.
Gilles de Rais’s disillusionment with the Church and belief that God had failed to protect Joan of Arc, entirely & radically changed his character. From a brave, patriotic & chivalrous Marshall of France, to his journey to the dark side started. He started engaging in a life of depravity & excess.
Gilles de Rais spent an astounding sum of money, for a theatrical show of his composition, with extravagant costumes for actors, which seriously depleted his coffers. Unrepentant he kept on spending money on large opulent feasts, which made his financial condition worse. Soon he would lose all his family relations, due to his irresponsible behavior.
By this time, Gilles de Rais had already developed a distorted & sadistic liking for physically assaulting, sexually abusing & finally murdering young children. The incident started around 1432 AD when he still lived in his family residence. Later Gilles moved to Machecoul, where he continued this practice. However, only a few people, who were in his inner circle (& participated in his depraved act) knew about it.
Mostly poor children would be lured into his castle, where he would tell these unfortunate & unsuspecting kids, that he would play with them. Later after sexually abusing them, they would be killed by decapitation & sometimes their bodies would be cut open, so Gilles de Rais could look at their internal organs.
Gilles de Rais’s luck ran out when he decided to kidnap a priest after a dispute at a Church. A prompt investigation by the authorities revealed the crime of Gilles de Rais. Further inquiry into the accusations of parents of the missing children (who stated that their children never returned from the castle of the accused) and testimonials that were given by accomplices of Gilles de Rais sealed his fate.
On 26 October 1440 AD Gilles de Rais was hanged for his crimes. The exact number of his victims remains unknown, as all the bodies of his victims were never found (as many of these were burned or buried), but most believe thatthe number of murders committed by him was anything between 80 to 600.
Elizabeth Bathory was a Hungarian countess from noble family background, with links directly to the ruler of the land. Taking advantage of this, Elizabeth Bathory engaged in mindless slaughter of young girls, for sadistic pleasure & to achieve eternal beauty. This story of a European noblewoman is very similar to the previous incident described and she certainly can be considered as one of the worst serial killers in history.
Described as the greatest female serial killer by Guinness World Records, Elizabeth Bathory was born on August 1560 to a noble family in the Kingdom of Hungary. Elizabeth Bathory was related to many powerful people who were rulers of Transylvania. Her marriage at the age of 15 years was a political arrangement, which spread her sphere of influence.
Elizabeth Bathory’s wedding gift was Csejte Castle & with 17 adjacent villages. As her husband was the chief commander of the Hungarian army, so he spent most of his time far away from home, in a war against the invading Ottoman army. The Countess spent most of her time looking after her children & affairs related to her estate.
Elizabeth Bathory’s husband died in 1604 AD, which left her in absolute charge in matters related to her fiefdom. However, a rumor of dubious activities surrounding her castle had started circulating in the area, almost 2 years before her husband died.
Incidents of young women disappearing from the castle & other macabre incidents, related to the people living in the castle, made many people living in the nearby areas skeptical & highly suspicious of the Countess. These incidents & complaints reached the ears of King Matthias II – ruler of Hungary & Croatia, who sent officials to investigate.
These investigations revealed gruesome incidents & accounts of gory murder. It was described how Countess Bathory lured young girls from poor family, with promises of a job. These girls were tortured by burning with hot rods, or ice water was poured on them & then they were left out, to die of cold.
Sometimes Elizabeth Bathory would also bite off the flesh of their face, arms and breasts; or cut off their body parts with scissors, or beat them to death. She was later, also accused of cannibalism – or eating the flesh of her dead victims. One special act, which gave her the name of -The Blood Countess; was her act of bathing in the blood of her young victims, which she believed would give her eternal youth.
Finally, Elizabeth Bathory was arrested along with 4 of her servants, who were her accomplices. Body parts of many victims were also reportedly found as was the discovery of many imprisoned young girls. The trial on January 1611 found her guilty & she was sentenced to solitary confinement for the rest of her life, for murdering 80 people (which was the official number, although she was accused of killing over 650 victims).
Elizabeth Bathory’s accomplices were condemned to die a more horrible death, as they were branded witches & were burnt at the stake. Elizabeth Bathory spent the rest of her life imprisoned in Csejte Castle in a set of rooms, with small opening for ventilation & passing of food. As one of the worst serial killers in history, Elizabeth Bathory died a lonely death in 1614 & her place of burial remains unknown to this day.
Early 19th century India was a difficult time for the country. The demise of the old Mughal empire, which ruled India & the beginning of the British rule, along with the presence of many independent princely states created an administrative conundrum, which would be a heavenly situation for any outlaw organization, that would want to take advantage of the situation. Thugees were one such group of outlaws (an Indian version of highwaymen) whose activities would be notoriously remembered, much after they were wiped out from existence.
Thuggees were believed to be present in India, since the 13th century, with the text – History of Firoz Shah (written by Zia ud din Barni), describing incidents related to thugs, which occurred in 1290 AD. However, the Thugs received unparalleled notoriety in the 19th century, when they emerged as a source of serious law & order problem, at a time when the British were trying their best to impose their totalitarian rule on the Indian Subcontinent.
As mentioned before, Thugs were an organized gang of robbers & murderers, who were the Indian version of Highwaymen, who according to a British historian (Mike Dash) had killed around 50,000 people in their last 150 years of existence, before they were wiped out in the 1830s.
In contrast to the western highwaymen, these well-organized groups – spread over vast stretches of the Indian landmass, usually joined traveling groups, (coming from far distant places) as fellow travelers (sometimes gradually in small increments), till they became the majority in the group. Later they would attack the unsuspecting travelers when they would be resting & strangle them to death. The purpose of these acts was strictly professional, which was - looting the jewelry, money & other valuables of merchants/travelers passing through a territory relatively unknown to them. There were many different groups, functioning independently, in different regions of the country.
ThugBehram, was the leader of one such group, active in the princely state of Oudh in Northern India, in the early 19th century. The so-called “King of the Thugs” – also known as Buhram Jemedar was born in 1765 in the modern-day Indian province of Madhya Pradesh. Behram joined the Thuggee band sometime around 1790, and within a couple of decades, he had acquired unparalleled notoriety, as thousands of people (travelers, pilgrims, traders, soldiers, and tourists) disappeared.
The British authorities sent Captain William Sleeman to investigate these crimes. Thug Behram, by this time, lead a group of over 200 men. One of the main reasons for his success was that – the thugs used to communicate in special jargon known as Ramasee, which others could not understand.
Captain Sleeman succeeded in his mission, after trying for 11 years when he captured an aging 75-year-old Thug Behram in 1840. Thug Behram admitted to being responsible for 931 murders, making him one of the worst serial killers in history. Thug Behram used a handkerchief like cloth, with a medallion sewn to it, for strangulating his victims. This medallion was used to apply pressure on Adam’s apple of his victims.
It is believed that of the 931 murders, Thug Behram had killed 125 men with his own hands. For his heinous crimes, Thug Behram was executed by hanging in 1840. This would be soon followed by executions, of many more thugs & by the end of the 19th century, the reign of terror of Thugs was over & they had been relegated to the pages of history.
Even a century after the incidents, the name of Jack the Ripper evokes strong feelings, as this master criminal was never caught by the London police. Unfortunately, his victims were poor women, who had been forced to take up prostitution (because of extreme financial hardships) for the sustenance of themselves & their near and dear ones.
Mid-19th century Britain was a hard place for many, due to the influx of numerous immigrants, from various parts of Europe, in hope of finding a better life. London’s east end had become tremendously overcrowded, where housing facilities and work opportunities continuously deteriorated. The poor men resorted to robbery & violence and the females were forced to sell their bodies. It is in this background, that the murders of the prostitutes started.
31 August 1888, was the day when the first murder committed by Jack the Ripper took place. It was the first of the series of many more to come. Prostitute Mary Anne Nicholas, became the first victim of a killer, who called himself– Jack the Ripper, in numerous letters sent to the police to taunt them. The murdered and mutilated body was found in London’s Whitechapel district.
The second victim – Annie Chapman was killed on September 8th and the 3rd & 4th victims- Liz Stride and Catherine Eddowes were both killed on September 30. The last and final victim was Irish born – Mary Jane Kelly, who was murdered on November 9 of the same year. These 5 women would later be known as the canonical five.
These murders were traced to the same serial killer due to multiple reasons. All the victims were poor prostitutes. The modus operandi was the same for all the cases. The murderer pretending to be a client would lure his victims to an isolated place, where they would be attacked. The throats of the victims were cut followed by abdominal mutilations. Letters were sent to the police by the murderer, calling himself – Jack the Ripper, a name that stuck for eternity. One of the letters was sent, along with a kidney, reportedly belonging to one of the victims.
The police did not have the facilities of the modern 21st-century forensic tools or technology to trace the murderer. Multiple letters sent to the police, claiming to be from the murderers were found to be fraudulent, except those signed by Jack the Ripper. When the murders ceased abruptly (after killing the 5th victim), as they had begun; the police breathed a sigh of relief and closed the case.
The identity of Jack the Ripper, remains unknown to this day, with the name evoking awe, disgust & curiosity from a diverse section of the society. Despite the small number of his victims, Jack the Ripper would remain one of the worst serial killers in history, for the notoriety that he caused, which continues to scare and disgust people to this day.
The story of the worst serial killers in history, now moves on to the new world – the United States of America, to be precise. Henry Howard Holmes, or H.H. Holmes – who would later achieve infamy as one of the worst serial killers in American history, was the owner of the World’s Fair Hotel, which later became infamously known as The Murder Mansion or The Murder Hotel, because of the criminal acts done there.
The hotel had some really surprising architecture. Flight of stairs led to nowhere, doors opened into solid brick walls, bedrooms had hidden pipes that created strange noises when air passed through them, and also had hinged walls & false partitions, where people trying to find their way out couldn’t do so & were often locked in. The so-called hotel was a murder mansion, created by a sadistic and notorious serial killer – Herman Webster Mudgett, who later had changed his name to H.H. Holmes, to hide his previous scandals.
Herman Webster Mudgett was born in 1861 in New Hampshire, United States. It was during his study at the University of Michigan’s Department of Medicine and Surgery, he picked up the knowledge of human anatomy while working in the anatomy laboratory.
This knowledge helped him in cheating life insurance companies, using mutilated cadavers, which he admitted to many years later. His indulgence in domestic violence forced his wife to leave him before his graduation in 1884, but his worst was still to come.
One of the first criminal activities associated with him was the disappearance of a little boy, who was last seen with him. However, when Holmes said that the boy had returned to his home, no further investigations were done.
He kept on moving from city to city & after New York and Philadelphia he finally moved to Chicago, where he changed his name to Henry Howard Holmes, or H.H.Holmes, so people would not associate him with his previous activities, where children known to him, either had gone missing or had died. It was in 1887, in Chicago; that he purchased land & started the construction of a 3-story building, which he declared for use as apartments, shops, and hotels.
H.H. Holmes ensured that builders and architects were changed many times during the construction, so that no person, could understand his bad intentions. This House of Horrors was completed in 1892. The house was an enigma to people who did not know about it. Some rooms had multiple doors, whereas others had none, many rooms were soundproof- so no noise of the victims could not go outside.
Crematory, strong acids for destroying human remains & a variety of medical instruments were also present. His crime career included killing many people which included women and children, after getting his hand on their valuables & sometimes also swindling the insurance companies for claims, of these deaths. H.H. Holmes also sold the organs and skeletons of his victims to medical institutions. Some of these incidents were done in the house that he had built and some in other places.
The rising incidences of missing people around H.H. Holmes made the police curious & an investigation was launched. H.H. Holmes was finally arrested in Boston, in November 1894. He confessed to 27 murders, which were committed by him in different cities like - Chicago, Indianapolis, and Toronto. On May 7, 1896, H.H. Holmes – one of the worst serial killers in American history, was hanged in Philadelphia County Prison.
After H.H. Holmes was hanged, the hotel was burned to the ground, in an attempt to blur the memories of the various chilling sinister activities that had been done there. However, the gruesome acts of indiscriminate barbarism committed by a person with a good knowledge of human anatomy & medicine would continue to perplex people always, as a memoir of a brilliant mind, that had passed to the dark side.
The man who would later become a much-hated – cannibal, child molester, and one of the worst serial killers in US history; had a strong family history of mental illness. Albert Fish had was born in 1870 when his father was 75-year-old. His mother, who was 43 years younger than his father, suffered from auditory and visual hallucinations. After the death of his father, when Albert Fish was just 5 years old, he was put in an orphanage, where he faced tremendous physical abuse, which strangely, he began to enjoy.
At the age of 20 years, Albert Fish moved to New York City, where he started to work as a male prostitute. He also frequently raped young boys and his descent into a life of depravity started. Even his marriage in 1898 & subsequent birth of 6 children, did nothing to change his nature. He kept on molesting young children & even started a sadomasochistic homosexual affair with another male. Maybe his wife sensed something was wrong & left him in 1917 for another man.
His wife had left with all family possessions & left the children in his care. The situation exacerbated his abnormal behavior and he started having auditory hallucinations & he started to indulge in self-harm, by putting needles into his abdomen and groin. Later on, when he was arrested, X rays would reveal 29 needles in his pelvic region.
Albert Fish used a paddle with sharp nails pointing out, to inflict pain on himself & even sometimes telling his children to do the same. He also indulged in other masochistic activities, which are pretty gruesome to be even described here. His obsession with cannibalism also started to grow. Albert Fish killed people mostly from African American backgrounds & those with a mental handicap, as these were soft targets; and as he believed that no one would miss these marginalized members of the society.
Young children were tortured, mutilated & brutally murdered, without any logical reasons. Sometimes Albert Fish would kidnap these children and sometimes pay others to procure his innocent victims. He by this time suffered from delusions, believing that God was instructing him to sexually abuse, torture & murder children.
The case which brought Albert Fish, the most notoriety was the murder and subsequently eating, a 10-year-old little girl named, Grace Budd. What made the whole matter most revolting was a letter, which he had sent to the mother, describing how he had killed the young girl, later cooked and ate the body parts of the young girl.
However, this gruesome cannibalistic murder, also caused his downfall, as the police were finally able to catch him. Many other crimes committed by Albert Fish, which the police could not solve earlier, were discovered later to have been committed by the same disgusting man. Albert Fish boasted of having more than 100 victims, making him one of the worst serial killers in history.
The trial of Albert Fish began on March 11, 1935, and the authorities decided on the death penalty. He was executed on January 16, 1936, in the electric chair. More than 8 decades have passed since the execution of Albert Fish, but he will always remain perhaps the most psychotically disturbed and perverted worst serial killers in history of the world. There was hardly any sexual perversion, that he lacked. Killing innocent children, after sexually assaulting & murdering them, followed by his cannibalistic activities, made newspapers of the time describe him, as the most vicious child slayer in criminal history.
The list of worst serial killers in history would be incomplete without Ed Gein. This notorious serial killer was the inspiration behind many famous movies like The Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw massacre, and to some extent the Silence of the Lambs. His crimes were committed around his hometown in Plainfield, Wisconsin (USA), giving him the name of “The Butcher of Plainfield”.
Ed Gein was born on August 27, 1906, to parents, who were not in the best of relationships. His father was an alcoholic and irresponsible person, who could not take care of his family. His mother was deeply religious & dominating over her children. She did not encourage her children to socialize with other people & Ed Gein along with his older brother Henry, spent most of their time on their farm, or at the school. Any interactions, with members of the opposite sex, was severely frowned upon by his mother.
In 1940 Ed Gein’s father died of Heart failure and 4 years later his elder brother also died in mysterious circumstances. Ed Gein was very attached to his mother, but his elder brother spoke ill about their mother, which irritated Ed very much. Later on, this led authorities to suspect, foul play in this death, but at that time, the death of the elder brother – Henry was attributed to accidental asphyxiation, due to being trapped in an area, where vegetations were being burnt.
Now Ed Gein was left alone with his mother, who suffered a paralyzing stroke after his brother’s death. She died almost a year later, in 1945, which came as a grave shock to Ed, who was deeply attached to his mother & was devastated by her death. This would be a turning point in the life of a man, who would go on to become, one of the worst serial killers in US history – not in terms of the number of his victims, but because of the publicity that his infamous acts got him.
After his mother’s death, Ed Gein maintained their farmlands and kept rooms used by his mother in a very tidy fashion, but the condition of other rooms was in a shabby state. He used to work as a handyman & did odd jobs to support himself. It is believed that around this time, serious changes began to occur in his life. Ed Gein began reading stories having sadistic plots.
Between 1947 to 1952, Ed Gein started night visits to the local cemetery and dug up bodies of recently expired middle-aged women. He would bring the bodies home, peel out their skin, to make a woman suit, so that he could wear those and become his mother, whom he missed a lot. He also killed a few women, for the same purpose. It was during the investigation of the disappearance of the local deputy Sheriff’s mother, which led the authorities to Ed Gein’s house, where her mutilated body was found.
The thorough search of the house revealed many human skulls, bones, wearable materials, and other artifacts made up of human skin. Slowly skeletons in the cupboard began to come out literally. The victims of this psychopath & all of his actions were identified gradually. The trial against him started on November 7, 1968. The judgment was – not guilty because of insanity. So, Ed Gein was treated as a mental patient, who was suffering from a psychiatric problem and hence escaped going to the gallows, which he rightfully deserved.
Ed Gein spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric institution. He breathed his last at the age of 77 years in the Mendota Mental Health Institute, on July 26, 1984. Respiratory failure due to lung cancer was the cause of his death. Souvenir hunters stole his gravestone & his gravesite later became unmarked; but his infamous acts will always stay in the minds of the people, due to numerous novels and movie adaptations based on his life.
Born on November 24, 1946, to an unwed mother with disputed paternity, Ted Bundy’s life was turbulent from the start, which would later make him one of the worst serial killers in history. He grew up in his maternal grandparent’s house, believing them to be his parents and his mother to be his elder sister. His birth origin was later discovered by himself, which caused serious anger& hatred towards his mother, which later would manifest itself, in a very serious depraved manner against his victims.
Ted Bundy was greatly attached to his grandparents (Samuel and Eleanor Cowell), especially to his grandfather. But his grandfather was a very short-tempered and violent man, who assaulted his wife, and was very cruel to animals & had strong hate towards minorities. Having this kind of role model at home certainly was not the best environment for Ted’s growing up influences.
It was his mother’s marriage in 1951 to Johnny Bundy, who later adopted Ted, that Ted had the “Bundy” surname added to his name. The family soon had 4 new additions as 4 children were born to the couple, but Ted never totally acclimatized to his new environment & family.
During Ted Bundy’s growing up years, he was fascinated by detective & crime novels, which had violent and gory content. A failed relationship during his studies at the University of Washington, in which his girlfriend broke up with him, because of immaturity & lack of ambition, left him bitter & resentful.
Ted Bundy radically changed himself, became very serious in his studies & career, with aspirations for a brilliant legal and political career. He revived his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, only to break up later. The fact that he did all these just to satisfy his ego and arrogance, just reflects his distorted mentality.
It is believed that Ted Bundy’s rampage of abducting young women, followed by their rape and murder started around 1974 when Ted Bundy was 27 years old (although many crimes were also attributed to him when he was younger, these were never proved). 18-year-old Karen Sparks, a student at the University of Washington, was sleeping in her basement apartment, when Ted Bundy beat her up severely & then sexually assaulted the senseless woman on January 4, 1974.
The woman survived, but with serious disabilities. The year 1974, was scary for young female students, as women were disappearing regularly, at a rate of 1 per month. It is believed that the handsome and articulate, Ted Bundy would win the confidence of his victims easily, as beautiful young girls were easily charmed by him. Later when Ted found the right opportunity, he would carry out his nefarious activities.
The pressure mounting on the police was tremendous, at the time. Finally, they could get a detailed description of the possible accused, from the witnesses, who saw the vanished victims, talking to a handsome young man, named – Ted. Details of the car used by the accused along with his sketch were printed in Newspapers.
Ted Bundy, was found out, but the police did not believe that a law student without any history of criminal activities could be guilty. The disappearance of young women continued. After being held by police & subsequently released a couple of times, Ted Bundy stood trial on Feb 23, 1976, for kidnapping, and four months later he was sent to Utah State Prison.
Mounting evidence against Ted Bundy brought him to trial for other cases and he chose to defend himself in the court of law. He managed to escape twice, from the authorities, and each time was recaptured with great difficulty. In the second instance, it would have been very difficult to catch him (as he had traveled a great distance away, after escaping) had he not committed physical & sexual assault and murder in the area. By the time he was apprehended, as one of the worst serial killers in US history, he was among the FBI’s Ten Most wanted Fugitive of the time.
For his crimes, the death penalty was awarded to Ted Bundy, which was done by putting him in an electric chair on January 24, 1989. Hundreds of people rejoiced on his death as one of the worst serial killers in American history was finally executed. He is believed to have committed 36 murders, but some people speculate that the number may have been up to 100 or more. With victims in Washington, Utah, Colorado, Florida, Oregon, Idaho, and California, Ted Bundy surely was one of the worst serial killers in US history.
This serial killer from Pakistan was found guilty of sexually abusing & murdering at least 100 young boys by the time he was apprehended, making him one of the worst serial killers in history. Born in 1956, to a businessman father, Javed Iqbal did not have any childhood trauma, which could be explained as the reason for being the monster, that he would later become. His father was quite well off & took care of the family. However, it is believed that he was a pampered son, with considerable access, to his father’s wealth.
It is believed that Javed Iqbal’s liking for young boys started in his teens when he would become pen friends with attractive-looking boys & spend a lot of money on them; showering them with costly gifts, to win their affection. Soon he started to sexually abuse young boys, whenever he got the opportunities to do so.
Javed Iqbal also had to face the authorities, for his actions but was let off, without any severe actions, although he did face humiliation in his social circle. Eventually, he was beaten & thrown out of the area, where he lived. He changed his place of residence, but his sexually abusive behavior continued, which soon aggravated to murdering humans also.
In a strange twist of events, Javed Iqbal himself sent a letter describing his actions, to the police and newspaper in Lahore, in December 1999, describing how he murdered 100 boys. This was done to highlight to the society & police, how he had avenged the injustice done to him by society.
The letter described how his victims, aged between 6 to 16, mostly from the poor & downtrodden segment of society, were killed & their bodies disposed of. A thorough search of his house found many incriminating pieces of evidence. Javed Iqbal had escaped & planned to drown himself in the Ravi river, but the plan failed. The police meanwhile launched a nationwide manhunt.
Javed Iqbal was finally arrested from a newspaper office, where he had turned himself in. In the court, he denied the authenticity of the letter sent earlier to police, and claimed it as a hoax, done to draw society’s attention to children from poor families, who were living in the streets. The judge’s verdict for Javed Iqbal was that Javed Iqbal should be strangled to death, in front of the parents of his victims, followed by cutting his body into 100 pieces & finally put in acid.
This was the way Javed Iqbal had killed his victims & the judge decided that this was the way, the murderer’s life should end. On 8th October 2001, Iqbal was found dead in his prison cell. It was declared as a case of suicide, but many speculated that it was a case of murder; as the post mortem report showed, that he was beaten before death – a fitting end to one of the worst serial killers in history.
The English Doctor (General Practitioner) Harold Shipman, is one of the worst serial killers in history of the world. He was born in 1946 in Nottingham, England, and later studied medicine at Leeds School of Medicine, passing out in 1970. As a practicing doctor, he became a respectable member of society. However, he was very close to his mother, who had died of lung cancer, when Dr. Harold Shipman was just 17 years old. The regular use of morphine for her pain reduction was the factor, which would stay long etched in his mind, a fact which would influence, his future criminal course of action.
Although initially, Dr. Harold Shipman had a good reputation in the initial stage of his career, later on, an increasing death rate among his patients, made many people suspicious, and even a police inquiry was done, but no incriminating evidence was found against him. However, his luck ran out, when the will of his last patient (Kathleen Grundy - who had died under his treatment) showed that, a large amount of money had been left for Dr. Harold Shipman, while the patient’s daughter had been left out.
The daughter however was a lawyer, who became suspicious & reported the matter to police. The police, in turn, did an autopsy after exhuming the dead body, and heroin was found in the dead body. Harold Shipman was arrested & investigations started.
The investigations lead the authorities to reopen the previous cases of, unexpected death of Dr. Harold Shipman’s patients. They found that all the previous causes of death of patients were due to the injection of lethal doses of diamorphine followed by falsifying the medical records by Dr. Harold Shipman.
By the time his trial ended, Dr. Harold Shipman was found responsible for 15 cases of murder and 1 case of forgery (although some estimate gives his victim count at a higher number of more than 200). He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with special instructions never to be released. However, Harold Shipman never admitted to his guilt and gave no statements to the public for his actions. Harold Shipman’s wife believed in her husband’s innocence, till the end.
Harold Shipman was alleged to have killed at least 215 people, by lethal injections, between 1975 and 1998. The accusation of stealing pieces of jewelry from his victims was also made. Harold Shipman finally committed suicide by hanging himself in prison on a day before his 58th birthday, on 13 January 2004, leading to different reactions from different people.
A lot of changes were made in the medical procedures in Britain, including practicing rules for doctors & dispensing medicines, after this case came into the limelight. These changes are still known to this day as the – Shipman effect, a legacy left behind by one of the worst serial killers in history.
Pedro Lopez is certainly one of the worst serial killers in history, who was sentenced for rape and murder of 110 girls, but the actual number of his victims, is believed to be more than 300 girls; living in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and other countries. He acquired the name of Monster of Andes, when 53 graves of young children (all-female - killed by him), was discovered by the police in Ecuador, in 1980.
In defense of Pedro Lopez, it can be said, that he had a terrible early life. Born in 1948 in Columbia, his mother was a prostitute & growing up in a red-light area, had a strong negative influence on the young boy. Pedro Lopez was also repeatedly sexually abused by many people over many years, starting from the streets – that he lived in and later the orphanage -where he stayed and finally in early years in the Jail.
Soon Pedro Lopez, who had started his criminal career as a car thief, graduated to raping and killing young girls in Peru. By the time he was 30 years old, he had already killed over 100 young girls. He was handed over to the police by the people, who caught him, but was not prosecuted and simply deported back to Colombia, his native country.
The crime spree of Pedro Lopez continued even after moving to Columbia & later Ecuador, where he reportedly killed 3 girls (on average) per week. A failed attempt to kidnap, one of his victims, was what led to his arrest. He finally confessed, that number of his murdered victims, was more than 300. After serving many years in Ecuadorian prison, he was handed over to the Colombian authorities, to face trials for crimes committed in Colombia. Here he was declared as a mental patient and sent for treatment to a psychiatry wing of a hospital in Bogota, Colombia’s capital city.
On being released on $50 bail, after being declared sane in 1998, Pedro Lopez disappeared forever & was never seen again. Pedro Lopez was found guilty of murdering 110 girls in Ecuador and was responsible for the death of another 240 victims, in Peru & Colombia, to which he confessed. So, the whereabouts of a murderer of 350 people and one of the worst serial killers in history, who was released from the psychiatric hospital wing, for good behavior in 1998, remains unknown to date.
Although many other serial killers, who are also quite notorious for their actions, have found their places, in history’s hall of infamy; but it is not possible to describe all of them in our list of worst serial killers in history described here. An effort has been made to describe serial killers from all over the globe, just proving that evil like goodness, transcends all time and geographical barriers.
As has been quoted many times, appearances can be deceptive. Many of the previously described serial killers had respectable positions in society & certainly would never be judged like criminals, in the first look; and that is where lies the paradox of human society. Where there is light, there will always be darkness, but in the end, it is justice, which always triumphs and crime never pays. In the eternal battle between good and evil, evil always losses at the end, but unfortunately sometimes many innocent lives are lost in this battle.
Must Read About: War of the Bucket