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Most prolific murderers by number of victims
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Most_prolific_murderers_by_number_of_victims".
This is a list of the most prolific recorded murderers by confirmed number of victims. Both serial killers and spree killers are included, but acts of terrorism are excluded. The murders must be reliably referenced to have been committed "with [the murderer's] own hands." Counting victims of very prolific murderers is by no means an exact science, so individuals are listed here by the most common consensus figures, where possible. In cases of murder-suicide, the perpetrator is not included in the victim count.
List
| Victims |
Name(s) |
Location |
Time active |
Additional information |
| ~80-612 |
Elizabeth Báthory |
Čachtice, Kingdom of Hungary |
1585 to 1610[1] |
Total unknown, but evidence points to between 80 and 612 victims.[2] |
| ~125-931 |
Thug Behram |
India |
1790 to 1830[3] |
Thugee cult leader. Total disputed.[4] |
| 300+ |
Pedro López |
Colombia, Peru, Ecuador |
1978 to 1980[5] |
Total unknown. |
| 250-459 |
Dr. Harold Shipman |
Hyde, United Kingdom |
1975 to 1998[6] |
|
| ~172 |
Luis Garavito |
Colombia |
1992 to 1998[7] |
|
| 103+ |
Miyuki Ishikawa |
Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan |
1944 to 1948[8] |
|
| 100 |
Javed Iqbal |
Lahore, Pakistan |
1996 to 1999[9] |
|
| 91 |
Delfina and María de Jesús González |
Guanajuato, Mexico[10] |
1955 - 1964 |
|
| 80-200+ |
Gilles de Rais |
France |
1435 to 1440[11] |
Estimated totals range substantially. |
| 72 |
Daniel Barbosa |
Colombia, Ecuador |
1986 to 1988[12] |
| 67 |
Yang Xinhai |
Henan, People's Republic of China |
1999 to 2003[13] |
|
| 58+ |
Giuseppe Greco |
Sicily, Italy |
1977 to 1985[14] |
At least 58 murders; exact total unknown. |
| 57 |
Woo Bum-kon |
Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea |
April 26 to April 27, 1982[15] |
|
| 53 |
Andrei Chikatilo |
Rostov-on-Don, USSR |
1978 to 1990[10] |
|
| 52 |
Anatoly Onopriyenko |
Lviv, Ukraine |
1989 to 1996[10] |
|
| 48 |
Alexander Pichushkin |
Moscow, Russia |
2001 to 2006[16] |
Known as the Chessboard Killer. Confessed to 15 more. |
| 48 |
Gary Ridgway |
Green River Valley, Washington, United States |
1982 to 2000[17] |
Known as The Green River Killer. |
| 45 |
Andrew Kehoe |
Bath, Michigan |
May 18, 1927[18] |
Known as the Bath School Massacre. |
| 43 |
David Burke |
San Luis Obispo, California |
December 7, 1987[19] |
|
| 38 |
Moses Sithole |
South Africa |
1994 to 1995[20] |
|
| 36 |
Donald Harvey |
Kentucky and Ohio, United States |
1970 to 1987[21] |
Claims responsibility for another 51 murders. |
| 35 |
Martin Bryant |
(Port Arthur massacre), Tasmania, Australia |
April 28, 1996 [22] |
|
| 35 |
Ted Bundy |
Washington, Utah, Florida and other states, United States |
1974 to 1978[23] |
|
| 35 |
Vera Renczi |
Bucharest, Romania |
1920s to 1930s[24] |
|
| 34 |
Ahmed Bragimov |
Mekenskaya, Chechnya, Russia |
October 8, 1999[25] |
|
| 33 |
John Wayne Gacy |
Chicago, United States |
1972 to 1978[26] |
|
| 32 |
Seung-Hui Cho |
Blacksburg, Virginia, United States |
April 16, 2007[27] |
Known as the Virginia Tech Massacre. |
| 30 |
Mutsuo Toi |
Tsuyama, Okayama, Japan |
May 21, 1938[28] |
Known as the Tsuyama massacre. |
| 29+ |
Charles Cullen |
New Jersey and Pennsylvania, United States |
1988 to 2003[29] |
Cullen has admitted to more murders, which authorities believe are likely, but the murders cannot be verified. |
| 27 |
Dean Corll |
Houston, Texas, United States |
1970 to 1973[30] |
|
| 27 |
Fritz Haarmann |
Hanover, Germany |
1919 to 1924[31] |
|
| 27 |
H. H. Holmes |
Chicago, United States |
1893 to 1895[32] |
Total disputed.[33] |
| 27 |
Cedric Maake |
Johannesburg, South Africa |
1996 to 1997[34] |
|
| 27 |
Maria Swanenburg |
Leiden, Netherlands |
1880 to 1883[35] |
|
| 26+ |
Robert Pickton |
Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada |
1995 to 2001 |
|
| 26 |
Marcel Petiot |
Paris, France |
1926 to 1944[36] |
Petiot is suspected of having killed up to 63 in total. |
| 25 |
Leonard Lake and Charles Ng |
Wilseyville, California, United States |
~1982 to 1985[37] |
|
| 24 |
Béla Kiss |
Cinkota, Hungary |
1912 to 1916[38] |
|
| 23 |
George Jo Hennard |
Killeen, Texas, United States |
October 16, 1991[39] |
|
| 22 |
Arnfinn Nesset |
Orkdal, Norway |
? to 1983[40] |
|
| 21 |
William Bonin |
California, United States |
1979 to 1980[41] |
|
| 21 |
James Oliver Huberty |
San Ysidro, California, United States |
July 18, 1984[42] |
Known as the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre |
| 21 |
Patrick Kearney |
California, United States |
1965 to 1977[43] |
|
| 20 |
Francis Heaulme |
France |
1984 to 1992[44] |
|
| 20 |
Yoo Young-Chul |
Seoul, South Korea |
2003 to 2004[45] |
|
| 19 |
Sipho Thwala |
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa |
1996 to 1997[46] |
Known as the Phoenix Strangler. |
| 19 |
Sergei Ryakhovsky |
Moscow, Russia |
1988 to 1993[47] |
Known as the Balakshikha Ripper |
| 17 |
Joel Rifkin |
New York City, United States |
1989 to 1993[48] |
|
| 17 |
William Burke and William Hare |
Edinburgh, Scotland |
1827 to 1828[49] |
Known as the West Port murders |
| 17 |
Maxim Petrov |
St. Petersburg, Russia |
2000 to 2002[50] |
Known as Doctor Death. |
| 17 |
Jeffrey Dahmer |
Ohio and Wisconsin, United States |
1978 to 1991[51] |
|
| 17 |
Thomas Hamilton |
Dunblane, Scotland |
March 13, 1996[52] |
Known as the Dunblane massacre. |
| 17 |
Robert Steinhäuser |
Erfurt, Germany |
April 26, 2002[53][54] |
Known as Erfurt massacre. |
| 16 |
Charles Ray Hatcher |
Missouri, California and Illinois, United States |
1969 to 1982[55] |
|
| 16 |
Michael Robert Ryan |
Hungerford, England |
August 19, 1987[56] |
Known as the Hungerford Massacre. |
| 16 |
Randy Steven Kraft |
California, United States |
1969 to 1983[57] |
Confessed to 51 further murders. |
| 16 |
The Monster of Florence |
Florence, Italy |
1968 to 1985[58] |
Pietro Pacciani was convicted of the murders in 1994, but the decision was controversially overturned. |
| 16 |
Ronald Gene Simmons |
Russellville, Arkansas, United States |
December 22 to December 26, 1987[59] |
|
| 16 |
Sipho Thwala |
KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa |
1996 to 1997[60] |
|
| 15 |
Dennis Nilsen |
London, United Kingdom |
1978 to 1983[61] |
|
| 15 |
Charles Whitman |
Austin, Texas, United States |
July 31 to August 1, 1966[62] |
|
| 15 |
Jack Unterweger |
Vienna, Austria; Los Angeles, California, United States; Prague, Czech Republic |
1974 to 1992 |
|
| 15 |
Robert Hansen |
Alaska, United States |
1980 to 1983 |
|
| 14 |
Patrick Sherrill |
Edmond, Oklahoma, United States |
August 20, 1986[63] |
Postal shooting. |
| 14 |
Marc Lépine |
Montreal, Quebec, Canada |
December 6, 1989[64] |
Known as the École Polytechnique massacre. |
| 14 |
Friedrich Leibacher |
Zug, Switzerland |
September 27, 2001) |
|
| 13 |
Howard Unruh |
Camden, New Jersey, United States |
September 6, 1949[65] |
|
| 13 |
Boston Strangler |
Boston, United States |
1962 to 1964[66] |
Although Albert DeSalvo was widely thought to be the Boston Strangler, police and others analysing the case have long doubted the truth of his confession.[66] |
| 13 |
Vasiliy Kulik |
Irkutsk, USSR |
1984 to 1986[67] |
Known as the Irkutsk Monster. |
| 13 |
Peter Sutcliffe |
West Yorkshire, United Kingdom |
1975 to 1980[68] |
Known as the Yorkshire Ripper. |
| 13 |
Robert Lee Yates |
Spokane, Washington, United States |
1975 to 1998 |
|
| 13 |
Richard Ramirez |
Southern California, United States |
1984 to 1985[69] |
|
| 13 |
George Banks |
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States |
1982 |
|
| 13 |
Eric Borel |
Toulon, France |
1994 |
|
| 13 |
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold |
Columbine, Colorado, United States |
April 20, 1999[70] |
Known as the Columbine High School massacre |
| 12 |
Sadamichi Hirasawa |
Tokyo, Japan |
January 26, 1948[71] |
It is suspected that he was falsely charged[72] |
| 12 |
Fred West |
Gloucester, England |
1973 to 1987[73] |
|
| 12 |
Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono |
Los Angeles, California, United States |
1977 to 1978[74] |
|
| 11 |
Henri Désiré Landru |
Paris, France |
1914 to 1918[75] |
|
| 11 |
Clifford Olson |
Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada |
1980 to 1981[76] |
|
| 11 |
Sergey Golovkin |
Moscow, Russia |
1986 to 1992[77] |
|
| 11 |
Charles Starkweather |
Nebraska, Missouri, and Wyoming |
1957 to 1958[78] |
|
| 10 |
Tore Hedin |
Annelöv, Landskrona, Sweden |
1951 to 1952[79] |
|
| 10 |
Walter Seifert |
Cologne, Germany |
June 11, 1964[80] |
|
| 10 |
Edmund Kemper |
Santa Cruz, California, United States |
1964 to 1973[81] |
|
| 10 |
Dennis Rader |
Sedgwick County, Kansas, United States |
1974 to 1991[82] |
|
| 10 |
Kumatarō Kido and Yagorō Tani |
Osaka Prefecture, Japan |
1893[83][84] |
|
Note: this list is incomplete.
References
- ^ Erszebet: The Story of Erszebet Bathory is true
- ^ Countess Elizabeth Bathory - The Blood Countess - The Crime library
- ^ Paton, James. Collections on Thuggee and Dacoitee. British Library Add.Mss. 41300 fol. 118, 202-03
- ^ Behram is often quoted as having killed 931 people. This figure was the number of murders Behram had been present at, though he was never convicted of these murders. This lower figure was the conclusion of James Paton's investigations in the 1830s. The Thugee cult as whole, however, were adjudged to have been responsible for 50,000-1,000,000 murders in total.
- ^ All About Pedro Lopez, David Lohr
- ^ "Shipman 'killed early in career'", BBC News (2005-01-27). Retrieved on 2007-05-14.
- ^ Informe especial: 172 NIÑOS VÍCTIMAS DE LUIS ALFREDO GARAVITO, www.fiscalia.gov.co (in
Spanish)
- ^ Kotobuki maternity hospital incident (in Japanese language)
- ^ Crime Library information on Iqbal
- ^ a b c "World's Worst Killers", BBC News, October 30, 1999
- ^ Gilles de Rais
- ^ Information about Daniel Barbosa. Daniel Barbosa profile. Andes culture and attractions
- ^ "China executes mass murderer", BBC News, February 14, 2004
- ^ "Mafia Killer Reported Slain", Reuters, May 25, 1988
- ^ "South Korean Shootings Lead Minister to Resign", New York Times, April 29, 1982
- ^ "Russia 'chessboard killer' guilty", BBC News (2007-10-24). Retrieved on 2007-10-29.
- ^ "Green River Killer pleads guilty to 48 murders", Michigan Daily, November 6, 2003
- ^ [^http://freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bauerle/disaster.htm
- ^ Cause of PSA Flight 1771 Crash
- ^ A Time to Kill, Philip von Nekerk, Maxim, October 2000
- ^ The Crime Library - Donald Harvey, David Lohr
- ^ "Australian gunman laughs as he admits killing 35", CNN, November 7, 1996
- ^ Polly Nelson, Defending the Devil: My Story as Ted Bundy's Last Lawyer. William Morrow, 1994, 329 pages. ISBN 0-688-10823-7
- ^ Newton, Michael. The Encylclopedia of Serial Killers. page 198. Checkmark Book. 2000. ISBN 0-816-03979-8
- ^ "Chechnya tastes Balkan-like hate", SpankMe's Mass Murder, December 22, 1999
- ^ John Wayne Gacy Jr.: Biography, Jonathan Dunder, The Free Information Society
- ^ "Report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel" (pdf). Commonwealth of Virginia. Retrieved on 2008-03-25.
- ^ Tsuyama massacre (in Japanese language)
- ^ "A Killer's Final Insult", The Star Ledger, March 3, 2006
- ^ Dean Corll: The Sex, Sadism and Slaughter of Houston's Candy Man, Marilyn Bardsley
- ^ Fritz Haarmann: The Butcher of Hanover, Alexander Gilbert
- ^ Adams, Cecil (1979-07-06). "Did Dr. Henry Holmes kill 200 people at a bizarre "castle" in 1890s Chicago?", The Straight Dope.
- ^ Although this figure is the only verified, and thus most commonly held consensus figure, based around Holmes' most believable confession and forensic research, conjectures for the true figure range hugely, between 20 and 230.
- ^ "Serial killer jailed for 1,340 years", BBC News, March 16, 2000
- ^ Maria Swanenburg biography (in
Dutch)
- ^ All About Dr. Marcel Petiot, Michael Newton
- ^ Newton, Michael (1999). The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. New York, New York: Checkmark Books, p136. ISBN 0-8160-3978-X.
- ^ All About Bela Kiss, Marilyn Bardsley and Denise Noe
- ^ Luby's in Killeen, Texas, site of 1991 massacre, closes its doors
- ^ Herbert G Kinnell (2000-12-23). "Serial homicide by doctors: Shipman in perspective" (PDF). British Medical Journal 321 (7276): 1594–1597. doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7276.1594.
- ^ William Bonin: The Freeway Killer
- ^ Gresko, Jessica (2004-07-17). "Twenty Years later, San Ysidro McDonald's massacre remembered" (in English), North County Times. Retrieved on 2006-10-27.
- ^ Patrick Kearney killed and mutilated gay men, Elizabeth Engstrom, The Crime Library
- ^ "Former drag queen is held over murder of 18 people". The Independent (November 29, 2007). Retrieved on 2008-03-18.
- ^ "Milestones". Time (December 18, 2004). Retrieved on 2008-02-23.
- ^ The Discovery Channel: Crimes That Shook The World
- ^ Morbid Fact Du Jour Archive
- ^ "The Drifter, Joel Rifkin". Retrieved on March 8, 2007.
- ^ Buried secrets of the city murder dolls, Julia Horton, The Scotsman, December 2, 2005
- ^ http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/12-2-2002-31478.asp Russian Dr Death 'killed 17'
- ^ "Portrait of a serial killer: Wis. v. Dahmer", Court TV News, July 31, 2000
- ^ "Gunman mows down class of children leaving 16 dead with their teacher", Erlend Clouston and Sarah Boseley, Guardian Unlimited, March 14, 1996
- ^ "18 dead in German school shooting", BBC News, April 26, 2002
- ^ "Eighteen killed in German school shooting", The Guardian, April 26, 2002
- ^ "Charles Ray Hatcher", Amber Keen, George Lewis, Kara Stone, Andrew Lucas
- ^ Grice, Elizabeth (7 December 2004). "Ryan shot at me, then at my mother", The Telegraph.
- ^ All about Randy Kraft, Michael Newton
- ^ All about the Monster of Florence, David Lohr
- ^ Clark County Prosecuting Attorney report
- ^ Discovery Channel: Crimes and Forensics. Crimes That Shook The World.
- ^ "No prosecution for serial killer", BBC News, December 6, 2006
- ^ "Deranged tower sniper rained death on UT campus", Houston Chronicle (July 30, 2001). Retrieved on 2006-04-13.
- ^ "Gunman kills 14, self in Oklahoma", Philadelphia Daily News, August 20, 1986
- ^ CityNews Rewind: The Montreal Massacre, CityNews, December 6, 2006
- ^ "Nation's first mass murder was the top story of 6 September 1949", Courier Post
- ^ a b "The Boston Strangler", CBS News, February 15, 2001
- ^ [^ http://www.peoples.ru/state/criminal/manyak/kulik/
- ^ "On this day, 24 May 1989: Yorkshire Ripper's wife wins damages", BBC News (1989-05-24). Retrieved on 2007-08-31.
- ^ "Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker", The History Channel, Accessed 2007-08-31
- ^ "Report: 12 killed at Columbine in first 16 minutes", CNN, May 16, 2000
- ^ Sadamichi Hirasawa Cyanide Poisoning
- ^ "19th bid to clear late murderer's name" The Sydney Morning Herald, July 12, 2003
- ^ "Fred and Rose West - Endgame", Marilyn Bardsley, Retrieved 2007-08-31
- ^ "Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, the Hillside Stranglers", Marilyn Bardsley
- ^ French Bluebeard Guillotined (February 25, 1922), News of the Odd
- ^ Clifford Olson: The Case of the Missing Lower Mainland Children, Jan Bouchard-Kerr
- ^ Сергей Головкин (Sergey Golovkin)
- ^ Charles Starkweather, NNDB, accessed 28 November 2007
- ^ "The Armpit Artillery Case", Time
- ^ "Memories of the school massacre in Volkhoven, 1964 (German-language page)
- ^ "‘Murder Capital of the World’: Three grisly mass-murder sprees plunged the county into terror", Santa Cruz
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