7 Scariest Serial Killers In History: From Dahmer To Bundy
Duane Beckett
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People have a strange fascination with serial killers. It’s why so many documentaries, shows, and movies are made about them:
On this list, we’ve picked out the scariest. The serial killers whose acts go beyond murder and into a realm of depravity that’ll leave you questioning humanity.
Jeffrey Dahmer
One of the scariest murderers ever is Jeffrey Dhamer. A cannibal famed for killing his victims then dismembering and eating:
Dahmer’s notoriety came because of his cannibalism, with Hollywood even making a movie about him starring Jeremy Renner. The film also depicted how Dahmer would drill a hole in the heads of his victims to create a zombie-like sex slave out of them.
Dahmer committed his first murder at the age of 18, however, his total murder count is unknown. He was sentenced to 957 years in prison in 1992 but was killed by a fellow inmate just two years later.
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Harold Shipman
Harold Shipman was a doctor who became known as Dr. Death, after killing his patients. He was responsible for killing between 218 and 250 people before finally being arrested in 1998:
(This makes Dr. Death the most prolific serial killer on this list).
However, Shipman was only charged with the murder of 15 people and was sentenced to life without parole in 2000. He died four years later after committing suicide in his cell.
John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy is known as “The Killer Clown”, and is the alleged inspiration behind the character of DC’s Joker:
Gacy started his descent into infamy in 1968, where he was arrested for sexually assaulting two teenage boys. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was released after 18 months due to good behavior.
After his release, Gacy kidnapped, tortured, raped, and brutally murdered nearly 33 boys for which he was given a life sentence in 1994.
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Belle Gunness
Belle Gunness was also known as Lady Bluebeard, a Norwegian immigrant who arrived in the United States in 1881:
Gunness married a fellow immigrant and had four children with him, two of which died young. The family ran a candy store in Chicago which mysteriously burned down nine years after marriage, killing Gunness’s husband.
She quickly remarried and the second husband also died eight months after marriage. After the death of both husbands, Belle received a handsome sum in insurance. She set up a farm in the countryside and start living there.
Several suitors visited her there and all of them mysteriously disappeared. Her farm burned down in 1908, which killed her remaining children. In the debris, they found a woman’s body that was missing its head:
The search for the missing head revealed a dozen more bodies. The fate of Gunness is unknown to this day.
Ed Gein
Ed Gein might not be the worst serial killer in history, but his actions inspired many Hollywood movies, including Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre:
Gein has a troublesome childhood, with an alcoholic father and a puritanical and domineering mother. His family died when he was a teenager after which he was left alone on his farm.
Thirteen years after the death of his family police discovered several human body parts in his farm being used as household items. Most of these body parts were stolen from local graveyards.
However, Gein was convicted of two murders, one of a woman and the other of a hardware store owner named Bernice Worden. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and declared unfit for a trial later sent to a mental hospital.
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Ted Bundy
One of the most famous American murderers is Ted Bundy. He was a university graduate, raised by a single mother and is known for killing several people across the United States:
Bundy started his murderous spree in 1996 when he killed his first victim in Seattle. After that, he traveled from state to state murdering people, most of which were women.
He escaped police custody twice before being executed by electric chair in 1989.
Jack The Ripper
Arguably the most famous serial killer in history is Jack the Ripper. He started appearing in London newspapers in 1888 as a vicious serial killer stalking the city. He was known for killing several prostitutes and taking body parts.
Bizarrely, Jack sent letters to the local police before committing murders, wanting to be stopped, yet nobody could ever find him. He was never caught by the police and the case was closed in 1892.
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