Serial Killer Cases
Series of killings attributed to one confirmed or suspected offender. ColdCaseIndex documents 65 cases of this type, of which 11 are recorded as unsolved.
- Unsolved 11 (17%)
- Partly resolved 7 (11%)
- Solved or convicted 47 (72%)
By state or country
All 65 cases
Lucy Letby Victims
Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others at the Countess of Chester Hospital. She received a whole-life order.
Yorkshire Ripper (death)
Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper who murdered 13 women in northern England, died of COVID-19 in prison in November 2020 after refusing treatment. He had served 39 years.
Stephen Port Victims
Serial killer Stephen Port drugged and raped young men using GHB, killing four in Barking, East London. Police initially failed to link the deaths despite bodies being found in similar locations.
Saronno Hospital Patient Deaths (Leonardo Cazzaniga case)
Leonardo Cazzaniga, a former deputy head of the emergency department at Saronno Hospital in Lombardy, Italy, was convicted of killing patients with overdoses of morphine, anaesthetics and sedatives.
Joanna Dennehy Victims
Lukasz Slaboszewski, 31, John Chapman, 56, and Kevin Lee, 48, were stabbed to death in Peterborough, England, in March 2013 and their bodies left in ditches.
Israel Keyes Victims
Israel Keyes confessed to killing Samantha Koenig, 18, abducted in Anchorage on February 1, 2012, and Bill and Lorraine Currier, who vanished from Essex, Vermont, in June 2011.
Russell Williams Victims
Col. Russell Williams, commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, pleaded guilty in October 2010 to the first-degree murders of Cpl.
Anthony Sowell Victims
Anthony Sowell was convicted of murdering 11 women in Cleveland whose bodies were found in and around his home in 2009. He preyed on vulnerable women in his neighborhood.
Long Island Serial Killer Victims
The remains of roughly ten people — mostly women who had worked as escorts — were found along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach on Long Island, New York, in 2010 and 2011.
Peter Tobin Victims
Peter Tobin was convicted of murdering Angelika Kluk, 23, in Glasgow in 2006, and of the 1991 murders of Vicky Hamilton, 15, and Dinah McNicol, 18, whose remains were found in 2007 at a house in Margate, Kent, where he had once…
Jeff Davis 8 Victims
Eight women and girls were found dead in and around Jefferson Davis Parish between 2005 and 2009. Many were involved in prostitution or drug use.
Derrick Todd Lee Victims
Derrick Todd Lee was convicted in 2004 of murdering Geralyn DeSoto and Charlotte Murray Pace and was sentenced to death for the Pace killing.
Todd Kohlhepp Victims
Real estate agent Todd Kohlhepp was identified as a serial killer after a chained survivor was found on his rural South Carolina property in 2016.
Robert Pickton Victims
Robert Pickton, a pig farmer from Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, was convicted in December 2007 of the second-degree murders of six women and sentenced to life in prison. Police began searching his farm on February 5, 2002.
Claremont Serial Murders
Three women vanished from the upscale suburb of Claremont in Perth, Australia between 1996-1997. Telstra technician Bradley Edwards was convicted of two murders in 2020.
Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka Victims
Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, the 'Ken and Barbie Killers,' raped and murdered teenagers Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French in Ontario. Homolka received a controversial plea deal.
Fred & Rose West Victims
In February and March 1994, police found the remains of nine young women and girls at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, the home of Fred and Rose West; three more victims were found elsewhere.
Waneta Hoyt Children
Waneta Hoyt murdered her five children between 1965 and 1971, presenting each death as SIDS. Her case was cited in medical literature supporting SIDS research before the truth emerged.
Andrei Chikatilo Victims
Andrei Chikatilo, a former schoolteacher, was found guilty by a court in Rostov-on-Don in October 1992 of murdering 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990 and was sentenced to death.
I-70 Killer Victims
Six store workers were shot dead at five small businesses near Interstate 70 in Indiana, Kansas and Missouri between April 8 and May 7, 1992.
Charles Albright Victims
Charles Albright was convicted in December 1991 of murdering Shirley Williams, one of three women found shot in Dallas between December 1990 and March 1991 with their eyes removed.
Gainesville Ripper Victims
Danny Rolling murdered five college students over four days in Gainesville, Florida, in August 1990; four attended the University of Florida and one attended Santa Fe Community College.
Aileen Wuornos Victims
Aileen Wuornos killed seven men along Florida highways, claiming self-defense. She was convicted of six murders and executed in 2002.
Grissom Family Murders (Danny Rolling Confession)
William "Tom" Grissom, 55, his daughter Julie, 24, and his grandson Sean, 8, were killed in their Shreveport home on November 4, 1989. Danny Rolling was long suspected but never charged in Louisiana.
Ivan Milat (Backpacker Murders)
Seven backpackers aged 19 to 22, from Australia, Germany and Britain, disappeared while hitchhiking from Sydney between December 1989 and April 1992; their bodies were found in the Belanglo State Forest in 1992 and 1993.
Robert Ben Rhoades Victims
Long-haul trucker Robert Ben Rhoades is serving life sentences for three murders. He pleaded guilty in Illinois in 1992 to killing 14-year-old Regina Walters of Pasadena, Texas, and in Texas in 2012 to the capital murders of…
New Bedford Highway Killer Victims
Between March 1988 and April 1989, eleven women with ties to New Bedford, Massachusetts, vanished; the bodies of nine were found dumped along Route 140, Interstate 195, and nearby roads, while two women were never found.
Tsutomu Miyazaki Victims
Tsutomu Miyazaki, the 'Otaku Killer,' murdered four young girls in the Tokyo/Saitama area. He kept body parts as trophies and sent taunting letters to families. He was executed in 2008.
Gary Heidnik Victims
Gary Heidnik abducted six women between November 1986 and March 1987 and held them captive in the basement of his North Philadelphia home, where Sandra Lindsay and Deborah Dudley died.
Wayne Nance Victims
Wayne Nance, a Missoula furniture mover, is suspected by investigators of at least six killings in western Montana between 1974 and 1985.
Grim Sleeper Victims
Lonnie Franklin Jr., known as the Grim Sleeper, was convicted of killing 10 women in Los Angeles between 1985 and 2007. He appeared to stop killing for years (hence 'Grim Sleeper') and was identified through familial DNA from…
Christopher Wilder Victims
Investigators attribute the abduction of at least twelve young women and girls, eight of whom died, to Christopher Wilder during a cross-country series of crimes between February 26 and April 13, 1984.
Night Stalker Victims
Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, terrorized Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area in 1984-1985 with a series of home-invasion murders, rapes, and burglaries.
Dorothea Puente Victims
Dorothea Puente was a Sacramento boardinghouse operator who poisoned elderly tenants and continued cashing their Social Security checks. Seven bodies were found buried in her yard in 1988.
Green River Killer Victims
Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, murdered at least 49 women in Washington State. He targeted mostly sex workers and runaways. Ridgway was convicted in 2003 after DNA evidence linked him to four victims.
Clifford Olson Victims
Clifford Olson murdered 11 children and young people, aged 9 to 18, in the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia between November 1980 and July 1981.
Pedro López (Monster of the Andes)
Colombian-born Pedro Alonso López was arrested in Ambato, Ecuador in 1980 and confessed to killing several hundred girls in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
Atlanta Child Murders Victims
At least 28 young Black children and adults were murdered in Atlanta between 1979 and 1981, causing citywide panic. Wayne Williams was convicted of two adult murders and sentenced to life.
Jeffrey Dahmer Victims
Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 young men and boys in Wisconsin and Ohio, engaging in necrophilia and cannibalism. He was convicted of 15 murders in Wisconsin and sentenced to 15 life terms.
Hillside Strangler Victims
Cousins Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi posed as police officers, kidnapped, raped, and murdered 10 women in Los Angeles. Their victims were found on hillsides, giving rise to the 'Hillside Strangler' name.
Roger Kibbe Victims
Roger Reece Kibbe, called the I-5 Strangler, was convicted of murdering seven women and girls in Northern California between 1977 and 1987.
Oakland County Child Killer Victims
A serial killer known as the 'Babysitter' abducted and murdered four children in Oakland County, Michigan. The victims ranged in age from 10 to 12 years old.
Son of Sam Victims
David Berkowitz, known as 'Son of Sam,' murdered six people and wounded seven others in New York City over 13 months. He terrorized the city with taunting letters to police and media.
Robert Lee Yates Victims
Robert Lee Yates Jr., a former Army helicopter pilot, pleaded guilty in 2000 to 13 murders committed in Washington between 1975 and 1998 and was sentenced to 408 years.
BTK Killer Victims
Dennis Rader, known as BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill), murdered 10 people in and around Wichita, Kansas between 1974 and 1991. He taunted police and media for decades.
Coral Eugene Watts Victims
Carl Eugene "Coral" Watts admitted killing about a dozen women in Texas and Michigan under a 1982 Texas plea deal that gave him immunity for those murders and a 60-year sentence for burglary with intent to murder.
Golden State Killer Victims
The Golden State Killer committed at least 13 murders, 50 rapes, and 100 burglaries across California. Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer, was identified in 2018 through genealogy DNA testing and pleaded guilty in…
Ted Bundy Victims
Ted Bundy confessed to 30 homicides across seven states, though the actual number is believed higher. He was executed in Florida in 1989.
Ted Bundy Washington Victims
Eight young women vanished in Washington and Oregon between February and July 1974, beginning with Lynda Ann Healy in Seattle. Remains of seven were later found near Issaquah and on Taylor Mountain; Donna Manson was never…
John Wayne Gacy Victims
John Wayne Gacy tortured and murdered 33 young men and boys, burying 26 under his house. He was convicted in 1980 and executed in 1994. After his execution, investigators used DNA to identify unknown victims.
Robert Hansen Victims
Robert Hansen was an Anchorage baker who abducted women, flew them to remote Alaska wilderness, and hunted them. He confessed to 17 murders and was convicted in 1984. He died in prison in 2014.
Texas Killing Fields Victims
Since the early 1970s the bodies of more than 30 women and girls have been found along the Interstate 45 corridor between Houston and Galveston, including four found in a field off Calder Road in League City known as the Killing…
Dean Corll Victims
Dean Corll, with accomplices David Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley, tortured and murdered at least 28 young men and boys in Houston. Corll was shot and killed by Henley in 1973, who then led police to multiple burial sites.
Charles Manson Victims
Charles Manson directed his followers to commit a series of brutal murders in Los Angeles on August 9-10, 1969, killing seven people including actress Sharon Tate.
Bible John Victims
Three young women were strangled after leaving the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow between 1968 and 1969. The suspect, nicknamed 'Bible John' for quoting scripture, was never identified despite being Scotland's most famous serial…
Monster of Florence Victims
Sixteen people were killed in eight double shootings in the countryside around Florence, Italy, between 1968 and 1985, most of them couples in parked cars.
Zodiac Killer Victims
At least five confirmed victims were killed by an unidentified serial killer in Northern California between 1968 and 1969. The killer taunted police and newspapers with cryptic letters and ciphers signed with a crosshair symbol.
Moors Murders Victims
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley killed five children and teenagers in the Manchester area between July 1963 and October 1965, burying four of them on Saddleworth Moor.
Jack the Stripper Victims
Six women, all sex workers, were found murdered in or near the Thames in west London between 1964 and 1965. The killer, dubbed 'Jack the Stripper' by the media, was never identified despite a massive police investigation led by…
Boston Strangler Victims
Thirteen women were strangled in the Boston area between 1962 and 1964. Albert DeSalvo confessed to all 13 murders but was never tried for them. DNA evidence collected in 2013 linked DeSalvo to the last victim, Mary Sullivan.
Henry Lee Lucas Victims
Henry Lee Lucas confessed to hundreds of murders but most were unverifiable. He was confirmed in several cases including the murder of his mother and with accomplice Ottis Toole.
Texarkana Moonlight Murders
Five people were killed and three wounded in four nighttime attacks in and around Texarkana, on the Texas-Arkansas border, between February 22 and May 3, 1946. The attacker, called the Phantom Killer, was never identified.
Cleveland Torso Murders
At least 12 people were killed, decapitated and dismembered in and around Cleveland's Kingsbury Run between September 1935 and August 1938. Only two victims were positively identified and no one was ever convicted.
New Orleans Axeman Victims
An unidentified attacker known as the Axeman struck homes in and around New Orleans between May 1918 and October 1919, killing six people and injuring several others, many of them Italian grocers and their families.
Jack the Ripper Victims
At least five women were murdered and mutilated in the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The killer, who was never identified, taunted police with letters signed 'Jack the Ripper.' The case became the world's most famous…