Russian rapist known as The Werewolf

Becomes the third worst serial killer in history as it is confirmed he murdered 81 women

Mikhail Popkov, 52, is already serving life in prison for killing 22 Russian women  He has now confessed to slaughtering another 59 between 1992 and 2007 A former policeman in Angarsk, Siberia, he had a grudge against prostitutes  If he killed 81 Popkov would be former Soviet Union's worst ever serial killer  The record is held by Andrei Chikatilo, The Butcher of Rostov, who killed 53  Anatoly Onoprienko, a Ukrainian, was convicted of a total of 52 murders in 1996 

Ruthless rapist and killer Mikhail Popkov - known as The Werewolf - has confessed to killing a total of 81 women, Russian state investigators confirmed.  This makes him the third worst known serial killer in history, and the most prolific in the former Soviet Union, overtaking his idol Andrei Chikatilo, aka the Butcher of Rostov, who was executed for committing 53 murders, and the Moscow maniac Alexander Pichushkin, known as the Chessboard Killer, who killed 49.

His death toll also outruns Ukrainian Anatoly Onoprienko, who was convicted of a total of 52 murders between 1989 and 1996 and died in jail in 2013.

Popkov is serving a life sentence already for 22 murders. Russia banned the death penalty in 1996, although some politicians have been calling for it to be restored Law enforcement officials acted today to clarify confusion in Russian reports yesterday over the married father-of-one's gruesome reign of terror.

They say Popkov, who has already been found guilty of 22 murders, has now admitted another 59, a toll which is accepted by police.  The Siberian beast, a former policeman, sexually assaulted his young female victims before slaying them with axes, knives or screwdrivers over an 18 year period immediately following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

'To clarify the numbers, Popkov has confessed to 59 new murders,' said Lieutenant Karina Golovacheva, an official of the Russian Investigative Committee, equivalent of the FBI, in Irkutsk region, told The Siberian Times.

Lieutenant Karina Golovacheva (pictured, left) said Popkov (right) had confessed to 59 more murders, taking his total tally up to 81, the third worst serial killer in history

THE BUTCHER OF ROSTOV

The hunt for Andrei Chikatilo was featured in the 1995 film Citizen X 

Andrei Chikatilo was born in 1936 in the Ukraine, then part of the USSR. As a child he witnessed the horrors of the Second World War.

Later a medical condition led to bedwetting episodes and in an inability to maintain an erection. His first sexual episode led to ridicule, triggering a violent internal rage. A teacher by profession, he spent most of his life in the southern city of Rostov. 

A Soviet detective, Viktor Burakov, suspected him but was prevented from arrested him because the Russian Communist Party believed serial killers were a Western phenomenon. Eventually he confessed to the gruesome murders of 52 people and was executed in 1994, two years before the death penalty was abolished

She said: 'We are not counting in this total those 22 for which he was already sentenced. These cases are already closed.

'So there are 59 new murders. That means, if we add them to the earlier 22, it will be 81 murders in total.'

Of the new 59 cases, he has been charged with 47 so far. But a further dozen charges will be laid 'in the nearest future', she said.

'We are quite sure about the 12 other cases,' said Lt Golovacheva.

She said the investigation is ongoing and his final toll could be even higher.

'When the investigation is finished, and Popkov has read the case materials, the trial can begin,' she said. 

If he killed 81, only two serial killers in the world would have killed more - Luis Garavito and Pedro Lopez, both of whom operated in South America.

Garavito - known as La Bestia (The Beast) - killed 138 young boys in Colombia while Lopez, the 'Monster of the Andes', raped and murdered 300 girls in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.  

Experts believe Popkov deliberately waited to give his full confession to delay the moment when he is sent from his current prison, with relatively comfortable conditions, to a harsh penal colony to serve his life sentence.

In a court appearance in Irkutsk this week, he was asked by judge Pavel Rukavishnikov how many women he had killed.

As is common with murderers in Russia, Popkov (pictured) was taken back to the scene of his crimes - in handcuffs - and asked to reconstruct what happened. He is seen here near the village of Savateevka, near Angarsk

He shrugged and replied: 'I can't say exactly, I didn't keep a record.'

But the mass killer told the court: 'I admit my guilt in full...committing the murders, I was guided by my inner convictions.'

After he was detained in 2012, he told police he wanted to 'cleanse' the streets of 'prostitutes'.

THE BEAST OF THE UKRAINE

Anatoly Onoprienko died in prison in 2013

Anatoly Onoprienko's who mother died when he was four years old and he spent much of his childhood in an orphanage in the Ukraine.

When he grew up he studied forestry but drifted through life, earning a living cutting down trees.

Onoprienko's murder almost exactly coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1989 he and a friend killed a family of seven - including five children - in a house in Bratkovychi to eliminate witnesses after breaking in to steal valuables.

But his rate of killing accelerated for some reason in December 1995. He would often break into houses in rural Ukraine, looking for something to steal, and would shoot dead entire families to prevent them identifying him.

In March 1996 Ukrainian police tortured to death a man they wrongly suspected of committing some of the murders. A few days later Onoprienko was caught, convicted and jailed for life for 52 murders.   

He died in prison in 2013 

'They abandoned their husbands and children at home and went out to party as if it was the last day on Earth,' he said.

He often offered victims lifts late at night in his police car before taking them to remote locations where he raped and killed them, leaving their naked bodies in woods by the roadside.

Despite detailed evidence of rapes before killing his victims, his is charged only with murders.

Senior investigator Andrei Bunayev disclosed last year: 'The investigation will be very long because there are a lot of cases.

'He names the places where bodies are hidden. We find these bodies, and check his involvement.'

He said Popkov 'left biological traces in some cases which were not studied earlier - but now there is an opportunity to examine them'.

In other cases, sites were dug up guided by the convicted mass murderer.

'He confidently guides us to the place where a body is found and explains what happened, what injuries he caused,' said Mr Bunayev.

When he was a serving policeman, he was twice called to investigate murder he himself had committed.

After he quit the force in 1998, it is known Popkov drove between his home city of Angarsk, in Irkutsk region, where many of his crimes were committed, and Vladivostok, on the country's Pacific coast, a distance of some 3,900 kilometres.

Yet a painstaking search has not found evidence of crimes in other regions - so far.

Popkov was a policeman for many years in Angarsk (pictured) and after he left the force he began selling cars, which he brought from Vladivostok

Viktoria Chagaeva (pictured) holds a picture of her sister. She says: 'The pain does not go away - it was me who gave Tanya a ticket to go to a concert, and she was killed after attending it'

Two of his earlier victims were Tanya Martynova, 20, and Yulia Kuprikova, 19, found dead on 29 October 1998 in an Angarsk suburb following a night out.

'The pain does not go away - it was me who gave Tanya a ticket to go to a concert, and she was killed after attending it,' said her sister Viktoria Chagaeva, 49, who owns a beauty salon in Angarsk.

Popkov's wife Elena, 51, and daughter Ekaterina, 29, a teacher, initially stood by him, refusing to believe he was a mass killer.

Mikhail Popkov with his daughter Ekaterina, as a child. Now 29, she says: 'I do not believe any of this. I always felt myself as 'Daddy's girl''

But since his first trial they have moved to another city to begin new lives.

One theory is that he began his murder spree after - wrongly - suspecting his wife of cheating on him.

'I just had some reasons to suspect her,' said Popkov, of his belief that his wife had slept with another man.

He admitted to having a negative view of women who went out at night to drink without their husbands or boyfriends.

Now he says: 'I had no right to evaluate people, their behaviour ... this is my repentance.'

Popkov's daughter Ekaterina (left) and wife Elena (right) have moved away from Angarsk

He evaded capture for years because police could not contemplate that one of their own officers could be a mass killer.

He daughter at first refused to believe he could be a mass killer.

'I do not believe any of this. I always felt myself as 'Daddy's girl',' she said.

'We walked, rode bikes, went to the shops, and he met me from school.'

Her father 'doesn't look like some maniac', she said.

Popkov has previous told journalists that he was only caught because of advances in DNA technology used to tackle crimes.

He said: 'I could not anticipate the examination of DNA. I was born in another century. Now there are such modern technologies, methods, but not earlier. If we have not got to that level of genetic examination, then...I would not be sitting in front of you.'

Asked he could turn back time, what he would do differently, he said: 'All initially should have been changed. Straight from school. Since childhood.'

After he left the police, Popkov began buying cars in Vladivostok in the Russian Far East and selling them in Angarsk

The 3D copy of Jesus made using measurements from the Shroud of Turin

"We believe that we have the precise image of what Jesus looked like on this earth," said Professor Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua.

“This statue is the three-dimensional representation in actual size of the Man of the Shroud, created following the precise measurements taken from the cloth in which the body of Christ was wrapped after the crucifixion,” explains Giulio Fanti, teacher of mechanical and thermal measurements at the University of Padua, who studies the Shroud. Based on his measurements, the professor has created a “carbon copy” in 3D which, he claims, allows him to affirm that these are the true features of the crucified Christ.  Therefore, we believe that we finally have the precise image of what Jesus looked like on this earth. From now on, He may no longer be depicted without taking this work into account.” The professor granted exclusive coverage of his work to the weekly periodical Chi, to which he revealed: “According to our studies, Jesus was a man of extraordinary beauty. Long-limbed, but very robust, he was nearly 5 ft. 11 in. tall, whereas the average height at the time was around 5 ft. 5 in. And he had a regal and majestic expression.” (Vatican Insider)

Through the study and three-dimensional projection of the figure, Fanti was also able to count the numerous wounds on the body of the man of the Shroud:

“On the Shroud,” the professor explains, “I counted 370 wounds from the flagellation, without taking into account the wounds on his sides, which the Shroud doesn’t show because it only enveloped the back and front of the body. We can therefore hypothesize a total of at least 600 blows. In addition, the three-dimensional reconstruction has made it possible to discover that at the moment of his death, the man of the Shroud sagged down towards the right, because his right shoulder was dislocated so seriously as to injure the nerves.”

The questions surrounding the mystery of the Shroud are still intact; certainly, in that tortured man we see the signs of suffering in which we find also a piece of each one of ourselves, but also—seen by the eyes of faith—hope that this man was not just anyone, but the Man par excellence, that “Behold the Man” who appeared docilely before Pilate and who, after the terrible flagellation, was raised up on the cross as an innocent man; not only innocent, but taking upon himself the guilt of all people. While belief in the Shroud is not obligatory, even for Christians, the exceptionality of that piece of linen remains there to challenge our understanding and our certainties, almost like a certain Jesus of Nazareth, who challenged our certainties by loving his persecutors, forgiving them from the cross, and conquering death, 2,000 years ago …

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An Italian professor has created a 3D image of Jesus based off of the Shroud of Turin, claiming that it is the "precise image of what Jesus looked like on this earth."  Giulio Fanti, teacher of mechanical and thermal measurements at the University of Padua who has studied the Shroud for several years, unveiled the 3D image last week.

"From now on, He may no longer be depicted without taking this work into account," stated Fanti, as quoted by the Catholic publication Aleteia. According to our studies, Jesus was a man of extraordinary beauty. Long-limbed, but very robust, he was nearly 5 ft. 11 in. tall, whereas the average height at the time was around 5 ft. 5 in. And he had a regal and majestic expression."

Fanti also explained that the 3D image allowed for an examination of the many wounds that the figure believed by many to be Jesus suffered.

"I counted 370 wounds from the flagellation, without taking into account the wounds on his sides, which the Shroud doesn't show because it only enveloped the back and front of the body."

"In addition, the three-dimensional reconstruction has made it possible to discover that at the moment of his death, the man of the Shroud sagged down towards the right, because his right shoulder was dislocated so seriously as to injure the nerves."

Purported to be the cloth that Jesus was buried in after the crucifixion, the Shroud of Turin first appears in the historical record around the year 1360 at the Diocese of Troyes in France. It was eventually moved to the Turin Cathedral in Northern Italy in 1578.

Much debate has existed over the authenticity of the shroud, including whether or not it was from the first century and how the famous image appeared.

In 1988, carbon dating tests were performed on the shroud, which placed its origins in the Medieval era. However, many, including Fanti, have claimed the results were faulty due to laboratory contamination. Then in  2013, Fanti along with Italian journalist Saverio Gaeta released a book documenting research on the Shroud, arguing that it was indeed from the time of Jesus and was likely authentic. Fanti's views are not without its critics. Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, told The Christian Post in a 2013 interview that he was "very skeptical" of Fanti's conclusions.

"If the research team at the University of Padua believes that the earlier carbon dating test showing the shroud was from a different era was faulty due to contamination, why not just do another carbon dating analysis?" said Speckhardt. If reputable scientists are given the chance to confirm this team's results by replicating their experiments, then the new estimated date for the shroud would gain credibility. But even if the shroud was dated from the proper time period, that isn't proof that it was used on Jesus."

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If this is your belief, then you will need no more proof.  If you are of another faith, then your questions will be answered in another manner and time.

Regardless of your religious convictions – this was a magnificent achievement.

-bird

Some Victims’ of Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy was a prolific serial killer who was executed in Florida in 1989. He was said to be charming, although not particularly handsome, and he seemed to have a way to get people to trust him. He was a sociopath, although he once worked for a suicide hotline.

How many people did Ted Bundy kill? He confessed to 36. But the real answer to that question went with Bundy to the electric chair. While alive, Bundy hinted at as many as 100 victims, but there is not real way to know for sure. I just want to cover some of the Bundy's known victims.

Bundy Victims By State

Washington State

Anne Marie Burr, age 8

Date August 13, 1962

Anne lived not far from Ted Bundy, then 15. Bundy had a paper route, and the little girl adored him. She followed him around all the time. One night, Anne disappeared from her home. Her parents found the front door wide open the next day. Her body was never found, although street construction work near her home could easily have been used to hide her body and it went unnoticed as workers filled in the road with cement. 

Lonnie Trumbull Little is know about Lonnie.

Lisa Wick

Date June 23, 1966

Both young women were roommates and stewardesses. They had a third roommate, also a stewardess, who returned home one morning to find her roommates seemingly asleep. They weren't. Both had been attacked, and Lonnie was dead. Lisa survived, although she was in a coma for a long time. She remembered nothing. 

Linda Ann Healey, age 21

Disappeared: January 31, 1974

Found March 3, 1975

On the last day she was ever seen, Linda went to work as usual. She had invited her parents to dinner the next day, and when they arrived, they found a horrific scene. Sheets and the pillowcase were soaked in blood.

Police found zero evidence of the attacker and Linda's body was missing. A year later her skull was found in an area that came to be known as a dumping ground for Bundy's victims's remains. Bundy confessed before his execution. 

Donna Gail Manson, age 19

Disappeared: March 12, 1974

Donna disappeared from Evergreen State College on March 12, 1974. She had left her room to walk to a jazz concert and was never seen again. She was known to hitchhike. She was a free spirit type so no one thought much of her absence for nearly a week. Before his death Bundy confessed to her murder and said her bones were among some unidentified bones found on March 3, 1975 on Taylor Mountain, Washington.

The Colorado Murders

Caryn Campbell, age 23

Disappeared: Jan 12, 1976 Wildwood Inn, Aspen, Colorado.

Found: Feb 18, 1976 Owl Creek Road, Aspen Colorado.

Caryn, a registered nurse, vanished after she went to get a magazine from the inn room where she was staying. Her fiancée searched for her but no avail. On February 18, she was found in a nearby snow bank, bloody, nude and likely raped. Bundy confessed to her murder before his execution.

 Denise Lynn Oliverson, 25 years old

Disappeared: Apr 6, 1975 Grand Junction, Colorado

Found: Never

After arguing bitterly with her husband, Denise set off on her bike to visit her parents. She never arrived, but because her parents weren't expecting her, and her husband assumed she'd stayed with them because she was still mad, no one realized she was missing until the next day. Her sandals and bike were found under a nearby bridge. Bundy confessed to this murder as well.

Melanie Cooley, 18 years old

Disappeared: Apr 15, 1975 Nederland, Colorado

Found: Apr 23, 1975 Coal Creek Rd, Nederland, Colorado

Melanie simply walked away from her high school on April 15 and was never seen alive again. Road workers found her body a few days later. She'd been beaten on the back of the head, hands tied, pillowcase around her neck. Bundy confessed to her murder.

The Idaho Murder

Lynette Culver, 13 years old

Disappeared: May 1975

Lynette disappeared from her junior high school after leaving it for lunch break. She was never seen alive again. Bundy confessed to her murder, saying that he abducted Lynette, took her a hotel room, raped her, drowned her, and then dumped her in a river. Bundy gave details about Lynette that only she could have told him, so he's likely the killer. Her body was never found.

The Florida Murders

Lisa Levy, 20 years old

Murdered: Jan 14, 1978 Tallahassee Florida

Lisa left a popular disco at about 10pm. She was tired, so she went home to bed at her sorority house. Her roommate was gone for the weekend, so Lisa was alone. It was the same night that two other girls in the house were viciously attacked, although they survived.  Lisa wasn't so lucky. She was found by an officer in her room, no pulse. She died before getting to the hospital. Her left nipple had nearly been bitten off and she had been strangled. The bite mark on her left buttock would later identify Bundy as the attacker.

Kimberly Leach, 12 years old

Disappeared: Feb 9, 1978 Lake City, Florida

Found: Apr 7, 1978 Suwannee State Park, Florida

Kimberly was Bundy's last known victim and the one that sent him to the electric chair. At her junior high school, Kimberly discovered that she had left her purse in a classroom. She went back to retrieve it, and in the process, a friend saw her in the distance, going off with a man, crying. Others saw it too but assumed that the man was just an angry father, disciplining his child. When Kimberly failed to return home that day, her parents knew something was wrong.

The police thought she'd just run away. They were very wrong. Kimberly's bones were found in a pigpen a couple months later. There was evidence of rape and strangulation, but it's hard to be sure. The day of his execution Bundy confessed of her rape with very gory details that made some of the listeners violently ill.  It was as if he enjoyed the moment.

This has been just a few of his victims. Ted Bundy killed and attacked many others.

As always, stay safe !

- bird

The Most Evil And Worst Serial Killers

Our society seems to have both a repulsion and fascination with serial killers stories. Just look at all the serial killers movies and serial killers documentary out there! But who are these serial killers and what motivates them to take the life of another human being? I really don’t know. What I do know is that as humans, we are capable of gruesome things. Take these torture devices for example. What sort of mind comes up with such terrible devices for the specific reason of torture?  The entries here are in alphabetical order only for convenience.

Daniel Camargo Barbosa:  Barbosa was a serial killer who was believed to have raped and killed over 150 young girls in Colombia and Ecuador during the 1970s and 1980s. He confessed to killing 72 girls in Ecuador since escaping from a Colombian prison. After being arrested in Quito, he led authorities to the dumping grounds of those victims whose bodies had not yet been recovered. He was convicted in 1989 and sentenced to 16 years in prison, the maximum sentence available in Ecuador. In November 1994, he was murdered in prison by the cousin of one of his victims.

David Berkowitz:  A serial killer known as the Son of Sam or the .44 Caliber Killer, David Berkowitz carried out a series of shootings in the summer of 1976. Using a .44 caliber Bulldog revolver, he shot six people dead and wounded seven others. Berkowitz sent a series of taunting letters to police and the press promising further shootings, terrorizing the people of New York City. Eventually captured in August 1977, Berkowitz confessed to all of the killings and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for each murder. It is unlikely that Berkowitz will ever be released.

Larry Bittaker and Roy Norris nicknamed ‘The Tool Box Killers’ are two American serial killers who together murdered five young women in California in 1979. Bittaker and Norris lured victims into their van and drove them to secluded areas where they both raped and tortured them horrifically before murdering them. In 1981 Bittaker and Norris were charged with murder, kidnapping and rape. Bittaker was sentenced to death and remains on death row to this day.[update] Norris was spared execution in return for his testimony against Bittaker and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono (The Hillside Stranglers)  Between late 1977 to early 1978 cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono carried out a reign of terror in California. The cousins kidnapped, raped and killed 10 girls between the ages of 12 and 28, strangling each victim in the hills above Los Angeles. The cousins’ method of killing led to them being known as ‘the Hillside Stranglers’. Bianchi attempted to plead not guilty by way of insanity but was found to be faking mental illness, so instead agreed to plead guilty and testify against Buono. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment. Buono died of a heart attack in his cell in 2002.

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley killed five children between 1963 and 1965, in Greater Manchester, England. The victims where between 10 and 17 years old and were sexually assaulted before being brutally murdered. Three of the victims were discovered in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor and the last victim’s body was found at Brady’s house. The whereabouts of the fourth victim, Keith Bennett remains unknown. Both Brady and Hindley were later sentenced to life imprisonment. Hindley died in prison in 2002 while Brady has since been confined in the maximum security Ashworth Hospital.

William Bonin:  was also known as the 'Freeway Killer'. Between 1979 and 1980, he raped, tortured and murdered at least 21 young men.  Bonin would dump their bodies along freeways in South California. After being convicted for 14 of his killings, he was executed by lethal injection in 1996. His sadistic side was still seen during his prison sentence where he corresponded with many of his victims' families about how their children reacted to his torture.

Ted Bundy One of the most widely known murderers of the 20th century, Ted Bundy was an American serial killer and rapist who kidnapped or overpowered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s. Bundy typically approached his female victims in a public place and led them to secluded areas where he would sexually assault and kill them. He decapitated at least 12 victims and kept the severed heads in his apartment as trophies. Repeatedly captured, he twice managed to escape from police and court houses before going onto commit three further killings. Convicted of multiple murders he was sentenced to death and was executed via the electric chair in 1989.

Andrei Chikatilo  was a Soviet serial killer, nicknamed The Butcher of Rostov. He committed the sexual assault, murder and mutilation of at least 52 women and children in Russia between 1978 and 1990. Believing he was the killer, police carried out surveillance on Chikatilo which eventually provided adequate grounds to arrest him. He confessed to a total of 56 murders and was tried for 53 of these killings in April 1992. Victims’ relatives demanded that authorities release him so that they could kill him themselves. He was convicted and sentenced to death for 52 of these murders in October 1992 and subsequently executed by firing squad in February 1994.

Charles Edmund Cullen as a nurse in many hospitals but kept switching jobs as he was fired for suspicious behaviour from many of them. He confessed to murdering 40 elderly patients in New Jersey from 1984 to 2003. He did this by poisoning his patients to death with unprescribed medication. He stated that he wanted to relieve the patients from their suffering much like an angel would. Experts say he had more than 300 victims. Cullen has been imprisoned for life.

Jeffrey Dahmer Also Known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. He also committed necrophilia and ate parts of his later victims, dismembering and cooking parts of their bodies. Dahmer was eventually caught after a would-be victim managed to overpower him and alert police. In 1992 Dahmer was convicted of 15 of the murders and sentenced to 15 terms of life in prison. However just two years into his sentence he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution.

Pedro Rodrigues Filho One of the most recent serial killers on our list, Pedro Rodrigues Filho is a Brazilian serial killer. Arrested in 1973, he was later convicted in 2003 for murdering at least 71 people and sentenced to 128 years in prison (although Brazilian law system prohibits anyone from spending more than 30 years behind bars). Committing his first murder at the age of 14, Filho began a series of burglaries and carried out a murdering spree against local drug dealers. By the age of 18 years old he had killed 10 people. Whilst imprisoned, he executed his own father who was also serving time for murder. Remarkably he went onto kill at least 47 inmates while imprisoned. His continued killings led to further convictions increasing his sentence to 400 years. However he was later released from prison in 2007 after serving 34 years but was later re-arrested in 2011.

John Wayne Gacy sexually assaulted and murdered 33 teenage boys and young men in a series of killings between 1972 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. He lured victims to his home with the promise of work or money before murdering them by strangulation with a tourniquet. Gacy buried 26 of his victims in the crawl space under his home, before disposing of later victims in the Des Plaines River. Convicted of 33 murders, Gacy was sentenced to death. He spent 14 years on death row before he was executed by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.

Donald Henry Gaskins In 1969, Gaskins began killing a series of hitchhikers he picked up while driving around the coastal highways of the American South, torturing and mutilating his victims. He claimed to have killed 80 to 90 people. He was arrested in 1975, when a criminal associate confessed to police that he had witnessed Gaskins killing two young men. He was convicted of eight murders and was sentenced to death which was later commuted to life imprisonment without parole. Remarkably Gaskins went on to commit another murder within the high security prison, killing a fellow inmate. He is the only man to have ever killed an inmate on death row.

Luis Garavito Also dubbed by the media as the Le Bestia (The Beast), the Colombian is probably one of the world's worst serial killers. He confessed to the torture, rape and murder of 147 young boys. But the number is believed to be over 300. He was found guilty on 139 counts, which should amount to 1,853 years in prison. But Columbian law limits it to 30, which is what he was sentenced to in 1999. He may be released earlier for cooperation and good behavior.

John George Haigh Known as the “Acid Bath Murderer” John George Haigh was an English serial killer during the 1940s. He was convicted of the murders of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. A professional con man, he targeted wealthy individuals and charmed them into believing he was a successful businessman. He lured his victims to a derelict warehouse before shooting them. He then dissolved their bodies in sulfuric acid before forging papers in order to sell their possessions and collect their life savings. In spite of the absence of the victims’ bodies, there was sufficient forensic evidence to convict Haigh of murder. In 1949 he was sentenced to death and hanged at Wandsworth Prison.

Jack the Ripper The real killers or killer were never identified. The name came into being because the victims had organs missing and judging by procedure the killer seemed to have surgical experience. Jack the Ripper who was later believed to be a single person killed female prostitutes in the slums of London between 1888-91.

Patrick Wayne Kearney Also called the Trash Bag Killer, he operated between 1975 -1977. Kearney had a high IQ but once captured, he confessed to 32 murders of homosexual men. Kearney would dump their bodies along California highways and wrapped them in trash bags thus earning the name. He was convicted of 21 murders, but was sentenced to life because of his confession.

Edmund Kemper Known as “The Co-ed Killer”, Edmund Kemper is an American serial killer and necrophile who carried out a series of brutal murders in California in the 1970s. He murdered his grandparents when he was 15 years old then later killed and dismembered six female hitchhikers in the Santa Cruz area. He then murdered his mother and one of her friends before turning himself in to the police days later. He was found guilty in November 1973 of eight counts of murder. He asked for the death penalty, but instead received life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Paul Knowles Also known as the Casanova Killer, Knowles used his charm into making victims believe him and later killed them. He killed a total of 18 people, although the count might be more. His victims included men, women and children. The man from Florida was eventually killed by an FBI agent in 1974 when he was trying to escape.

Pedro Alonso Lopez  is a Colombian serial killer, accused of raping and killing more than 300 girls across South America. He lured them to secluded areas or inside unoccupied buildings where he raped each of them before killing them by a range of brutal methods, primarily strangulation. López was arrested when an attempted abduction failed and he was trapped by market traders. He confessed to over 300 murders but the police only believed him when a flash flood uncovered a mass grave containing many of his victims. Eventually 53 bodies were discovered. Imprisoned in 1980 he served 18 years before being released from a Ecuadorian prison and was deported to Columbia where he was rearrested and in 2002 was sentenced to life.

Peter Manuel An American-born Scottish serial killer known to have killed nine people across southern Scotland between 1956 and 1958, Manuel is suspected of having killed as many as 18 people. Police were unable to prove his guilt until his final murders, when some banknotes Manuel had been using to pay for drinks in Glasgow pubs were proven to be stolen from one of his victims. He confessed to these murders after his mother confronted him at the police station where he was being held. Manuel was hanged at Glasgow’s Barlinnie Prison for his crimes in July 1958. He was one of the last prisoners to be hanged in Scotland before they ended capital punishment.

Dennis Nilsen The British equivalent of Jeffrey Dahmer, Dennis Nilsen was a homosexual killer who murdered 15 gay men in London, England between 1978 and 1983. He dissected his victims’ bodies, then burned or flushed the remains down the toilet. This led to his capture when human flesh was discovered in his sewage system. Nilsen was convicted in 1983 of six counts of murder with two attempted murders and was sentenced to life in prison. He remains imprisoned at Full Sutton maximum security prison in Yorkshire, England without the chance of release.

Charles Ng and Leonard Lake These two  raped, tortured and murdered between 11 and 25 victims at Lake’s ranch in Calaveras County, California. Their crimes became known in 1985 when Lake committed suicide after being arrested and Ng was caught shoplifting at a hardware store. Police searched Lake’s ranch and found human remains. Ng was identified as Lake’s partner in crime and attempted to evade police by fleeing to Canada. After a lengthy extradition to the United States, he stood trial in 1998 on twelve counts of murder and was convicted in 1999. Ng is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Alexander Pichushkin e was also known as the 'Chessboard Killer' and the 'Bitsa Park Maniac'. His targets were homeless men whom he lured to his house with vodka. He is believed to have killed 49 people, most of them with repeated hammer blows to their heads and inserted a vodka bottle into the gaping skull wound. He initially said he wanted to complete the number of squares on a chessboard and kill 64 people. Also, it is believed that he was in competition with another Russian serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 for 53 killings. It was the very same year Alexander started killing.

Dennis Rader (the BTK Killer) murdered 10 people in Sedgwick County, Wichita, Kansas between 1974 and 1991. Obsessed with notoriety, Raider sent taunting letters to police under the name BTK which stood for ‘Bind, Torture, Kill’. Rader stalked his victims before breaking into their homes, then bound their limbs before strangling them. Having disappeared in 1988, BTK reemerged in 2005 when he sent a floppy disc to the press (this was to be his downfall). Tracing him via the floppy disc, Rader was arrested and charged upon which he immediately confessed. He is serving 10 consecutive life sentences with an earliest possible release date of February 26, 2180.

Richard Ramirez  Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramírez was an American serial killer and Satan worshiper who terrorized Los Angeles between 1984 and 1985. Nicknamed the “Night Stalker”, Ramirez broke into the homes of many of his victims and then shot, stabbed, rapped and mutilated them. His victims ranged between the ages of a nine year old girl to a married couple in their late sixties. Notably he smeared pentagrams on the walls of his crime scenes. Captured in 1985, Ramirez was sentenced to death and remained on California’s death row for 23 years until he died of complications from B-cell lymphoma in June 2013.

Gary Ridgway One of the United States most prolific serial killers, Gary Ridgway was arrested in 2001 for four murders though he confessed to killing at least 70 women in Washington state throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. He avoided the death penalty by providing detailed confessions and leading police to the dumping sites of his victims, five of whom he dumped in the Green River which lead the press to nickname him “The Green River Killer”. He was convicted of 49 murders and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Arthur Shawcross Known as the Genesee River Killer, Shawcross first killed in 1972 by sexually assaulting and murdering a 10-year-old boy after luring him into a wooded area in Watertown, New York. He then raped and killed an eight-year-old girl, for which he was captured and convicted of manslaughter. Serving 14 years in prison he was released in 1988 and went onto brutally kill 12 female prostitutes between the ages of 22 and 59. Eventually captured at the scene of his last murder, Shawcross confessed to all 12 murders and was sentenced to a 250 years imprisonment. He died in prison of cardiac arrest in 2008.

Tommy Lynn Sells Claiming to have killed at least 70 people, Tommy Lynn Sells is considered one of the most dangerous offenders in Texas and has been convicted of several brutal murders between 1985 and 1999, including stabbing a 13 year old girl 16 times. Sells was eventually captured after breaking into the bedroom of a 10 year old girl, stabbing her, and leaving her for dead. Despite her injures the girl managed to survive and alert her neighbors. She provided a detailed description of Sells to police which eventually led to his capture. Sentenced to death he remains on death row at a high security prison in Livingston, Texas.

Dr Harold Fredrick Shipman  was a English doctor and is one of the world’s most prolific serial killers in recorded history, proven to have been responsible for up to 250 murders. A trusted doctor, he was well respected in his community, however colleagues and local undertakers began raising concerns over the high death rate in the area and the large number of cremation forms for elderly women that he had countersigned. Several bodies were later exhumed and postmortems revealed diamorphine within their system. It was later established Shipman had purposely injected fatal doses of the drug in a huge number of patients, causing their death. He then forged their wills so he could inherit large sums of money and completed cremation requests to destroy the victim’s bodies. The trial judge sentenced him to 15 consecutive life sentences and recommended that he never be released. Shipman later hanged himself in January 2004 in his cell at Wakefield Prison.

Peter William Sutcliffe s a British serial killer known as “The Yorkshire Ripper”. In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others. He targeted prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford causing a climate of fear across northern England. When arrested in January 1981 (for driving with false number-plates), police questioned him about the killings and he confessed. At his trial, he pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but his defense was rejected by the jury. He was sentenced to serve life in prison without parole and remains in Broadmoor Maximum Security Mental Hospital to this day.

Ahmad Suradji The cattle-breeder from Indonesia admitted to killing 42 girls and women between 1986 to 1997. As a part of his ritual, he used to bury them waist deep. Bodies were found in a sugarcane field with their heads facing his house, which he believed would give him more power. Suradji was sentenced to death by a firing squad in 2008.

Tsutomu Miyazaki He got more names due to his hideous acts. Some of them were The Otaku Murderer, The Little Girl Murderer or Dracula Miyazaki. The reason for this being that he abducted little girls, killed them and indulged in sexual activities with their corpses. On one occasion, he not only drank the victim's blood but ate her hand as well. He also preserved body parts as trophies and sent postcards to the families describing the murder. His father committed suicide and Miyazaki was hanged in 2008, aged 45.

Fred & Rose West

Between 1967 and 1987 Fred West and his wife Rose tortured, raped and murdered at least 11 young women and girls. The pair were finally apprehended and charged in 1994 after police obtained a search warrant and located several human bones buried within the garden and under the floor boards of their home. During his trial, Fred West hanged himself prior to being convicted. In 1995 Rose West was jailed for life having been found guilty on 10 counts of murder.

Aileen Wuornos Her story allowed Charlize Theron to win an Academy Award. She played Aileen in the 2003 movie, 'Monster'. While working as a prostitute, Aileen killed seven men in Florida for their money and confessed to shooting them, claiming all of them had either raped or attempted to rape her. She died in 1992 by lethal injection.

The Zodiac Killer This  killer fashioned this name for himself in taunting letters he sent to the Bay Area Press. He left ciphers to be decoded and out of the four he sent, only one was definitely solved. The killer operated in California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His last letter said: Me- 37 and SFPD (San Francisco Police Dept.)- 0. He claimed to have killed 37 victims but the newspapers confirmed only 7. The case file is still open.

Society must look at the past to protect our future …

As always, stay safe !

-  bird