Table of serial killers before 1900
| Name | Country | Years active | Claimed victims | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liu Pengli | Western Han | 144–116 BC | 100+[4] | Prince of Jidong during the reign of the Emperor Jing, his uncle. Helped by slaves, he attacked civilians in his lands during the night, killing over a hundred. Although the court advised the Emperor to execute him, the emperor only reduced him to a commoner and exiled him to Shangyong (modern Zhushan County, Hubei Province).[5] |
| Anula of Anuradhapura | Anuradhapura Kingdom | 50–47 BC | 5 | Poisoned five husbands before holding the throne as queen regnant for five years, after which she was overthrown and burned alive.[6] |
| Locusta of Gaul[7] |  Roman Empire |
54-55 AD | 5-7+[7] | Poisoner in the service of Emperor Nero. Executed by Galba in 69 AD. |
| Dhu Shanatir | Himyarite Kingdom | 5th century AD | 100+ | Lured young royal boys into his home and sodomized them before throwing them out of a window. Stabbed by his last intended victim.[8] |
| Alice Kyteler | Ireland | 1302–1324 | 3–4 | "The Witch of Kilkenny". Hiberno-Norman noblewoman prosecuted in the first modern witch trial in the British Isles, for the alleged poisoning of her four husbands, heresy and witchcraft. Fled to England, her ultimate fate unknown. Petronilla of Meath (her servant) was tortured and burned at the stake in her place.[9] |
| Gilles de Rais | France | 1432–1440 | 140+ | French nobleman accused of torturing and murdering over 140 children.[10] Rais and several accomplices in the murders were hanged on 26 October 1440.[11] |
| Pierre Burgot and Michel Verdun | France | 1521 and before | 6 | A pair of Frenchmen who confessed to killing and eating several children. They claimed to have committed the murders in wolf form after making a pact with a witch coven. Burned at the stake.[12] |
| Peter Stumpp | Holy Roman Empire | c. 1564–1589 | 16 | "The Werewolf of Bedburg". Confessed under torture to murdering and cannibalizing 14 children, including his son, and two pregnant women. Broken on the wheel, beheaded and burned.[13] |
| Peter Niers | Holy Roman Empire | c. 1566–1581 | 544 | Bandit leader who confessed under torture to killing 544 people, including the murder of 24 women and the use of their unborn children in Black Magic. Broken on the wheel and quartered alive.[14] |
| Gilles Garnier | France | 1572 | 4 | Hermit known as "The Werewolf of Dole". Confessed to strangling 4 children and eating their flesh.[15] Garnier was caught attacking a young boy and burned at the stake in 1573.[16] |
| Björn Pétursson | Dano-Norwegian Iceland | 1570–1596 | 9–18 | Called Axlar-Björn ("Shoulder-Bear"). Farmer that robbed and killed people who traversed his land. Beheaded.[17] |
| Niklaus Stüller |  Holy Roman Empire |
c.1577 | 4 | Executed for shooting a cavalryman and disembowelling three pregnant women.[18] |
| Elizabeth Báthory | Hungary | 1585–1610 | 80–650[19] | Known as "The Blood Countess"; tortured servant girls to death. Accomplices were executed and she was imprisoned until her death in 1614.[20] |
| Geordie Bourne | England | 1597 and earlier | 7 | Scottish bandit active in the East English March. Confessed to having killed seven Englishmen and "lain with above forty men's wives, what in England, what in Scotland". Executed by unknown means.[21] |
| Nicolas Damont | France | 1598 | 50 | A French tailor accused of killing and eating 50 children in Châlons-en-Champagne whose remains had been found in his house. The brutality of the crimes and the accused's repeated psychotic episodes led authorities to accuse him of being a werewolf. Burned at the stake.[22] |
| Jean Grenier | France | 1603 | 50 | A French youth who claimed to be a werewolf and confessed to having killed and eaten 50 children while in wolf form. Notably, he had not been tortured. Sentenced to confinement for life due to his youth and died in 1611.[23] |
| Catalina de los Ríos y Lisperguer | Spanish Chile | c. 1630 – c. 1660 | 40 | Aristocrat nicknamed La Quintrala, possibly after the local red-flowered mistletoe (quintral) and because of her long red hair. Investigated for the deaths of 40 servants and slaves in her property, but never tried or convicted. Died of natural causes in 1665.[24] |
| Aqua Tofana (poison ring) | Spanish Sicily Papal States |
1633–1651 | 100+ | A group of female poisoners active in Palermo, Rome, and Naples. Ring leader was claimed to be Giulia Tofana although the only evidence of a poisoning ring is the executions of Teofania di Adamo (1633) and Girolama Spara (1659), claimed, respectively, to be the mother and daughter of Giulia Tofana.[25] |
| Melchior Hedloff | Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth | 1648?–1653 | 251 | The "Melcher Shooter". Highwayman and alleged cannibal who was known for killing his victims with a rifle and then mutilating the corpses with a Turkish saber. Captured 1653 and executed in 1654 after confessing to 251 murders.[26][27] |
| Jasper Hanebuth | Holy Roman Empire | 1652 and earlier | 19 | Former mercenary in the Swedish Army turned highwayman who was active in Eilenriede forest, then outside Hanover. Usually shot people from a distance, before knowing if they had any money. Confessed to the murder of 19 people including his "robber bride", and was broken on the wheel.[28] |
| Catherine Monvoisin | France | 1660s–1679 | 1000–2500[29] | Known as "La Voisin". Alleged sorceress, fortune-teller, cult leader and poisoner for hire who confessed under torture to the ritual murder of over a thousand infants in black masses.[29] Also tried to poison Louis XIV. She was convicted along with 35 others as part of the Affair of the Poisons, and burned at the stake in 1680. |
| Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d'Aubrey, Madame de Brinvilliers and Godin de Sainte-Croix | France | 1666–1670 | 3–50+[29] | Lovers, they poisoned d'Aubrey's father and two brothers to inherit their estates, and an undetermined number of poor people in hospitals. Sainte-Croix died of natural causes in 1672, but d'Aubrey was tried, beheaded and burned at the stake in 1676. Her sensational trial led to the Affair of the Poisons. |
| Ahaya |  Cuscowilla Spanish Florida |
1730s-1783 | 86+ | Seminole chief, called "Cowkeeper" by the British, who led continuous raids against Spanish garrisons and their allied tribes in Florida. Though his killings were done during war parties, he was partially motivated by a dream in which he was revealed that he would not find peace after death unless he killed 100 Spaniards. Died of natural causes, telling his sons in his deathbed that he had only killed 86 Spaniards and that they should kill another 14 in his name.[30] |
| Lewis Hutchinson | British Jamaica | 1760s–1773 | 43+ | Scottish doctor and rancher known as "The Mad Master" and "The Mad Doctor of Edinburgh Castle". Shot and robbed passers-by of all types in his property, sometimes with the help of accomplices, after which the slaves threw the bodies in Hutchinson's Hole where they were devoured by animals. Hanged.[31] |
| Dorcas Kelly | Ireland | 1761 and earlier | 1–5 | Also known as "Darkey Kelly". Dublin brothel owner hanged and burned at the stake for the murder of a client. Four skeletons were found in her establishment after her execution.[32][33] |
| Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova | Russia | 1755–1762 | 38–147 | Aristocrat who beat and tortured female serfs to death. Sentenced to life in prison in 1768, where she died of natural causes in 1801.[34] |
| Crown Prince Sado | Joseon | 1757–1762 | 100+ | Serial rapist and killer who was also heir to King Yeongjo of Joseon. Sealed in a rice chest until he died eight days later.[35] |
| Luísa de Jesus | Portugal | 1772 and earlier | 28–33 | Luísa de Jesus (1750 – Coimbra, 1 July 1772), was accused of having murdered 33 abandoned children, taken from the "foundling wheel" in the town of Coimbra, Portugal. She only confessed to 28 of the homicides. She was mortified and insulted by crowds as she was led to the gallows, had her hands cut off, was then hanged, beaten with a club, and burned until she was reduced to ashes in a public execution. She was the last woman executed in Portugal.[36][37] |
| Klaas Annink, Anne Spanjers and Jannes Annink | Netherlands | 1774 and earlier | 3 | Family of robber-murderers active around Twente. Klaas (nicknamed "Huttenkloas") and his wife, Anne, were tried and executed in 1775.[38] |
| El Comegente ("The People Eater") |  Spanish Santo Domingo |
1790-1794? | 25-29+ | Also called El Negro Incógnito ("The Unknown Negro"). Blamed for up to 29 murders or more, plus 27 injured, mill and plantation fires and animal deaths. The human victims, of all types but mostly women and children, were mutilated, had objects introduced in their orifices and could have been cannibalized in some cases. The killer, possibly more than one person, never robbed the victims. Several suspects were arrested, sentenced to forced work in plantations or executed.[39] |
| Thug Behram | Mughal Empire Oudh State[40] |
1790–1840 | 125–931 | Leader of the Thuggee cult of murder-robbers in central India, also known as Buhram Jemedar and the "King of the Thugs". Behram is often cited as one of the most prolific serial killers in History (if not the most) with up to 931 victims, although he only admitted to have been present for that many murders, committing 125 himself and witnessing 150 or more.[41] Thuggee victims were travellers that the Thuggees latched to and befriended before strangling them with a ceremonial handkerchief (rumal) and stealing their belongings. Hanged by officers of the East India Company as part of the British colonial Thuggee and Dacoity Suppression Acts, 1836–1848 |
| Zhang Liangbi | Qing dynasty | 1796–1812 | 11 | Elderly man from Anhui who sexually mutilated 16 children, killing 11 of them. Executed via death by a thousand cuts around 1812.[42] |
| Micajah and Wiley Harpe | United States | 1797–1803 | 40 | Highwaymen and river pirates known as "Big" and "Little" Harpe, or the Harpe Brothers, who often killed people of all types for the thrill or minor slights without actual monetary gain, even babies. "Big" Harpe bashed his own infant daughter's head against a tree because her crying annoyed him; this was the only murder he claimed to feel sorry about. "Big" Harpe was shot and beheaded in 1799 by people who sought vengeance for the murder of a woman, while "Little" Harpe was arrested when he took fellow outlaw Samuel Mason's head to the authorities and tried to collect a bounty put on him in 1803, but was recognized, tried and hanged in 1804.[43] |
| Samuel Mason | United States Spanish Louisiana |
1797–1803 | 20+ | Highwayman and river pirate sometimes associated with the Harpe Brothers and other outlaws. After being arrested in Louisiana and turned over to American authorities, Mason overpowered his guards and escaped, but was shot in the process. His head was later given to the authorities by his accomplice Wiley Harpe who wished to collect the bounty on the fugitive Mason. It is unknown if Mason died of his injuries or Harpe killed him.[44] |
| Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus | Holy Roman Empire | 1800–1803 | 3 | Prussian aristocrat who poisoned her lover, husband, and aunt, and tried to poison an unhappy servant, always with arsenic. Sentenced to life in prison but pardoned in 1833. Died of natural causes three years later.[45] |
| Chloe (no surname) |  United States |
1801 | 2 | 18-year-old slave who drowned her mistress' two younger children to get back at her, in separate occasions. Hanged.[46] |
| Patty Cannon's gang | United States | 1802[47]–1829 | 4–400+[47] | Kidnapped slaves and free blacks in the Delmarva Peninsula and sold them to slavers down south. Cannon, reportedly aroused by the sight of black males being beaten into submission, was arrested when four skeletons (three children, one male adult) were found buried in her property, though most of the gang's victims were probably rival white slavers. Cannon died in prison while awaiting trial, under unclear circumstances.[47] |
| Mary Bateman | United Kingdom | 1803–1808 | 1–4 | "The Yorkshire Witch". Leeds career con woman and thief, hanged in 1809 for the arsenic poisoning of a married couple she had been scamming (the husband survived). Suspect in three more deaths.[48] |
| "Red Inn" murderers | French Empire Kingdom of France | 1805–1830 | 1?–50+? | The owners, Pierre and Marie Martin, and a valet, Jean Rochette, were believed at the time to have murdered up to 50 or more travellers that stayed in their inn of Lanarce, Ardèche[49] to rob them, but were tried for only one murder that has been questioned since by historians. All three were guillotined in front of the inn in 1833.[50][51] |
| Andreas Bichel |  Bavaria |
1806?-1808 | 2-50+[52] | "The Bavarian Ripper". Invited young women into his house under the pretense of showing them a "magic mirror" where they could see their future husbands. He blindfolded them and bound their hands behind their back, which he said was necessary for the ritual, and then hit them in the head, stabbed them in the neck and hacked them to pieces with an axe while they were still alive, burying their bodies in the mountains or under the woodshed in his own home. He kept his victims' clothing, which ended up incriminating him. Sentenced to break at the wheel, later changed to decapitation, and executed in 1809.[52] |
| John Brown and Richard Lemon |  Van Diemen's Land |
1807-1808 | 5-9 | Bushrangers fugitive of a British penal colony in the Tamar Valley that murdered three soldiers, a fellow fugitive and at least one Aboriginal Tasmanian. Lemon was killed by bounty hunters in 1808, who also captured Brown. Brown was taken to Sydney where he was hanged.[53] |
| Anna Maria Zwanziger | Confederation of the Rhine | 1808–1809 | 4 | Housekeeper who poisoned her employers with arsenic and nursed them back to health to gain their favor; three died. Sentenced to beheading in 1811, which she welcomed as the only way to keep herself from poisoning people. |
| Hester Rebecca Nepping | First French Empire | 1811 | 3 | Dutch woman who poisoned three people with arsenic. Publicly guillotined along with her accomplices in front of the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam. |
| John Williams | United Kingdom | 1811 | 7 | Irish sailor who murdered two families and their servants in London's East End by bashing their heads with a hammer and cutting their throats. Hanged himself in prison while awaiting trial.[29] |
| Gesche Gottfried | Bremen Hanover |
1813–1827 | 15 | Believed today to have suffered of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, as she poisoned several of her relatives and friends with arsenic for no apparent reason. Last person publicly executed in Bremen, where she was beheaded in 1831.[54] |
| Konstantin Sazonov | Russia | 1814–1816 | 6–7 | Servitor at Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. He killed six or seven people between 1814 and 1816.[55] |
| Juan Severino Mallari | Philippines | 1816–1826 | 57 (as confessed) | Mallari was a Filipino Catholic priest during the Spanish colonial period from Barangay San Nicolas in the town of Magalang, Pampanga. He became the parish priest of Magalang, Pampanga in 1816 and believed that his mother was hexed (kulam is the local Filipino term), which became his motive for the killings. He believed killing people could cure his mother's ailments. It is possible that around this time Mallari's peers noticed signs of his mental instability. The Spanish colonial government executed Mallari by hanging.[56][57][58][59][60] |
| Samuel Green and William Ash | United States British North America |
1817–1821 | 30 | Itinerant burglars, robbers, and counterfeiters, sometimes acting in solitary and others in association. Green, considered "America's first Public enemy number one", was also a rapist and the more violent and prolific killer of the two, while Ash helped him escape from prison multiple times. While serving a sentence for burglary, Green beat a fellow prisoner to death with an iron rod for informing the guards of an upcoming escape plan, and was hanged as a result in 1822.[61] |
| Thomas Jeffries (or Jeffrey) | Australia New South Wales Van Diemen's Land |
1820–1826 | 1–8 | Navy deserter, robber and conman deported to Australia in 1820. He escaped the penal colony with four other convicts in 1825. While on the run, the party broke into a hut and later the Tibbs settlement. Here they killed one man, severely injured another and kidnapped Mrs Tibbs and her baby. Jeffries himself is known to have murdered the Tibbs infant before likely assaulting Mrs Tibbs and letting her go. Following this the escapees retreated to deeper bush land. Jeffries then killed one of the men searching for him, Magnus Bakie. Facing starvation, they killed one of the party for food before joining up with bushranger gangs. Hanged.[62][63] |
| Edme Castaing |  France |
1822 | 1-2 | Physician believed to have poisoned two lawyer brothers with morphine in the span of three months, although he was only convicted of murdering the second victim and destroying the will of the first one. Guillotined in 1823.[64] |
| Alexander Pearce | Australia | 1822–1823 | 2–5 | Irishman deported in 1819 to Tasmania. He escaped the convict settlement with seven other convicts in 1824 into the Bush. The group was led by Robert Greenhill because he was the only one with a weapon - the axe used to kill members of the party for food when starvation ensued (ironically in a region abundant with edible plants and other bush tucker). After the first such murder for survival (unlikely to have been committed by the undersized weaponless Pearce), 3 of the seven decamped. Pearce escaped being the second of the party murdered for food before one of the remaining three was fatally bitten by a snake. Only Pearce and Greenhill remained. Pearce was the only one left alive to reach the eastern settlements. Pearce was recaptured and sent back to Macquaire Harbor convict settlement as his claims of murder and cannibalism weren't believed, and escaped soon after with another convict, Thomas Cox. This time Pearce killed and ate his companion in less than ten days, when he surrendered voluntarily to the authorities. It is difficult to justify calling Pearce a serial killer as he only killed two people on his own and was at most one of Greenhill's accomplices in two earlier survival murders. However, if more than fictional sensationalism to sell newspapers, his reported last words of "Man's flesh is delicious. It tastes far better than fish or pork" suggest he may have become one had he lived. |
| Charles Routley | Van Diemen's Land |
1824-1828 | 6 | Armed robber and duffer who murdered a shopkeeper, a shepherd and four of his own accomplices. At least two victims were also tortured. Hanged in 1830.[53] |
| William Burke and William Hare | United Kingdom | 1828 | 16 | Lured, intoxicated and murdered people to sell their bodies to Dr. Robert Knox who used them in his anatomy classes at Edinburgh Medical School. Their usual method was compressing the chest of the victims in a process henceforth known as "burking". Hare was given immunity in exchange for testifying against Burke, who was hanged in 1829, while Knox was never prosecuted. Burke's fiancée was also tried but her implication was found not proven.[66] |
| Jane Scott | United Kingdom |
c.1828 | 1-4 | Hanged for poisoning her mother. Also believed to have poisoned her father, son and niece.[67] |
| Charles Broughton and Matthew McAvoy | Van Diemen's Land |
1830 | 3 | Escapees of Macquaire Harbor that butchered and cannibalized three fellow convicts. Surrendered to authorities after a month and were hanged.[53] |
| Thomas Griffiths Wainewright | United Kingdom | 1830 | 1–4 | Writer and painter believed to have poisoned his sister-in-law to collect a life insurance he recently purchased, and possibly also his uncle, mother-in-law and a friend. Having fled to France, he was arrested upon his return to Britain in 1837, but could not be prosecuted for lack of evidence. Instead he was tried for, and found guilty of, an unrelated case of forgery, for which he was exiled to Tasmania, where he died of natural causes in 1847.[68] |
| Rebecca Smith | United Kingdom | 1831–1849 | 8 | Convicted of poisoning her one-month-old baby Richard. After her conviction she admitted to having poisoned seven previous children, which resulted in the death sentence being passed despite the jury's recommendation of mercy. Hanged in 1849.[69] |
| John "Rocky" Whelan | Van Diemen's Land New South Wales (alleged) |
1831?-1855 | 5-6 | Irish career criminal deported to Australia in 1829 and to Tasmania in 1853. The day before his execution by hanging in 1855, Whelan confessed to have shot five men in the head to rob them; an unconfirmed report also links him to the "murderous attack" on a woman in New South Wales.[53] |
| John Bishop and Thomas Williams | United Kingdom | 1831 | 3 | Called the "London Burkers". Copycats of Burke and Hare that were active in London.[70] Hanged.[71] |
| Delphine LaLaurie | United States | 1831–1834 | 2–4 | New Orleans socialite that tortured and maimed slaves. Seven chained and mutilated slaves were rescued after a fire broke out in LaLaurie's mansion, of which two died of their injuries shortly after, and three buried skeletons were later discovered in her property (according to witnesses, one had died in an accident). The case caused outrage in Louisiana but LaLaurie fled to France and was never prosecuted.[72] Died of natural causes between 1842 and 1849. |
| Giorgio Orsolano |  Piedmont-Sardinia |
1832-1835 | 3 | "The Hyena of San Giorgio." Raped, butchered and cannibalized three girls aged nine to fourteen, burying the remains in the country or throwing them in a river. Hanged.[73] |
| Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh | United States | 1833–1845 | 2 | Poisoned two alcoholic husbands with arsenic. Hanged in 1846.[74] |
| Hélène Jégado | France | 1833–1851 | 23–36 | Kleptomaniac domestic servant who robbed and poisoned her employers and relatives with arsenic and antimony. She poisoned during two different periods separated by ten years, 1833 to 1841 and her final spree in 1851. Because the statute of limitations for the first spree had already run out, she was only tried for three murders and three attempts and guillotined in 1852.[75] |
| Pierre François Lacenaire | France | 1834–1835 | 2 | Poet, army defector and thief. Helped by two accomplices, Lacenaire stabbed a former prison cellmate and his mother in Paris, and later attacked a bank employee that survived. They intended to rob the victims but none of the hits produced any money. While in prison for an unrelated offense, one of the accomplices, Victor Avril, blamed Lacenaire for the murders, and Lacenaire reacted by making a detailed confession that ensured both Lacenaire and Avril would be found guilty and executed. Lacenaire's response and his willingness to answer letters and receive visitors in prison, along with the publication of his memoirs, made him a celebrity. The two men were guillotined in 1836.[76] |
| Burnham Poisoners | United Kingdom | 1835 | 3 | A group of three consisting of two women (Catherine Frary and Frances Billing) and one man (Peter Taylor) who plotted to poison their respective spouses. In 1835 they poisoned four people with arsenic in Burnham Market, killing three; Frary's husband Robert, Taylor's wife Mary and a young girl named Harriet Southgate who was killed to disguise Robert Frary's death as being from natural causes. All three were hanged at Norwich Castle.[77] |
| Frances Billing and Catherine Frary | United Kingdom |
1835 | 3 | Poisoned Frary's husband and child and the wife of Billing's lover in the span of two weeks. Hanged.[78] |
| Hannah Hanson Kinney |  United States |
1835-1840 | 0-3 | Believed at the time to have poisoned two husbands and a father in law; although arsenic was found in two bodies, she was found not guilty because of lack of further evidence.[79] |
| John Lynch | New South Wales | 1835–1841 | 9–10 | "The Berrima Axe Murderer". Irish convict turned bushranger who killed his victims with a single hatchet blow to the back of the head. His acquittal at a murder trial in 1835, while his two accomplices were hanged, had convinced him that God approved of his crimes. Hanged in 1842. |
| Diogo Alves | Portugal | 1836–1841 | 70+ | Serial killer, who murdered 70 people in Águas Livres Aqueduct between 1836 until his execution in 1841, thus earning the title "Aqueduct Murderer".[80] He was sentenced to death and hanged on February 19, 1841. The head of the killer was separated from the body and placed in a flask to preserve it for scientific purposes, where it is now a tourist attraction.[81] |
| Elizabeth Eccles | United Kingdom |
1840-1842 | 3 | Poisoned her stepson and daughters with arsenic. Hanged in 1843.[47] |
| Sarah Dazley | United Kingdom | 1840–1843 | 1–3 | Hanged for the murder of her second husband, who was poisoned with arsenic. Believed to have poisoned her first husband and child as well.[82] |
| Sarah Freeman | United Kingdom |
1840-1845 | 4 | Poisoned her husband, son, mother and brother with arsenic. Hanged.[47] |
| Eliza Joyce | United Kingdom |
1841-1843 | 3 | Poisoned her daughter and step-children with laudanum. Though acquitted in 1843 because of lack of evidence, she confessed after being disowned by her family and living in poverty for a year, and was hanged in 1844.[47] |
| John Johnston (or Johnson) | United States | 1843–? | 300+ | Mountain man called "Liver-Eating Johnson" and Dapiek Absaroka ("Crow Killer" in Apsáalooke). Moved to the Rocky Mountains with frontiersman John Hatcher in 1843; the two killed four Arapaho and Hatcher taught Johnson to scalp them. In 1847, his pregnant wife, a member of the Flathead Nation, was killed and scalped by Crow warriors. Johnson is said to have embarked then on a vendetta against the Crow Nation that lasted for years and during which he murdered, scalped and ate the livers of 300 Crow warriors, although Thrapp (1991) considers this number inflated and incompatible with the Crow population at the time.[83] Died of natural causes in 1900.[84] |
| Jonathan Balls | United Kingdom |
1843-1846 | 2-5+ | Believed to have poisoned his invalid wife, four grandchildren and possibly others. No crime investigation took place before Balls' own suicide by arsenic in 1846.[85] |
| Manuel Blanco Romasanta | Spain | 1844–1852 | 9–14 | "The Werewolf of Allariz". While on the run from his first murder (a constable killed over a debt), Romasanta assumed a new identity and offered his services as a mountain guide to women and children, whom he murdered, later selling their clothing (and according to rumor, also making soap made from their body fat). Following his arrest, he confessed to 13 murders, which he claimed were committed involuntarily during his transformation into a wolf as a result of a curse.[23] He was found guilty of nine and sentenced to die by garrote. This was changed to life in prison following a petition by doctors who wished to study him further. He died in jail in 1863.[86] |
| Edward Rulloff | United States | 1844–1870 | 2–7 | Called "The Genius Killer" and "The Man of Two Lives". Medical doctor and philologist who had a parallel career as an armed robber and con man. Tried for the murder of his wife and daughter in 1846, he was given ten years for kidnapping because neither body was ever found; he was arrested again in 1870 for the murder of a clerk during a robbery. Hanged in 1871.[87] |
| Sarah Chesham | United Kingdom | 1845-1849 | 1–4 | Poisoned her husband Richard with arsenic in 1849. She could only be convicted of attempted murder because it could not be proved if Richard had died from the poison or from tuberculosis. She had also been tried for three other arsenic poisonings which had occurred in 1845 but had been acquitted due to lack of evidence. Hanged in 1851.[88] |
| Hendrikje Doelen | Netherlands | 1845–1846 | 3 | Killed her husband, an old woman who was living with the couple, and her daughter with arsenic. Died in prison after 8 days of detention. |
| William Palmer | United Kingdom | 1846?–1855 | 1–10 | Gambling-addicted physician who poisoned friends and relatives with strychnine and ammonia, usually to collect life insurances or to keep money that the victims lent him; also suspected in the death of four of his newborns. Tried for one murder and hanged in 1856.[89] |
| Mary Ann Milner | United Kingdom |
c.1847 | 3 | Poisoned her in-laws (father, mother, sister) and a niece with arsenic. The man survived but sustained brain damage. Killed herself in prison the day before her execution.[47] |
| Mary Ann Geering | United Kingdom |
1848 | 4 | Hanged in 1849 for the poisoning of her husband and three sons with arsenic.[90] |
| Juhani Aataminpoika | Grand Duchy of Finland | 1849 | 12 | Serial killer, who murdered 12 people in southern Finland between October and November in 1849, and he was also known by nickname "Kerpeikkari", which means 'executioner'. He was initially sentenced to death, but the sentence was changed by order of the Emperor to 40 lashes and life imprisonment in Suomenlinna. He has been characterized as the first serial killer in Finland.[91][92] |
| Antonio Boggia |  Lombardy-Venetia |
1849-1859 | 4 | Called "The Monster of Milan" and "The Monster of Bagnera Street". Killed and dismembered three men and one woman with an axe, then feigned documents where the victims named him manager of their possessions in their absence. Before the discovery of the murders, he was briefly committed to a mental asylum for attacking a fourth man, who managed to escape. Hanged in 1862.[93] |
| Boone Helm | United States British Columbia |
1851–1864 | 8–24+ | Desperado active through western North America who killed several men in alcohol-induced fights or to rob them. Engaged in survival cannibalism at least once. Hanged.[94] |
| Mary Ann Cotton | United Kingdom | c. 1852–1873 | 21 | Poisoned her husbands, lovers and children with arsenic. Hanged.[citation needed] |
| Catherine Wilson | United Kingdom | 1854[47]–1862 | 1–8 | Nurse believed to have poisoned her husband and 7 patients with colchicum (plus a failed attempt, with sulphuric acid), but tried for only one. Last woman publicly hanged in London.[95] |
| Martin Dumollard | France | 1855–1861 | 3–30+ | Lured women to Lyon with promises of work and then killed them. Tried and guillotined in 1862. His wife, Marie-Anne Martinet, was found guilty of assisting him and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor in a women's prison.[96] She died in 1875. |
| Mary Jane Jackson |  United States Confederate States |
c.1855-1861 | 4 | New Orleans prostitute nicknamed "Bricktop" for her red hair, she clubbed one man to death and stabbed three others. The last one was John Miller, her boyfriend and a former prison guard whom she met while in remand for the third murder (the charges for which would be dropped without trial). Imprisoned for Miller's murder, she was let go less than one year later when Union troops seized the city and military governor George Shepley emptied the prisons, and left New Orleans. Her ultimate fate is unknown.[97] |
| Lydia Sherman | United States | 1858[98]–1871 | 11 | "The Derby Poisoner". Confessed to poisoning three husbands and seven children with arsenic.[99] Died in prison. |
| John Haley | Tasmania |
1859-1861 | 4 | Violent Scottish robber deported to Tasmania in 1850. Killed a man, two women and a child, using a club and an ax. Hanged.[53] |
| Sε□αkmän˙a[clarification needed] | British Columbia |
c.1860s | 3+ | Nuxalk hunter who lured others to their deaths and sold their goods to the Hudson's Bay Company. When asked why he murdered so continuously and so frequently, he claimed that "it was involuntary, his parents having smeared him with ashes from a wasp's nest when an infant." He is also said to have killed for favors. Nuxalk chief and clan officials executed him by shooting.[100] |
| Thomas D. Carr | United States | 1860s–1869 | 1–15 | Carr murdered a teenage girl named Louisa Fox in 1869, for which he was sentenced to death. Before his execution in 1870 he admitted to 14 other murders, although many of his statements were of dubious accuracy.[101][102] |
| Joseph Philippe |  France |
1862-1866 | 8 | Stabbed seven prostitutes and one child in Paris. Guillotined. |
| Edward William Pritchard | United Kingdom | 1863?–1865 | 2–3 | Doctor who poisoned his wife and mother-in-law with antimony; also a suspect in the death of a maid who had officially died in a fire two years earlier. Hanged.[103] |
| The Bloody Espinosas | United States | 1863 | 8[104] | Gang formed first by Neomexicano road bandit brothers Felipe Nerio and José Vivián Espinosa, and after José Vivián's death by Felipe Nerio and nephew José Vicente, who acted in Conejos County, Colorado. Following a skirmish with the U.S. Army, the Espinosas declared war on the United States and decided to kill as many Anglos as they could, until they were tracked and killed by adventurer Tom Tobin and soldiers of Fort Garland.[104] |
| Dan Morgan | New South Wales Victoria |
1864–1865 | 3 | Violent bushranger who robbed railroad stations and shot hostages without necessity; one railroad worker and two police sergeants died. Shot dead in a standoff with Victoria police.[105] |
| Thomas and John Clarke | New South Wales | 1861–1867 | 5 | Violent bushranger brothers who robbed travelers and farms and shot and killed five police officers. Their activities led to the passing of the Felons Apprehension Act of 1866 that allowed citizens to kill bushrangers on sight. Hanged.[106] |
| Martha Grinder |  United States |
1865 and earlier | 2-20 | "The American Lucrezia Borgia." Hanged in 1866 for poisoning a tenant she had pretended to care for while he was sick, with no monetary gain. Also confessed, while awaiting execution, to have poisoned her maid, but denied any part in the deaths of other friends and relatives of which she was suspected.[107] |
| Joseph Eisele | United States | 1867 | 3 | German-born emigrant who murdered three people and attempted to kill a fourth over a seven-month period in 1867. Hanged in 1868.[108] |
| Matti Haapoja | Finland Russian Empire |
1867–1894 | 3–10 | Known to have killed 3 in Finland and suspected of 7 more murders, 5 of them in Siberia, to which he had been exiled in the 1880s. Also wounded 6 people. Killed himself in prison in 1895.[109][110] |
| Sher Ali Afridi |  British Raj |
1869-1872 | 2 | Pashtun sowar deported to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for murder, where he killed the visiting Viceroy of India, Lord Mayo. Hanged.[111] |
| "Wild" Bill Longley | United States | 1869–1878 | 32 | Racist gunfighter who claimed to have killed 32 people, most of whom were unarmed blacks and Mexicans. Hanged for the murder of a childhood friend.[112] |
| Margaret Waters | United Kingdom | 1870 and earlier | 19 | Baby farmer who drugged and starved children in her care. Convicted of one murder and hanged.[113] |
| Vincenzo Verzeni |  Italy |
1870-1871 | 2 | Strangled women until he orgasmed, never penetrating his victims. If they were still alive, he let them go. The two who died were mutilated, and Verzeni drank blood from one after biting her in the thigh. Sentenced to life in prison in 1872,[18][114][115] served as house arrest from c.1900. Died of natural causes on New Year's Eve 1918.[116] |
| Juan Díaz de Garayo | Spain | 1870–1879 | 6 | Known as El Sacamantecas ("The Fat Extractor"). Strangled women after having sex with them—first willingly, then by force. Garroted in 1881.[117] |
| La Bande de la Taille ("The Carving Gang") | France |
1871 | 8 | 13 Italian immigrants (9 men, 4 women) who robbed and killed people with clubs and cleavers in Provence, often for little actual profit. The leader, Joseph Fontana, died of tuberculosis before trial. The two most violent members, Antoine Galetto (grandson of serial killer Giorgio Orsolano) and Louis Garbarino, were guillotined in 1872. Others were imprisoned and, in some cases, sentenced to forced labor.[118] |
| Jesse Pomeroy | United States | 1871–1874 | 2 | Called "The Boy Fiend" and "The Inhuman Scamp". Beginning at age 12, he lured younger children and tortured them for his sexual pleasure, killing two. Youngest person sentenced to death by the state of Massachusetts, later changed to life in prison under solitary confinement which was only lifted in 1917. Died in prison in 1932 of natural causes.[119] |
| Eusebius Pieydagnelle | France |
1872 and earlier | 6-7 | Claimed to have a sexual obsession with blood, having orgasms at the sight and smell of it. His victims were extremely mutilated.[18][120] |
| The Bloody Benders | United States | 1872–1873 | 10–12[47] | Family of four who owned an inn and small general store in Labette County in southeastern Kansas from 1871 to 1873. They murdered around 11 clients, using a mallet and a knife to rob them.[47] They fled when their crimes were discovered.[121] Their fate is unknown, although two members of the posse that found the bodies made deathbed confessions decades later where they claimed to have tracked down and murdered the family.[47] |
| Baptistine Philip | France | 1871–1878 | 3 | Fatally poisoned her employer, uncle-in-law, and husband with arsenic for monetary gain. Sentenced to life in prison in 1879.[122] |
| Thomas Piper |  United States |
1873-1875 | 7[18] | The "Boston Belfry Murderer". Church bellringer who battered, strangled and sometimes raped girls, the youngest being 5. Hanged in 1876. |
| Joseph Lapage | United States |
1874-1875 | 2 | French Canadian woodcutter who clubbed, raped and mutilated two women in New England; the second was also decapitated. Hanged in 1878.[123] |
| Stephen D. Richards | United States | 1876–1878 | 6–9+ | "The Nebraska Fiend". Confessed to killing two men, one woman and her three children, in all cases but one to rob the victims. Hanged in 1879.[124][125] |
| Bochum Serial Sex Murderer | Germany | 1878–1882 | 8 | Raped, strangled and mutilated women walking or working alone in the country. Wilhelm Schiff was found guilty of three murders and beheaded in January 1882, but the crimes continued until May of that year. Moral panic over the serial killings contributed to the full restoration of capital punishment in the German states by 1885, after a hiatus of ten to fifteen years.[126] |
| Victor Prévost | France | 1867–1879 | 2–4 | Former butcher and policeman known as "The Butcher of the Chapel". Was charged with the murders of two people, with an additional two other murders suspected. Killed his victims for profit via blunt force trauma before disemboweling them. Later executed via guillotine on 19 January 1880.[127] |
| Thomas Neill Cream | Canada United States United Kingdom |
1879–1892 | 5–8 | Doctor known as "The Lambeth Poisoner". Poisoned one man and several women with chloroform and strychnine, attempting to frame and then blackmail other men for the murders in some cases. Allegedly confessed to be Jack the Ripper before his execution by hanging in 1892, although he was in prison at the time of the Ripper murders.[128] |
| Amelia Dyer | United Kingdom | 1879–1896 | 6–400+ | Baby farmer who strangled the babies in her care. Hanged.[129] |
| Alexe Popova |  Russia |
1879-1909 | 300 | Samara poisoner for hire who was employed by women in unhappy marriages. After her arrest she confessed to have poisoned some 300 men in a 30-year period, but was adamant that she had never killed a woman. Executed by firing squad in Saint Petersburg.[130] |
| Catherine Flannagan and Margaret Higgins | United Kingdom | 1880–1883 | 4–8[47] | "The Black Widows of Liverpool". Killed at least 4 people by poisoning in order to obtain insurance money. Hanged in 1884.[131] |
| Maria Swanenburg | Netherlands | 1880–1883 | 27–90+ | Killed at least 27 people by poisoning with arsenic, suspected of over 90 deaths. She murdered for the victims' insurance or inheritance. Sentenced to life in prison, she died in 1915.[132] |
| Robert Butler | New Zealand Australia |
1880–1905 | 1–4 | Irish-born burglar and highwayman. Arrested in 1880 for the murder-robbery of a family of three in Dunedin, but acquitted because all evidence was circumstantial. Hanged years later in Queensland for shooting a man.[133] |
| Francisco Guerrero | Mexico | 1880–1908[134][135] | 21 | Known as El Chalequero ("The Vests Man"). An open misogynist, between 1880 and 1888 he raped and killed 20 women in Mexico City, often claimed to be prostitutes, strangling them or cutting their throats, in some cases also decapitating them. He then threw their bodies in the Consulado river. Tried for one murder and another attempt, his initial death sentence was changed to 20 years in prison and was indulted in 1904. In 1908, he raped and murdered an old woman and was again given the death penalty, but died in prison of natural causes before he could be executed. Guerrero predates Jack the Ripper by eight years. |
| Sarah Jane Robinson | United States | 1881-1886 | 8-11 | Irish-American woman who poisoned members of her family and two other people. Died in prison in 1906 while serving a life sentence.[136] |
| West Ham Child Killer | United Kingdom | 1881-1890 | 4 | Responsible for the "West Ham Vanishings" in which four young girls were abducted and presumed murdered in similar circumstances in the West Ham area. The bodies of two victims, Clara Sutton and Amelia Jeffs, were recovered. The perpetrator was never identified.[137] |
| Émile Dubois | France Bolivia Chile |
1882–1905 | 6 | French criminal and murderer who killed six people in three different countries. He was captured in 1905 and, after a trial, found guilty of the murders committed in Chile and executed by four riflemen on 26 March 1907.[138] |
| Hugo Schenk | Austria | 1883 | 4–6 | Schenk and accomplice Karl Schlossarek were hanged for four counts of murder in 1884. They would lure housemaids into isolated areas and rob and rape them before weighting them down rivers or gorges with stones.[139] |
| Servant Girl Annihilator | United States | 1884–1885 | 8 | Unidentified killer, also nicknamed "The Austin Axe Murderer". Abducted women from their bedrooms at night, raped and killed them, hitting them with an axe or stabbing them with a knife or other iron implement, always in the head. Two husbands sleeping with their wives were dispatched first with a single strike from an axe (one died) but children, when present, were usually not harmed. The first five women targeted were black servants sleeping in cabins; the last two, white women in houses.[140] Some sources name Nathan Elgin (1866–1886), an African-American cook shot by police while he was assaulting a girl, as the likely culprit.[141][142] |
| Martha Needle | Victoria South Australia |
1885–1894 | 5 | Poisoned her husband and three children, and her new fiancé's two brothers (one of whom survived) with arsenic. Hanged.[143] |
| Jane Toppan | United States | 1885–1901 | 31 | Nurse who confessed to poisoning 31 people in her care and lying in bed with them as they died for her own sexual gratification. Found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental hospital in which she remained for the rest of her life.[144] |
| Minnie Wallace Walkup |  United States |
1885-1914? | 1-3 | Acquitted after a very unusual trial of poisoning her much-older husband with strychnine and arsenic, only one month after marrying him, when she was 16. Another husband and a boyfriend would die decades later under suspicious circumstances. Died of natural causes in 1957.[145] |
| Mary Ann Britland | United Kingdom | 1886 | 3 | She murdered her daughter, her husband, and the wife of her lover with mouse poison, and was hanged for her crimes.[146] |
| Thames Torso Murderer | United Kingdom | 1887–1889 | 4 | Unidentified killer who left the dismembered remains of victims in or near the Thames River. |
| The Kelly Family | United States | 1887 | 11+ | The Kelly Family was a family of serial killers who operated near a Kansas town called Oak City between August and December 1887. The family consisted of William Kelly (55); his wife Kate; his son Bill, also called 'Billy' (20) and daughter, Kit (18). Originally from Pennsylvania, the family is believed to have murdered 11 wealthy travelers, akin to the Bloody Benders a decade earlier. Killed by vigilantes.[147] |
| Guadalupe Martínez de Bejarano |  Mexico |
1887-1892[135][148] | 3 | Tortured three servant girls until they died of starvation. Died in prison. |
| Sarah Whiteling | United States | 1888 | 3 | German-born poisoner who murdered her husband and two children in the span of three months. Executed in 1889.[149] |
| Albert Schmidt | New South Wales | 1888-1890 | 3+ | A German immigrant who murdered at least three travelling companions from 1888 to 1890 before execution in 1890. Also known as "The Wagga Murderer."[150] |
| Jack the Ripper | United Kingdom | 1888–1891? | 5–11 | Unidentified killer who stabbed at least five prostitutes and mutilated four in the Whitechapel and Spitalfields districts of London.[151] Several suspects have been named over the years. |
| Johann Otto Hoch | United States Austria-Hungary (alleged) France (alleged) United Kingdom (alleged) |
1888?–1905 | 1–50+ | German con man who married women under false identities, swindled and poisoned them with arsenic. Hanged in 1906 for one murder, but suspected to have committed between 15 and 55.[152] |
| The Managua Ripper | .svg){kind=small} Nicaragua |
1889 | 6 | Also called "The Managua Killer". Unidentified killer who murdered and mutilated prostitutes in the periphery of Managua. In 2005, Trevor Marriott proposed that the Managua Killer and Jack the Ripper were one and the same, a merchant sailor that worked on the route between Britain and the Caribbean.[153][154] |
| Minnie Dean | New Zealand | 1889?–1895 | 3+ | Baby farmer hanged for the murder of three infants that were found buried in her property.[155] Only woman executed in the History of New Zealand. |
| Baba Anujka |  Kingdom of Yugoslavia
|
1890s–1928 | 150 | Anujka was an accomplished amateur chemist from the village of Vladimirovac, Yugoslavia (modern day Serbia). She poisoned at least 50 people and possibly as many as 150 in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1929 but released after eight years due to old age.[156] |
| Marianna Skublińska | Russia | 1890 and earlier | 50-75 | A Russian baby farmer who was arrested after a fire at her nursery was extinguished, revealing the dead bodies of at least 50 babies concealed at various points around the house. Police suspected her of having disposed of up to 75 babies. She could not be convicted due to lack of evidence, but was sentenced to penal servitude for allegedly burning the house down for insurance.[157] |
| H. H. Holmes | United States Canada |
1891[158]–1894 | 1–9 | Holmes was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his accomplice and business partner Benjamin Pitezel. It is believed he killed three of the Pitezel children, as well as 3 mistresses, the child of one of the said mistresses and the sister of another. |
| Franz and Rosalie Schneider | Austria | 1891 | 3–6 | Married couple who lured women, robbed them and then sexually assaulted or murdered them. They were convicted of three murders but evidence suggests a total of six victims.[159] |
| Frederick Bailey Deeming | United Kingdom Victoria |
1891 | 6 | Killed his wife and four children (cutting their throats, except one daughter that was strangled) and buried their bodies in concrete under a rented house in Rainhill, England. He then fled with his mistress to Windsor, Victoria, where he bludgeoned her and cut her throat, and also buried the body in concrete in another rented house. The discovery of the last body led to his arrest and the uncovering of the ones in Rainhill, attracting the attention of the international press, which considered him the possible identity of Jack the Ripper. Hanged in 1892.[160] |
| John and Sarah Makin | New South Wales | 1892 and earlier[161] | 12–13 | Baby farmers who murdered infants in their care. John was hanged in 1893 but Sarah's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and hard labor. She was paroled in 1911 and died seven years later of natural causes. |
| Lizzie Halliday | United States Ireland (alleged) |
1893?–1906 | 5–8 | "The Worst Woman on Earth". Acquitted of killing her stepson by burning down their New York family home in 1893. After her husband disappeared the following year, a search of their farm found the bodies of two women in the hayloft who had been shot to death; the husband's mutilated body was found under the floorboards of the house a few days later. Halliday was convicted of the murders, becoming the first woman sentenced to die in the electric chair, but her sentence was later commuted to being interned in an asylum after she was found to be insane. In 1906, she killed an asylum's nurse with a pair of scissors. Another stepson claimed that Halliday had confided to him that she had murdered a previous husband in Belfast, but had concealed the crime successfully.[162][163] Died in 1918. |
| Louise Vermilya | United States | 1893–1911 | 9 | Believed to have poisoned seven relatives and two boarders with arsenic in Chicago for economic gain. May have attempted suicide with arsenic while in home arrest in 1911,[164] if so she survived and saw all charges dismissed in 1915.[165] |
| Frances Knorr | Victoria | c. 1894 | 2 | Baby farmer hanged for the murder of two babies that were found buried in her property.[166] |
| Harry T. Hayward | United States | 1894 and earlier | 1–4 | "The Minneapolis Svengali." Gambler and serial arsonist who confessed to three other unreported murders after being found guilty of one. Hanged in 1895.[167] |
| Diogo Figueira da Rocha | Empire of Brazil | 1894–1897 | 50+ | Brazilian career criminal and serial killer acting within São Paulo at the end of the 19th century. He is supposedly responsible for more than 50 murders between 1894 and 1897. Tucked away in the far west of the state, he was hunted down by government task forces and was pronounced dead in 1897 after a shootout with the authorities on the banks of the Mojiguaçu River. The corpse, however, has never been recovered. |
| Joseph Vacher | France | 1894–1897 | 11–27+ | Mentally ill vagrant known as "The French Ripper" and the "Ripper of the South-East", although he was also active in central and northern France. Raped, stabbed and disembowelled women, teenage boys and girls who worked alone in the countryside. Guillotined in 1898. |
| Schultz (given name unknown) |  German Empire German Republic |
1894-1920 | 11 | Random slayer active in Spandau. Victims included his two brothers-in-law.[168] |
| Theodore Durrant | United States | 1895 | 2 | "The Demon of the Belfry". San Francisco sunday school teacher who raped and strangled two women who rebuffed his romantic advances, then abandoned their bodies in the church's library and bell chamber. Took part in the search for the first victim and suggested that she had been kidnapped and taken out of town. Hanged in 1898.[169] |
| Cayetano Domingo Grossi | Argentina | 1896–1898 | 5 | The first known serial killer in Argentine history. Italian immigrant who murdered five of his own neonatal children, who had been born as the result of his rape of his two stepdaughters. Executed by firing squad in Buenos Aires, in 1900. |
| New York Strangler |  United States |
1896-1898 | 3-5 | Possible serial killer who robbed and strangled up to six women in New York City (one survived, but could not identify her attacker). Most victims were attacked in their own flats and three had a sailor's knot tied around their neck.[170] Sailor John Brown was accused of one murder in 1898 but was acquitted when the prosecution's main witness did not appear before court.[171] |
| Belle Gunness | United States | 1896?–1908? | 21–42+ | Murderer for profit who killed her relatives, employees and several suitors that she contacted through lonely hearts ads in Norwegian language newspapers of the Midwest, dismembering and burying most under a chicken coop in La Porte, Indiana. The 1900 strychnine poisoning of Gunness' first husband is often reported as her first murder, but the deaths of two of her children in 1896 and 1898 (who were insured) manifested similar symptoms. Reported dead, along with her three remaining children, in a fire that destroyed her farmhouse in 1908, even though the children's bodies contained strychnine and the woman's body found next to them was decapitated and smaller than Gunness'. Several people claimed to see her alive in the following years.[172] |
| Edward Walton (aka Frank Johnson) |
United States | 1896-1908 | 5 | Confessed the murders of two men and three women in five different states, including his common-law wife. Hanged at Moundsville Penitentiary in West Virginia on July 17, 1908.[173][174] |
| George Chapman | United Kingdom | 1897–1902 | 3 | Poisoned three of his mistresses with tartar emetic. Suspected at the time of his execution by hanging in 1903 to be the real identity of Jack the Ripper.[175] |
