List of Famous Serial Killers

Yvan Keller, nicknamed The Pillow Killer, was a French serial killer. Between 1989 and 2006, he killed at least 23 people in France, Switzerland and Germany, and confessed to killing about 150. If corroborated, that would make him the most prolific French serial killer of the 20th century.

Kendall Francois was a serial killer from Poughkeepsie, New York, convicted of killing eight women, from 1996 to 1998. After his conviction and sentencing, Francois was housed in the Attica Correctional Facility until being transferred to the Wende Correctional Facility shortly before his death. It was revealed in his trial in 2000 that he tested positive for HIV in 1995, but this was not said to have been related to his death.

Derrick Todd Lee, also known as The Baton Rouge Serial Killer, was an American serial killer. Between 1992 and 2003, Lee murdered seven women in the Baton Rouge area.

Charles "Carl" Panzram was an American serial killer, rapist, arsonist, robber and burglar. In prison confessions and his autobiography, he claimed to have committed 21 murders, most of which could not be corroborated, and over 1,000 acts of sodomy of boys and men. After a series of imprisonments and escapes, he was executed in 1930 for the murder of a prison employee at Leavenworth. Only five victims could be confirmed, though Panzram is suspected to have killed more than 100 men in total in United States and Angola.

Charles Chi-tat Ng is a convicted Hong Kongese-American serial killer who committed numerous crimes in the United States. He is believed to have raped, tortured and murdered between 11 and 25 victims with his accomplice Leonard Lake at Lake's cabin in Calaveras County, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills, 60 miles from Sacramento. After his 1985 arrest and imprisonment in Canada on robbery and weapons charges, followed by a lengthy dispute between Canada and the US, Ng was extradited to California, tried, and convicted of 11 murders. He is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison.

Dorothea Helen Puente was an American convicted serial killer. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California and murdered various elderly and mentally disabled boarders before cashing their Social Security checks. Her total count reached nine confirmed murders, and six unconfirmed. Newspapers dubbed Puente the "Death House Landlady".

Linda Laura Hazzard, nicknamed the "Starvation Doctor" was an American quack, fraud, swindler and serial killer noted for her promotion of fasting as a treatment. She was imprisoned by the state of Washington for a number of deaths at a sanitarium she operated there in the early 20th century. Her treatments were responsible for at least 15 deaths. Born 1867 in Carver County, Minnesota, she died during a fast in 1938.

Thor Nis Christiansen was a Danish-American serial killer from Solvang, California. He committed his first three murders in late 1976 and early 1977, killing young women of similar appearance from nearby Isla Vista. His crimes motivated large demonstrations opposed to violence against women, and in favor of better transportation for the young people residing in Isla Vista. In 1979, he killed a young woman from Los Angeles. A fifth intended victim escaped with a bullet in her head, and later identified him in a Los Angeles bar.

Claude Lastennet is a French serial killer who was convicted of murdering five elderly women between August 1993 and January 1994.

Sid Ahmed Rezala was an Algerian-born French serial killer, dubbed "The Killer of the Trains". He was suspected of killing at least three women in 1999. Arrested in Portugal in early 2000, he confessed the murders to a reporter from the Figaro Magazine. Several weeks later, he committed suicide before he could be extradited to France. He died of asphyxiation after he intentionally set fire to the mattress in his cell while his prison guards were watching football on TV.