List of Famous Serial Killers

Juana Barraza is a Mexican serial killer and former professional wrestler dubbed La Mataviejitas sentenced to 759 years in prison for killing between 42 and 48 elderly women. The first murder attributed to Mataviejitas has been dated variously to the late 1990s and to a specific killing on 17 November 2003. The authorities and the press have given various estimates as to the total number of her victims, with estimates ranging from 24 to 49 deaths.

Marcel Henri Barbeault is a French serial killer who murdered in Nogent-sur-Oise in the 1970s. He is responsible for the murder of seven women and one man. Because his crimes were always in the evening or early in the morning, he was given the nickname The Shadow Killer.

Scott Thomas Erskine was an American serial killer on California's death row, convicted in 2003 for the 1993 murder of two California boys. He was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.

Vladimir Mihajlovich Ionesyan (August 27, 1937 – January 31, 1964) was a Soviet spree killer whose crimes received great public resonance. His nickname was "Mosgaz," as Ionesyan broke into apartments pretending to be an employee of that company.

Alferd Griner Packer, also known as "The Colorado Cannibal", was an American prospector and self-proclaimed professional wilderness guide who confessed to cannibalism during the winter of 1874. He and five other men had attempted to travel through the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, during the peak of a harsh winter. When only Packer reached civilization, he said that he had been abandoned by his party, but eventually confessed that the party had resorted to forced cannibalism of dead members to stay alive when they became lost. He later recanted this story, and confessed to having singularly lived off the flesh of his companions, during his snowbound state – after they had fallen victim to party member Shannon Bell, whom Packer said he shot in self-defense. He confessed to having used their flesh to survive, while stranded and during his trek out of the mountains, nearly two and a half months later.

Pedro Pablo Nakada Ludeña a.k.a. "El Apóstol de la Muerte" is a Peruvian serial killer who claimed 25 victims and was convicted of 17 murders. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Carl Eugene Watts, also known by his nickname Coral, was an American serial killer dubbed "The Sunday Morning Slasher". He died of prostate cancer while serving two sentences of life imprisonment without parole in a Michigan prison for the murders of Helen Dutcher and Gloria Steele, although the number of his victims may have exceeded 80.

Carroll Edward Cole was an American serial killer who was executed in 1985 for killing at least fifteen women and one boy by strangulation between 1947 and 1980.

The Boston Strangler is the name given to the murderer of 13 women in the Boston, Massachusetts, area during the early 1960s. The crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo based on his confession, details revealed in court during a separate case, and DNA evidence linking him to the final victim.

Timothy Wilson Spencer, also known as the "Southside Strangler", was a serial killer who committed three rapes and murders in Richmond, Virginia and one in Arlington, Virginia in the fall of 1987. In addition, he is believed to have committed at least one previous murder, in 1984, for which a different man, David Vasquez, was wrongfully convicted. He was known to police as a prolific home burglar.