List of Famous Serial Killers

Susan Denise Atkins was an American convicted murderer who was a member of Charles Manson's "Family". Manson's followers committed a series of nine murders at four locations in California, over a period of five weeks in the summer of 1969. Known within the Manson family as Sadie Mae Glutz or Sexy Sadie, Atkins was convicted for her participation in eight of these killings, including the most notorious, the Tate murders in 1969. She was sentenced to death, which was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment when the California Supreme Court invalidated all death sentences issued prior to 1972. Atkins was incarcerated until her death in 2009. At the time of her death, she was California's longest-serving female inmate, long since surpassed by her fellow murderous Manson family members Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel.

John Emil List was an American mass murderer and long-time fugitive. On November 9, 1971, he killed his wife, mother, and three children at their home in Westfield, New Jersey, and then disappeared; he had planned the murders so meticulously that nearly a month passed before anyone suspected that anything was amiss.

Billy the Kid, also known by the pseudonym William H. Bonney, was an Irish-American outlaw and gunfighter of the American Old West who killed eight men before he was shot and killed at the age of 21. He also fought in New Mexico's Lincoln County War, during which he allegedly committed three murders.

The Kobe child murders occurred in Kobe, Japan, on March 16 and May 27, 1997. Two victims, Ayaka Yamashita , age 10, and Jun Hase , age 11, were murdered by a 14-year-old boy reportedly named Shinichiro Azuma , under the alias Seito Sakakibara .

Tommy Lynn Sells was an American serial killer. He was convicted of one murder, for which he received the death penalty and was eventually executed. Authorities believe he committed a total of 22 murders.

Johann "Jack" Unterweger was an Austrian serial killer who committed murder in several countries – West Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and the United States. Initially convicted in 1974 of a single murder, Unterweger began to write extensively while in prison. His work gained the attention of the Austrian literary elite, who took it as evidence that he had been rehabilitated.

Richard Benjamin Speck was an American mass murderer who systematically raped one and tortured and murdered eight student nurses from South Chicago Community Hospital on the night of July 13 into the early morning hours of July 14, 1966. He was convicted at trial and sentenced to death, but the sentence was later overturned due to issues with jury selection at his trial. Speck died of a heart attack in 1991, after 25 years in prison. In 1996, videotapes featuring Speck were shown before the Illinois State Legislature to highlight some of the illegal activity that took place in prisons.

Rodney James Alcala is an American convicted rapist and serial killer who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed in that state between 1977 and 1979, and received an additional sentence of 25 years to life after pleading guilty to two homicides committed in New York in 1971 and 1977. Alcala's true victim count remains unknown, and could be much higher.

Henry Lee Lucas was an American convicted serial killer whose crimes spanned from 1960 to 1983. He was convicted of murdering eleven people and condemned to death for the murder of Debra Jackson, although his sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1998. Lucas rose to infamy after confessing to more than 100 murders to the Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials while in prison. He died of congestive heart failure in 2001.

Rosemary Pauline West, or Rose West, is an English serial killer who collaborated with her husband, Fred West, in the torture and murder of at least nine young women between 1973 and 1987; she was also judged to have murdered her eight-year-old stepdaughter, Charmaine, in 1971. The majority of these murders took place at the Wests' residence at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester. Rose is now an inmate at HM Prison New Hall, Flockton, West Yorkshire, after being convicted in 1995 of ten murders; Fred committed suicide in prison that same year while awaiting trial.