21 Gruesome Serial Killers You May Not Have Heard Of — But You’ll Never Forget

People gathered on Reddit to talk about which serial killer disturbs them the most. Make sure your doors are locked before reading.

Fred and Rose West

“A married couple, they sexually abused, tortured, and beat their child and teenaged daughters and other women, eventually killing several of their own children, along with other women, and burying them under the patio in their own garden. Absolutely sickening. Unlike many husband-wife murderer pairs, the wife, Rose, was completely in on it and took pleasure in the murders, committing some alone while her husband was in prison, rather than just being an accomplice.

Apparently, Fred would threaten his surviving children that they would “end up under the patio like Heather” (his own daughter, who they beat to death because they didn’t like the look on her face) if they misbehaved.” — 360Saturn

Jane Toppan

“A nurse turned serial killer, but not an “angel of mercy”-style one. She wanted to make people suffer, and she got off sexually on that. She would experiment with drugs, shoot up her patients, and then climb into bed with them and masturbate against them (and probably worse, but it was the 1800s so it wasn’t reported), as they were dying. Once she was kicked out of hospitals, she went on to murder a whole family for whom she worked as a private nurse. She confessed to 33 murders, but probably killed far more.” — kls81

The Tool Box Killers

“The Tool Box Killers. Mostly from hearing a snippet of the tape they made killing their last victim. The FBI use the tape now to desensitize their agents to the sounds of torture.” — robo2na

“The jurors ran outside of the courtroom and vomited as the audio was played at the trial.” — that1newjerseyan

The Toy Box Killer

“Imagine you wake up in a dark place with your arms and legs bound and this tape is playing:

‘Hello there, bitch. Are you comfortable right now? I doubt it. Wrists and ankles chained. Gagged. Probably blind folded. You are disoriented and scared, too, I would imagine. Perfectly normal, under the circumstances. For a little while, at least, you need to get your shit together and listen to this tape. It is very relevant to your situation. I’m going to tell you, in detail, why you have been kidnapped, what’s going to happen to you and how long you’ll be here…’

NSFL” — TheBaltimoron

Vlado Taneski

“He was a journalist covering the crime beat in Macedonia, who killed little old women… and then wrote about their murders for his newspaper. That additional element I feel makes him even more disturbing, even if his methodology isn’t that startling compared to some of the others we’ve listed. It takes a seriously fucked up mind to plan all that out just to have something to write about.” — kls81

Denis Nilsen

“Denis Nilsen. He is a British serial killer and former policeman. He used to lure “lost” young men like drifters to his apartment with the promise of food. He would murder them and keep their bodies around to talk to until they decomposed too badly. then he would dismember and incinerate them. He killed 16 men before being caught.” — ZigguratofDoom

Dennis Rader

“BTK, Dennis Rader. This is mostly biased because I read John Douglas’ book about him, with all the excrutiating details of his crimes.

Sample: During a home invasion, he tied up the hands and feet of the mother, father, and brother who was around 9 yrs old. One by one, he then duct-taped a plastic bag over their heads. The young daughter was forced to sit on his lap and watch as they suffocated.

Finally, he took the daughter to the basement, put a noose around her neck and looped it around a pipe so the other end was free. He could then sit in a chair and periodically choke her until near death, loosening the rope intermittently to keep her alive. And, of course, he ejaculated on her after killing her. I would say he should get a taste of his own medicine, but he actually got off on doing this stuff to himself too.” — Nova_Shield

Amelia Dyer

“Amelia Dyer murdered possibly 400 infants during the Victorian period. Her picture literally makes me shudder.” — books_and_wine

“Basically, Amelia Dyer promised young soon to be mothers that she was a well respected care taker and nurse that was married. She told them she could take their baby and raise them, for a one time pay off for clothes and stuff. Once she got the baby and money, she would kill he baby and take the money. She did this over 400 times.” — __MrFancyPants__

“‘There, Dyer quickly found some white edging tape used in dressmaking, wound it twice around the baby’s neck and tied a knot. Death would not have been immediate. (Amelia later said “I used to like to watch them with the tape around their neck, but it was soon all over with them”)’

wwwwwwwwwwwwwtf wtftwfwtf” — ManSeedCannon

Columbian serial killers

“Sometimes USA serial killers seem so light compared to the ones in my country, in Colombia there are three men that tougher make for killing about 500 – 700 children across the country in the 70s and 80s.

1) Daniel Camargo: In the 1970s he raped and killed about 100 girls

2) Luis Alfredo GARAVITO: Growing up as a young boy in he 90s everyone knew and was protecting their kids from Garavito you knew his name and had it burned in your memory he Raped murdered and killed about 150 kids and he is currently in Jail in Colombia definitely the most famous of the three.

3) The Monster of the Andes: The most horrible of all of them (Though his nickname is awesome) he is accused of personally torturing, raping and murdering a total of 300+ Children Across Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, he was jailed in the 90s where about 150 murders were confirmed, THE WORST PART IS THE MOTHERFUCKER IS STILL ALIVE AND WAS FREED IN 2002 HE IS NOW SOMEWHERE LIVING A NORMAL LIFE (I HOPE HE IS DOING THAT) AFTER KILLING MORE THAN 300 KIDS, this man is called the worst murderer in recent history.

Just imagine the worst USA serial killers but combine it with an incompetent police force and thousands of kids form the countryside that in the 70s no one gave a fuck about and you can brew monsters like these.” — Machine_Meza

Albert Fish

“Child rapist and cannibal. Said to have raped a child in every state. He chose mentally handicapped or African-American children, then would rape, torture, murder and sometimes eat them. He encouraged his own children to spank him with a paddle studded with nails. He was an extreme sadist, and when he died, was found to have 29 needles pushed into his groin and pelvic area.

He wrote to the parents of one of his victims, saying that he:

‘Took them to his home stripped them naked tied them in a closet then burned everything they had on. Several times every day and night he spanked them – tortured them – to make their meat good and tender. First he killed the 11 yr old boy, because he had the fattest ass and of course the most meat on it. Every part of his body was cooked and eaten except Head – bones and guts. He was Roasted in the oven, (all of his ass) boiled, broiled, fried, stewed.'” — AwfulLandlord

Karla Homolka

“Karla Homolka. Not only is that bitch SICK SICK SICK (raped and murdered her own sister, as well as other young girls), she’s out of jail because the idiots believed her BS story that she was just a victim. She’s FREE as a bird, AND despite the fact that she’s a sexual serial killer she was allowed to have children and keep them. She lives in Canada again.” — PigeonDrivingBus

Andrei Chikatilo

“Andrei Chikatilo – nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov, the Red Ripper, and the Rostov Ripper, who committed the sexual assault, murder, and mutilation of a minimum of 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990.

This guy’s face says it all.” — Mithrandir_The_Gray

Robert Pickton

“Canada is pretty low crime with low murder rate so to think someone like this could operate undetected is unnerving.

Operated for almost 20 years. Was apparently a multimillionaire (maybe just in assets).

Killing hookers and feeding them to pigs isn’t that original but creepy none the less.” — l337hackzor

Gilles de Rais

“He had power as he was a baron, and he used that power to rape and kill hundreds of children. Forty naked bodies were found at his home in Machecoul alone.

At his trial, one of his servants testified that Gilles de Rais liked to fuck open wounds made with a special sword rather than their natural orifices. He also described that Gilles would get the children drunk, then take them up to a special room where they’d be hung up by ropes and tortured.

Gilles de Rais would then jack off on the kid, and take the child down to comfort him or her. He’d tell them all he wanted was to play with them. Then he’d brutally murder them or have one of his servants do it. He particularly liked watching the children react to big reveals, like when they first entered the special room and were told why they were here. One of his particular favourites was to watch the reaction of the kids while they died while sitting on them.

The scariest most disturbing thing about this man is that had he not kidnapped a priest, his crimes most likely never would’ve been brought to light. The church investigated him because he messed with the church. He held one of the highest offices in France, Maréchal de France, fought with Joan of Arc, and was a favourite of the king. Estimates place his murders between 150 on the low side and 800 on the high side.” — DaveyGee16

Ed Gein

“Ed Gein was an avid collector of human body parts, whether obtained from doing the killing himself or by exhuming buried people. When they searched his house they found (from wikipedia):

-Whole human bones and fragments
-Wastebasket made of human skin
-Human skin covering several chair seats
-Skulls on his bedposts
-Female skulls, some with the tops sawn off
-Bowls made from human skulls A corset made from a female torso skinned from shoulders to waist
-Leggings made from human leg skin
-Masks made from the skin from female heads
-Mary Hogan’s face mask in a paper bag
-Mary Hogan’s skull in a box
-Bernice Worden’s entire head in a burlap sack
-Bernice Worden’s heart “in a plastic bag in front of Gein’s potbellied stove”
-Nine vulvae in a shoe box
-A young girl’s dress and “the vulvas of two females judged to have been about fifteen years old”
-A belt made from female human nipples
-Four noses
-A pair of lips on a window shade drawstring
-A lampshade made from the skin of a human face
-Fingernails from female fingers” — liquor_for_breakfast

Richard Kuklinski

“He is also known as the iceman. He just randomly put a dip of cyanide in bars on other peoples’ burgers. He would do that in case he did not like the person. When killing others he stored them in ice boxes for years, so that the police could not link murders to locations efficiently.” — lebadger

The Green River Killer

“He would stash corpses in the woods and sleep with them until they began to rot. Even more disturbing is that Congressman Dave Reichert, the lead investigator in the green River killings. Missed “several opportunities” to capture the killer over 20 years due to bad police work. Wrote a book about the killer enraging victims families, and was elected to Congress as his reward by the good people of Washington.” — unicraven

Tommy Lynn Sells

“Suspected of killing over 22 people. Considered the most “evil” serial killer of all time by many psychologists due to his lack of “rules.” He killed men, women and children with equal lack of empathy. He once fully castrated and killed a man in front of his 8 months pregnant wife who then went into labor out of shock, he clubbed the newborn baby on the floor to kill it and then killed the mother.” — ne0n_valkyrie

“I watched some show about I think his last murder. He broke into a house and was in a bedroom killing some girl and another girl was in a top bunk bed frozen in fear. He didn’t see her at first and was closing door behind him and happened to look up and they made eye contact. In the video he was reenacting what happened for police and he just nonchalantly walked over and slashed her throat. Dude was a fucking psycho.” — mgoosen

Altemio Sanchez aka The Bike Path Rapist/Killer

“The reason this guy bothers me so much is a very personal one. I grew up in the Buffalo suburbs hearing about this guy from time to time, and his reputation. People being in fear, especially given how bike paths were just kinda everywhere. Hell I used to go riding up one all the time as it was right behind my house. In 2005 my family moved to Florida and a year later the news broke of it being Sanchez. My family couldn’t believe it. Why? Because for the first five years of my life, I lived right up the road from him on Allendale road at the very end of the street. Sanchez would host block parties and my family would attend them, myself included. I don’t really remember him, but the simple fact that he was doing this shit on the side while entertaining a seemingly normal life really bothers me. The man had committed some of the worst atrocities you could imagine and was having us over for a regular summer shindig. It gets even crazier with stories of people on the road working with him or my family’s friends from the area also having connections to him.

I’ve read plenty of deranged and fucked up stories of all kinds of serial killers but nothing really seemed to unsettle and deeply bother me as much as knowing there was a monster living just a few houses down from me when I was a kid.” — TheMaverickGirl

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