When it comes to serial killers, everyone tries to understand why they committed the crimes that they did. Researchers claim that people become serial killers because of drug use, abuse that occurred when they were younger or any time in their life, and that there may be some damage to their frontal lobe. When serial killers come across the mainstream media, everyone always focuses on WHAT they did and are stunned by how they killed their victims, but no one seems to take account of how many people they have killed. They hear estimates all the time from reporters, but sometimes they don’t even know how many victims there may have been.
Top 10 Serial Killers By Victim Count
Listed below are some of the most infamous serial killers that have victim counts that will leave you speechless.
1. Anatoly Yuriyovych Onoprienko
A still image of Anatoly sitting in prison.
Source: Emaze
He is nicknamed “the Beast of the Ukraine” because of his horrendous crimes and had the blood of 52 victims on his hands. Anatoly grew up in an orphanage and was trained as a forestry student before he turned into a robber. During one of his break-ins in the year 1989, the homeowners returned unexpectedly, making Anatoly and his accomplice kill the two parents and eight children. After this disheartening act, Anatoly killed another family while he was breaking into their car. Then, his pattern started. He got a thrill out of distracting his victims with a commotion outside of their isolate home and when the male adult came out of the house, he would kill them first and then murder the rest of the family. He would finish his vicious attacks by burning their houses down. Reports say that his murdering spree peaked in 1996 and a national man hunt was set for him. He was soon found living with one of his relatives in which they reported that they discovered weapons and saw something that contained victim’s belongings. He confessed a short while after being caught that he did kill those people, however he put the blame on the voices inside of his head. Despite his attempt to claim insanity, he was sentenced to life in prison, but he ultimately died of heart failure in 2013.
2. Yang Xinhai
Yang surrounded by officers.
Source: Perdurabo 10
With 65 victims under his belt, Yang became known as “The Monster Killer”. In 1968, he was born into a small, poor village family in China’s Henan Province and was deemed to be extremely intelligent and clever. He dropped out of school at the age of 17 and became a traveling laborer, however his traveling abruptly stopped when he was in a labor camp from 1988 to 1991, and then ended up in prison for r*** in the year 1996. When he was released in 1999, his killing spree started and he would kill households of families by using shovels or hammers. He eventually was caught and he openly confessed to killing 65 people and raping 23 individuals. Police started to investigate why he committed such crimes, in which Yang responded that he didn’t want to be apart of society and that society was not his concern. In 2004, he was convicted and then immediately executed by shooting, allowing the citizens of China to sleep peacefully at night knowing one of the most gruesome murderers was off of the streets for good.
3. Gary Leon Ridgway
Gary during trial.
Source: Seattle Pi
Gary made it on to the list with 48 victims’ blood on his hands. He became wildly known as “The Green River Killer”, with his murdering spree beginning in 1949. At the age of 16, he stabbed and murdered his 6 year old neighbor, just days before he joined the Navy and traveled to Vietnam. Throughout his life, he was married twice, but both marriages ended due to infidelity. Gary had a sick fixation on prostitutes and would spend most of the time with them instead of with his wives back home. In the 1980’s, Gary hit his peak in murdering innocent people because he would drive along the Pacific Highway in Washington state and pick up vulnerable women. After picking up these women, he would strangle them and throw their bodies into thick forests, where he would also visit to have post-mortem intercourse with his deceased victims. Police were suspicious of Gary early on, but upon investigating him they made him take a polygraph test in 1984. After taking the test, it turned out that he passed it and was out of the polices’ radar for a while until they discovered hair and salvia samples on the victims they found. This breaking of evidence lead to Gary’s arrest in 2001 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 48 life sentences. However, Gary confessed to the judge and jury that there twice that number of victims.
4. Pedro Rodrigues Filho
What Pedro looked like.
Source: Noticias
Also nicknamed “Killer Petey”, Pedro killed 73 people during his lifetime. He was born in the year 1954 on a small farm in Brazil and always had skull damage because of his father beating his mother while she was pregnant with him. When he turned 13 years old, Pedro pushed a boy into a sugar cane press and a year later killed the Vice Mayor because he had fired his father. After this horrific crime, he fled to Sao Paulo where he eventually killed a drug dealer and settled down with Maria Aparecida Olympia. Sadly, she was soon murdered by a gang, making Pedro go into a fit of rage- he tortured and murdered all of the 10 men involved in Maria’s death. Soon after that, Pedro murdered his father for killing his mother and after murdering him, took a piece of his father’s heart out of his chest, chewed it up a little, and spit it back at the deceased body. He was finally arrested in 1973 for the crimes that he committed, but while in prison he killed several other inmates. After going to trial, Pedro was sentenced to 128 years in prison for 71 murders in 2003, but was briefly released before being convicted again in 2011 for riot and false imprisonment.
5. Luis Alfredo Garavito
Luis’ mugshot.
Source: Asesinos En Serie
At a whopping 138 victims, Luis obtained the nickname “The Beast”. He was born in 1957 and was abused by his father, making him take out his frustration on boys from the ages of 8 and 16. To trap these boys, so to say, he would lure them off of the streets with gifts they would like. When the boys fell victim to Luis’ trap, Luis would molest, torture, and r*** them, then would slit their throats and dismember their bodies. In 1999, he was arrested for the murders of these boys and he confessed on murdering 172 boys within a time span of 5 years. Upon his confession, he was sentenced to the maximum sentence, but soon there was a public outcry to reduce his sentence because he aided the cops in finding the victim’s body. His sentence was reduced to 22 years, making him stay focused on being released and creating a career out of helping kids who were abused.
6. Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo
Andrei being brought in by police.
Source: Sabotage
If you ask the Soviet’s about Andrei, they would refer to him as “Butcher of Rostov”. Andrei went on a murdering spree between the years 1978 to 1990 and killed 52 women and children. He was born in the year 1936 and grew up in a family of farm laborers in Ukrainian SSR. He was deemed a quiet, shy kid that constantly had headaches, a poor memory, and had severe chronic impotence. As he grew up, he became a traveling laborer, an engineer, and even a teacher. S** assault charges were soon brought against him, though, making him become a store clerk instead. It is said that the year 1978 was the turning point for Andrei because this was the year where he kidnapped, choked, stabbed, and ejaculated on 9 year old Yelena Zakotnova. Reports say after that, Andrei could only orgasm if he explicitly killed someone. His killings soon intensified and he would lure his victims from train or bus stations and avoided any type of suspicion by traveling great distances or breaks in between his murders. He was caught in 1984 but was soon released after his blood sample didn’t match the semen sample the police had, making him increase on his crimes. He moved to Rostov in 1984 and created new methods to kidnap and murder his victims; one of his preferred methods, though, was chewing and eating body parts. He was eventually caught as he fled a crime scene, and despite his AB blood not matching any results, his semen and saliva matched the type A samples they had. His trial is infamous, though, because he was kept behind an iron cage to protect others from him, and was sentenced to death in 1992. He was executed two years later.
7. Kampatimar Shankariya
What this serial killer looks like.
Source: We Like Viral
Not much is known about the man who had killed 70 victims except that between the years 1977 and 1978 he would go around and kill his victims with a hammer and struck a blow to each of the victims’ heads. Investigators say that he would aim for the inner ear of the victims because there was a tender area near the inner part of the ear where the nasopharynx linked to the middle of the ear, creating greater damage to the victims. When he was captured, police started to question him where Kampatimar revealed that he had an unnerving amount of pleasure killing his victims this way. His last words, though, sent a chill down everyone’s spine as he was hung in Jaipur in 1979. His last words were: “I have murdered in vain. Nobody should become like me”.
8. Daniel Camargo Barbosa
Daniel being interview (front).
Source: Alchetron
Raised by an abusive father and step-mother, Daniel was known to have killed 72 girls. His birth mother died during his birth in 1930, turning is father into an extremely abusive person. Throughout the years, Daniel became convicted of various crimes: he was convicted of petty theft in the year 1958, he committed an act of sexual assault in 1964, and he raped and murdered a 9 year old girl in 1974. He soon escaped the prison he was sentenced to and started to abduct girls from the lower class in 1980. He was soon caught by the police because he had the victim’s belongings with him, including her clitoris, and confessed to the murder of 72 girls, even though police and investigators believe his total is around a whopping 150. He shared a cell with Pedro Alonzo López in Ecuador, but was murdered in 1994 by one of the victim’s cousin.
9. Pedro Alonzo López
The mugshot of this horrific serial killer.
Source: Biography
Known as the “Monster of the Andes”, Pedro had murdered 110 victims in his life. He was born in Columbia as the illegitimate son of a late Conservative Party leader. He was put out of the house by his parents because he was caught fondling his little sister, and he claims that while he was living on the streets, he himself was sexually abused. During his teenage years, he would steal cars and found himself in jail a short while after he started stealing cars. Pedro was gang-raped in jail, but killed every single person that was involved with it. After his release, he started to r*** and murder girls across Peru, Ecuador, and Columbia. He was arrested in 1980 after he failed to abduct a girl, and soon confessed to the police that he had committed over 300 murders. Police didn’t believe him at first, but after a flash flood happened at one of his burial grounds, bodies emerged from the ground and left the police in shock and disgust. He was convicted and sentenced to a psychiatric hospital; however, he was mysteriously released in 1998 and was never seen again. No one knows where he is, all they know is just randomly disappeared.
10. Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin
An eerie cold stare from Alexander.
Source: Crime Scened B
Alexander had murdered 49 victims over his life course. He had a damaged frontal cortex caused by a swinging accident when he was a kid, which made him grow increasingly aggressive. The aggressiveness Alexander had intensified even more over the years because of people bullying him. It was reported that Alexander’s only friend was his grandfather, who would teach him chess in Moscow’s Bitsa Park. After his grandfather passed away, though, Alexander grew addicted to alcohol, specifically vodka, and started to record himself torturing children. He then turned to murdering people in 1992. He would find homeless men on the streets and lure them into a trap with vodka, and when the victims fell for his trap, Alexander would smash their skulls before placing the bottle inside of it. His ultimate goal was to kill 64 people because that’s how many squares are on a standard chess board, but he was soon caught in 2006 after a surveillance camera caught him. He was sentenced to prison for life and would need to start his sentence off with 15 years of solitary confinement.
These serial killers are some of the worlds most notorious killers over the years. The victim counts these killers have still shock people to this day and the motive behind these killings vary every time. There is still a wide debate and investigation as to why serial killers behave the way they do and people try to determine their motives behind it all. These serial killers on this list will forever remain in the limelight because of their gruesome crimes- and for how many lives they took.