A terrible Maniac on the world Chikatilo was known as The Rostov Ripper and the Butcher of Rostov due to the fact that most of his murders were committed in the Rostov Oblast of the Russian SFSR.

1. Chikatilo

Chikatilo started his career as a teacher in Novoshakhtinsk, teaching Russian language and literature. However, his teaching career came to an end in March 1981 due to multiple complaints of child molestation involving both male and female students. After leaving his teaching job, Chikatilo found work as a supply clerk at a factory.

 Despite evidence connecting Chikatilo to the murder of a young girl, such as finding spots of her blood near his house and a witness providing a detailed description of a man resembling Chikatilo seen talking to the victim at the bus stop where she was last seen alive, a 25-year-old named Alexsandr Kravchenko was arrested for the crime. Kravchenko had previously served time in jail as a teenager for the rape and murder of another teenage girl. He confessed to the killing and was tried for the murder in 1979. However, during the trial, Kravchenko retracted his confession and maintained his innocence, claiming it was obtained under extreme duress. Despite his retraction, he was convicted of the murder and given a 15-year prison sentence, the maximum at that time. Due to pressure from the victim's family, Kravchenko was retried and ultimately executed for the murder of Lena Zakotnova in July 1983.

 Chikatilo committed his next murder in September 1981. He attempted to have sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old boarding school student named Larisa Tkachenko in a forest near the Don river. When Chikatilo was unable to achieve an erection, he became enraged and violently beat and strangled her to death. Since he did not have a knife, he used his teeth and a stick to mutilate her body.Chikatilo did not kill again until June 1983, but he had killed five more times before September. 

In January and February of 1984, Chikatilo murdered two women in Aviators' Park in Rostov. On March 24, he abducted a 10-year-old boy named Dmitry Ptashnikov from a stamp kiosk in Novoshakhtinsk. Witnesses saw Chikatilo with the boy and provided a detailed description to investigators. Three days later, Ptashnikov's body was discovered, along with the killer's footprint and DNA evidence on the victim's clothing.

 Chikatilo closely followed the investigation, reading news reports about the manhunt for him and managing to control his murderous impulses in 1986. However, in 1987, he resumed his killing spree, committing three murders while on business trips away from Rostov. These murders were not initially connected to the ongoing manhunt. His first victim in 1987 was a 13-year-old boy named Oleg Makarenkov in Revda, followed by two more boys in Zaporozhye and Leningrad.

 In 1988, Chikatilo killed three more times, including an unidentified woman in Krasny-Sulin in April and two boys in May and July. The wounds inflicted on the first victim were similar to those of his earlier victims, but the murder weapon, a slab of concrete, caused uncertainty among investigators about linking it to the ongoing investigation.

A meeting was held on March 11 by the leaders of the investigation, led by Mikhail Fetisov, to discuss the progress made in the search for the killer. Fetisov was facing immense pressure from the public, the press, and the Ministry of the Interior in Moscow to solve the case. The intensity of the manhunt had decreased between 1985 and 1987, with Chikatilo only conclusively linked to two victims during that time. However, by March 1990, six more victims had been connected to the killer. Fetisov had noticed some negligence in certain areas of the investigation and warned that people would be fired if the killer was not apprehended soon.

On November 13, Korostik's body was discovered. After checking with Chikatilo's current and former employers, investigators were able to place him in various towns and cities at the times when several victims linked to the investigation had been murdered. Former colleagues from Chikatilo's teaching days informed investigators that he had been forced to resign from his teaching position due to complaints of sexual assault from multiple students.

Chikatilo was placed in a cell within the KGB headquarters in Rostov, where a police informer engaged him in conversation to gather any information possible.

On October 14, the court reconvened and the judge read the list of murders again, not finishing until the following day. Chikatilo was found guilty of 52 out of the 53 murders and was sentenced to death for each offense on October 15. Upon hearing the verdict, Chikatilo kicked his bench across his cage and began shouting insults. He was given an opportunity to make a final speech in response to the verdict but remained silent. Judge Leonid Akhobzyanov delivered the following statement upon passing the final sentence: "Considering the heinous crimes he committed, this court has no choice but to impose the only sentence he deserves. Therefore, I sentence him to death."

On January 4, 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin rejected a last-minute appeal for clemency. On February 14, Chikatilo was taken to a soundproofed room in Novocherkassk prison and executed with a single gunshot behind his right ear.

2. Serial Killer from Alaska State

Thomas Richard Bundy, an American serial killer and rapist, was one of the most infamous criminals of the late 20th century. Bundy had a troubled childhood, with a difficult relationship with his stepfather and being a target of bullying due to his shyness. Despite this, he excelled in college and had seemingly normal relationships with women. However, between 1974 and 1978, he sexually assaulted and murdered several young women in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Florida.

 Although Bundy confessed to 28 murders, some believed he was responsible for even more deaths. After a highly publicized trial, he was sentenced to death in 1979 for the murder of two college students, and in the following year, he received another death sentence for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old girl. Bundy was executed in Florida's electric chair in 1989.

 Despite the horrific nature of his crimes, Bundy gained a level of celebrity, especially after his escape from custody in Colorado in 1977. His charm and intelligence during his trial captured significant public attention. His case inspired numerous novels and films about serial murder and sparked debate among feminist criminologists who argued that the media had romanticized Bundy.

3. Evil Doctor Holmes

In 1884, Herman Mudgett graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School. While in Chicago, he came across Dr. E.S. Holton's drugstore at the corner of Wallace and 63rd Street in Englewood. Holton, suffering from cancer, allowed Holmes to work at the store and eventually manipulated his wife into selling it to him. After Holton's death, Holmes murdered Mrs. Holton and claimed she had moved to California.

Holmes built a three-story "Castle" across from the drugstore, which he used as a hotel during the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893. Over three years, he selected female victims from his employees, lovers, and hotel guests, torturing and killing them. Their bodies were disposed of in various ways, including being sold to medical schools as skeleton models.

Holmes attempted to fake his own death for insurance money, but the plan failed. He then convinced his associate, Pitezel, to fake his death for a $10,000 insurance policy. Holmes ultimately killed Pitezel and collected the insurance money usingcadaver to fake his death.

In 1894, the police were informed by Marion Hedgepeth, Holmes's former cell-mate, who had not been paid as promised for helping Holmes provide Howe. Holmes was finally arrested in Boston on November 17, 1894, after being tracked from Philadelphia by the Pinkertons. He was held on a warrant for horse theft in Texas, as authorities had suspicions and Holmes seemed ready to flee the country with his third wife.

After the Castle's custodian revealed he was not allowed to clean the upper floors, a thorough investigation uncovered Holmes' methods of committing murders and disposing of corpses. A fire destroyed the building on August 19, 1895, and a U.S. Post Office now stands on the site.

Estimates of Holmes' victims range from 20 to 100, or even as high as 230, based on missing persons reports and neighbors' testimonies of young women entering his hotel but never leaving. The discrepancy may be due to people who disappeared after visiting the World's Fair in Chicago. The only confirmed number of victims is 27, although some bodies in the basement were too decomposed to count accurately. Holmes primarily targeted women, especially blondes, but also killed men and children.

Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison on May 7, 1896. He remained calm and composed until his death, which was slow and took 20 minutes after the trap was sprung. Holmes requested to be buried in concrete to prevent his body from being dissected, as he had done to his victims. This request was granted.

4. The Monster from Andes

Laytner’s interviews were initially published in the Chicago Tribune on July 13, 1980. They were later featured in the Toronto Sun and The Sacramento Bee on July 21, 1980, as well as in numerous other North American and foreign publications over the years. The story was also included in Boar and Blundell's book, The World's Most Infamous Murders, along with Laytner's account and two brief reports from the Associated Press.

According to Laytner's story, López gained notoriety as the "Monster of the Andes" in 1980 when he led the police to the graves of 53 of his victims in Ecuador. All of his victims were girls between the ages of nine and twelve. In 1983, he was convicted of murdering 110 young girls in Ecuador alone and confessed to an additional 240 murders of missing girls in Peru and Colombia. López was released from prison in 1998.

López claimed that his troubled upbringing played a role in his crimes. He stated that his mother, a prostitute with thirteen children, caught him molesting his younger sister in 1957 when he was eight years old. As a result, she kicked him out of their family home. He was then taken in by a man who brought him to a deserted house where he was repeatedly sexually assaulted. At the age of twelve, he was adopted by an American family and enrolled in an orphanage. However, he ran away after allegedly being molested by a male teacher. At eighteen, he claimed to have been gang-raped in prison and asserted that he killed three of his rapists while still incarcerated.

After serving his prison sentence, López began targeting young girls in Peru. He later claimed to have killed over 100 of them by 1978. He was almost executed by a native tribe who had captured him, but an American missionary intervened and convinced them to hand him over to the state police. However, the police released him shortly after. He then moved to Colombia and later Ecuador, where he continued to kill approximately three girls per week. López stated that he preferred the girls in Ecuador because they were more gentle, trusting, and innocent. Authorities had previously believed that the disappearance of so many girls was due to sexual slavery or prostitution.

López was finally arrested when an attempted abduction failed and he was caught by market traders. He confessed to over 300 murders. The police only believed him after a flash flood uncovered a mass grave containing many of his victims.

According to the BBC, López was arrested in 1980 but was released by the Ecuadorian government at the end of 1998 and deported to Colombia. In an interview from his prison cell, López referred to himself as "the man of the century" and claimed that he was being released for good behavior. An A&E Biography documentary reported that he was released from an Ecuadorian prison on August 31, 1994, but was immediately re-arrested as an illegal immigrant and handed over to Colombian authorities, who charged him with a murder that occurred twenty years prior. He was found to be insane and was held in a psychiatric wing of a hospital in Bogotá. In 1998, he was declared sane and released on $50 bail.

The same documentary mentioned that Interpol issued an advisory for López's re-arrest by Colombian authorities in connection with a new murder in 2002. However, there have been no further reports or sightings of López since his release, and his current status, whether dead or alive, remains unknown.

5. Cannibal from Milwaukee 

Dahmer, an analytical chemist, was born in West Allis, Wisconsin to Joyce Annette (née Flint) and Lionel Herbert Dahmer. He moved in with his grandmother in West Allis in 1982 and lived there for six years. During this time, his behavior became increasingly strange. At the age of 18, in the summer of 1978, Dahmer committed his first murder. His father was away on business, his mother had moved out with his brother, and Dahmer was left alone. In June, Dahmer picked up a hitchhiker named Stephen Hicks and invited him to his father's house to drink beer, with the intention of eventually having sex with him. When Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer bludgeoned him to death with a 10 lb. dumbbell, stating that he didn't want Hicks to leave. Dahmer buried the body in the backyard. Nine years passed before he killed again. In September 1987, Dahmer picked up Steven Tuomi at a bar and impulsively killed him. He claimed to have no memory of the crime. After this murder, Dahmer continued to kill sporadically, usually picking up his victims in gay bars, having sex with them, and then killing them. He kept the skull of one victim, Anthony Sears, until he was caught. In May 1990, Dahmer moved into an apartment at 924 North 25th Street, Milwaukee. He escalated his killing, committing four more murders before the end of 1990, two more in February and April 1991, and another in May 1991. On May 27, 1991, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, the younger brother of a boy Dahmer had molested in 1988, was found wandering naked and under the influence of drugs, bleeding from his rectum. Two women from the neighborhood called 911 and tried to help him. Dahmer attempted to take Sinthasomphone away, but the women intervened. When police officers arrived, Dahmer claimed that Sinthasomphone was his 19-year-old boyfriend and that they had an argument while drinking. Despite the protests of the women who recognized Sinthasomphone as a child who couldn't speak English, the officers handed him over to Dahmer. The officers later reported a strange smell in Dahmer's apartment but did not investigate it. The smell was the decomposing body of Tony Hughes, Dahmer's previous victim. The officers failed to verify Sinthasomphone's age or identity and neglected to run a background check that would have revealed Dahmer's criminal history. Later that night, Dahmer killed and dismembered Sinthasomphone, keeping his skull as a souvenir.

By summer 1991, Dahmer was murdering approximately one person each week. He killed Matt Turner on June 30, Jeremiah Weinberger on July 5, Oliver Lacy on July 12, and finally Joseph Brandehoft on July 19. Dahmer got the idea that he could turn his victims into "zombies" — completely submissive, eternally youthful sexual partners – and attempted to do so by drilling holes into their skulls and injecting hydrochloric acid or boiling water into the frontal lobe area of their brains with a large syringe, usually while the victim was still alive. Other residents of the Oxford Apartments complex noticed terrible smells coming from Apartment 213, as well as the thumps of falling objects and the occasional buzzing of a power saw. Unlike many serial killers, Dahmer killed victims from a variety of racial backgrounds.

On July 22, 1991, Dahmer lured another man, Tracy Edwards, into his home. According to the would-be victim, Dahmer struggled with Edwards in order to handcuff him, but ultimately failed to cuff his wrists together. Wielding a large butcher knife, Dahmer forced Edwards into the bedroom, where Edwards saw pictures of mangled bodies on the wall and noticed the terrible smell coming from a large blue barrel; the barrel was filled with potent acid which dissolved human bodies to sludge for disposal via the apartment toilet. Edwards punched Dahmer in the face, kicked him in the stomach, ran for the door and escaped. Running through the streets with handcuffs still hanging from one hand, Edwards waved for help to a police car driven by Robert Rauth and Rolf Mueller of the Milwaukee police department. Edwards led police back to Dahmer's apartment, where Dahmer at first acted friendly to the officers. However, Edwards remembered that the knife Dahmer had threatened him with was in the bedroom. When one of the officers checked the bedroom, he saw the photographs of mangled bodies and called for his partner to arrest Dahmer. As one officer subdued Dahmer, the other opened the refrigerator and found a human head. Further searching of the apartment revealed three more severed heads, multiple photographs of murdered victims and human remains, severed hands and penises, and photographs of dismembered victims and human remains in his refrigerator.

Dahmer was attacked twice in prison, the first time in July 1994. An inmate attempted to slash Dahmer's throat with a razor blade while Dahmer was returning to his cell from a church service in the prison chapel. Dahmer escaped the incident with superficial wounds. While doing janitorial work in the prison gym, Dahmer and another inmate, Jesse Anderson, were severely beaten by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver with a broomstick handle on November 28, 1994. Dahmer died of severe head trauma while on his way to the hospital in an ambulance. Anderson died two days later from his wounds.

6. Korean Cannibal 

Yoo Young-chul, a South Korean serial killer and self-confessed cannibal, was convicted by the Seoul Central District Court of murdering 20 people, mostly prostitutes and wealthy old men, between September 2003 and July 2004. He burned three victims and mutilated at least 11, even admitting to eating the livers of some. Yoo, who had been convicted 14 times previously for various charges, including serving seven years in prison, targeted wealthy senior citizens initially before switching to female masseuses. He also called prostitutes to his residence in western Seoul, bludgeoning them after sex and dismembering them to hinder identification. Yoo confessed to killing 19 people initially, later admitting to killing a young woman in February 2004. Despite little physical evidence linking him to the murders, Yoo was sentenced to death on 13 December 2004 for 20 counts of murder. Prosecutors appealed for a 21st count, but the sentence was upheld. Yoo's case has sparked debate on capital punishment in South Korea, with the death penalty still permissible under law. Yoo is currently detained at the Seoul Detention Center.

7. Soviet Doctor was Serial Killer 

Vasiliy Kulik was a Soviet serial killer who was convicted of killing 13 people and committing nearly 30 rapes and assaults in Irkutsk between 1984 and 1986. In 1982, Kulik graduated from the Irkutsk Medical Institute and began working as a medic at the ambulance station in the Irkutsk Emergency Station. He used information from his patients to break into their homes, where he committed a series of child rapes, very few of which were reported to the police. Kulik's first murder was in 1984 when he drugged, raped, and strangled an elderly woman he encountered on the street. His victims included children as young as 2 years old and elderly women up to 75 years old. 

 On his 30th birthday, 17 January 1986, Kulik was arrested after a failed attack and confessed to all of his murders. He was initially not believed until further investigations confirmed his guilt. In August 1988, Kulik was convicted of the 13 murders he had admitted to, as well as nearly 30 additional rapes and assaults. He was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad on 26 June 1989 in Irkutsk.

8. Chinese Monster 

Yang Xinhai, a Chinese serial killer, admitted to committing 67 murders and 23 rapes between 1999 and 2003. He was given the death penalty and executed for his crimes. The media referred to him as the "Monster Killer." Yang is the most prolific serial killer in China since the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

 In 1988 and 1991, Yang was sentenced to labor camps for theft in Xi'an, Shaanxi, and Shijiazhuang, Hebei. In 1996, he received a five-year prison sentence for attempted rape in Zhumadian, Henan, and was released in 1999.

 Yang committed his murders between 1999 and 2003 in the provinces of Anhui, Hebei, Henan, and Shandong. He would enter his victims' homes at night and kill them, mainly targeting farmers, using axes, hammers, and shovels. Sometimes, he would kill entire families. He always wore new clothes and large shoes during his attacks.

 In October 2002, Yang killed a father and a six-year-old girl with a shovel and raped a pregnant woman who survived the assault but suffered severe head injuries.

 On November 3, 2003, Yang was apprehended after acting suspiciously during a routine police inspection of entertainment venues in Cangzhou, Hebei. Police detained him for questioning and discovered that he was wanted for murder in four provinces. The media labeled him the "Monster Killer" as news of his arrest and crimes spread.

 Shortly after his arrest, Yang confessed to 65 murders, 23 rapes, and five attacks causing serious injuries. He committed 49 murders, 17 rapes, and five attacks in Henan; eight murders and three rapes in Hebei; six murders and two rapes in Anhui; and two murders and one rape in Shandong. Police also matched his DNA with evidence found at multiple crime scenes. It was later revealed that Yang contracted HIV from one of his victims.

 On February 1, 2004, Yang was convicted of 67 murders and 23 rapes and sentenced to death by the Luohe City Intermediate People's Court in Henan. At the time of his sentencing, the Chinese media believed he had carried out the country's longest and most gruesome killing spree. Yang was executed on February 14, 2004, by firing squad.

 According to some media reports during his arrest, Yang's motive for the killings was revenge against society due to a failed relationship. Allegedly, his girlfriend left him because of his previous convictions for theft and rape. Later reports suggested that his enjoyment of robbery, rape, and murder was the driving force behind his crimes.

9. Green River Killer

Gary Leon Ridgway, an American serial killer, was convicted of 48 separate murders initially. Another conviction was added as part of his plea bargain, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the second most prolific serial killer in United States history based on confirmed murders. Ridgway targeted teenage girls and women in Washington state during the 1980s and 1990s.

Most of Ridgway's victims were sex workers and vulnerable women, including underage runaways. He earned the nickname "Green River Killer" after the first five victims were found in the Green River before his identity was known. Ridgway strangled his victims, often by hand but sometimes using ligatures, before dumping their bodies in forested areas in King County. He would sometimes return to the bodies to engage in sexual activity with them.

In 2001, Ridgway was arrested for the murders of four women linked to him through DNA evidence. In exchange for disclosing the locations of still-missing women, he avoided the death penalty and received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

Ridgway is believed to have murdered at least 71 teenage girls and women near Seattle and Tacoma. He admitted to losing count of his victims and targeting sex workers and runaways. Ridgway's killing spree occurred mostly between 1982 and 1984, with many victims being dumped in wooded areas around the Green River and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Ridgway occasionally contaminated dump sites with items belonging to others to confuse the police. He was arrested in 1982 and 2001 on charges related to prostitution, becoming a suspect in the Green River killings in 1983. Ridgway's DNA was eventually linked to the crimes, leading to his arrest in 2001.

In 2003, Ridgway entered a guilty plea to 48 charges of aggravated first-degree murder as part of a plea bargain to avoid execution. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for each victim, totaling 48 life sentences and an additional 480 years for tampering with evidence.

Ridgway led prosecutors to the remains of three victims in 2003. He confessed to more murders than any other American serial killer and was placed in solitary confinement in Washington State Penitentiary. In 2015, he was transferred to a federal prison in Colorado but later returned to Washington for open murder investigations.

10. Dangerous Supervisor

Lorenzo Jerome Gilyard, JR. is an American serial killer who was convicted of six counts of murder on March 16, 2007. From 1977 to 1993, Gilyard raped and murdered 13 women and girls. Prior to his crimes, Gilyard had a dysfunctional background. His father, Lorenzo Gilyard, was convicted of rape in 1970, his brother Darryl E. was convicted of a drug-related murder in 1989, and his sister Patricia D. Dixon, a sex worker, was convicted of murder in 1983. Gilyard was known to bully and assault women during his younger years.

 Most, if not all, of Gilyard's victims were sex workers. They were found shoeless and dumped in secluded areas around Kansas City, Missouri. Many had cloth or paper towels stuffed into their mouths and ligature marks around their necks. Gilyard had a history of child molestation, having raped a 13-year-old girl. Although he was suspected of five rapes between 1969 and 1974, he was never convicted. In 1987, Gilyard became a suspect in the murder of Sheila Ingold. DNA testing later linked him to all 13 victims. His blood sample from the 1987 investigation led to murder charges.

 Of the known victims, 12 were murdered between 1977 and 1989. Gilyard married Jackie Harris in 1991 and they lived together in Missouri and Los Angeles before returning to Los Angeles for over a year. After his return to Missouri, he murdered his 13th known victim. There is no evidence linking him to any killings in the Los Angeles area during his stays between 1987 and 1992, and it is believed that he stopped killing in 1993.

Gilyard was tried on seven first-degree murder charges. The prosecution presented DNA evidence showing that he had sexual contact with the victims around the time of their deaths. The victims all shared common characteristics, including being found dead within a one and a half year period, being left in secluded locations, being strangled, showing signs of struggle, missing shoes, and displaying signs of sexual intercourse. Gilyard was sentenced to life in prison without parole and is currently serving his sentence in Western Missouri Correctional Center.