This is the Who's Who of Serial Killers

In many of the case it is unknown how many victims were really killed. I am going by what was said at the trials and the news press. Because of that I am not going to number them as 1...2...3... and so on.

Thug Behram

(India - Thugee cult leader. Total disputed 125 to 931 - Time active, 1790 to 1830)

He may have murdered up to 931 victims by strangulation with the ceremonial cloth (or rumal, which in Hindi means handkerchief), used by his cult. Behram was executed in 1840 by hanging.

Harold Frederick "Fred" Shipman aka Doctor Death

(Hyde, United Kingdom - Total 218 to 250 only 218 positively identified, although the real number may be twice that - Time active, 1975 to 1998)

He is one of the most prolific known serial killers in history. Target his patients; about 80% of them were elderly women. His youngest victim was Peter Lewis a 41-year-old man. Killed his patients with lethal injections of diamorphine. Shipman is the only British doctor found guilty of murdering his patients. Shipman died on 13 January 2004, after hanging himself in his cell at Wakefield Prison in West Yorkshire, on the eve of his 58th birthday.

Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos aka "La Bestia" ("The Beast") or "Tribilin" (Spanish translation of Disney's "Goofy")

(Colombia - Total 138 to 172 - Time active, 1992 to 1998)

He was a Colombian rapist and serial killer. In 1999, he admitted to murder and rape of 140 young boys. The number of his victims, based on the locations of skeletons listed on maps that Garavito drew in prison, could eventually exceed 300. He has been described by local media as "the world's worst serial killer" because of the high number of victims. The victims were poor children, peasant children, or street children, between the ages of 6 and 16. Garavito approached them on the street or countryside and offered them gifts or small amounts of money. After gaining their trust, he took the children for a walk and when they got tired, he would take advantage of them. He then raped them, cut their throats, and usually dismembered their corpses. Most corpses showed signs of torture.

Javed Iqbal

(Lahore, Pakistan - Total 100 - Time active, 1996 to 1999)

Killed young and poor children from all across Pakistan along with three teenage accomplices. Surrendered himself to the police after his 100th kill, but committed suicide before being executed. He was found guilty of the sexual abuse and murder of 100 children. This is disputed now because 26 of the children he claimed to have killed were found alive after his death. The case stands officially closed but allegedly not well investigated.

Countess Elizabeth Báthory aka The Blood Countess

(Cachtice, Kingdom of Hungary - Total 80 to 612 total unknown, but accusations pointed to between 650 and 700 victims - Time active, 1585 to 1610)

There are also historical views that stated she was a victim of conspiracy and was innocent. No public trial was held. Was imprisoned in a room of her own castle until her death. After her husband's death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and young women, with one witness attributing to them over 600 victims, though the number for which she was convicted was 80.

The descriptions of torture that emerged during the trials were often based on hearsay. The atrocities described most consistently included:

* Severe beatings over extended periods of time, often leading to death

* Burning or mutilation of hands, sometimes also of faces and genitalia

* Biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other bodily parts

* Freezing to death

* Surgery on victims, often fatal

* Starving of victims

* Sexual abuse

The collaborators in court also mentioned the use of needles.

The defendants at that trial were Dorottya Szentes, also referred to as Dorka, Ilona Jó, Katarína Benická, and János Újváry ("Ibis" or Ficko). Dorka, Ilona Jó and Ficko, were found guilty and put to death on the spot. Dorka and Ilona had their fingernails ripped out before they were thrown into a fire, while Ficko, who was deemed less guilty, was beheaded before being consigned to the flames. A public scaffold was erected near the castle to show the public that justice had been done. In 1610, she was imprisoned in the Csejte Castle, where she remained bricked in a set of rooms until her death four years later.

Pedro Rodrigues Filho aka Pedrinho Matador (Little Peter the Killer)

(Brazil - Total 70 to 100, Time active, unknown)

Convicted and sentenced to 128 years, but the maximum one can serve in Brazil is 30 years. He has claimed to kill over 100 victims, 40 of them inmates. He also killed his father.

Yang Xinhai aka Wang Ganggang (He was dubbed the "Monster Killer" by the media.)

(People's Republic of China - Total 67, Time active, 2000 to 2003)

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

Yang's killings took place between 1999 and 2003 in the provinces of Anhui, Hebei, Henan and Shandong. At night, he would enter his victims' homes, and kill all of the occupants, mainly farmers, with axes, hammers and shovels, sometimes killing entire families. Each time he wore new clothes and large shoes.

In October 2002, Yang killed a father and a six-year-old girl with a shovel and raped a pregnant woman, who survived the attack with serious head injuries. He confessed to committing 65 murders and 23 rapes. Yang was executed on February 14, 2004, by a gunshot to the back of the head.

Henry Lee Lucas

(Virginia, Texas, Florida, possibly in other areas of the Southern United States - Total 189-300+ - Time active, 1960-1983)

Lucas confessed to involvement in about 600 murders, with an average of about one murder per week between his release from prison in mid-1975 to his arrest in mid-1983. A more widely circulated total of about 350 murders committed by Lucas is based on confessions deemed "believable" by a Texas-based Lucas Task Force, a group which was criticized by the Attorney General of Texas, Jim Mattox, and others for sloppy police work and taking part in an extended "hoax". There are 189 murders had been cleared and attributed to him. The exact number of murders committed by Lucas is unknown, but is widely accepted over 300. Lucas died in prison of natural causes.

Darya Saltykova

(Russian Empire - Total 38-138 - Time active, unknown to 1762)

Saltykova was a young noblewoman from Moscow who became notorious for torturing and killing over 100 of her serfs, mostly women and girls. Accused of up to 138 murders; found guilty of 38 murders. The Empress was unsure about how to punish her. The death penalty had been abolished in Russia in 1754, and the new Empress needed the support of the nobility. In 1768, Saltykova was chained on a platform in Moscow for one hour, with a sign around her neck with the text: "This woman has tortured and murdered." Many people came to look at her during the hour she was displayed. Afterward, she was sent to imprisonment for life in the basement of a convent.

Pedro López aka The Monster of the Andes

(Colombia, Peru, Ecuador - Total 57 to 300+ - Time active, 1978 to 1980)

He is accused of killing more than 300 girls across South America. Aside from unofficial local accounts, López's crimes first received international attention from an interview conducted by Ron Laytner, a long time freelance photojournalist who first met López in his Ambato Prison cell in 1980. Laytner's interviews were widely published, first in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, 13 July 1980, then in the Toronto Sun and The Sacramento Bee on 21 July 1980, and later in many other North American papers and foreign publications over the years. Apart from Laytner's account and two brief Associated Press wire reports Boar and Blundell published the story in The World's Most Infamous Murders.

According to Laytner's story, López became known as the "Monster of the Andes" in 1980 when he led police to the graves of 53 of his victims in Ecuador, all girls between nine and twelve years old. In 1983 he was found guilty of murdering 110 young girls in Ecuador alone and confessed to a further 240 murders of missing girls in neighboring Peru and Colombia. He confessed to killing 103 girls, including 53 whose bodies had been found. The second reports that he was convicted of three murders, and had confessed to 300 sexual assaults and strangling.