Worst Serial Killers in U.S. History, Ranked

Some of the serial killers listed here are believed to have murdered even more people than they were convicted of killing. The true death tolls may never be known.

Herb Baumeister was linked to the deaths of 11 men in the early 1990s, and police believe he killed up to 20 others. Eleven bodies were found in his backyard in Indiana, eight of them identified as men who had disappeared after visiting gay bars.

When police issued a warrant for Baumeister’s arrest, he fled to Canada and killed himself with a bullet wound to the head.
 

Vaughn Greenwood killed two people in 1964, spent 10 years in prison for a different crime, and then killed nine more people in California between 1974 and 1975 after his release. He was dubbed the “Skid Row Slasher.”

Evidence showed Greenwood drank the blood of his victims. He is serving life at the California Los Angeles County Jail.
 

Joseph Christopher is tied to the murders of 12 people, most of whom were black, between New York and Georgia in the early 1980s. He stabbed four people to death in Manhattan, earning him the nickname the “Midtown Slasher.”

He died of breast cancer in prison in 1993.
 

Kenneth Bianchi was convicted of killing 10 women in California and two more in Washington state in the late 1970s. He would sexually abuse the women, between the ages of 12 to 28, before killing them. He committed 10 of the murders with the help of his cousin.

Bianchi is serving a life sentence at Washington State Penitentiary.
 

Suff was convicted of killing 12 female sex workers in California between 1989 and 1991. Police suspect he killed up to 22 women. He raped, tortured, stabbed, strangled and sometimes mutilated his victims.

He had been found guilty in the beating death of his 2-month-old daughter in 1974, but he was released on parole after 10 years. Suff is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison.
 

Herbert Mullin confessed to killing 13 people in California in the early 1970s. He said he murdered his victims in an effort to prevent earthquakes, and he credited a lack of recent earthquakes to his crimes.

He is serving a life sentence at Mule Creek State Prison in California. He has been denied parole 10 times.
 

Richard Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders that he carried out in California from 1984 to 1985. His weapons included handguns, knives, a machete, a tire iron and a hammer. Known as the “Night Stalker,” Ramirez never expressed remorse for his crimes. One of his victims was just 9 years old.  

Ramirez died of lymphoma in 2013 while on death row.
 

Jake Bird was convicted of killing a woman and her daughter with an ax in Washington state in 1947. He confessed to 44 other murders, which he was suspected of, but only 11 could be substantiated. He was hanged in 1949.

Arthur Shawcross murdered a boy and girl in Watertown, N.Y., in 1972, but he was only convicted of manslaughter and released from prison after 12 years. Following his release, he killed 12 women, most of whom were sex workers.

He was found guilty of the murders in 1990, and imprisoned until his death in 2003.
 

Carl Eugene Watts was convicted of killing two women and confessed to killing 12 more between 1974 and 1982. Authorities, however, believe he has killed as many as 100 women, in multiple states.

Watts strangled, stabbed, bludgeoned and drowned his victims. He died of prostate cancer while serving two life sentences in a Michigan prison.
 

Robert Lee Yates pleaded guilty to killing 13 women in Spokane, Wash., between 1996 and 1998.

Yates would seek out sex workers and kill them. He would dump his victims' bodies in rural areas. 

Yates is currently on death row at the Washington State Penitentiary.

Chester Turner was convicted of killing 14 people in Los Angeles in the 1980s and 1990s. He raped and strangled most of his victims.

Authorities called Turner "one of the most prolific serial killers in the city's history." He is currently on death row. 

Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, known as "The Railroad Killer," murdered at least 15 people across the U.S. and Mexico in the 1990s. He was linked to the murders by investigators and confessed to many of them. 

He would kill people in their homes with rocks, a pickaxe, and other objects. He would often steal from them and sometimes rape his female victims. 

He was executed in 2006. 

Carroll Cole strangled at least 13 women between 1948 and 1980.

He confessed to the killings, adding that there could have been more victims he didn't remember because he was usually drunk when he committed the murders. 

He was executed in 1985. 

Randy Steven Kraft drugged, raped, tortured and murdered at least 16 young men between 1972 and 1983. While he was convicted of 16 murders, authorities believed he killed upwards of 60 people. He carried out most of his murders in California. 

Authorities dubbed Kraft the "Scorecard Killer" after finding a coded list of victims in his car. Investigators believed, based on this list and other evidence, that Kraft killed 67 men, but he was only convicted of 16 murders. 

He is on death row. 

Charles Ray Hatcher raped and murdered at least 16 people in Missouri, California, and Illinois between 1969 and 1982. His victims were mostly men and boys. Hatcher confessed to the murders. 

He hanged himself in prison in 1984. 

Robert Hansen made a sick game of kidnapping prostitutes and releasing them into the Alaskan woods to hunt them. He admitted to 17 murders, which took place between 1971 and 1983.

Hansen died in prison in 2014. 

Jeffrey Dahmer murdered, raped and dismembered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991.

Some of his murders included acts of necrophilia and cannibalism. He would also keep some of his victims' body parts in his Milwaukee apartment. Dahmer admitted to the murders. 

Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison, where he was beaten to death by another inmate in 1994. 

Randall Woodfield is known as "The I-5 Killer." Authorities say he has been linked to at least 18 murders in Washington, Oregon, and California between 1979 and 1981, and may have killed upwards of 40 people, even though he was only convicted of one murder. He was known to sexually assault his female victims. 

He is serving a life sentence at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem.

Paul John Knowles was linked to the murders of 20 people, but he claimed to have killed 35 people across the country. 

Knowles was fatally shot by a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent after Knowles attempted to shoot a sheriff following his capture. 

William Bonin, known as the "Freeway Killer," confessed to the murders of at least 21 boys and young men in 1979 and 1980. He enticed victims, ages 12 to 19, into his van and sexually assaulted them before killing them, usually by strangulation. 

He was executed in 1992.  

Larry Eyler was convicted of murdering a 15-year-old boy in 1984. After he was sentenced to death, he confessed to murdering at least 21 more young men and boys between 1982 and 1984 across five states. Before he could be executed, Eyler died of AIDS-related complications. 

Earle Nelson, known as "the Gorilla Man," was connected to at least 22 murders in the U.S. and Canada between 1926 and 1927. 

He was executed for his crimes. 

Ronald Joseph Dominique confessed to raping and murdering at least 23 men in Louisiana over a 10-year period, beginning in 1997. 

He said he thought it would be better to kill the men he raped so he wouldn't get caught. 

He is serving life in prison. 

Wayne Williams was convicted of killing two adult men in 1982, but the Atlanta Police Department concluded Williams was responsible for at least 23 killings that terrorized the city.

Williams was sentenced to life in prison. He maintains his innocence. 

Juan Vallejo Corona was convicted of murdering 25 migrant farm workers in 1971.

He is serving life in prison. 

Patrick Kearney, also known as the "Freeway Killer," pleaded guilty to murdering 21 people in the 1970s, but admitted killing seven more. He is serving life in prison. 

He would usually pick up young men on the side of the road or in gay bars and then shoot them. He was known to sexually assault their bodies. 

Dean Corll, along with accomplices, kidnapped, raped and tortured at least 28 teen boys in Houston, Texas, in the 1970s.

The so-called "Houston Mass Murders" were discovered after one of Corll's accomplices fatally shot him in 1973. The accomplices said they assisted Corll. 

John Wayne Gacy Jr. was convicted of 33 murders.

Gacy, who sometimes performed as a clown at fundraising events, parades and parties, sexually assaulted and usually strangled teenage boys and young men in the 1970s in Illinois. He buried many of his victims in the crawl space of his Chicago-area home. 

He was executed in 1994.

Ted Bundy confessed to 30 murders in the 1970s, but the body count may be much higher. 

His victims were all women and girls. He would win them over with his good looks before taking them to secluded areas and killing them. He would often return to the corpses to have sex with them and kept decapitated heads of some of his victims in his apartment. 

Bundy was executed in 1989. 

Gary Ridgway, known as the Green River Killer, was convicted of killing 49 women in Washington state in the 1980s and 90s. He confessed to killing 71, but investigators believe he killed more than 90 people. 

Ridgway's victims were mostly prostitutes, who had been strangled. He would dispose of their bodies in dump sites and the Green River and sometimes return to have sex with their corpses. Nearly 20 years passed before DNA evidence linked him to the crimes. He was arrested in 2001.

He was sentenced to life in prison.