Evil has a disturbing face, here are the Top 10 Serial Killers that committed horrific crimes in modern times.
10) Dr. Harold Frederick Shipman
Aptly nicknamed “Dr. Death,” Harold Shipman has the distinction of being the sole British doctor ever found guilty of murdering his patients. His killing spree mostly targeted his older female clients with ages that range from 40 to 81- with the victims all dying from mysterious drug overdoses. To cover up his deeds, Shipman gave out fake causes of death and recommended to the bereaved families that their loved ones’ bodies be cremated. It was only
after the death of Kathleen Grundy, a former mayor of Hyde, Greater Manchester, and a well-known social worker and personality in her neighborhood, that Shipman’s evil misdeeds were finally detected.9) Tommy Lynn Sells
Some serial killers start young, and Tommy Lynn Sells was one of them. Confirmed by the police to have killed 22 people (estimates are double than that figure) from 1980 to 1999, Sells murdered his first victim when he was just 16 years old. His targets were mostly young women. When he botched a murder attempt, the young woman who survived the attack testified against him. Sells was just recently executed in April this year (2014).
8) Gary Ridgway
American Gary Ridgway was known as the “Green River” killer. He was convicted of having committed 49 murders, with Ridgway himself confessing that he committed far more than that number that he lost count. Most of his targets were runaways and prostitutes that he picked up near the Green River area in Seattle. He was charged in 2001, and when faced with the threat of execution, Ridgway blabbed about where he’d hidden the bodies of four of his victims, and what his estimated number of kills have been. He is now serving a life sentence.
7) Andrei Chikatilo
Due to the horrific nature of his crimes, Andrei Chikatilo was known by a number of nicknames: the Rostov Ripper, the Butcher of Rostov, the Red Riper- these names alluded to the fact that Chikatilo murdered most of his victims in the Rostov Oblast in the Southern Federal District of Russia. It’s quite chilling to know that one of the most prolific killers of children (he confessed to a total of 56 murders) was once a teacher- a job which granted him easy access to his young people. He was executed in 1994.
6) Abul Djabar
Abul Djabar, an Afghan man, was hanged to his death on October 21, 1970 for the murder of 65 people. His victims were mostly men and boys. Djabar actually had one of the weirdest methods of killing compared to the rest of the demented serial killers in this list- while raping his victims, he would strangle them with his turban until they fall out of consciousness. Though 65 confirmed deaths have been attributed to him, it was estimated that the real number of deaths that he caused numbers around 300.
5) Pedro Rodrigues Filho
An even younger serial killer would be Pedro Rodrigues Filho of Brazil. Filho was only 14 years old when he murdered the vice mayor of Alfenas in Minas Gerai. This is due to the fact that Filho’s father, a school guard, was wrongly accused of stealing from the school’s kitchen. From thereon, Filho lived a life of crime that saw him murdering a confirmed number of 71 people, which weirdly enough, included his own father- a man which he literally killed for early on in his “career”. He was convicted in 2003, and now serves a life sentence.
4) Javed Iqbal
A Pakistani serial killer who targeted beggar children and young runaways in Lahore, Punjab, Javed Iqbal was found guilty for the death of 74 victims (confirmed figure, but the estimated number of victims is 100+) and was sentenced to death in the same way he murdered people- by being strangled to death (through hanging), getting his body chopped up into a hundred pieces, and then placed in acid. Strangely enough, it was Iqbal himself who turned himself in. He confessed his crimes to both the police and local newspapers in his city, and ultimately surrendered in the headquarters of the Urdu newspaper, the Daily Jang.
3) Delfina and Maria de Jesus Gonzalez
Most of the famous serial killers in history were male, so the Gonzalez sisters is pretty much a standout in this list, both for their gender and the atrociousness of their deeds. The sisters, dubbed as “Las Poquianchis”, tricked unsuspecting women into becoming prostitutes for their prostitution ring through misleading Help Wanted advertisements. They drugged the girls with heroin and cocaine; when the women became unable to service their clients, the sisters would promptly kill them off. Police found about a hundred of their victims’ bodies in their property in San Francisco del Rincon.
2) Pedro Lopez
The most terrible thing about Pedro Lopez (“the Monster of the Andes” as dubbed by the press) is not that he killed 110 girls in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador (these are confirmed figures, possible victims may have numbered anywhere from 310 to 350) but the fact that he continues to walk free on this earth up to this very day despite his atrocities. Police actually didn’t believe him at first, thinking he was a madman, but it was only when Lopez led them to the mass grave of 53 of his victims (mostly girls and young women) did they grasp the magnitude of his crimes. He was caught and released multiple times by authorities in both Ecuador and Colombia; he was held in psychiatric custody in a hospital in Bogota, Colombia, but was released on a mere $50 bail in 1998.
1) Luis Garavito
In terms of confirmed deaths, Luis Garavito might simply be the most horrific serial killer that ever walked the Earth. His record of 138 confirmed deaths (with an estimated number of possible victims that range from 172 up to 400) is among the highest in the 20th century. An even more horrific fact is that most of his victims were children from the age of 6 to 16, most of which he lured with money or gifts before raping, torturing, dismembering, and murdering them. He was captured in 1999, and was given the maximum penalty of 30 years- the highest possible penalty that can be given under Colombian law. And to add more insult to the injury, Garavito was able to apply for special benefits thereby reducing his sentence to merely 22 years!
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