Several American serial killers became known around the world because their crimes were so depraved.
From Ted Bundy to Richard Ramirez, their crimes are still talked about decades after they were first reported. Here is everything you need to know about America’s worst serial killers.
Zodiac Killer
The Zodiac Killer haunted Northern California in the late 1960s and taunted the police who were struggling to catch him.
His first victims, killed on December 20, 1968, were named Betty Lou Jensen, aged 16, and David Arthur Faraday, aged 17.
The killer sent cryptic ciphers which he claimed held the key to his identity to various newspapers, but they proved difficult to solve.
He signed off letters mocking police efforts to catch him with an ominous symbol, which was theorized to contain coordinates for his killings.
Eventually, the killer would go on to claim five victims, aged 16-30, during his crime spree.
His final murder was that of a cab driver named Paul Stine in 1969.
The Zodiac Killer was never caught, but his cipher was eventually cracked by two software engineers and a cryptographer in 2020.
It was revealed that the killer believed murdering people would make them his slaves in the afterlife and he also claimed to have killed 37 people.
The only man named as a suspect by the police was named Arthur Leigh Allen, who died in 1992.
A police search of his house found a wristwatch belonging to him named the Zodiac Sea Wolf wristwatch, which bore the same logo seen on the killer’s letters.
A group of cold case investigators named The Case Breakers, believed that the killer was a man named Gary Francis Poste.
According to former Army counterintelligence agent Jen Bucholtz, removing Gary’s name from the cipher allowed it to be solved, which the team suggested was a strong piece of evidence that he was the killer.
He died in August 2018 at the age of 80, after being diagnosed with sepsis, dysphagia and vascular dementia.
Jeffery Dahmer
Jeffery Dahmer is one of the most notorious serial killers in American history, whose depraved crimes were dramatized in Ryan Murphy’s Monsters.
He was born in 1960 and went on to commit his first murder in 1978 when he killed an 18-year-old boy.
Dahmer’s murders would become infamous for their brutal nature, which often saw him dissect their bodies and keep parts of them for sexual purposes.
In some cases, Dahmer even ate parts of his victims in an attempt to make them “part” of him
Most of his targets were gay or bisexual men, or men who were sex workers, who lived in his home state of Wisconsin.
He often drugged his victims before killing them but botched one attempt when he accidentally drank the drugged drink.
Dahmer awoke the next morning to find that the man had stolen $300 and a watch.
The murderer killed 17 people during the period spanning 1978 to 1991, with his first murders taking place in his grandmother’s house before he moved into an apartment of his own.
One victim was even taken to the police by three women, but Dahmer was able to convince the authorities that the boy was his lover before taking him home and murdering him.
Dahmer was finally brought to justice in 1991 when he lured 32-year-old Tracy Edwards to his apartment before brandishing a knife and making Tracy go into the bedroom.
The murderer then said that he wanted to eat Tracy’s heart, but the 32-year-old was able to trick Dahmer into letting him go back into the living room.
Tracy punched Dahmer in the face and fled, before waving down two police officers.
The trio returned to the apartment, where Dahmer was only able to give vague reasons for the fact that Tracy had a handcuff on his wrist.
One of the officers spotted the photographers Dahmer had taken of his victims after he murdered them, prompting the killer to try to escape.
He was taken into custody when the officers then found a severed head in Dahmer’s fridge.
A more detailed inspection found several skeletons and other body parts in the flat and eventually Jeffrey confessed to his crimes.
He became known to the press as the Milwaukee Cannibal and was handed 15 life sentences.
Dahmer died just three years after his arrest, when he was beaten to death by fellow inmate Christopher Scarver.
When asked why he killed Dahmer and another inmate named Jesse Anderson, Christopher said: “God told me to do it.
“Jesse Anderson and Jeffrey Dahmer are dead.”
Rodney Alcala
Rodney Alcala was nicknamed The Dating Game Killer because of his appearance on the 1970s matchmaking show.
By the time he starred on the show in 1978, he had already attacked an eight-year-old girl named Tali Shapiro with a metal bar and had killed several women.
Alcala had devised a way of luring victims to remote areas which involved posing as a photographer who wanted to take pictures for his “portfolio”.
His terrifying crime spree began in 1968 and he used various aliases to remain on the run from the law.
While living in New York, he shared an office with Richard Cottingham who was also known as the Times Square Ripper.
He was also taught by Roman Polanski when he attended New York University.
When Alcala appeared on the Dating Game, he tried to convince a bachelorette named Cheryl Bradshaw to pick him as her date.
Alcala was successful, but Cheryl eventually backed out of the date all together because she felt that his sinister humor was frightening.
As his murder spree continued, he killed the goddaughter of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr who was named Ellen Jane Hover.
He was finally caught when a police sketch of him reached his old parole officer, which allowed police to link him to other crimes.
Alcala was arrested in 1979 and sentenced to death in 1980, but this sentence was later overturned.
Instead, he lived out the rest of his days in custody before dying in 2021.
The film Woman of the Hour dramatized his horrifying crime spree and is available to stream on Netflix.
Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy is perhaps the most famous American serial killer in history, with countless films, documentaries and dramas being based on the murderer.
Even High School Musical star Zac Efron has played Ted Bundy.
Bundy confessed to 30 murders, but the number of young girls and women that he murdered is thought to be much higher.
It is unknown when his killing spree began, but he claims that his first murder took place in 1971.
His first documented killing was in 1974 when he was 27.
He was arrested a year later but managed to escape through a window during a preliminary hearing in 1977.
After being re-arrested, Bundy escaped again by sawing a hole in the ceiling of his cell.
Until this time, his murders had taken place in the Western states of Oregon and Colorado, but he fled to Florida after his escape.
He was arrested once again in 1978, after committing a series of murders and rapes throughout the Sunshine State.
Bundy’s trial was covered by over 200 reporters and quickly became a media circus, with several women declaring that he must be innocent because they thought he was good-looking.
It was uncovered that studying psychology at the University of Washington had taught him how to evade capture for years.
The serial murderer and rapist chose to defend himself in court, talking in a grandiose way and taking enjoyment in the attention that the trial was giving him.
Eventually, he was sentenced to death on February 10, 1980.
However, he had to wait for nine years before the sentence was finally carried out.
Charles Manson
Charles Manson was a cult leader and criminal who led a group named The Manson Family in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
He was born in 1934 in Ohio and became obsessed with the legendary rock band The Beatles.
Manson adopted the name of one of their songs, Helter Skelter, to refer to an apocalyptic race war that he felt would break out in the twentieth century.
Although he would later deny this, it was argued in court that the Manson Family were working to start that war themselves.
He also denied being responsible for the series of murders carried out by his cult, which formed in 1968.
The group’s most infamous crime was on August 9, 1969, when they murdered the actress Sharon Tate, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time.
One cult member, named Susan Atkins, wrote the word “pig” on the wall using Sharon’s blood.
They also murdered four other people who were in the house with Sharon.
The cult struck again just a day later when they murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their home.
The Manson Family wrote “Death to pigs”, “rise” and “Helter Skelter”, which differed from the Beatles’ spelling, in their victims’ blood on the walls.
Eventually, the murders were linked to the cult, who had established a compound at Spahn Ranch, and a warrant for the arrest of three members was announced on December 1, 1969.
One cult member, Linda Kasabian, was granted immunity and became a key part of the prosecution’s case.
Manson shaved his head and trimmed his beard into a fork in an attempt to look like the devil, before he was sentenced to death, in 1971, alongside three other cult members.
His death sentence was never carried out and he eventually died from colon cancer on November 19, 2017.
Richard Ramirez
Richard Ramirez was born in February 1960 and would go on to be nicknamed the Night Stalker because of his terrifying crimes.
He developed brain damage as a result of abuse by his father, and started using drugs at the age of 10 before his cousin murdered his wife in front of him when he was 15.
This warped upbringing led Ramirez to become involved in Satanism while his drug abuse worsened.
Over 14 months, beginning in April 1984, he committed at least 14 murders which nearly all took place in his victims’ homes.
One victim, named Maria Hernandez, survived her brush with the killer in March 1985 when his bullet ricocheted off a set of keys that she was holding.
Her housemate, Dayle Yoshie Okazaki, was hiding behind a counter but was killed when she lifted her head to see where Richard was.
During this time Maria had been playing dead and tried to escape, but Ramirez saw her attempting to leave.
When it was clear that she wasn’t intimidated by him, Ramirez let her go.
As his horrifying crime spree continued, it became clear that he was forcing his victims to “swear on Satan” and that he was identifying himself as the “Night Stalker”.
The press began to use this name when referring to his now highly publicized murder spree.
In August 1985, he made a return trip to Arizona and was completely unaware that one of his victims, 29-year-old Inez Erickson, had given the police a description that had allowed them to identify him.
Nearly every major newspaper in the state had a picture of him on their front page, but Richard remained unaware of this.
Then, a group of elderly women identified him as “el matador” just as he noticed his face on the front page of a newspaper named La Opinion.
While attempting to flee by running across the Santa Ana Freeway, he was restrained by 10 residents and arrested on August 31, 1985.
He was sentenced to death on November 7, 1989, and reportedly met Sean Penn while in prison.
Ramirez’s death sentence was never carried out, so he eventually died from complications related to B-cell lymphoma in June 2013.
David Berkowitz
David Berkowitz became known as the Son of Sam, who killed six people between July 1976 and July 1977.
All of his murders took place in New York City and were committed with a .44 Special caliber Bulldog revolver.
His murder spree was heavily publicized, as he began leaving notes written in block capitals beside the bodies of his victims.
In the letters, he identified himself as the Son of Sam.
Berkowitz was arrested after a police check of his car found a loaded gun matching the weapon the serial killer was known to use.
In court, he claimed that a demon appeared to him in the form of his neighbor’s dog, Sam, and said that the demon told him to kill people.
He would later admit that this was a hoax.
New statutes were created as a result of the celebrity status he earned because of his crimes, which were known as the Son of Sam laws.
The new statutes prevented criminals from profiting from the publicity given to their crimes.
His case remains infamous because he claimed that he was acting as part of a Satanic cult, which fed the theory that Berkowitz was not acting alone.
John Wayne Gacy
John Wayne Gacy became known as “the Killer Clown”, because of his public performances as a clown before his murder spree was uncovered.
He murdered at least 33 young men and boys in Norwood Park Township, Illinois.
When he was later convicted for these crimes, it was the highest number of homicides by one person in American history.
26 of his victims were buried in the crawl space of his house during his murder spree, which began in 1972.
Gacy would lure victims to his home by gaining their trust and, once they were there, would say that he wanted to show them a magic trick.
The depraved killer was finally brought to justice after the disappearance of one of his victims, named Rober Piest.
His family went to the police, whose investigation led them to John’s house because of his prior sex crimes.
A period of surveillance began in December 1978, which ended with Gacy’s drunken confession in the early hours of December 21.
He reportedly fell asleep midway through his confession but made a sober confession a day later.
Gacy was charged with 33 murders in February 1980 before being convicted for every single charge.
He remained on death row for 14 years before his death was finally carried out by lethal injection on May 10, 1994.
