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Ed Gein "The Mad Butcher" Photo: https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/-J_NcWr2H0WefRmhwN7JcriEvmI=/800x656/top/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/KEUNJ7H3H57GSMB2CUS6GYCIMQ.jpg
Ed Gein grew up in a repressive household dominated by a controlling mother. Following her death in 1945, his mental health disintegrated. After Gein was apprehended as a suspect in a 1957 murder, the investigation of his home yielded a highly disturbed man who kept human organs and fashioned clothing and accessories out of body parts. He spent the rest of his life institutionalized, his story fueling the inspiration of famous movie characters. -
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Notorious Serial Killers
This is a timeline of notorious serial killers from the 1940's to the 1990's. There are many serial killers, but I chose to focus on the most well-known. Most are American, but I also included a few Hispanics. In the timeline, you will find their names, photos, and summaries of their crimes. -
Ed Kemper "The Co-Ed Killer" Photo: http://site-299806.mozfiles.com/files/299806/Ed_Kemper.jpg
Edmund Kemper, at age 15, killed both his grandparents to "see what it felt like." Upon release, he drifted, picking up and releasing female hitchhikers. He stopped letting them go, killing six young women in the Santa Cruz, California, area in the 1970s. In 1973 he killed his mother before turning himself in. Kemper had a dark fantasy life. He cut off the heads of his sisters' dolls and even coerced the girls into playing a game he called "gas chamber." His first victims were the family cats. -
Pedro Lopez "The Monster of the Andes" Photo: https://d18ufwot1963hr.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/SERIALkILEERR.jpg
Pedro Lopez endured an early life of homelessness, violence and sexual abuse, becoming incarcerated during early adulthood. Upon his release, he eventually embarked on a killing spree where he targeted young girls from his home country, Peru and Ecuador. In 1980, he was apprehended in Ambato and charged with 110 murders, for which he plead guilty. Despite the scope of his crimes, he only served 14 years before being deported to Colombia, where he was institutionalized and then set free. -
John Wayne Gacey "Killer Clown" Photo: https://www.biography.com/.image/ar_1:1%2Cc_fill%2Ccs_srgb%2Cg_face%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_300/MTE5NDg0MDU1MjM2NDc4NDc5/john-wayne-gacy-10367544-2-402.jpg
John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer and rapist who took the lives of at least 33 young males in Cook County, Illinois, burying most under his house. Other bodies were recovered from the nearby Des Plaines River. Sometimes known as the “Killer Clown" for his habit of dressing in a clown costume and makeup, Gacy had an abusive childhood and struggled with his homosexuality. After being convicted of sexual assault in 1968, Gacy's murders were discovered. Gacy was executed May 10, 1994. -
Ted Bundy Photo: https://uknow.uky.edu/sites/default/files/styles/uknow_story_image/public/Bundy.jpg
Ted Bundy was a 1970s serial murderer, rapist and necrophiliac. Bundy confessed to 36 killings of young women across several states in the 1970s, but experts believe that the final tally may be closer to 100 or more. His killings usually followed a gruesome pattern: He often raped his victims before beating them to death. He often lured his victims into his car by pretending to be injured and asking for their help. He was executed in Florida's electric chair in 1989. -
Jeffrey Dahmer Photo: https://scalar.usc.edu/works/serial-killers-in-film/media/jeffrey-dahmer-115.jpg
Jeffrey Dahmer took the lives of 17 males. Dahmer sought out men, mostly African American, at gay bars, malls and bus stops, lured them home with promises of money or sex, and gave them alcohol laced with drugs before strangling them to death. He would engage in sex acts with the corpses before dismembering them and disposing of them, often keeping their skulls or genitals as souvenirs. Dahmer was captured in 1991 and sentenced to 16 life terms. He was killed by a fellow prison inmate in 1994. -
Harold Shipman Photo: https://filmdaily.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Harold-Shipman-1.jpg
British serial killer Harold Shipman began working as a physician in 1970. Between then and his arrest in 1998, he killed about 260 of his patients, injecting them with lethal doses of painkillers. Hiding behind his status as a caring, family doctor, it's almost impossible to establish exactly how many died at his hands, and his denial of all charges did nothing to assist the authorities. His killing spree was only brought to an end because of Angela Woodruff, the daughter of one of his victims. -
Gary Ridgway "Green River Killer" Photo: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Gary_Ridgway_Mugshot_11302001.jpg
Gary Ridgway held a job painting trucks for 30 years and was married three times. He began murdering women in 1982 and was caught in 2001 when a DNA test revealed a match. Ridgway told investigators he killed as many as 75-80 women along Route 99 in south King County, Washington. He was convicted and received multiple life sentences. He brought many prostitutes to his home and strangled them.The first few bodies turned up along the now-notorious Green River. -
Richard Ramirez Photo: https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/gettyimages-514872286-1569527134.jpg?crop=0.485xw:0.741xh;0.309xw,0.0844xh&resize=480:*
Richard Ramirez killed at least 14 people and raped and tortured at least two dozen more, mostly during the spring and summer of 1985. After developing epilepsy as a child, he became a heavy drug user and cultivated an interest in Satanism, which became a calling card for investigators at his crime scenes. Apprehended in August 1985, Ramirez was sentenced to death in 1989. He spent the remainder of his days at California's San Quentin Prison, before dying from cancer in 2013. -
Aileen Wuornos Photo: https://cdn.britannica.com/29/97129-050-8CA29558/Charlize-Theron-Monster-Aileen-Wuornos.jpg
Aileen Wuornos was sexually abused and thrown out of her home as a teen. Having been involved in previous incidents with the law, she made a living as a sex worker on Florida's highways, and in 1989, she killed a man who had picked her up. She went on to kill at least five other men and was eventually caught, convicted and placed on death row. Though her sanity was questioned, Wuornos was executed by lethal injection in 2002.
