Top 10 most prolific serial killers

THE sudden death of American Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other embassy employees on September 11 by a mob attack was a tragedy. Whatever their reasons, killing or murder is violating God’s law, the right for life. But there are people who don’t value life. Massacre, murders, serial killings were crimes committed that led to numbers of deaths that increase to hundreds, doubled and reach to thousands. These people who committed crimes are called most wanted people and prolific serial killers in the world like Osama Bin Laden, public enemy Al Capone Chicago’s infamous gangster, couple’s Bon and Clyde in the early 30s went on a crime spree of small scale robbery, John Dillinger carried out a series of bank raid was America’s most wanted men.

The following persons are now today’s top ten most prolific serial killers: (Reference: Top Ten of Everything by Caroline Ash Hamlyn)

Murderers/Country

1. Behram (India) - was the leader of the Thugee cult in India, whom is reckoned to be responsible for the death of 2 million people. He was found guilty of personally committing 931 murders between 1790-1830, mostly by ritual strangulation with the cult’s traditional cloth, known as ruhmal.

2. Countess Erszebet Bathory (Hungary) - in the period up to 1610 in Hungary, Bathory (1560-1614),known “Countess Dracula’ was alleged to have murdered between 300 and 650 girls in the belief that drinking their blood would prevent her from ageing. She was arrested in 1611, tried and found guilty .She died on August 21, 1614, walled up in her own castle.

3. Pedro Alonzo Lopez (Colombia) - Captured in 1980, Lopez, nicknamed the “Monster of the Andes,” led police to 53 graves but confessed to killing at least 300 in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. He is thought to have served 14 years to 16–year sentence before being released by the Ecuadorian government on “good behavior.” His current whereabouts are unknown.

4. Dr. Harold Shipman (UK) - In January 2000, Manchester doctor Shipman was found guilty of the murder of 15 women patients; the official enquiry into his crimes put the figure at 218, with a probable number of victims around 250, but some authorities believed that the total could be as high as 400. He was the only doctor murdering his patients. Shipman hanged himself in his prison cell on January 14, 2004.

5. Luis Alfredo Garavito (Colombia) - in 1957 confessed in 1999 to a number of murders. Though found guilty of murdering 138 young boys, the number of his victims could actually exceed 300. The total sentences add up to 1,835 years imprisonment, but due to Colombian way, he serves less than 30 years.

6. Henry Lee Lucas (USA) - Lucas (1936-2001)-admitted involvement in about 600 murders, many committed with his partner-in-crime Ottis Tool, but later recanted his confessions. He died while on Death Row in Huntsville Prison, Texas.

7. Gilles de Rais (France) - A fabulous wealthy French Aristocrat, Gilles de Laval, Baron de Rais, (1404-40) committed murders as sacrifices during black magic rituals. Charged with a catalogue of crimes that included the conjuration of demons, he was tried, tortured and found guilty. He was strangled and his body burnt at Nantes on October 25,1440.

8. Hu Wanlin (China) - Posing as a doctor specializing in ancient Chinese medicine, Hu Wanlin was sentenced on October 1, 2000 to 15 years imprisonment from three deaths, but authorities believed he was responsible for considerably more, an estimated 20 in Taiyuan, 146 in Shanxi and 30 in Shanggui.

9. Hermann Webster Mudgett (USA) - Also known as “H.H. Holmes,” Mudgett (1860-96), a former doctor, was believed to have lured over 150 women to his Chicago “castle.” This warren of secret passages was fully equipped for torturing, murdering and dissecting his victims, and disposing of their bodies in furnaces or an acid bath. Arrested in 1984 and found guilty of the murder of an ex-partner, he confessed killing 27 people, but may have killed up to 150 occasions. Mudgett, regarded as America’s first mass murderer, was hanged on May 7, 1896.

10. Pedro Rodriguez Filho - A Brazilian serial killer, convicted and sentenced to 128 years in jail, although the maximum length of jail sentence in Brazil is 30 years. He has claimed to have killed over 100 people, at least 40 of whom were inmates.