15 States With The Most Serial Killers
Across the United States, certain states have a higher numberof serial killers than others. Although one serial killer is one too many, some states like New York have had nearly 20 active serial killers over the decades. However, a high number of serial killers doesn’t necessarily mean the highest number of murders. For example, California has fewer serial killers than New York, but more than twice as many murders due to the prolific nature of serial killers like Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker) and Joseph James DeAngelo (The Golden State Killer).
In the list below, we examine the top 15 states with the highest number of serial killers and the stories behind each state’s most notorious criminals. The number of killers listed versus the number of killings per state can seem disproportionate, but the number of killings is so high compared with the number of killers because of two factors: killers who were never caught (like the Zodiac and other, less famous examples), and many serial killers actually cross state lines to kill. So a serial killer might be very active and known for terrorizing one state, but has killings in other states that contribute to the other state’s high number of killings.
Photo: New York Police Department / Wikipedia / Fair use
Number Of Serial Killers: 18
Number Of Killings: 677
Notable Serial Killers: Known as the “Son of Sam,” David Berkowitz murdered six people and injured 11 more in the mid-1970s. He claimed that the shootings were caused by his neighbor Sam Carr’s dog, Harvey, who sent him satanic messages. Berkowitz was sentenced to life in prison and has since become an evangelical Christian.
Prolific serial killer Joel Rifkin brutally murdered 17 women in the late 1980s and early 1990s. After murdering his first victim, Heidi Balch, Rifkin dismembered her, removed her teeth, and left her head in a paint can in a wooded area. Rifkin was arrested after failing to stop for police, crashing into a pole, and police finding the body of a victim in Rifkin’s vehicle.
Shortly after Joel Rifkin was arrested, Kendall Francoisbegan killing sex workers in the Poughkeepsie area. He murdered at least eight women and was only caught after one of his victims escaped. Francois died in prison in 2014 due to “apparent natural causes.”
Worst Years To Live There: David Berkowitz was consistently active between the summers of 1976 and 1977. Joel Rifkin’s killings took place between 1989 and 1993, while Kendall Francois committed his murders from 1996-1998, making the 1990s a particularly violent time for New York.
Number Of Serial Killers: 15
Number Of Killings: 1777
Notable Serial Killers: In 1969, California newspapers began receiving cryptic letters from an individual who identified himself as the “Zodiac Killer.” Five murders and two assaults were attributed to the Zodiac Killer in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but he claimed to have murdered 37 people. The Zodiac Killer was never apprehended.
Beginning in 1974, a string of robberies, rapes, and murders were attributed to an unidentified killer known over the years as the Visalia Ransacker, The East Area Rapist, and the Original Night Stalker. Now commonly known as the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelowas arrested for these crimes in 2018. DeAngelo murdered at least 13 people; raping, assaulting, and burgling more than a hundred other victims.
Richard Ramirez murdered at least 14 people in California in the 1980s under the moniker the “Night Stalker.” Ramirez incorporated Satanic and occult symbols and messages in these murders amidst the growing Satanic panic of the 1980s.
Worst Years To Live There: Richard Ramirez began his murder spree in the summer of 1984 and continued until he was apprehended on August 31, 1985. Ramirez was famously captured after being recognized in an East Los Angeles convenience store and chased through the streets by an angry mob. Less than a year after Ramirez was captured, Joseph DeAngelo committed his final known murder in May 1986.
Photo: Believed Henley family member / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
Number Of Serial Killers: 8
Number Of Killings: 948
Notable Serial Killers: Dean Corll, who earned himself the nickname “The Candy Man,” was responsible for the murders of 28 young men and boys in the Houston area in the 1970s. Corll was later shot to death by one of his accomplices, Elmer Wayne Henley, during an argument.
Angel Maturino Reséndiz, more commonly known as “The Railroad Killer,” murdered between 15 and 23 people across the United States and Mexico by hopping freight trains and evading police for years. He was subsequently arrested and executed in Texas.
Charles Albright, “The Eyeball Killer,” murdered three sex workers in the greater Dallas area and removed their eyes. He was arrested less than two weeks after the final murder and sentenced to life in prison, dying there in 2020.
Worst Years To Live There: Dean Corll was active from 1970-1973. Angel Maturino Reséndiz started murdering in the late 1980s but wasn’t captured until 1999. At the same time, Charles Albright committed his string of murders between December 1990 and March 1991.
Photo: Des Plaines Police Department / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
Number Of Serial Killers: 7
Number Of Killings: 680
Notable Serial Killers: John Wayne Gacy is arguably the most infamous serial killer in the history of Illinois. Gacy murdered at least 33 young men and boys and hid their bodies in the crawlspace of his Chicago home. He was captured only after a police officer noticed the smell of decaying flesh coming from a heating vent in Gacy’s bathroom. John Wayne Gacy was executed in 1994.
Just over a century before Gacy’s execution, H.H. Holmes is alleged to have murdered anywhere from 20 to over 200 people around the time of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago. Holmes built what has been dubbed a “murder castle,” although many of the claims about the now-demolished home have been debunked. Holmes was only convicted for one murder and executed by hanging in 1896.
Worst Years To Live There: John Wayne Gacy was an active serial killer from 1972-1978, committing his first murder in 1972 His victim count sharply escalated following his divorce in 1976. Gacy would commit 12 murders in 1976, 9 in 1977, and 5 in 1978.
Number Of Serial Killers: 7
Number Of Killings: 505
Notable Serial Killers: In the 1960s, the Cincinnati Strangler took the lives of seven women living in the city’s housing projects. The Strangler was later revealed to be Posteal Laskey Jr., who had previously been on probation for assaulting a woman. Laskey initially received the death penalty in 1967, but the sentence was commuted to life in prison. Laskey died in prison in 2007, serving nearly 40 years for his crimes.
In the mid-2000s, Cleveland was struck by a serial killer who claimed the lives of 11 women. Anthony Sowell, better known as the “Cleveland Strangler,” was apprehended after one of his victims escaped and police issued an arrest warrant. During an investigation of Sowell’s home, law enforcement discovered 11 bodies hidden and buried throughout the house and backyard. Sowell died in prison in 2021.
Worst Years To Live There: Posteal Laskey Jr. committed his first murder in December of 1965 and his last in December of 1966. Over 40 years later, Anthony Sowell would commit his killings between 2007 and 2009.
Photo: Unknown / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
Number Of Serial Killers: 6
Number Of Killings: 349
Notable Serial Killers: Belle Gunness was a serial killer who lived in La Porte, IN in the early 1900s. Two of Gunness’s husbands died under suspicious circumstances and other men who courted her went missing. When her farmhouse burned down in 1908, the remains of Gunness’s three children were found in the house and nearly a dozen other bodies were found on the property. The headless body believed to be Gunness’s that was found in the fire may or may not have actually been her.
Herb Baumeister is potentially the most prolific serial killer in the history of Indiana. In 1996, the remains of at least 11 victims were found buried on his farm. It’s also highly suspected that he was the I-70 Strangler, who murdered 11 young men and boys. Baumeister took his own life but never admitted to any of the crimes.
Worst Years To Live There: Multiple men traveled to Belle Gunness’s home between 1900 and 1908 and were never heard from again. The I-70 Strangler was active from 1980-1991. It seems that the killings started to drop off around 1988 when Baumeister bought his farm outside Indianapolis.
Photo: Baton Rouge Police Department / Wikipedia / Fair Use
Number Of Serial Killers: 6
Number Of Killings: 344
Notable Serial Killers: Derrick Todd Lee began murdering women in the Baton Rouge area in the 90s. He would kill seven women in total, often stalking them prior to killing them. There was an urban legend that he used the recording of a crying baby to trick women into answering the door, although this claim was thoroughly debunked. Lee died in prison in 2016 before he could be executed.
Sean Vincent Gillis was also active in the Baton Rouge area, murdering eight women in a 10-year period. Gillis was initially arrested for three murders before confessing to five more. Photographs of his victims were found on his computer and their body parts were also found in his home. Gillis remains in prison.
Worst Years To Live There: Derrick Todd Lee was an active serial killer from 1992-2003. Sean Vincent Gillis was active at almost the same time from 1994-2004, meaning that two serial killers were active at the same time for nearly a decade.
Photo: Philadelphia Police Department / Wikipedia / Fair Use
Number Of Serial Killers: 5
Number Of Killings: 462
Notable Serial Killers: Gary Heidnik began abducting women in the Philadelphia area and holding them captive in his basement in the mid-1980s. The women had to dig pits for themselves and were subjected to perverse acts of torture. During a four-month period, two of the women died. Heidnik was later used as the inspiration behind Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs. He was executed in 1999.
Meanwhile, Harrison Graham brought seven women to his Philadelphia apartment where he gave them drugs and murdered them. The odor coming from Graham’s apartment had gotten so bad that he was evicted, which is when the remains of seven women were found in the apartment. Graham spent a week on the run before turning himself in. He was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to a life sentence.
Worst Years To Live There: Gary Heidnik abducted Josephina Rivera on November 25, 1986. He would go on to abduct five more women until Rivera escaped on March 24, 1987. Harrison Graham was active at essentially the same time, committing his first murder in late 1986 and his final murder in 1987.
Photo: Fulton County Police Department / Fair Use
Number Of Serial Killers: 4
Number Of Killings: 409
Notable Serial Killers: Often referred to as the Atlanta Child Murders, Wayne Williams was believed to be responsible for 24 of the 30 murders attributed to the case. However, Williams gained the attention of police who were investigating the bodies of young men washing up along the bank of the Chattahoochee River. Police had heard a splash and saw Williams’s car driving away from the bridge. He was eventually arrested and found guilty of murdering two men, earning him a life sentence. He was never tried in connection to the Atlanta Child Murders.
Also known as the Stocking Strangler, Carlton Gary murdered several women in New York before committing a series of murders in Columbus, GA. Gary targeted elderly women and strangled them with their stockings. It’s believed that Gary murdered seven women during this time. He was later arrested for armed robbery, spent a year on the run after breaking out of prison, and was tried for the Georgia murders, which resulted in Gary receiving the death penalty. He was executed in 2018.
Worst Years To Live There: The Atlanta Child Murders spanned nearly two years from July 1979 to May 1981. Wayne Williams was arrested for the murders of his two adult victims in June of 1981, having been under police surveillance for nearly a month.
Carlton Gary was active in Georgia two years before Williams, with his first victim being killed in September 1977 and his final one in April 1978.
Photo: Indianapolis Police Department / Wikipedia / Fair Use
Number Of Serial Killers: 4
Number Of Killings: 212
Notable Serial Killers: Often referred to as the “Angel of Death,” Donald Harvey murdered at least 37 people in Kentucky and Ohio while working as a hospital orderly. Harvey later claimed to have killed 87, but insisted the killings were meant to spare terminally ill patients from further suffering. However, Harvey also poisoned his boyfriend and several neighbors over the years. In 2017, Harvey died two days after being severely beaten by a fellow inmate.
Born in Louisville, Harry Edward Greenwell committed his first murder at a Super 8 Motel in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. After nearly two years of inactivity, he murdered two clerks at Days Inns in Merriville and Remington, IN respectively. These murders were attributed to an unidentified killer known as either the “The Days Inn Killer” or the “I-65 Killer.” DNA evidence subsequently linked Greenwell to the three murders following his death in 2013.
Worst Years To Live There: Donald Harvey was active in both Ohio and Kentucky from 1970-1987. Harry Edward Greenwell committed his first murder in February 1987, a month before Harvey’s final murder. Greenwell’s last known murder occurred in 1989.
Photo: Federal Bureau of Investigation / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
Number Of Serial Killers: 4
Number Of Killings: 200
Notable Serial Killers: The Boston Strangler is said to be responsible for the murder of 13 women ranging in age from 19-85 in the Boston area in the 1960s. In 1965, Albert DeSalvo confessed to the murders, but some have doubted if he was responsible for all of the killings or if multiple serial killers were involved. It took until 2013 for DNA evidence to link him to just one of the murders.
The New Bedford Highway Killer murdered nine women off Route 140 in Massachusetts. The women ranged in age from 19-36 and almost all of them engaged in sex work and struggled with drug addiction. Several men were suspected in the murders, including the boyfriend of the first victim as well as the Lisbon Ripper who was active in Portugal in the early 90s. However, the identity of the New Bedford Highway Killer has never been discovered.
Worst Years To Live There: The Boston Strangler was active for approximately 19 months from June 1962 to January 1964, causing widespread panic throughout Boston. The New Bedford Highway Killer was active for just over a year between March 1988 and April 1989.
Number Of Serial Killers: 4
Number Of Killings: 198
Notable Serial Killers: At least a eight murders have been attributed to Donald Henry “Pee Wee” Gaskins, although he claimed to have killed 100 people in South Carolina. A number of Gaskins’s victims were people he knew, including friends and his own niece. After being arrested in 1975 and sent to prison, he killed another death row inmate in 1982, which earned him the moniker of the “Meanest Man in America.” Gaskins was executed on September 6, 1991.
In the summer of 1970, William Joseph Pierce Jr.committed his first murder in North Augusta, SC. Over the next several months, he murdered five more people while also committing a string of robberies. He was eventually apprehended during a robbery with the help of a description from someone he’d shot at. He received a life sentence and died in prison in 2020.
In a strange twist, Donald Henry Gaskins claimed to have murdered one of Pierce’s victims, 13-year-old Peg Cuttino. However, Gaskins later recanted the confession.
Worst Years To Live There: Donald Henry Gaskins’s first recorded murder occurred in 1970 and continued until he was arrested in late 1975. In another bizarre turn of events, Pierce was active during this time, starting in June 1970 and ending in January 1971, about two months before he was arrested.
Photo: Donn Dughi / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
Number Of Serial Killers: 4
Number Of Killings: 396
Notable Serial Killers: Gary Ridgway, The Green River Killer, was one of the most prolific serial killers when he was arrested in 2001. Ridgway is believed to have murdered 49 women, usually by strangling them, and reportedly committed acts of necrophilia. Ridgway had been a suspect in the case since the 1980s, but it took advancements in DNA technology for law enforcement to have enough evidence to arrest and convict him. Gary Ridgway received a life sentence after taking a plea bargain.
Although many of his murders took place elsewhere, some of serial killer Ted Bundy’s earliest murders took place in the greater Seattle area. Bundy typically targeted college-age women, who started to go missing at an alarming rate. Bundy confessed to murdering 36 women, but the true number of victims could be over 100. Bundy would evade law enforcement for years until he was arrested in 1978 and sentenced to death. He was executed on January 24, 1989.
Worst Years To Live There: Ted Bundy’s Washington murders took place between January and July of 1974. He then moved on to Utah and Florida. Gary Ridgway was an active serial killer for nearly two decades with his first murder occurring in July 1982 and the final one in 1998.
Photo: Alabama Department of Corrections / Wikipedia / Fair Use
Number Of Serial Killers: 3
Number Of Killings: 199
Notable Serial Killers: Thomas Warren Whisenhantcommitted his first murder when he was only 16. However, the case never went to trial, but after assaulting a woman in 1966, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. A couple of years after being released on parole, he murdered three female convenience store workers in Mobile County. He was arrested the day after the third murder when he returned to the crime scene to desecrate the body. He received the death penalty in 1977 but wasn’t executeduntil 2010.
In the mid-1980s, a student at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind in Talladega was found murdered along with her two young children. Shortly after, another student was discovered dead in her apartment. Law enforcement eventually connected an art teacher named Daniel Spence to the murders, which turned out to be an alias for serial killer Daniel Lee Siebert. Siebert would also be connected to the murder of a sex worker as well as his girlfriend around this time. He spent six months on the run before being captured and confessed to at least a dozen murdersin total. He died in prison before he could be executed.
Worst Years To Live There: Thomas Warren Whisenhant committed his first murder in 1963. After being released on parole, he committed three additional murders in an 11-month period from November 1975 to October 1976. A decade later in 1986, Daniel Lee Siebert went on his murder spree.
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Number Of Serial Killers: 3
Number Of Killings: 134
Notable Serial Killers: Michael Bruce Ross murdered eight women in Connecticut in the early 1980s. Ross often followed women who were walking home alone or picked them up as hitchhikers, earning him the alias “The Roadside Killer.” After confessing to the crimes, Ross took police to where he’d buried his victims. Ross was executed on May 13, 2005, and was the last person to receive the death penalty in Connecticut before it was overturned.
William Devin Howell murdered seven women in Connecticut in the early 2000s. The self-proclaimed “sick ripper,” Howell drove what’s been described as a “murder mobile” that he used to abduct women and murder them. Howell was initially arrested after the blood of a victim was found in the back of his van, but he was only convicted after the remains of three victims were found days later. More remains were found in 2015, leading to Howell earning six consecutive life sentences.
Worst Years To Live There: Michael Bruce Ross committed his first murder on May 12, 1981, and his last on June 13, 1984. William Devin Howell committed his murders in quick succession between January and October of 2003.
