Colin Pitchfork is an English child-murderer and child-rapist. He was the first person convicted of rape and murder using DNA profiling after he murdered two girls in neighbouring Leicestershire villages: Lynda Mann in Narborough in November 1983 and Dawn Ashworth in Enderby in July 1986. He was arrested on 19 September 1987 and sentenced to life imprisonment on 22 January 1988 after pleading guilty to both murders. The sentencing judge gave him a 30-year minimum term.
Scott Thomas Erskine was an American serial killer on California's death row, convicted in 2003 for the 1993 murder of two California boys. He was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.
John Francis Duffy and David Mulcahy are two British serial rapists and serial killers who together attacked numerous women and children at railway stations in southern England during the 1980s.
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. is an American serial killer, serial rapist, burglar, peeping tom, former police officer and mechanic who committed at least 13 murders, 51 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1974 and 1986. He is responsible for three known separate crime sprees throughout the state, each of which spawned a different nickname in the press, before it became evident that they were committed by the same person.
Lee Chun-jae is a South Korean serial killer known for committing the Hwaseong serial murders. Between 1986 and 1994, Lee murdered fifteen women and girls in addition to committing numerous sexual assaults, predominantly in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, and the surrounding areas. The murders, which remained unsolved for thirty years, are considered to be the most infamous in modern South Korean history and were the inspiration for the 2003 film Memories of Murder.
Antoni Imiela was a German-born convicted serial rapist who grew up in County Durham, England. He was found guilty of the rape of nine women and girls, and the indecent assault, and attempted rape, of a 10-year-old girl whom he repeatedly punched and throttled. The crimes took place in Surrey, Kent, Berkshire, London, Hertfordshire and Birmingham, and the press dubbed the offender the M25 Rapist after the M25 motorway that passes in the vicinity of all those areas except Birmingham. He died in HM Prison Wakefield on 8 March 2018.
Altemio C. Sanchez, also known as the Bike Path Rapist, was a Puerto Rican serial killer who is known to have raped and murdered at least three women, and raped at least 9 to 15 girls and women in and around Buffalo, New York, during a 31-year span from 1975, though perhaps earlier, to 2006. He was apprehended in 2007 through DNA evidence and sentenced to 75 years-to-life, serving 16 years before dying from apparent suicide in 2023.
The Alphabet murders are an unsolved series of child murders which occurred between 1971 and 1973 in Rochester, New York.
Robert Clive Napper is an English serial killer and rapist. He has been convicted of two murders, one manslaughter, two rapes and two attempted rapes. He was sentenced to indefinite detention at Broadmoor Hospital on 18 December 2008 for the manslaughter of Rachel Nickell on 15 July 1992. He was previously convicted of the 1993 double murder of Samantha Bisset and her daughter Jazmine Bisset.
The World's End Murders is the colloquial name given to the murder of two girls, Christine Eadie, 17, and Helen Scott, 17, in Edinburgh, in October 1977. The case is so named because both victims were last seen alive leaving The World's End pub in Edinburgh's Old Town. The only person to stand trial accused of the murders, Angus Robertson Sinclair, was acquitted in 2007 in controversial circumstances. Following the amendment of the law of double jeopardy, which would have prevented his retrial, Sinclair was retried in October 2014 and convicted of both murders on 14 November 2014. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 37 years, the longest sentence by a Scottish court, meaning he would have been 106 years old when he was eligible for a potential release on parole. He died at HM Prison Glenochil aged 73 on 11 March 2019. Coincidentally, he died on the same day the BBC's Crimewatch Roadshow programme profiled the murders.
John Floyd Thomas Jr. is an American serial killer, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murders of seven white women in the Los Angeles area during the 1970s and 1980s. Police suspect Thomas committed 10 to 15 more murders.
Colette Aram was a 16-year-old British trainee hairdresser who was abducted, raped and strangled as she walked from her home to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. The murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch when it began in June 1984. However, despite receiving over 400 calls as a result of the programme, Nottinghamshire Police were unable to catch the killer, and it was not until 2008 and following advances in forensic technology that police were able to develop a DNA profile of the suspect. Paul Stewart Hutchinson was finally charged with the murder in April 2009. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty on 21 December 2009 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010. Following his sentencing, Crimewatch ran a recap of the murder and investigation on BBC TV on 27 January 2010 exposing several inaccuracies reported in the press about his background, notably a lie about being a psychology graduate.
Rodney James Alcala was an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979. He also pleaded guilty and received a sentence of 25 years to life for two further murders committed in New York and was also indicted with a murder in Wyoming, although charges were dropped due to a technicality. While he has been conclusively linked to eight murders, Alcala's true number of victims remains unknown and could be much higher – the actual number could be as high as 130.
Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. is a company based in Reston, Virginia, that develops nanopharmaceuticals and provides DNA phenotyping services for law enforcement organizations.
In June 1981, fourteen-year old Marion Crofts was raped and murdered in Aldershot, England. The case is notable for the 21 year delay in justice before former soldier Tony Jasinskyj was found guilty as a result of advances in DNA testing and sentenced to life in prison. He is up for parole in 2022, despite him never having admitted his guilt and the DNA evidence proving that the chances of the perpetrator being anyone other than Jasinskyj were 1 in a billion.
Anthony McKnight was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and sex offender who killed five women and assaulted five others in Oakland, California, over a period of five months in late 1985 and early 1986. In 2008, he was found guilty of these murders and sentenced to death, but died awaiting execution in 2019.
Andrzej Kunowski, known as The Beast of Mława, was a Polish murderer, serial rapist and suspected serial killer. A prolific sex offender in his native country, Kunowski later moved illegally to England, where he murdered 12-year-old Macedonian girl Katerina Koneva in 1997. Sentenced to a whole life order for this crime, he was detained at the HM Prison Frankland until his death in 2009. He remains the prime suspect in the disappearances of three girls between 1992 and 2000, for which he was never charged.
Ray Dell Sims is an American serial killer who is responsible for the murders of at least five girls in Fresno, California from 1974 to 1977. Originally convicted of a single murder, he was linked to the later killings via DNA in 2001, and has since been convicted of one more and is currently serving two life terms.
Nathaniel Burkett was an American serial killer and rapist who was responsible for at least four murders in Nevada and one in Mississippi between 1978 and 2002. As a result of a DNA breakthrough in 2012, Burkett was charged with three of the murders, after having already been convicted of the other two. He pleaded guilty to the crimes in 2018 and was sentenced to life in prison, but he died just three years later from COVID-19.
Jose Guerrero is an American serial killer and rapist who abducted and killed three women and attempted to kill a fourth between 1995 and 1998 in Madera, California. The murders remained unsolved for nearly six years until DNA implicated Guerrero after he was jailed for a DUI. He was later found guilty and given the death penalty in 2009.
