Aileen Carol Wuornos was an American serial killer. In 1989–1990, while engaging in street prostitution along highways in Florida, she shot dead and robbed seven of her male clients. Wuornos claimed that her clients had either raped or attempted to rape her, and that the homicides of the men were committed in self-defense. Wuornos was sentenced to death for six of the murders. She was executed on October 9, 2002, by lethal injection after spending more than 10 years on Florida's death row.
Adam John Walsh was an American child who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981. His severed head was found two weeks later in a drainage canal alongside Highway 60/Yeehaw Junction in rural Indian River County, Florida. His death garnered national interest and was made into the 1983 television film Adam, seen by 38 million people in its original airing.
John Edward Walsh, Jr. is an American television presenter, criminologist, victims' rights activist, and the host/creator of America's Most Wanted. He is known for his anti-crime activism, with which he became involved following the murder of his son, Adam, in 1981; in 2008, deceased serial killer Ottis Toole was officially named as Adam's killer. Walsh was part-owner of the now defunct National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington, D.C. He also anchored an investigative documentary series, The Hunt with John Walsh, which debuted on CNN in 2014.
Daniel "Danny" Harold Rolling, known as The Gainesville Ripper, was an American serial killer who murdered five college students in Gainesville, Florida over four days in August 1990.
Elizabeth Short, known as the Black Dahlia, was an American woman found murdered in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1947. Her case became highly publicized owing to the gruesome nature of the crime, which included the mutilation of her corpse, which was bisected at the waist.
Joseph Lyle Menendez and Erik Galen Menendez, collectively referred to as the Menendez brothers, are American brothers and convicted murderers who killed their parents, José and Mary Louise "Kitty" Menendez, at their Beverly Hills home in 1989.
Henry Lee Lucas, also known as the Confession Killer, was an American convicted murderer. Lucas was convicted of murdering his mother in 1960 and two others in 1983. He rose to infamy as a claimed serial killer while incarcerated for these crimes when he falsely confessed to approximately 600 other murders to Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials. Many unsolved cases were closed based on the confessions and the murders officially attributed to Lucas. He was convicted of murdering eleven people and condemned to death for a single case with a then-unidentified victim, later identified as Debra Jackson.
Cary Anthony Stayner is an American serial killer and the older brother of kidnapping victim Steven Stayner. He worked as a mechanic in Mariposa County, California, and murdered four women between February and July 1999, dumping their bodies near Yosemite National Park, leading to him being dubbed the Yosemite Park Killer or simply the Yosemite Killer. Stayner was found guilty and received the death penalty in 2002. He is currently awaiting execution at San Quentin State Prison.
Joel David Rifkin is an American serial killer, who was sentenced to 203 years in prison for the murders of nine women between 1989 and 1993, though it is believed he killed as many as 17 people.
Jerome Henry "Jerry" Brudos was an American serial killer and necrophile known as the Lust Killer and the Shoe Fetish Slayer who committed the kidnap, rape, and murder of four young women between 1968 and 1969 in Salem, Oregon. He is also known to have attempted to abduct two other young women.
Phillip Carl Jablonski was an American serial killer and rapist convicted of killing five women in California and Utah between 1978 and 1991.
Tommy Lynn Sells was an American serial killer, often referred to as "the Coast to Coast Killer" due to his claims of committing murders across the United States. Though convicted of only one murder, for which he received the death penalty and was eventually executed in 2014, he is believed to have committed at least 22 murders, with Sells himself claiming over 70 victims.
The murder of Dolores Della Penna is an unsolved murder case dating from July 1972 in which a 17-year-old high school graduate was abducted, tortured, murdered and dismembered by an unknown number of individuals in Kensington, Philadelphia. Her dismembered torso, arms and legs were later discovered in New Jersey, although her head has never been found.
Dena Schlosser is an American woman who lived in Plano, Texas, who, on November 22, 2004, used a knife to amputate the arms of her ten-month-old daughter, Margaret, who died as a result. Plano police responded to a 9-1-1 call made by concerned workers at a local daycare center who had spoken to her earlier that day. The operator testified that she confessed to her and that the gospel song "He Touched Me" played in the background. When police arrived they saw her calmly sitting down, covered in blood, holding the knife, and singing Christian hymns.
Christopher Bernard Wilder, also known as the Beauty Queen Killer and the Snapshot Killer, was an Australian-American serial killer who abducted at least twelve young women and girls, killing eight of them during a six-week, cross-country crime spree in the United States in early 1984. Wilder's series of murders began in Florida on February 26, 1984, and continued across the country through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Nevada and California, with attempted abductions in Washington and New York. Wilder victimized attractive young women, most of whom he would entice by promising to take their pictures. After subduing them, he would torture and rape them before shooting, stabbing with a knife, or strangling them to death. Two or more of his victims were electrocuted using a makeshift electrical cord.
Glen Edward Rogers, is an American convicted serial killer. He was also convicted of related crimes in Florida and California, such as armed robbery, grand theft auto, and arson.
Dena Thompson, commonly known as The Black Widow, is a British convicted murderer, confidence trickster and bigamist who is also suspected of having killed a second individual. She habitually met men through lonely hearts columns and stole their money. She was imprisoned for murdering former media manager Julian Webb, her second husband. She had previously been acquitted of the attempted murder of her next husband Richard Thompson, having attacked him with a baseball bat and a knife but being cleared on the grounds of self-defence. Despite her acquittal for the attempted murder of Thompson, police became suspicious of the circumstances in which previous husband Webb had died, and after Webb's remains were exhumed and analyzed she was convicted of murder and sentenced to life. A High Court ruling in 2007 determined she would serve 16 years, meaning she would not be eligible for release until 2019. She was also convicted of theft and defrauding former lovers.
Peaches is an unidentified female whose torso was discovered on June 28, 1997, in Lakeview, New York, near Hempstead Lake State Park. The cause of the woman's death is listed as homicide, due to decapitation. As of 2024, she remains unidentified, and her skull has yet to be found. The woman had a tattoo on her left breast depicting a heart-shaped peach with a bite taken out of it and two drops falling from its core, which resulted in her nickname. By December 2016, additional skeletal remains found on Long Island in 2011 had been positively identified as belonging to Peaches, along with the remains of her child. As a result, Peaches is now linked to the Long Island serial killer as a potential victim.
On the evening of November 18, 1987, police went to the mobile home of Russell Keith Dardeen, 29, and his family outside Ina, Illinois, United States, after he had failed to show up for work that day. There, they found the bodies of his wife and son, both brutally beaten. Ruby Elaine Dardeen, 30, who had been pregnant with the couple's daughter, had been beaten so badly she had gone into labor, and the killer or killers had also beaten the newborn to death.
Jessie Earl was a 22-year-old student who disappeared from Eastbourne, England in May 1980. It was not until 1989 that her remains were discovered in thick undergrowth on Beachy Head, where she would regularly take walks.
