A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or lessen it to two.
Gary Leon Ridgway is an American serial killer known as the Green River Killer. He was initially convicted of 48 separate murders committed between the early 1980s and late 1990s. As part of his plea bargain, another conviction was added, bringing the total number of convictions to 49, making him the second most prolific serial killer in United States history according to confirmed murders.
Robert K. Ressler was an FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", though the term is a direct translation of the German term "Serienmörder" coined in 1930 by Berlin investigator Ernst Gennat. After retiring from the FBI, he authored a number of books on serial murders, and often gave lectures on criminology.
Atteridgeville is a township located to the west of Pretoria, South Africa. It is located to the east of Saulsville, to the west of West Park; to the north of Laudium and to the south of Lotus Gardens. The settlement was established in 1939, and is named after Mrs MP Atteridge, chairwoman of the Committee for Non-European Affairs on the Pretoria City Council at the time. The Lucas Masterpieces Moripe Stadium is located in Atteridgeville.
Moses Sithole is a South African serial killer and rapist who committed the ABC Murders, so named because they began in Atteridgeville, continued in Boksburg and finished in Cleveland, a suburb of Johannesburg.
Maury Troy Travis was an American serial killer. Travis was named in a federal criminal complaint for the murders of two women. At the time of the murders, he was a hotel waiter, and on parole for a 1989 robbery. While Travis claimed in a letter to have murdered 17 women, some authorities were doubtful; others thought he may have murdered up to 20 women. He died by suicide by hanging in custody in St. Louis County, Missouri, after being arrested for murder.
Scott Wilson Williams is a convicted American serial killer who lived in Monroe, North Carolina. He has been convicted for the murders of three women that took place over a period of nine years. He has also been convicted of crimes against two additional women who were not killed.
Maoupa Cedric Maake, known as The Wemmer Pan Killer, is a South African serial killer who was convicted of 27 murders but was suspected of killing many more.
Ronald Joseph Dominique, known as The Bayou Strangler, is an American serial killer and rapist who murdered at least 23 men and boys in the state of Louisiana between 1997 and 2006. On September 23, 2008, Dominique was found guilty and sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment without parole for his crimes. Following his conviction, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated that Dominique's was the most significant serial homicide case in the country over the past two decades in terms of both death toll and duration.
Sipho Mandla Agmatir Thwala is a South African rapist and serial killer who was convicted in 1999 for the murders of 16 women and 10 rapes. He was sentenced to 506 years in prison. Thwala was known by the moniker "The Phoenix Strangler".
Walter Earl Ellis, known as The Milwaukee North Side Strangler, was an American serial killer who raped and strangled at least seven women in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin between 1986 and 2007. Until May 2009, the killings were considered to be independent of one another, but were then linked together via DNA profiling. Ellis was arrested as a suspect on September 7, 2009, and convicted for the seven murders in February 2011, receiving seven consecutive life sentences without the chance of parole.
Thozamile Taki, known as The Sugarcane Killer, is a South African serial killer who killed 13 women aged 18–25, dumping their bodies in agricultural plantations. On 19 January 2011, Taki was sentenced to 13 life sentences for the murders and an additional 208 years, 16 years for each of his victims of armed robbery.
Stewart Wilken, known as The Boetie Boer, is a convicted serial killer from South Africa. Wilken is regarded as a highly unusual serial killer, having killed individuals from two distinct victim types: female prostitutes and young boys. Wilken killed from 1990 until he was arrested in January 1997. He was active in Port Elizabeth, on the east coast of South Africa.
Norman Afzal Simons, known as The Station Strangler, is a South African rapist and suspected serial killer who was convicted in 1995 of the rape and murder of 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode is a South African rapist and serial killer who was convicted in 1995 on eight counts of murder, five counts of rape, five counts of attempted murder, and two counts of indecent assault. Zikode is, however, considered responsible for at least 18 murders and 11 attempted murders.
Johannes Mashiane, nicknamed The Beast of Atteridgeville, was a South African rapist and serial killer who was responsible for the deaths of 13 victims before committing suicide in 1989. Mashiane was being chased by police in the Pretoria suburb of Marabastad when he jumped underneath a bus.
Nicholas Lungisa Ncama is a South African serial killer who was convicted in 1997 of three murders and sentenced to life in prison. His victims all came from the Port Elizabeth area of the Eastern Cape.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 women between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.
John Phuko Kgabi, known as The Ritual Killer, was a South African serial killer and a former police officer who murdered between six and at least eleven young girls in Atteridgeville and Limpopo. A sexually-motivated killer, he would cut his victims' throats and then masturbate on their corpses. Convicted and sentenced to death, he was hanged in 1980.
The Cape Town Prostitute Killer, also known as TheCape Town Strangler, is an unidentified South African serial killer who fatally strangled 16 prostitutes and three domestic workers in Cape Town between 1992 and 1996. His modus operandi consisted of picking up his victims on rainy nights, fatally strangling them in his car, and dumping their bodies in preselected locations. Although none of the victims were raped, the perpetrator tried to stage them to make it look as if they were.
