The Hillside Strangler, later the Hillside Stranglers, is the media epithet for one, later discovered to be two, American serial killers who terrorized Los Angeles, California, between October 1977 and February 1978, with the nicknames originating from the fact that many of the victims' bodies were discovered in the hills surrounding the city.
Kenneth Alessio Bianchi is an American serial killer, kidnapper, and rapist. He is known for the Hillside Strangler murders committed with his cousin Angelo Buono Jr. in Los Angeles, California, as well as for murdering two more women in Washington by himself. Bianchi is currently serving a sentence of life imprisonment in Washington State Penitentiary for these crimes. Bianchi was also at one time a suspect in the Alphabet murders, three unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester, New York, from 1971 to 1973.
Richard Francis Cottingham is an American serial killer who was convicted in New York of six murders committed between 1972 and 1980 and convicted in New Jersey of twelve murders committed between 1967 and 1978. He was nicknamed by media as the Torso Killer and the Times Square Ripper, since some of the murders he was convicted of included mutilation.
Yoshio Kodaira was a Japanese serial killer, serial rapist, and war criminal who murdered at least 8 people in the Tokyo and Tochigi Prefecture areas between 1932 and 1946.
Paul Durousseau is an American serial killer who murdered seven young women in the southeastern United States between 1997 and 2003. German authorities suspect he may have also killed several local women when he was stationed there with the United States Army during the early 1990s. Typically, Durousseau would gain the victim's trust, enter the victim's home, tie their hands, rape, then strangle them to death. All of his known victims were young, single African-American women.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Necrophilia is a pathological fascination with dead bodies, which often takes the form of a desire to engage with them in sexual activities, such as intercourse. Though prohibited by the laws of many countries, there have been many reported cases of necrophilia throughout history.
Shawn Michael Grate is an American serial killer and rapist who was sentenced to death for the murders of five young women in and around northern Ohio from 2006 to 2016. Grate was convicted on two counts of aggravated murder on May 7, 2018, in Ashland County, pleaded guilty to two additional murders on March 1, 2019, in Richland County, and pleaded guilty to an additional murder on September 11, 2019, in Marion County.
Patrick Tissier is a French serial killer and rapist who was convicted of killing three people from 1971 to 1993 in the southern regions of France. His case, along with that of Christian Van Geloven, led to a reform in the penal code in regard to the treatment of child murderers.
Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people, nearly all 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.
Nikolai Borisovich Fefilov, known as The Urals Strangler, was a Soviet serial killer. Between 1982 and 1988, he killed 7 women and girls in Sverdlovsk, 6 of which were rape-related.
The Denver Prostitute Killer was an unidentified American serial killer responsible for the murder of at least 17 women and girls in Denver and its various suburbs between 1975 and 1995. In 2005, based upon results from DNA profiling, it was determined that the most likely killer was Billy Edwin Reid who was previously arrested and charged with the 1989 murder of Lannell Williams and Lisa Kelly. Reid was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for those specific murders. The killings were grouped together only in 2008 – until then, each of these crimes was considered to have been committed by different people.
Shlomo Haliva, known as The Weeping Rapist, is an Israeli serial rapist, murderer and suspected serial killer. Convicted for the murder of a woman in 1983, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Joseph "Joey" Daniel Miller is an American serial killer who raped and murdered at least five girls and women in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from 1986 and 1990. In 1993, he was convicted and sentenced to death, but it was later commuted to life imprisonment without a chance of parole.
Andries Makgae is a South African serial killer and rapist who raped and murdered at least three women in Onderstepoort between 2012 and 2013. Suspected of other similar murders and the supposed killing of his best friend. He was convicted and sentenced to three life imprisonment terms for his crimes.
Robert Frederick Carr III was an American serial killer and pedophile who killed three children and one woman in the states of Florida and Connecticut between 1972 and 1976. Carr, a former television repairman, additionally admitted to molesting more than a dozen children until his apprehension. Following his arrest, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he served until his death in 2007.
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.
