most gruesome serial killers

01

Leonarda Cianciulli

Leonarda Cianciulli boiled three women into soap and stirred their fat into teacakes she served to neighbors in Correggio. Her motive: she believed human sacrifice would protect her son from dying in World War II.

02

Ed Gein

Ed Gein upholstered chairs with human skin and wore a vest stitched from a woman's torso — all sourced from Plainfield, Wisconsin graves. He inspired Leatherface, Buffalo Bill, and Norman Bates, yet killed only two confirmed victims.

03

Magdalena Solís

Magdalena Solís convinced a rural Mexican village she was a reincarnated Inca goddess, then presided over ritual murders in 1963, drinking blood from wounds while followers watched. She ordered two cult members beaten to death for doubting her divinity.

04

Javed Iqbal (serial killer)

Javed Iqbal dissolved 100 boys in vats of acid in Lahore, then mailed a handwritten confession and a diary to police. He was sentenced to be killed by acid in the same vat — a sentence never carried out.

05

Albert Fish

Albert Fish mailed Grace Budd's mother a letter explaining, in clinical detail, how he butchered and ate her ten-year-old daughter over nine days in 1928. He was 58 when he abducted her; he called human buttocks 'the best part.'

06

András Pándy

Belgian pastor Andras Pandy dissolved his wife and six of his children in caustic soda, then forged their signatures on documents for years to collect insurance and avoid detection. His daughter, whom he had abused, eventually testified against him.

07

Dnepropetrovsk maniacs

In 2007, two teenagers in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine filmed themselves beating a homeless man to death with hammers and a pipe over several minutes. The video, called '3 Guys 1 Hammer,' leaked online and became one of the most viewed snuff films in history.

08

Nikolai Dzhumagaliev

Soviet serial killer Nikolai Dzhumagaliev served human meat kebabs to guests at dinner parties in 1980s Kazakhstan, his metal front teeth gleaming. At least seven women were killed and partially eaten before a guest found a head in his fridge.

09

David Parker Ray

David Parker Ray built a soundproofed trailer in New Mexico fitted with a gynecological chair, a mirror mounted above it, and a recorded tape he played to each new victim explaining what would be done to her. He called it his 'Toy Box.'

10

Tsutomu Miyazaki

Tsutomu Miyazaki killed four girls aged four to seven near Tokyo between 1988 and 1989, ate one victim's hands, and mailed her charred bones to her family in a box with photographs. Police found 5,763 videotapes stacked in his room.