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by - November 16, 2007 - 11:27 AM
1. Thug Behram
Estimated Body Count: 931
The Story: Between 1790 and 1830, Behram was the leader of India’s infamous Thugee Cult. The death toll attributed to this cult varies from 50,000 to 2,000,000 people. They were an organization of thieves who would befriend travelers before robbing and killing them. Cult members believed that every person they killed prevented the coming of the goddess Kali for another millennium. As the leader of the gang, Thug Behram confessed his involvement in the 900+ murders, and admitted to personally strangling at least 125 people.
Capture: The British Government finally created policies against the Thugee Cult in the 1830s. The government recruited spies from the inside, who would eventually lead to the cult’s downfall in the 1870s.
Punishment: Thug Behram was never tried for his action, as he became an informer for the government after his capture.
2. Elizabeth Bathory
Estimated Body Count: 600+
The Story: Elizabeth Bathory was a Hungarian countess in the 16th century. Her husband was killed in the Long War, leaving her in charge of the family estate. During her reign, many young girls began to disappear. Bathory and her servants would keep them captive, torturing and eventually killing them.
Capture: Local parish priests began to complain about Bathory’s action in court, leading to an investigation. Upon searching her castle, they found many bodies, as well as many dying girls.
Punishment: Because of her position, Elizabeth Bathory was never tried. But her servants were. Their method of execution was rather brutal itself: they were thrown into a fire. Bathory was confined to a single room in her castle. The door was cemented shut, leaving only a slit to allow food to be slipped in. She died four years later, in 1614.
Keep reading for a scarier version of Dr. Kevorkian, history’s creepiest tea parties and more.
3. Giuseppe Greco
Estimated Body Count: 300
The Story: Giuseppe Greco was a hitman for the Sicilian Greco Mafia Family during the Second Mafia War during the 1980s. He would assassinate enemies of the Family, including family members of those considered threats. Giuseppe’s tactics varied, but his favorite weapon was the AK-47. His talent for killing helped him quickly gain power with the Mafia, so when the war ended, he became a target of his own family.
Capture: It is believed that after the war ended, Giuseppe fled to the United States. However, the Mafia eventually caught up with him, killing him in his home sometime in September of 1985.
Punishment: Death was not the end for Greco. Even after he was killed, the Sicilian government charged him with 58 counts of murder. He was given a life sentence.
4. Pedro Lopez
Estimated Body Count: 300+
The Story: Pedro Lopez was also known as the “Monster of the Andes.” He would attack young girls in Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. He would rape and kill them, burring their bodies throughout the countryside.
Capture: The main investigation began in 1980 when a flash flood uncovered the grave of one of his victims. Lopez was arrested after an attempted abduction went wrong, and the connection to the murders was later made. He then confessed his series of killings to the police, leading them to more bodies.
Punishment: Lopez’s cooperation with police helped to reduce his sentence to a mere sixteen years. Good behavior moved his release date up two years. He was released from prison in 1998, and his current whereabouts are unknown.
5. Harold Shipman
Estimated Body Count: 284
The Story: Shipman was an English doctor who would give his patients lethal doses of morphine or diamorphine. Unlike Jack Kevorkian who gave his patients lethal doses consentingly, Shipman would give healthy patients these drugs, and forge medical notes stating that they were in ill health. In most cases, there was no apparent benefit to this. In only one case did Shipman get money in someone’s will.
Capture: Shipman was placed under investigation after his local coroner noticed the high fatality rate of his practice. This investigation was abandoned due to lack of evidence, but after more suspicious deaths, Shipman was arrested.
Punishment: Shipman was charged with, and found guilty of 15 sample cases of murder. He received 15 life sentences, but committed suicide in his cell on January 13, 2004.
6. H.H. Holmes
Estimated Body Count: 230
The Story: Herman Webster Mudgett used the name H.H. Holmes or his illegal activities. He bought property in Chicago, eventually constructing a large hotel. But this was no ordinary hotel – its rooms were built to seal shut and fill with deadly gas. There were special chutes built to funnel bodies directly into the furnace or into pits of hydrochloric acid. He would fire employees after two weeks to avoid paying them. He opened this hotel during the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, so he easily filled his hotel with potential victims.
Capture: In 1895, one of his life insurance schemes fell through, leading to his arrest and a police investigation. The search of his hotel uncovered many dismembered bodies.
Punishment: There were only 27 confirmed murders, but using the missing persons list, the police identified some 230 murders that are attributed to Holmes. He was hanged on May 7, 1896.
7. Gilles de Rais
Estimated Body Count: 140+
The Story: Gilles de Rais was a French noble who fought alongside Joan of Arc against England. He had a habit of decapitating and torturing young boys from the local villages. Rais also had his servants kill young boys while he watched.
Capture: His downfall stemmed from a failed attempt to kidnap a clergyman. This led to an investigation.
Punishment: He was hanged on October 26, 1440.
8. Donald Henry “Pee Wee” Gaskins
Estimated Body Count: 200
The Story: Unlike the others on this list, Gaskins found his victims by driving around the American south, picking up anyone he felt like. He would also kill people he knew, but only if he had a specific reason to do so. He was eventually dubbed the “Meanest Man in America.”
Capture: On December 4, 1975, Gaskins led police to a mass grave. He was arrested on the spot.
Punishment: Gaskins was sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to life in prison when South Carolina outlawed the death penalty. However, after killing a fellow inmate, he was once again put on death row, and executed on September 6, 1991 – the fourth person to be executed after the ban on the death penalty was lifted.
9. Luis Garavito
Estimated Body Count: 140
The Story: Garavito, also known as “Le Bestia” or “The Beast” was a serial killer in Colombia between 1992 and 1998. He would convince poor peasant children to follow him into secluded fields, where he would kill them. He would then prop up the bodies and have “tea parties” with them, until he grew bored and found others to kill.
Capture: He was captured in April 1999 while attempting to kidnap a child. He then admitted to 140 murders, and led the police to several mass graves.
Punishment: Garavito received a 22-year sentence, which he is currently serving in Colombia.
Anna Shaw is an occasional contributor to mentalfloss.com.
See also…
• Five Surprising Divinity School Dropouts
• Rediscovered Underground Temples
• Trailer Parks, Video Games & Amway:
How Sports Owners Made Their Money
• Six Memorable Moments from Presidential Debates
• Six Famous Bastards Who Made Their Mark
Comments (54)
Comment
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The tea party thing is absolutely the craziest, most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. Only a 22 year sentence???
posted by Norman on 11-16-2007 at 11:38 am
what blows my mind is the sentances???
if I even attempt to kill, they will give me a life sentance, they kill hundreds and get a few years “if” they were even tried~ wheres the justice? guess if you want to be a killer, you better go for the serial killer status so you can get a reduced sentance?
posted by chad on 11-16-2007 at 11:44 am
Am I the only one that thinks the story of Elizabeth Bathory would make a phenominal horror movie?
And I don’t even like horror movies.
I’ve always thought she was terrifying.
posted by Ashley on 11-16-2007 at 11:55 am
The two cases from South America got shockingly light sentences for extremely atrocious crimes. I have not heard of this before. Is that typical of the region?
I recall that a Columbian soccer player was shot 22 times be he scored an auto-goal (kicked it into his own net on accident) during World Cup play. That happened in 1994; fairly close to the same time that “The Beast” was sentenced to 22 years for murdering scores of children.
I hope that this is not representative of their society.
posted by n2y2 on 11-16-2007 at 12:10 pm
didn’t elizabeth drain the blood of the girls into a bathtub and then bathe in it thinking it would keep her skin young?? or was that a different crazy woman?
posted by susan on 11-16-2007 at 12:13 pm
Wow, I have to agree. The sentences are astounding. Notice though that other countries don’t fool around. You go to trial, you get your punishment. No kidding.
posted by Andrea on 11-16-2007 at 12:16 pm
Bathory is the one who thought bathing in the blood of young girls would keep her looking youthful, yes.
posted by Andie on 11-16-2007 at 12:28 pm
I thought it was Elizabeth too who drained the blood and then bathed in it to stay young.
posted by Beth on 11-16-2007 at 12:33 pm
Correct me if I am wrong but I believe the bathing in blood is more legend than fact. There is a horror movie about her coming out called BATHORY starring Anna Friel (Pushing Daisies)
posted by Marissa on 11-16-2007 at 12:46 pm
I live in Peru and I have to say our justice system sucks. We have severe overcrowding so some violent criminals are released early. It scares me to think of this Pedro Lopez running around killing more people (and no one knows where he is!!!) I´m dead-bolting my front door from now on!
posted by GTT on 11-16-2007 at 2:21 pm
The H.H. Holmes story is in a book called “Devil in the White City”. It’s very good.
posted by amy on 11-16-2007 at 2:57 pm
I agree Amy, Devil in the White City is very good. I didn’t realize that he was found so quickly, I thought there was more of a time lapse.
I heard that Bathory bathed in blood too, I thought I heard it in some museum, but they could have just been talking about legend I guess.
posted by Cheryl on 11-16-2007 at 3:18 pm
I saw something on the History Channel about vampires throughout history – Bathory was included (the bathing in blood was in there). According to that, she would just start gnawing on her victims as well. I wish I could remember the name of it.
posted by Jill on 11-16-2007 at 5:36 pm
Based on what we know about present-day serial killers, they seem to come from abused or skewed childhoods…it makes me wonder what in the world happened to these folks to turn them into these lunatics…who were the masterminds that created these monsters? and I kept expecting to see Count Vlad on the list, maybe I’m thinking of him in another manner…was he not considered a ’serial killer’ in the sense of the word?
posted by donner on 11-16-2007 at 11:24 pm
I think Richard Kuklinski should easily be on this list. This mafia hit man fed people, while alive, to rats.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski
If you want to read a book that will give you nightmares, read the biography about him titled:
“Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Hit Man” (1992)
posted by Michael on 11-18-2007 at 3:10 am
16 years? 22 years? For slaughtering hundreds of people. Absolutely ridiculous.
I do think that the Bathory movie sounds interesting. Why is it that serial killers are so interesting to us?
posted by Tanya on 11-18-2007 at 7:42 am
Vlad III the Impaler wasn’t really a serial killer… when you read the history he was really just trying to defend his throne from the Ottomans, the Turks, and his dis-loyal subjects.
Another note… no one really knows how many people Elizabeth Bathory really killed. All her servants gave varying accounts, some said as little as 50 girls were murdered, some said over 600 were murdered. And the bathing in the blood is just a myth that has sprung up over time. Lol, I’m a vampire-ologist and I enjoy studying the real people behind the vampire myths.
posted by Jacqui on 11-18-2007 at 11:28 pm
Oh… I forgot to add… Thugee cult! Long live Indiana Jones! Temple of Doom has always been my favourite of the three movies xD!
posted by Jacqui on 11-18-2007 at 11:30 pm
Miss Doris, a family friend i grew up around knew pee wee gaskins, she lived next door to him, said he was real sweet.
he lived in my native south carolina.
posted by emi on 11-21-2007 at 8:37 pm
Bathory did in fact believe that the blood of young peasant girls was the Fountain of Youth, and more than likely did indeed bathe in it; she was a practitioner of black magick. One thing that is definitely untrue about her though is the misconception that she was Romanian — she was Hungarian.
posted by David on 11-21-2007 at 9:04 pm
as far as how i feel about the 22 year sentences, it’s whatever. barely worth quibbling about. why are you raging about this, but ignoring the fact that most CEOs and governing officials are responsible for thousands of deaths, more than anyone on this list, and they not only walk free, but are rewarded for their actions? this society is not sick because it gives mass murderers short sentences but because it reduces people to abstractions that we can easily write off because they are an abstraction of a human rather than a human, and exploitation even to the point of death becomes even beneficial and respected as long as someone turns a profit.
these mass murderers (as with most criminals) pale in comparison to the thousands who are free and compensated richly for their crimes.
posted by ian on 11-22-2007 at 8:22 am
I have a hard time thinking the death penalty is barbaric when I read about these kinds of atrocities, particularly when they are perpetrated against children. Some people are just monsters, pure and simple, and like rabid animals, they need to be put down.
posted by MDL on 11-22-2007 at 8:30 am
Thank you Jacquie, you are indeed correct about Bathory. No she did not bath in the bloody blood!
The best guesstimates seem to be around 300. But she did have accomplices.
Her victims were young girls and they were toutured and sometimes died from blood loss but not drained into a bathtub.
The reasons for het not being prosecuted were largely political.
posted by Emma on 11-22-2007 at 6:33 pm
Thug Behram–is this the origin of the use of “thug” to describe various criminal types?
posted by Annette on 11-26-2007 at 1:01 pm
The reason Elizabeth Bathory killed all those girls was so that she would drink and bathe in the blood of her victims in her attempt to stay young forever. A real life vampire indeed!
posted by Stephen on 11-26-2007 at 7:07 pm
I am not in support of the death sentence, but anyone who engages in premeditated torture and murder time and time again should be locked up and the key tossed and lost. It just goes to show you that the perfect penal code does not exist.
posted by Bengt Skillen on 11-28-2007 at 8:52 am
you should go from least to most
duh
posted by jonn on 11-28-2007 at 7:19 pm
Pee Wee Gaskins went to high school with my friends mom and asked her out on a date. Good thing she didn’t go, right?
posted by Matt B on 11-28-2007 at 7:21 pm
There was a woman from the movie Hostel 2 that was a copy cat of legend of Elizabeth Bathory.
posted by Curtiss on 11-28-2007 at 7:24 pm
I cannot understand how a loving God could allow these people to exist and to kill so many people.
NO, I am not an atheist and I realize Stalin and Hitler committed similar atrocities. It just doesn’t appear logical for a loving God to give life freely and to have one of his creation turn amoral, evil and a brutal killer of so many innocent people.
posted by Alex on 11-28-2007 at 7:33 pm
Did any of you know that if a handsome man with HIV have free sex of any available women, he should be the number one series killer. I have ever read a blog at HIV/AIDS personal and support site pozgroup.com that there is a man who is very handsome and irresponsible. He knows that he has hiv, but he still try to have sex with as many women as he can and pass the virus to them. Then, these women who do not know that they have been infected can pass the virus to other man. As you know, HIV/AIDS can not be cured and can take your life sooner or later.
So I think he is the number 1 series killer.
posted by Jerryt on 11-28-2007 at 8:03 pm
i don’t understand why the bay harbor butcher isn’t mentioned here…
posted by winston on 11-28-2007 at 8:43 pm
In Colombia, in the time of Garavito, the maximum sentence for any crime was 22 years (this has been upgraded since). Clearly not enough.
posted by Simon on 11-28-2007 at 9:37 pm
The monster of the Andes was murdered a week after leaving prison in Ecuador. A relative of one of the victims took him out. There’s a John Leguizamo movie about a similar case.
posted by j on 11-28-2007 at 9:40 pm
“He would rape and kill them, burring their bodies throughout the countryside.”
Did you mean burying, or did the victims really have rough edges that needed to be taken off?
posted by Captain Nitpick on 11-29-2007 at 12:00 am
You can search Wikipedia for the movie Bathory.
posted by Jeremy on 11-29-2007 at 11:32 am
I was shocked after reading that #4 Pedro Lopez was released after only 16 years, so I decided to read up more on him. After doing so, I think the author of this article made an error. This detail: “He would then prop up the bodies and have ‘tea parties’ with them, until he grew bored and found others to kill.” is attributed to #9 Luis Garavito. However, I read this specific detail in two different online articles about #4 Pedro Lopez.
Links apparently aren’t allowed in comments, but a quick google search for pedro lopez will lead you to a Feb. 10th 2001 AP article and one at crimelibrary.com, both of which mention this detail.
I could not find any article about Garavito that said he staged tea parties with his victims. I find it difficult to believe this detail occurred in both instances, especially since Garavito’s victims were male and Lopez’s victims were female.
Perhaps the research notes got mixed up?
posted by Ellen on 11-29-2007 at 2:38 pm
The “tea party” thing…ummh did Pedro Lopez do that as well? http: //www.crimelibrary.com/serial_ killers/notorious/pedro_lopez/4.html
posted by Topdoggy on 11-29-2007 at 3:01 pm
I have always had an urge to murder busloads of people. Thank you for this information. I am now moving to Columbia to start my career. Maybe I can locate Pedro Lopez and we could form a team! And, the best part is, even if I am caught, I will be back out in a few years. Pedro can have the girls, and I will kill everyone else.
posted by emptyhandkiller on 12-1-2007 at 7:04 am
They’re making a movie about Elizabeth Bathory. It’s going to be released in 2008.
posted by Jen on 12-2-2007 at 7:54 pm
So Pedro Lopez rapes and kills 300+ and gets out of jail for good behavior. Seriously? And now no one knows where he is. Does anyone see anything wrong with that besides me?
Also, I’m curious as to what the builders of the “deadly gas hotel” thought when brought the blue prints.
posted by Heather on 12-8-2007 at 2:02 pm
All 9 of them should get movies. Good stuff.
posted by Izabel DaJinn on 1-3-2008 at 6:34 pm
ROFL Winston.
Gotta love dexter
posted by TheStrangeAngel on 3-10-2008 at 4:09 pm
The story of ‘Thug Behram’was true and a part of Indian Freedom struggle. The then Indian-British government acted with all seriousness and suppressed the thugee-cult.Several Indian text-books present this story elaboratively.Kudos to mental-floss for bringing this story into focus.
posted by gandhi(India) on 5-22-2008 at 9:46 am
The portrait you show as Elizabeth Bathory is actually a painting by Bronzino, done in 1540 (before Elizabeth was even born). Her name is Lucrezia Panciatichi. There are only two portraits known to be Elizabeth, and one miniature, which all may be found via google.
posted by Historian on 6-19-2008 at 8:47 pm
Alright, I’m jumping on the myth de-bunking bandwagon. This is my bread and butter you see, (not murder, just the study of it) so I thought I’d put my two cent in.
Bathory’s “bathing in blood” story is in fact, just a legend. It will not and cannot ever be proved. It is said that she was so covered in blood after the murder and torture of the girls that it appeared as though she bathed in it. Although it was proven that she often bit her victims, it has never been proven that she drank their blood. However, the bodies were found drained of all their blood, and the rumors have taken flight from that.
Also, the villagers were the ones who tipped off an investigation after she disposed of some of the bodies by having them thrown out of the castle window in plain view. There had been earlier suspicions raised, but because of her status, any investigation into the disappearences of the girls was quashed by members of the royal family.
One last thing: she died in 1615, not 1614.
Sorry, I’m done.
posted by Cassie on 7-10-2008 at 4:29 pm
I lied, I’ve got more corrections.
De Rais was investigated after he attacked a priest over a land dispute, not an attempted kidnapping. His body count is estimated between 140 and 800, and he was hanged, then burned, but per request (which was unbelievably still granted even after his admission to the murders) he was taken down and buried in a church in Nantes.
He sodomized his victims before, during and after their murders, and kept their severed heads to admire, and would often kiss the one he found most “beautiful.”
I promise this time that I am done, however, in the interest of giving credit where credit is due, the info I just spewed forth came from “Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters,” by Peter Vronsky.
Good read for those of you who are interested in the subject matter.
posted by Cassie on 7-10-2008 at 4:51 pm
I was shocked when I saw how short the prison terms were as well — but i’m betting the conditions in those prisons weren’t posh by any means… which is somewhat satisfying of a thought after reading all those horrors.
posted by allye on 8-21-2008 at 8:42 am
In reference to H.H. Holmes, It wasn’t that he would “fire employees after two weeks to avoid paying them”, but that those employees were contractors doing piecemeal work on his house of horrors, and he didn’t want any of them to catch on to his master plan. After all, you don’t want the guy building your windowless brick room to find out that said room will be fitted with a human-size furnace, do you?
posted by El Tigre on 8-25-2008 at 2:53 am
Holmes and Bathory would make excellent horror movies if they haven’t already been made. The scariest horror movies are the ones with truth behind them and to think people actually put so much effort into torturing and killing others boggles the mind. Great article
posted by Victoria on 9-12-2008 at 9:02 am
They forgot to mention that Elizabeth Bathory bathed in the girls’ blood because she believed it would keep her young.
xD
posted by Nhi on 11-9-2008 at 9:10 pm
There is a great book, The Devil in the WHite City (I think) taht tells all about HH Holmes. It’s a good read about such a crazy guy.
posted by Erin on 11-18-2008 at 11:13 am
“Lopez’s cooperation with police helped to reduce his sentence to a mere sixteen years. Good behavior moved his release date up two years. He was released from prison in 1998, and his current whereabouts are unknown.”
Yay! These people don’t keep track of a guy randomly going to different countries to rape and kill innocent people. I think i will plan my next trip to go kill that sorry son of a bit$#!
posted by joe on 12-18-2008 at 5:50 pm
The body counts are greatly exagerated i’m sure, these people are definatly monsters i don’t see the need to build up the hype with grossly over-estimated body counts. i’ll bet that between the three of them that greco, lopez and shipman didn’t kill 300 people let alone 300 apiece. regardless,they are still sacks of sh–. it’s hard to believe that lopez is out, i really hope that one of the victim’s family got ahold of him and that’s why he’s missing.
posted by Bryan on 2-12-2009 at 8:27 pm