6 David Parker Ray

Ray sexually tortured and killed more than sixty people in a $100,000 homemade torture chamber he called his “toy box”, drugging some victims with amnesia-inducing agents to prevent them from reporting the crimes.

David Parker Ray, a.k.a. “The Toy Box Killer”, was a serial rapist and suspected serial killer. When he was a child Ray’s father physically abused him, and he was also bullied by his peers. These tumults at the beginning of his life turned him into a murderer. To fulfill his sexual fetish and killing urges, Ray soundproofed a truck trailer that he called his “toy box”. He equipped it with items he used for torture such as whips, chains, pulleys, straps, clamps, leg spreader bars, surgical blades, and saws.

For many years he terrorized a steady stream of women in the “toy box”, allegedly including several of the women he was dating. After making the victim immobilized, he would even let his dogs and friends rape these women. Ray would often have a recorded audio tape of these actions which he played for his victims whenever they regained consciousness. To prevent women from reporting the crimes, Ray used to drug them with agents to induce amnesia such as sodium pentothal and phenobarbitol. Police suspect that he had murdered as many as sixty people from Arizona and New Mexico. Before he could be convicted for murder, Ray died of heart attack.(source)

7 Andrei Chikatilo

A Soviet era cannibalistic serial killer, Chikatiolo killed at least fifty-three women and children over a period of twelve years by luring them into secluded spots and inflicting multiple knife wounds.

Nicknamed as the “Butcher of Rostov”, the “Red Ripper”, and the “Rostov Ripper”, Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was a Russian cannibal, pedophile, and serial killer. As a child he was painfully shy which turned into self-hatred during adolescence years when his peers came to know about his chronic impotence. The humiliation colored all future sexual experiences and cemented his association of sex with violence.

On 22nd December 1978, Chikatilo killed his first documented victim – nine-year-old Lena Zakotnova. He lured her into an abandoned shed and tried to rape her. While trying to control the struggling child, Chikatilo slashed her with a knife and ejaculating while doing so. This cemented his psychological connection between violent death and sexual gratification that went on to typify all future attacks. Between 1978 and 1990, he committed sexual assault, murder, and mutilation of at least fifty-two women and children. He initially escaped conviction due to the extremely rare characteristic of having two different blood types of his semen and saliva. Finally, he was sentenced to death in October 1992 and subsequently executed in February 1994.(1,2)

8 John George Haigh

Commonly known as the “Acid Bath Murderer”, Haigh killed his victims and disposed their corpses in large vat full of concentrated suphuric acid.

The “Acid Bath Murderer”, John George Haigh, was an English serial killer who was convicted of the murder of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. At the age of twenty-five, he was jailed for fraud. While in prison, he devised a method of destruction of the body of a murder victim by dissolving it in sulfuric acid. He experimented with mice and found that it took only thirty minutes for the body to dissolve. He was freed in 1943 and soon he started his killing spree.

Haigh believed if the bodies could not be found a murder conviction would not be possible. So, after killing his victim he used to dump their body into a forty-gallon drum filled with concentrated sulfuric acid. The acid would dissolve the body and turn it into sludge thus removing the evidence. Most of his killings were motivated by financial profit as he forged their papers, sold their possessions, and collected the money. But his fraud and theft was eventually discovered leading to his arrest. Investigation of sludge in the drum he used revealed human gallstones and part of a denture which proved his crimes. He was hanged on 10 August 1949.(source)

9 John Wayne Gacy

Also known as the “Killer Clown”, Gacy dressed as “Pogo the Clown” during children parties. He lured teenage boys by deception or took them by force and then sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered them.

When viewed from afar, serial killer Wayne Gacy seemed to have led a normal life. He owned a construction business and was living with his wife and stepdaughters. He was active in his local community, hosted annual summer parties, and was once even made the director of Chicago’s annual parade. Through his work with the parade, Gacy met and was photographed with First Lady Rosalynn Carter on May 6, 1978. He even used to dress as “Pogo the Clown” and “Patches the Clown” and performed at children’s parties, charitable events, and at children’s’ hospital. But under all this facade was a serial killer and rapist who sexually assaulted, tortured, and murdered men and teenage boys.

In February 1976, Gacy and his wife divorced by mutual consent. From 1976 to 1978, he went on a sex and murder spree killing at least thirty-three teenage boys and young men. He later referred this period as his “cruising years” now that he had his house to himself. He used to bring the teenage boys to his home by force or deception. Then he sexually assaulted them before killing them by asphyxiation or strangulation. Gacy buried twenty-six of his victims in the crawlspace of his home. Three further victims were buried elsewhere on his property, while the bodies of his last four known victims were discarded in the Des Plaines River. Convicted of thirty-three murders, Gacy was executed by lethal injection at Stateville Correctional Center on May 10, 1994.(source)

10 Fred and Rose West

This married couple sexually abused, tortured, and eventually killed two of their own children along with at least ten other women and buried them under the patio in their own garden.

Fred West first encountered Rosemary Letts when she was just fifteen. He was twenty-seven at that time with two daughters, Charmaine and Anna Marie. Soon Rose became pregnant and moved in with Fred. She started criticizing and punishing her step daughters, eventually killing Charmaine. Rose stowed her body in the coal cellar and it was later buried in the yard by Fred.

Shortly after giving birth to her second child, Rose started to work as a prostitute. Along with having a sadistic physical relation with other men and women, Fred and Rose also abused their children, Anne Marie, Heather, Mae and Stephen both physically and mentally. The couple killed Heather when she confided to her classmate about her home life and buried her in the garden. Fred frequently threatened his children, telling them if they told anyone about the going-ons in the household they would be “buried under the patio” like their sister Heather. The disappearance of Heather brought police attention to their household. It resulted in the discovery of the dismembered bodies of their two daughters along with numerous others remains in the cellar and garden. While on remand, Fred asphyxiated himself. Rose was sentenced to life terms for ten murders.(source)

Also see: Psychological and Neurological studies explain what motivates Serial Killers to Murder