The Devil's Own: The Five Worst Serial Killers

The broadly accepted definition of a serial killer is a person who has murdered three or more persons over a time period of roughly thirty days, with a so called “cooling off time” between each of the murders. This definition crudely categorises some of the most diabolical actions ever committed by human beings.

Society’s fascination with (and indeed fear of) individuals who fall into this category has never waned. While just what it is that makes individuals feel the need (not just the desire) to carry out murders which shake the rest of us to our very core remains a controversial topic. Are these individuals born this way? Are they somehow genetically programmed to kill? Or is it their environment which somehow manufactures them into monsters? Does society bear responsibility? Or is it the domestic home which is the assembly line for the architects of our nightmares?

When it came to deciding the five worst serial killers of all time, I knew that any list I came up with would inevitably be open to discord. I also realised that the actual process of deciding what makes one serial killer “worse” than another is highly debatable. Is it the number of victims they claimed which makes one any more notorious than another? Or is it the manner in which they brought death upon their victims? Both of these factors obviously must be taken in consideration.

Presented here are those who have instilled terror and abhorrence in people all over the world. Their deeds have kept many a soul awake at night. If God created Man in his own image, then surely those mentioned here were created in honour to his antithesis. These are the Devil’s Own.