Every so often, history throws up individuals who were so bizarre, depraved, or downright evil that they defy belief.
Elizabeth Báthory
By torturing and killing hundreds of young women during the 1600s, Báthory is considered one of the greatest female serial killers of all time. Hoping to retain her youthful appearance by drinking and bathing in the blood of virgins, Elizabeth convinced scores of peasant girls to become servants at her castle.
Once inside her isolated estate, her victims were locked in a tower and tortured to death. She was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment in her own castle.
Peter Kürten
Kürten went on a killing spree, r****g and murdering many people throughout Germany in 1929. His bizarre actions were fueled by his love of blood.
Kürten told authorities that he drank his victims’ blood as well as animals’ blood, which earned him the nickname Vampire of Düsseldorf.
Before he was hanged in 1931, he uttered these chilling words to his court-appointed psychiatrist: “Tell me, after my head is chopped off, will I still be able to hear, at least for a moment, the sound of my own blood gushing from the stump of my neck?”
Carl Tanzler
Radiologist Carl Tanzler fell madly in love with tuberculosis patient Elena Milagro de Hoyos in Key West, Florida, in 19. When she died of her illness, Tanzler funded the construction of her mausoleum and visited her nightly tomb, until two years later he stole her corpse and took it back to his apartment.
For the next seven years, until he was discovered, Tanzler kept the corpse in his home, replacing her decomposing flesh with silk, wax, and plaster, giving her glass eyes, and sleeping beside her night after night.
Gilles de Rais
15th-century French nobleman and companion-in-arms to Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais turned to Satanism and alchemy following his retirement to his estates.
He used his power to lure hundreds of peasant children and bring them to his castles to be tortured and killed in gruesome satanic rituals. The carnage that resulted from Gilles’ abuse shocked medieval Europe and inspired the folk horror tale of “Bluebeard”.
Tarrare
An obsession with eating led Tarrare of late 18th-century France to eat cats, puppies, snakes, sewage, and whatever else he could find. Due to his outrageous eating habits, doctors diagnosed him with polyphagia.
Despite eating constantly, he never gained weight. This quirky eating disorder landed him in the employ of the French army; they had him swallow intelligence reports to transport them. However, rumors spread about his grotesque self, and he was kicked out of a military hospital for swallowing and presumably killing a 14-month-old toddler.
Ed Gein
Living on a remote farm with his mother out in Plainfield, Wisconsin, Gein developed an unhealthy fascination with human flesh after she died in the 1950s.
He dug up women from local cemeteries and stole their corpses to make containers, lampshades, clothing, and masks from their skin and bones. His crimes shocked America and created some of the most legendary monsters in movie history, like Norman Bates and Leatherface.
Leonarda Cianciulli
Operating out of Italy during the late 1930s, Cianciulli believed that human sacrifices had to be made in order for her son to stay alive while World War II raged.
After killing three female neighbors, she dismembered their bodies and made soap out of their fat, which she would give to people she knew. She baked her victims’ blood into tea cakes and served them to guests and ate them herself.
Armin Meiwes
German computer technician Armin Meiwes posted an ad online in 2001, asking for a volunteer to murder and eat. Amazingly, a man by the name of Bernd Brandes showed up at his door.
After hours of killing and butchering being filmed, Meiwes ate portions of Brandes. He even recorded his thoughts and detailed how he went about his murder and act of cannibalism in stone-cold, emotionless interviews that shocked authorities around the globe.
Thomas Neill Cream
A 19th-century Canadian-born British doctor and murderer, Cream killed his victims in Canada, the United States, and England after poisoning vulnerable women with strychnine.
He enjoyed watching them die and would often leave behind evidence that made it look like local doctors were responsible for the killings. As authorities brought Cream to the gallows in 1892, he supposedly said: “I am Jack the…” before the trapdoor opened.
Charles Manson
Born in America, Manson rose to notoriety as a crazy cult leader. In the late 1960s, he formed a cult known as “The Family” in California.
Through brainwashing, drugs, and prophecies of an impending apocalypse, Manson led his mostly young and naive followers to believe that they were destined to kill numerous people during the summer of 1969 and start what he called a race war, or “Helter Skelter.”
Béla Kiss
Believed to be charming and quiet by his neighbors, Kiss was a Hungarian tinsmith who lived during the early 1900s. After he was deployed to World War I in 1914, seven large metal barrels were found in Kiss’ house.
The barrels held the bodies of 24 young women Kiss had lured, strangled, and preserved in alcohol; Kiss disappeared during the war effort and was never convicted.
Fritz Haarman
A German police informant and black market butcher during the 1920s, Haarman took advantage of his connections and preyed on young men at Hanover train station.
Specializing in biting his victims’ throats, Haarman mutilated the corpses of his victims in his apartment and sold their meat on the black market as pork. His crimes were more frightening considering he worked closely with Hanover police officials during his murderous crime spree.
Genene Jones
As a Texas pediatric nurse in the late 70s and 80s, Jones administered deadly injections of muscle relaxants and heart medication to scores of babies and young children.
She induced life-threatening conditions so she could theatrically rescue them in front of other staff members, all to get attention and praise. Jones is thought to have killed up to 60 infants before she was caught.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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