Talk:List of serial killers by country

Dr. Cream

Although listed here, Dr. Thomas Neil Cream did not have an attaching article until I made one today.

I noticed he was under the USA. I have moved him to the UK. This could cause some minor debate as he was an international serial killer. Dr. Cream was born in Scotland, raised in Canada, commited his first murders in the USA and then several more in England, where he was caught and hanged. Does he go under UK, Canada or USA?

I put him under UK. Maybe he should have an entry under the USA too, I'm not sure. I think he should be in the UK because he claimed most of his victims there, and was executed there. I've made his travels and multi-nationality evident in the article I've created for the cross-eyed sicko, so hopefully that will satisfy anyone who might grumble at my decision regarding his repatriation to the Eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean. If not, type any disagreements below. Ta. Robert, 21 December 2004

Misc. discussion

I've removed the additional line at that top that said "Note that some confessions and convictions have been disputed as inaccurate." This only applies to a few killers, Henry Lee Lucas in particular; the additional sentence had been evidently placed by the same person who is on some sort of crusade to posthumously exonerate him on the basis of just a single source (they also completly re-edited Lucas's entry.) - 11 December

Lavrenty Beria (Russia)

why is Lavrenty Beria not a serial killer?

I removed: Lavrenty Beria, (1899 - 1953) Russian official and serial killer.

Beria does not fit the usual definition of serial killer. He acted in a professional capacity, without much to demonstrate that he did so for personal pleasure or gain (except for power). I note that if we include all who killed or ordered to kill large numbers of people in a professional capacity, most generals involved in wars would top the numbers. David.Monniaux 13:43, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I thought the same, until I read the Lavrenty Beria article further (see the section "Personal character"). It seemes that he was both a "professional killer" and a "serial killer". I'm guessing most general's in wars don't bury their own kill in their own homes! Zik-Zak 14:02, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm somewhat unconvinced. See: some very unpopular person is disgraced by the regime, given a mock trial, then somebody writes a book 50 years later claiming he also was a serial rapist and killer.. I mean, sounds like nobody will defend him.

I'll reinstate him in the list with some warning. David.Monniaux 14:58, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I see what you mean. A good compramise until/if any strong evidence is found for either side. Zik-Zak 17:54, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Washington Snipers

It's also missing the Washington snipers.

So add them. PMC 00:23, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

List order

Is this list in any sort of order? It looks pretty random. Perhaps some order could be created and explained in the article. — SimonEast 05:28, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It seems to be in (or to have been at one point) roughly alphabetical order (with occasional errors). Chronological would be better, I suppose. - Nunh-huh 05:31, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I recently sorted the serial killers list by countries. I would love to sort the names alphabetically too and writing the names like LASTNAME Firstname. Would this be okay?

Greetinx from Austria

eliZZZa

I'd suggest not putting last name first, as that doesn't read as well. It was supposed to be in alphabetical order (by last name or by first part of pseudonym) but got messed up here and there.

Sorting by country brings up some issues too though, like in which order the countries should be listed and what we do with people active in more than one country.

DreamGuy

How about putting the countries in Alphabetical order. And for the few serial killers that have operated in more than one country - just list them under both with a comment explaining so... Zik-Zak 18:51, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I like that, it's simple and organized. [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 23:26, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

While it sounds logic to sort the countries alphabetically for me it is not too user-friendly. I am running crimeZZZ.net & victimZZZ.net and I list more than 50 countries with serial killer cases at the moment.

A few countries make up for >95% of the cases. The rest of the known cases is distributed over the rest of the world. So for me it makes more sense e.g. to list the "leading" countries - and maybe to sort the rest of the countries alphabetically.

I agree to the "multiple countries cases" - put them in every country involved (only a few cases anyway).

For the names: It is difficult to search for a name (by alphabeth) if the first names are put first. That´s why you write names in lexica as LASTNAME Firstname. Furthermore it is often not clear which is first name, which is last (especially with exotic names), capitals help here.

What do you think about?

eliZZZa eliZZZa

1) For you it makes sense, but not for everyone else. Just because some countries have more killers doesn't entitle them to be first on the list. Alphabetical is unbiased, not American centered (because most serial killers that anyone name come from America), and honestly, seems more fair to me. Less arbitrary, and really, are there serial killer standings? "In first place is America with 982 killers..." Alphabetical makes more sense, and its very user-friendly. First place I'd look for Canada was under "C", not under "Top Countries" or some such thing.

2) First names first. It's less complicated (I hate piping links, I hate it hate it hate it) and on the Internet, name order makes little difference. Besides, most people know to use "Ctrl+F" to find stuff. Who's going to type in "Doe, John" in the Find box? Most people will write "John Doe". If they write "John Doe" it won't come up with "Doe, John". We have to go by what most people do. Therefore: alphabetize by last name, link 'em by first. [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 01:41, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi, PMC,

of course you don´t have to convince me >;o)

Your arguments for the alphabetical listing of country are reasonable, I don´t like the idea of "ranking" countries for their number of serial killers as you do.

As I plan to add some more "typical" cases, I find the name issue crucial and in that point I am not convinced yet:

The first two questions in this talk section confirm my concerns about putting first names first.

Also "It was supposed to be in alphabetical order (by last name or by first part of pseudonym) but got messed up here and there." is a hint, that this name sorting issue is confusing to contributors (and obviously to users alike) - when I first saw the list, I thought "What a mess!"...

I don´t know, what you mean with "piping links" - sorry, newbieme, could you please explain?

"Besides, most people know to use "Ctrl+F" to find stuff." Nope, I know from teaching (and I am not teaching newbies) that most people don´t even know they can search a web page at all. We must not think, that everyone is as experienced using computers resp. the web, because we are.

Typing "serial killer" or "killer serial" in the Find Box gives the same result (well almost, the latter brings the appropriate article not listed top of the page).

Well, I don´t mean to be "wikistressy", but maybe we can give this another thought (or two >;o)

eliZZZa

1. I was being sarcastic as to the rankings thing. Rankings = bad idea.
2. People can learn though. All it takes is a few dedicated people - as you obviously seem to be - to do a little tweaking in the order if people mess up alphabetically.
3. The formatting for a regular link looks like this: [[article name]] but a piped link looks like this: [[article name|actual text]]. The regular link will look like article name. The piped link will show the text, not the article name, as in actual text. So in order to arrange the article by last name (as in "Doe, John") we'd have to make every link piped like that. (So to list Robert Pickton as "Pickton, Robert", you'd have to change the entry to say [[Robert Pickton|Pickton, Robert]]. Which would then appear as Pickton, Robert) That's quite a bit of work for the...*counts*...several dozen entries on the list. Honestly, it would be so much easier to just sort it by last name but link them by first name.
4. I meant "Ctrl+F" as a keyboard shortcut. On IE Explorer and (I don't have much experience with other browers) I would assume most other major browsers, pressing "Ctrl+F" will bring up a search function. This allows you to find instances of the search term on the page. (If you type in "hello" for example, it will jump to the first place the word hello is written on the page.)
5. As for Wikipedia's search function, I don't like it and I don't trust it. You may, but I try to avoid it. Its useless.
6. By the way, you can sign your posts with your username and a timestamp by typing ~~~~. [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 05:59, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Okay, got it! You convinced me with your piped links (I didn´t know that). It would propably not work well, if I used piped links and other contributors who may not know the difference (as I did) would use "normal" links.

About the search function on web pages, yes of course I know that, but believe me, many people don´t. For the wiki search function - I like it, brings everything I want to find.

Okay, I will alphabetize the names tonight.

Thanks for your hints

eliZZZa 15:00, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)eliZZZa

Welcome, glad we sorted that out =) [[User:Premeditated Chaos|PMC]] 16:35, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Definition of a serial killer

What meets the definition of 'serial killer' is a difficult problem. Shouldn't the Unabomber for instance be listed as a serial killer rather than on the list of terrorists?

Why not both? Rich Farmbrough 21:33, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

what about other cases like Hitler or Stalin, Bin Laden, Mengele? I guess motive is a fair criterion here Spearhead

Shouldn't Charles Manson be taken off this list? He doesn't fit the description of a serial killer as he didn't actually commit the murders which were more like mass killings. Maybe cult leader or mass murderer is more appropriate?

You're right, Manson doesn't belong here. He's a mass murderer, and there was no lng period of cooling off between crimes that is required in order to be considered a serial killer. I'm removing him. DreamGuy 16:14, July 17, 2005 (UTC)

Rules for moving listings

Should Dennis Rader be moved from "On trial" to the section on the US killers, as he has now confessed to being BTK? If not now, what are the conditions that should be met before he is moved? N0YKG 29 June 2005 19:59 (UTC)

difficult subject. He might not have done it after all. Conviction might be a good criterion (altho that's not 100% either and might take years). Spearhead 29 June 2005 22:43 (UTC)

Accuracy disputed

This needs to be cleaned up -- there are listings of people who are suspected or accused of the crimes, but have not been convicted, yet the entires state that they did kill someone. That's libel. SigPig 20:11, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

Then clean it up... nobody is disputing that, just that some people adding things don;t bother to look at the Currently on Trial section. Move them there. The tag is only when agreement cannot be reached on the talk page, and you already have agreement (as that was the standard agreement the whole time). DreamGuy 21:22, September 10, 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, my bad, I misused the tag. I'll make the changes I know about. SigPig 01:37, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Thuggee - a cult?

There have been a couple of edits and reverts on this point, so I'd better clarify. The suggestion that Thuggee was a religious cult - in other words, that the murders committed by the Thug gangs were in effect 'sacrifices' to Kali, a Hindu goddess - dates back to the 1830s and was initially propounded by William Sleeman, head of the Thuggee and Dacoity department, and popularised in numerous British/Imperial works over the succeeding century. Modern scholarship dating back to the 1950s has consistently debunked this idea. See the works of Hiralal Gupta (1959), Chris Bayly (1996), Radhika Singha (1998), Kim A. Wagner (2004), Stewart Gordon (1969) and now also (2005) my own book on the Thugs; the manuscript evidence is fairly plain and the case for a religiously-inspired group contradictory. No scholar, either in India or outside that country, today accepts that Thuggee was a religious cult; the suggestion is offensive to many Hindus, particularly when coupled with remarks culled from 19th century British attitudes to India, such as the notion that Kali is "the goddess of destruction". The Wiki entry on Thuggee itself needs considerable revision; I haven't had time to tackle it yet, but will, giving full references. In the meantime, a much more detailed, referenced, discussion of this point appears in Mike Dash, Thug (London: Granta, 2005) pp.219-36. Mikedash 09:27, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Notability

Right now the page is littered with red links -- names of alleged serial killers with no article and no easy way to verify. I think we should remove any name that doesn;t have an article so as not to risk people being libeled as pranks, or to have single instance killers or mass murderers listed as serials, etc. If there is no objection I will go do that soon. DreamGuy 22:41, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Removed all the red links, except one that had an actual link to a news item for verifiablity puposes. Removed rest for not being able to know or verify if they were real (not hoaxes... some clearly were), met the definition of serial killer or notable. Anyone who wants to add names here should make an article first so others can judge it to see if it's correct. DreamGuy 20:37, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

This is pushing an extremist POV. Eclecticology 21:28, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

How exactly is taking steps to follow Wikipedia's policies on verifiablitlity and notability and "extremist POV"? Please check WP:V and WP:NPOV for those policies. DreamGuy 23:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not think that all red links should be removed. It is helpful to have the name and a one-statement summary of the individual. Just recently, I was trying to figure out the name of a "notable" serial killer who was featured on Court TV's "Most Evil" show on serial killers. In fact, he was classified as a top-level serial killer who was sadistic, psychopathic, and committed acts of prolonged torture by the Prof. of Psychiatry at Columbia University. I think that this qualifies a serial killer as "notable", and his name (Tommy Lynn Sells) should not be removed only because it is a red link. I usually go on Wikipedia first if I want to find information, but due to some careless and rampant removal of all things related to red links, finding that information can sometimes be very difficult. Don't remove red links in this article unless it is a clear hoax or not easily verified by doing a quick search on the name. KMSatoh202 08:32, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The solution here is that you can go and create a stub article about the person and then link to that article. Once something is an article it hits the radar for those people checking stubs/new edits/notability etc. Adding someone to a list makes digging through to find information and verify it more difficult. But of course the problem of notability is the big thing, and the easy way we have of checking that is if it gets an article and survives any potential delete vote there. People dote do notability votes for names on a list. DreamGuy 23:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

John Travers

Should John Travers actually be listed as a serial killer as the arical on him mentions only one murder, did he commit others or is he just here by mistake?

Wayne Williams (USA)

I added Wayne Williams back to the list. I understand that his guilt is disputed, but the fact is that he has been found guilty in a court of law for two of the Atlanta Child Murders. Following the example I've seen discussed on the talk page for Gary Glitter, I think we ought to stand by the facts as they are, not speculation as to what may happen in the future. If he is exonerated, then we can take him off the list. GentlemanGhost 02:05, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

If you read his article, he was actually found guilty for the murder of two adult men, not any of the children. Does the killing of two people still qualify him as a serial killer? Serpent-A 20:23, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

The article indicates that many of the "children" murdered were actually young adults, i.e., over the age of 18, including the two men for whose murders Wayne Williams was convicted. So, the phrase "Atlanta Child Murders" is something of a misnomer. However, these two murders have definitely been categorized as part of that series. As far as whether or not this qualifies him as a serial killer, the article also states that 22 of the other murders have been attributed to him. Even though he has not been convicted in those cases, I believe that this definitely qualifies him as a serial killer. GentlemanGhost 13:12, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

William Moore

I don't see how he fits the category, so I removed him. Stu ^{’Bout ye!} 09:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Hasan Gunes?

Who is this Hasan Gunes in the Australia section. I can not find him with Google. (Edit link). Olivier Mengué | ⇄ 12:25, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find him either, so I removed him. ExRat 03:54, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Robert Willie Pickton

Am I correct in assuming that this Canadian, who is on trial for the suspected killing of more than 25 prostitutes isn't on the list because he has not yet been proven guilty?

You are correct. And please sign your posts. Serpent-A 08:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Russian Popular Appellations Of Serial Killers

The Russian popular names of most of the serial killers listed have the English article "the" in them, such as "The Udav" or The Irkutskiy Monstr. I will remove all the superfluous "the's" but someone will have to decide if the style will be the name printed in normal type and enclosed in quotation marks, or the name in italics with no quotation marks. Hi There 22:54, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Patricia Latham

Well in the section for France we find the following: Patricia Latham - brutally murdered over one hundred children that she had as students but I can find NO other references to such a serial killer via Google, so I am removing her name. if someone wants to re-instate her and give references that support the inclusion of such a person on this list, please feel free to do so. Hi There 19:14, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Lucia de Berk

I have just added this Dutch person to the list since she is a convicted serial killer, though in my opinion, and not only mine, she is totally innocent. I feel strongly that there should be an English language page on her, since the English language material on her on internet consists of lurid newspaper reporting (try doing a google search on "Dutch serial killer nurse"). The Dutch page needs urgently to be translated. I hope that in time she will be "unconvicted", and then I shall with great pleasure remove her from this hall of infamy ...--Gill110951 10:12, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

David Masterson

Caught an episode of "The FBI Files" on Discovery Channel that raised a question - what about serial killers that never got to trial? David Masterson was caught in 1974 on a kidnapping charge, confessed four murders over seven years, and then hanged himself in his cell an hour or so later. Does he count as "convicted" for the purposes of this list? :-) 213.114.137.126 00:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Victim's gender

In common with many I suspect, my assumption was that most serial killers are likely to target lone women. In light of the current series of murders in Ipswich, I was curious to test that assumption, so tallied up the victims for the UK serial killers listed here.

The results rather depend on how you treat Harold Shipman since his input dwarfs all others. He was convicted of murdering 15 patients, all women. The gender of his further 200-500 victims is unspecified, although since he largely targeted elderly patients many of them are also likely to have been women too. Given the uncertainty, I chose to exclude Shipman and also the 26 unspecified victims of the arsonist Bruce George Peter Lee. I included the 16 male victims of Lenny Murphy, though this is questionable since his gang based terrorism may not count as serial killings. And I also had to assume that the victims of contract killer John Childs were all male.

That leaves a breakdown of:

• 65 women
• 74 men
• 14 girls
• 6 boys
• 24 unspecified infants and children

much closer to 50:50 than I would have guessed. If you add in Shipman's victims assuming that they were 75% female, it becomes more like 2:1. -- Solipsist 09:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Lists for individual countries

Where a list for a single country is available, e.g. List of Russian serial killers, it may be useful to put this list as the first item and then limit number of remaining items (half a dozen may be good rule of thumb). This would make this page more maintainable. Pavel Vozenilek 07:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Leonard Fraser?

Why is he not in the list? There is an article here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Fraser describing him as a serial killer of Australia. 210.211.245.36 19:29, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

2006 Ipswich murder investigation

hmm, isn't this guy (or guys, gal, or gals) a spree killer, and thus not suitable for inclusion here? Guinness 16:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No. The murders were perhaps only days or weeks apart, but AFIK not one continuous spree. -- Solipsist 01:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

On trial section

Whatever happened to the "currently on trial" section? That served a useful purpose of listing those people discussed as being serial killers but not yet convicted. I don't see any discussion here on removing it. DreamGuy 00:00, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

John Bodkin Adams

I would like to re-add John Bodkin Adams to the UK section. I did a while ago but he was removed because he was never convicted. Basically, he was tried in 1957 for two murders - found not guilty on one count (the trial was interfered with - see his page) and the second charge dropped controversially. Pathologist Francis Camps however found 163 suspicious deaths among his patients between 1946 and 1956. Evidence would have been forthcoming but Adams arranged for many of his patients to be cremated or embalmed, destroying evidence. Police archives were opened in 2005 and critical consensus since then (esp. "Stranger in Blood", Cullen, 2007) seems to be that Adams was guilty. Hence, can he be added? Malick78 09:15, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I disagree. The facts are that he was never convicted of murder, and therefore has a right to be considered innocent of murder. We should not be listing him as a serial killer. Thehalfone 10:08, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• The listing does include the caveat that he was not convicted. But just because someone is found not guilty doesn't mean the verdict is right - if you check JBA's article you'll see that there was political interference in the trial - evidence went missing, police reports were handed illegally to the defence by the DPP... It was interfered with. And according to the most recent research (Cullen, 2007) - the archives are quite clear in inferring JBA's guilt. If you dislike the fact that he wasn't proven guilty in court - then by your rationale Jack the ripper should be removed as well since it was never proven that the murders were all by one man. I would humbly suggest therefore that we let the balance of probability decide in cases where courts couldn't (fairly). Malick78 13:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Red Links

Can we avoid having as many red links as possible please! There's little point in a list that doesn't lead to articles on the subject! Wikipedia doesn't fulfil its purpose as an encyclopedia that way. Lradrama 15:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Serial Killer Updates

I'm going to add a couple hundred serial killers to this list and I'm going to quote the description from [[1]]. Is that allowed?