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The UK has a rich and varied history, but where there are good people there are inevitably also bad people living alongside them. The focus of this piece will be on the worst of society: the most notorious serial killers from the UK. The UK has a relatively large fraternity of serial killers, although almost all of these outlined below are either behind bars or dead, ensuring that the UK remains a safe place to live, work, and study.
True crime investigation and TV shows have gained rapid popularity in the UK over the past five years, with many people having a morbid fascination with the crimes of others. Many criminology and forensics students use their knowledge of true crime and of serial killers to inspire their studies. Some of the most frequently asked questions about serial killers include where are serial killers from? Why do they do what they do? And which serial killers in the UK have killed the most people? Here’s everything you need to know about serial killers from the UK:
What Makes Someone a Serial Killer?
The definition of what makes someone a serial killer varies slightly from country to country, but within the UK, a serial killer is anyone who has killed two or more people. Within the United States, the term serial killer is only applied if an individual has committed a series of three or more killings, and not less than one of these must be committed within the United States. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a serial killer is “a person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behaviour pattern.”
This definition is important, because if a drunk driver knocks down and kills three people in the same accident/incident, then they are not deemed to be a serial killer. Intent is also important to the definition of what makes a serial killer, therefore. A serial killer must be a murderer who deliberately commits repeated crimes.
Often serial killers have similar backgrounds or childhood experiences: This leads many people to believe that serial killers are made rather than born. To answer the question ‘what makes someone a serial killer’, many serial killers are victims of childhood physical or sexual abuse, or experience early childhood trauma. This trauma could include but isn’t limited to, dysfunctional family backgrounds, absent or emotionally distant parents, or another trauma such as watching the rape or murder of a loved one or family member. Advances in modern psychology mean that it’s all too easy to simply label a serial killer a ‘monster’ when in reality the primal instinct to kill is often more advanced in these people for a reason. However, it is too easy to blame childhood trauma on the birth of a serial killer: many serial killers have very normal childhoods.
Famous UK Serial Killers
The UK does not have the same abundance of serial killers that other countries have. The United States is considered to be the country with the largest number of serial killers, a fact that is attributed to the size of the country and the social and physical isolation in many communities. In fact, 67.5% of all serial killers are residents of the USA. There is an incredibly high number of serial killers originating from America: that figure currently stands at 3,204 serial killers. The UK has the second highest number of serial killers, but our number of 166 serial killers is dwarfed by the figures coming from the United States. This is a significant jump. In third place is South Africa, where you will find 117 serial killers, followed by 106 serial killers in Canada. Finally, in fifth place is Italy with 97 serial killers in the country. It is not fully understood why the USA has produced so many more serial killers than the UK and the rest of the world.
Despite the fact that the UK has not generated as many serial killers, there are still many in the country that have achieved significant notoriety for their crimes. Some of the most famous serial killers in the UK include:
Steve Wright – Steve Wright is best known by the name ‘The Suffolk Strangler’. During his five-month reign of terror, five prostitutes in the town of Ipswich were murdered throughout 2006. Throughout this period, many women in the town were frightened to leave their homes after dark and prostitutes were warned by the police to stay home. Although Wright was only convicted for the deaths of five women, he has been linked to the deaths of several others by police forces across the country however, these links are not strong enough to press charges. Wright is currently serving a whole life order at HM Prison Long Lartin in Worcestershire, and he will never leave prison alive.
Dennis Nilsen – Dennis Nilsen was a Scottish serial killer famed as being one of the most notorious in modern British history. Nilsen would murder both boys and young men, then keep their bodies in his flat for several weeks at a time: during this period, he would talk to their bodies and then rape them. Nilson was known as the ‘Muswell Hill Murderer’ and when he was caught, he was found guilty of six counts of murder and two of attempted murder. However, according to investigators, that number could be much larger. By the end of his life, Nilsen had confessed to 16 murders. Nilsen was convicted in 1983 and remained in prison until his death in 2018.
Jack the Ripper – The identity of Jack the Ripper still remains a mystery but we do know that he murdered at least five women in or near the Whitechapel district of London’s East End between August and November 1888. It is likely that the number of women that died at his hands is much higher than this. In each of the murders in this case the woman’s throat was cut and then the body was mutilated in a way that suggested an understanding of anatomy by the murderer. Whilst he wasn’t the first serial killer in the UK, he remains the most notorious, as the case is the most significant unsolved crime in the country.
Peter Sutcliffe – Better known by the name ‘the Yorkshire Ripper’ (a name given by the press due to the similarities between his crimes and those of Jack the Ripper) Peter Sutcliffe was sentenced to 20 consecutive life sentences for a total of 22 murders, although it is thought that he may have killed even more. Sutcliffe exclusively killed women, many of them walking in Red Light District areas, throughout the 1970s before ultimately being caught and arrested in 1981. He claimed that God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes, though we should note that not all of his victims were prostitutes. He was found to have killed 22 women and had attempted to murder 7 others. Sutcliffe remained in jail until his death in 2020.
Mary Ann Cotton – Mary Ann Cotton is one of the very few female serial killers in the UK. Between 1865 and 1873 she murdered a total of 21 people. 11 of those murdered were her children (with just 2 of her 13 children surviving) and she also murdered 3 of her 4 husbands so that she could access their insurance policies. Her murders were largely motivated by financial gain, and in all cases, she used the deadly poison arsenic as her murder weapon. Cotton was executed for her crimes.
Harold Shipman – Shipman is officially the worst serial killer that the UK has ever known. A GP that murdered his patients using a lethal dose of diamorphine, between the years of 1975 and 1998 Shipman killed an unimaginable 218 people, all of them his patients. Shipman was based in Manchester and many of his victims were elderly widowed women, though he also murdered male patients too. Once his patients were dead, Shipman then edited the medical histories of his victims to divert attention from himself. When his crimes were revealed, this led to a national outcry and a serious review of the powers given to doctors and the wider medical community. Shipman was imprisoned for life but ultimately died by suicide once he was behind bars.
Fred and Rose West – The first of two couples on this list, Fred and Rose West were married when they raped, assaulted and murdered at least twelve women, though the actual number of women they killed is thought to be much higher than this. Two of the couples’ victims were their own daughters. Many of the women that the couple raped and murdered were buried on their property. The victims were often identified because Fred West frequently cut off his victims’ fingers and toes and sometimes their kneecaps post-mortem before burying them. Fred was charged with twelve murders but committed suicide before the case went to trial. Rose was convicted of ten murders and is currently serving a whole life sentence for her crimes.
Ian Brady and Myra Hindley – Known as the Moors Murderers, this criminal couple were active between 1963 and 1965. During this period, they killed a total of five people who were a range of both boys and girls aged between 10 and 17 years old. Each of their victims was raped and then murdered by being either strangled with a piece of string or having their throats cut. Once caught, the couple was originally tried for three murders, but in 1985 Brady confessed to an additional two murders, taking their total known murders to five. Capital punishment was abolished just a few weeks before their trial, so the couple was sentenced to life imprisonment. Both Brady and Hindley died in prison decades later.
Serial Killers Who Killed the Most People
Many of the UK’s serial killers have been incredibly prolific. The ten most prolific serial killers, in the order of those who killed the most people, are:
- Harold Shipman, who killed a total of 218 people
- Peter Sutcliffe, who killed a total of 22 people
- Mary Ann Cotton, who killed a total of 21 people
- Dennis Nilsen, who killed a total of 15 people
- Bruce George Peter Lee, who killed a total of 15 people
- Fred West, who killed a total of 13 people
- Beverly Allitt, who killed a total of 13 people
- Patrick Mackay, who killed a total of 13 people
- Rosemary West, who killed a total of 10 people
- John George Haigh, who killed a total of 9 people
It’s important to note that these figures are based on the number of murders that each individual was convicted of and that in many cases the total number of murders police feel they may have committed is much higher.
Location in the Country of Serial Killers
Jack the Ripper is often titled the UK’s first serial killer, but in reality, he is just the first that was brought to national attention. His killing spree occurred at the same time as an emerging modern police force, consistent police records, and a growing media that delighted in reporting crime. Although Jack the Ripper is unlikely to be the first serial killer in the UK, therefore, his spree is often used as the first case for reporting purposes.
Since the case of Jack the Ripper, there have been 34 official serial killers in the UK. If we look at where each of these 34 killers was born, 3 were born in Glasgow, 3 in Manchester and 3 in Yorkshire, making these the regions with the greatest prevalence of serial killers in the UK. It’s important to note that these figures look at where the murderers were born rather than where their crimes were committed: Fred and Rose West committed all of their murders on their property in Yorkshire, for example, but as she was born in Devon and he was born in Herefordshire, their crimes do not count towards to figure of active serial killers in Yorkshire.
If you’re interested to know if there have ever been any serial killers in your area, an online calculator has been created to help you ascertain how close your property is to the home (or former home) of a known serial killer. When looking at the locations of properties lived in by serial killers, and where they were living when they committed their crimes, the creators of this calculator found that there is a distance of just 113 miles between one serial killer’s property and the next. Whilst you will never know if you’ve ever crossed paths with a serial killer, you can be more certain that you’ve been close to one of their homes.
