Serial killers are really demented individuals. While I find it hard to imagine killing people, well maybe not in wartime when they are trying to kill you, I can see how someone might get so mad that he or she is almost temporarily insane and kills someone in a fit of rage. Serial killing is something entirely different however. If we take the ten most prolific serial killers, we find that they may have killed over 900 people. It is hard to get exact figures because they never seem to admit to all the killings, but when you add in the suspected murders that they committed, you get the minimum figure that I just quoted, it could be far more since some of the killings will never be known. There are over 10,000 towns in the U.S. that have a population of under 1,000 people. To realize the scope of the amount of killings that these maniacs did, we would have to picture an entire US town of at least 1,000 people being wiped out, or several smaller towns. We have heard the names of a lot of serial killers, but while they may be famous, they may not have been prolific enough to get into the list of ten of the most prolific ones.

One has to wonder what twisted mentality creates a serial killer? Most people think of them as criminals and you can readily see why, but is there some defect in their brain, do they hear voices telling them to kill, or do they just do it for the thrill? One thing that I have said and I still believe, is that there is evil on this earth and some of these people are just plain evil. Others are extremely sick individuals. The movies about Hannibal Lecter were pretty much on the money about the sick type of individual. Here was a man, a psychiatrist, that went insane and became a very intelligent serial killer. Thank goodness that most serial killers are not that smart and thank goodness he was only a fictional character.

In real life we have people like Pedro Alonso Lopez. No one can be sure how many people this devil killed, but they figure it was at least 300, but probably more. He was born in Colombia, a place where murder was common. He had a taste for girls and the charges against him were that he had killed more than 300 of them. A free lance reporter named Ron Laytner had interviewed him in prison in 1980 and this is how he became internationally known. The accounts of this serial killer were published all over North America. He had a nickname, the Monster of the Andes. He murdered girls in many different South American countries. Of the ones that are known, 53 graves were found in Ecuador, but the murder count that he admitted to in that country became 110. He also admitted to killing another 240 girls in Peru and Columbia. He liked young girls and most were between 9 and 12 years old. His mother was a prostitute with 13 children. She threw him out of the home when he was 8 years old for fondling his sister. He went to prison at 18 and was raped and killed 3 of his attackers in prison. In Ecuador he was killing at the rate of 3 girls a week. He said, "I like the girls in Ecuador, they are more gentle and trusting, more innocent." Even when he confessed to killing over 300 girls, the police didn't really believe him until a flash flood uncovered one of his mass graves. He is still alive today serving a life sentence. Here is the strange part of the story, he actually got released from prison in Ecuador, but was arrested about an hour later as an illegal alien. They handed him over to Columbia which charged him with murder. He was released again in Columbia after a stay in a mental institution, when he was then declared sane. He was rearrested when a fresh murder was discovered.

Another prolific serial murderer was Henry Lee Lucas. Again no one can be sure how many people this guy killed. He had confessed to killing thousands, but the authorities believed that it was around 200. After confessing to killing thousands of people, Lucas said, "I am not a serial killer". Lucas said a lot of things and had also stated that he had killed about 600 people between 1975 to 1983. He admitted to an average of 1 per week for that period. The Attorney General of Texas at the time, Jim Mattox, criticized the police and said that they were taking part in a hoax. When Lucas received the death sentence, then governor George W. Bush commuted the death sentence to life in prison. Lucas is said to have killed with another killer named Otis Toole, another famous serial killer. Lucas had killed his mother during an argument in 1960. He said, “All I remember was slapping her alongside the neck, but after I did that I saw her fall and decided to grab her. But she fell to the floor and when I went back to pick her up, I realized she was dead. Then I noticed that I had my knife in my hand and she had been cut.” She wasn't dead, but died later from the wound. Lucas began to claim that the only reason he had confessed to any killings was because of bad treatment by police, but in open court stated he had "killed about a hundred more women" as well. His partner died in jail, he was serving 6 life sentences.

Bruno Ludke is believed to have killed at least 51 people. Ludke was born in Berlin, Germany. He was known to have a disability. When questioned, he was not able to answer the question of how many minutes were in an hour. During World War II he was discovered by Nazi police committing necrophilia. He had confessed to all the crimes put forth to him, but witnesses stated that he had been brutally treated and they heard him say, 'they would kill me if I didn't confess'. Not everyone believes in his guilt. Some researchers had stated that he was framed and that the different murders he confessed to had no tie ins with each other and that police reports were often vague and little evidence was found. Some went so far as to say that the man was just too slow mentally to have been able to plan and execute these murders. The body that he had committed necrophilia on however had just been recently deceased. Was he innocent, did he kill one person, or was he a serial killer? The German authorities believe that he was a serial killer.

Lastly, I would like to talk about Gary Ridgeway. He was known as the Green River Killer. He was convicted of killing 48 women, but he stated that he actually killed more than 90 women. He was found because he left DNA evidence at the scene of at least 4 murders. He pleaded guilty to 48 counts of aggravated murder. Because of his confession, he was given life in prison instead of death. His IQ was 82 and his performance in school was poor. He was constantly picked on by his mother and could do nothing right. A lot of his murders took place around Seattle and Tacoma Washington. It took him about 2 ½ years to build up the total to 90 murders. He often posed the bodies nude in clusters. The police thought that by interviewing another serial killer, Ted Bundy, in prison that they might get some tips. This was of no help at all. Ridgeway was first arrested on prostitution charges and later became a suspect in the serial killings. Ridgeway received 48 life sentences. He has been quoted as saying, "I would talk to her... and get her mind off of the, sex, anything she was nervous about. And think, you know, she thinks, 'Oh, this guy cares,' and which I, I didn't. I just want to, uh, get her in the vehicle and eventually kill her.”

Are there monsters in this world? You bet there are.