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Compare with [[Psycho for Hire]], the step-up of this trope into full-blown fictional villain. The killer feared by other killers is a [[Serial Killer Killer]].
 
Sometimes they are more like a so-called '[http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Spree_killer:Spree killer|Spree killer]]', i.e. someone who goes on a murderous rampage in a smaller area over a shorter time.
In fact, this is more common than actual serial killers, though characters often confuse the two, as time contraints mean the killings in a story usually take place over the space of a few days, whereas real serial killers by definition usually have weeks, months, or years between their kills.
 
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** Misa Amane, the Second Kira, and Teru Mikami, the Hand of Kira, both do the same while in Light's service.
* Beyond Birthday, in the ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'' spin-off ''[[Another Note (Light Novel)|Another Note: the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases]]''
* Johan Liebert, [[Complete Monster|the]] ''[[Monster (Manga)|Monster]]''. He even {{spoiler|manipulated other killers into doing his work for him, most of whom ''also'' ended up dead}}. Johan is an unusual example in that it is debatable whether he has a ''compulsion'' to kill, since he shows that he can stop whenever he wants, and {{spoiler|his [[Freudian Excuse|traumatic childhood]] is revealed to have happened to someone else. It should be noted that having these false memories is the only sign of insanity he demonstrates; all of his killings and manipulation may be motiveless and irrational, but Johan himself comes across as terrifyingly sane (with the exception of one [[Freak -Out]])}}.
** [[It Got Worse|Also]], he does not appear to get any sort of benefit from killing; he shows no signs of getting a thrill or sexual pleasure from his acts, nor does he seem to get any kicks from domination, and the killings are usually carried out as pragmatically as possible (no wasting time through torture, etc.), which suggests that his use of other people to kill might be simple expedience rather than enjoying his ability to manipulate. In addition, with many of his victims, there is no financial gain or any real progress towards whatever plan he may have at the time, making their deaths totally pointless. The lack of any recognisable motive is [[Your Mileage May Vary|arguably]] the main reason why he's widely considered [[Nightmare Fuel]] incarnate, as well as the poster-boy for the [[Complete Monster]] page.
* [[Naoki Urasawa]], the creator of ''Monster'', has another manga called ''[[Pluto]]'', in which he manages to turn the titular character, a big, goofy-looking green cartoon robot with horns from the classic ''[[Astro Boy]]'' series, into a genuinely terrifying serial killer figure.
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== Film ==
* ''[[M (Film)|M]]'', starring [[Peter Lorre]] as the bizarrely sympathetic child killer Hans Beckert, is one of the first film portrayals of a serial killer. Since many of these tropes had not taken effect yet, the climax was actually about [[Just in Time|saving]] ''[[Just in Time|him]]'' from a furious [[Torches and Pitchforks|lynch mob]].
** ''M'' was inspired by the case of [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haarmann:Fritz Haarmann|Fritz Haarmann]] (aka "the Butcher of Hanover"), which also inspired two other movies: ''Tenderness of the Wolves'' in 1973, a fictionalized account of Haarmann's killing spree, and ''The Deathmaker'' in 1995, an account of Haarmann's psychological examination, based on the actual transcripts of his interrogation.
* Several [[Alfred Hitchcock]] films feature these:
** Norman Bates, in ''[[Psycho (Film)|Psycho]]''.
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* Jack in the movie ''Blacktop'', who, as the title suggests, works driving a truck around the mid-West and {{spoiler|uses the trailer's freezer to store the strung-up corpses of his victims}}. Best part is, he's played by ''[[Meat Loaf]]''.
* Mike and Bart in the black comedy ''How To Be A Serial Killer''.
* Carl Panzram in ''Killer: A Journal of a Murder'', memorably played by James Woods. Disturbing in its way since the story is based on an [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Panzram:Carl Panzram|actual serial killer]], although the film isn't nearly as gruesome as Panzram's real career.
* ''[[The Element of Crime]]'' subverts many of the expected associated tropes by featuring a [[Hidden Villain|very elusive]] child killer whose identity is {{spoiler|never revealed (in fact, he may be have been dead already even before the events of the movie)}}, and by having some of his murders {{spoiler|actually committed by the people who pursue him, [[Go Mad From the Revelation|as they become crazy]] [[Dramatic Irony|because of the very profiling method they're using]].}}
* The protagonist of ''[[The Poughkeepsie Tapes]]'' is an especially terrifying example.
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* A few of the main characters in ''[[Predators]]''.
* The murderer in [[Untraceable]] abducted and killed people in gruesome ways while broadcasting over the internet that he would spare the victim only if it didn't meet the number of viewers that he attracted, as it turns out the people he was killing were people connected to his father's suicide.
* Monsieur Verdoux, the [[Villain Protagonist]] of the eponymous [[Charlie Chaplin]] film, is a [[The Bluebeard|Bluebeard]]-style killer, inspired by the actual serial killer [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_D:Henri D%C3%A9sir%C3%A9_LandruA9 Landru|Henri Landru]].
* ''[[Changeling (Film)|Changeling]]'' features Gordon Northcott, who kidnapped and murdered more than 20 young boys on a small farm in California.
* ''[[Monster (Film)|Monster]]'', the one with [[Charlize Theron]] (but not Charlize Theron's eyebrows) as Aileen Wuornos.
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== Music ==
* [[The Other Wiki]] has [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_songs_about_killers:List of songs about killers|a list]].
* [[The Rolling Stones]]' "Midnight Rambler" is sung from the point of view of one of these.
* "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", by [[The Beatles]].
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== Real Life ==
* Many a fictional serial killer is [[Very Loosely Based on a True Story]]. [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein:Ed Gein|Ed Gein]] and [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Fish:Albert Fish|Albert Fish]] in particular have a lot of [[Captain Ersatz]] counterparts based on them.
** Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter from ''Silence of Lambs'' are, respectively, loosely based on Gein and Fish.
*** Mama's boy Norman Bates is also based on Gein.
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*** Buffalo Bill is also based on Gary Heidnik, who abducted women and imprisoned them in his basement. However, his motives were to make the women his harem, whereas Bill had no sexual interest in his captives.
** It is worth noting, however, that Gein himself is a subversion via the most technical details. As disturbing as his story is, he was only convicted of two murders. Three murders is the baseline for law enforcement when classifying serial killers. Though he was suspected of killing his brother and a number of other local women who "disappeared" while he was active.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Brudos:Jerry Brudos|Jerry Brudos]] wasn't very prolific, but he stands out for one particular reason: at his trial, he argued that a photograph of him with one of his victims couldn't be used as evidence against him because the victim in the picture wasn't the person he had been accused of killing.
** To be fair, he's got an argument there. If he wasn't charged with killing the person in the photo, it's irrelevant to the specific case at hand and extremely prejudicial to the jury.
* The most prolific serial killer in history, who didn't advertise it, was [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman:Harold Shipman|Harold Shipman]]. A British medical doctor, he was sent down for a full life term (no possibility of parole) in 2000 for 15 murders, using drug overdoses. Investigations concluded that he had, overall, killed ''at least'' 215 people, mostly old women, and probably ''250'', if not more (459 patients had died in his care overall, but it is unclear how many he actually killed since many of his patients were elderly). He committed suicide in 2004.
* One special episode of the A&E series ''The First 48'' had the detectives being documented discover a genuine serial killer, one who actually did call the police to gloat when the first bodies were discovered. Even more unbelievably (in the sense of "it only happens in movies") they actually did use sound analysis of the call for background noise and tracking the cellphone to pinpoint his location.
* More common in real life than we'd like to believe. [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Heriberto_Seda:Heriberto Seda|Heriberto Seda]] is an example, and was caught because he sent some many messages to the police that when he shot his sister's boyfriend with a zip gun, the cops recognized his M.O. and his handwriting. His model example, [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer:Zodiac Killer|the Zodiac Killer]], who operated in San Francisco, was never caught.
* Who could forget [[Jack the Ripper]]?
** Peter Sutcliffe, "The Yorkshire Ripper".
** "Jack the Stripper"
* One of America's first serial killers was Herman Mudgett, better known as [http[wikipedia://enH.wikipedia.org/wiki/ H._H._Holmes Holmes|H.H. Holmes]], who was most active during the time of Chicago's Colombian Exposition. He killed mostly women, and while it's confirmed he killed at least 27, some people believe the true count to be over a hundred. He committed his crimes in what literally was a labyrinthine hotel full of secret passages.
** With a [[Torture Cellar]] and at least one [[Gas Chamber]] (masquerading as just another hotel room). It was designed from the start to be a murder house.
* John Douglas is one of the first [[Real Life]] [[The Profiler|profilers]], actually writing the book on the patterns of serial killers (several, in fact). It wasn't without cost, though; the cumulative stress of the work ''literally'' [http[wikipedia://enJohn E.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Douglas Douglas#Profiling |nearly killed him]]. His autobiography, ''Mindhunter'', is highly recommended to anyone interested in the subject.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Dahmer:Jeffrey Dahmer|Jeffrey Dahmer]] anyone?
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Panzram:Carl Panzram|Carl Panzram]].
** Quote: "In my lifetime I have murdered 21 human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and last but not least I have committed sodomy [read: rape] on more than 1,000 male human beings. For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry."
** Originally Panzram was only sentenced to ''twenty-five years''. Why was he executed? When they sent him to Leavenworth, he told the warden, "I'll kill the first man that bothers me." You hear this a lot, but Panzram ''kept'' that promise - he beat the laundry foreman to death with an iron bar, and then threatened to kill the human rights groups that tried to appeal the death sentence he got for it!
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos:Aileen Wuornos|Aileen Wuornos]], whose story inspired the movie ''Monster''.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy:Ted Bundy|Ted Bundy]].
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Pickton:Robert Pickton|Robert Pickton]], who inspired the ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' season four finale.
* Richard Trenton Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento. His [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Trenton_Chase:Richard Trenton Chase|Wikipedia article]] alone consists of pure [[Nightmare Fuel]].
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gunness:Belle Gunness|Belle Gunness]]
* [[Monster Clown|John Wayne Gacy]]
* One of the most prolific in history, [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo:Andrei Chikatilo|Andrei Chikatilo]], who killed over fifty women and children. The reason he got away with it for so long was because the Soviet Union, where he lived and killed, was totally in denial and believed serial killers to be a consequence of the "decadent west". He may actually be the partial basis for Roark Jr, aka That Yellow Bastard, in ''[[Sin City]]'', particularly the part about "can't get it up without hearing his victims scream".
** Although it is debatable just how many victims were really his, and how many were simply unsolved murders that the Soviet authorities pinned on him once they had someone to blame for them. He certainly was a prolific killer, but just how prolific may never actually be known.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Manson_Family:Manson Family|Charles Manson]] himself may not have been a serial killer, but his followers absolutely were. A serial killer is defined as someone who kills more than three people with a "cooling off" period in between the killings. Music teacher Gary Hinman was murdered by the family on July 25, 1969. On August 9, 1969, they murdered five people, six if you count Sharon Tate's unborn baby; the next night, they killed grocers Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. On the 26th, they killed Donald "Shorty" Shea, a Hollywood stuntman. That's nine people (ten if you count Tate's child) in just a few weeks. In addition, other people are suspected of having been victims of the family, including Ronald Hughes, one member's defense attorney (believed to have been killed for balking at letting his client sacrifice herself to clear Manson). Although he was a chief conspirator in all of the killings, Manson did not personally draw a single drop of blood -- except for cutting Hinman's ear off, according to testimony -- but the various members of his "family" could certainly count as serial killers, especially Charles "Tex" Watson (Tate, LaBianca and Shea murders), Susan Atkins (Hinman and Tate), and Patricia Krenwinkel (Tate and LaBianca).
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Berkowitz:David Berkowitz|David "Son of Sam" Berkowitz]].
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Zodiac_Killer:Zodiac Killer|The Zodiac]], who was never caught during his lifetime. Authorities seem to have narrowed their area of suspicion down to about a dozen different men, almost all of whom are now dead.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Lynn_Sells:Tommy Lynn Sells|Tommy Lynn Sells]], recently claimed to have killed 70+ people, once said that he didn't like/use guns, because they were ''dangerous''.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Báthory:Elizabeth Báthory|Countess Elizabeth Báthory]] is one of history's most prolific serial killers, tortured and killed over 500 women, although she was only convicted for 80. Legend has it she did this so that she could [[Blood Bath|bathe in the blood of young virgins and maintain her vitality]], but it is believed Báthory did it for the [[For the Evulz|fun of it]], which is far more chilling.
** However, modern Hungarian historians have attempted to give her a [[Historical Hero Upgrade]] claiming that maybe she wasn't a serial killer at all, but a victim of a show trial by the Habsburgs to get her land and fortune. However the reports of the murders, which her husband joined in with, are far closer to contemporary though and it seems fairly likely that she killed at least some. The notaries in the case took testimony from more than 300 witnesses, several of whom lost relatives. Two of the accused named around 36 victims (although they may well have been tortured so the reliability of that is up for debate).
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_Alonso_L:Pedro Alonso L%C3%B3pez |Pedro López]] raped and killed at least a hundred, but maybe ''three hundred'', young girls across South America. The higher figure would make him one of the most prolific known serial killer in history. What could be scarier than that? He's been a free man since 1998 and is wanted for murder again.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_de_Rais:Gilles de Rais|Gilles de Rais]] was a French nobleman, war hero, compatriot of Joan Of Arc and murdered at least 80 children between 1432 and 1440, the majority of whom were also raped or sexually abused. Much like Bathory, a few people have tried claiming that he was framed by the church to acquire his lans but that's extremely unlikely since firstly, the church didn't have a hope of acquiring his lands (which ended up going to the Duke of Brittany); secondly, his confederates gave very detailed testimony and thirdly, around forty bodies were discovered. Margaret Murray has also tried claiming that he was a Dianic pagan who was subject to religious persecution but the evidence for this is virtually nil.
* Australia had [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Cooke:Eric Cooke|Eric Cooke]], an unusual serial killer who changed his M.O. Two innocent men were also charged with crimes Cooke committed, but have since been exonerated.
* "BTK" (Bind, Torture, Kill): [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader:Dennis Rader|Dennis Rader]], who murdered 10 people in the Sedgwick county area of Wichita, Kansas from 1977-1989 while sending taunting letters and poems to the police, and was caught approximately a decade and a half after his last victim, because after such a long time he got bored and [[What an Idiot!|started sending letters to the police again, announcing that he was plotting his next murder.]] Lots of televison shows have since had a take on him, though most commonly the reason for their killer's lengthy absence is that he was seriously injured in some way and had to temporarily stop.<ref> The reason ''Dennis Rader'' stopped was simply that he got a job with the local Compliance Department, meaning he could stalk, bully and harass people with a veneer of legality, which he did with gleeful abandon, especially women, on at least one occassion taking one womans dog and having it put down and lying about it being a dangerous animal. In other words it was only because now he could live out his sadistic fantasies at greatly reduced risk, which makes him a much bigger bastard than any of his adaptations. And unlike them, when caught, he not only confessed to the killings, he ''bragged'' about them.</ref>
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Lee_Lucas:Henry Lee Lucas|Henry Lee Lucas]] is an interesting case. While he confessed to the murder of nearly 600 people (including people who turned out to ''still be alive''), he often would recant his confessions, only to confess to ''other'' murders. He often became the "go-to" guy by police departments who wanted to clear their unsolved murder files. Since he was already sentenced to death, he relished in the attention that the confessions brought him. When he died in prison in 2001, forensics were only able to confirm 3 of his confessions, which technically did make him a serial killer. His supposed exploits inspired the brilliant ''[[Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer|HENRY: Portrait of a Serial Killer]]''.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Ridgway:Gary Ridgway|Gary Ridgway]], better known as the Green River Killer, is one of the most prolific serial killers of the 20th century. He was convicted for the murder of 48 women over the course of three decades. However it is believed that he killed up to 90 women.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Ramirez:Richard Ramirez|Richard Ramirez]] is notorious for his completely random modus operandi as well as choice of victim. He literally managed to terrorize the whole LA area in the 80's.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Torso_Murderer:Cleveland Torso Murderer|The Cleveland Torso Murderer]] is an especially gruesome example of an unsolved serial killing case. As the name suggests, the victims of this killer were dismembered and some of them were disembowled. Only a handful of the victims could be identified, making it an even more disturbing case. He/She also might be the culprit behind the infamous [[Black Dahlia]] murder.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_K:Peter K%C3%BCrten |Peter Kürten]], also known as the Vampire of Düsseldorf. Known for being one of the first investigations to use a criminal profile.
* The Servant Girl Annihilator, in turn of the century killer from Austin, Texas. Noted for stalking black and white women with an axe, his crimes predate Jack the Ripper by only a few years, leading the newspapers of the time to claim the two were the same man. Two men were tried for the crime, but no one was ever convicted. The killings were supposedly the indirect inspiration for the famous moon towers that dot the Austin cityscape.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Kemper:Edmund Kemper|Edmund Kemper]], who started with his grandparents (at 15) and worked his way from there. When asked by the judge what he thought a suitable punishment for his crimes would be, Kemper answered, "Death by torture."
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Bellfield:Levi Bellfield|Levi Bellfield]] only murdered three woman (and attempted to kill two others), but one of those murders (the murder of Milly Dowler) he got away with for years until he was suspected of it in 2008 and convicted in 2011 (he had been convicted of the other murders in 2008).
 
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Plots]]
[[Category:Serial Killer]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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