List of serial killers before 1900
Name Country Time Period Notes
Andrew Christie Scotland 1320-1339 Called Christie-Cleek . Purported Perth butcher turned road bandit , murderer and cannibal during a severe famine
Christman Genipperteinga Holy Roman Empire 1568-1581 Claimed German bandit who was executed for 964 murders , according to a 1581 pamphlet . Possibly inspired by real bandit Peter Niers , who confessed under torture to 544 deaths and was executed in the same year , although similar characters appear in German fairy tales and folk songs from before that time
Sawney Bean 's clan Scotland 1575-1600 Claimed cannibal family that robbed , killed and ate travellers in a cave of Bennane Head , until their manhunt and execution by James VI . Contemporary documents make no reference to the hundreds of disappearances and murders said to have been carried by Bean 's clan , which was probably inspired by the earlier legend of Christie-Cleek
Sweeney Todd United Kingdom 1790-1801 London barber said to kill his clients by slashing their throats and/or throwing them through a trapdoor , after which an accomplice would make pies with the meat of their bodies . Introduced in the 1846-1847 penny dreadful The String of Pearls , Todd was first claimed to be a real criminal in the first published edition of 1850 , supposedly tried in December 1801 and executed in January 1802 . Court records of the time do not mention Todd or anyone similar
Don Vincente Spain 1834-1836 Bibliomaniac ex-monk and librarian said to have killed ten men in Barcelona in order to steal unique books and add them to his collection , sentenced for his crimes to die by garrote . The story , first published as an anonymous article in an 1836 Parisian newspaper , was reprinted as a true story in France for a century , while remaining largely unknown in Spain
Agnus McVee , Jim McVee and Al Riley Canada 1875-1885 Family claimed to have owned a hotel and store on the Cariboo Road of British Columbia during the Cariboo Gold Rush , where they killed miners for their gold and kidnapped women to make into sex slaves until their arrest and death in prison in New Westminster . The story comes from a single source and there are no records of disappearances in the area at the time of the murders nor existing death certificates of the supposed serial killers apprehended
Legendary serial killers
The existence of the following serial killers is dubious or contradicts the accepted historical record :