When it comes to serial killers the UK has sadly had more than its fair share of them and this list features just ten of the UK’s most prolific murderers in no particular order…
John George Haigh
10 – John George Haigh
Wiki Info: John George Haigh (24 July 1909 – 10 August 1949), commonly known as the Acid Bath Murderer, was an English serial killer. He was convicted for the murder of six people, although he claimed to have killed nine. He battered or shot his victims to death and used concentrated sulphuric acid to destroy their corpses before forging papers so he could sell the victims’ possessions and collect substantial sums of money.
Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel
9 – Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel
Wiki Info: Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel (13 March 1927 – 11 July 1958) was an American-Scottish serial killer who was convicted of murdering a total of seven people across Lanarkshire and southern Scotland between 1956 and his arrest in January 1958, and is believed to have murdered two more, nine in all.
Judith Minna Ward
8 – Judith Minna Ward
Wiki Info: The M62 coach bombing occurred on 4 February 1974 on the M62 motorway in northern England, when a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb exploded in a coach carrying off-duty British Armed Forces personnel and their family members. Twelve people (nine soldiers, three civilians) were killed by the bomb and in 1974 Judith Ward was convicted of the crime, but 18 years later the conviction was judged as wrongful and she was released from prison.
Peter Sutcliffe
7 – Peter Sutcliffe
Wiki Info: Peter Coonan (born Peter William Sutcliffe; 2 June 1946) is an English serial killer who was dubbed the “Yorkshire Ripper” by the press. In 1981, Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others.
[adinserter block=”7″]
Michael Ryan
6 – Michael Ryan
Wiki Info: The Hungerford massacre was a series of random shootings in Hungerford, Berkshire, United Kingdom, on 19 August 1987, when Michael Robert Ryan, an unemployed antique dealer and handyman, fatally shot 16 people, before taking his own life.
Dennis Andrew Nilsen
5 – Dennis Andrew Nilsen
Wiki Info: Dennis Andrew Nilsen (born 23 November 1945) is a Scottish serial killer and necrophiliac, also known as the Muswell Hill Murderer and the Kindly Killer, who murdered at least 12 young men in a series of killings committed between 1978 and 1983.
William Burke and William Hare
4 – William Burke and William Hare
Wiki Info: The Burke and Hare murders were a series of 16 murders committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The killings were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Doctor Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures.
Bruce George Peter Lee
3 – Bruce George Peter Lee
Wiki Info: Bruce George Peter Lee (born Peter Dinsdale 31 July 1960) is one of Britain’s most prolific serial killers. He confessed to a total of 11 acts of arson, and was convicted of 26 counts of manslaughter. 11 of these were overturned on appeal. Lee was imprisoned for life in 1981.
[adinserter block=”8″]
Dr William Palmer
2 – Dr William Palmer
Wiki Info: William Palmer (6 August 1824 – 14 June 1856), also known as the Rugeley Poisoner or the Prince of Poisoners, was an English doctor found guilty of murder in one of the most notorious cases of the 19th century.
Mary Ann Cotton
1 – Mary Ann Cotton
Wiki Info: Mary Ann Cotton (October 1832 – 24 March 1873) was an English serial killer believed to have murdered up to 20 people, mainly by arsenic poisoning.