According to generally accepted concepts, a serial killer is one who has killed more than three people, often triggered by their mental disorders. Most of these monsters act alone and are sociopaths, but some find a similar maniac interested in joining their crimes.
Meet the ten scariest and sickest serial killer couples and their methods of taking away innocent lives.
1. Paul Bernardo And Karla Homolka: Ken And Barbie Killers
They met in 1987 in Toronto, married in 1991. Six months before the wedding, Karla wanted to give her future husband a special gift - the virginity of her 15-year-old sister Tammy. Bernardo knew that Karla was not a virgin when they got together, which did not give him peace. Therefore, on the eve of Christmas 1990, Karla mixed alcohol and halothane to put her younger sister to sleep. After that, she and her fiancé filmed, as the poor girl was raped.
In the middle of the night, Karla's sister choked on her vomit and died. The serial killer couple then assumed death as an accident, so Bernardo and Karla continued to live their fantasies, raping and killing young girls.
Finally, DNA was found on one of the victims. In 1993, Bernardo had a hard time beating his wife.
Then Karla decided to confess everything to the police force, provided her sentence was up to 12 years in prison. Thanks to her testimony, Bernardo was imprisoned for life without the possibility of early release. Karla Homolka was released from prison in July 2005.
2. Gwendolyn Graham And Catherine May Wood
The two women met at a nursing home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and immediately became a couple. But the usual sex stuff was not enough. At first, they choked each other during sex but soon got bored. Then they started killing older women in the nursing home where they worked.
The first murder was committed in January 1987 - they strangled an elderly woman with Alzheimer's disease and then had sex next to her body. Similar killings have been repeated four times by this serial killer couple.
They even took some things as a souvenir and bragged about what they had done to their colleagues, who did not believe in the seriousness of what was said. Everything changed when Graham - the dominant from the serial killer couple - ordered Wood to kill a woman just for fun, but Wood refused.
Graham then moved to Texas, changing jobs, and the couple broke up. Wood was broken, so she went to the police. As a result, the serial killer couple began to testify against each other. At trial, Graham received a life sentence and Wood - 20 years in prison.
3. Fred And Rosemary West
Meet one of the most notorious and scariest pairs of serial killer couples in history. They both had difficult childhoods, and incest probably occurred in their biographies. Although most of their murders took place between 1973 and 1979, the first was committed in 1971.
While Fred was in jail for petty theft, Rosemary was left to care for Charmaine, Fred's daughter from a previous marriage. Rosemary beat the child and eventually killed her. When Fred was released from prison, Charmaine's mother came for the girl, but she disappeared. Fred probably killed her.
Fred and Rosemary had a pathological relationship - Rosemary often slept with her own father, and Fred not only knew but approved. Fred didn't mind Rosemary working in prostitution. She even arranged a room in her house so she could receive clients there.
The room had holes in the walls so Fred could take a peek. A red lamp hung at the entrance so that their children could understand whether their mother was busy or not. When Rosemary became a prostitute in 1972, Fred first raped his 8-year-old daughter. After that, he repeatedly raped his other daughters and filmed them on camera.
From 1973 to 1987, the serial killer couple killed nine people, including one of their daughters and several neighbors. They were not caught until 1994 when police began investigating the disappearance of one of the West's daughters, which was last seen in 1987. Fred confessed to 10 murders, but 11 more were later attributed when police found the remains on the territory of his home.
Rosemary has not confessed once but has been charged with ten murders. In 1995, Fred hanged himself in jail while awaiting his case. Rosemary is currently serving a life sentence.
4. Charlene And Gerald Gallego
Between 1978 and 1980, the serial killer couple raped and killed nine girls, including one pregnant woman. Gerald dominated the relationship, and Charlene did everything he said. They had a morbid imagination, and soon they wanted to have "sex slaves."
The couple kidnapped girls (the youngest was 13), raped them for hours, and killed them.
This continued until they kidnapped a young couple in the parking lot. The young man was shot, and the young woman was raped, beaten, and killed. But friends who saw the abduction managed to write down the car number and report it to the police.
Eventually, Charlene and Gerald were arrested. In 1984, Charlene testified against her husband and was sentenced to 16 years in prison in Nevada. Gerald was sentenced to death but died in jail in 2002 from cancer. Charlene was released in 1997.
5. Charles Starkweather And Caril Ann Fugate
They fell in love in the 1950s. Fugate was 14 at the time, and her stepfather and mother disapproved of a relationship with 19-year-old Starkweather.
On January 21, 1958, Starkweather shot Fugate's mother and father but did not stop there - he also strangled her younger sister.
After that, the serial killer couple embarked on a journey through America, robbing and killing all those they met along the way.
They eventually killed 11 people and two dogs. This serial killer couple was finally arrested on January 29, 1958, in Wyoming. Starkweather received the death penalty, Fugate - the life sentence. But in 1976, Fugate was released early and now lives in Michigan.
6. Raymond Fernandez And Martha Beck: The Lonely Hearts Killers
Fernandez was in prison for a robbery where he learned about voodoo and the occult. Coming to freedom, Fernandez decided that this new knowledge could be used to attract women's attention. He planned to continue working, seduce women, rob them, and disappear.
Everything went well until he saw Martha Beck's dating ad. She came to a meeting with two children. He told her he would let her stay if she got rid of the children. Beck immediately left the children, which impressed Fernandez.
At first, they continued with Fernandez's plan, but Beck's explosive nature constantly interfered with this. The woman became jealous and started attacking the women. As a result, the serial killer couple began killing most of their victims.
In late February 1949, a young widow and her two-year-old daughter were killed. Neighbors heard a noise and called the police. When police arrived, Beck and Fernandez were still in the apartment. In all, they killed about 20 people. They were sentenced to death, and in 1951 they suffered electric shocks in Sing Sing Prison.
7. Fay And Ray Copeland
In 1990, Fay and Ray Copeland became the oldest serial killer couple in the United States to be sentenced to death. Ray, 76, and Fay, 69, have been charged with the murder of five people.
The senior serial killer couple bought the cattle to resell it at a higher price and shared it with the first owner. But Ray killed the cattle owners so as not to share the jackpot.
They were arrested when someone found human remains in their backyard.
At first, Fay denied knowing about the killings, but her alibi failed. Both were sentenced to death, but later Fay's conviction was changed to a life sentence. Fay lived until 2003, and Ray was executed in 1993.
8. Myra Hindley And Ian Brady: Moors Murders
It all started in the 1960s. They read books about Hitler and the Nazis and were extremists. In July 1963, Brady spoke of "perfect murder." On July 12, 1963, 16-year-old Paulina Reid, a friend of Hindley's younger sister, was abducted.
Ian Brady raped the girl, hit her on the head with a shovel, then slit her throat, practically cutting off her head.
Between 1963 and 1965, the serial killer couple killed five children, cruelly mocking them before the murders. When Hindley's sister and her husband saw them killing a teenager, they called the police.
The criminals were sentenced to life. Brady pled insanity and spent the rest of his life in an asylum. Hindley died at the age of 60 in prison.
9. Henry Lucas And Ottis Toole
In 1973, this serial killer couple met and immediately fell in love with each other. In 1983, Lucas was arrested for possession of a weapon and suddenly began to boast that he had taken many lives.
As a result, the serial killer couple admitted to killing hundreds of people. They knew the details of the murders that only the killers knew. Lucas and Thule helped the police find the bodies of the missing.
They didn't have a specific way of killing. They killed people of all races, ages, and genders.
Tula was charged with five murders, Lucas - 11. Initially, both were sentenced to death but were commuted to life in prison. Toole died of liver problems in 1996, Lucas - in 2001 due to a heart attack.
10. Susan And Michael Carson
In the early 1980s, this serial killer couple used various drugs. James Clifford Carson (a.k.a. Michael Bear Carson; born in 1950) and Susan Barnes Carson (aka Suzan Bear Carson; born in 1941) converted to Islam and moved to a marijuana farm in San Francisco.
They considered themselves "vegetarian Muslims" and killed those who, they say, exuded "evil energy."
The first victim was their neighbor in 1981. They hit her with a jar and hatched ten times. After that, they killed at least two, trying to "liberate the world of witchcraft."
When they were caught, police found a list of people they wanted to kill, including celebrities. Both confessed to the murders and were sentenced to life imprisonment.
