The World's Worst Serial Killers

 Book 19 of my Reading Challenge

read from February 1 - 12

The World's Worst Serial Killers: Shocking Crimes and Unspeakable Murders

by Al Cimino

published 2024

Summary (via the book jacket)

Serial killers are the most terrifying criminals out there. They find themselves driven to kill and kill again, and no amount of reason or logic can stop their orgy of violence. Many masquerade as ordinary members of society. The body counts continue to rise until their shocking crimes are uncovered by dogged detective work or through their own mistakes.

This collection features more than 60 of the most evil serial killers from across the globe, including:

 - John Wayne Gacy, who worked part-time as a clown for children's birthday parties while in secret took home teenage boys to abuse and kill;

 - Ted Bundy, who charmed women into returning home with him before revealing his true self;

 - Charles Manson, who led a cult of death and destruction in Los Angeles;

 - Tamara Samsonova, the 'Granny Ripper' who chopped up her victims and dumped them outside her flat;

 - and Daniel Carmago Barbosa, the most prolific serial killer of all time, with more than 150 victims.

My Opinion

4 stars

This book was an impulse buy while browsing.  Even though it's hefty it's digestible, with a few pages devoted to each person and pictures throughout the book.

This was a good book but one I could only read a little at a time before it started affecting me, especially at night.  It wasn't overly gruesome but it was graphic and reading page after page of depravity was tough.  There were so many serial killers in this book, I had no idea so many different people were able to murder for years and years before being caught.  

It's frustrating how many times the killer would be on the police's radar yet still able to continue killing, sometimes even for years.  At first I thought this was the reason this book was hitting me so hard, because of the seemingly unnecessary deaths if they'd been stopped sooner, but then as I continued reading a new layer of this discomfort hit me.  I realized so many of these killers are white and I feel that's a major contributing factor to why they would be questioned and let go, or flimsy excuses/alibis would be accepted, or they would be found guilty but put on probation, etc.  How many minority suspects have been jailed and/or lynched for much much less evidence?