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Gary Ridgway: Aquarius -

Born February 18, 1949.

Also known as the "Green River Killer," Ridgway was convicted of 49 homicides, making him the most prolific serial killer in US history according to confirmed murders. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. 

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Peter Sutcliffe: Gemini -

Born June 2, 1946.

Sutcliffe, the notorious "Yorkshire Ripper," murdered 13 women and attempted to murder seven others in one of the UK’s most infamous killing sprees. He was sentenced to life and died in prison in 2020.

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Levi Bellfield: Taurus -

Born May 17, 1968.

Convicted of killing three young women and the attempted murder of another, Englishman Bellfield was handed down three life sentences, with the judge recommending he should never be released. 

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Aileen Wuornos: Pisces -

Born February 29, 1956. 

Wuornos murdered seven men between 1989 and 1990. Convicted of homicide, she was sentenced to death and was executed by lethal injection in 2002. Her life story was chronicled in the film 'Monster' (2003), which starred Charlize Theron. 

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Alexander Pichushkin: Aries -

Born April 9, 1974.

Initially targeting the elderly or the homeless, Russian serial killer Pichushkin is believed to have killed at least 48 people, and possibly as many as 60. He was sentenced to life in prison, with the first 15 years to be spent in solitary confinement. 

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David Berkowitz: Gemini -

Born June 1, 1953.

Known as the "Son of Sam," Berkowitz’s murderous reign of terror in New York City in the summer of 1976 made headlines across the world. He pleaded guilty to six homicides, for which he received six life sentences, to be served consecutively.

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Anatoly Onoprienko: Leo -

Born July 25, 1959.

A Ukrainian mass murderer, Onoprienko confessed to killing 52 people, including a family of ten in 1989. Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996, he died in prison of heart failure in 2013. 

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Luis Alfredo Garavito: Aquarius -

Born January 25, 1957.

In terms of the number of confirmed victims, Colombian Garavito is the world’s worst serial killer, with 138 victims. All were either children or teenagers. His original sentence numbered 1,853 years in prison. This was later reduced to a mere 22 years. As a child killer however, the man dubbed "The Beast" could remain incarcerated for up to 80 years.   

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Robert Napper: Pisces -

Born February 25, 1966.

Convicted of the killings of a young mother in front of her two-year-old son and later, another young mother and her four-year-old daughter, Napper is incarcerated indefinitely at Broadmore high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, England. 

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Jeffrey Dahmer: Gemini -

Born May 21, 1960.

In a case that horrified America, Dahmer confessed to the killing and dismemberment of 17 young men and boys from 1978 to 1991. Sentenced to 16 life terms, Dahmer was beaten to death by a fellow inmate at Columbia Correctional Institution in Milwaukee in 1994. 

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Peter Manuel: Pisces -

Born March 13, 1927.

Active across Scotland between 1956 and his arrest two years later, New York City-born Manuel was convicted of murdering a total of seven people, and was believed to be involved in the deaths of two more. He was hanged at Glasgow’s Barlinnie prison in 1958.

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John Reginald Christie: Aries -

Born April 8, 1899.

In one of the UK's most notorious miscarriages of justice, it was another man, Timothy Evans, who was found guilty and hanged for murders that in fact John Christie later admitted to. In all, Christie killed at least eight people and was executed in 1953. 

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Ted Kaczynski: Gemini -

Born May 22, 1942.

Subject to the longest and most expensive investigation in the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the so-called "Unabomber" killed three people and injured another 23 in a bombing campaign that lasted from 1978 to 1995. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. 

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Myra Hindley: Leo -

Born July 23, 1942.

Along with Ian Brady, Hindley carried out what became known as the Moors murders—the killing of five children in and around Manchester, England, in the 1960s. Handed down a whole life tariff, she died in prison in 2002.    

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Ian Brady: Capricorn -

Born January 2, 1938.

Hindley’s partner in crime, Ian Brady, was also jailed for life. In his closing remarks, the trial judge described the pair as "two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity." Brady also died in prison, in 2017.  

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Ted Bundy: Sagittarius -

Born November 24, 1946.

While he confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978, the true number of Bundy's victims is unknown. Sentenced to death, he died in the electric chair at Florida State Prison in 1989. 

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John George Haigh: Leo -

Born July 24, 1909.

Dubbed the "Acid Bath Murderer" by the British press, Haigh used concentrated sulfuric acid to dispose of his victims, of which there were six confirmed. He went to the gallows in 1949.

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Albert DeSalvo: Virgo -

Born September 3, 1931.

DeSalvo confessed to being the "Boston Strangler," the murderer of 13 women in the Boston area in the early 1960s. Initially sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual assault, his subsequent admission of homicide was met with skepticism. It  was only after a DNA sample taken from his exhumed body in 2013 and matched to one of the strangler’s victims that DeSalvo was officially declared the killer. DeSalvo was stabbed to death in prison in 1973.  

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Gary Ray Bowles: Aquarius -

Born January 25, 1962.

Sentenced to death for the murder of six men in 1994, Bowles was executed at Florida State Prison in 2019. 

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Fritz Haarmann: Scorpio -

Born October 25, 1879.

"The Vampire of Hanover," so named for his habit of biting into his victims, killed at least 25 boys and young men between 1918 and 1924 in Hanover, Germany. He was executed in 1925. 

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Steve Wright: Taurus -

Born April 24, 1958.

When he was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing five women sex workers in the English town of Ipswich in Suffolk, the judge recommended that Wright never be released from jail. 

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Fred West: Libra -

Born September 29, 1941.

West committed at least 12 murders between 1967 and 1987.  He carried out the majority of the killings with his second wife, Rosemary. After the couple’s arrest, the inquiry into what happened became one of the most shocking UK crime investigations of recent years. Fred West escaped justice: he killed himself in January 1995 while on remand. 

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Rosemary West: Sagittarius -

Born November 29, 1953.

Rosemary West and her husband Fred were jointly charged with nine murders, and he with three further homicides. Her husband killed himself and Rose West ended up in prison. She was convicted of 10 murders and handed down 10 life sentences. She will never be released.

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Robert Pickton: Scorpio -

Born October 24, 1949.

Canadian serial killer Robert Pickton allegedly confessed to murdering 49 women. He was eventually charged with the murders of six. Pickton is currently serving life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years. 

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Dennis Nilsen: Sagittarius -

Born November 23, 1945.

Nilsen's preferred method of disposing of his victims was to flush body parts down a lavatory, a grisly ritual which eventually caught him out and led to his arrest. Charged with murdering at least six young men, he was found guilty and jailed for life. He died in prison in May 2018. 

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Juana Barraza: Capricorn -

Born 27 December 1957.

Dubbed "La Mataviejitas," ("The Old Lady Killer"), Mexican Juana Barraza killed up to 48 elderly women. In 2008 she was sentenced to 759 years in prison.  

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Derrick Bird: Sagittarius -

Born November 27, 1957.

In 2010, lone gunman Derrick Bird went on a shooting spree in Cumbria, England. He killed 12 people and wounded numerous others before turning the gun on himself. 

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Harold Shipman: Capricorn -

Born January 14, 1946. 

One of the most prolific serial killers in history, Dr Harold Shipman was found guilty of the murder of 215 patients under his care. Sentenced to life in prison, he killed himself in his cell in 2004. 

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John Wayne Gacy : Pisces -

Born March 17, 1942. 

Chicago-born Gacy was found guilty of the murders of 33 teenage boys and young men, whose bodies were discovered buried in the crawl space (pictured) of his home. Sentenced to death, he was executed by lethal injection in 1994. 

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Ed Gein: Virgo -

Born August 27, 1906.

Two murders and several corpses dug up from graves and mutilated earned Gein the moniker "The Butcher of Plainfield" after the crimes committed in and around his hometown in the 1950s. The book 'Psycho' and subsequent 1960 film are based on his sickening deeds. Gein died of cancer in Mendota Mental Health Institute, Wisconsin, in 1984. 

See also: Serial killers: these are the men who claimed the most lives. 

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