Worst Serial Killer
10 Worst Serial Killers 10. Wayne Williams †Body count: 2-31. Thought to be responsible for the infamous “Atlanta Child Murders” that took place in Atlanta.
Horror movies are often terrifying precisely because of details leeched from real life atrocities. This can hit - quite literally - closer to home if there s a link.
She was dubbed the Angel Maker, a prolific serial killer responsible for the murders of around 400 babies, horrific crimes that sent a shock wave through 19th.
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Amelia Dyer is believed to be Britain s worst ever serial killer
She started her murderous career in Bristol before moving to Reading
Offered a fostering services but simply murdered the helpless infants
She was dubbed the Angel Maker, a prolific serial killer responsible for the murders of around 400 babies, horrific crimes that sent a shock wave through 19th century Britain.
Amelia Dyer preyed on the down-on-their-luck, desperate unmarried mothers who paid her to have their children adopted thinking she would find them a better life.
But there would be no fairytale endings, instead this despicable woman simply took their money before strangling the infants with dressmaking tape and dumped the bodies in the River Thames.
Angel of death: Victorian serial killer Amelia Dyer is believed to have killed up to 400 babies
And for over 30 years she was able to conduct her grisly trade with complete impunity. Little wonder that this vicious woman is now believed to be Britain s worst ever serial killer.
Her crimes have come to light once again after a national archive of more than 2.5million criminal records from 1770 to 1934 was put online.
The intriguing records chronicle the fates of the worst some of the worst murderers and villains ever to roam these lands. But even among this company Dyer stands apart.
She began to conduct her grisly trade in Bristol in the late 1860s, opening a house of confinement in the suburb of Totterdown where she charged to take in unmarried pregnant women.
Some would ask her to smother their babies at birth, escaping justice as Victorian doctors were unable to tell the difference between suffocation and still-birth.
Amelia Dyer s shocking crimes stunned Victorian Britain. Her case was so sensational that songs were written about her and Britain s adoption and child protection laws had to be toughened up in response to the public outcry
She then began offering a fostering
service, which involved her drugging the babies with laudanum to keep
them quite and slowly starving them.
This went on for almost a decade until she was found guilty of infant neglect and sentenced to six-months in prison.
When
she came out she had a developed a new business plan - why deal with
the bother of fostering children when she could offer a full adoption
service and simply dispose of the unwanted child.
Angel Maker: Dyer was hanged at Newgate Gaol, near the Old Bailey in London, in 1896
She
moved to Reading and soon found her services in high demand -
eyewitnesses reported seeing as many as six babies a day coming into her
home.
Police would later find evidence of around 20 children who had been entrusted to her care in the two months before her arrest.
She was finally arrested following the discovery of the body of an infant in the reeds of the Thames. An address on the parcel paper led the police to Dyer.
Inside her house of horrors they were met with the stench of rotting flesh eminating from the kitchen pantry and from a trunk under her bed.
They discovered baby clothes, vaccination papers as well as letters and receipts for newspaper advertisements offering adoption services.
A search of the River Thames was hastily ordered. After 50 bodies had been discovered she admitted to police: You ll know all mine by the tape around their necks.
Her case was so sensational that songs were written about her and Britain s adoption and child protection laws had to be toughened up in response to the public outcry.
Dyer was hanged at Newgate Gaol, near the Old Bailey in London, in 1896. She was 58.
Her Prison Commission file records
her last moments: On account of her weight and the softness of the
textures, rather a short drop was given. It proved to be quite
sufficient.
Hers
is one of more than 2.5million records from 1770 to 1934 have been put
online, chronicling the fates of fraudsters, counterfeiters, thieves,
murderers and drunkards.
The
collection covers England and Wales, and is published by family history
website findmypast.co.uk and The National Archives. Debra Chatfield, a
historian at findmypast.co.uk, said:
Dyer s is one of more than 2.5million records from 1770 to 1934 have been put online, chronicling the fates of fraudsters, counterfeiters, thieves, murderers and drunkards
These records provide an amazing opportunity to trace any villains and victims in your own family. We have painstakingly published registers containing mugshots of habitual drunks with incredible descriptions of appearance, demeanour and identifying marks.
The newspaper articles available provide unparalleled detail and show how crimes were reported when they were committed.
The collection contains scanned images
of court documents and letters of appeal written by friends and
relatives begging for clemency, usually in vain.
Justice was brutal and often led to the hangman s noose.
There are also Edwardian ASBOs, banning ne er-do-wells from pubs – including one served on a 78-year-old habitually drunken woman.
People can search for ancestors whose crimes caused them to be sent to Australia or housed on prison ships known as hulks.
Paul Carter, a records specialist at The National Archives, said the files record the intimate details of hundreds of thousands of people.
To find villains in your family, type your surname into the crime and punishment section of the findmypast.co.uk website.
All criminal records in that name from 1770 to 1934 will be listed, along with National Archives data.
Crimes are catalogued by name, age, occupation, court date, area, victim s name and sentence.
A further click of the mouse takes you to scanned images of the original handwritten records.
