Talk:List of serial killers before 1900/Archive 1

Nice work on the list
Pretty sure no one got deleted in the overhaul, except the House of Laments thing and the Melcher Hedloff guy.WikiOriginal-9 (talk)

Inconsistency
There is an overt inconsistency in use of 'Great Britain' and 'England' and Scotland' - see Cream, Jack the Ripper etc. 1701 on was the date of Union; befoe that 'England' etc. would be reasonable and correct. It is noted that - e.g. US entries all appear under US - with, apparently, the modern US flag (50 stars). Autochthony points out - 1935z 06 November 2011. 109.154.24.128 (talk) 19:34, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Accomplices, not murderers
Should Giulia Tofana & Girolama Spera be counted as serial killers, or even murderers? They sold poison to people who wished to commit murder, but did they actually commit murder themselves? If they did not commit any murders themselves, they just equipped murderers, they were not murderers themselves, and should rather be counted as accomplices than murderers. --Aciram (talk) 00:18, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Matti Haapoja is listed twice
He is listed twice in the list, with different information both times. Someone who has the authority should choose which of the entries will be left.

88.193.23.183 (talk) 06:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Erzsébet Báthory
I believe that she was actually innocent of the crimes because the evidence that supposedly "proves" she was guilty was based on rumours and hearsay thus negating a strong legal base for convicting her of the killings. The motives for tarnishing her name are due to the religious and political factors in Hungary at the time, namely she was Protestant and female and more powerful Catholics, e.g. the Habsburgs, coveted her lands, but needed to find a suitable causa bella, namely the rumours of girls vanishing and turning up dead of exsanguination. Would it be possible for someone to actually provide strong undeniable proof of her implicit part in the "crimes" or else remove her name from the list of serial killers?

78.148.78.116 (talk) 23:42, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Jack the Ripper
I added that Jack the Ripper may have been responsible for another 9-16 murders, in addition to the canonical 5. Due to his methods of killing seemingly growing more violent as time went on, it's possible that he eventually started removing entire limbs. Some of the other murders may not fit his modus operandi due to something (maybe a struggling victim) forcing him to use a different method, such as strangulation. 174.58.94.44 (talk) 05:30, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

List has shaped up nicely.
Here's is what is used to look like. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 20:09, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Possible cases that require more detailed sources
The previous version included a red link to "Melcher Hedloff (1606-1654) robber and highwayman, found guilty of murdering 251 persons." The source provided claims that Hedloff confessed to 251 killings and that this appears in a 1654 pamphlet, but does not elaborate further. The same source also mentions "serial murderers Martin Farkass and Paul Wasansky" (serial killer couple?) from a 1570 pamphlet detailing their confession and a "Hans Liehman" from half a century later with 19 killings. For the moment I will remove the reference to Hedloff and not include the others, given the scarcity of information found in the linked source, and will wait for someone with an original or at least more detailing second hand source to add them.--Menah the Great (talk) 11:07, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * We need sources for things here - Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists. If there is info here it has to be sourced here...not just a link to the main article that may or may not be sources. -- Moxy (talk) 17:55, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Some linked articles are really bad, indeed. In such cases I search for additional, more reputable sources on the internet and link them here. In a few (Martin Dumollard and Francisco Guerrero (killer)) I've included information from Wikipedia pages in the original language. I'll probably edit some articles when I'm done with this list.--Menah the Great (talk) 16:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Other possible additions:


 * Émile Dubois (murderer), the first paragraph claiming murders in the 1880s to 1903 is not sourced, just the murders after 1904.
 * Not added. Outside the murders in Chile, the only thing mentioned by a contemporary source is that Dubois was a suspect of a murder that had taken place in Oruro, Bolivia (not Ouro, Brazil), according to the June 16, 1906 number of Chile's newspaper El Mercurio. No word on why Dubois was a suspect in that, or any other detail about that murder, and Dubois did not face prosecution for it, just the murders in Chile. Afterwards, there is a bizarre process that turns Dubois into some sort of folk hero and criminal mastermind. It seems the most quoted 3 or 4 books on Dubois on the internet are novels, not non-fiction books. I'm willing to believe that any other murder was just made up by some creative writer to make Dubois into some South American Sweeney Todd.--Menah the Great (talk) 19:33, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

--Menah the Great (talk) 10:17, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Boone Helm, several sources but it will take a while checking all of them. Added. Menah the Great (talk) 18:40, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Liver-Eating Johnson, way too many citations needed. Added.--Menah the Great (talk) 22:59, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Caroline Whitting, three sources but not accessible online.
 * Multiple murder in one occasion, not serial killing. --Menah the Great (talk) 18:51, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Jesse Pomeroy. I've been debating wether adding him or not for days. He made three attacks and his conduct is fit for a serial killer. However he only killed two people. The first attack was not intended to kill and resulted in no deaths.
 * Turns out all the other kids were attacked separatedly, not in a single attack, and more than one would have died if they had not been found by other people. Pomeroy's modus fit that of a ritualistic serial killer even before he attacked any child, when he tortured and killed animals. Added. --Menah the Great (talk) 10:47, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Italian pre-1900 killers with article in Italian Wikipedia
Any Italian speakers who can check the sources and maybe add something here?--Menah the Great (talk) 20:23, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Vincenzo Verzeni - rather than Verzini, as it figures here. Only one included right now on the list
 * I consider it fixed.--Menah the Great (talk) 23:13, 6 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Giulia Tofana - only one with article in the English Wikipedia, but it is a confusing mess And done.--Menah the Great (talk) 01:42, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Giorgio Orsolano Added.--Menah the Great (talk) 15:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Antonio Boggia Added.--Menah the Great (talk) 22:05, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Serial Killers not in Western Europe or USA?
With VERY few exceptions, all of the serial killers listed operated in Western Europe, particularly the UK and France, or the USA. Is there no evidence whatever of serial killers in South America, Eastern Europe, Africa or Asia?

184.175.48.100 (talk) 19:07, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * The reason for this is most likely bad record keeping in these other places of the world. They would have been less developed before 1900. Events like these surely happened but may have only stayed as local stories and no records still exist. Cultures might have been different too, other countries might have just forgot about incidents but more developed countries had more leisure time or a better news system to sensationalize things.WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 19:26, 16 January 2015 (UTC)


 * We the editors are Western ourselves (I think so), and so are most Serial Killer literature authors. The authors in turn base their work on those of other authors (also Western) or, in the case of pre-1900 killers, on newspaper records from their own countries.--Menah the Great (talk) 08:36, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Tadeo Fulgencio Mejía
I've taken out Tadeo Fulgencio Mejía (aka House of Laments murderer) after finding nothing in a google search. The sources provided are a short, vague press release on the opening of the house as a tourist attraction and a video from an Occultism-themed Mexican TV program, Extranormal. With Agnus McVee at least we can be sure that the tale of her murders existed (even if she likely didn't) but Mejía could have been made out of nowhere a couple weeks ago for all we know.--Menah the Great (talk) 12:53, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

Here is the entry that was included later, again using Extranormal as a source:

Signed--Menah the Great (talk) 23:21, 9 May 2016 (UTC)


 * The main problem I see is this entry is it is not a person. This is a "List of serial killers" (people with Wikipedia articles). Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:05, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Incompatible entries
Looking through the list I see some entries incompatible with a WP:LIST, the definition of this list title, and lead: including people who don't have Wikipedia articles (not notable) and fictional people ("serial killers active before 1900" would be real people, not fictional people). Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 02:27, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid that if we don't put these fictional guys somewhere, sooner or later someone will read about them in a subpar site and add them as if they were historical. It's this article's version of the post-1900 "disputed cases" section, in a way.--Menah the Great (talk) 04:11, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Suddenly new red entries
Does anyone know what happened to the articles on Alves and Bejarano? Wikipedia had entries on them for years, but now they are gone?--Menah the Great (talk) 22:16, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Apparently, the author of those pages requested they be deleted. (WP:G7)-- Auric    talk  19:58, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Re-addition of deleted entries
Reverted this revert that had no comment. People on this list should meet WP:LISTPEOPLE---> have a Wikipedia article or be part of a very notable event (one would assume that event has a Wikipedia article). They should also meet basic list criteria, WP:LISTCRITERIA, unambiguously "Serial killing". "Serial killing is not the same as mass murdering (killing numerous people in a given incident); nor is it spree killing (in which murders are committed in two or more locations, in a short time)" so many of these entries do not seem to fit the definition of "serial killer" re:"shooting a cavalryman and disembowelling three pregnant women" (spree killing?), "attacking and being beaten back by a girl", "Poisoners for hire/professional poisoners", " possibly more than one person"? (can't atribute this to a serial killer), fugitives on the run, hungry people resorting to cannibalism, robbers/spree killing. Many entries by description fall into murder, mass-murder, or spree killing. Many do not meet the definition of "3 or more" killings and "psychological gratification". Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 20:38, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

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Edward Broughton and Matthew MacAvoy
Broughton only killed one (for food), MacAvoy only killed one (out of fear the guy would talk)... so both do not meet the def of a serial killer. Entries on this list also should have their own articles and the articles should have multiple reliable sources and a stable history of describing them as "serial killer" before they are listed here. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 15:35, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Bunch of these are not serial killers
Samuel Frost, Edme Castaing, Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh, Pierre François Lacenaire, Jesse Pomeroy, Frances Knorr and Theodore Durrant all have only 2 victims each, the page clearly states at the top that to qualify as a "serial killer" they need to have AT LEAST 3 victims. These people's pages don't even call them serial killers, they're referred to as murderers. 181.24.41.219 (talk) 02:46, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Put separate tables into one big table
I don’t see the need for this list to have separate tables. If they’re bunched into a single table, then they can be in chronological order by default, and can also be easily sorted by the reader based on country or number of victims. Also, I suggest to get rid of the flags per MOS:FLAG because this isn’t a competition where countries are being represented.&#32;Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, absent any objections I'll go ahead and do this.&#32;Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:00, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅&#32;Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:55, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

why use examples before 1900?
I have to wonder what the reason of listing Adolf Hitler, Mao, etc here as political examples here is, when none of them committed their crimes before 1900. The list also seemed unnecessarily excessive... Nic0987149036yu4 (talk) 04:49, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've replaced the list with pre-1900 figures, although I feel like there's a larger problem with this list. --Aquillion (talk) 20:30, 5 August 2023 (UTC)