Roger Kibbe roamed California's major freeway in his urge to rape and strangle unsuspecting young women. A London Summer was stained when murderer and necrophiliac, Kenneth Erskine preyed on the city's elderly. Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer strangled, dismembered and ate 17 boys and men, before serving them to guests.
Gerald Gallego and Charlene Williams were a toxic mix that led to the rape, bludgeoning and murder of 10 people in just over two 2 years. During LA's crack epidemic, there were few clues to hint that neighbourhood 'go-to-guy', Lonnie Franklin would be 'The Grim Sleeper' who raped and murdered women over three decades.
Richard Chase was labelled the Vampire of Sacramento by police. He had a lust for blood whose depravity would include rape, murder, mutilation, cannibalism and necrophilia. Roger and Verna Stafford were armed robbers responsible for what would be the worst killings in the State of Oklahoma for nearly 20 years.
Chester Turner, according to LAPD, is the most prolific serial killer in the history of Los Angeles. Joanna Dennehy became only the third woman in UK history to be jailed forever without parole for her brutal murders of three men. In Sydney, the most vulnerable of residents were at risk from the "Granny Killer".
The official definition of a serial killer is someone who kills three or more people. But do they have more in common than just a statistic? The series looks deeply into contemporary serial killers, to the most meticulous killer of modern times, Sacramento's Dorothea Puente, the owner of the 'House of Horrors'. Then there are the educated killers, like Dr Harold Shipman, who is thought to have killed nearly 300 people who were his patients and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, who held a PhD in Mathematics. At the other end of the scale, Los Angeles serial killer Lonnie Franklin was organised but not smart, his reign of murder led to the deaths of so many disadvantaged women.