1) Ted Kaczynski (A.K.A. The Unabomber) - Ted Kaczynski is hard to top. Labeled not merely a serial killer, but a 'domestic terrorist' by the FBI, Kaczynski skipped the 5th grade after testing 167 on an IQ test. He entered Harvard at the age of 16 where he earned his undergraduate degree by age 20. He earned his PhD in mathematics at the University of Michigan, where he focused on geometric function theory. After this, he was hired by the University of Berkeley, becoming their youngest professor . He won the University of Michigan's Sumner B. Myers prize, thanks to a PhD thesis on boundary functions, recognized as that year's best mathematics dissertation.
Ted Kaczynski resigned not long after being hired. He saved up money by working odd jobs until he could afford to purchase a small piece of land, during which time he taught himself various survival skills in order to become self-sufficient. Unfortunately, the land around him was being continually destroyed by industrial development. Ted Kaczynski's beliefs became progressively radicalized through the study of political philosophy, and he eventually decided that the only way to stop the progressive destruction of the environment was through violence.
He eluded capture for decades, killing 3 people and injuring 23. He wrote a "Manifesto" for his ideologies, which would eventually be published in The Washington Post and The New York Times. This would be his undoing. His brother David recognized Ted's writing style and contacted the authorities. Linguistic analysis of Ted's previous papers confirmed with overwhelming probability that both essays had been written by the same person, and authorities were given a search warrant to investigate Ted's living quarters.
Kaczynski was arrested in 1996 at his cabin in Montana. A wealth of bomb-making materials were found, as well as writings that spoke of experiments in bomb construction, and even an actual live bomb, which he appeared to be preparing to mail. Numerous charges were brought against him, including murder, and the transportation of bombs. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
2) Edmund Kemper - Born in 1948, Edmund Kemper began his career in murder quite early. He exhibited early signs of sociopathy, stabbing his cat to death by the age of 13. At the tender of age 15, he killed both of his grandparents. Uncertain of what to do, he called his mother, who advised him to call the police. Kemper contacted the authorities and he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital, where psychological tests recorded an IQ score of 136. In a later IQ test, he tested at 145(Russell, 2002).
Edmund Kemper was released from the mental hospital at age 21, in 1969. While at community college, Kemper began to pick up female hitchikers. It is at this point that he began his serial killing. He picked up two hitchhikers, one of whose heads was eventually found in the woods. Kemper said that he had killed both of them, dismembered them, and engaged in necrophilic activity. Edmund Kemper disposed of the remains of one of his victims by throwing her dismembered body parts into the ocean, which eventually washed ashore.
Kemper continued killing female hitchhikers and only ceased his murder spree after killing his mother. He bludgeoned her to death with a hammer and then cut her throat. He then removed her larynx, put it in the garbage disposal, and used her decapitated head as a dartboard. He then killed his mother's friend as well, shortly before turning himself in. He asked for the death penalty but was instead given 8 consecutive life sentences. He currently resides at California Medical Facility.
3) Ted Bundy - Born in 1946, Ted Bundy was a serial killer who confessed to over 30 murders, and may have been guilty of many more. Experts estimate that the number of his victims may be over 100. He became a media sensation not simply for his prolific murder career, but for his deadly combination of physical attractiveness, intelligence and charm, possessing a reported IQ score of 136. This is no genius score, but it is quite a bit above average, and not normally the degree of intelligence one might associate with a serial killer. He was also a necrophiliac, oftentimes returning the bodies of the women he had killed days after having done so.
Ted Bundy exhibited signs of sociopathy early on. By his teenage years, he was a compulsive thief and peeping tom. Bundy graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in psychology, and was accepted to law school with the help of the governor of Washington, with whom he had become familiar from involvement in political matters.
In 1974, after Ted moved to Utah, women started disappearing. Rumors began about the victims having been last seen with a man named "Ted." After being pulled over by the police, he was arrested when police discovered burglary tools in the trunk of his car. His criminality was first confirmed in 1975, when Carol DaRonch, a woman he had kidnapped, escaped. He was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison. A few years later, he was charged with murder for the death of another woman.
Ted Bundy made his first of two prison escapes when he jumped out of the window of the courthouse library. Though recaptured about a week later, he escaped from prison again in 1977 through a hole he had made in the ceiling of his cell. During his escape, Bundy broke into the Chi Omega sorority house at FSU (Florida State University) and killed two of its residents. Before his capture, he would also murder a 12 year old girl. This was his last murder. He was finally captured and sentenced to death, eventually being executed in 1989 at Florida State Prison.
4) Andrew Cunanan - born in 1969, Cunanan engaged in a killing spree resulting in 5 victims. He is perhaps most well-known for having killed Gianna Versace, the famous fashion designer. Andrew Cunanan's murder spree came to a violent end in Miami, where he committed suicide by gunshot.
Cunanan was charming, attractive, and intelligent, revealed to have had an IQ of 147. He socialized with older, wealthy gay men in the "Castro" distinct of San Francisco. He worked as a prostitute in his teen years, and soon began to star in pornography films. Cunanan killed his former lover and fled across the country to Miami, Florida, where he killed 3 more men. Finally, he killed Gianni Versace before committing suicide in a houseboat as police closed in on him.
5) Joel Rifkin - Born in 1959, Rifkin was a habitual underachiever. He rarely fit in socially, and although he never did well academically, he has a recorded IQ of 128. He frequented prostitutes, and would oftentimes fantasize about murdering women. His fantasies turned to reality in 1989, when he killed his first victim. He had brought a prostitute to his home, where he injured her badly by beating her, before strangling her to death. He claimed his second victim, also a prostitute, in a similar manner.
Rifkin owned a landscaping business, whose job site he used to hide many of his 17 victims. His last victim was Tiffany Bresciani, whom he strangled and put in his trunk. Unfortunately for Joel Rifkin, police attempted to pull him over for missing a rear license plate. A high-speed chase ensued until Rifkin crashed into a pole. Police detected the odor of Tiffany's corpse and Rifkin was arrested.
Rifkin confessed to all 17 murders, yet he pleaded not guilty during the trial. He was found guilty of seven of the murders and sentenced to 183 years in prison. He is now serving his unending sentence at the Clinton Correctional Facility.
6) Jeffrey Dahmer - One of the most infamous serial killers in history, Jeffrey Dahmer was born in 1960. He killed a total of 17 men, claiming that he could trace his sociopathic and necrophilic tendencies to as early as age 14. He was also known to cannibalize some of his victims. He claimed his first victim in 1978, after having sex with a hitchhiker, before beating him to death with a barbell and dismembering his corpse. He began a term at Ohio State University. Though tested with an IQ of 145, he quickly dropped out, possibly because of his alcoholism, which at this point was becoming severe.
Dahmer joined the Army, which discharged him because of his drinking. He ran into problems with the law, getting arrested in 1981 for disorderly conduct, and then again in 1986 for performing lewd acts in front of two young boys. He claimed another victim a year later, whom he killed in his hotel after they had gotten drunk together. He dismembered the man's corpse and simply through the remains in the garbage.
Over a period of 13 years, he would murder primarily gay, black men, luring them home with promises of sex, before drugging and killing them. He would then sexually molest the dead bodies of his victims, before dismembering them. Jeffrey Dahmer was also known to keep the skulls of his victims as trophies.
Jeffrey Dahmer was kicked out of his grandmother's house because of his continual drunkenness. He would kill two more people around the same time in 1988. In one particularly infamous episode, he molested a 13-year-old boy. He pleaded guilty to the charges and asked for leniency, which was granted. He could work a day job, provided he returned to prison at night. Dahmer then molested the 14 year old younger brother of the boy he had previously molested, though he was able to convince police that his drugged victim was a drunk 19-year-old lover of his. In an astonishing miscarriage of justice, officers escorted Jeffrey Bahmer and the boy back to Dahmer's home, where he killed him.
In 1991, officers found a man wandering around the street with a pair of handcuffs on one of his wrists. They investigated the situation and were told that he had been drugged, handcuffed and restrained. They were led to Dahmer's apartment, where they found pictures of dismembered bodies, and a refrigerator full of various body parts.
Jeffrey Dahmer confessed to all the murders and pleaded guilty on all counts. Serving 15 consecutive life sentences as of 1992, he was murdered only two years into his sentence by another prisoner.
7) Juan Corona - one of America's worst and most notorious killers, Corona killed 25 farmworkers around 40 years ago, claiming that he was justified because his victims were trespassing drunks. Four of the bodies were never actually identified. While he confessed to the crimes, he does not seem to have exhibited any remorse for it. Like many serial killers, Corona preyed on those on the margins of society, who oftentimes had few relatives, and about as many sympathizers.
He earned the nickname "The Machete Killer" due to the fact that he killed virtually all of his victims with a machete, oftentimes splitting their heads open. Though obviously deranged, he was no dummy, sporting an IQ of 130.
8) Kristen Gilbert - Practicing nurse who killed her patients. Fellow nurses became suspicious when 4 of her patients died. Stranger yet, 3 had almost experienced heart attacks. A combination of a shortage of epinephrine, plus finding epinephrine in the tissues of these patients (who were not prescribed the drug), led to an investigation. Gilbert presumably called in a bomb threat as a diversion, but she was arrested and served 15 months in prison. Testimony against the nurse was quite overwhelming. A security guard with whom she had been having an affair testified that Gilbert had admitted to him that she had deliberately killed her patients. Another nurse admitted that she had heard one of the patients, who had died under Gilbert's care, crying out that Gilbert was killing him. She was convicted of multiple murder charges and sentenced to life in prison. While her precise IQ is not mentioned, it is reported as being very high.
9) Charlene Williams - Charlene Williams is well-known for having been involved in the famous "sex-slave murders" of 1978-1980. Williams would lure women into her husband's car so he could rape and murder them, claiming 10 victims before their arrest in 1980. Charlene Williams spent around 17 years in prison, but has since been released.
Strictly speaking, it was her husband who committed the murders, though Charlene aided in the acquisition of the his victims. She pleaded guilty to counts of first and second degree murder, though was able to receive the minimum sentence of 16 years and 18 months for her crimes by testifying against her husband. A smart woman all other things considered, she is reported to have an IQ of 160.
10) Michael Ross - Ross grew up in an unstable environment. which perhaps ripened him for serial killer. Or perhaps his parents' unstable behavior was just indicative of his having been a bad seed. His mother had serious psychiatric problems and would both physically and psychologically abuse him. She was institutionalized twice, and it is possible that his uncle sexually abused him during this period. His uncle would commit suicide not long after. In spite of these undesirable circumstances, Ross did well in his studies and studied agricultural economics at Cornell University. Intelligent and interpersonally adept, with a reported IQ of 122, he was nonetheless beset with disturbing sexual fantasies.
He wound up in jail not long after graduating, having assaulted a young woman. That same year, the body of a girl he had previously murdered was discovered. He attempted suicide after his first murder but opted out. Instead of killing himself, he decided to continue killing others. He strangled and raped another victim, a 17-year-old girl walking to her home.
He eventually attacked an off-duty policewoman. The woman fought him off and summoned her co-workers to assist her. He was charged with assault but was bailed out shortly thereafter, at which point he underwent a psychiatric examination. Unfortunately, no serious action was taken to subdue his urges or treat the problem. It was not long before he would kill again.
Michael continued to strangle and rape women and it was clear to the police force that a serial killer was operating in the area. Ross was brought in for questioning and eventually confessed to most of the murders. He was given multiple life and death sentences. Michael admitted furthermore that he had molested multiple girls in his neighborhood as a teenager. He complained that his urges to sadistic behavior were overwhelming and uncontrollable. Nonetheless, rather than pleading isanity, he confessed his guilt and asked for the death penalty, which he believed he deserved. Michael's wish was granted in 2005, when he was executed by lethal injection.
11) John Wayne Gacy - John Wayne Gacy was convicted of having killed 33 people. He is one of the most notorious serial killers in American history. He experienced a tragically abusive childhood at the hands of his father, who would beat his children witih a razor strap. Culturally, he became a cultural icon and gave rise to the image of the "killer clown", due to the fact that he would perform as a clown around the same kinds of people he would kill: young males. He would sometimes even dress as a clown during his murders.
John Wayne Gacy had been accused of sexual assault by numerous males prior to the discovery of his career as a serial killer. While he had initially been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting two teenager males, he was released for parole before two years had even transpired. John Wayne Gacy confessed to the crimes but claimed thtat an alter ego had committed the crime and that he was not responsible. Questions about whether or not Gacy should have been found not guilty by reason of insanity raged.
He was convicted in 1980 and executed around 14 years later in 1994, having been given 21 life sentences and 12 death sentences. While he was no genius, he had a recorded IQ of 118, quite a bit above average.
12) David Berkowitz - One of America's most notorious serial killers, David Berkowitz murdered 6 people in New York in the late 1970s. He began killing in 1976, when he shot two women, killing one and seriously injuring the other. Earlier that year, he had shot a man in the head, causing major skull injuries.
He became infamous for using a .44 caliber handgun. He is also particularly known for having taunted the authorities, leaving notes for them. A year later, he attacked another couple, killing one and seriously injuring another. This event, however, would prove to be his undoing. A witness had noticed that the getaway car had had a parking ticket. Berkowitz's car was one of the few cars to have received a parking ticket the previous day.
Berkowitz admitted to his murders, but insisted that his neighbor's dog had told him to kill people. Like Gacy, major controversies surrounded Berkowitz's sanity. In any case, he pleaded guilty to all the killings and received 25-life sentences for each. Like John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz has a recorded IQ of 118.
13) Richard Starrett - Born in 1959, Starrett's deviant behavior may have partially been the result of brain damage, having received quite a few head injuries when he was young. He was also reported to have behaved unusually, oscillating between trances and hyperactivity. He began to exhibit sociopathic traits in his teen years when he would force women to perform sexual acts on him. He probably began his murder spree in 1988 when he sh ot a woman in the head. He killed again a year later, and was given numerous life sentences. Authorities suspect Richard of having been involved in other murders as well. He had a recorded IQ of 124.
14) Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold - Nathan Leopold was born in 1904, and Richard Loeb, a year later in 1905. He and Richard Loeb committed a famous murder of a 14-year-old male in 1924. Leopold was a child prodigy who reportedly spoke his first words at 4 months, and possessed a recorded IQ of 210. Leopold graduated college with honors from Harvard in 1923. Richard Loeb had an IQ estimated at between 160 and 168.
Leopold and Loeb became fast friends and probably developed a sexual relationship. They were preoccupied with attempting to get away with committing the perfect crime. The two lured their victim into their car before beating him to death with a chisel. They then disposed of his body in a lake. The father of the boy had contacted police before delivering the ransom the two had demanded. Both were arrested and confessed to the murder and both received a life sentence. Leopold was granted parole in 1958, at which point he fled to Puerto Rico, where he spent the rest of his days teaching mathematics at the University of Puerto Rico. He eventually died of a heart attack. Richard Loeb, on the other hand, was murdered by his cellmate in prison.
15) Gary Heidnik - Heidnik was a notorious American serial killer and rapist who was found guilty of killing 6 women. He dropped out of high school and joined the army, obtaining his G.E.D. shortly thereafter. He was notably intelligent, reported IQ of 130. He excelled in basic training, but was discharged after he was diagnosed with a gastrointestinal disease as well as mental illness. He next became a nurse practitioner but was fired from his position as a psychiatric nurse after he proved unreliable and interacted poorly with the patients.
Mental illness seems to have run in his family. His mother committed suicide, and his brother was in and out of mental institutions, after himself attempting suicide numerous times. The following years saw numerous charges brought against him. He was charged with rape and false imprisonment, and spent 3 years in a mental institution. During over 2 of those years, he is reported to have not said a word.
He began his serial killing in 1986. He would kidnap women, torture, and murder them. After his arrest, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. He was executed by lethal injection in 1999.
16) Laurence Bittaker - Born in in 1940, Lawrence dropped out of high school and was frequently in trouble with the police. He was released from the California Youth Authority but quickly got into trouble again when he violated the Interstate Motor Vehicle Theft Act. After he was released for this, he was arrested again for robbery and sentenced to 1-15 years in state prison. A psychiatric hospital found him highly intelligent, possessing a reported IQ of 138. Nevertheless, he was also considered severely mentally ill.
He continued to rack up various charges: theft, burglary, parole violations, leaving the scene of an accident, and so on. His apparently first murder took place when he attempted to steal a steak by putting it in his pants. When an employee tried to stop him, he stabbed the man to death. Prison psychiatrists labeled him a sociopath who had little or no impulse control or remorse, and was virtually beyond rehabilitation. Nevertheless, he was paroled in 1978.
Bittaker struck again when he kidnapped a 16-year-old girl and strangled her to death. He killed another 18-year-old girl by stabbing her with an ice-pick and strangling her, before throwing her off of a cliff. Lawrence Bittaker and his partner afterwards took 2 girls hostages and killed them both with the same modus operandi: strangling and stabbing them with an ice-pick, before throwing them off of a clip. They next killed a 16-year-old girl, on Halloween night. Bittaker's murder partner, Ray Norris, confessed to the crimes after being arrested for selling marijuana. Bittaker was charged with numerous felonies, including 5 charges of murder. He was given a death sentence.
17) Caroll Edward Cole - A notorious American serial killer. Born in 1938, he quickly began his career as a criminal as a thief in his teen years. It was not long, howiever, that his impulses would become more violent. He would oftentimes fantasize about strangling women. After marrying, he became suspicious that his wife had been cheating on him, so he burned down the building in which he believed the infidelity had taken place. After spending time in prison for arson, he attempted to strangle an 11-year-old child and spent 5 years in prison. Following his release, he checked himself into a mental hospital after attempting to kill 2 more women. Doctors took note of his violent fantasies, but did not seem to do anything about it.
He began his murder career in 1971, strangling a woman to death. He remarried, but strangled his new wife to death in 1979. He killed a few more women before being arrested. He confessed to the murders, claiming around 14 women as his victims. He was executed in 1985. Although he was a nasty fellow, he was exceedingly intelligent, with a reported IQ of 152.
18) Carlton Gary - Carlton was convicted of killing older women between 1977 and 1978 in New York. His behavioral problems may have been exacerbated by possible brain damage he experienced as a child. He began criminal behavior in his teen years and continued them as an adult.He claimed his first victim in 1970 when he strangled an 85-year-old old woman to death. Charged with robbery, he was sent to prison until 1975, at which point he murdered another woman.
He was sent back to prison in 1977 on a parole violation but escaped. He quickly resumed his murder career, strangling a 60-year-old woman to death with a stocking. Gary murdered a few more women and was eventually arrested in 1978, and sentenced to 21 years for armed robbery. It was not until later, however, that he was convicted of murder, at which point he was placed on Georgia's death row. While no precise IQ score is given, it is known to be very high.
19) Peter Manuel - Born in 1927, Manuel became known as the Beast of Birkenshaw. He committed numerous sexual assaults at the age of 16 and served almost a decade in prison. It was not until 1956 that he began his killing career. He bludgeoned a woman to death in 1956, and then committed a double-homicide the same year. The year after that, he killed a few more people. He was suspected of the murders by police. They were able to demonstrate overwhelming evidence for this when banknotes Manuel had been using were found to have been taken from his victims. He was found guilty of all but one of the murder charges, and hanged in his cell in 1958. While he was only charged with 8 murders, he confessed to as many as 18. While his precise IQ score is not mentioned, it is reported as being high.
20) George Waterfield Russell Jr. - while his precise IQ score is not mentioned, it is noted as being in the gifted range.
21) Rodney Alcala - Alcala was a graduate of UCLA. He was arrested when the seriously injured body of an 8-year-old girl was found in his home. He fled to New York, where he became a student of NYU film school. Alcala pled guilty to child molestation for this crime, and was given an indeterminate sentence. He was released after 34 months.
None of Alcala's friends would have suspected him of these killings. He was charming, attractive, academically successful and intelligent, with a recorded IQ of 160.
This was only the beginning of Alcala's criminal career. It was not long after his release that he kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old girl. Her remains were found around 40 miles from where she had last been seen, at which point only her bones were left.
Alcala had previously asked the girl and her friend if he could take a picture of them for a photography contest. His parole officer contacted authoritites and advised them to investigate Rodney Alcala after seeing his sketch on the news
He is perhaps most well-known for having been a contestant on "The Dating Game" in 1978. He was arrested a year later for the murder at 1979. The authorities eventually found a locker he owned, full of questionable photos of women. They also found photos of a woman at Huntington Beach, a place he had denied ever visiting, which threw his defense seriously into doubt.
He had told the women whom he had photographed that he was in a contest for a magazine he had worked for. This was 2 miles away from where one of his other victims had been kidnapped, and a couple of other teenage girls said that they had been approached by Alcala in the same area.
They also found a bag full of earrings. The mother of one of the victims recognized one of the pairs of earrings as having been often borrowed by her daughter. Alcala was convicted and given a death sentence, but his conviction was overturned. Nevertheless, he was tried and convicted again, and once again found guilty of murder. But this too was overturned. Fortunately, DNA technology quickly improved and he was found guilty of having murdered 3 other women thanks to DNA evidence, which proved that the earrings did indeed belong to his victim.
Apart from these more detailed descriptions, below is a brief list of other serial killers whose IQs were reported to have been notably above average.
22) Stephen Christopher Stanko - Serial killer with reported IQ of 143.
23) David Carpenter - Serial killer with reported IQ of 125.
24) David Christie - Serial killer with reported IQ of 128.
25) David Copeland - Serial killer with reported IQ of 125.
26) James Michael DeBardeleben - Serial killer with reported IQ of 127.
27) Harry Glatman - Serial killer with reported IQ of 130-140.
28) John Joubert - Serial killer with reported IQ of 124.
29) Randy Kraft - Serial killer with reported IQ of 129.
30) Timothy Wayne Krajcir - Serial killer with reported IQ of 125.
31) Patrick McCollough - Serial killer with reported IQ of 120.
32) Derek Ernest Percy - Serial killer with reported IQ of 122.
Russell, Sue. (2002). Lethal Intent. Pinnacle. p. 511. ISBN 978-0-7860-1518-4
