Straight Killers

Joel David Rifkin became one of the most infamous serial killers in American history after murdering at least 17 women in New York between 1989 and 1993. Most of his victims were women involved in sex work or struggling with substance abuse, many of whom initially disappeared without attracting widespread attention. Rifkin's crimes ended following a routine traffic stop that led police to discover the body of his final victim in his vehicle. He was later convicted of multiple murders and sentenced to more than 200 years in prison.

John Reginald Halliday Christie became one of the United Kingdom's most infamous serial killers after murdering multiple women, including his wife, at his home in Notting Hill, London, during the 1940s and early 1950s. His crimes, committed at 10 Rillington Place, led to one of Britain's greatest miscarriages of justice when Timothy Evans was wrongly convicted and executed before Christie's guilt was uncovered. The case remains one of the most significant in British criminal history.

John Cole became one of the United Kingdom's most reviled child killers after murdering five-year-old Logan Mwangi alongside his stepfather, Angharad Williamson, in Bridgend, South Wales, in 2021. Logan suffered prolonged abuse before being fatally assaulted and his body was abandoned in a nearby river. Following a high-profile trial, Cole was convicted of murder despite being only 14 years old at the time of the offence, making him one of the youngest people convicted of murder in modern Welsh criminal history.

John Franklin Howard is an American man convicted in connection with an attempted murder-for-hire plot against his wife in Texas. The case gained attention due to the level of planning and the use of a hired attacker. He was later convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

John George Haigh, known as the Acid Bath Murderer, was an English serial killer who murdered six people between 1944 and 1949, although he claimed responsibility for three additional killings that could not be substantiated. Haigh targeted people he believed could provide him with financial gain, killing them before dissolving their bodies in concentrated sulphuric acid and exploiting their property and possessions. His final victim, wealthy widow Olive Durand-Deacon, was murdered at his workshop in Crawley, where investigators subsequently discovered human remains and other evidence linking him to the killings. Convicted of murder at Lewes Assizes in July 1949, Haigh was sentenced to death and hanged at Wandsworth Prison on 10 August 1949.

John Asher Farrell Villarreal became known in American criminal history after the murders of a Texas couple who stopped to help him while he was hitchhiking on Christmas Eve in 2014. Prosecutors alleged Villarreal repaid the victims' kindness with extreme violence, killing both occupants before stealing their vehicle and attempting to evade capture. The case attracted significant attention because of the apparent randomness of the attack and the betrayal involved. Investigators argued the victims had no prior connection to Villarreal and had simply offered assistance to a stranger. The murders shocked the local community and became a tragic example of a good Samaritan encounter ending in deadly violence.

Jonathan Schmitz is an American convicted murderer who killed Scott Amedure in Lake Orion, Michigan, in March 1995, three days after the two men appeared together on The Jenny Jones Show. Schmitz, then 24, had agreed to appear on the program for a secret-admirer segment. During the taping, Amedure revealed that he had a same-sex crush on Schmitz. Schmitz later said he had expected the secret admirer to be a woman and felt humiliated by the revelation. The episode was never broadcast. Three days later, Schmitz went to Amedure's mobile home, confronted him about a suggestive note Amedure had left at Schmitz's residence, retrieved a 12-gauge shotgun from his vehicle and returned to the door. He shot Amedure twice in the chest, killing him. Schmitz immediately left and called 911, ultimately surrendering to police. He was initially convicted of second-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison. That conviction was overturned on appeal because of an error involving jury selection. Schmitz was retried in 1999 and again convicted of second-degree murder. He was once again sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison. He was released on parole in August 2017 after serving approximately 22 years. The case became one of the most widely discussed examples of the controversy surrounding so-called "ambush television" and the responsibilities of daytime talk-show producers. A separate wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Amedure's family initially resulted in a $25 million verdict against the show's producers, but that judgment was later overturned by the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Joran van der Sloot became internationally infamous after years of deception, manipulation and violent criminal behavior connected to multiple international investigations. Long before receiving a murder conviction in Peru, van der Sloot had already become one of the most recognizable criminal suspects in the world due to his constant media appearances, contradictory statements and apparent obsession with controlling public narratives surrounding himself. Van der Sloot developed a reputation as a pathological liar who repeatedly exploited media attention, manipulated investigators and inserted himself into global headlines for nearly two decades. His later murder conviction and extortion schemes cemented his image as a narcissistic and dangerous offender whose crimes extended far beyond a single homicide investigation.