A respected Baptist Preacher from Atlanta, Georgia suddenly fell ill and died in 1952. The coroner examined his body to confirm the cause of death as the attending that was present when he died refused to sign off a death certificate.

The coroner’s report stated that the Reverend’s skin “looked ruddy,” (presenting with brick red coloured mucosa, due to severe haemorrhage), and the rest of his body was gaunt and emaciated. Even though the two signs were pointing to the most likely culprit, pneumonia, the attending and the coroner were suspicious that the Reverend may have been killed by something more deadly, poison.

Compounding the coroner’s concerns, he remembered that this was not the first time that deceased individuals presented with these signs in his office. As a matter of fact, these individuals were members of the Reverend’s own family.

To confirm or assuage his concerns, the coroner decided to test the theory, “was the Reverend poisoned?” After finding a lethal dosage of what was once considered “the king of poisons, arsenic” in the Reverend’s body, the coroner decided to alert the authorities regarding the suspected murder of the Reverend and potentially his beloved daughters, who all came out of the Eason Street home where the Elder family lived.

With a case opened, the authorities would soon learn that Fannie Mae, Annie Pearl and Reverend William M. Elder all took ill and died after eating a cryptic meal of “bananas and cheese,” which they all were served by none other than the Reverend’s own wife, Roberta Elder.

This is the profile of “Mrs. Bluebeard.”

27 January 1974 was a Sunday. In the early hours, just before 01:30 A.M., a call came through the San Francisco Police Department Emergency Dispatch.

“I believe there might be a dead person ... on the beach ... across from Ulloa Street, if you follow the street right down to the water,” the caller told a San Francisco police dispatcher. Presumably male, the call didn’t give his name, and just hung up.

Believing that it could be a drunk civilian passed out or at worst an accidental drowning, Officers rushed down to Ocean Beach to assist. Nothing could’ve prepared them for what they found at the scene.

On the water’s edge, half in and half out of the water, a man’s lifeless body. The Officers pulled the man back onto dry sand and took a close look. He seemed to be approximately 50 years old, balding, and heavy-set. But what stood out the most, they man had sustained multiple stab wounds, front and back, on his hands. He had tried to fight off his killer and succumbed to his injuries during the struggle.

This was the first confirmed victim of an unidentified serial killer believed to be responsible for between six and sixteen murders and three assaults of men in San Francisco, California, between January 1974 and September 1975. The perpetrator targeted gay men, believed he met at gay nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. He had a peculiar and ominous habit of sketching his victims prior to stabbing them to death.

This is the profile of the “Doodler.”

In the early nineties, South African authorities, overrun by Serial Killers in the wake of apartheid's collapse, were faced with one particular Serial Killer competing to be more prolific than most in their radar.

The victims of the Killer, all female. They were lured to outlying fields where they were beaten, stripped, raped, and strangled with articles of their own clothing. Some were found with their hands tied behind their backs. Others blindfolded. Many were left with pieces of clothing draped across their faces as if to prevent them from staring at the face of their killer as they die.

The serial rapist and serial killer responsible for the ABC Murders (so-called because they largely took place in Atteridgeville, Boksburg and Cleveland suburbs of Johannesburg), committed 38 murders, 40 rapes and six robberies between 1994 and 1995 in Gauteng, South Africa.

This is the profile of the “ABC Killer,” “the South African Strangler,” or “the Gauteng Killer.”