Known as the Chessboard Killer, Alexander Pichushkin set out to kill people matching all the 64 squares on his chessboard, and would cross out a square with every kill. Mostly targeting elderly people, he managed to kill about 48 to 60 people and was eventually sentenced to life imprisonment.
Leonarda Cianciulli was an Italian serial killer who murdered three women and turned their bodies into soaps and tea cakes. She is also known as the "Soap-Maker of Correggio." Between 1939 and 1940, she killed three of her neighbors--all of them middle-aged women--as part of human sacrifices. She was eventually found guilty of her crimes and sentenced to prison.
Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova was a noblewoman, serial killer, and sadist. She achieved notoriety for torturing and killing at least 38 female serfs. Since she was well-connected with the Russian nobility and with those in power at the royal court, Darya got away with many of her murders until she was found guilty in a trial organized by Empress Catherine II.
John Christie was a British serial killer who was active during the 1940s and early-1950s. He killed at least eight people and was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife Ethel. The killings were dramatized in the 1971 film 10 Rillington Place, in which Christie was played by Richard Attenborough. Christie's murders also inspired other works of art.
Michel Fourniret was a French serial killer who killed at least 12 people between 1987 and 2003. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and his wife Monique Pierrette Olivier, who assisted him in his killings, was sentenced to 48 years of imprisonment. Michel Fourniret died on 10 May 2021 at the age of 79.
Henri Désiré Landru was a French serial killer who killed at least seven women between 1915 and 1919. Nicknamed the Bluebeard of Gambais, Landru also murdered at least three women and a man between 1914 and 1915 at a house he rented in the town of Vernouillet. Landru was arrested in 1919 and was executed by guillotine in 1922.