5 Most Dangerous Serial Killers on the Loose in 2023

From the late 1800s, when Jack the Ripper began terrorizing London, law enforcement investigators, academics, mental health experts, and the media have been investigating serial killers, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Defined as "a series of three or more killings, not less than one of which was committed within the United States, having common characteristics such as to suggest the reasonable possibility that the crimes were committed by the same actor or actors," serial killings aren't common. However, they are consistent. Here are the five most famous serial killers on the loose in 2023. 

In late 2010, four bodies were found along New York's Long Island coast. By the following spring, six more were located, with law enforcement finally confirming the work of a serial killer. One of the most significant pieces of evidence was a 911 call made on May 1, 2010, by 24-year-old Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker who was seeing a client on Jones Beach, saying, "They're trying to kill me."

Over 12 years later, the Long Island Serial Killer case remains unsolved. For more on the case, watch the Discovery+ series "Unraveled: Long Island Serial Killer."

The remains of 11 women were found buried in the desert of West Mesa, New Mexico, in 2009. Authorities determined the murders could be the product of a single person or even a group, but have yet to zero in on a suspect in over a decade.

Women started disappearing in 2001 until 2006, with satellite images suggesting the last remains were buried in 2005, according to reports. Then women were all identified, with a common theme of being tied to drugs and prostitution. 

Atlantic City, New Jersey, is most famous for casinos on the beach – not serial killers. However, in 2006, authorities found four dead women face-down in a drainage ditch and identified them as Barbara V. Breidor, Molly Jean Dilts, Kim Raffo, and Tracy Ann Roberts. The women, all sex workers, had all died via strangulation and were found wearing only socks and shoes. At first, there were suspicions that the killings might be connected to the Long Island case in the vicinity. However, those suspicions were later disproven, and the case was subsequently referred to as the "Eastbound Strangler."

While there have been suspects over the years, they have been ruled out. "Fifteen years later we have not made an arrest for these homicides, but we're always looking, we're always working and reexamining information about this case. We haven't stopped. We won't stop," Chief of County Investigations, Bruce Shields, said in 2021. 

Beginning in 2001, a disturbing trend emerged in Chicago as the bodies of women who had been strangled began accumulating. By 2017, the staggering number of women murdered reached 75. In 2019, the Chicago Tribune revealed that Chicago police had formed a specialized task force to investigate a potential serial killer responsible for at least 55 of these deaths. Notably, all the victims were African American women aged between 18 and 58 years old.

More bodies piled up after the bombshell report. "Unfortunately, in our society, not just Chicago, but in the United States, Black women are the least of us, and so when crimes happen as horrific as what has occurred over these 20 years with these ladies, there is no outrage," activist Beverly Reed-Scott, exclaimed in the docu-series The Hunt for the Chicago Strangler streaming on Discovery+, in which she was a producer. "I think if they were white women, they would certainly have brought out all the stops."

In 1983, Heide Villareal Fye went missing. Months later, her body appeared in a rural Texas field, which would later be dubbed The Killing Fields. About two years later, the body of Laura Miller, just 16, was found nearby. During the investigation, police unearthed a third body, Jane Doe, identified in 2019 as Audrey Lee Cook.

In 1991 another Jane Doe, later identified as Donna Gonsoulin Prudhomme, was also found. No connection between the women was ever found, and investigators are stumped to this day about who committed the crimes.