From Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who sexually assaulted and killed five young victims in 1960s' Britain, to Andrei Chikatilo, the Red Ripper, who confessed to fifty-five sex murders in Russia, and from Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, in the USA to Peter Kurten, the Dusseldorf Vampire, these are some of the most evil killers the world has ever seen.

The Moors Murderers: Ian Brady and Myra Hindley became a byword for evil when a tape recording of one of their victims, ten-year-old Lesley Ann Downey, pleading for her life was played at their trial.

The Red Ripper: Andrei Chikatilo believed that his brother had been eaten by starving neighbours during the terrible Ukrainian famine of the 1930s and later mutilated some of his fifty-three victims by gnawing them.

The Dusseldorf Vampire: Peter Kurten asked the attending doctor before he was guillotined if he would be able to hear, if only for a moment, the sound of his own blood gushing from his neck, "the pleasure to end all pleasures".

The Milwaukee Cannibal: Jeffrey Dahmer drugged and killed his victims before abusing their lifeless bodies and dismembering them, keeping heads and genitals as trophies, and biceps and other muscles to eat.

Dennis Nilsen was arrested when police were called following the discovery of human flesh, by an engineer investigating complaints about an unpleasant smell from a drain. He confessed to strangling sixteen young men.