America leads the world in a lot of things. The serial killer count is harder to brag about—but we’ve done it, folks.
A new analysis by PokerTube of official serial killer data found the US has 3,615 documented serial killers, accounting for 66.2% of all known cases worldwide. That’s more than 18 times the number recorded in Russia (196) or the UK (190). Two in every three documented serial killers in recorded history operated on American soil.
The state breakdown produces some counterintuitive results. Wyoming, not New York or Los Angeles, leads the nation in serial killers per capita, at 13.59 per million residents—roughly one known killer for every 73,584 people. Alaska has the scariest victim rate, at 8.67 serial killer victims per 100,000 residents, driven largely by Robert Hansen, the “Butcher Baker,” who abducted and hunted at least 17 women in the Alaskan wilderness before being sentenced to 461 years in prison. Missouri rounds out the top five with 350 total victims—the highest raw count among the leading states.
Wyoming Leads the U.S. in Serial Killers Per Capita, New Analysis Finds
The PokerTube numbers also add some wild context. Americans are statistically more likely to live next to a serial killer (1 in 94,800) than to win the lottery (1 in 292.2 million) or get bitten by a shark (1 in 11.5 million). The more comforting comparison: you’re still more likely to be struck by lightning (1 in 15,300) than to have a serial killer for a neighbor. So, yay?
Some of the margin is about how you count. Radford University’s Serial Killer Information Center runs the most thorough global database on the subject and has noted that countries differ significantly in how they define, investigate, and document serial killings. The US count benefits from decades of rigorous FBI classification and recordkeeping that most countries don’t have. That explains part of the number. Not all of it.
James Thompson, a strategist at PokerTube, noted that serial killer hotspots “cluster heavily in the West, with six of the top ten states being western states.” One detail the data also reveals: criminologists at Northeastern University have documented a significant decline in US serial killings from the 1990s peak. The golden age of the American serial killer appears to be, cautiously, behind us.
The US has 3,615 documented serial killers and retains every record that comes with that. The good news is that the number has been declining. The bad news is that Wyoming is still pulling some terrifying numbers.
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