Arguably, the 4 Worst Serial Killers in History All Came from Wisconsin
It's an alarming fact, when it comes to serial killers, Wisconsin was home to some of the worst.
Wisconsin may not hold the record for the state with the most serial killers, (that unfortunate title historically goes to Alaska), but when it comes to gore, insanity, and pure evil, Wisconsin sure has dealt with a lot of it.
Wisconsin's Most Terrifying Serial Killers
Let's start with one of the most infamous serial killers of all time, Jeffrey Dahmer.
Thanks to the recent Netflix series "Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story", most people know about the horrible killings and terrifying behavior of this infamous Milwaukee resident that is also known as the "Milwaukee Canibal" Heck, most of us probably remember what we were doing when he was finally arrested for the heinous crimes, put on trial, and eventually killed by a fellow inmate at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin. As a kid, I remember my Dad saying "that's where Dahmer lives" every time we drove by the correction institution in Portage on our way up to our family cabin in Wisconsin. YUCK!
Ed Gein- aka, "Butcher of Plainfield" or the "Plainfield Ghoul"
Ed Gein's reign of terror took place in the late 1950s in Plainfield, Wisconsin, so most people might not remember the actual events unfolding, but have definitely heard about his terrible acts. For those that haven't, let me sum it up this way; Ed Gein not only killed people, he also exhumed corpses from graveyards and made "trophies" out of their bones and skin. The evil of Ed Gein has also inspired several books and movies like "Psycho", "Hitchcock", "House of 1000 Corpses" and more.
Frank Spanbauer
Frank Spanbauer was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, and his reign of terror started in 1960 with the rape of a 16-year-old girl and continued until he was arrested for the final time in 1994 for kidnapping, raping, and/or killing numerous women, and even two children, throughout Illinois and Wisconsin.
Walter Ellis
Depending on what you're reading, the competition for Wisconsin's worst serial killer is a tight race between Jeffrey Dahmer and Walter Ellis, Ellis is often called the "The Milwaukee North Side Strangler" because he was convicted of raping and strangling at least 7 women in the Milwaukee area between 1986 and 2007. For over 20 years police thought the killings were all independent from one another until DNA profiling linked them all to Walter Ellis in 2009. He was finally convicted in 2011 and transferred to a prison in South Dakota where he passed away in 2013.