When you think of the Old West, you might picture gunfights, dusty towns, and legendary cowboys, but hidden among the tumbleweeds were some truly monstrous figures. The 10 serial killers who stalked the frontier left a trail of blood and terror that rivals any modern crime saga. Their motives ranged from cold‑blooded profit to twisted pleasure, and each story reveals just how brutal life could become when lawlessness reigned.
10 Serial Killers of the Old West: A Grim Overview
10 The Bloody Benders
The Bloody Benders were a family that settled in Osage Township, Kansas, toward the end of 1870. Four members of this seemingly ordinary household turned their inn into a death trap, eventually being linked to as many as twenty‑one vanished travelers. In a time when the frontier was already perilous, a welcoming tavern would have seemed a sanctuary, yet the Benders exploited that trust, pretending to be a warm‑hearted family while secretly murdering guests, rifling their money, and burying the bodies in a hidden back area.
Survivors who escaped the Benders’ clutches recounted a chilling ritual: a sheet was draped across a room, behind which the men would hide, while the women tried to coax strangers into a particular chair that faced away from the fabric. If a guest refused, Ma Bender would erupt in fury, and the male Benders would emerge from behind the sheet, brandishing weapons. Those who sensed the danger fled the premises, narrowly avoiding becoming the next victims.
Before authorities could apprehend them, the Benders vanished without a trace, slipping away into the night. Their disappearance left the community haunted, and the mystery of their ultimate fate remains unsolved to this day.
9 Stephen Dee Richards
Stephen Dee Richards earned the moniker “Nebraska Fiend” and has often been likened to the Old West’s very own Ted Bundy. Charismatic and well‑spoken, Richards showed no clear victim preference; his cruelty ranged from a fatal dispute with a young man to the brutal slaying of a mother and her three children with an axe. He chillingly compared the murder of the family to the ease of killing jackrabbits, underscoring his detached, almost clinical view of homicide.
In total, Richards was responsible for nine murders before the law finally caught up with him. He met his end on the gallows in 1879, bringing a grim chapter of frontier violence to a definitive, if somber, close.
8 Charles Kennedy
Charles Kennedy, a rugged mountain man near Eagle Nest, New Mexico, earned infamy in 1870 when his own wife burst into a saloon, sobbing and revealing his murderous deeds. Kennedy had been luring unsuspecting travelers into his home, slaughtering them, and stealing their cash. One night, while a traveler conversed with his son, the guest asked about nearby Indians; the boy replied, “Can’t you smell the one Papa put under the floor?” The comment ignited Kennedy’s fury, prompting him to murder both the guest and his own son before imprisoning his terrified wife.
When townsfolk learned of the atrocity, they rallied with the renowned gunfighter Clay Allison. After Kennedy was taken to the courthouse, rumors swirled that his lawyer might secure his freedom. Enraged, a mob of men broke into his jail cell, fastened a noose around his neck, and dragged him behind a horse, ultimately strangling him to death.
7 Boone Helm
Levi Boone Helm, better known as the Kentucky Cannibal, was a mountain man and gunslinger whose reputation was cemented by both robbery and murder across Oregon and Idaho. Before his most infamous episode, Helm already boasted a lengthy list of killings, earning him a fearsome reputation among frontier outlaws.
During a ferocious snowstorm, Helm and a companion named Burton found shelter in an abandoned cabin. With supplies exhausted and the cold tightening its grip, Helm attempted to spark a fire when a sudden gunshot rang out—Burton had taken his own life. Faced with starvation, Helm made the macabre decision to cannibalize his deceased companion’s body, a choice that added a gruesome layer to his already dark legend.
Helm eventually escaped the blizzard, returned to his criminal pursuits, and was later apprehended with his gang. Despite a desperate defense in court, he was convicted and met his fate on the gallows, ending a life marked by violence and unsettling survival tactics.
6 The Servant Girl Annihilator
The Servant Girl Annihilator terrorized Austin, Texas, between 1884 and 1885, claiming the lives of seven women and one man while also maiming six additional women and two men. The killings were marked by their nocturnal nature: victims were typically assaulted while asleep, then dragged outside. Racial animus appears to have played a role, as many victims were Black, suggesting a hate‑driven motive intertwined with sheer brutality.
Police investigations were confounded by conflicting eyewitness accounts regarding the killer’s appearance—some described a white assailant, others a Black one. Over four hundred men were arrested in connection with the murders, yet none were convicted. Speculation endures, ranging from the mundane (Nathan Elgin, a cook whose violent outburst coincided with the cessation of the murders) to the sensational (comparisons to Jack the Ripper). The identity of the Servant Girl Annihilator remains one of Texas’s most enduring mysteries.
5 James Miller
James Miller, infamously dubbed “Miller the Killer,” led a double life as a respectable churchgoer and a cold‑blooded murder‑for‑hire. Known as Deacon Miller because of his regular attendance at services and his outwardly sober lifestyle—he never smoked or drank—Miller concealed a dark vocation. He would eliminate anyone he disliked, and when his sister’s fiancé fell out of his favor, the man was mysteriously slain.
Although initially arrested and convicted for that murder, Miller’s sentence was overturned on a technicality, prompting him to turn his murderous skills into a paid profession, accepting large sums to arrange executions. His pious façade fooled the community, even as he briefly served as a lawman. Miller’s downfall came after he assassinated a former deputy U.S. marshal, igniting a mob’s wrath. He was lynched, and, according to legend, shouted “Let her rip!” just before his death.
4 John Wesley Hardin
John Wesley Hardin grew up under the tutelage of a preacher, yet that upbringing did little to curb his violent tendencies. He committed his first homicide at the tender age of fifteen and would go on to a possible tally of forty‑two killings. Known for a volatile temper, Hardin frequently murdered anyone who crossed his path, often robbing them after the act.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Hardin eventually faced the justice system and spent seventeen years behind bars. After his release, he settled in El Paso, Texas, where his infamous reputation persisted. A heated dispute with lawman John Selman culminated in Selman sneaking up behind Hardin and delivering a fatal headshot, ending the life of one of the Old West’s most notorious gunfighters.
3 Bill Longley
Bill Longley embodied pure psychopathy. By the age of twenty, he had already amassed a series of murders, driven by an irascible nature and a bitter, racist outlook that made Black and Mexican individuals frequent targets. In one notorious incident, Longley and his associates intercepted three freed slaves—Green Evans, Pryer Evans, and Ned—traveling to visit friends. After holding them at gunpoint, Green Evans attempted to flee and was shot dead.
Longley’s final act of violence was the killing of his childhood friend, Wilson Anderson, a deed that added a hefty bounty to his name and attracted relentless vigilante pursuit. Captured and convicted, Longley faced execution by hanging. The botched hanging saw the rope initially slack, causing his knees to hit the ground; only after the rope tightened did he slowly suffocate, a grim process that lasted eleven agonizing minutes.
2 Liver‑Eating Johnson
John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston, the famed Liver‑Eating Johnson, was a mountain man whose legend grew wild with each retelling. After his wife fell victim to a Crow Native American, Johnston allegedly swore vengeance on the entire tribe, purportedly slaying over three hundred Crow warriors, scalping them, and consuming their livers—a grave insult to a people who believed the liver was essential for a safe passage to the afterlife.
Modern scholarship, however, suggests the liver‑eating tale was likely a dark joke that spiraled out of control, with no concrete evidence that Johnston ever partook in such cannibalism. Some accounts claim he eventually made peace with the Crow, though historical records indicate the Crow were generally amicable toward American frontiersmen, blurring the line between myth and reality.
John Jeremiah Garrison Johnston died penniless in 1900, leaving behind no family and a legacy tangled in folklore, forever remembered as a figure where fact and legend intermingle.
1 Delphine LaLaurie
Delphine LaLaurie, a wealthy New Orleans socialite, earned infamy for her grotesque treatment of enslaved people. In 1834, a desperate elderly slave set fire to LaLaurie’s mansion in an attempt to escape the brutal punishments inflicted upon her. The blaze revealed a hidden attic where numerous slaves were found in various states of torture, confirming the rumors of LaLaurie’s cruelty.
Prior to the fire, LaLaurie had already faced legal repercussions for whipping a young girl from a rooftop, prompting authorities to force her to sell her slaves. Undeterred, she had relatives purchase the same slaves and quietly smuggle them back into her home, perpetuating the cycle of abuse.
The horror of the discoveries sparked outrage among neighbors, who formed a mob and forcibly drove LaLaurie and her family from their residence, an act of collective compassion—by the standards of the era—against a woman whose cruelty had become too much to tolerate.