7 Famous Serial Killers From Ohio

Ohio appears in the biographies of several famous serial killers, but birthplace and crime scene are not the same thing. Most of the offenders below were born in Ohio and committed their best-known crimes in another state. The list now separates those locations and uses convictions, pleas, and court outcomes instead of unsupported theories.

1. Robert Berdella (Cuyahoga Falls; 1984-1987; Kansas City, Missouri; 6)

The former owner of Bob’s Bizarre Bazaar moved to Kansas City, and is likely to have started killing during the summer of 1984. Berdella drugged and kidnapped men that he met in bars or on the streets. After torturing and raping them, usually for weeks at a time, he suffocated them. Thanks to the escape of his last victim, Berdella was arrested and charged with multiple counts of kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder.

Though the bodies of his victims were never found, police did find journals and volumes of pictures that chronicled his crimes. His victims were subjected to electric shock, bleach in their eyes, injection of drain cleaner in to their vocal cords, and repeated rape. They were then dismembered, stuffed in trash bags, and dumped in a landfill.

2. Thomas Lee Dillon (Canton; 1989-92; Indiana, Michigan, Ohio; 5)

Dillon was a serial sniper who pleaded guilty to killing five men in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. The victims were outdoors when they were shot from a distance. A detailed CBS account of Dillon describes the letters and behavior that drew attention to him, but motive should not be reduced to a casual diagnosis.

Dillon’s case was built through cross-state police work, ballistics, letters sent to a newspaper, and information from a friend who contacted authorities. The original article also linked to this serial killer card game.

The murders had looked unrelated because they happened in several jurisdictions. Once investigators compared the shootings and letters, the pattern became easier to see. Dillon received five consecutive life sentences and died in prison in 2011.

3. Edward Edwards (Akron; 1976, 1980, 1996; Ohio, Wisconsin; 5)

Edwards spoke about prison reform and promoted his book about the subject after his release from prison in 1969, when he served time for robbery and unlawful interstate flight. Three years later he would commit his first convicted murder.

In 2010, in his late seventies, Edwards pleaded guilty to killing two couples in Wisconsin and later admitted killing a young man he had taken into his household. He was convicted in five murders. Claims that tie Edwards to unrelated famous cases have circulated for years, but those theories were not part of the convictions and do not belong in a factual summary.

4. Donald Harvey (Butler County; 1970-87; Kentucky, Ohio; 37)

Harvey was called an “angel of death” in news coverage, a label often applied to medical workers who kill patients. He pleaded guilty to 37 murders in Ohio and Kentucky. Larger totals came from his own claims, so they should not be presented as convictions.

Harvey used different methods to kill his victims; suffocation with a pillow, turning off an oxygen tank, and a variety of drug overdoses. He once stuck a coat hanger in a patient’s catheter, and the man died days later from an infection.

When Harvey was hired at the Cincinnati V.A. Medical Hospital, he managed to collect over 30 pounds of cyanide, which he kept in his home. He also kept diaries and detailed notes on each of his victims, including how he murdered them. 

5. Gary Heidnik (Eastlake, 1986-87, Pennsylvania, 2)

Heidnik, who was born in Eastlake, committed his crimes in Philadelphia. He abducted and imprisoned six women, two of whom died. One surviving captive persuaded him to let her leave and contacted police. A Pennsylvania jury convicted him of two murders, and he was executed in 1999.

The escape and police report ended the captivity. Questions about Heidnik’s competency were litigated before and after trial, but the conviction and sentence remained in place.

6. Michael Madison (Cleveland, 2012-13, Ohio, 3)

Already a convicted sex offender, for which he completed a program and received treatment, Madison was later charged with aggravated murder. Rape and necrophilia were extenuating circumstances of his capital crimes. His three convicted cases involved young women he assaulted and strangled. Authorities were called to investigate a foul odor coming from property leased in Madison’s name. The decomposed remains of one body were found just inside the door of the garage. Two more bodies were discovered in the backyard of the same property, and the basement of a nearby vacant house the next day.

The remains of all three women were found wrapped in plastic bags. Police later found evidence that Madison kept the bodies in the home for a significant length of time. 

7. Anthony Sowell (Cleveland, 2007-09, Ohio, 11)

At the time of Sowell’s arrest, seven dead bodies were found around his home, two in his living room, and five more throughout the dwelling, one only a head in a basket. During the extended search of the property, four more bodies were recovered, along with a freshly dug shallow grave. A woman who was brought back to the house and drugged and raped, escaped and lodged a complaint with the police.

Sowell’s activities went on for so long that for years he was known as “the smelly guy” by his neighbors. After many complaints from several different neighbors, police finally investigated his residence. They found him living in horrible conditions, his victims scattered about the cluttered and infested house.

How the seven Ohio cases ended in court

The heading of this article says “from Ohio” on purpose. Berdella and Heidnik were born in Ohio but committed their known murders in Missouri and Pennsylvania. Dillon crossed state lines. Harvey killed patients in Ohio and Kentucky. Madison and Sowell were prosecuted for murders in the Cleveland area. That distinction prevents a birthplace list from becoming a misleading map of Ohio crime.

Totals need labels too. Harvey admitted more killings than the 37 murder counts covered by his guilty pleas. The larger estimates are claims, not additional convictions. The same care applies to Edward Edwards, whose name has been attached to famous unsolved cases without a matching court finding.

Anthony Sowell’s conviction also led to questions outside the criminal trial. Later civil filings alleged that an earlier assault report had not been fully investigated. Those claims do not alter the murder verdict, but they help explain why readers still ask whether the case could have been stopped sooner. Our guide to the criminal justice process explains how criminal appeals and civil claims follow different tracks.

Donald Harvey has a separate place in medical-crime history because he worked around vulnerable patients. Read the longer account of Donald Harvey and the hospital investigations for the timeline behind his pleas and the “angel of death” label.

Why older Ohio profiles need a date check

The original version of this list used the present tense for people who have since died. Berdella died in 1992. Heidnik was executed in 1999. Dillon and Edwards died in 2011, Harvey in 2017, and Sowell in 2021. A page can keep a valid historical summary while carrying a completely stale prison status, which is why every entry now separates the court result from what happened later.

Location labels can drift too. Calling someone an “Ohio serial killer” can mean that the person was born there, lived there, was arrested there, or committed murders there. Those are four different claims. This article uses birthplace as the common thread and names the crime location in each heading. Berdella belongs in the list because he was born in Cuyahoga Falls, even though the six murders in his case were prosecuted in Missouri.

Finally, the table avoids turning an offender’s confession into a verified total. Harvey pleaded guilty in 37 murders and claimed more. Edwards was convicted in five, despite much larger theories later built around his name. The highest number is often the one copied from page to page. The most defensible number is the one paired with a plea, verdict, or named source.

That source check changes the tone of the full list. It replaces diagnoses with actions proved in court, removes jokes about victims and offenders, and gives each case an end point. The result is easier to scan and less likely to turn an allegation into a fact.

Sources

• Supreme Court of Ohio opinion in State v. Sowell
• CBS News investigation into Thomas Dillon
• Associated Press report on Donald Harvey’s death

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