10. Ottis Toole
Ottis Toole was a serial killer who operated for an undetermined length of time from the 1960s to the 1980s and who was also a brief companion to, and partner-in-crime of, the more infamous serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. The two stalked and terrorized Florida, leading to Toole being dubbed "the Jacksonville Cannibal." Though Ottis told many wild tales of homicide, which made it difficult to determine which murders were authentic and which were not, it's believed that he committed his first murder at the age of 14. He claims to have killed over 100 people.
Toole was raised in a turbulent, abusive household, making later claims of incest and rape by a neighbor and his sister. The most intriguing part of Toole's childhood stemmed from his grandmother, who he claimed was a Satanist. Apparently, Toole's grandmother gave him the moniker "the Devil's Child" as she showed him allegedly Satanic practices such as grave-robbing and self-mutilation. He would later drop hints of Satanic inspiration for his killings, confessing to at least 108 total murders. Toole had a very low IQ and needed the aid of Lucas to continue undetected.
During their time together, it was stated by Lucas that Toole would take his victims and cook them as a barbecue, with Lucas later recounting that he "wasn't a cannibal because he didn't like the taste of Toole's BBQ sauce." The two deranged killers had a combined confession of hundreds of victims. It was said that throughout Toole's killing spree, he liked to eat the ribs of his victims and drink their blood, something Lucas seemingly disapproved of later. When asked in an interview whether he actually ate people or not, Toole replied, "You look damn tasty. If I had me a knife, I'd slit your throat and drink some blood."
How does one reach this level of depravity to cause such carnage? Toole and Lucas told much about their murders, yet we're still left wanting something more concrete as to what drives a person to this level of evil. Toole's reasons for cannibalizing his victims, though seemingly impossible for the rest of us to follow, seem to simply boil down to nothing more than "because I could," and he even once said he sometimes ate his victims simply to save money on groceries. That is the very definition of "in cold blood." Audio recordings of the two madmen discussing their cannibalistic ways over the phone are plentiful and can be found online.
9. Joachim Kroll
Between February, 8, 1955, and July, 3, 1976, a relatively unknown German serial killer unleashed terror in Germany and claimed the lives of 14 people, though the killer said there could have possibly been more he simply forgot about. Joachim Kroll would later become known as the Ruhr Hunter, the Duisburg Man-Eater, and the Ruhr Cannibal for his bizarre, cannibalistic crime spree that spanned over 20 years.
Committing his first murder in 1955, Kroll stabbed and killed a young 19-year-old German girl before dismembering her body. It should be noted here that there is usually an escalation in serial murder from being more timid, often killing out of necessity more than pleasure, to more twisted and bloody as killers embrace their homicidal ways. But it seems Kroll jumped in without a care in the world, as if his dark desires were so great that he had the mind of a mad butcher within him since birth, awaiting to be unleashed upon society.
Unlike other cannibal murderers, Kroll would cannibalize almost every single one of his victims, slicing pieces of their bodies off to consume. All of the victims were found stripped, raped after death, and with pieces of their flesh removed. Like Toole, Kroll would also later state that his murders had to do with a simple inability to buy food, also stating that cannibalizing young children was the only meal he found truly satisfying.
After the murder of a four-year-old-girl by Kroll, police were knocking around when a neighbor told them about a clogged waste pipe. When the neighbor had asked Kroll if he knew what was stopping up the pipes, he simply replied, "Guts." The pipe was blocked up by the girl's intestines. Upon entering Kroll's residence, the police found a house of horrors, complete with a severed hand cooking in a pan of boiling water.
