Name: Top 20 Scariest People in History
Uploaded: 2026-01-07T16:55:30.000Z
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His killings were so sadistic and brutal that even experienced detectives were shocked.

Welcome to Watchmojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the 20 most terrifying people throughout history.

Eyes that were able to bore into the center of your soul.

I shall no longer announce to anyone when I commit my murders.

They shall look like routine robberies, killings of anger, and a few fake accidents, etc.

Police shall never catch me because I have been too clever for them.

Kicking off our list is the Phantom who taunted the San Francisco Bay area in the late 1960s.

While his confirmed body count is lower than others on this list, the Zodiac is terrifying because he treated murder like a game.

He sent complex cryptograms to newspapers, threatened to shoot children on school buses, and

famously wore a hooded executioner's costume during one of his attacks at Lake Berryessa.

But perhaps scariest of all, the Zodiac technically won his depraved game.

his identity remains an unresolved question mark in the annals of American true crime.

The Zodiac essentially proved that you could taunt the police, terrorize a populace, kill people, and

Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true.

Formidable to men, fascinating to women, feared by all.

Few figures have plummeted from such heights to such depraved depths.

In the 15th century, Gilles de Rais fought valiantly alongside Joan of Arc and and became a national hero.

But behind his castle walls, he was a monster.

De Rais is believed to have kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and

murdered hundreds of children to satisfy his twisted occult obsessions.

The contrast between his public image as a holy warrior of France and his private reality as a prolific child murderer is deeply disturbing.

He serves as a grim historical reminder that monsters often hide in plain sight, and

sometimes they wear the armor of a savior.

He is also often cited as the true inspiration for the Bluebeard fairy tale, proving that history is often far scarier than fiction.

You would be perfect to sit on my throne.

So perfect that you might like it too much and therefore disturb my fragile peace of mind.

Ivan was by far the most bloodthirsty ruler that that country has had to endure.

Also known as Ivan the Terrible, he tears his enemies limb from limb and feeds them to the dogs, earning the moniker the Terrible requires more than just a bad temper.

The first Tsar of Russia was a man consumed by extreme paranoia and uncontrollable rage.

Seeing enemies in every shadow, he famously beat his pregnant daughter in law and caused her to miscarry and then bludgeoned his own son and heir to death with with a staff.

And beyond his grotesque domestic violence, he also created the Oprechnina, a terrifying secret police force that rode with the symbol of a dog's head on their saddles to sniff out treason.

They would boil, roast and massacre anyone Ivan suspected of disloyalty.

His reign established a bloody legacy of state terror, proving that the most dangerous person in the country could be the very man sworn to protect it.

After six weeks of siege, the nogaret was really burned down.

It takes hundreds of years after he had ordered the death of so many that he acquires the title Ivan the Terrible.

The violent story of the Ripper is so shrouded in myth that outlandish theories still surface, making it hard to separate facts from fiction.

He is the phantom that gave birth to the modern age of fear and the modern conception of the serial killer terrorizing London's Whitechapel district in 1888.

Jack the Ripper didn't just kill, he viciously mutilated his victims in the open streets.

The resulting scenes were of absolute horror and shocking gore.

The sheer audacity of the crimes, combined with the bloody from hell letter sent to George Lusk sparked a media panic that defined the era.

And like the zodiac after him, Jack's identity remains a complete mystery as he was never caught.

He was and remains the ultimate boogeyman of the Victorian age.

A man prowling the dark and seedy streets and butchering the women who caught his psychotic eye.

Please forgive me for the implication that I'm praising it, but it was Jack's masterpiece.

Having done what he did in that room, I think that he could certainly take a break.

Idi Amin, the former military ruler, President Idi Amin said Uganda's Asians brought to the country by the British were depriving black Africans of opportunities and gave Asians who held British passports 90 days to leave the country or face being put in concentration camps.

Known as the Butcher of Uganda, IDI Amin was a dictator who presented a terrifying paradox of joviality and genocide.

Standing A physically imposing 6 foot 4, Amin expelled 80,000 Asians from his country and presided over the slaughter of up to 500,000 Ugandans.

His erratic behavior fueled terrifying rumors that he practiced cannibalism and kept the severed heads of enemies to have conversations with them.

Of course, the veracity of this has been disputed.

Amin showed the world that a leader could be dismissed as a buffoon internationally while still running a slaughterhouse at home.

His regime was a chaotic blend of absurdity and atrocity.

That unpredictable and charismatic power is often the most dangerous kind of all.

Because I had to flee the country in the darkness of the night with my wife and children because my life was threatened, I came to know that I was on his hit list, and

I would have been bumped off had I stayed much longer in the country.

While some killers hide in the shadows, the Night Stalker revealed his own demonic image.

Terrorizing Los angeles in the mid-1980s, Ramirez had no specific pattern.

He attacked men, women and children alike, breaking into any random house that caught his eye that night.

With his rotting teeth, weird satanic ramblings, and

lack of hygiene, he was a bizarre movie slasher come to life in court.

Ramirez famously drew a pentagram on his hand, flashed it to the cameras, and yelled, hail, Satan.

Further adding to the legend of his barbarism.

Because his crimes were entirely opportunistic, he made an entire city afraid to sleep.

In the end, Ramirez murdered at least 15 people, embodying the primal fear that we all share, that of the intruder in the night.

Whole trip was to hide in a tree or hide behind a fence and watch his victims at nighttime into the wee hours of the night, and

then, while they slept, creep in, you know, like a coward, and kill him.

The story goes that Romania's bottomless well of tyranny, catastrophe, and

overall human misery can all be traced back to one terrifying ruler and his supernatural evil.

Long before he inspired the legend of Dracula, Vlad III was crafting a legacy of very real horror.

This 15th century prince defended Wallachia by turning his enemies into a literal force.

As per his name, Vlad's trademark was impalement, driving a greased stake through the body and avoiding vital organs, ensuring that the victim remained alive and suffering for days.

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