Serial Killer Trivia
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164 free Serial Killer trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
45 free serial killer trivia questions with answers. This serial killer trivia quiz is built for true crime podcast listeners and documentary binge-watchers. It covers the infamous cases (Jack the Ripper, H. H. Holmes, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, the Zodiac, Son of Sam, BTK, the Green River Killer, the Golden State Killer), the international ones (Harold Shipman, the Yorkshire Ripper, Andrei Chikatilo, Luis Garavito, Elizabeth Báthory) and how they were caught: a parking ticket, a floppy disk's metadata, a false number plate, a genealogy website. It also takes in the FBI profilers who coined the term, the films and series the cases inspired (Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, Monster, Zodiac, Mindhunter, Dexter) and a few facts that even devoted listeners get wrong. Questions run from easy to genuinely obscure. Every answer has been checked against a documented reference source that appears under the explanation. The questions describe crimes only as far as needed to ask the question.
30 of 164 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Jack the Ripper's murders took place in 1888 in which district of London?
Whitechapel
The 1888 murders happened in Whitechapel, in London's East End; the killer was never identified, and the name comes from the 'Dear Boss' letter sent to the press.
Q 02The Ripper victims generally accepted as linked are known collectively by what name?
The canonical five
The canonical five were set apart by an 1894 police memorandum in which Melville Macnaghten wrote that the murderer had five victims 'and five victims only', though the same police file held other killings.
Q 03The 'From Hell' letter sent to George Lusk of the local vigilance committee arrived with what enclosed?
Half a human kidney
The box held half a human kidney; the writer claimed to have fried and eaten the other half, supposedly taken from Catherine Eddowes, whose left kidney was missing.
Q 04Which FBI agent is usually credited with coining the English term 'serial killer' in the 1970s?
Robert Ressler
Robert Ressler of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit popularised 'serial killer' in the mid-1970s, using 'serial homicide' in lectures from 1974; a German equivalent had existed since 1930.
Q 05What term describes the interval between a serial killer's separate murders?
Cooling-off period
A cooling-off period, a gap of days to years between killings, is what separates a serial killer from a spree killer; an FBI symposium in 2005 found the line so hard to draw that most attendees wanted the spree category dropped.
Q 06H. H. Holmes committed his most notorious crimes in Chicago around which 1893 event?
The World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition drew millions to Chicago in 1893, and Holmes told investors his new top floor would be a hotel for its visitors; the 'Murder Castle' of trapdoors and gas chambers is mostly tabloid invention.
Q 07Ted Bundy was executed in Florida in January 1989 by what method?
Electric chair
Bundy died in Florida's electric chair on 24 January 1989 after three death sentences in two trials for the Florida murders, following two escapes from custody in Colorado.
Q 08Witnesses at several Bundy crime scenes described a man in a sling or cast driving what kind of car?
A tan Volkswagen Beetle
A tan Volkswagen Beetle was where 'Ted' led women at Lake Sammamish in 1974 after asking for help with a sailboat; people who knew Bundy phoned in his name, but detectives passed over the clean-cut law student.
Q 09In January 1978 Bundy attacked students at the Chi Omega sorority house on which campus?
Florida State
The Chi Omega house was at Florida State University in Tallahassee; Bundy had arrived by bus about a week before the 15 January 1978 attack, after his second escape.
Q 10Jeffrey Dahmer, the 'Milwaukee Cannibal', was arrested in 1991 after what happened?
An intended victim escaped his apartment
An intended victim escaped his apartment on 22 July 1991 and flagged down a patrol car with a handcuff dangling from one wrist; officers who went back with him found Polaroids of dismembered bodies in a drawer.
Q 11John Wayne Gacy earned his 'Killer Clown' nickname because of what?
He performed as Pogo at parties
He performed as Pogo at parties, charity fundraisers and other events through a local clown club; under police surveillance in December 1978 he told detectives that clowns can get away with murder.
Q 12Gacy's December 1978 arrest followed the disappearance of which Des Plaines teenager?
Robert Piest
Fifteen-year-old Robert Piest vanished from a Des Plaines pharmacy on 11 December 1978 after Gacy offered him a job; the search for him took police to Gacy's house.
Q 13The Zodiac Killer's crimes took place in and around which city?
San Francisco
Q 21Which crime writer coined the name 'Golden State Killer' in the 2010s and wrote the book I'll Be Gone in the Dark?
Michelle McNamara
Michelle McNamara's title came from a threat the attacker made to a victim; she died in 2016, two years before the arrest.
Q 22Why was Green River Killer Gary Ridgway spared the death penalty in 2003?
A full confession
A full confession was the price: prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty in return for guilty pleas to 48 murders and his help in finding victims who were still missing.
Q 23Which actress won the Best Actress Oscar for playing Aileen Wuornos, executed in Florida in 2002, in the film Monster?
Charlize Theron
San Francisco and the Bay Area were the Zodiac's hunting ground; he named himself, opening taunting letters to local newspapers with 'This is the Zodiac speaking' and signing them with a crossed circle.
Q 14Which Zodiac cipher did amateur codebreakers finally solve in December 2020?
The 340
The 340-character cipher, mailed in November 1969, held out for 51 years until three amateur codebreakers cracked it; the earlier 408 had been solved almost at once by two private citizens.
Q 15The 2007 film Zodiac is based on books by which cartoonist-turned-author?
Robert Graysmith
Robert Graysmith was a newspaper's political cartoonist when the Zodiac's letters arrived in 1969; he chased the case on his own for years, publishing Zodiac in 1986 and Zodiac Unmasked in 2002.
Q 16David Berkowitz, the 'Son of Sam', was finally traced in 1977 thanks to what?
A parking ticket
A parking ticket written on Berkowitz's Ford Galaxie near the final Brooklyn shooting led police to Yonkers; he claimed a demon spoke through a neighbour's dog, later admitting it was a hoax.
Q 17Which kind of gun earned David Berkowitz the nickname '.44 Caliber Killer'?
A Bulldog revolver
A Bulldog revolver in .44 Special was his weapon, and the press named him for it; the label gave way to 'Son of Sam' after he used that name in a letter left near two victims in April 1977.
Q 18The Wichita killer BTK gave himself a name that stood for what?
Bind, torture, kill
BTK stood for 'Bind, torture, kill', Dennis Rader's own label for his method; he murdered ten people in Wichita between 1974 and 1991 and was president of his church council when arrested.
Q 19What finally identified BTK in 2005?
Metadata on a floppy disk he mailed
Metadata on a floppy disk he mailed to a TV station named Christ Lutheran Church and a user called Dennis; he had first asked police whether a disk could be traced, and they told him it would be safe.
Q 20The Golden State Killer, arrested in 2018, had once worked in what profession?
Police officer
Joseph James DeAngelo had been a police officer in Exeter and Auburn, California, until 1979; forensic genetic genealogy identified him in 2018 as the East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker.
Charlize Theron put on weight, shaved off her eyebrows and wore false teeth to play Wuornos, who shot seven men along Florida's highways and was executed there in 2002.
Q 24Harold Shipman, thought to have killed around 250 people, worked as what?
A family doctor
Shipman was a family doctor, a GP in Hyde near Manchester; convicted of 15 murders in 2000, he hanged himself in Wakefield prison in January 2004, the day before his 58th birthday.
Q 25Peter Sutcliffe, the 'Yorkshire Ripper', was finally arrested in Sheffield in 1981 for what offence?
Driving with false number plates
Driving with false number plates got Sutcliffe arrested in Sheffield in January 1981; allowed to step behind a storage tank to relieve himself, he hid a hammer and knife that police found there the next day.
Q 26Andrei Chikatilo, the 'Butcher of Rostov', was executed in 1994 in which country?
Russia
Chikatilo was shot in Novocherkassk, Russia, on 14 February 1994; the Ukrainian-born killer had murdered at least 52 people across the Soviet Union, and his hunt inspired the film Citizen X.
Q 27In which country did Luis Garavito, nicknamed 'La Bestia', commit his crimes?
Colombia
Garavito, 'La Bestia', killed boys across Colombia through the 1990s, often posing as a monk or priest to win their trust; arrested in April 1999 over an attempted assault, he later confessed to well over 100 murders.
Q 28Countess Elizabeth Báthory, the 'Blood Countess', was confined for life in a castle in which kingdom?
Hungary
Čachtice Castle, where Báthory was confined until her death in 1614, lay in the Kingdom of Hungary (now Slovakia); the blood-bathing tale was first written down in 1729, over a century later.
Q 29Belle Gunness lured most of her victims to her Indiana farm using what?
Personal advertisements
Gunness placed personal advertisements in the matrimonial columns of Midwestern newspapers, and suitors arrived at her La Porte farm with their savings; she seemingly died in a 1908 fire there, but her fate was never confirmed.
Q 30Ed Gein inspired Norman Bates in Psycho and which Silence of the Lambs character?
Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bill's suit of women's skin echoes what police found at Gein's Plainfield, Wisconsin farm in 1957; Gein confessed to only two murders, and most of the remains came from graves he had robbed.