u/ZoelCairo

Shankariya was born in 1952 in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. Not much is known about Shankariya's childhood except that he lived with his parents.

In 1977, the Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab areas trembled in fear as people kept being found murdered with no apparent clues.

However, most victims have one thing in common: there were signs of striking down with a hammer on the spot below the neck near the ear. Hence, people started to call the unknown murderer “Kanpatimar,” which is a word combined of the Hindi word "Kanpati" (under the ear) and "Marr" (to hit.)

As the mysterious deaths keep occurring in the area every day, some locals even believe the victims were killed by mythical creatures or were killed by spies sent from Pakistan, as in the 70s, when the threat of war loomed between two countries.

Some witnesses stated they spotted a mysterious man walking near train tracks, and some stated a man covered his face with a blanket was roaming around.

One day in 1979, the police managed to catch a man who covered his face with a blanket and hid behind a tree and tried to run away. He introduced himself as Shankariya, and police strongly believed him to be the killer, yet there was no crucial evidence yet, as no murder weapon was found in his house.

However, when Shankariya was detained in police custody for interrogation, he would confess that he was the very killer. When the policeman asked if he killed 60 people, he replied, “Sir, I killed 70, not 60.” Following his confession, Shankariya led the police to the bush he used to hide in and took out a hammer from there, which he used for murders.

Although Shankariya confessed to murdering 70 people, the police were able to confirm only 63 murders were committed by him.

When asked why Shankariya committed such a crime, he simply stated it was for fun and leisure.

Shankariya was hanged to death on May 16, 1979. His last words were, “I have murdered in vain. Nobody should become like me."

Despite Shankariya’s unbelievable numbers of victims, the information regarding him is very rare. I could find only 2 images of him on the internet. I hope we will get to know about his crimes more clearly one day.

Sources:

https://www.aajtak.in/crime/big-crime/story/unknown-facts-about-indian-serial-killer-kampatimar-shankariya-from-rajasthan-382603-2016-09-14

(Hindi)

https://www.abplive.com/gk/shankaria-the-serial-killer-of-rajasthan-who-committed-70-murders-at-the-age-of-25-top-serial-killer-india-2698640

(Hindi)

https://aapkarajasthan.com/jaipur/how-did-kanpatimar-sankariya-become-a-headache-for-the/cid16601053.htm

(Hindi)

https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/articles/indias-most-prolific-serial-killers

(Re-upload cause the photos weren't submitted.)

South Korea is no stranger to serial killers. There's Lee Choon-jae, who committed the infamous Hwaseong murders; The Chijon Family, a crime gang that terrorized the 90s; or even Woo Bum-kon, who isn't a serial killer but rather a mass murderer but still worth mentioning.

However, when you ask a Korean who they think the worst serial killer from their country is, I'm very sure that most people would mention this name, Yoo Young-chul.

Yoo is officially the most prominent serial killer in South Korea with the victim count of 20. He targeted mostly old people or adult massage parlor workers, who were vulnerable to resistance.

Yoo was born on April 18, 1970, in Jeollabuk-do, Gochang-gun. Yoo was raised in a very harsh household. His father was a drunkard who beat Yoo every day. By the time Yoo was born, his father was having an affair, which drove Yoo's mother mad and even made her have thoughts of killing Yoo. Yoo's father died when he was about 13. He lived with his mother and his two brothers and a sister.

Yoo was a quiet kid when he was in elementary school. His friends recalled Yoo was like a "grown-up." He was quite talented in P.E. and drawing. However, Yoo had a bad habit of killing frogs by breaking the neck and even mutilating the body. Yoo once said to his friends that he wants to become a doctor.

When Yoo became a middle-schooler, he got interested in fighting. He always fought high schoolers from other schools and attacked fellow students who were scorned by teachers for no reason. He also sometimes stole bootleg LP records from the shopping center.

In those days, Yoo had two primary dreams: to become a track and field athlete or a painter. However, both dreams would soon be crushed. Firstly, a track and field athlete wasn't considered a desirable job by the time, which made him not apply to athlete school, but when he applied to art school instead, he was disqualified due to him being colorblind.

He had no other choice but to go to technical high school for the best, but he had a hard time getting used to it. And not long after, his bad habit of stealing came to an end when he got caught by police and went to juvenile prison. He later dropped out from the school.

The year is 1991; an adult Yoo was nothing but a small-time criminal who constantly went to prison. He eventually got married with Ms. Hwang and had one son with her. In the daytime, he worked in a wedding photo studio, while at nighttime, he impersonated a cop in nightclubs to demand bribes.

In 2000, Yoo was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl who worked in the red-light district. It was none other than his wife who filed a case against him, as she was tired of him being a terrible husband and father. He even got divorced while he was in prison, and the custody of his son was also handed to his wife.

While in prison, Yoo was full of rage against the society. He was at first planned to murder his wife and son, but he later changed the scale of his plan much bigger, to commit serial killings for no reason. The moment he was released from the prison in 2003, he went to Seoul to proceed with his plans.

Yoo's first murder occurred on September 24, 2003. He forcibly entered a wealthy household of the university professor who was in his 70s. He bludgeoned the professor and his wife to death and got out after cleaning the crime scene by erasing his fingerprints and footprints.

On October 9, Yoo broke into the house of 61-year-old security guard Mr. Go and killed his wife, his mother, and even his 35-year-old son, who was mentally challenged. Yoo stroked Mr. GO's son's head with a hammer so many times that his skull was completely crushed and his brains were visible.

On October 16, Yoo broke into 69-year-old Mr. Yoo's house and killed him. The victim was alive when his family initially found him but later dead after he was moved to the hospital. And by this time the police speculated the serial killing was happening as the current victims were all old people and died in similar manners.

On December 18, Yoo broke into 87-year-old Mr. Kim's house, killed him, and also killed the housekeeper with a hammer. You set fire to the house to erase the evidence. Mr. Kim's grandson, whom Yoo didn't notice was in the house, was thankfully rescued by police.

On April 14, 2004, Yoo impersonated the cop to threaten the street vendor Mr. Ahn to ask for a bribe. But when Ahn realized Yoo's police ID card was fake, Yoo bonded Ahn and stabbed him to death with a small knife. (Ahn actually didn't die initially, so Yoo later killed him with a hammer.)

In March 2004, Yoo landed a room in a small apartment in Mapo-gu, where he began his killing spree by targeting vulnerable sex workers. His crime method was like this: first, he called massage parlor workers and met them on the street; next, he showed his fake police ID and lured them into his room, and then he bludgeoned the victims to death and dismembered their bodies into 16 to 18 pieces, disposed of them in several plastic bags, and abandoned them in nearby mountains. A total of 11 innocent victims were killed. Two of them still haven't been identified.

But not only did he mutilate the victims' bodies like that, he even later confessed to committing cannibalism, stating that he ground victims' brain fluid in the mixer and drank it. (But this claim wasn't verified due to lack of evidence. Some police believed Yoo was just bluffing to make himself look threatening.)

Yoo's capture was nothing more than dramatic, and it wasn't really the police who caught him. It was actually the owners of the massage parlor where Yoo's victims worked in. Once they realized their workers kept disappearing after going to a certain man's house, they tried to figure out the man and later found out it was Yoo. They apprehended Yoo while a police officer was accompanying them.

After Yoo was arrested, he confessed that he had murdered 26 people and, as mentioned, even admitted to committing cannibalism. However, some details on his confessions didn't match up, and it was later confirmed his victim counts were 20. Which was still enough to make him the most prolific serial killer in South Korean history.

Yoo was sentenced to death in 2005. However, although South Korean law stated to have a death sentence, it hasn't been actually carried out since 1997. Yoo is still incarcerated for more than 20 years. Many of his inmates or prison guards stated Yoo is acting very violently in his cells, threatening the guards, or even trying to bribe them.

There was a very unfortunate incident when, right after Yoo was arrested and brought to the prosecutor's office while surrounded by a bunch of police, one of his victim's mothers angrily rushed to him, and a policeman kicked her and knocked her down to the ground and injured her.

In 2004, when Yoo was in prison, he speculated the perpetrator of the then-unsolved Hwaseong Murders was likely to have "already died or is currently in prison," as, according to his words, "serial murderers like that simply can't stop killing unless someone stops him." Yoo's speculation would come true, as it turned out in 2019, that the killer Lee Choon-jae was already in prison due to his other crimes.

Yoo Young-chul has greatly shocked South Korean society. Many people believe him to be the primary reason the concept of psychopaths has been introduced to society. A hardboiled thriller film, The Chaser, which is loosely based on Yoo's crime spree, was released in 2008 and received many positive reviews.

Hope you enjoyed my post. Sorry if the writing is a bit unsmooth; English isn't my first language.

Sources:

https://www.koreaherald.com/article/3251159

https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2004/08/13/6HPYQTHVM25WTXYLSZQG6YJUFQ/

https://www.khan.co.kr/article/200407191829401#ENT

http://www.jejunews.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=68616

https://v.daum.net/v/Ff57Cgpars