Romance is a beautiful thing, but murder blackens the world. The killer couples on this list have left their dark mark on history.
Some of the murders you’ll encounter had crime sprees that spanned years. Others only lasted days. The timing and location of their crimes made a big difference. But rest assured, authorities have caught, arrested, and sentenced all of the killer couples here. That doesn’t mean they’re still behind bars, however.
Let’s dive into the 26 twisted killer couples who blackened our world.
Killer Couples: Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow
Bonnie and Clyde are the world’s most famous criminal couple, the original “ride or die.” They were the two most prolific robbers of their era, and people often romanticize their crimes. To be fair, they have an impressive resume.
Within a span of two years starting in 1932, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow robbed numerous establishments. They’d commit just about any crime as long as they could get away with it. For example: they stole cars, broke their associates out of prison, and engaged in shootouts with the police. In the process, they also murdered as many as 13 people.
Police killed Bonnie and Clyde during a shootout in 1934, ending this killer couple’s crime streak.
Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo – The Ken and Barbie Killers
Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo disguised themselves as a normal couple, earning them the nickname “The Ken and Barbie Killers.” But the truth is that Homolka and Bernardo were one of the most twisted killer couples in Canada.
Together, the couple killed at least three girls between the ages of 14 and 15 years old. Firstly, they killed Tammy Homolka, Karla’s little sister. Though that may have been their most despicable crime, it wasn’t their last. In addition to Tammy, Bernardo and Homolka murdered 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffy and 15-year-old Kristen French.
Bernardo will almost certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars. Karla Homolka, on the other hand, was released in 2005 and now lives under the name Leanne Teale.
Killer Couples: Myra Hindley and Ian Brady – The Moors Murderers
Myra Hindley and Ian Brady are the killer couple behind the Moors Murders outside of Manchester, England. These sick individuals lured children to Saddleworth Moor by asking for help unloading groceries. They would also pretend to have lost clothing items. That way, the children would help them in their search.
Hindley and Brady killed at least five children as young as 10 years old. Hindley would draw them in, and then Brady would sexually assault them. He was fond of slashing their throats before dumping them in the moor.
Authorities caught the serial killer couple after one of Hindley’s in-laws discovered Brady murdering a 17-year-old with an axe, according to The New York Times. Judges subsequently sentenced both murderers to multiple life sentences.
Rosemary and Fred West – Britain’s Worst Serial Killers
Rosemary and Fred West are Britain’s most twisted serial killers. As of the writing of this piece, the killer couple has 12 confirmed victims. Authorities, however, think that number is much higher.
The Wests committed most of their murders between 1967 and 1987, but authorities didn’t catch them until 1994. And the story is crazy. The Gloucestershire Police’s timeline shows that the West kids led detectives straight to their parents by joking about their sister’s disappearance.
To explain: Authorities arrested Fred West for raping one of his daughters, so they put the West children into foster care. Then, the kids told their foster family that Heather West was buried beneath the patio. The kids claimed this was just a family joke Fred used to keep them in line. To investigators’ surprise, that’s exactly where they found Heather’s remains.
Christine Paolilla and Chris Snider – The Clear Lake Massacre Killers
The story of South Texas killer couple Christine Paolilla and Chris Snider is an interesting one. Paolilla’s peers bullied her throughout most of her young life because she had alopecia. No one knows for certain if this factored into her murderous break, but it certainly didn’t prevent it.
In her teens, Paolilla became friends with a pair of popular girls in Clear Lake City. The new friends turned her into the school’s “Miss Irresistible.” Paolilla then became involved with 21-year-old Chris Snider. She was only 17.
In July of 2003, Paolilla and Snider stormed a friend’s house to steal drugs, but things went south fast. An argument broke out. The next thing they knew, bullets were flying. Paolilla and Snider killed the two friends who helped Paolilla rise in status along with two others. The media dubbed this incident “The Clear Lake Murders.”
Killer Couples: Bailey Boswell and Aubrey Trail
Meeting a murderer on a Tinder date is some women’s worst fear. It’s certainly a real threat, and killer couple Bailey Boswell and Aubrey Trail proved it.
24-year-old Boswell and her 52-year-old boyfriend, Aubrey Trail, met Sydney Loofe on Tinder. Boswell conned Loofe into two dates. They included Trail on the second date, claiming he was a sugar daddy who’d pay Loofe’s bills. Unbeknownst to Loofe, this second date would be the last date she ever went on.
On a November morning in 2017, Boswell and Trail prepared a murder kit. Later that night, they had their date. Like many killer couples on this list, they tortured Loofe before killing her. Then, they cut her body into 14 pieces.
Investigators recovered most of Loofe’s body from a nearby field. However, some of Loofe’s organs were never found.
As KETV explains, courts found both killers guilty of Loofe’s murder. The judge sentenced Trail to death, but Boswell narrowly avoided being the first woman ever to be on death row in Nebraska.
Though Tinder may be fairly new, Boswell and Trail’s tactic was an old one. You’ll notice other killer couples on this list used love against their victims as well.
Killer Couples: Jasmine Richardson and Jeremy Steinke
Jasmine Richardson (12) and her 23-year-old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke committed what the media has dubbed “The Richardson Family Murders.” If it’s not obvious from the age gap, this pair is one of the more demented killer couples you’ll find.
Steinke and Richardson met in 2006. They were both drawn to all things “dark,” but they took this passion a little too far. Steinke would tell people that he was a “300-year-old werewolf.”
Richardson was a tween who spent much of her time on VampireFreaks.com. The website was once a social media platform for goth and emo subcultures.
Richardson’s family disapproved of the couple’s relationship and, naturally, tried to stop it. But Steinke and Richardson would have rather killed everyone than be apart.
On April 23, 2006, Steinke stabbed Richardson’s parents to death in the downstairs of their house while Richardson killed her brother upstairs. Her brother was only eight years old when Richardson stabbed him and slit his throat.
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Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham – The Twilight Killers
Kim Edwards and Lucas Markham are the youngest of the killer couples on this list. In fact, they’re the youngest known double murderers in Britain.
Edwards and Markham were only 14 years old when they became the Twilight Killers. As such, Edwards plotted the murders, and Markham wielded the knife. In April of 2016, Markham stabbed Edwards’ mother and sister in the throat while they slept.
Edwards and Markham showed no remorse following the murder, according to information the courts released. Instead, they hung around the house, having sex and watching the movie Twilight. The bodies of Edwards’ family members lay lifeless in their presence. This is how they earned the moniker the “Twilight Killers.”
Sarah and John Makin – The Baby Farmers
Baby farming was a fairly common practice at the end of the 19th century, as the University of Oregon explains. Families who couldn’t afford to feed their children would pass them off to someone else. Often, these “baby farms” took in more babies than they could handle. As a result, many of these infants would die of neglect or starvation.
Baby farmers didn’t usually kill their charges, however. But with killer couples like Sarah and John Makin in the world, murder was bound to happen occasionally.
The Makins murdered infants and toddlers to turn a profit from the money parents paid them. They’d take the children and the money, kill the children, and skip town in the middle of the night. Investigators found the remains of 15 infants on properties once inhabited by this killer couple.
Killer Couples: Catherine and David Birnie
Authorities believe Catherine and David Birnie abducted and killed at least four women in the 1980s. Catherine would lure them in with free rides. Then, the couple would chain them to the bed so David could assault them.
Much like The Ken and Barbie Killers, the Birnies videotaped the torture of women. Only one victim left the Birnies’ Willagee, Australia, home alive.
In 1986, 17-year-old Kate Moir hid the pills the killer couple gave her. For about a day, she put on the best performance of her life, pretending she was sedated while going along with David’s sexual abuses. She then jumped out the window the following day while David was off working.
Initially, the police tried to dismiss her report. Moir, however, knew too much for investigators to ignore her indefinitely. Authorities later unearthed the bodies of four women the Birnies had killed.
Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez – The Lonely Hearts Killers
Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez make up one of the most prolific serial killer couples in modern history. The courts convicted them of a single murder in 1951, though their kill count is probably closer to 20 victims.
Beck and Fernandez earned “The Lonely Hearts Killers” nickname by targeting victims in the singles classifieds of local newspapers. Fernandez acted as a single man looking for love, and Beck pretended to be his sister.
The couple killed primarily in the United States. However, they even flew one suitor to Spain, where they left her body for hotel housekeeping to discover after they left. They buried a different victim next to her toddler child in the basement.
Suzan and Michael Bear Carson – The Witch Killers
Article from Aug 13, 1986 Santa Cruz Sentinel (Santa Cruz, California)
Suzan and Michael Bear Carson killed three people in the early ‘80s. This killer couple is known as “The Witch Killers” because they believed they were on a spiritual mission to murder “witches.” Their official kill count sits at three victims, but authorities think there are others they haven’t yet identified.
This killer couple’s spree came to an end in 1983 after a UPS driver witnessed them shoot a kind soul who picked them up on the side of the road. After authorities had the Carsons in custody, they confessed to the three proven murders willingly.
The couple claimed their odd belief system prevented them from lying. Even so, they refused to admit how many people they killed during their “holy war.”
Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood – The Lethal Lovers
The Lethal Lovers are one of the worst types of killer couples. They took the lives of those they were supposed to care for.
Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood worked at Alpine Manor Nursing Home in Walker, Michigan, as nursing assistants. While there in the ‘80s, they suffocated five elderly, disabled residents with a washcloth. According to Wood at trial, the couple committed the murders to forge a bond that would last a lifetime.
The way this killer couple chose their victims was almost childish. They picked victims whose names would spell “murder” in the nursing home death record. Their dreams almost came true, but detectives caught them before they could write the final “r.”
Killer Couples: Faye and Ray Copeland
Faye and Ray Copeland lived and killed on their farm in Mooresville, Missouri, before authorities stopped them in 1989. At the time of their arrest, both killers were over retirement age.
Like many killer couples, the Copelands targeted vagrants and drifters. Though, Ray and Faye Copeland did so for a profit. See, they hired drifters as farmhands and convinced them to write bad checks for livestock. Once the police caught wind of check fraud, Ray would shoot the farmhand with a .22. Then, he’d dispose of the body and hire a new farmhand.
When the courts sentenced Faye and Ray Copeland on four murder charges, they became the oldest couple to ever sit on death row.
Monique Olivier and Michel Fourniret – The Virgin Hunters
The next of the killer couples on the list hails from Europe, where they killed at least 11 people from France to Belgium. Monique Olivier and Michel Fourniret are known as The Virgin Hunters for the meticulous abductions of young girls.
Olivier confessed in 2023 that she’d convince victims get to into her van and give her directions. She’d then pick up her husband down the street, who’d rape and kill them.
The Virgin Hunters’ victim list is appalling even for serial killers. They killed girls ranging in age from nine to their late teens. If that wasn’t enough, some investigators believe their kill count is double the 11 confirmed victims.
Inessa Tarverdiyeva and Roman Podkopaev – The Gang of Amazons
Inessa Tarverdiyeva and Roman Podkopaev were the heads of a family of serial killers in Russia, known as “The Gang of Amazons.” This killer couple murdered around 30 people in the 2000s and early 2010s.
Tarverdiyeva and Podkopaev’s children and their siblings composed the rest of this serial killer family, as Evil Families: A History of Bad Blood by Martin Knight explains. And for six years, they murdered everyone they could to turn a profit.
The Gang of Amazons would kill rich families for their possessions as readily as they’d gun down police officers and witnesses. The killer duo had no care for human life. Hence why they tortured their victims in creative ways. For example, they gouged the eyes from a living teenage girl’s skull.
Police killed Podkopaev during a shootout in 2013 and arrested Tarverdiyeva. The authorities pinned the family’s crimes on her, ending this killer couple’s reign for good.
Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole – The Confession Killers
Lovers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole claimed to have killed over 600 people. If this were actually true, they’d be the most prolific of killer couples in known history. Of course, 600 victims is likely an exaggeration.
This pair operated in the ‘70s. Nobody knows how many people they killed before police caught them in the early 1980s. Despite his earlier claims, Lucas later admitted to only killing three people. The earlier, false confessions Lucas and Toole gave authorities, however, is how they earned the moniker “The Confession Killers.”
In this case, the number of Confession Killers victims doesn’t matter. Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole were deranged either way. They killed, sexually assaulted, and even cannibalized their victims.
Killer Couples: Debra Brown and Alton Coleman
Debra Brown and Alton Coleman went on a crime spree through the Midwest in 1984, killing at least 8 people in 56 days. They primarily abducted, sexually assaulted, and murdered children between the ages of seven and ten. One trend certainly sticks out amongst killer couples: They prefer to target children.
The damage these two did in just a two-month span is ridiculous. Along with their murders, Brown and Coleman committed several robberies, rapes, and kidnappings. After all this, the courts sentenced both Brown and Coleman to death row in 1984.
A judge eventually commuted Brown’s sentence to life in prison, which is actually okay. Experts believe Brown possesses an exceptionally low IQ and was, at least in part, manipulated by Coleman.
Killer Couples: Caril Ann Fugate and Charles Starkweather
At 19 years old, Charles Starkweather was on a killing spree through Nebraska and Wyoming. His then 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, was along for the ride. In total, authorities think this killer couple murdered 10 people. To be clear, Starkweather committed the murders, but Fugate was questionably his willing accomplice.
The Teenage Spree Killers had one of the shortest crime sprees of the killer couples on this list. But it was a brutal one. They committed almost all of their murders in an eight-day span in January, 1958, starting with Fugate’s family.
Experts disagree over Fugate’s involvement in these crimes, as A&E points out. Firstly, Fugate was a young teen, and kids of that age are impressionable. The girl also claimed to believe Starkweather had kept her family hostage, not killed them. Starkweather tells a different story, of course.
Judith and Alvin Neelley – Boney and Claude
According to Thomas H. Cook’s True Crime: Blood Echoes and Early Grave, the Neelleys believed they were a more humorous version of Bonnie and Clyde. They dubbed themselves “Boney and Claude,” but there was nothing funny about Judith and Alvin Neelley’s crimes.
Alvin and Judith Neelley murdered two people in fairly demented ways. They first killed a 13-year-old whom the Neelleys kidnapped in Georgia in 1982. She bound the victim to a tree in Alabama and injected her with cleaning chemicals. The concoction Judith used didn’t kill the girl. Instead, it left her in excruciating pain. In the end, Judith shot her and pushed her off a cliff.
The second victim was a 23-year-old they’d kidnapped, tortured, and murdered in Georgia.
Judith showed no remorse at her trial. She even smirked at the jury when prosecutors recounted her crimes. Originally, the courts sentenced her to death, but they eventually commuted her sentence to life without parole. Alvin Neelley died in prison in 2005.
Cindy Hendy and David Parker Ray – The Toy Box Killers
Cindy Hendy and David Parker Ray are truly one of the most prolific serial killer couples on this list. Authorities believe these two killed up to 60 women in the Southwest United States during the late ‘90s, and they did so in horrendous style.
Most killers come prepared with a murder kit, victim selection, and a plan for disposing their victims’ corpses. Cindy Hendy and David Parker Ray came with a murder trailer pulled behind their truck.
This trailer, which they dubbed “The Toy Box,” was equipped with a restraint table and several ways to torture victims. The killer couple would use everything from surgical tools to electricity on their subjects under mirrors they mounted on the ceiling.
Carol Bundy and Doug Clark – The Sunset Strip Killers
Carol Bundy and Doug Clark haunted the Sunset Strip in Las Angeles in 1980, preying on unsuspecting sex workers. Their murders were sick and often included mutilation – sometimes decapitation.
Experts think Clark killed three people before he teamed up with Bundy. This couple not only killed together; authorities believe they participated in necrophilia together as well.
In total, the courts convicted this killer couple of eight counts of murder – six for Clark and two for Bundy. Doug Clark has adamantly claimed Carol Bundy’s ex-boyfriend Robert Murray was the one behind the crimes, as LA Magazine explains. Fun fact: Bundy brought Clark the severed head of Murray as a gift.
Killer Couples: Cynthia Coffman and James Marlow
Cynthia Coffman and James Marlow became an item quickly after his release from Folsom Prison in 1986. They married later that year. This killer couple was “all in” from the beginning, with Coffman going so far as to get “Property of the Folsom Wolf” tattooed on her buttocks.
They murdered at least four people before they cut their crime streak short with a lazy mistake. The killers left a victim’s checkbook in a dumpster along with papers that identified them by name. Authorities caught Coffman and Marlow while they were hiking in the mountains. This entire killing spree lasted roughly a month.
A judge sentenced Marlow and Coffman to death for their crimes. As of the writing of this article, Coffman holds the record for spending the longest stretch on death row as a woman.
Killer Couples: Charlene Williams and Gerald Gallego
Charlene Williams and Gerald Gallego are the killer couple behind The Sex Slave Murders that lasted from 1978 until 1980. This pair committed most of their killings in California, where they’d hunt young women at Sacramento malls. However, the total territory of their murders spanned three states.
Serial killer couples tend to have some similarities. For example, Williams and Gallego would tie their victims up, sexually assault them, and then kill them. Many of their victims were teenage girls. Although, this pair would kill the girls’ boyfriends, too.
Williams claims she never killed anyone even though she pled guilty at trial. According to her interview with CBS News, she actively tried to stop Gallego. This, however, is debatable.
Killer Couples: Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen
Zhang Bo and Ye Chengchen weren’t serial killers. Nor did they have histories of crime before committing their murders. In this way, they’re different from many of the killer couples on this list. Though they’re no less killers.
This pair from Chongqing, China, fell in love and wanted to start a family of their own. But in order for that to happen, Zhang Bo needed to get rid of his other family first.
Zhang Bo was married when he started seeing Ye Chengchen, according to BBC. She wanted children but Zhang already had two kids with his previous wife. Ye found this problematic, so she convinced Zhang to get rid of his children so they could start from a clean slate.
After nine months of planning in 2020, Zhang tossed his kids out of the 15-story window of his high-rise apartment. The killer couple tried to frame it as an accidental fall, but the Chinese authorities saw through their gambit and sentenced them to death.
