Communities in Texas are panicking after bodies of multiple young women turned up in local bayous. With pressure on police to solve these killings building, speculation about a possible serial killer targeting Black women is also starting to rumble, despite local officials shooting down theories that the killings are connected, Houston Public Media reported.
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Still, it’s no secret serial killers often prey the most vulnerable in their communities, so you might not be shocked to find out just how many of them have targeted Black people just because of their race. Black serial killers are more likely to target Black victims– as most crimes are committed against someone of the same race– but in other cases, white killers have purposefully gone after Black women, men and children.
Take a scroll at some of the most horrifying examples of Black people becoming victims to the most gruesome murders in history.
Louis van Schoor
South Africa in the ’80s was plagued by the racist apartheid system, which kept the country segregated for generations. At the time, racial tensions were high, and so one ex-security guard named Louis van Schoor decided to take matters into his own hands. According to BBC, Schoor is responsible for the shooting deaths of at least 39 people– all of whom were Black. He was known as the “Apartheid Killer.” Schoor was only convicted of seven murders and released from prison after only 12 years. He died in 2024 at age 73.
Henry Louis Wallace
The “Taco Bell Strangler” terrorized the streets of South Carolina and North Carolina in the ’90s. Over the span of four years, the killer raped and murdered 11 Black women. Investigators soon connected Henry Louis Wallace to the crimes. Most of the victims were Wallace’s friends and co-workers from his Taco Bell he managed in Charlotte, N.C. He was sentenced to death.
Lonnie Franklin Jr.
From 1984 to 2007, the “Grim Sleeper” targeted young Black women in Los Angeles, who were struggling with drug addiction. But it wasn’t until 2010 that Lonnie Franklin Jr. would be arrested for the crimes. He was found guilty of killing nine women and one teenager, and he sentenced to death, although investigators believed he was responsible for several more killings. In 2020, Franklin died in his prison cell before his execution date, PEOPLE reported.
Anthony Sowell
Anthony Sowell– a former Marine– was already under police surveillance after he was convicted of the brutal rape of a pregnant woman in 2005. But it wasn’t under 2009 that police finally obtained a search warrant to enter his house in Cleveland, CBS News reported. For years, Sowell had kidnapped, raped and murdered 11 Black women, whose bodies were left to decompose in his house. Police arrested Sowell, and he was sentenced to death. He died of a terminal illness in 2021.
Roberta Elder
If it wasn’t for the suspicious death of her husband, Roberta Elder might’ve gotten away with killing more than 10 people. According to the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), Rev. William M. Elder died after eating “bananas and cheese” in 1952. An Atlanta coroner soon determined the man died from arsenic poisoning, and all eyes focused on his wife. Elder was accused of killing her husband and his two daughters in order to collect life insurance policies on them. But further investigation connected Elder to at least 10 more killings– all of whom died mysteriously while living with her. She was sentenced to life in prison.
Chester Turner
Chester Turner was convicted of raping and murdering 14 women in the Los Angeles area. During the ’80s and’90, investigators said Turner would strangle his victims to death for his own sexual pleasure. The victims were mostly Black sex workers or homeless women– one of which was pregnant, ABC 7 reported. He was sentenced to death.
Maury Travis
Maury Travis, who was placed on suicide watch ahead of his trial, was found hanging dead in his cell on June 10, 2002. Although he was never convicted, police in Missouri alleged Travis killed between 12 and 20 women in the St. Louis area from 2001 to 2002, ABC News reported. According to reports, Travis was working as a hotel waiter at the time of the murders. He was also on parole for a separate robbery from 1989.
Joseph Paul Franklin
Joseph Paul Franklin was a white supremacist, who targeted people of color during the ’70s and ’80s. According to BBC, he first opened fire at a synagogue in Chattanooga, killing one man. Hoping to start a race war, he went on to target civil rights activist Vernon Jordan in 1980, although Jordan survived the attack. Franklin continued with his spree, killing two Black teens and an interracial couple. Once Franklin was finally caught by authorities, he was given seven life sentences and one death sentence. He died by lethal injection in 2013.
Samuel Little
Samuel Little confessed to 93 murders which occurred over the span of five decades, according to the FBI. Police say he was able to evade capture because many of his victims’ deaths were originally ruled accidental or ruled as suicides. Eventually, he was caught and sentenced to life in prison. He died of natural causes at age 80, and the FBI is still trying to verify all of his confessions.
Calvin Jackson
The “Central Park Slasher” didn’t get his nickname until after the conviction and confession of Clavin Jackson in 1974. Until then, the serial killer terrorized Manhattan, killing nine women, the New York Times reported. Jackson reportedly chose single Black women between the ages of 39 and 79. He would then break into their homes, smother them with a pillow and then violate their corpses. Jackson was convicted of the killings and sentenced to life in prison.
Dellmus Colvin
Dellmus Colvin worked as a truck driver, giving him the perfect opportunity to target and kill Black women while on the road. In total, Colvin was convicted of the murders of two prostitutes in Ohio, according to PJ Star News. He later pled guilty to four other murders although he told investigators he was responsible for at least a dozen more between 1987 and 2005.
Wayne Williams
The Atlanta child murders are regarded as some of the most gruesome in the city’s history. From 1979 to 1981, close to 30 Black children were murdered. But to this day, no one was ever tried in direct connection to the case. However, one man, Wayne Williams, was eventually arrested for two separate murders, and police linked him to the child killings, we previously told you. Williams was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, though many people he was not responsible for the child killings.
Anthony McKnight
In 2019, Anthony McKnight was found dead in his prison cell at age 65. He had been sentenced to 63 years in prison in connection to the kidnapping, rape and murder of a Black woman, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported. Before then, McKnight killed four other women and assaulted five others in Oakland, Calif. during the ’80s. He was arrested in 1986.
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