Serial Killers, Murderers and their Religion / Faith

It's odd that almost every religion has a vow which decrees "thou shalt not kill"; a pretty bog-standard easy-to-follow rule which at least 99.99999% of the people on this planet manage to keep to on a daily basis, even if some of us are atheists - and yet a recent study has shown that "people of faith" are more likely to be murderers than atheists - so does religion does play a big part in the life of many serial killers and murderers? Let's take a peek at who has what faith. 

As always, this is not a fully comprehensive list and I will be updating it as-and-when new data comes to light, but if you have any "accurate" information (with a link to a proven source), feel free to leave it in the comments section below. Thank you and enjoy. Mx

• Aileen Wuornos - mostly atheist, but upon her conviction Wuornos became a "born again" Christian having been legally adopted by an evangelical Christian couple - link
• Albert Fish - devoutly Christian, but he stemmed from a family prone to religious psychosis, hence his preoccupation with the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22:1–24), that sacrificing a boy (Isaac) would provide penance for his sins - link
• Anthony Hardy - press reports have alluded to him being a practising Satanist, owing to a rubber devil being in his flat, but there's no evidence to back the Satanism claim - link
• David Berkowitz - raised Jewish, baptised aged 20 and converted to Catholicism, but recently become a devout "born again Christian" who (as a play on his former nickname "Son of Sam", he now calls himself "Son of Hope" - link

• David Copeland - although not a "Christian" in the traditional sense, Copeland would often read anti-Semitic literature by extreme right wing Christian groups
• David Ray Parker - became a "born again" Christian who found God after 2 1/2 years in solitary confinement where he read his Bible to “get right with God”
• Dean Arnold Corll - raised Catholic by parents, attended various religious rallies and events but there's little evidence of strict religious belief
• Dennis Nilsen - he was raised as devout Catholic into a strictly religious household, but he is currently agnostic, learn more about Dennis Nilsen here 

• Dennis Rader - was raised strictly Lutheran, was a member of Christ Lutheran Church in Park City, Wichita (Kansas) and had been elected president of the church council - link
• Donald Henry Gaskins - forced to attend church as a child, but not religious
• Ed Gein - raised by his mother Augusta Wilhelmine, who was a strict, uncaring and violent Lutheran, which is where many of Ed's sexual peculiarities stem from - link
• Edmund Kemper - although he was not raised into a religious family, he would claim that a "religious conversion" had taken place whilst in Atascadero prison, awaiting sentence
• Gary Ridgway -  became a devout Baptist (during his second marriage), proselytising door-to-door, reading the Bible aloud at work/home and insisting his family followed the strict teachings, often crying whilst reading the Bible, was regarded as a religious fanatic - link
• H H Holmes - devoutly and strict religious parents, his mother would often lock her children in the attic without food as a means of punishment for even the smallest of "sins" - link
• Dr Harold Shipman - both Harold and his wife Primrose were raised as devout Methodists, which caused ructions in both families as they became pregnant within a few months of meeting and were unmarried, hence the need for a shotgun wedding - link
• Herbert Mullin - started researching into "eastern religions" aged 20 and became obsessed with reincarnation after the death of his friend Dean Richardson, although he would often  condemn Catholicism and then flip into being a fanatical Catholic - link
• Janie Lou Gibbs - a devout Christian who murdered her three sons, grandson and husband with rat poison, inherited $31000, and donated $3000 of that to the church - link 
• Jeffrey Dahmer - born into a devout family of the Stone-Campbell denomination known as the "Churches of Christ", he was an active churchgoer until age 5, renounced his religion (possibly owing to his sexuality) but was re-baptised during his incarceration - link
• Joel Rifkin - raised in an adopted Jewish household, although would rarely abide by the ideals of his faith as (being adopted) he never felt like this was his religion - link
• John Allen Muhammad - born John Allen Williams, he joined the Nation of Islam in 1987 (aged 27), changed his surname to Muhammad and provided security for the 1995 "Million Man March", but was denounced by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan - link
• John Wayne Gacy - raised into a devout Catholic family, went to private Christian school, and aged 18 he thought about becoming a priest - link
• John Bodkin Adams - born into a deeply austere Protestant family of the Plymouth Brethren, his father, Samuel, was a preacher in the local congregation - link
• John George Haigh - his parents were members of the Plymouth Brethren, a conservative Protestant sect, who saw all forms of entertainment as sinful, so only stories from the bible were tolerated. As a child, Haigh was never allowed out, and his father installed a 10 foot high fence around their garden to keep the sins of the outside world away - link
• John Reginald Christie - Anglican, a regular attendee at All Souls’ Church, Halifax - link
• Judy Buenoano - insists she is a devout Roman Catholic - link
• Lee Boyd Malvo - baptised as a Seventh Day Adventist in 1999 (aged 14), but influenced by fellow "Washington sniper" John Allen Muhammad, Malvo converted to Islam - link
• Levi Bellfield - converted to Islam in prison and is now known as Yusuf Rahim - link
• Myra Hindley - raised as a Catholic in a semi-religious family, Hindley was baptised as a Catholic on 16th August 1942 and regularly attended Holy Communion, although with Brady, Hindley renounced her Catholicism, but she later claimed to have become a reformed Catholic (in Holloway Prison when parole was mooted) - link
• Peter Manuel - raised as a practising Catholic, he attended Park St Roman Catholic School in Motherwell (Scotland) and ended a 3 month engagement over religious differences - link
• Peter Sutcliffe - raised as a Catholic, and would later claim that "the voice of God" had instructed him to kill fallen women (prostitutes), like he was on a "divine mission from God". In 2015, Sutcliffe was baptised as a Jehovah's Witness - link
• Peter Tobin - born into an Irish Catholic family, he worked as a church handyman at St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church in Anderston (Glasgow), he ran away with the Jesus Fellowship, a religious sect in Coventry, and he is also believed to be the illusive serial-killer known as Bible John
• Richard Ramirez - claimed to be a Satanist, began to worship Satan aged 18, when he drove to San Francisco to meet with Anton LaVey, author of The Satanic Bible - link
• Robert “Willie” Pickton - no evidence of being raised as a Christian, but in a series of letters he uses direct quotes from the Bible on numerous occasions - link
• Rodney Alcala - raised in Catholic family, educated in both of Catholic and public schools, but by the age of 12 he'd had enough of religious education and became agnostic - link
• Ted Bundy - baptised as a Mormon at the LDS Church, Salt Lake City in 1974 under the name of Theodore Robert Cowell, his name remains on the Mormon roll - link 
• Timothy McVeigh - raised Roman Catholic, confirmed at the Good Shepherd Church in Pendleton (New York) in 1995, but lost his faith along the way, informing to the Buffalo News that he was agnostic one day before his execution, and yet he took the Last Rites before his execution, which were administered by Father Charles Smith - link
• Velma Barfield - July 1978, whilst in prison for murder, she heard a program by evangelist J. K Kinkle, she accepted forgiveness for her sins and “found God”. - link

No known religion: Albert DeSalvo, Arthur Shawcross, Beverley Allitt, Colin Ireland, Derrick Bird, Donald Neilson, Paul Bernardo, Kenneth Bianchi, Richard Chase, Ray & Faye Copeland, Charles Cullen, Dorothea Puente, Kristen Gilbert, Larry Eyler, Henry Lee Lucas, Fred West, George Joseph Smith, Glen Edward Rogers, Graham Young, Ian Brady, Jeremy Bamber, Joanna Dennehy, John Childs, John Straffen, Kenneth Erskine, Michael Lupo, Michael Ryan, Orville Lynn Majors, Patrick MacKay, Peter Bryan, Randall Woodfield, Ray Fernandez & Martha Beck, Raymond Morris, Robert Black, Robert Maudsley,  Rose West, Stephen Akinmurele, Stephen Griffiths, Stephen Port, Steve Wright, Steven Grieveson, Ted Kaczynski and Trevor Hardy. Important: this does not mean they didn't have a religion, just that (as of yet) I have been unable to find evidence that religion played an "important" part of their life/upbringing etc. 

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Michael J Buchanan-Dunne is a writer, crime historian, podcaster and tour-guide who runs Murder Mile Walks, a guided tour of Soho’s most notorious murder cases, hailed as “one of the top ten curious, quirky, unusual and different things to do in London” and featuring 12 murderers, including 3 serial killers, across 15 locations, totalling 75 deaths, over just a one mile walk.