7 serial killers who were caught

(RNN) – Police in Houston recently apprehended Jose Gilbert Rodriguez, bringing to an end what may have been a string of serial murders.

Authorities suspect Rodriguez, a registered sex offender with a violent history and who was out on parole, could be responsible for as many as three murders in the area.

Police caught a break, according to reports, when a resident identified Rodriguez and made a call.

Without that intervention, it’s possible more killings would have taken place.

These are seven of the most notorious serial killers who, thankfully, were eventually stopped:

1. Charles Manson – 1934-2017: The infamous founder of the Manson Family cult instructed followers to murder over 35 people while high on LSD and mushrooms. He was in and out of prison before forming his following in the late 60s. He orchestrated a string of murders beginning in 1969 and was originally sentenced to death, which was later modified to a life sentence after a legal ruling. He was repeatedly denied parole and died in prison in 2017. 
2. Ted Bundy – 1946-1989: The murderer, rapist, and necrophiliac claimed he killed 36 women, but it is alleged that the number is somewhere around 100. He was first arrested in Utah in 1975, and authorities began to suspect him in a number of other murders. He escaped from jail in Colorado, where he was being charged with another murder, in 1977, and committed three more murders before being caught again in Florida in 1978. He was executed by electric chair in the state in 1989.
3. H.H. Holmes – 1861-1896: Known as America’s First Serial Killer, it’s estimated that he killed between 20 and 200 people in his three-story “Murder Castle” in Chicago, an apartment and commercial building where he lured victims. He was arrested in Boston in 1894 and tried for murder in Chicago in 1895. He was convicted and sentenced to death and hung in Philadelphia in 1896.
4. Jeffrey Dahmer – 1960-1994: He became infamous for his gruesome murders, luring men to his home, raping them, killing them, and then dismembering parts of their bodies for keepsakes. After one victim was able to escape, Dahmer was arrested in 1991, and he confessed his crimes. He was sentenced to 16 life terms for his murders and was beaten to death by another inmate while in prison in 1994. 
5. Richard Ramirez – 1960-2013: Known as the “Night Stalker,” he killed 14 people, and raped and tortured almost two dozen others. A professed Satanist who never expressed any remorse over his actions, police eventually tracked him down after he identified himself to victims during a 1985 attack. He was convicted on 13 counts of murder and an assortment of other crimes in 1989 and died in 2013 due to ill health after having been on death row for 23 years. 
6. Gary Ridgway – 1949-present: Known as the “Green River Killer,” he plead guilty to 48 murders around Seattle in the 1980s and 90s, but in 2013 claimed the number is closer to 80. His confession and plea bargain spared him the death penalty, and he is currently serving 48 life sentences with no possibility for parole at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. 
7. John Wayne Gacy – 1942-1994: He raped, tortured and murdered 33 young men and buried them under his house in Illinois in a string of assaults in the 1970s. He was infamously associated with clown iconography because he worked as one at various events and parties. Suspicion fell on him after a 15-year-old boy went missing in 1978. While being investigated, he confessed to his lawyers. He was found guilty of 33 murders and sentenced to death. He was executed in 1994. 

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