We hope you’re ready because you’re about to learn who the worst people in America were.
From serial killers who did unspeakable things to science experiments gone wrong,
you won’t believe what these 20 Americans did.
Number 20 on our list is the American known as the “Merchant of Misery.”
James DeWolf was the head of one of the largest slave-importing families in America.
Based out of Rhode Island, DeWolf amassed a huge fortune selling other humans.
Normally we think of slavery as happening in the southern states during early American history,
however, DeWolf made his fortune by selling slaves in the northern territories. He was indicted for
murder in 1790 for throwing a sick female slave overboard on one of his ships, but the charges
were dropped. Anyone who dealt in the slave trade was a bad person, but making tons of money off of
selling other people without any remorse makes James DeWolf one of the worst Americans ever.
In the 1600’s William Stoughton was the judge who presided over many of the Salem witch trials.
He was a crazed madman who saw witches around every corner. He is also the 19th worst
American on our list. Stoughton had no legal training and was only educated for ministry.
When women in Salem were accused of being witches, Stoughton presided over the trials.
He had no intention of allowing the women representation, or witnesses to defend them.
Instead, Stoughton used his nonexistent legal background to condemn the women on the basis of
what he believed. He sent 19 people to the gallows to be hung for witchcraft, 14 of which were women.
William Stoughton was the worst fake judge presiding over fake claims in American history.
Sometimes we forget how terrible Americans were earlier in the country’s history. The atrocities
on other peoples, especially those native to the land were sometimes unfathomable. John Chivington
is a name you’ve probably never heard before, but he is number 18 on our list of the worst Americans
for what he did to native peoples. On November 29, 1864 Colonel John Chivington ordered the
massacre of over 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children, and elderly at Sand Creek, Colorado.
They had already surrendered, but Chivington ordered his men to take no prisoners, and he
watched as his troops slaughtered the defenseless indigenous people. And something to keep in mind
as you try to grapple with this terrible American; he was also an ordained minister.
For number 17 we come to an early American president. Presidents can be polarizing
depending on who they are, and what party they belong to. However, only one president
did nothing as the United States literally got ripped apart. James Buhanan idly sat by
as the southern states spread slavery further west after the Louisiana Purchase and Mexican
War. During his inauguration he vehemently supported the Dred Scott decision in which
the Supreme Court stated that Congress could not keep slavery out of newly acquired territories.
Buchanan also refused to challenge states that intended to succeed from the Union. Instead,
he let the situation become more and more out of control, until finally it was all but inevitable
that the southern states would leave the Union and civil war would ensue. The really messed
up thing is that he repeatedly claimed history would remember him fondly as a president who
did the duty given to him by the Constitution. Unfortunately for Buchanan, history remembers
him as one of the worst presidents of all time. And speaking of the Confederacy, there was one
American who may have been worse than all the rest during the Civil War. Nathan Bedford Forrest is
number 16 on our list because of the heinous war crimes he committed during the Civil War. In April
of 1864 an entire garrison of black Union soldiers surrendered to Forrest’s troops, but rather than
take the soldiers prisoner, he ordered them killed even after they laid down their weapons. And this
was not just an execution, it was a slaughter as Forrest ordered every soldier in the garrison be
killed. It should come as no surprise that Forrest was also one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan
and may have been the organization's first Grand Wizard. Either one of these atrocities is enough
to make Forrest one of the worst Americans of all times, and together they put him high on the list.
Men of the cloth are supposed to be loving and pious, but not Father Charle Coughlin who is
the 15th worst person in America. He used his popular radio show in the 1930’s to spew hate,
facisim, and anti-Semitism across the country. He is considered to be one of America’s first mass
propagandists, and he did not have a nice message to spread. Basically Coughlin was the first
person to use the airwaves to spread radical, unfounded, messages of hate. Unfortunately,
he would not be the last person to do this, and the practice persists even to this day.
Most of the worst people in America tend to be men,
but not all. Some American women can be just as bad.
Number 14 on our list of the worst people in America is Belle Gunness, also known as
“Hell’s Belle.” She was one of the worst female serial killers to ever live in the United States.
Her body count may have been as high as 40 people between 1884 and 1908.
Belle lived in Chicago where she killed two of her husbands and all seven of her children.
She collected the insurance money on her victim’s lives to live a life of luxury.
Belle was also reported to have lured suitors to her farmhouse where she would drug and kill them.
When things started to go south for Belle Gunness she faked her own death by killing her maid
and last three children. Then she burnt down her house with all of the bodies inside.
When investigators looked into the fire they found that the smoldering remains of
the adult body were too small to be Belle. They also uncovered that she had withdrawn
all of her money from the bank only days before. Belle Gunness was never found,
but her atrocities most definitely make her one of the worst people in America.
Number 13 is a lesser known murderer in American history. Her name was Clementine
Barnabet. She lived in Louisiana where she may have murdered as many as 35 people around 1910.
But it is not the amount of people who got her on this list, it is how she killed them and why.
Barnabet was a member of the Church of Sacrifice. When arrested she stated that priestesses of
the church had given her “conjuring bags” which would make her undetectable to the police if she
committed a crime. Barnabet claimed that her first murder was just to see if the Voodoo magic worked,
and then all subsequent murders were the will of the church. It was reported that
several of Barnabet’s victims were chopped to death by an axe,
making Barnabet one of the earliest axe murderers in American history.
What this next American did is so messed up
and unbelievable that even the Nazi’s kept tabs on his work.
Number 12 on our list is Charles Davenport. Davenport was an American
proponent of eugenics. This alone makes him a bad person,
but what he did to others in the name of science makes him one of the worst people in America.
His goal was to create an American master race of Nordic and Anglo-Saxon Protestants.
He advocated for immigration restrictions of “undesirable” ethnic groups. Davenport was also
a vocal proponent for sterilization of certain groups and forbidding marriages between races.
He also contributed to the unknown sterilization of between 40,000 and 70,000 people during
this time. Most of these people were poor, uneducated, and of non-white populations.
This was a dark part of American history often not talked about. Davenport and his colleagues
literally sterilized tens of thousands of Americans. At the end of World War
II German leaders cited America's eugenic sterilization laws in defense of their own
actions at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunals. Think about how messed up that is for a second.
Number 11 on the list of worst people in America also exploited pseudoscience and bad practices
for his own means. Both animals and humans were definitely harmed by this next American.
At the turn of the twentieth century John Brinkley made millions of dollars through
implanting goat testicles in men to help restore their virility. I think it is pretty obvious why
he is on the list of worst people in America. Eventually the American Medical Association
sued him for libel and his practice quickly collapsed as he went bankrupt. He did this
procedure to hundreds of men, 42 of which we know died from infections after the procedure.
None of the men had increased potency because of the goat testicles now attached to their bodies.
We are now moving forward in American history and you may be surprised how much worse things get.
The worst people in America are actually more recent than you might think.
The 10th worst American on our list is Samuel Little. Little was one of the most deadly,
if not the deadliest, serial killer in American history. He claimed to have killed as many as 93
victims between 1970 and 2012. Although not all of these murders were actually connected to Little,
the FBI did launch an investigation to see how many innocent lives were taken by the serial
killer. They confirmed that Little killed at least 50 people and that it was likely his
total body count was closer to the 90’s. Many of his victims were strangled to death so the last
thing they ever saw was the crazed look in Samuel Littles’ eyes as they slowly lost consciousness.
Ted Bundy is a name you’ve probably heard and it should come as no surprise that he
is number 9 on the list. Bundy was often identified as charismatic and good looking,
which is an odd description for someone as terrible as this serial killer.
He kidnapped, abused, and murdered numerous women. He confessed to killing 30 women,
but the worst part is that many of the lives could have been saved. Bundy was arrested
and incarcerated multiple times, but he escaped from prison not once, but twice.
He murdered multiple victims in the same day, and is even reported to have abducted multiple women
from the exact same location only hours apart. He was eventually executed by electric chair,
but we may never know the full extent of the carnage left behind by this terrible American.
If you’re afraid of clowns,
number 8 on our list of worst people in America is probably the reason why.
John Wayne Gacy murdered a minimum of 33 young men in the 1970’s.
This should be enough to make him one of the worst Americans of all time,
but this gruesome murderer took things to nightmarish levels. He was known as the
“Killer Clown.” This was because he performed shows as a character named “Pogo the Clown”
or “Patches the Clown” at different children’s hospitals and charity events. He would abduct
young men from these functions and bring them back to his house near Chicago where he would
abuse and torture his victims before eventually using a garrote to strangle the boys to death.
What’s worse than a person committing their own atrocities? People who get others to do their
bidding for them. And the next few people on our list are the worst of the worst.
Number 7 on our list of worst people in America embodies this persona.
Charles Manson gathered a group of about 100 followers who were called The Manson Family.
They carried out as many as 35 killings. One of the most brutal killings was in 1969 when The
Manson Family murdered a number of Hollywood's elites at a dinner party. And although Manson
was not directly involved in the massacre, he was charged with inciting the violence.
He was convicted of first degree murder for directing members of his cult to commit the crime.
The family members claimed that they killed in the name of Manson because the Hollywood industry
had rejected their leader. Anyone who would brain wash over a hundred people
and use them for his own deranged means is definitely one of the worst people in America.
Number 6 and 5 is a tag team duo. They are both terrible people who did horrible things to others.
Keith Raniere was the founder of a pyramid scheme turned cult called NXIVM. Think of it as a pay as
you go program. As you want to learn more about Raniere’s philosophy and teachings, you have
to pay more and more money. And if this wasn’t bad enough, members were so invested that they
started recruiting their own friends and family into the cult. It was literally a pyramid scheme.
As the years progressed more and more members, especially women, found themselves being exploited
by Keith Raniere and his close associate Allison Mack. They would target anyone who had even the
slightest interest in the organization saying it would change their lives. They collected
millions of dollars from their members since each level in the organization required that they take
courses offered by NXIVM to receive peace and understanding around their lives.
Of course all of this was just a way to make money and no benefits came from the courses they
offered. But this is where things get really dark. There were special groups of women that Allison
Mack would recruit from within the cult. This group of women would be literally branded with a
hot poker and the brand itself was unbelievable. The women were told it was a special symbol,
but what the brand turned out to be were the initials of Keith Raniere and Allison Mack.
As you might suspect from a cult leader, the women who were branded and others in the organization
were sexually assaulted by Keith Raniere. Both Raniere
and Mack were arrested in Mexico and extradited back to the United States.
Keith Raniere received 120 years in prison for racketeering, sex trafficking,
and forced labor conspiracy. Allison Mack only received three years in prison for racketeering,
even though other women have come forward and said that Allison Mack was the reason they got branded,
and that she helped lure unsuspecting women into the clutches of Keith Raniere.
Number 4 is a man who literally made up a religion to influence followers and hold power over them.
This man was a sci-fi and fantasy author named L. Ron Hubbard. The religion he created is
called Scientology. You’ve probably heard horror stories of people who were pretty much abducted
into the Church of Scientology and had to escape. Hubbard didn’t so much start a religion as a cult.
Hubbard used made up stories about aliens and what he called “Dianetics” as the foundation
of his cult. He promised members that through his teachings they could remove the trauma from their
mind and live a life of happiness. Obviously there wasn’t, and still isn’t, any evidence
that Scientology and its teaching can provide benefits to someone’s life. But people paid
massive amounts of money to join the organization, and once they were in, they were trapped.
Hubbard completely made up the teachings of Scientology and accumulated massive
amounts of money from its members. But the lasting effects of Scientology,
the abuse of its members, and the lies about being able to help people
are what makes L. Ron Hubbard one of the worst people in America.
What these next few Americans did will shock and disgust you.
The top 3 worst people in America were all into necrophilia. Earle Nelson makes our list not
because of how many people he killed, but who his victims were and what he did to the bodies after
they were dead. In the 1920’s Nelson was known as the “Gorilla Killer” or “the Dark Strangler”
for the murders he committed along the west coast of the United States. He would target
middle aged landladies, rent an apartment from them, and then brutally murder the women.
He killed the woman via strangulation and then used their bodies after death. Nelson was also
connected to the killing of a 14-year-old girl who he not only killed, but mutilated after she died.
Number 2 on our list is Gary Ridgway. He was known as The Green River Killer.
In the 1980’s and 90’s he targeted sex workers from Seattle. He was convicted of 49 murders,
but is suspected of killing over 90 women. Other than sex workers,
Ridgway also targeted women in vulnerable circumstances and young females who were
under-aged runaways. He would dump the bodies in secluded areas of King County,
Washington and was reported to go back to them to have sexual intercourse with their corpses.
We have now reached the end of our list. The worst person in America goes to Jeffrey Dahmer
who took being terrible to a whole new level. Dahmer was a serial killer who
targeted mostly African American men at gay bars and other public places. He lured them
back to his house where he offered them alcohol laced with drugs that would knock them out.
After the victims were subdued he would strangle them to death.
Once his victims were dead Dahmer engaged in sexual acts with the corpses.
If this wasn’t bad enough he would then dismember the bodies and dispose of the remains. However,
perhaps the worst part was that Dahmer kept souvenirs of his victims like their skulls
or genitalia. And if all of this wasn’t bad enough, Jeffry Dahmer would take photos of
the murder and mutilation processes so he could remember and relive each heinous act
after committing them. The body parts in his fridge and photos of his gruesome atrocities
are clear evidence that Jeffry Dahmer was the worst person in America.
Now check out “American Behaviors Considered Rude In Other Countries.”
Or watch “Who Are The Most Evil Serial Killers in America?”