Connecticut may seem like a very boring and run-of-the-mill state, but what you may not know is that it’s home to some infamous killers. Some of the more famous ones are William Devin Howell, Adam Lanza, and Michael Bruce Ross. These men were all serial killers and are known as brutal and cold-blooded.

The first killer on the list is William Devin Howell and is known as the “Sick Ripper.” All of Howell’s victims were young or middle-aged women. The majority of the killings occurred in upstate or mid-Connecticut. Before Howell killed these women, he brutally raped them. Howell claimed he never wanted to kill the women; he just raped them and knew they would go to the police after and decided he must end their life in order for there to be no evidence. Howell was first charged for the killing of one woman and was sentenced to 15 years, but then was found guilty for murdering six other girls. Howell is now serving 360 years in prison for the killings of seven different women after he raped them.

Another infamous Connecticut killer is Michael Bruce Ross. Ross had a very traumatic and scarring childhood, growing up on a Connecticut farm where parents abused him. Signs of Ross being a killer should’ve been noticed when he strangled a chicken at his farm when he was a child. This odd behavior started when his uncle committed suicide. Ross’s committed his  first rape when he was in his sophomore year of college. He then murdered a woman later that year. Ross said he was depressed and wanted to commit suicide, but ‘didn’t have the soul to do it’ so he continued murdering girls. He killed eight women across Connecticut and one in New York. The victims were all young high school girls that he strangled to death, which is where he earned the name, “The Roadside Strangler.” Ross was sentenced to the death penalty and was the first person to ever receive it in the state of Connecticut. The death penalty was then abolished in the state 10 years later and that is why William Howell didn’t receive it.

The most well-known killer from Connecticut is Adam Lanza. Lanza is known for the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, one of the biggest school shootings in the world with a death count of 28 (including himself). When Lanza was in middle school he was diagnosed with a form of autism and became very antisocial. Many believe that Lanza’s mental health issues were behind the cause of the shooting. Prior to going to the school, Lanza had shot his mother four times in the head and then took her car to the school. Lanza had an AR-15 rifle which was used to kill his mother and also 27 students at the elementary school. Police stormed the school after Lanza had committed suicide with a handgun; the school was later demolished and rebuilt. The people lost on that day will be remembered forever, and parents of the children lost are still trying to spread awareness of the dangers of school shootings.