Operating in postwar rural Poland during a period of strict state censorship, Modzelewski carried out a series of killings near Łódź that authorities worked to suppress from public knowledge, making the full scope of his crimes difficult to document. The nickname attached to him reflected the nature of the attacks rather than any folkloric theatrics — his case remains one of the more obscure entries in Polish criminal history precisely because the communist-era government controlled what reached the public. His limited education and unremarkable working life made him, in retrospect, a figure whose danger was invisible until it wasn't.

Hojer operated across Czechoslovakia over roughly three years, and what distinguished his case was the compounding nature of his crimes — each killing accompanied by acts of sexual violence, necrophilia, and, in at least one instance, cannibalism. Investigators were repeatedly misled by false confessions, suicides among unrelated suspects, and a lack of forensic infrastructure, allowing him to continue long after his first murder. One victim was never identified. He was executed in 1986.

Solomon's victims were women on the margins — young, often involved in sex work or drug use, and in several cases buried on properties where he lived or worked as a handyman. The killings unfolded over roughly a year in the Sacramento area, with multiple bodies discovered at the same locations, and he was initially drawn into the investigation after he himself reported the first victim's body to police. His case sits at an early moment in the forensic use of DNA evidence, when that technology was not yet capable of making a definitive match.

His criminal career across interwar Poland traced a path from petty theft in adolescence to a series of robberies and killings that placed him among the country's most wanted, capable enough to evade police sweeps and continue operating across borders. What made his case notable was the combination of sustained violence, geographic mobility, and the ultimately mundane circumstances of his capture — recognized from a newspaper portrait during a drunken disturbance in a restaurant.