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The FBI supposedly estimates there are upwards of 50 untracked serial killers claiming victims in the United States at any given time. Some people believe there’s growing evidence that suggests one of them is currently operating in the Houston area, but officials are pushing back against a belief that stems from dozens of bodies that have been discovered in the city’s bayous.
A sizeable chunk of the general public has a morbid fascination with serial killers, and it’s hard not to be unnerved by the many grisly stories concerning people who spent years killing in cold blood simply because they could.
Some of those murderers spent decades roaming among the rest of us before they were caught, and others—including the Zodiac Killer, I-70 Killer, and Jack the Ripper—managed to elude capture despite extensive efforts to track them down.
There’s an oft-repeated stat that claims the FBI believes there are between 25 to 50 serial killers actively operating in America (a book published in the 1980s says the agency pegged that number as high as 500), and in 2018, the founder of the Murder Accountability Project asserted there have been 2,000 who fit the bill in the past four decades.
Now, authorities in Houston are attempting to downplay concerns about one targeting people in the biggest city in Texas.
Houston’s district attorney says there’s no evidence to suggest a serial killer is responsible for bodies that have been discovered in the city’s bayous
Houston has seen its murder rate drop in recent years after a spike in the 2010s, but the city (which is home to around 2.3 million residents) has still reported at least 300 per year for the bulk of the previous decade.
Officials also have their hands full when it comes to bodies that have been found in bayous in the region. In 2024, 35 corpses were recovered from those aquatic areas, and that total for 2025 currently sits at 34 after three were removed over the course of a week earlier this month.
According to KPRC2, that trend has led to a number of residents speculating that the bayous have become a dumping ground for a serial killer, but Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare firmly denied there is any evidence that suggests that is actually the case while speaking with the outlet.
Teare stressed that most of the bodies that have been found in the bayous (which collectively span 2,5000 miles) were discovered in the vicinity of homeless encampments and cited drugs and alcohol as contributing factors in what he positioned as accidental deaths, saying:
“It’s kind of a little-known fact, but when you get into the bayous, it is very difficult to get out. When you combine that with someone that is high on some substance, someone that is intoxicated somehow, it makes it even more difficult.”
The serial killer speculation is fueled by the fact that coroners are unable to determine a definitive cause of death in 40% of bayou-related cases stretching back to 2017. Teare acknowledged “there are times where we recover bodies that were placed in the bayou criminally,” but he added “that is not something that is a regular occurrence.”