According to the FBI's Serial Crime Unit, there are an estimated 35-50 active serial killers in the U.S. at any given moment, every day. It can be assumed there are at least one to two in Texas alone. This list is made up of eleven of the most sadistic and notorious killers in Texas:

1. Tommy Lynn Sells

Tommy Lynn Sells was born January 28, 1964, and was executed March 3, 2014. He is believed to be responsible for the deaths of more than thirteen people across Missouri, New York, Illinois, and Texas. Because the demographic of his murders, and his admittance to hopping trains and stealing cars to get around, he is dubbed the "Coast to Coast Killer." The crime that earned him a spot on death row was the murder of thirteen year old Katy Harris, and attempted murder of ten year old Krystal Surles. Best friends, Katy and Krystal were abruptly awoken during a sleepover after Sells climbed through the small bedroom window. Krystal Surles survived the attack by pretending to be dead after Sells slit both her and Katy Harris' throats, and later identified Sells in a police lineup.

2. Angel Maturino Resendiz

Angel Maturino Resendiz was born August 1, 1960, and executed June 27, 2006. His convictions include rape, robbery and murder. He was notorious for hopping trains to get around the states, and usually targeted people who lived around the railroad tracks. This is how he earned the name of the "Railroad Killer." The states where Resendiz killed include Texas, Illinois, Florida, Kentucky, California, and Georgia. He is suspected of murdering at least fifteen people, with eight victims in Texas alone. The murder of Dr. Claudia Benton in Houston, Texas was probably the most shocking. Four days before the Christmas of 1998, Resendiz broke into the home of Dr. Benton, and beat, raped and stabbed her 39 times. He also attacked a couple in Lexington, Kentucky; Christopher Maier was bound, gagged and bludgeoned with a rock. His girlfriend Holly Dunn survived the vicious rape and beating, and was able to put Resendiz behind bars after identifying him.

3. Dean Corll

"The Candy Man," Dean Corll was born December 24, 1973. A former member of the military, Corll was an especially violent and sadistic serial killer who specifically targeted young boys (eighteen and younger) to rape, torture and mutilate. Corll is suspected to be responsible for the deaths of twenty-seven boys, primarily in Houston, Texas. He used two boys he befriended and bribed, David Brooks and Elmer Henley to help lure potential victims to his torture chamber of a house. In exchange for bringing new boys to his house, Corll gave Brooks and Henley $200 each; boys from a seedy neighborhood known as "The Heights" were usually targeted, because their disappearance was less likely to be noticed or acknowledged. Elmer Henley eventually became consumed with guilt for his part in helping Corll carry out these brutal and sick crimes against his peers, and shot Corll six times. Henley also led police to graves around the state where Corll had disposed of the bodies.

4. Kenneth McDuff

Kenneth McDuff was born March 21, 1946, is suspected in the strangulation deaths of fourteen people around central Texas, and was sentenced to death twice. McDuff is known as the "Broomstick Murderer," because he used a broomstick to help him strangle his victims. The rapes and murders of Melissa Northrup, 22 in Waco, Texas and Colleen Reed, 28 from Austin, Texas, sent McDuff to death row. He was ultimately executed November 17, 1998; his final statement was, "I'm ready to be released, release me".

5. Henry Lee Lucas

Henry Lee Lucas was born August 23, 1936. He is considered one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. He is linked to at least eleven unknown victims and disappearances, but has confessed to over a hundred, earning him the nickname "Confession Killer." Lucas was born into a very unstable and volatile household; both of his parents were alcoholics and his mother had a raging temper that Lucas found himself the victim of almost daily. He met drifter Ottis Toole in Jacksonville, Florida who later became his lover and killing partner. Lucas married Toole's mentally challenged niece Frieda Powell, who was thirty years his junior, and later murdered and dismembered her. Lucas' other victims include ranch owner Katie Rich in Ringgold, Texas and his own mother. However, he was sentenced for the murder of a Jane Doe dubbed "Orange Socks," by police, who was found Halloween night in Texas. Henry Lee Lucas died of heart failure in prison on March 12, 2001.

6. Charles Albright

"Eyeball Killer" and "Dallas Ripper" Charles Albright was born August 10, 1933. Albright lived a seemingly normal life in Dallas, Texas with his wife, whom he had dated all through college, and their daughter; no one in his family knew he was hiding such sadistic obsessions and fantasies. He was convicted for the murders of prostitutes Shirley Williams, Mary Pratt, and Susan Peterson; all three women had their eyes surgically removed by Albright. He was sentenced to life in prison December 18, 1991.

7. Carl Eugene Watts

Carl Eugene Watts was born November 7, 1953, in Killeen, Texas. Watts harbored fantasies about kidnapping, raping and killing women during his adolescence; he is suspected of killing his first victim at age fifteen. His victim profile was young women, usually prostitutes, between the ages of fourteen and forty four; he was known for stalking and torturing his victims before ultimately killing them. He was known as the "Sunday Morning Slasher." Police suspect Watts of being responsible for the deaths of at least 90 women. Unlike most serial killers, Carl Eugene Watts did not stick with one specific method of killing his victims; he would switch between stabbing, bludgeoning, strangulation, and even drowning. Watts moved to Houston, Texas at the age of twenty, after being expelled from Lane College in Tennessee where he was on football scholarship. He was expelled after being accused of stalking and assaulting women. In exchange for only 60 years in prison, Watts agreed to a plea deal and gave the police full confessions. While in prison however, Watts was linked to ten other murders, and was given two additional life without-the-chance-of-parole sentences for the murders of Gloria Steele and Helen Dutcher. Eyewitness to Dutcher's murder, Joseph Foy described Watts as evil and deprived of emotion. Watts died of prostate cancer in prison September 21, 2007.

8. Fariyon Wardrip

Fariyon Wardrip was born March 6, 1986. He is responsible for the rapes and murders of five women in Wichita Falls, Texas. He targeted young, pretty women under the age of twenty five, often raping or sexually assaulting them before stabbing or strangling them. He was sentenced to death for the murder of Terry Sims, and three consecutive life sentences for the murders of Toni Gibbs, Debra Taylor and Ellen Blau.

9. Genene Jones

The only female on the list Genene Jones was born July 13, 1950. She was a nurse, employed at a clinic in Kerrville, Texas, where she was suspected of murdering forty six infants in her care. She drugged the children during routine visits with drugs, such as digoxin, heparin and succinylcholine; all three drugs cause temporary paralysis of skeletal muscles, as well as decreased breathing, which results in cardiac arrest in children. She was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the murder of fifteen month old Chelsea McClellan. Later, a concurrent term of 60 years was added for the killing of Rolando Santos with the use of heparin. She is scheduled to be released in 2018 due to prison overcrowding.

10. Robert Ben Rhoades

Robert Ben Rhoades was born November 22, 1945. He is known as the "Truckstop Killer" for frequenting truck stops around Texas and Illinois to look for victims, usually prostitutes or hitchhikers. Rhoades converted the sleeper cab of his truck into his own torture chamber and often kept victims for days or weeks before ultimately killing and dumping them. His first confirmed victims were hitchhikers Candace Walsh and her husband Douglas Zyskowski in Utah in 1990. He killed Zyskowski immediately and kept Walsh for a week in his truck; he spent a week raping and torturing her before killing her and dumping her body on the side of the road, as he did with her husband. One month later, he killed Texas runaways Regina Kay Walters and her boyfriend Ricky Lee Jones. These murders are considered his most infamous due to pictures later found that Rhoades had taken himself during his torture process. He is currently in prison in Illinois after being convicted in 1994 for the murder of Regina Walters.

11. Joe Ball

Joe Ball was born January 7, 1896, in Elmendorf, Texas. He earned the nicknames "Butcher of Elmendorf" and "The Alligator Man" for feeding the remains of his suspected fourteen victims to alligators he kept as "pets" at his house. Ball came from an affluent family and was considered a womanizer in the area. He was often seen at bars picking up waitresses and bar maidens. He was noted as an excellent marksman and even bootlegged during the prohibition era by selling whiskey out of a barrel in his car. He committed suicide September 24, 1938, fearful of being convicted of his crimes after suspicions continued to arise regarding the disappearances of women he was seen with.