Most Evil
Most Evil is an American forensics television program on Investigation Discovery presented by forensic psychiatrist Dr. Michael H. Stone of Columbia University during Seasons 1 & 2; and by forensic psychologist Dr. Kris Mohandie during Season 3. On the show, the presenter rates murderers on a scale of evil that Stone himself has developed. The show features profiles on various murderers, serial killers, and mass murder of various degrees of psychopathy.
Episodes
Season 1 (2006)
Season 2 (2007–2008)
Season 3 (2014)
Scale and criminals
Stone researched hundreds of killers and their methods and motives to develop his hierarchy of "evil". The scale ranges from Category 1, those who kill in self-defense, to the Category 22, serial torturer-murderers. Dr. Stone described the categories of the scale in his book The Anatomy of Evil, published in 2009. In a follow-up book, The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime, published in 2019, he and coauthor Dr. Gary Brucato, a clinical psychologist and researcher, break down the individual categories of the scale in detail.Neurologists, psychologists, and other forensic psychiatrists are interviewed on the show in an attempt to examine and profile the minds of notorious killers. Partial re-enactments are shown along with news footage, evidence, and reports from locals. Neurological, environmental, and genetic factors are examined to help determine what drives a person to kill. Background history and pre-meditation are considered when placing an individual on the scale of evil. The show indirectly deals with the concepts of morality and ethics.
Only criminals profiled on the show to be included below
| Category | Criteria | People |
| 01 | Those who have killed in self-defense, and who do not show traces of psychopathy. | |
| 02 | Jealous lovers who committed murder; although egocentric or immature, they are not psychopaths. | Samuel Collins |
| 03 | Willing companions of killers: aberrant personality, impulse-ridden, with some antisocial traits. | Leslie Van Houten |
| 04 | Those who have killed in self-defense, but had been extremely provocative toward the victim for that to happen. | |
| 05 | Traumatized, desperate persons who killed abusive relatives or other people, but who show remorse for their crime and are not psychopaths. | Martha Ann Johnson, Elmer Wayne Henley |
| 06 | Impetuous, hotheaded murderers, yet without marked psychopathic traits. | Robert John Bardo, Billy Wayne Sinclair, Coy Wayne Wesbrook, Doyle Kelley, Daniel Nieto |
| 07 | Highly narcissistic, but not distinctly psychopathic persons—some with a psychotic core—who kill persons next to them, with jealousy as an underlying motive. | Marybeth Tinning, Mark David Chapman, Armin Meiwes, Diana Dial, David Dowler, Clara Harris, Michael Owen Perry |
| 08 | Non-psychopathic persons with smoldering rage, and who kill when the rage is ignited. | Charles Whitman |
| 09 | Jealous lovers with marked psychopathic features. | Betty Broderick, Ron Luff, Robert Lopez |
| 10 | Killers of people "in the way", such as witnesses. Extremely egocentric, but not distinctly psychopathic. | Rod Ferrell, Susan Smith, Darci Pierce |
| 11 | Psychopathic killers of people "in the way", such as close friends or even family members. | Ismael Cisneros |
| 12 | Power-hungry psychopaths who kill when they are "cornered". | Ervil LeBaron, Angela Sanford |
| 13 | Psychopathic murderers with inadequate, rageful personalities, rage being the reason of their killings. | Ed Gein, Herbert Mullin, Martin Bryant, Karla Faye Tucker, Latasha Pulliam, Richard Angelo, Maksim Gelman, Yusef Rahman |
| 14 | Ruthlessly self-centered psychopathic schemers who kill to benefit themselves. | John List, Richard Farley, Diane Downs, Sylvia White, Herman and Paul Petrillo |
| 15 | Psychopathic cold-blooded spree killers or multiple murderers. | Andrew Cunanan, Charles Manson, Charles Starkweather, Susan Atkins, Charles "Tex" Watson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Colin Ferguson, Michael McDermott, Dorothea Puente, Archie McCafferty, Billy Wayne Coble, Benjamin Atkins, Paul Devoe, Jones' accomplices |
| 16 | Psychopaths committing multiple vicious acts, with repeated acts of extreme violence. | Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood, Karla Homolka, Myra Hindley, Terry Driver, Theodore Kaczynski, Shoko Asahara, Michael Swango, Joseph Paul Franklin, Richard Hooten, Kendall Francois, Heriberto Seda, Levi King, Gerald Atkins, Eric Beishline, James McVey killers |
| 17 | Sexually perverse serial murderers: Rape is the primary motive and the victim is killed to hide evidence. | Ted Bundy, Arthur Shawcross, David Berkowitz, Richard Chase, Aileen Wuornos, Wayne Adam Ford, Henry Lee Lucas, Gerald Stano, George Russell |
| 18 | Psychopathic torture-murderers, where murder is the primary motive, and the victim is killed after a torture that was not prolonged. | Nathan Bar-Jonah, Gary Ridgway, Jerome Brudos, Keith Jesperson, Harvey Miguel Robinson, Terry Caylor, Taylor Helzer, Lipstick killer |
| 19 | Psychopaths driven to terrorism, subjugation, intimidation, and rape, short of murder or murder is not the primary motive. | |
| 20 | Psychopathic torture-murderers, where torture is the primary motive, but in persons with distinct psychoses. | Joseph Kallinger |
| 21 | Psychopaths who do not kill their victims, but do subject them to extreme torture or extreme violence. | |
| 22 | Psychopathic torture-murderers, where torture is the primary motive. In most cases, the crime has a sexual motivating factor. | Tommy Lynn Sells, John Wayne Gacy, Dennis Rader, Theresa Knorr, Charles Ng, Leonard Lake, Paul Bernardo, Ian Brady, Gary Heidnik, David Parker Ray, Westley Allan Dodd, George Hodel, Jeffrey Lundgren, Edmund Kemper, H. H. Holmes, Adolfo Constanzo, John Edward Robinson, Andrei Chikatilo, Jeffrey Dahmer, Gerard John Schaefer, Judith Neelley, Richard Kuklinski, Daniel Conahan, Dean Corll, Ronald Gene Simmons, Jack Owen Spillman, David Elliot Penton, Robert Ben Rhoades, Jim Jones |