Our favourite crime dramas are notorious for keeping us on the edge of our seat as we follow the plot twists and sense of intrigue that keep us coming back for more, but have you ever wondered which show has the most shocking number of crimes committed?
Interested to find this out,Theslotbuzz.com compiled data for 15 of the most popular crime dramas, tallying the number of murders in each series, and revealing the most violent villain of all time!
Key Findings:
- Gotham is the show with the highest number of murders, with a whopping 1,385 across 5 seasons, with an average of 14 people killed per episode.
- Dexter ranked second in the number of murders committed and Ozark third.
- British crime shows Sherlock and Peaky Blinders ranks 7th and 10th by the number of murders in total.
Top 10 crime shows with the most murders committed
| Ranking | Series | Number of Murders per Episode | Total Murder Count |
| 1 | Gotham | 13.9 | 1385 |
| 2 | Dexter | 9.6 | 920 |
| 3 | Ozark | 5.5 | 241 |
| 4 | Breaking Bad | 2.8 | 173 |
| 5 | Better Call Saul | 2.0 | 98 |
| 6 | Lucifer | 0.6 | 55 |
| 7 | Sherlock | 3.5 | 46 |
| 8 | Riverdale | 0.5 | 44 |
| 9 | Power | 0.8 | 32 |
| 10 | Peaky Blinders | 0.8 | 23 |
- Gotham | 1,385 kills
Theslotbuzz.com can reveal that Gotham is the crime show with the highest number of murders committed, with a total of 1,385 kills. Running for a total of five seasons, this means almost 14 people are murdered per episode. Having premiered in 2014, this popular superhero crime series develops its story about Bruce Wayne before he became Batman.
- Dexter | 920 kills
Ranking second is Dexter with 920 total murders committed, and nearly 10 kills per episode on average. Running for eight seasons since 2006, this popular series features the double life of serial killer Dexter Morgan, which wrapped up after its finale released last January.
- Ozark | 241 kills
Netflix crime series Ozark is in third place with 241 murders committed and 5.5 murders per episode, on average. Set around the Lake of the Ozarks, this show started from a money laundering scheme which leads to the relocation of Marty Byrde and his entanglement with local criminals.
Top 10 most violent crime show characters
| Ranking | Characters | Series | Total Murder Count | Character’s total number of murders |
| 1 | Bane/Eduardo Dorrance | Gotham | 1,385 | 336 |
| 2 | Arthur Mitchell | Dexter | 920 | 279 |
| 3 | Darlene Snell | Ozark | 241 | 63 |
| 4 | Walter White | Breaking Bad | 173 | 32 |
| 5 | Marco Salamanca | Better Call Saul | 98 | 27 |
| 6 | Henry | Vincenzo | 19 | 14 |
| 7 | Jim Moriarty | Sherlock | 46 | 13 |
| 8 | Penelope Blossom | Riverdale | 44 | 10 |
| 9 | Ghost | Power | 32 | 9 |
| 10 | Tommy Shelby | Peaky Blinders | 23 | 9 |
Theslotbuzz.com found out that Eduardo Dorrance, also known as Bane, is named as the most violent crime show character of all time with 336 murders committed in the Gotham TV series. As the leading member of Delta Force and supervillain operating in Gotham City, Bane accounts for nearly 25% of all kills in the TV series.
Arthur Mitchell ranks as the second most violent crime show character, having killed a staggering 279 people in Dexter. Being the main antagonist throughout the four seasons in the series, he accounts for over 30% of all the murders in the show, almost double the 141 people killed by main character Dexter Morgan.
Coming in third place is Darlene Snell with 63 victims on the show Ozark. Although the Mexican drug cartel, Lagunas cartel, is responsible for an estimated number of 124 murders in the show, Darlene Snell is the person who single handedly killed the most in this series (26%), including the surprising murder of her husband.
Please find attached a OneDrive folder including the full dataset HERE and the graphic attached.
Methodology:
- Theslotbuzz.com was intrigued to find out which popular TV crime shows have the most murders committed.
- To determine this, a seed list of 15 most popular TV shows was created after trawling through a range of online publications. Only full completed seasons were counted.
- Theslotbuzz.com then sourced and counted the number of murders in each show via list of deaths on a popular fan site and plot summaries on Wikipedia. All sources used could be found HERE.
- Number of episodes for each TV show and the name of the characters were also noted for the breakdown of data.
- To ensure data consistency, mentions of multiple unspecified murders (eg. “kills several of the men”, “many of them were killed”) were counted as 5 deaths. When the number of perpetrators exceeds the victims for a specific case, the number of murders was counted as the number of perpetrators (eg. 2 men kill 1 man -> 2 murders). Deaths by negligence (eg. drunk driving) and resurrections (eg. in the series ”Lucifer”) were counted as murders.
- Only named characters’ murders were counted. When the hired assassins were unnamed characters, the kill is counted for the person who hired them.
- Suicides and legitimate kills by police were not counted in this study as they did not incur prison sentences.
- All prison sentence years are calculated as 15 years per murder, the estimated median sentence length according to multiple sources such as U.S. Department of Justice and Sentencingcouncil.
- Theslotbuzz.com then ranked the number of murders by TV series, characters and episodes.
- All data was collected in February 2023 and is subject to change.