Serial Killers

Crimes – including violent offenses - are statistically rare incidents, compared with other activities people engage in. Even persistent, repeat offenders engage in other activities, such as going to bars and restaurants, buying food etc., far more frequently than they engage in offending. When looking at different types of offenders and offenses, there is far more data on burglaries and car thefts, than there is on murder, simply because they are much more common events. One of the least common and rarest of all violent offenses is serial murdering/killing. In this and the next few articles I want to look at certain aspects of serial killing, and current theories regarding the phenomenon. A lot of people’s knowledge concerning serial killers comes from “true crime” documentaries that investigate individuals like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy etc.; characters whose lives were either “colorful” (Gacy who often dressed up as Pogo the clown, whilst Bundy was good looking and charming), or whose killings had an extreme degree to them e.g., Dahmer, the “Milwaukee Cannibal”, would eat his victims after killing them. However, serial killers are often more mundane individuals, whose killings are more efficient rather than spectacular affairs, often lacking in the rich symbolism that Hollywood likes to present. In this article I want to look at defining who/what a serial killer is and introduce two schools of thought regarding what causes individuals to engage in serial killings/murder.

The term, serial murder, was created in order to separate this type of mass killing from other types of mass murder, such as active shooter incidents, and other similar types of spree/rampage killings. The most significant difference between an active killer event, such as the Sandy Hook shooting (2012 – where 26 people were killed), or the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, where the crowd at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival were fired upon (60 people killed, and 413 wounded), and a serial killing spree, is the length of time between the deaths of each victim. In a mass shooting/killing event, the killer is trying to kill as many people as they can in the shortest possible time; the killing spree is a singular event, which takes place within a certain timeframe. With serial killers, on the other hand, there is a “cooling off period” between the murder of each victim e.g., after committing his first murder on 5th July 1975, Peter Sutcliffe (the “Yorkshire Ripper”), waited forty-one days before killing his next victim. Although Hungerford shooter, Michael Ryan (who killed sixteen people), killed his victims, at different locations throughout the day (19th August 1987), with sometimes hours between each killing spree, his rampage was effectively one singular and definable event; his emotional state was largely consistent and unaltered. With serial killers, there is the idea/concept that there must be enough time between each killing for the murderer to experience an emotional cool down, so that each incident is its own emotional event, rather than a continuation of the last. There is some degree of debate as to what this period should be e.g., the FBI simply states that there must be a “cooling off period”, and is flexible as to what this actually is (possibly because it may start off in the early days as relatively long, and then shorten considerably as the killer becomes more addicted and driven by the act of murder), whereas certain criminologists will put a very precise timeframe on it e.g., thirty days (Holmes & Holmes, 1994; Newton, 2006). Another potential area of debate/discussion is the number of victims that a killer must accrue in order to be classified as a serial killer. However, there is a general consensus, that there must be three or more victims for a killing spree to be defined as a serial killing(s).

One of the issues that plagues most Hollywood/media depictions of serial killers, is that they are all sexually motivated, whereas in reality this isn’t always the case. Even in cases where those targeted are sex workers, the motivation may not be a sexual one. It may be that a killer chooses this population because it provides them with a large, identifiable, and vulnerable group to target. Sex workers, who work on the street are also some of the few individuals who will voluntarily get into a car with a stranger. It is important to recognize that serial murder does not have to have a sexual element to it, despite true crime documentaries tending to focus on those killers for whom there was. It is always possible to make a sexual connection, as happened with Colin Ireland, who targeted gay men in London, in the Spring-Summer of 1993. Ireland was an under-achiever who had strived to be successful all his life. He eventually concluded that he could achieve notoriety as a serial killer who could outsmart the police; something that he was initially able to do – he eventually handed himself in when he recognized that CCTV footage published in a newspaper clearly identified him as being with his last victim just before he killed him. Ireland told law-enforcement that he targeted gay men, because they were used to meeting men in bars and taking them back home. Although he tortured his victims before killing them, there is little to suggest that this was sexually motivated or even homophobic: Colin Ireland simply wanted to be the center of attention – he used to phone the press to make sure that they were aware of each killing, and the details of it (he used to stage each crime/murder scene as if it was a macabre theatre set).

If we look for a solid working definition of what a serial killing is, we must recognize that it can have any motive, there must be at least three victims, with each killing separated by a significant period (a “cooling off period”). In next week’s article, I will present two schools of thought concerning the reason(s) why individuals commit serial murder. These are referred to as the “Structural Tradition”, and the, “Medical -Psychological Tradition”.