Serial killer

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Serial killers)
For other uses, see Serial killer (disambiguation).

Part of a series on

Homicide

Murder

Note: Varies by jurisdiction

 Assassination
 Attempted murder
 Child murder
 Consensual homicide
 Contract killing
 Crime of passion
 Depraved-heart murder
 Felony murder rule
 Foeticide
 Honor killing
 Human cannibalism
 Child cannibalism
 Human sacrifice
  Child sacrifice
 Internet homicide
 Lonely hearts killer
 Lust murder
 Lynching
 Mass murder
 Mass shooting
 Mass stabbing
 Misdemeanor murder
 Murder for body parts
 Murder–suicide
 Poisoning
 Proxy murder
 Pseudocommando
 Serial killer
 Angel of mercy
 Spree killer
 Thrill killing
 Torture murder
 Vehicle-ramming attack
 Wrongful execution
 Judicial murder

Manslaughter

 In English law
 Voluntary manslaughter
 Negligent homicide
 Vehicular homicide

Non-criminal homicide

Note: Varies by jurisdiction

  War
 Assisted suicide
 Capital punishment
 Euthanasia
 Foeticide
 Justifiable homicide
 "License to kill"

Family

 Avunculicide/Nepoticide
 Familicide
 Mariticide
 Uxoricide
 Prolicide
 Filicide
 Infanticide
 Neonaticide
 Siblicide
 Fratricide
 Sororicide
 Parricide
 Matricide
 Patricide
 Senicide

Other

 Crucifixion
 Deicide
 Democide
  Friendly fire
 Gendercide
 Femicide
 Androcide
 Genocide
 Omnicide
 Regicide
 Stoning
 Suspicious death
 Tyrannicide
 War crime

 v
 t
 e

An 1829 illustration of Irish serial killer William

Burke murdering Margery Campbell
A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or
more people,[1] with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in
separate events.[1][2] Their psychological gratification is the motivation for the
killings, and many serial murders involve sexual contact with the victims at different
points during the murder process.[3] The United States Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, thrill-
seeking, financial gain, and attention seeking, and killings may be executed as
such.[4] The victims tend to have things in common, such as demographic profile,
appearance, gender, or race.[5] As a group, serial killers suffer from a variety
of personality disorders. Most are often not adjudicated as insane under the law.
[6]
Although a serial killer is a distinct classification that differs from that of a mass
murderer, spree killer, or contract killer, there are overlaps between them.
Etymology and definition
[edit]
The English term and concept of serial killer are commonly attributed to
former Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent Robert Ressler, who used the
term serial homicide in 1974 in a lecture at Police Staff College,
in Bramshill, Hampshire, England.[7] Author Ann Rule postulates in her 2004
book Kiss Me, Kill Me, that the English-language credit for coining the term goes
to Los Angeles Police Department detective Pierce Brooks, who created the Violent
Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) system in 1985.[8]
The German term and concept were coined by criminologist Ernst Gennat, who
described Peter Kürten as a Serienmörder ('serial-murderer') in his article "Die
Düsseldorfer Sexualverbrechen" (1930).[9] In his book, Serial Killers: The Method and
Madness of Monsters (2004), criminal justice historian Peter Vronsky notes that
while Ressler might have coined the English term "serial homicide" within the law in
1974, the terms serial murder and serial murderer appear in John Brophy's
book The Meaning of Murder (1966).[10] The Washington, D.C., newspaper Evening
Star, in a 1967 review of the book:[11]
There is the mass murderer, or what he [Brophy] calls the "serial" killer, who may
be actuated by greed, such as insurance, or retention or growth of power, like
the Medicis of Renaissance Italy, or Landru, the "bluebeard" of the World War I
period, who murdered numerous wives after taking their money.
Vronsky states that the term serial killing first entered into broader American
popular usage when published in The New York Times in early 1981, to describe
Atlanta serial killer Wayne Williams. Subsequently, throughout the 1980s, the term
was used again in the pages of The New York Times, one of the major national news
publications of the United States, on 233 occasions. By the end of the 1990s, the
use of the term had increased to 2,514 instances in the paper. [12]
When defining serial killers, researchers generally use "three or more murders" as
the baseline,[1] considering it sufficient to provide a pattern without being overly
restrictive.[13] Independent of the number of murders, they need to have been
committed at different times, and are usually committed in different places. [14] The
lack of a cooling-off period (a significant break between the murders) marks the
difference between a spree killer and a serial killer. The category has, however,
been found to be of no real value to law enforcement, because of definitional
problems relating to the concept of a "cooling-off period." [15] Cases of extended
bouts of sequential killings over periods of weeks or months with no apparent
"cooling off period" or "return to normality" have caused some experts to suggest a
hybrid category of "spree-serial killer". [10]
In Controversial Issues in Criminology, Fuller and Hickey write that "[t]he element of
time involved between murderous acts is primary in the differentiation of serial,
mass, and spree murderers", later elaborating that spree killers "will engage in the
killing acts for days or weeks" while the "methods of murder and types of victims
vary". Andrew Cunanan is given as an example of spree killing, while Charles
Whitman is mentioned in connection with mass murder, and Jeffrey Dahmer with
serial killing.[16]
In 2005, the FBI hosted a multi-disciplinary symposium in San Antonio, Texas, which
brought together 135 experts on serial murder from a variety of fields and
specialties with the goal of identifying the commonalities of knowledge regarding
serial murder. The group also settled on a definition of serial murder which FBI
investigators widely accept as their standard: "The unlawful killing of two or more
victims by the same offender(s) in separate events". [15] Serial homicide researcher
Enzo Yaksic found that the FBI was justified in lowering the victim threshold from
three to two victims given that serial murderers from these groups share similar
pathologies.[17]
History
[edit]
Further information: List of serial killers before 1900

Juhani Aataminpoika, a Finnish serial killer also known as

"Kerpeikkari" (which means 'executioner'), was one of the most active serial killers
of the 19th century, killing as many as 12 people in 1849 within five weeks before
being caught.[18]
Early accounts
[edit]
Historical criminologists suggest that there have been serial killers throughout
history.[19] Some sources suggest that legends such
as werewolves and vampires were inspired by medieval serial killers.[20] In Africa,
there have been periodic outbreaks of murder by leopard men.[21] Liu Pengli of
China, nephew of the Han Emperor Jing, was made Prince of Jidong in the sixth year
of the middle period of Jing's reign (144 BC). According to the Chinese
historian Sima Qian, he would "go out on marauding expeditions with 20 or
30 slaves or with young men who were in hiding from the law, murdering people
and seizing their belongings for sheer sport". Although many of his subjects knew
about these murders, it was not until the 29th year of his reign that the son of one
of his victims finally sent a report to the emperor. Eventually, it was discovered that
he had murdered at least 100 people. The officials of the court requested that Liu
Pengli be executed; however, the emperor could not bear to have his own nephew
killed, so Liu Pengli was made a commoner and banished. [22] In the 9th century (year
257 of the Islamic Calendar), "a strangler from Baghdad was apprehended. He had
murdered a number of women and buried them in the house where he was
living."[23]
Inside and outside the United States
[edit]
Further information: List of serial killers by country
The majority of documented serial killers were active in the United States. [24][25] In
one study of serial homicide in South Africa, many patterns were similar to
established patterns in the U.S., with some exceptions: no offenders were female,
offenders were lower educated than in the U.S., and both victims and offenders
were predominantly black.[26]
In the 15th century, one of the wealthiest men in Europe and a former companion-
in-arms of Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais, was alleged to have sexually assaulted and
killed peasant children, mainly boys, whom he had abducted from the surrounding
villages and had taken to his castle. [27] It is estimated that his victims numbered
between 140 and 800.[28] Similarly, the Hungarian aristocrat Elizabeth Báthory, born
into one of the wealthiest families in Transylvania, allegedly tortured and killed as
many as 650 girls and young women before her arrest in 1610. [29]
Between 1564 and 1589, German farmer Peter Stumpp killed 14 children, including
his own son. He also murdered two pregnant women and had an incestuous
relationship with his daughter. Stumpp claimed to have been granted the ability to
turn into a werewolf by the Devil. As punishment for his crimes, Stumpp was put on
a torture wheel and executed. His head was later severed and put on a pole next to
the figure of a wolf to scare other people away from claiming themselves
werewolves too.[30]
Members of the Thuggee cult in India may have mu