Serial killer

Serial killers are individuals who, on multiple occasions spread out through time, murder victims who are generally unknown to them beforehand. Their crimes are committed as a result of a compulsion that, in many but not all cases, has roots in the killer's (often dysfunctional) youth, as opposed to those who are motivated by financial gain (e.g., contract killers) or ideological/political motivations (e.g., terrorists). Many times, this compulsion is linked to the individual's sexual drive.

Why are serial killers not caught more quickly?

It is probable that many would-be serial killers are apprehended before they kill the three or more victims required to qualify them as such in the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Similarly, it is certain that some are detained under mental health regulations and do not directly answer for their crimes. Others go on to kill many more people over years without being apprehended.

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Serial killers, despite the media attention, commit only a tiny fraction of all murders in any time period. Murder is usually either a crime of personal relationships and short intense emotion, or an unintended consequence of other crimes. Because of this, most murders are comparatively simple to solve; in most familial deaths, the murderer makes little effective effort to conceal the crime and confesses easily; in other cases, the murderer is usually a local or is known to the police. These assumptions, with which any law enforcement officer naturally approaches a single murder, are barriers to catching a serial killer.

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Another barrier to serial killers' early capture is their diverse backgrounds, choices of victim, and methods of killing. They almost never have any links to their victims—they pick by whim or impulse, seeking types or opportunity rather than any easily detectable link. As noted above, organized offenders can take steps to minimize the evidence they leave behind, and commit crimes away from their locale. It can take a number of murders before a serial killer is even suspected.

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Even if a serial killer is known to be operating, it is difficult to catch the culprit. Potential victims can be identified only by broad type, and generic area warnings produce little more than fear and misdirected violence.

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In addition, police departments are often reluctant to admit they have a serial killer on their hands due to the immediate public pressure on them to catch them that immediately ensues. LE departments are known to try and wait it out hoping the killer will move to another juristiction rather than admit a killer is on their hands.

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The commonality of habitual traits of serial killers allows the construction of a psychological profile. This allows targeted interviewing of suspects, although there are often a large number of entirely innocent individuals who have some match to the profile. Also, some serial killers are skilled at concealing their true selves behind a charming facade.

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Unfortunately, profiles are built upon historical precedents of known serial killers that sometimes do not accurately model actual culprits. Such problems plagued the hunt for the D.C. sniper John Muhammad and John Lee Malvo, whose initial profile indicated a Caucasian male. A different problem plagued the hunt for Aileen Wuornos in Florida's "Highway Killer" case; police initially believed the killer to be male.

Related Topics:
D.C. sniper - John Muhammad - John Lee Malvo - Caucasian - Aileen Wuornos - Florida

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Regrettably, serial killer investigations sometimes reveal an unsatisfactory side to law enforcement—inertia, incompetence, bureaucracy, mismanagement, agency "turf wars", missed opportunities, racial or gender bias, and other failures can slow down the investigation and, indirectly, allow further murders.

Related Topics:
Law enforcement - Bureaucracy - Bias

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Whilst there is a public misconception that serial killers generally want to be discovered, in most instances this is not the case, as serial killers will often go to great lengths to prevent capture or to push police and investigators towards the wrong subjects. There are a number of examples where what police originally believed to be copycat murders turned out to actually be the same person doing all of the crimes, such as Ivan Milat's backpacker murders. The opposite is also often true.

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