good research topics on serial killers

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Serial Killer Research Paper Topics: How to Pick One

Why should anyone write a research paper on serial killers? It is the very question you should keep in mind when assigned to perform a home task on this topic. Serial killers are not products of the long-gone times of Jack the Ripper, but a frightening reality. Moreover, despite all the achievements and efforts of forensic science, various fields related to psychology, psychiatry and different social services, people who have a pathological urge to satisfy their contorted needs through serial killings find new ways to escape both treatment and punishment, as well as to trap victims. The US is the world's serial killers leader with the share of 76 percent, while Europe ranks second with only 17 percent. And although the number of serial killers fell significantly in the noughties compared to the 1970-1990s, only from 2010 to 2015 more than 500 victims were killed and 54 serial killers were apprehended and identified in the United States.

That's why you need to understand that you are asked to write about serial killers for a reason - to contribute to preventing this type of crime in one way or another. And that's why you need to take the task seriously starting from the very choosing of a topic for your serial killers research paper. Some students make a mistake taking allegedly "entertaining" topics like "The US number one dangerous killer" or "The most terrible crimes committed by maniacs in the history." Such topics are suitable for thrilling readers rather than for conducting in-depth research aimed at some practical purpose. Those practical purposes may cover understanding how people become serial killers; what we can do to identify deviant behavior in people early on; what should be done to eliminate factors contributing to the development of violent behavior and so on.

To this end, serial killers are studied in several fields like psychology, sociology, forensics and some other sciences, which consider the phenomenon from various perspectives to better understand it. Obviously, students should choose serial killer research paper topics based on the subject they study and set the appropriate goals - to explore the psychology of criminals, to distinguish the most vulnerable social groups or to learn about ways that may help in catching a serial killer. Even if you are writing without focusing on a particular subject, you can make a real difference by dispelling myths about serial killers and presenting facts that can educate you and your readers.

Research Paper Topics on Serial Killers: Ideas and Examples

We have selected the most promising topic ideas on serial killers covering psychological, social, cultural, demographic and many other aspects of this phenomenon. Note that the list doesn't include topics on mass murders or school shooting since many forensic schools consider serial killers a separate group of criminals, who are different in their specificity from those mentioned. However, you should clarify through your tutor, which category of criminals you are assigned to research, and if necessary, you can transform the proposed topics accordingly.

• Where did the term "serial killer" come from?
• Family physical, psychological and sexual abuse and deviant behavior in serial killers.
• Mental disorders in serial killers.
• What lies behind a serial killer's signature?
• Is it possible to diagnose a would-be serial killer?
• What makes a serial killer tick?
• How do juvenile criminals become serial killers?
• Distinctive aspects of repeated murders committed by women.
• The social background of serial killing.
• How does a serial killer differ from a maniac?
• Victim profile: demographic characteristics and individual traits.
• A spree killer, a mass murderer, and a serial killer - terms and legislation.
• Serial killers in the United States: Ethnicity and demographics.
• Are there naturally born serial killers?
• Measures taken by the countries with the highest level of serial killing to reverse the trend.
• Angels of mercy: distinctive features.
• The impact of serial killings on pop culture.
• Are there death penalty alternatives for serial killers?
• Genetic predisposition to violence in serial killers: myth or fact?
• Is there a tendency to increase or decrease in serial killings in the US in the XXI century?
• Serial murders and paraphilia.
• Can modern therapies available for sociopathic and psychopathic disorder set serial killers to rights?
• Criticism of the Macdonald triad.
• Organized, disorganized and mixed killers - how do they differ?
• Multiple murders for money.

You can adjust the offered research paper topics on serial killers to your needs by broadening or, conversely, narrowing them down. Make sure to find and read information on the topic selected before making a final decision to avoid lack of evidence.

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104 Serial Killer Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Serial killers have long been a subject of fascination and terror for people around the world. The idea that someone could commit multiple murders without remorse or regret is both horrifying and intriguing. If you are studying criminology or psychology, writing an essay on serial killers can be a captivating and challenging task. To help you get started, here are 104 serial killer essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your research and writing:

• The psychology of serial killers: analyzing the motivations and behaviors of notorious serial killers.
• Nature vs. nurture: are serial killers born or made?
• The role of childhood trauma in the development of serial killers.
• How media coverage of serial killers influences public perception and fear.
• Serial killers and misogyny: exploring the connection between gender and violence.
• The impact of social isolation on the development of serial killers.
• The relationship between serial killers and psychopathy.
• The influence of popular culture on the mythos of serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of serial killers.
• The significance of victim selection in understanding serial killers.
• Serial killers and the criminal justice system: how are they caught and prosecuted?
• The impact of technology on the investigation and apprehension of serial killers.
• The evolution of serial killer profiling in law enforcement.
• The phenomenon of groupie culture surrounding serial killers.
• The role of trauma bonding in the relationships between serial killers and their followers.
• The ethics of studying and writing about serial killers.
• Serial killers and the death penalty: should they be executed or given life in prison?
• The portrayal of serial killers in literature and film.
• The influence of childhood abuse on the development of serial killers.
• The connection between animal cruelty and serial killers.
• The role of substance abuse in the actions of serial killers.
• The role of fantasy in the crimes of serial killers.
• The impact of childhood neglect on the development of serial killers.
• The role of social media in the glorification of serial killers.
• The impact of trauma on the victims of serial killers.
• The relationship between serial killers and organized crime.
• The role of pornography in the actions of serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and cults.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of serial killers.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of serial killers.
• The impact of technology on the prevention of serial killings.
• The role of forensic science in the investigation of serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and terrorism.
• The influence of cults on the actions of serial killers.
• The significance of ritualistic behaviors in the crimes of serial killers.
• The role of religion in the motivations of serial killers.
• The impact of childhood trauma on the development of female serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and organized religion.
• The role of race and ethnicity in the actions of serial killers.
• The significance of geographic profiling in the investigation of serial killers.
• The influence of social media on the actions of serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and the occult.
• The impact of celebrity status on the actions of serial killers.
• The role of gender identity in the motivations of serial killers.
• The significance of mental health treatment in preventing serial killings.
• The connection between serial killers and political extremism.
• The influence of trauma bonding in the relationships between serial killers and their victims.
• The impact of childhood abuse on the development of female serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and organized crime.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of female serial killers.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of female serial killers.
• The relationship between childhood neglect and the development of female serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of female serial killers.
• The connection between female serial killers and cults.
• The impact of substance abuse on the actions of female serial killers.
• The significance of ritualistic behaviors in the crimes of female serial killers.
• The influence of gender identity on the motivations of female serial killers.
• The role of religion in the actions of female serial killers.
• The connection between female serial killers and terrorism.
• The impact of social isolation on the development of female serial killers.
• The significance of media coverage in the apprehension of female serial killers.
• The influence of social media in the glorification of female serial killers.
• The role of forensic science in the investigation of female serial killers.
• The connection between female serial killers and the occult.
• The impact of childhood trauma on the development of black serial killers.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of black serial killers.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of black serial killers.
• The relationship between childhood neglect and the development of black serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of black serial killers.
• The connection between black serial killers and cults.
• The impact of substance abuse on the actions of black serial killers.
• The significance of ritualistic behaviors in the crimes of black serial killers.
• The influence of gender identity on the motivations of black serial killers.
• The role of religion in the actions of black serial killers.
• The connection between black serial killers and terrorism.
• The impact of social isolation on the development of black serial killers.
• The significance of media coverage in the apprehension of black serial killers.
• The influence of social media in the glorification of black serial killers.
• The role of forensic science in the investigation of black serial killers.
• The connection between black serial killers and the occult.
• The impact of childhood trauma on the development of Hispanic serial killers.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of Hispanic serial killers.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of Hispanic serial killers.
• The relationship between childhood neglect and the development of Hispanic serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of Hispanic serial killers.
• The connection between Hispanic serial killers and cults.
• The impact of substance abuse on the actions of Hispanic serial killers.
• The significance of ritualistic behaviors in the crimes of Hispanic serial killers.
• The influence of gender identity on the motivations of Hispanic serial killers.
• The role of religion in the actions of Hispanic serial killers.
• The connection between Hispanic serial killers and terrorism.
• The impact of social isolation on the development of Hispanic serial killers.
• The significance of media coverage in the apprehension of Hispanic serial killers.
• The influence of social media in the glorification of Hispanic serial killers.
• The role of forensic science in the investigation of Hispanic serial killers.
• The connection between Hispanic serial killers and the occult.
• The impact of childhood trauma on the development of Asian serial killers.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of Asian serial killers.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of Asian serial killers.
• The relationship between childhood neglect and the development of Asian serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of Asian serial killers.
• The connection between Asian serial killers and cults.
• The impact of substance abuse on the actions of Asian serial killers.

These essay topic ideas and examples provide a starting point for exploring the complex and disturbing world of serial killers. Whether you are interested in the psychology, sociology, or criminology of serial killers, there is no shortage of fascinating and challenging topics to explore. By delving into the minds and motivations of these notorious criminals, you can gain a deeper understanding of human behavior and the dark side of humanity.

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15 Interesting Serial Killer Research Paper Topics 

July 17, 2021 by Prasanna

Serial Killer Research Paper Topics: Serial killers are not results of the distant memory seasons of Jack the Ripper, yet an alarming reality. Besides, in spite of the multitude of accomplishments and endeavors of legal science, different fields identified with brain research, psychiatry and distinctive social administrations, individuals who have an obsessive inclination to fulfill their distorted requirements through sequential killings discover better approaches to get away from both treatment and discipline, just as to trap casualties.

Serial killers are concentrated in a few fields like brain research, humanism, criminology and some different sciences, which think about the wonder according to different points of view to more readily get it. Clearly, understudies ought to pick Serial killer research paper points dependent regarding the matter they study and put forward the proper objectives – to investigate the brain science of Criminals, to recognize the weakest gatherings of people or to find out about ways that may help in getting a Serial killer. Regardless of whether you are composing without zeroing in on a specific subject, you can have a genuine effect by scattering fantasies about Serial killers and introducing realities that can instruct you and your readers.

You can read more  Essay Writing  about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Topics on Serial Killers

A Serial killer is somebody who kills with at least four a long time with minimal mental solace to proceed with criminal activities. A psychopathic executioner is an individual having an absence of relational sympathy and neglects to feel thoughtfulness toward his casualties. A psychopathic executioner doesn’t esteem human existence and couldn’t care less about the discipline of his violations. Analyze the earnestness of their mental condition and how to get them all together shield the security of the local area from them. Serial killers are conceived and made relying upon the conditions they live in or it’s anything but a hereditary mishap they got from their folks.

Research Titles for Serial Killers

The topics related to Serial killers are:

• Who are Serial Killers?
• Are Serial Killers Born or Made?
• What is the Nature of Serial Killers?
• Serial Killer in the United States
• Serial Killer Psychology
• Treatment of Serials Killers
• What do the Serial Killers think?
• What is in the mind of Serial Killer?
• Analysis on Serial Killers
• Who made them Serial Killers?
• A well-planned Murder by Serial Killer
• What steps are taken by the country to control Serial Killers?
• How do juveniles become serial killers?
• Serial killing for Self Satisfaction
• Serial murders for Money
• How to Cure a Serial Killer?

You can change the offered research paper subjects on Serial killers to your necessities by expanding or, on the other hand, narrowing them down. Make a point to discover and read data on the theme chosen prior to settling on an ultimate choice to keep away from absence of proof.

Research Paper on Crime and Criminals

Criminals are made because of their general public. In any case, hoodlums are made on account of the conditions they were going through, regardless of whether by the savagery of guardians or by the local area. Crooks resort to brutality and utilize the danger as a method of living, and they don’t feel remorseful about their activities. Numerous Criminals feel outcast in view of the treatment they get from their networks, where the strikes they get are a result of their general public; not they were brought into the world with viciousness. Individuals with high testosterone levels are for all intents and purposes bound to submit to brutality more than the individuals who don’t have this level. Hence, hostile conduct is well known which gives a substitute recognizable proof to Criminals.

Criminals will have furious inclinations toward their folks when they get dismissed or all the more respectful companions. At the point when a criminal gets dismissed by his friends, the outcome will be negative because of incendiary or risky guardians or the absence of sufficient parental control. Hence, taking part in a pack or executioner gathering of people will make up for the heartfelt shortcoming, raising the individuals’ feeling of good individual connection. At last, kid sexual maltreatment is one of the principal factors that cause extraordinary injury to the hoodlums, prompting separation from their networks for a significant stretch of time.

Criminals assault kids and treat them as homeless canines, prompting questions and scorn of society. The youngster develops with dread and carries on with a troublesome life rather than others and that makes him the loathing of society, which keeps an eye on wrongdoing and viciousness to fulfill his savage longings. Nonetheless, when an individual feels distanced from society, he will end up being a criminal on account of the unforgiving conditions he encountered, like lewd behavior and harassment.

FAQ’s on Serial Killer Research Paper Topics

Question 1. How to start a good statement for Serial killer topics?

Answer: We can start with the statement as’ serial killers are not born or they are not killers by birth, instead, they are made by our society. These serial killers have one or another history of assault and abuse in their previous lives. Therefore, before we mark them for their cruelty, we should analyse what was the situation that made them serial killers.

Question 2. What are the main objectives of a serial killer?

Answer: As per the analysis and investigation have done on serial killers, their motives are anger, seeking attention, thrill, self-satisfaction, and money.

Question 3. What are the common types of serial killers?

Answer: A serial killer that has power and wants to control or dominate their victims are the most common type of them.

Question 4. Who was Jack the Ripper?

Answer: Jack the ripper was a serial killer in London. He was also called Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron.

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108 Serial Killer Essay Topics & Examples

🔝 top-10 serial killer research paper topics, 🏆 best serial killer topics & essay examples, 🎓 good serial killer research topics, ⭐ argumentative essay topics about serial killers, ❓ research questions about serial killers.

• What is the nature of serial killers?
• Criminal profiling of John Wayne Gacy.
• Popular culture: true crime documentaries.
• The mind of H.H. Holmes.
• Psychological research of serial killers.
• Nature vs. nurture: are serial killers born or made?
• Cold cases: The Zodiac Killer.
• The story of Ted Bundy.
• Serial killers and forensic science.
• Psychology and sociology of Jeffrey Dahmer.
• Frankston Serial Killer: Background, Crimes, and Motives At the time, the police noted that Denyer was with his girlfriend. The letter claimed that Denyer knows his whereabouts, and that he was planning to break out of prison to kill him.
• The Psychology of Serial Killers These are just a fraction of questions that require answers in order to have a complete understanding of the psychology of serial killers.
• Arthur Shawcross and His Serial Killer’s Behavior Although most of his victims were killed in the late 1980s, his case still evokes a lot of debate since he is considered to be one of the most demonstrative examples of prisoners who were […]
• Richard Angelo: A Serial Killer and His Ethical Dilemma The convicted claimed he made the injections to cause crises to be able to revive patients and become a hero in front of his colleagues.
• J. Dahmer as a Sexually-Motivated Serial Killer The paper at hand is devoted to the investigation of the life, personality, and criminal behavior of one of the most notorious American serial killers of 1980s-1990s, Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer.
• Criminal Profiling of Serial Killers Ted Bundy was one of the most famous serial killers of the 20th century. These are the types of serial killers that will target gays, minorities, and prostitutes.
• Serial Killers: Tommy Lynn Sells It is believed that in October of the same year he killed a 13-year-old girl in Missouri and moved to Texas.
• Jeffrey Dahmer: Serial Killer At the center of the legal debate was the interpretation of insanity, and how it could be utilized to absolve a criminal. George Palermo, a psychiatrist, made the conclusion that Dahmer was not insane.Dr.
• Ted Bundy, a Serial Killer and Psychopath The same was said about Ted Bundy, one of the most notorious serial killers in the criminal history of the United States.
• Serial Killers and Their Social Construction Social construction of serial killers has become the subject of various studies, and it is recognized today that the social position, social interactions, and perceived social image may play a significant role in the process […]
• Albert Fish – the Serial Killer Fish’s mother, forced to look for another source of livelihood due to her inability to take care of her son following the death of his father, took him to Saint John’s orphanage in Washington.
• Aileen Wuornos: The Serial Killer After four years since the birth of Aileen, her mother abandoned the family, leaving the girl and her brother with their maternal grandparents, whom the girl considered her birth parents.
• Serial Killers: Law Enforcement Response to Serial Killing The law enforcement agencies such as the FBI maintain that there are several serial killers in the United States and they are expected to increase and hit an epidemic proportion with many people losing their […]
• Serial Killer Imagery: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates The present paper argues that whereas Arnold Friend is portrayed by Oates as a “superhuman” copy of Carl Schmid, the murderer, and the situation with Connie is partially sketched from the case of Alleen Rowe, […]
• Serial Killer Psychology: Eileen Wuornos Eileen was a woman without remorse as she was not bothered by the death of her victims. It is said that her intention was to capture the attention of the man she was dating.
• Serial Killer “Theodore Robert “Ted” Bundy” As much as the psychiatrists related his problems to mental disturbances, this was not a major issue that determined the outcome of the cases.
• The Crimes of Charles Manson, Serial Killer Even though his people did it himself, he was not involved in this, and the organization of a particular group of people is not in itself an immoral act but is prohibited in some places.
• Serial Killer Profiling Dimensions In order to better understand their practices and attempt to put a stop to their actions prematurely, there was a need for proper classification and consequent analysis.
• Ted Bundy, an American Serial Killer He was part of the team that worked in the campaign of the Republican governor of Washington, who later rewarded him with a recommendation letter.
• American Serial Killer Joseph Paul Franklin’s Crimes The reason for changing his name as because he wanted to join the Rhodesian Army and due to his criminal background, he was forced to change the name. The couple were killed and Franklin confessed […]
• Serial Killers in Modern American Society Based on the above-stated arguments, this paper forms research for evidence from some of the serial killers in modern American society and various tactics utilized by the investigative departments to determine and differentiate between serial […]
• Edmund Kemper: The Serial Killer Kemper committed most of the murders in one year and confessed to his crimes only after he killed his mother. However, in a short time, Kemper decides to stop and report on his crimes to […]
• Aileen Wuornos: Anatomy of a Female Serial Killer Moreover, feminist scholarship has recently begun to examine serial murder as “sexual terrorism” or as a perpetuation of gynocide, the systematic crippling, raping and/or killing of women by men.
• Serial Killers, Their Crimes, and Stereotypes The other serial killers presented in the killers list also conform to the stereotypes presented in Fox’s and Levin’s article. Most of the killers also rape, mutilate, and degrade their victims in order to feel […]
• Charles Manson: Serial Killer Profile One of the first crimes that he committed was connected to a stolen car that Manson took to have some fun and visit his relatives.
• A Study on Serial Killers: “Encounter and death: The Spatial Behavior of U.S. Serial Killers” From an analysis, of the article, it is evident that the research focuses on the geographical locations that surround the killings; the location of the first meeting between the serial killers and their victims, the […]
• Serial Killers: Women and Men Comparison Most of the time, crimes of men serial killers are heard regularly as they are more horrible than that of women serial killers. The physical counting of the men serial killers victims is very high […]
• A Serial Killer: Typology and Abnormal Psychological Gratification
• Luis Garavito: The World’s Worst Serial Killer
• Existentialism: Serial Killer and Right Things
• Charles Cullen: Healthcare Serial Killer
• Israel Keyes: The Reluctant Serial Killer
• Countess Elizabeth Bathory: Serial Killer
• Arousal Theory and the Serial Killer Jeffery Dahmer
• The Dangerous Mind of a Serial Killer
• Clifford Olson: Canadian Serial Killer
• The Development of Serial Killers: A Grounded
• Exploring the Life and Possible Motives of Serial Killer
• How Edward Theodore Gain Became a Serial Killer
• Blood Loss, the Decline of the Serial Killer
• Sociological Theories: Rationalization and Motivation of the Serial Killer
• Serial Killer Era: So Many Murders in 1970 – 2000
• Famous Serial Killer: Jack the Ripper
• Defining the Factors That Contribute to Serial Killer’s Identity
• Deadly Motives: The Hedonistic Drive of Serial Murder
• Details of a Typical Female Serial Killer
• Profiling Art and Australian Serial Killer Ivan Milat
• Brilliant Serial Killer Jack the Ripper
• America’s First Serial Killer
• Serial Killer and Racism: African-Americans and Serial Killing in the Media
• Life and Death of a Serial Killer: Are Serial Killer Born or Created?
• Serial Killer: Erikson’s Theory-Based Analysis of the Behavior of Robert William Pickton
• Differential Association Theory and Serial Killer
• Aileen Wuornos America’s First Female Serial Killer
• Mary Bell Was Britain’s Youngest Serial Killer
• Criminal Shadows: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer
• America’s Sweetest Serial Killer – Sugar
• Unique Characteristics of a Serial Killer
• American Serial Killer: Albert Fish
• Serial Killer: The Mechanism From Imagination to the Murder
• Critical Theories: Crime Ted Bundy Serial Killer
• The Uncatchable Serial Killer: No Motive, No Victim Profile
• Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture
• The Life of a Serial Killer: Edmund Emil Kemper Lii
• Criminal Justice: The Criminology Behind Serial Killers
• Canadian Serial Killer: Robert Pickton
• What Are Serial Killers?
• Are Serial Killers Born Psychopaths or Pushed to That Limit?
• What Causes Serial Killers to Kill?
• How Do Serial Killers Get Attention?
• What Makes Serial Killers Kill?
• Why Are the People Interested in Serial Killers?
• What Is the Nature of Serial Killers?
• How Do Juveniles Become Serial Killers?
• What Is in the Mind of Serial Killer?
• How to Cure a Serial Killer?
• What Steps Are Taken by the Country to Control Serial Killers?
• Where Did the Term “Serial Killer” Come From?
• What Are the Main Objectives of a Serial Killer?
• Is It Possible to Diagnose a Would-Be Serial Killer?
• What Are the Common Types of Serial Killers?
• How Does a Serial Killer Differ From a Maniac?
• What Lies Behind a Serial Killer’s Signature?
• Are There Naturally Born Serial Killers?
• What Makes a Serial Killer Tick?
• Are There Death Penalty Alternatives for Serial Killers?
• What Makes a Serial Killer Do What They Do?
• Are Humans Naturally Good or Evil?
• What Is the Difference Between a Mass Murderer and a Serial Killer in Modern Culture?
• Is There a Tendency to Increase or Decrease in Serial Killings in the Us in the XXI Century?
• Can Modern Therapies Available for Sociopathic and Psychopathic Disorder Set Serial Killers to Rights?
• What Are the Effects of Childhood Abuse on Serial Killing Behavior?
• How Are the Serial Killers Portrayed in Hollywood Compare to Real-Life Serial Killers?
• What Are Some of the Trademarks of Female Serial Killers?
• Do Serial Killer Partners Always Have a Dominant Personality and a Submissive Personality?
• How Has Modern Technology and Criminology Made It More Difficult for Serial Killers to Remain at Large?
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IvyPanda. (2024, February 29). 108 Serial Killer Essay Topics & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/serial-killer-essay-topics/

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IvyPanda . (2024) '108 Serial Killer Essay Topics & Examples'. 29 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "108 Serial Killer Essay Topics & Examples." February 29, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/serial-killer-essay-topics/.

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Interested in serial killers? Morbid curiosity in college students

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• Volume 41 , pages 3768–3777, ( 2022 )

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A plethora of movies, television programs, podcasts, and online videos are dedicated to horror and terror, with fictional (e.g., zombies) and nonfictional (e.g., serial killing) themes. Morbid curiosity is a phenomenon where individuals attend to, or seek information about, horrid subjects, such as terror and death. Moreover, morbid curiosity has been tied with sexual curiosity and sensation seeking in past research, with men typically demonstrating more of each phenomenon. We hypothesized that interest in the topic of serial killers and other morbid academic and entertainment topics would be positively associated with morbid curiosity, sexual curiosity, and sensation seeking. Data supported these hypotheses with some notable gender differences. Viewed through the lens of evolutionary psychology, interest in horrific events, such as serial killing, may be a product of protective vigilance. We discuss these results, limitations, and future directions for research.

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Harrison, M.A., Frederick, E.J. Interested in serial killers? Morbid curiosity in college students. Curr Psychol 41 , 3768–3777 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-020-00896-w

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Brave Clarice—healthcare serial killers, patterns, motives, and solutions

Rahma menshawey.

Kasr al Ainy Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University, Geziret Elroda, 11562 Manial, Cairo, Egypt

Esraa Menshawey

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Healthcare serial killing involves the intentional killing of multiple patients by a healthcare professional. It is a formidable challenge to identify in the medical context, and a daunting legal task to prove beyond reasonable doubt. What can be done or remains to be done to intercept these serial killing events and help serve justice, while at the same time not risk dismantling public trust in the healthcare system? In light of several recent modern charges of murder against healthcare practitioners across the world, this review aims to report the themes, patterns, and motives of medical serial killers as well as highlight areas of work on both medical and legal fronts to help identify these events, and to most importantly protect the vulnerable patient community.

Healthcare serial killing involves the intentional killing of multiple patients by a healthcare professional. Ultimately, the practitioner-patient relationship is a trust-based one, where the patient places trust in doctors, nurses, and the healthcare system [ 1 ]. This opens a vulnerability to those with ulterior motives.

Healthcare practitioners have intimate knowledge of the process of human life and death. This, paired with the facilities that hospitals provide and the tools such as paralytics and lethal doses of medications, as well as the general anticipation of death as a patient outcome (thus garnering little suspicion), maybe the attractants of those opportunistic killers.

In this explorative review, we analyze in depth the topic of the healthcare serial killer and summarize the commonalities and themes among cases in the literature, as well as the challenges faced across both healthcare and legal systems, and the potential safeguards that can be implemented across several systems to protect the patient community. The insights derived in this review are scoped from a variety of cases and studies in the literature from different countries and systems.

Medical murder is a two-pronged modern problem that requires simultaneous and synergistic efforts from the medical and legal perspectives, as well as swift interception in order not to weaken the trust between the general public and their healthcare systems.

Homicide and serial killers—criminology perspective

“I controlled other people’s lives, whether they lived or died. I had that power to control. After I didn’t get caught for the first fifteen, I thought it was my right. I appointed myself judge, prosecutor and jury. So I played God,” Donald Harvey, hospital orderly, killed 87.

Homicide is the killing of another human being which may be divided into murder, or accidental (manslaughter), lawful with a defense (i.e., insanity, or self-defense) also known as justifiable homicide, assassination (killing of a recognized person), euthanasia, and as part of war crimes. Murder is considered an extremely serious crime by most societies, and may be punished with life in prison, or capital punishment (state-sanctioned killing of a person) [ 2 ].

Holmes and DeBurger devised the main typologies of serial murder including visionary (hallucinations based), mission oriented (killing those “lesser” than), hedonistic (sensational killers), and power-control (domination over victim seekers) [ 3 ].

This typology maybe seen as an organized-disorganized spectrum of killers, with visionary on the disorganized end and power-control type on the organized end [ 4 ].

A serial killer is conventionally defined as one who murders multiple people—though there is lack of consensus on the exact definition [ 3 , 5 ], and this has stifled meaningful quantitative research in this area (jurisdictions vary in the number of killings from 2, 3, or even 4 in defining serial murder). According to psychopathology, a serial killer is exceptionally skilled at impression management, acting above suspicion with a persona of innocence used to lure and conn their victim and deflect suspicion (social blending) [ 4 ].

In the realm of empirical research, a robust study on cases of serial killers revealed that the majority of solo serial homicide offenders are male (with serial killing being defined as the act of 2 or more discretely separate killings) [ 5 ]. The majority of serial killers were found to be in the Americas compared with other continents.

The perpetrator-focused interest in the literature has left victim data and details limited, and this is an area of future work and research, as a paradigm shift is needed with a victim-centered focus in order to prioritize vulnerable peoples.

Psychopathology of homicide

There are two main defining psychological characteristics of a serial killer which are compartmentalization and dehumanization. To neutralize feelings of guilt, serial killers compartmentalize. This allows them to develop 2 distinct social circles: (1) a close circle of friends or family whom they care about and typically do not harm, and (2) a victim group—strangers to whom they have no remorse [ 4 ].

A modern example includes Nazi doctors who used “doubling” to create 2 distinct selves—one that engaged in experimentation and extermination of inmates, and another that maintained their life outside of concentration camps [ 6 ].

Physicians are suggested to be more susceptible to doubling than any other profession. The medical profession requires one to act objectively and mundanely in the presence of blood, trauma, and corpses. This allows for desensitization to death and an ability to maintain highly skillful cognitive function under circumstances that may otherwise be deemed abhorrent or reprehensible in the eyes of lay people [ 4 ]. The physician therefore develops a “medical self.” In the case of prolific medical serial killer Dr. Michael Swango, who killed up to 60 patients under his care, he described in his diary how the “sweet husky close smell of indoor homicide” served as a reminder that he was “still alive” [ 4 ] (see Table ​ Table1 1 ).

Characteristics of three medical serial killers—Mengele, Shipman, and Bouwer

In addressing medical malpractice, are we missing medical murder?

Medical malpractice may lead to the death of a patient in cases of such reckless endangerment of human life, lack of providing adequate care, and failure to prevent antecedent error. Trends have shown an increase in police reports by physicians and next of kin regarding the death of a patient with consequent increase in criminal prosecution, in the past decade throughout the world [ 7 ].

Laws however are variable worldwide on the degree of culpability of gross negligent manslaughter that may ensue from substandard care. What exists is a scale of negligence where on one end, doctors are almost never held criminally responsible (only 1 doctor has been criminally charged in New Zealand in a 10-year period) to another end including English Law where extreme negligence itself is sufficient to prove mens rea and is criminally prosecuted [ 8 ].

These variations in tests and interpretations may either be (1) setting the bar too low for what is criminally culpable behavior or (2) setting the bar too high with little consideration to other factors of reasonableness or culpability leading to increased criminal prosecutions that may be counterproductive. The use of defensive medicine is an example of this [ 9 ]. Ultimately, the Law holds the right to address reprehensible behavior when it leads to a criminal act [ 8 , 10 ]. To quote the words of Dr. Michael J Powers QC:

“…society has the right to control bad professional care…whether or not a doctor is going to find himself on a manslaughter charge will really depend on how much thought, how much care and how much attention he is giving to what he does…The cases where we have seen convictions are cases which stick out like a barn door” [ 11 ]

In the midst of these arguments and hypotheticals of culpability, and scales of negligence, the medical serial killer remains poorly addressed. Perhaps, it is out of the Laws intent on fairness on when to hold someone criminally liable that has led to much delay and the prosecution of only those glaringly reckless cases that “stick out like a barn door,” as well as the medical community’s personal bias that prevents them from appreciating that such an opportunistic killer can even exist in their realm. This is evidenced by the glaring “paucity of the medical literature” on this topic, as well as the inability to make amends with an example being the circulation of tissue and skeletal remains of Nazi Germany Jewish inmates in German Medical school’s well into the year 1989 [ 12 ].

One aspect is evident, that there exists a subtype of homicidal persons who are healthcare practitioners and conduct themselves within the current framework of healthcare systems and patient relations. We may consider that the healthcare serial killer is a distinct enough category of serial killers. This is evidenced by their decade’s long careers and late apprehension— if ever —after tens and hundreds of victims (and millions if we count those doctors whose murders are backed by a prevailing political ideology). The medical serial killer is ultimately considered one of the most difficult perpetrators to bring to criminal justice [ 13 ].

A brief history of medical murder—modern and past cases

“They are woven throughout medical history—these grotesque practitioners—poisoners, smotherers, pitiless experimenters, and, most alarming, those whose crimes are still undiscovered, whose names are still unknown.” [ 14 ]

Some would suggest that clinicide (the unnatural death of patients under the care of a healthcare practitioner) is a relatively recent phenomenon; however, it remains difficult to place along the timeline of human existence given several factors—such as the difficulty of identifying when these events are occurring. It is believed that medicine has offered up more serial killers than any other profession, second only to nursing [ 15 ]. Healthcare serial killers may encompass a variety of healthcare professionals (i.e., physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, hospital orderly), and may include varying settings such as the hospital, nursing homes, or the outpatient clinic. Overall, cases of serial healthcare murders are rare; however, they are largely under-represented due to issues with detection as evidenced by killings that may span decades long into a practitioner’s career [ 16 ].

More glaring examples stand out in the form of horrific human experimentations and murders of inmates under Nazi Germany [ 17 ]. In fact, in Nazi Germany, more than half of all of Germany’s physicians were enrolled within, and with their expertise and scientific background did the Nazi medical program take its full form in the shape of the “medicalization” of horrific concepts of eugenics, sterilization, and ultimately genocide [ 17 ]. The participation of German physicians was an early enrollment, self-elected, and safe to say—unanimous.

Current modern examples can be seen in the USA (Ohio) with 14 charges of first-degree murder against Dr. William Husel for utilizing significantly excessive and lethal doses of fentanyl—where prosecutors were stressing the unusual doses as high as 2500 µg as a clue to an intent to end lives [ 18 , 19 ] (found not guilty) [ 20 ]. A jury found a California doctor (“Lisa” Tseng) guilty of second-degree murder by overdosing her patients with controlled substances for financial gain—the first case of its kind in the USA where a successful guilty verdict was given for the overprescribing of drugs [ 20 ].

The murder of patients may be associated with a sexual component, such as a sexual assault before the murder, or sexual gratification afterwards, an example being Dr. Ronald E Clark in the 1970s who sexually assaulted his patients then murdered them using sodium pentothal [ 15 ].

Some serial killer doctors indulge in mercy killings involving chronically ill elderly persons where they may claim they wished to ease the passage of their patient into death, an example being Dr. John Bodkin Addams when in 1957 he admitted to killing more than 400 elderly women (he was also included in 132 of their wills, and a jury found him not guilty) [ 15 ].

It might be wise not to assume that healthcare serial killers constitute isolated events in history as increased awareness in modern times has resulted in open investigations and even exhumations for missed homicides, which suggests that it is a relevant problem [ 21 ].

Types of medical murderers

FBI criminal profiler Peter Smerick distinguishes between two types of medical killers: (1) the mercy killer who rationalizes that they may murder the patient to end their suffering and does so relying on the fact that autopsies are rarely done on patients who are critically ill, and (2) the hero killer who puts their patient at a substantial risk, and if they succeed, they will be a hailed as a “hero” [ 22 ].

Doctors as a group show some of the highest rates of murder compared to any other profession [ 23 ].

Kaplan describes the categories of medical killers as follows:

• Medical serial killers —these are doctors who derive a perverse pleasure from killing their patients. The number of victims is numerous and may exceed the hundreds or thousands (substantially higher victim counts than non-medical serial killers), examples being Shipman and Swango who killed between them more than 300 patients.
• Treatment serial killers —these are doctors who take on risky treatment options for their patients with the awareness that their action is leading to the demise of their patients, paired with a refusal to desist their treatment plan or acknowledge the risks involved [ 22 ].
• Political mass murders —these are accomplices in genocide or brutality with the support of their government. One example is that of Dr. Joseph Mengele who during Nazi Germany enacted horrific human experimentations on inmates (see Table ​ Table1) 1 ) [ 24 , 25 ]. The pivotal role of doctors in mass genocides is a curious phenomenon, and as Kaplan puts its “medicine contains the seeds of its own destruction is confirmed by the recurrent involvement of doctors in genocide” [ 22 ].

The motives

“Throughout history, they show recognized features of inflated sense of importance, and are often at the centre stage of praise within the medical community. The homicidal physician possesses an innate sense of drama coupled with unusual arrogance.” [ 14 ]

The motives behind these killings can be variable, or maybe totally unknown (see Table ​ Table2 2 ).

Killers versus victims

These motives can be any of the typical typologies [ 26 ], and the healthcare serial killer may adopt one or multiple of these motives. Attaining power and control over a patient or acclaim for successful diagnosis and saving of the patient are common themes. There is a particular scenario where the practitioner may be inducing cardiopulmonary arrests for the sake of setting off a code—this can be identified where there are frequent arrests followed by multiple successful resuscitations made by one caregiver. Here, the motive was thrill—to satisfy the “excitement” involved with reviving the patient, or to gain recognition and acclaim from their colleagues (like a fire-fighter setting a fire).

Financial gain is another common motive with collaboration with insurance companies and funeral homes having been reported. A clue to a financial motive may be noted if sudden alterations in the wills of the victim patient have taken place, allowing the practitioner killer to inherit their fortunes. Enacting a sexual fantasy or attracting the attention of a romantic interest is another potential motive [ 22 ]. A known example is the case of nurse Kirsten Gilbert where hospital policy demanded the presence of a security person whenever a code was called—the security person was her paramour [ 27 ] [ 28 ] (see Table ​ Table3 3 ).

Two murdering nurses

In some cases, the motives are purely sadistic where a preference by the killer was given to those patients that they deemed to be demanding or increased their workload. In the case of Orville Lynn Major, a nurse testified to the sudden collapse of her previously stable patients when under his care. Hospital pressure to free up beds maybe a motive to hasten the death of critically ill patients [ 27 ]. In this scenario, the patient is considered a “bed blocker” [ 29 ].

Patterns to ponder

Some characteristics of the healthcare serial killer include a history of substance abuse, craving attention about his or her skills, a diagnosis of a personality disorder, a record of incidents at another hospital, and fabrication of credentials.

Characteristics that may be noticed by colleagues or staff members include suspicions or anxiousness when covering patients when they are on duty, noticing that the healthcare serial killer can always tell beforehand which patients are going to die and when (as well as inappropriate behavior like betting on which patient is going to die), and a higher incidence of death occurs when they are on shift (although statistics alone cannot prove guilt, they can help paint a general picture or initiate investigations). The healthcare serial killer may also have particular nicknames, i.e., Angel of Death [ 30 ].

A cluster of common themes in the serial murder of patients includes the following:

• Repeated cardiopulmonary arrests with a high rate of resuscitations
• Deaths that cluster around evening or night shifts

Yorker et al. have detailed the findings in 90 prosecutions involving caregiver-associated serial killing. Their findings suggest that the prosecutions were highest in areas with more advanced healthcare systems such as the USA and Germany [ 31 ]. The majority of those convicted were nurses. Gender wise, 49% of those convicted were female, and there appears to be a gender discrepancy involving male nurses which account for 6% of registered nurses but account for 44% of nurses prosecuted for murder. The vast majority of healthcare murders occur in hospital setting—and are not limited to only one area in the hospital (i.e., killing in the ICU and the outpatient clinic) [ 31 ]. It might be that countries like the USA and Germany have more cases of medical serial killing, as such advanced healthcare systems may have the means to intercept and address this problem.

A variety of methods may be employed by the killer with injections of insulin and potassium, or tampering with respiratory equipment (i.e., lowering the flow rate) being common choices [ 31 ]. Insulin injections will lead to hypoglycemia and coma and eventual death if not treated abruptly. These cases may be further compounded by a patient who is already diabetic where this malicious dose of insulin may be misattributed as an overdose by the patient themself. In a quarter of the cases, the method was unknown [ 31 ].

Toxicology is a staple in placing convictions and prosecuting cases of healthcare murders where poisons or paralytics were used [ 32 ]. Nonetheless, most of the calls to examine toxicology are post-mortem or post-exhumation where a high index of suspicion is present. This is a problem where rapidly degrading compounds are being used, an example being the use of potassium to induce cardiac arrest, where upon death, there is already an elevated level of potassium in the body [ 32 , 33 ]. A high index of suspicion should be present where any substance is found to be elevated in a patient that was not previously prescribed to them and the presence of high concentrations of a substance in syringes, as well as fingerprint of the perpetrator on the syringe may all count as compelling evidence for serious medical error or a crime (see Table ​ Table4 4 ).

An unusual hospital orderly and his observations

Finally, the primary alarm call for any investigation typically comes from coworkers who have noticed unusual statistics revolving around the accused healthcare provider’s shifts or their direct eye-witness reports, rather than from concerns voiced by patient family or even medical examiners [ 25 ].

What can be done?

Medical murder can be often missed—a point of recent focus in countries like Belgium and the Netherlands where modern trends in euthanasia policies have rung appropriate alarms for potential abuse [ 34 , 35 ]. Furthermore, the true incidence of medical homicide “is impossible to determine,” as each healthcare system presents its own opportunities for malice. What is needed are the tools for early detection and confident (and potentially anonymous initial) reporting in order to prevent covert retaliation occurring to the reporter. All attempts to reconcile this issue with the Law and Public must also address the need to not undermine public trust in the healthcare system. This may be addressed by timely, honest, and transparent recognition of when suspicions arise.

Morbidity and Mortality (M&M) meetings are “a critical component of clinical governance” [ 36 ]. This is a meeting forum where patient deaths and poor outcomes are discussed in order to improve patient safety. In the USA, they are mandatory to attend. M&M meetings typically host an array of healthcare practitioners including doctors, nurses, medical students, and management. Ultimately, they provide the necessary assurances that poor patient outcomes are being addressed. These meetings may alert to any unusual outcomes or patterns and necessitate the need for disciplinary action.

One of the hindrances of such meetings is the many hurdles to open discussion, where one study detailed issues such as (1) an open investigation is occurring regarding the case, (2) fears of being judged for a mistake even though their specialty is associated with high mortality rates (such as emergency medicine), (3) meetings being used as personal vendettas, (4) meetings being rushed too soon after the event without enough relevant information or evidence, (5) presence of dominant personalities who would criticize or show off their own decisions, and (6) the presence of management/the desire for it to be a doctors only meeting [ 36 , 37 ].

Overall, despite the threat of criminal prosecution, physicians are open to discussing adverse outcomes of their patients, but there remains considerable room for improvement in order to conduct these meetings in the most effective way possible [ 37 ]. These include keeping a goal-oriented approach to the meetings and a clear definition of outcome measures in order to determine and make a distinction between what may be deemed as a learning experience and what may progress into further investigations. Meetings should be properly timed when all the relevant information is ready, should be attended by a variety of persons, and perhaps should be delivered in a blinded fashion in order to avoid narcissistic displays by other doctors such as “criticism or showing off.” M&M meetings maybe a useful tool to triage cases of mortality and should be utilized in other healthcare systems worldwide and attended routinely [ 37 , 38 ].

A systemic change is called for on healthcare systems to shift from denial of employment lawsuits, or wrongful discharge charges, to the absolute prioritization of patient safety, and recognizing that if a successful conviction is made, this will lead to more damaging wrongful death lawsuits.

There needs to be serious consideration of the intentional harm of a patient as part of training healthcare workers in patient safety. Hiring and screening processes need to be more robust—calls for background checks where there are gaps in employment history and questions into previous terminations should be made. Serious control over insulin supply is needed as it is a notorious drug of choice for perpetrators which draws little suspicion [ 16 ] (some countries have employed a 2-signature system needed for the prescription of potassium and insulin).

Evidence to the discrepancies and errors found in death certificates calls for standardization and appraisal of doctors’ abilities in this area [ 38 , 39 ]. With regard to the exhumations, a recent attempt by the German Crown Prosecutor was conducted to identify missed homicides, where they found alarming differences between the true cause of death and that which was noted in the death certificate [ 38 ]. Thirty-nine out of the 155 exhumations were classified as possible medical malpractice with 7 death certificates labeled as totally erroneous causes of death [ 38 ].

The results of the exhumations have shed light on 2 primary issues. Firstly, if the initial death certificate indicated nothing worthy of suspicion by the doctor, then police investigation remained superficial , and no autopsy was ordered [ 38 ]. This is critical in that previous cases involving doctor serial killers have conducted their own death certificates to cover their crimes. It is also unusual that in the case of the exhumations, some of those suspected of medical malpractice showed extreme discordance with the true cause of death—even when the cause of death was obvious . The second point is that it was a “lucky coincidence” that inspired a re-evaluation of the case, typically another murder attempt by a suspect [ 38 ].

There appears to be a pattern of falsifications of documents or credentials—and these were often missed during hiring, and if they were identified, it was not a deterrent for hiring. Hospitals need to enforce stricter measures for determining the authenticity of the credentials of their workers and consider the practice of falsifying credentials as a high-risk factor for future criminal activity (even in cases of no previous criminal record) [ 40 ]. Countries such as the UK employ rigorous checks/certification process and revalidation which is aimed to promote a governed practice which can be used as an exemplar [ 41 – 43 ].

Legal issues

A successful criminal prosecution in a case of healthcare serial killing relies on an array of evidence, including eyewitnesses, toxicology reports, confessions, and statements made by patient family and colleagues. A finding that a patient is more likely to die at the hands of an accused physician is insufficient to prove guilt of murder in a criminal court but may be exceptional in a civil suit. In the case of Micheal Beckelik, there was not enough evidence to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt, but a civil suit charged him successfully for 27 million dollars [ 44 ].

The burden is on the prosecution to prove to 2 critical points: (1) the patient’s death was unnatural —and this can be a challenge given a predilection for victims of extremes of age or those with chronic illness and high morbidity—where death may be anticipated, and (2) that it is the actions of this particular healthcare provider that led to the patient’s demise [ 44 ]. Reasonableness is another challenge, as human error is deemed unreasonable, but in the context of a medical setting, the question becomes whether or not an action taken towards a patient would have been taken by a reasonable person under similar circumstances [ 44 ] with come consideration of the ability to provide a standard of care. Establishing the presence of implied malice maybe a determining factor in a murder charge versus a manslaughter charge against a practitioner.

Healthcare serial killers use a variety of defenses when intercepted and accused in court, the two most common being insanity and euthanasia defense. In the euthanasia defense, the killer may claim that they administered a lethal dose of medication at the request of the patient (the capacity of the patient and their explicit consent becomes the topic of argument in this case, as well as whether or not there are established laws or policies in place for physician-assisted dying, and if other palliative options were considered).

Hospital administrators are often uncooperative with prosecutors and may even obstruct the investigation with reasons being fear of negative publicity, civil suits, and poor record keeping. On the other hand, cases where the hospital was cooperative with discreet investigations resulted in the collection of evidence and successful convictions, and served as a deterrence for future suspicious activity [ 31 ].

According to the US Department of Justice, healthcare serial killing is a class of crimes considered to be the most difficult to detect and prosecute. Even in the rare scenario where it can be detected, proving guilt requires extensive medical knowledge and expert input [ 13 ].

With regard to the serial killer versus the treatment killer, we wish to highlight an important distinction. The treatment serial killer, whose arrogance and narcissism fueled by their lack of introspection or admittance of their own limitations, may typically be charged with manslaughter because a motive or intent remains unclear (if anything, it appears superficially that they are hopeful that their risky choice saves the patient life to increase their acclaim or reaffirm their self-confidence). The distinction with the serial killer remains in setting the precedent that there is a history of patients that are in fact treated well by them, within the guidelines of sound clinical reasoning and decision-making skills. If one can establish this, then the choice to resort to a different or deviant choice with another patient should be questioned. The treatment killer would have an all-around poor performance as a practitioner, with tales of their mishaps or negligence across the board. It should become quite unusual if one who is skilled enough to make the best decision opts instead under no particular stressor or change of setting, to make a poor decision that would lead to the patient’s demise. The decision to do harm in this exclusionary scenario would itself be the motive or the implied malice. This can only be done with an extremely thorough analysis and examination of all the patients that have ever entered their care—a task of determination that may set the foundations for which future healthcare serial killers may be addressed by the criminal law, and where charges of first-degree murder may be laid. To reiterate in making a case against a suspected medical serial killer , we recommend that one should not shy away from utilizing the fact that there are successfully treated patients by the accused of similar demographics or qualities or disease characteristics as those patients that are their victims. This makes sense in that running a successful practice serves the needs of the serial killer as this can build trust within the medical community, whereas tales of the treatment killers’ outcomes and negligence may precede them and even deter patients from them [ 45 ]. This observation maybe specialty specific—and may also explain the unusual longevity of the serial killer’s career as their “mishaps” or “outcomes” might never be addressed as anything more than that and may never see the light of a formal investigation.

Conclusions

Healthcare professionals are already at a level above suspicion, as well as the advocacy of the medical community for a “no blame culture” towards addressing incidents where an adverse patient event may have taken place. Given the sheer number of victims of healthcare serial killers that can span into hundreds or thousands of patients, and the longevity into which they conduct their careers which can span decades, it is sufficient to say that the efforts of the medical community to prioritize patient safety in this regard has failed as medical serial killing is still a modern and ongoing problem.

This review serves as a call to action on the part of all international healthcare systems to face the harsh and unpalatable reality that the medical field is an opportunistic one in the hands of those with criminal intentions. There is a real need for the implementation of systems that can intercept these persons—all the way from critical hiring practices to M&M meetings, where patient outcomes can be triaged as learning opportunities to those which require further investigations, to standardizations and quality assurance of death certificates that are often the gatekeepers of further investigations by the police. This is also a call on those members of law enforcement to facilitate cooperative interactions with staff and hospitals—rather than a “witch hunt” style of investigations.

Law and Medicine are professions that often collide and conflict—but we wish to reiterate that Law and Medicine are a symbiotic relationship [ 46 , 47 ]. The Law allows Medicine to conduct itself with great privilege through which physicians may care for with due consideration of all of the morals and ethics and thought that went into such allowances. However, we cannot turn a blind eye when such provisions may be turned on their own head and allow an event, such as the murder of a patient to take place, and moreover turn back doubly on the Law itself which is left with the daunting task to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. There is an area where our true symbiosis maybe seen, and it lies in the root philosophy of Medicine itself— Primum non Nocere (Do No Harm). Here is an area of mutual concern which sets the scene for a more collaborative and integrative scenario dedicated to rooting out the most grotesque of outcomes—the murder of a patient.

• Healthcare serial killing involves the intentional death of a patient by any healthcare professional (nurse, doctor, etc.), in any healthcare setting (hospital, clinic, nursing home).
• Healthcare serial killing is an ongoing and modern problem faced by healthcare systems worldwide; each healthcare system has its own opportunities for malice.
• Healthcare serial killers are opportunistic as they may conduct themselves in specialties with vulnerable patient groups, at night shifts or staff rounds, and rely on healthcare setting which facilitates their actions by providing the means such as poisons (potassium, insulin, etc.) or tampering of ventilatory equipment.
• Specific training is needed to increase awareness and promote the management of such cases, as well providing the means to report in a safe and conducive manner when suspicions arise against a suspected person, and collaboration with law enforcement.

Abbreviation

Author contribution

RM conceived the idea. RM and EM wrote the manuscript.

Open access funding provided by The Science, Technology & Innovation Funding Authority (STDF) in cooperation with The Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB).

Availability of data and material

Declarations.

The authors declare no competing interests.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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The science of serial killers is changing

By Kate Baggaley

Posted on Mar 8, 2019 1:30 AM EST

10 minute read

The wall of Sasha Reid’s office is covered with serial killers. The collection of black-and-white photographs of Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and notable others is not, however, just an unusual choice of decoration.

“It’s very intentional,” says Reid. As a doctoral candidate in developmental psychology at the University of Toronto, she is trying to demystify the circumstances that lead people to commit multiple murders. That means poring over their own words from journals and media interviews. The viewpoints they express often share uncanny similarities, to the point where diary entries penned by different people begin to bleed together. On one occasion, Reid was brought up short by the words of Edmund Kemper (popularly known as the “Co-ed Killer” ). Kemper spoke often of domineering female relatives, and in one interview referred to “my grandmother who thought she had more balls than any man and was constantly emasculating me and my grandfather to prove it.” Lines like this reminded Reid powerfully of Gary Ridgway, ( the “Green River Killer” ), who had issues with his mother.

“I thought, ‘I literally just read this!’” she says. “Then I flipped over the page and I saw that actually this is somebody entirely different—but isn’t that interesting that they’re thinking the exact same thing.”

It was at that point that Reid decided to pin up the photographs. “Their individuality needed to be retained,” she says. Though the serial killers she studies think along very similar lines, Reid sees them as distinct people—people who are very poorly understood. Reid, who is due to finish her dissertation in May, has so far analyzed about 70 serial killers with her colleagues. Her hope is to reveal when their warped perspectives take root and how this kind of damage can be reversed when it shows up in children. “How can we help their development to unfold in a way that’s healthy as opposed to in a way that is completely catastrophic and harmful to society?” Reid says.

Little is actually known about how serial killers think and why they develop the way they do. Reid is among a small number of researchers who believe the time has come to probe their minds in exhaustive depth.

An unexpected case

The thought of six-dozen serial killers is an unsettling one. But for Reid, this sample is just the tip of the homicidal iceberg. She is creating a massive database filled with information on 6,000 serial killers from around the world. This involves searching for documentation about 600 different key details—such as being bullied or having a father with a history of criminal behavior—that may have influenced a person’s path to serial murder. She is also compiling a separate database of people who have gone missing in Canada. Her hope is to create a picture of who these people are and to understand who might have harmed them. On one memorable occasion, Reid unexpectedly found herself comparing her insights with the reality of an active serial killer.

It started when, one day in the summer of 2017, she noticed something bizarre. Three men with ties to the Church and Wellesley neighborhood of Toronto, also known as the city’s Gay Village, had disappeared several years previously. It’s not uncommon for clusters of people to disappear around the same time, often for reasons such as accidents, gang violence, overdoses, or becoming lost. But these men had gone missing under strikingly similar circumstances. All had vanished from a very small area, were men of color of similar ages, and had close ties to friends, family, or work that made an intentional vanishing act seem implausible. “It didn’t make sense, and that was the thing that united them the most,” Reid says. “My immediate thought was, ‘it’s probably a serial killer.’”

Reid consulted her database and used the patterns she observed in serial killers who targeted gay men to draw up a brief profile of the kind of person who might be responsible. She then called to share her findings with the police. As Reid expected, they did not end up using the information. However, in January 2018 the police arrested a 66-year-old landscaper named Bruce McArthur, who has since pleaded guilty to murdering eight men —including the three Reid had noticed.

The profile Reid created had erred on some details, such as the suspect’s age; given that most serial killers are under 40 years old, she had expected a man in his thirties. Other predictions were on the mark. Serial killers often bury their victims in sites over which they have control or easy access. And sure enough, the remains of multiple people were found in planters at a home where McArthur stored tools. Seeing the similarities between pieces of her analysis and the actual features of the crimes gave Reid reason to hope that her databases might have practical use in the future.

She is quick to point out that the widespread notion that police rely on profiles to solve cases is a romanticized one. “Police officers work on the foundation of forensic evidence, not Excel files,” Reid says. “But [the database] is something valuable to have on hand—especially as we start to develop it more and take the art out of it and make it more scientific.”

Embracing the art

Understanding serial killers, however, is as much an art as a science. “Experience is one thing, but the way in which those experiences are perceived across the lifetime is much more telling,” Reid says. “I’m kind of in both worlds, remove the art but embrace the art at the same time.”

Her particular focus is male serial killers whose crimes have a sexual element. While analyzing one of these people, Reid and a team of several other researchers each spend a week to a month digging through a trove of information. Among these sources are diary entries, home videos, interviews with the killer and people who knew him, police files, and medical or psychiatric records released into the public domain. The team looks for recurring themes and discusses the interpretations they each arrive at. Reid then tries to extrapolate a sense of how her subject sees the world and his place in it. “This can then give us a better indication of who they are victimizing, how, and why,” she says.

Reid and her team have honed in on a few core ways in which this group differs from most other people. Notably, serial killers feel they are constantly being pushed around, mistreated, and emasculated. “These people really go through their lives looking at everything that happens to them through the lens of a victim; they’re ultimate victims,” Reid says.

This is not to say that certain behaviors or cultural shifts are to blame for mass murder. Some serial killers did, in fact, survive horrific abuse as children. Others weathered much milder situations, but still believe their entire world is filled with abuse. For Gary Ridgway, one such intolerable experience was his mother’s command that he do his homework (Ridgway went on to murder at least 49 women in the state of Washington).

In fact, these people often yearn for connection with others. But in some cases love is not forthcoming, while in others they may be unable to understand or accept it as such. Often, these people misinterpret relatively gentle social cues as threats, and blame others for their problems.

“They fundamentally isolate themselves because they feel that they’re not accepted,” Reid says. “So they create these little worlds wherein they have ultimate power and control and authority.” But for people who believe the entire world is set against them, these fantasies can end up reinforcing unhealthy ways of engaging with others.

These tendencies are already well documented in serial killers. Reid, however, wants to reveal how such beliefs evolve over time. From what she’s observed so far, these elements seem to germinate during particular critical time periods, and may emerge in children as young as seven years old. By the age of 11 to 13, their violent fantasies begin to take on a life of their own, Reid says, becoming powerful and potent.

Each serial killer’s trajectory is unique; genetic predisposition may play a larger role for some, while life circumstances may be more important for others. However, none of these characteristics or experiences amount to destiny; development is a process that unfolds across the lifetime. Attributes such as resiliency and the ability to adapt to one’s circumstances are important as well.

Reid believes that knowing how and when this development occurs will allow us to better reach children who show signs of maladjusted thinking and ultimately put them on another path. This doesn’t mean all or even most of the kids who display these patterns would have grown up to become serial killers, which are extraordinarily rare. It might be more common for them to become depressed, struggle to form relationships with other people, or engage in domestic violence.

“The thing with development is that you just can never say anything for certain,” Reid says. But she feels there is much to learn from the people for whom these disturbing thoughts blossomed into their most extreme form.

“We can reverse some of the ways in which unhealthy thought patterns impact people’s lives. We can teach people to think healthy as opposed to unhealthy,” Reid says. “It’s not just generalizable to serial killers, it’s very much generalizable to all of human pathology.”

The neo-alienist

In some respects, Reid’s work represents a new take on an approach with old roots.

Lee Mellor, a Toronto-based criminologist and chair of the American Investigative Society of Cold Cases academic committee, feels that Reid’s style harkens back to the early psychiatrists and psychologists, or “alienists,” of the 19th Century. But while alienists created detailed life histories to understand mental illness, these efforts were stymied by the fact that scholars at the time didn’t have access to nearly as many records as those today do. This means that researchers like Reid can dive much deeper into a serial killer’s background and come to more meaningful conclusions, Mellor believes. “Sasha is almost like a neo-alienist, and we need more of that,” he says.

Reid’s work also echoes that of the first pioneers who tried to decipher serial killers, the FBI agents whose work has recently been chronicled on the Netflix show “Mindhunter.” Though an important first step, their original work is considered flawed by academics today, in part because it focused on a small group of only 36 criminals who were not all serial killers, says Robert Schug, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at California State University, Long Beach and forensic psychologist.

“I don’t know that anyone has collected as much data on serial killers [as Sasha has], ever,” says Schug, who also studies how serial killers develop . “The potential for kind of unraveling the mysteries of the serial killer, if you will, I think is very high.”

Mellor, who like Schug plans to collaborate with Reid on future projects, feels similarly. “Rather than rejecting the work that these initial trailblazers had done, we’re kind of returning to it and we’re seeing the value in it,” says Mellor, whose own work has focused on necrophilia and murderers who communicate with the police or media before or during their crimes.

That said, this approach does have its limitations. One challenge for Reid’s venture is that there are only so many serial killers whose lives are extensively documented, or for whom these records are easily accessible, Mellor points out. Another hurdle, Reid feels, is the fact that she has not yet spoken with serial killers in person. As a student, she could not muster the funds to fly back and forth and conduct interviews. The project also presented certain liabilities. “I think it [would be] very irresponsible for a university to say, ‘okay, we’re going to send you into the prison and let you interview all of these people who have killed women who looked just like you,’” she reflects.

Once she finishes her dissertation, however, Reid plans to visit prisons and finally begin to conduct her own interviews. “I haven’t spoken to the people that I’m trying to give voice to, and I think that’s awful,” she says. For now, she tries to capture their voices as best she can in her research, and plans for the day when she will be able to ask them questions about her interpretation.

Beyond the zoo

As a child growing up in Dryden, Ontario in the 1990s, Reid wrote “murder stories” and roamed the woods hunting for werewolves, vampires, and other murderous creatures. The decision to study serial killers felt like an inevitable next step on that path. “I don’t think there was anything else ever that I was supposed to do; it’s always been this,” she says. She doubts that any other job could hold her attention.

“I learn something about people every single day,” she says. “It’s like I’m living at the zoo… and I’m looking at a predator and every day I learn something different about their walk, their stride.”

Serial killers hold an enduring fascination for those of us who don’t study them as well.

“I think people are actually craving new information about this topic; that’s why we see the proliferation of these televisions shows and movies and whatnot,” Schug says. “It’s beyond just a morbid curiosity… I think people want to know why .”

Often, we imagine these people are criminal masterminds, Reid noted last year in Contexts , a journal published by the American Sociological Association. They have a certain mystique; although their victims are often forgotten, serial killers are granted fame and flashy nicknames such as the “Night Stalker”, the “West Mesa Bone Collector,” and “Jack the Ripper.” In reality, serial killers are more often opportunists, wrote Reid and coauthor Jooyoung Lee, also of the University of Toronto. Many target vulnerable groups such as sex workers, “who become ‘easy prey’ because of their precarious legal status.”

But there may be change on the horizon. Efforts by sex workers and groups such as the Canadian Alliance for Sex Work Law Reform to advocate for legal protections and awareness are becoming more visible . And organizations like Street Safe New Mexico take immediate steps such as handing out “bad guy lists” to alert sex workers to dangerous men in the area.

Meanwhile, Reid and other researchers are journeying ever deeper into the minds of the people who have harmed these communities and so many others. “They are people whose behavior is at the far end of the continuum of abnormality, but they are human,” Reid says. “And because they are human they can be understood.”

And whether or not these people would want to be understood, this knowledge may prove valuable to the rest of society.

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How to Spot a Serial Killer: Crime Research Strategies

• History of Serial Killers
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Research Strategies

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• Savvy Research
• Search Terms

Biographical research strategies vary greatly, depending on the notoriety and date of the crime. You will find much more information about the killer than the victims. Books may be written about these crimes, so consider searching the library catalog and not just online/web-based resources.

Profile of the  killer  should include (but is not limited to):

• Upbringing – family (how many sisters, brothers etc.)
• Education? Where did he/she to go high school, college, etc.?
• Married? Straight? Gay? Bi-Sexual? Children? Divorced?
• Employment – where did the person work, what job(s), etc.?
• How did he/she choose victims?
• How did he/she kill victims? and how did he/she dispose of them?
• What were the similarities between victims?
• Known mental illnesses?
• What type of Serial Murderer?
• Was the killer caught? When, how?
• What was/is his/her prison sentence?
• Is this person still alive? Where?

Profile of a  victim  should include (but not be limited to):

• Biographical information; age, gender, nationality, religion
• Employment & Education
• Family? Married? Children?
• Any known accomplishments?
• Any connection with killer?
• What was the person doing when caught by killer?
• Where did the death take place?
• Include photos of victim while alive

Constructing a good search can save you a lot of time and effort.  By creating better searches, you can eliminate many irrelevant hits.  The following search tips and strategies can help you find more relevant information.

Phrase Searching  - Putting "quotes" around your search words tells the database that you are looking for that exact phrase.

Example: "crime"

Try Different Wording  (synonyms) - Think of different words that describe your topic.

• Example: "crime"     Try: "corruption"

Try a Broader Search  - Sometimes you might choose keywords that overly specific. Try to think of a broader term that includes your topic.  The more general the search, more results are likely.

• Example: killers     Try: serial killers

Look for Limiters  - Search tools often present options for limiting by date or range of dates, full-text or specific format, publication type, etc.  Look for advanced search options to find search features that may not be obvious at first.

Important words or phrases within the text of articles, citations, or abstracts.

Subject Headings =

Specific vocabulary assigned by database indexers to describe the article content so all records on a given subject can be found in one search.

Keywords Terms

• Child Serial Killer
• Criminal Minds
• Criminal Profiling
• Criminal Psychology
• Mass Murders
• Multiple Murders
• Pairs of Serial Killers
• Perpetrator
• Serial Arson
• Serial Killer
• Serial Killings
• Serial Murderers
• Serial Rape
• Spree Murders
• Violent Crime 

Other Subject Terms

• Affective disorders.
• Antisocial personality disorders.
• Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
• Behavior disorders
• Behavior disorders in children.
• Borderline personality disorder.
• Conduct disorders
• Conduct disorders in children.
• Criminal behavior -- Genetic aspects.
• Criminal behavior.
• Criminal psychology.
• Depression, Mental.
• Drug abuse.
• Manic-depressive illness.
• Mental illness.
• Mental illness -- Prevention.
• Mentally ill -- Public opinion.
• Narcissism.
• Neurobehavioral disorders.
• Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• Personality disorders.
• Psychology.
• Psychology -- Research.
• Psychology, Pathological.
• Psychopaths.
• Psychotherapy.
• Schizophrenia.
• Separation anxiety in children.
• Sexual disorders.

Substance abus

Library Databases

See the list of databases that contains information about Serial Killers 

Online Periodicals

Go to these sites and do a search to find information. You can search with keywords (mental illness, crime, criminal behavior, mass murder, serial killers, etc.) or you can try searching for a specific individual (James Holmes, Zodiac Killer, Andrea Yates, Andrew Goldstein, Ted Bundy, etc.).

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The Best Criminology Dissertation Ideas On Serial Killers

There are many interesting topics in the field of criminology, but there are few subjects that remain as popular as the phenomenon of the serial killer. When it comes to writing a dissertation, students can make their work a little more interesting by writing about a serial killer or covering aspects of this type of murderer. To get started on writing a criminology dissertation, students should consider some of the following topic ideas.

Criminology Dissertation Ideas on Serial Killers

• Recent MRI studies show that psychopaths have differences in their mind when compared to normal individuals. What significance could this have on “diagnosing” a serial killer?
• What is the difference between a mass murderer and a serial killer in modern culture?
• What are some of the factors that contribute to the chances that a specific individual will become a serial killer?
• What were some of the signatures of BTK and why does this specific serial killer retain a grotesque fascination for popular culture?
• How do the serial killers portrayed in Hollywood compare to real life serial killers?
• Historically, serial killers were considered an American issue. It is for this reason that several serial killers in the former Soviet Union went uncaught. What happened in this case and why did the Russians persist on believing that only Americans have serial killers?
• What are some of the trademarks of female serial killers?
• Do serial killer partners always have a dominant personality and a submissive personality?
• How did the Son of Sam cause panic in New York City? How can the media and public policy prevent populations from panicking about the serial killers that walk among them?
• What made the case of Charles Manson so unique?
• Is it possible to cure a serial killer?
• How is the Canadian justice system ill-designed for prosecuting and punishing serial killers in comparison with the justice system in the United States?
• Many serial killers enjoy the notoriety that they receive for their crimes, and even partner with journalists to create a biography. How do journalists fuel the narcissism and attention that the serial killer craves by working with them? Are journalists essentially profiting from their crimes?
• Is behavioral analysis an effective way to predict the characteristics of an individual serial killer?
• Who is the person most likely to be Jack the Ripper?
• How does the media portray the character of Dexter as a serial killer? Is this a way of idealizing who a serial killer is?
• How has modern technology and criminology made it more difficult for serial killers to remain at large?

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Cold Cases and Serial Killers (Part 1)

In April 2018, the Golden State Killer, Joseph DeAngelo was arrested. NIJ support helped lead to his arrest, and in the aftermath of the arrest, NIJ Social Science Analyst Eric Martin was among those tasked with finding other cases NIJ helped law enforcement solve. Eric joins the show to talk about some of those cases, and answer some broader questions about serial killers: What is a serial killer? Are they on the rise? How do we know how many serial killers are currently active?

Mark Greene, the Director of the Office of Technology and Standards at NIJ, and Lucas Zarwell, the Office Director of NIJ’s Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences, co-host this conversation about serial killers. Read the transcript.

Reading and Resources from NIJ

• Serial Killer Connections Through Cold Cases | Article
• Using Forensic Intelligence To Combat Serial and Organized Violent Crimes | Article
• NamUs database

Other Resources

• Serial Killer Connects Through Cold Cases | Academy of Forensic Nursing podcast
• Combined DNA Index System (CODIS)
• Prosecuting Cold Cases Using DNA | BJA program

SPEAKER 1: Welcome to Justice Today, the official podcast of the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs, where we shine a light on cutting-edge research and practices and offer an in-depth look at what we're doing to meet the biggest public safety challenges of our time. Join us as we explore how funded science and technology help us achieve strong communities.

MARK GREENE: Welcome, listeners, to this episode of NIJ's podcast. I'm Mark Greene. I'm a division director of the Technology and Standards Division here at the National Institute of Justice. My background is in engineering from Northwestern. Today, I'm joined by Eric Martin, who is a social science analyst in the Justice System's Research Division at NIJ. Eric has a background in public policy from Purdue University. And I'm also delighted to be joined also by Lucas Zarwell. He is our office director for the Office of Investigative and Forensic Sciences at NIJ. He has a background—a master’s in forensics from George Washington University. 

Today, we are talking about the prevalence of serial killers. Are they on the increase? What individuals are at most risk? And what is known about serial killers and how cases are built against them? Eric, I am excited today to talk about serial killers. I think this is going to be a great discussion. To begin with, many of the listeners may notice that neither of us have backgrounds that you would expect to be on a podcast about serial killers. Lucas, you--you've got a background in forensics, which is really helpful. You can help clarify some things for us. But, Eric, please tell us--tell us what we're doing here.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Yeah. Yeah, Eric.

ERIC MARTIN: Yeah.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Come on. Fill us in.

ERIC MARTIN: I'm so glad Lucas came on to give a street cred. Well--so before anybody gets downloader remorse here, let me set the record straight for you all. So around April of 2018, Joseph DeAngelo,  aka  the Golden State Killer, was arrested on 13 counts of murder and 13 counts of sexual assault. It turns--yeah, it made the news. It was quite a big deal. And, while it was in the headlines, NIJ realized that they actually played a role in the case closures against Joseph DeAngelo. It turned out NIJ supported both Ventura County and Orange County investigators, mostly through using federal funds to help with the DNA analysis. So as this story was unfolding in the press, it was making big headlines, NIJ leadership, you know, inspired by our connection to this case, commissioned two members of the Office of Forensic Investigative Sciences, Lucas, and as well as me--and that connection is a little obscure, but I think it was because of my former job as a crime analyst with DC Metropolitan Police before I came to NIJ. But the three of us went through and tried to identify all the areas and cases where NIJ had an impact, and it turns out we were able to identify over 2,000 case closures and cold cases. And this may be an undercount because once the project period ends for NIJ support, agencies may or may not continue to keep NIJ apprised of what's going on with those cases. But what's even more exciting or, you know, particularly relevant for our conversation here, within those 2,000 cases, they were able to identify 16 high-profile serial killers. So we went and wrote an article for the NIJ Journal, and that created some buzz as well. Not as much as the national headlines with the Golden State Killer. But we were asked to record a podcast and that's where Mark and I started to team up on that effort. And we're just kind of updating the field with--you know, kind of exploring this issue more. Since we wrote the article and the podcast, there's been a lot more media attention, both in the news and then in TV shows and documentaries, given to serial killers. So we thought it'd be a good time to refresh and just have another conversation.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Eric, that is so cool. I mean, I totally remember reading these articles and how it's become--how NIJ had such an impact on that. But, you know, one of the things I've always asked and like I've always thought this with--you know, coming from a--from a forensic side, we don't really deal with, you know, necessarily this line of work, and so it's really important. Is there a way that you can like remind us, you know, not just me, but maybe Mark as well, and the public, about what is a serial killer? ERIC MARTIN: Great question, Lucas. And that's important because that definition's changed over time. So if you're reading…

LUCAS ZARWELL: Okay. 

ERIC MARTIN: …literature and you're looking at this question, you may see competing definitions and you might be like, "What's going on?" So as it stands right now, the FBI defines a serial killer as a person who has committed two or more homicides in separate events.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Two or more homicides in separate events?

ERIC MARTIN: So it's not--yeah. It's not like multiple victims within one event. It has to be separated events. It used to be three. So that's where some of the confusion lies. And that was changed recently.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Why do you think that changed?

ERIC MARTIN: I was not consulted in the definition change. I do not know. I think it's just--and there is some literature around it. Not to be too cheeky on the matter, but it--I think it's largely just to make sure they encompass the universe of what's going on. Because you can imagine--we're dealing with very tragic events and these are individuals' lives who are being lost. So you--I think--this is just coming from me, Eric, but that you're trying to study something so you can understand the problem and therefore mitigate it, but you don't want to create like trivial, you know, definitional boundaries, right? So you have to be sure to include all aspects of the problem. 

And that--you know, there's also spree killers as well. The FBI now includes spree killers in their definition of serial killers. Now, this is where it gets even--a little bit more muddled. A spree killer usually kills multiple people over a matter of days instead of over year--months, years, which we tend to think of as the traditional serial killer. Again, I think that definitional change is just to make sure they are the most accurate as possible when trying to figure out the problem. But you can imagine that certain researchers, you know, really build their careers around one type of killer, a spree killer versus a serial killer, and that definitional change does impact research and thought on the subject.

MARK GREENE: I know that serial killers are--seem to be getting more attention in popular cultures like TV shows and--you know, you just mentioned the definitional change from three to two incidents. Are they on the increase? Should we be freaked out? Does that change in definition mean that like we now have more serial killers among us because the criteria is lower?

LUCAS ZARWELL: Good question, Mark. That’s interesting.

ERIC MARTIN: Well--very good question. And, you know, you tend to--I think there's this propensity when you're just confronted with information on a topic repeatedly, you tend to naturally think that this is a phenomenon that is getting worse. I think, largely because these crimes are heinous and violent, they just attract our attention. When you think of--you know, much has been made and written about the serial killer mind, right? And it's just so foreign to how those of us really go about our day and think about things that I think that's where really the intrigue comes about in trying to really get into this genre of film and documentaries. But, to answer your question, all research substantiates that there is actually less serial killers in operation today, down from their peak in the 1980s. 1970s and '80s is where research really points to a peak in serial killer operation writ large in the public, and we have seen a steady decline.

LUCAS ZARWELL: That’s good news, I think, you know?

ERIC MARTIN: Yeah. Yeah.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Very, very different. I did not expect that, you know, especially with all the media attention and all the information that's out there. I mean, I think you're right. There is a perception. It's almost like the CSI effect meets serial killers, right? Interesting.

ERIC MARTIN: Yes. Exactly.

LUCAS ZARWELL: I think one of the things I want to get back to is, you know, since there's less serial killers today than back in the 1980s, like can you help explain that a little more?

ERIC MARTIN: Yeah. And it's hard to know for sure. There's--you know, some of these definitional issues come into play like we just talked about at the onset. Also, how do you know when a serial killer has stopped operating, right, because their offenses could be, you know, drawn out over months, years, even decades in some instances. But best estimates, and there's a whole range of estimates, is I think--it would be safe to say there's around 25 to 50 active serial killers right now at any one time. And that could be as little as a quarter to half of what we saw at its peak in the 1980s. Another way to look at it is--and, again, this is looking at the victims, not necessarily the serial killers, but about 15% of all homicides may be attributable to serial killers. And that's at the high end. I've seen estimates really drop down from there, even as low as 1%. And in that article we originally published, we go through a number of the different estimates. And my method, and I don't know if it's the most accurate, is just to kind of pick the middle, you know, when you have a bunch of conflicting estimates.

MARK GREENE: Right. Right. So I--Eric, I mean, it's such a--it's such a range. Like what--why is it so hard to know for sure?

ERIC MARTIN: Well, much of it depends on deciding what to measure.

MARK GREENE: Ah. Okay.

ERIC MARTIN: And, you know, picking that initial unit of analysis will really dictate what your final estimate may be. And, also, it's--we're talking about crimes, in the reference to the spree killer, that could be very easily observable, right? You know, sporadic, violent events over a period of days. Those could attract a lot of attention. Investigators would make it--yeah, it's--you would think it would be much easier to make those case connections. But with a serial killer who's operating, you know, at a pace of like years, you know, stretching into decades, it--it's hard to make that connection immediately or it may not be apparent, thus, you know, you only could do the best estimates you can to try to capture all of that. And then...

MARK GREENE: I see.

ERIC MARTIN: ...when a serial killer stops operating, unless they've been arrested and brought to justice, it is--you know, it's hard to say. It's hard to count them active with any degree of surety. Are they arrested on another charge and thus, you know, the public is--has a reprieve from risk from that individual? Are they dead? You know, did something happen to them so they're no longer a threat?

MARK GREEN: Right.

ERIC MARTIN: There's no good way to capture this, you know, until the person is identified.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Yeah. That's fascinating. You know--sorry, Mark. You know, one of the things that's come to my mind now is that I imagine that, you know, the unsolved homicides can complicate these estimates, right? Because if you--if you don't know who committed the crime--right? So can you expand on that? Like I don't really get that.

ERIC MARTIN: Yes. Thanks, Lucas. And that was the purpose of our original article, looking at cold cases. And, again, that's where the bulk of NIJ's support in this area has been, just, you know, helping agencies pursue cold cases, bringing--identifying these individuals and bringing them to justice. Interestingly, homicide has the highest clearance rate of any major crime, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics. Around 60% of homicides are cleared. And that definition probably could be expanded on a little here. You take the number of cases identified in a year and then the ratio is built by the number of cases closed. So you could have prior year closures count towards the clearance rate.

LUCAS ZARWELL: You're talking about 60% of homicides compared to like--you know, like let's say home invasions, are usually solved, or auto break-ins.

ERIC MARTIN: Much lower. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

LUCAS ZARWELL: But there's a lot of resources put into the--homicides, right? So 60--so...

ERIC MARTIN: They're very heinous crimes. They have a huge impact on the survivors. And thus, rightfully so, police and prosecutors dedicate a tremendous amount of resources to solving these cases. But even at the highest clearance rate of any major crime, 40% of cases in any given year run the risk of going cold. And what is more surprising is while we had--we've identified the 1980s as the height of serial killers operating in the United States, the clearance rate was much higher at that time for homicide. So I think investigators--even though I could say with some degree of surety based on the research, that there are less serial killers operating today, investigators are dealing with that unknown, that population of unsolved cases that are piling up in many jurisdictions that they have to--you know, were helping to pursue, so--especially to limit the impact of any potential serial killers within those cases.

MARK GREENE: So--wait. Eric, what--one question. So in the 1980s, the clearance rate was higher than today?

ERIC MARTIN: Yes.

MARK GREENE: But--I guess, Lucas, you could--you could chime in. The actual forensics tools available today are better than they were in the 1980s. So that's sort of interesting.

LUCAS ZARWELL: It is interesting. Because, you know, like DNA didn't really make its like commercial arrival until the '90s, right? And then...

MARK GREENE: Yeah. That’s like the ‘90s. Right. Right.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Uh-hmm. Which is not that long ago when you really think about technology and the way people have been investigating crimes for so many years. That's a good thing. Hey, Eric, could you--do--can you opine on like what it's like when a case becomes cold? Like how long is it before a case becomes cold? Is that something that we can...

ERIC MARTIN: It's--there's really no, you know, one accepted definition. And I think--you know, there's a lot of diversity in policing in America with so many, uh, law enforcement jurisdictions and so many jurisdictions that investigate major crimes. But I think closure going longer than three years.

LUCAS ZARWELL: I see.

ERIC MARTIN: Does that make sense?

LUCAS ZARWELL: Yeah.

ERIC MARTIN: So if a case is open for three years or more, we would tend to consider that cold. Now--and we'll talk about this more in the next episode of this podcast, but not every agency in this country has the resources for a dedicated cold case unit. And we're going to talk about--just to be a little bit of a teaser for the next--part two of this podcast, we're going to talk about what research says about how to pursue cold cases and how a jurisdiction could really try to maximize its investigative leverage there.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Interesting. And, you know, Eric, that reminds me of another issue because, you know, forensics we’re often dealing with--because we're dealing with DNA and identifications and just the evidence that's found, you know, is it possible that, you know, there's homicides out there that we just don't even know about, right? If I'm a serial killer, I may, you know, not want a person to find somebody, right?

ERIC MARTIN: Yes. Uh-hmm. NIJ has--is really leading the way in this area as well. NIJ hosts the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, also known as NamUs. And this is a database where information about unidentified persons can be shared. Kind of a linkage database to really help identify people who are missing or bodies who are discovered who don't have identification. Using FBI data, and this is posted right on the NamUs front page on their website, around 600,000 people a year go missing in this country.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Yeah. That--yeah. That's an FBI statistic. I do know this one fairly well. And that’s basically who goes missing in a year and not all those…  ERIC MARTIN: Uh-hmm. Yes.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Some of those people come back. You know, some of--some of them just are runaways. But there are people that become long-term missing cases, right? And...

ERIC MARTIN: And I think the number of long-term missing is much lower, correct, Lucas?

LUCAS ZARWELL: Yeah. I think it is as well, but I don't know if--I don't--the FBI might have better data on that than we do.

ERIC MARTIN: Yeah. I think it's around 10,000. So, you know, the 600,000, thankfully, many of those are--the whereabouts are identified. But within those 10,000 missing persons, there's also 4,000 unidentified bodies recovered on average in a year in this country. And that speaks to your point you made earlier, Lucas, about--or it may have been Mark. I'm sorry. About, you know, if a homicide is not discovered, you know, that'd be one way a serial killer could contain, or retain, some anonymity.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Yeah. No, that's fine, Eric. We get confused sometimes because we both have beards. But we just have to remember, Mark has the better hair. The...

LUCAS ZARWELL: I wanted--I wanted to--I wanted to add to that just really quickly, Eric, and also say that I think that's an important, you know, thing, right, because we do know that being missing is not necessarily a crime, but if evidence leads to the evidence of a crime, then we've got, you know, the potential to uncover more serial killers, which is, I think, where the linkage is and--you know, I totally agree.

ERIC MARTIN: Uh-hmm.

LUCAS ZARWELL: And--so thanks for making that connection to the NamUs program. I really do.

MARK GREENE: Eric, I have a question. So you mentioned over 4,000 decedents, you know, recovered every year. I mean, is there some--like what if two or more of those bodies are homicides attributed to the same person. What--how does law enforcement deal with that?

ERIC MARTIN: Yeah. That's the big question, right, is, you know, so much of the definition of when a active serial killer is in an area, and we've seen historically it is not necessarily tied to one city or one geographic area, it is through case linkages. And there are a number--you know, this is probably the area that has gotten the most attention in TV and print literature, you know? I think everybody has kind of a archetype of the--you know, the criminal profiler. But there's actually a number of ways cases can be linked together. We've met--made a lot of--we've dedicated a lot of time in this podcast to DNA and with good reason. It is the most definitive way to make a case linkage today. And we talked a lot about this in the article, in previous podcasts. Lucas has a wealth of knowledge on the issue, how CODIS works, and how those profiles can be analyzed and linked together. But the basic way this is done is DNA specimens are collected and they can be compared from different crime scenes. And you can identify that the same person left that DNA specimen in multiple crime scenes. And there you go. You have a case connection. You don't have an identified suspect yet, if the identity is unknown who left that specimen, but you know those cases are connected now.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s cool, Mark. It is. It is cool how the system can actually search and match two profiles that are the same but, at the same time, if the is not in CODIS, it doesn’t become--until it--until that happens, right, they can’t make all those connections. So there’s a lot of arguments for ensuring that we get that data into the database, you know, from people who’ve been convicted of crimes, so that we can make those associations and possibly find out about additional victims.

ERIC MARTIN: Uh-hmm. And, you know, the field is moving beyond just the conventional CODIS database. As--we mentioned, the Golden State Killer at the outset of this podcast. That was through forensic genealogy. What happened was a relative of the Golden State Killer participated in a gene--genealogy DNA database. And through familial matching, they were able to identify the Golden State Killer. So it is more than just CODIS. And we've spent some time in the previous article discussing that. Lot of advances, you know? And I think the field keeps going, both in terms of how precise and how they can collect DNA specimens, where, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, that probably--that collection wouldn't have been viable. And then also in their analytic techniques as well. 

We mentioned at the outset too that, you know, there were 16 serial killers, at least, identified within the 2,000 cases that NIJ knows that it contributed to their closure. DNA confirmations were present in confirming Albert DeSalvo, also known as the Boston Strangler; John Bittrolff, the Long Island Killer; Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer; Lonnie Franklin, the Grim Sleeper; and Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer. So this is where NIJ's made the lion's share of its contribution and this is where the field is, as far as the state-of-the-art of making a accurate case connection. 

But as I said early on, this is not the only way to make a case connection. There's behavioral profiling. And that's got--I think probably has the--you know, captured the hearts and minds of most Americans when we think of case connections. That's where a lot of--you know, popular culture has really explored this area. This came about largely through the work of the FBI in the 1980s, but interestingly enough, NIJ had a role in it as well. We helped stand up the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, which then produced VICAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. And it was through the work with FBI agents at this center, and they started developing these profiling tools. Mostly, you know, they--it's evolved over time, but a lot of attention has been given to their typology of the organized versus the disorganized serial killer. Later iterations of this have really tried to operationalize this profiling more and place it within the investigative process. A lot of attention's been given to that. And then, also, separate from behavioral profiling, there's geographic profiling. So we have DNA analysis. We have behavioral profiling. These are the type of crime scene indicators that the killer may leave at the crime scene, that they try to understanding kind of going--what's going on in the killer's head. And then geographic profiling is all about trying to identify the location of that home address.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Wow.

ERIC MARTIN: You know, there's a number of iterations of geographic profiling. Kim Rossmo pioneered one of these, he did a lot of work in this area. And basically--you know, it's very technical, but just to try to give a rough definition of what's going, they can basically try to identify the suspect's home location based on finding a center of the cluster of the known offenses that could be linked to that one serial killer. And it doesn't have to be in homicide.

LUCAS ZARWELL: So is this like proverbial where they put the strings on the map and then they like are cross-indexing it or is it a little bit more...

ERIC MARTIN: Exactly.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Is it more complex than that, Eric?

ERIC MARTIN: We now--you know, we have GIS, you know, analysis and crime mapping, and a lot of geographic algebra that could sit behind. But, yeah, that’s--Lucas, you’re exactly right. This is, you know--or often precedes science, and this is exactly the same technique but, you know, with a little bit more mathematical bent.

MARK GREENE: Yeah. It's like center--it's like a center of mass calculation kind of thing. Yeah. It’s kind of interesting, yeah.

ERIC MARTIN: Yeah. Exactly.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Well, I'm sure--I mean, I'm sure it's more complicated than strings on a map in a pin board now, so--but, I mean, I think that's really cool because what I think people think about geographical, you know, profiling, that's really kind of--that's the flash version of it, right? But the real version involves a much more in-depth analysis of, you know, the region and the location. I could see that happening. Yeah. Very cool stuff. 

MARK GREENE: But that's like--but that's like the movie version, you know? It's like the person's sitting there after like spending like 48 hours awake, like pouring coffee, and they've got like a million like pictures and files everywhere, and it's like, "Look,"--you know, "Oh, there they are," you know? Like...

ERIC MARTIN: And, you know, it's interesting, and not too divert too much, but all of these methods, you know, fill the need investigators had. Investigators were the ones who knew, "I--if I had this information, I could probably figure out who this is," right? And in all these cases--you know, DNA analysis, you know, started out in paternity testing and other more, you know, medical applications, and then was adopted to criminal investigations because, you know, it was filling that need. And the same way that a lot of psychological profiles and also the geographic profiling.

LUCAS ZARWELL: I love it. And I--and I--and I think it's--I like the way that you brought home the interest in like, you know, investigative genealogy and how it's being--or what they call FGG and how they're using it as a tool, right? But, really, it's that DNA CODIS link where they can get the DNA from the individual, make the match to the crime, and then that's what's prevent--presented as evidence of saying like, "Hey, this person's DNA was now found definitively."

ERIC MARTIN: Yeah. That’s a good point.

LUCAS ZARWELL: Yeah. And I think that's really important to remember too, right, because CODIS is such a powerful tool to this day and it's really great to hear how everything is interconnected.

MARK GREENE: Hey, Eric, I have learned a ton in this podcast. I'm going to let us take a break right now and our audience take a break. We're going to continue this discussion in part two of the podcast. So, listeners, please stay tuned. Join us for part two of the podcast on serial killers.

SPEAKER 2: To learn more about today's topic or about NIJ, visit the links in the episode description and join us for new episodes every month. 

Disclaimer:

Opinions or points of view expressed in these recordings represent those of the speakers and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. Any commercial products and manufacturers discussed in these recordings are presented for informational purposes only and do not constitute product approval or endorsement by the U.S. Department of Justice.

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15 Interesting Serial Killer Research Paper Topics 

Serial Killer Research Paper Topics: Serial killers are not results of the distant memory seasons of Jack the Ripper, yet an alarming reality. Besides, in spite of the multitude of accomplishments and endeavors of legal science, different fields identified with brain research, psychiatry and distinctive social administrations, individuals who have an obsessive inclination to fulfill their distorted requirements through sequential killings discover better approaches to get away from both treatment and discipline, just as to trap casualties.

Serial killers are concentrated in a few fields like brain research, humanism, criminology and some different sciences, which think about the wonder according to different points of view to more readily get it. Clearly, understudies ought to pick Serial killer research paper points dependent regarding the matter they study and put forward the proper objectives – to investigate the brain science of Criminals, to recognize the weakest gatherings of people or to find out about ways that may help in getting a Serial killer. Regardless of whether you are composing without zeroing in on a specific subject, you can have a genuine effect by scattering fantasies about Serial killers and introducing realities that can instruct you and your readers.

You can read more  Essay Writing  about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Topics on Serial Killers

A Serial killer is somebody who kills with at least four a long time with minimal mental solace to proceed with criminal activities. A psychopathic executioner is an individual having an absence of relational sympathy and neglects to feel thoughtfulness toward his casualties. A psychopathic executioner doesn’t esteem human existence and couldn’t care less about the discipline of his violations. Analyze the earnestness of their mental condition and how to get them all together shield the security of the local area from them. Serial killers are conceived and made relying upon the conditions they live in or it’s anything but a hereditary mishap they got from their folks.

Research Titles for Serial Killers

The topics related to Serial killers are:

• Who are Serial Killers?
• Are Serial Killers Born or Made?
• What is the Nature of Serial Killers?
• Serial Killer in the United States
• Serial Killer Psychology
• Treatment of Serials Killers
• What do the Serial Killers think?
• What is in the mind of Serial Killer?
• Analysis on Serial Killers
• Who made them Serial Killers?
• A well-planned Murder by Serial Killer
• What steps are taken by the country to control Serial Killers?
• How do juveniles become serial killers?
• Serial killing for Self Satisfaction
• Serial murders for Money
• How to Cure a Serial Killer?

You can change the offered research paper subjects on Serial killers to your necessities by expanding or, on the other hand, narrowing them down. Make a point to discover and read data on the theme chosen prior to settling on an ultimate choice to keep away from absence of proof.

Research Paper on Crime and Criminals

Criminals are made because of their general public. In any case, hoodlums are made on account of the conditions they were going through, regardless of whether by the savagery of guardians or by the local area. Crooks resort to brutality and utilize the danger as a method of living, and they don’t feel remorseful about their activities. Numerous Criminals feel outcast in view of the treatment they get from their networks, where the strikes they get are a result of their general public; not they were brought into the world with viciousness. Individuals with high testosterone levels are for all intents and purposes bound to submit to brutality more than the individuals who don’t have this level. Hence, hostile conduct is well known which gives a substitute recognizable proof to Criminals.

Criminals will have furious inclinations toward their folks when they get dismissed or all the more respectful companions. At the point when a criminal gets dismissed by his friends, the outcome will be negative because of incendiary or risky guardians or the absence of sufficient parental control. Hence, taking part in a pack or executioner gathering of people will make up for the heartfelt shortcoming, raising the individuals’ feeling of good individual connection. At last, kid sexual maltreatment is one of the principal factors that cause extraordinary injury to the hoodlums, prompting separation from their networks for a significant stretch of time.

Criminals assault kids and treat them as homeless canines, prompting questions and scorn of society. The youngster develops with dread and carries on with a troublesome life rather than others and that makes him the loathing of society, which keeps an eye on wrongdoing and viciousness to fulfill his savage longings. Nonetheless, when an individual feels distanced from society, he will end up being a criminal on account of the unforgiving conditions he encountered, like lewd behavior and harassment.

FAQ’s on Serial Killer Research Paper Topics

Question 1. How to start a good statement for Serial killer topics?

Answer: We can start with the statement as’ serial killers are not born or they are not killers by birth, instead, they are made by our society. These serial killers have one or another history of assault and abuse in their previous lives. Therefore, before we mark them for their cruelty, we should analyse what was the situation that made them serial killers.

Question 2. What are the main objectives of a serial killer?

Answer: As per the analysis and investigation have done on serial killers, their motives are anger, seeking attention, thrill, self-satisfaction, and money.

Question 3. What are the common types of serial killers?

Answer: A serial killer that has power and wants to control or dominate their victims are the most common type of them.

Question 4. Who was Jack the Ripper?

Answer: Jack the ripper was a serial killer in London. He was also called Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron.

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Speaking of Psychology: Understanding the mind of a serial killer, with Louis Schlesinger, PhD

Episode 281.

From Jack the Ripper to Jeffrey Dahmer to the Gilgo Beach killer, serial killers have long inspired public fear—and public fascination. Louis Schlesinger, PhD, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and coinvestigator of a research project on sexual and serial murder with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, talks about what we really know about these murderers’ motivations and their methods, how some manage to avoid capture for so long, and how forensic psychology research can help investigators solve cases.

About the expert: Louis Schlesinger, PhD

Kim Mills: The following episode contains descriptions of sexual violence that some people may find disturbing. If you would rather not hear this type of content, please come back next week for a new episode. Thank you.

Last summer, police in New York arrested architect Rex Heuermann and charged him with a series of murders that took place on Long Island between 1996 and 2011. The arrest of the suspect in the so-called Gilgo Beach Killings appears to have closed one of the more recent chapters in the history of American serial killers. From Jeffrey Dahmer to Ted Bundy to Son of Sam, serial killers have long inspired public fear—and public fascination. What, we wonder, could drive someone to commit such crimes—and how do these people get away with murder for so long?

Today we’re going to talk with a forensic psychologist who studies serial killing. We will discuss what the research tells us about serial murderers’ motivations and methods. Are they all psychopaths or sociopaths or something else? What exactly do those terms mean? Do serial killers ever feel remorse for their actions? How common is serial murder and why do so many of us find it so fascinating?

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology , the flagship podcast of the American Psychological Association that examines the links between psychological science and everyday life. I’m Kim Mills.

My guest today is Dr. Louis Schlesinger, a professor of psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. He has spent decades studying serial murder and is the coprincipal investigator of a joint research project with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit studying sexual and serial murder, rape, bias homicide, suicide by cop, and other extraordinary crimes. He is a board-certified forensic psychologist and an APA fellow, and has published many research articles and 10 books on the topics of homicide, sexual homicide, and criminal psychopathology. 

Dr. Schlesinger, thank you for joining me today.

Louis Schlesinger, PhD : Thank you.

Mills: Let’s start with a definition of the term. What constitutes a serial killer and is there a minimum number of such killings that one has to commit to meet the definition?

Schlesinger: Well, serial killer literally means killing people in a series. Now, when you speak about that, you have to talk about what type of serial killer you’re referring to, because they’re very, very different in terms of how they behave, their psychodynamics, what motivates them, and so on. The type of serial killer that we know most about and that what most people are interested in is the serial sexual murderer like the Boston Strangler, BTK, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper, and you mentioned the Gilgo Beach guy more recently. But there’s other types of individuals that kill in a series. For example, there’s contract killers that would kill people for money. It is a world of difference for someone who’s killing a series of people for money versus someone killing for sexual gratification.

There’s the health care serial killers. Those are people that go into a hospital for example, and kill a number of people. Some are nurses, some are physicians that do that. Again, it’s a very different type of dynamic. And if you go into any state prison or penitentiary in the United States, you’re going to find a number of people throughout their criminal career who have killed more than one or two people during a robbery, some sort of felony thing, and so on. So we have to keep it separate.

Now, what most people are interested in—and the serial sexual murderers that you refer to in the introduction, Jeffrey Dahmer and BTK and those sorts of things—are the serial sexual murderers. And so let me just talk about that and define that a little bit so the audience understands what we’re referring to. Most people can understand murder. Most people don’t have any problem understanding that. But sexual murder is very difficult for the average person to wrap their arms around.

And so the question is, what’s going on with these people? Before we talk about what’s going on in their mind, we have to get a couple of definitions straight. Serial sexual murder is not listed as a paraphilia in any of the diagnostic manuals. A paraphilia being an abnormal sexual arousal pattern like pedophilia, attraction to children, fetishism, sexual arousal to non-living objects, and this sort of thing. So it’s not listed in a diagnostic manual, and it’s also not defined in statute. Murder is defined in statute, but serial murder or serial sexual murder is not. Also an important point with respect to this, and many, many people get this wrong, including nonclinical psychologists and sociologists and so on, is there does not have to be intercourse in order for it to be sexual. Why? Because the violence takes the place of it. As a matter of fact, in many, many of these cases, there’s no sexual penetration at all.

In addition to, complicating the problem that that wasn’t enough, is there’s no national crime statistics on the number of serial sexual murders in the United States, and no country keeps these statistics. Now, Canada, for example, our neighbor to the north, used to keep statistics on serial sexual murder, but their definition was very different. It was killing someone in the context of a sex crime. In other words, they would commit a sex crime and then kill the victim so that they couldn’t turn him in. That’s very, very different than killing someone for sexual gratification. Statistics Canada, which is comparable to our Uniform Crime Reports, no longer categorizes sexual murder because I spoke to them recently about it, and it just becomes too complicated.

So serial sexual murder, this is somebody that is going out and killing repetitively because the murder itself is sexually gratifying. Let me say a couple things about human sexuality first. On one end of the continuum, you have heterosexuals, adults attracted to members of the opposite sex. On the other end of the continuum, you could have homosexuals, adults attracted to members of the same sex. But is that it for human sexuality? The answer is no. There’s many, many, many shades of gray in between there. There’s also abnormal sexual arousal patterns, as I mentioned: pedophilia, arousal to children; infantophilia, sexual arousal to preverbal infants; hebephilia, sexual arousal to pubescent adolescents. And there’s things like fetishism and exhibitionism and these sorts of things. In my view, the best way to understand serial sexual murder is another paraphilia, another abnormal sexual arousal pattern. And specifically in these cases, there’s a fusion of sex and aggression so that the aggressive act itself is eroticized, it’s stimulating.

And so people look at this and say, okay, murder—understand murder. I could even understand hatred of women, for example, let’s kill women. But what they can’t understand, which is very difficult to understand, is what they do at the crime scene with these victims. They very often leave the victim in a sexually degrading position with foreign object insertions, for example. And so why do they do it? And the answer to that question is, killing alone is not psychosexually sufficient. So they have to go above and beyond actually killing the person to get complete sexual gratification. And the sexual instinct itself is very, very strong. That’s why—that’s how God made us. So for example, if in order for a woman to become pregnant, she had to run 20 miles, most of women would say, you run 20 miles. I can’t be bothered. There’d be no species. But God was way too smart for that, right? So in order for propagation of the species, he made the sexual instinct very, very strong. And so most people have a sexual encounter, they don’t say, well, that’s good. I’m going to move on to something else. Now they want to do it again and again. And so what you see is a compulsive repetitive aspect to serial sexual murder.

Mills: Let me ask you this, though. What drives people to become serial sexual killers? I mean, how much do we really know about their motivations? And are there any common personality traits?

Schlesinger: The answer is it’s not due to trauma. It’s not due to poor parenting, and it’s not an American phenomenon. Serial sexual murder has been described as far back as the 1800s. As a matter of fact, the first person to describe in a scientific way in terms of case description was a psychiatrist in Germany named Richard von Krafft-Ebing. And his classic book is titled Psychopathia Sexualis . And there’s a chapter in there where he describes almost everything that we know about sexual murder today, was described in 1886 by Krafft-Ebing—not 1986 in Quantico, Virginia, but 1886. And so why did they do it? Again, you find it in every country, in every culture from premodern times, and there’s no evidence at all that it’s increasing—I did a study on that actually—not withstanding what you might hear in the news now.

Why do they do it? The best understanding I think we have at this point is that it’s a biopsychosocial phenomenon with, in my view, a heavy emphasis on neurobiology. Now, poor parenting, traumatic events, none of those things are helpful, that’s for sure. But the number of people who’ve had horrible childhoods, who’ve had terrible parenting, who’ve been abused, they don’t go out become serial sexual murderers. It’s a very, very small amount of the population. And in order for somebody to become a serial sexual murder, I believe many things have to go wrong. For example, I said neurobiological, is it hormonal? Is it chemical? Is it electrical? Is it a combination of those factors plus a head injury, plus trauma and poor parenting? And I think yes—I think the answer is is yes. And that’s why it’s very, very small. The number of people that do it, it’s always been around and there’s no evidence that it’s increasing. Now you hear different estimates. How many serial killers are there roaming around the country? The FBI has never put out an official statement with respect to that. It’s basically unknown, and I think unknowable, actually.

Let me just say one other thing to answer your question specifically with respect to our understanding of, you said personality traits and so on. If you look—serial sexual murder is very popularized. I mean, you can turn on one of the TV stations—every night, you’re going to see a crime documentary on this serial killer, that serial killer and so on. But if you look at the peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals in the past 20 years for popularized mental disorders like bipolar disorder, PTSD, eating disorders, those are popularized too. There’s between 60,000 and 75,000 articles on each of those disorders. Do you know how many peer-reviewed published articles there have been, empirical studies now, of serial sexual murder in the past 20 years? No, you don’t.

Mills: I don’t. It’s a tiny number.

Schlesinger: Yes. 22.

Mills: And how many of those did you write?

Schlesinger: A number. It was 21, but my latest publication made it 22, just came out a couple months ago. And so it’s hard to answer your question definitively, but I can say this with respect to personality traits—and that’s interesting as well. There’s generally two types of individuals who commit sexual murder. Some do it in a very planned fashion where they try to elude law enforcement, they’re forensically aware, and they leave crime scenes that are generally without a lot of physical evidence. If you look at it visually, you’ll see them as very organized. The murder weapon is taken with them, if it’s a ligature strangulation, for example. The room itself is not all broken up with furniture. There’s no blood of the offender on the victim. And so that’s one type of offender, and he usually does it in a series which is thought out.

Now there’s another group that acts out more spontaneously Now why? It’s because the underlying personality disturbance of that group is much more disturbed. If you look at people that kill one or two serial sexual murders and then they’re caught, these are people that have borderline personality, schizophrenia, schizotypal personality, that’s a severe personality disorder, for example. What’s the problem? The problem is that type of disorder, psychopathology, mental disorder does not allow the person to inhibit their impulses. So when they see, for example, a victim that crosses their path, they strike out, and if you strike out impulsively, there may be witnesses around, you'll leave forensic evidence around—you didn’t plan on killing anybody and you’re apprehended quickly.

The other type has more what’s often called psychopathic traits, narcissistic traits, and whatever personality they have, it doesn’t disable them from planning. You could be narcissistic, you could be psychopathic, but you can still plan and inhibit your impulses. And that’s what you see in those sorts of cases. And as a result, because they’re forensically aware and they can plan, they can rack up a very high number of victims. Those are the cases that the FBI usually becomes involved in. Why? Because the FBI’s called in almost always when it’s a difficult-to-solve case. Otherwise, if it’s just one murder or two, local law enforcement can usually make the apprehension.

Mills: So you mentioned psychopathy, but I’m wondering about sociopathy. I mean, are these people sociopaths, psychopaths? What’s the difference? Can you be one and not the other?

Schlesinger: Yes. Let me talk about three different terms—psychopathic personality, sociopathic and antisocial personality disorder—because they get kind of mushed together, particularly when you speak about these things and people refer to it and so on. The only official diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, that’s the manual that psychologists, psychiatrists and so on rely on, is antisocial personality disorder. That’s been the official diagnosis for years. Sociopathic personality was in the manual back in the 1950s, but it has since been eliminated. Interestingly, when someone pontificates about these sorts of things, they’ll always say he’s a psychopath. He’s a psychopath. Right. Now, psychopath, psychopathic personality is time honored. It’s been around since the 1800s when some of the early alienists, which what they called psychiatrists back in the turn of the last century was called moral insanity, and so on. And it’s always been in the literature, it’s been in the psychiatric literature, it’s been in the psychoanalytic literature, it’s been in the psychological literature, but it’s never been an official diagnosis.

But what is generally meant by psychopath is somebody who outwardly appears normal. They have what Hervey Cleckley called a mask of sanity. They can cover up the underlying disturbance, and the underlying disturbance is a lack of emotional attachment to other people. That’s what makes us human. We have attachments to other people. The psychopath in a general in a Cleckleyian sense does not have that, they’re devoid of that. And so they can cut off a person just like that. So that was Cleckley’s conception, and it’s used a lot.

Now, why is it used in serial killing? Why do you hear people say “He’s a psychopath, he’s a psychopath”? Psychopathy does not make you go out and kill people for sexual gratification. It doesn’t. What it does do is it determines how the murder is carried out. So if you have a psychopathic personality and you also have a sexual arousal pattern where there’s a fusion of sex and aggression so that the aggressive act itself is eroticized, then you can plan your crime. And if you can plan your crime and you’re forensically aware, you can elude law enforcement and rack up a high number of victims. And that’s the answer to that. It’s not causative. A personality disorder does not cause anybody to go out and kill women to get sexual gratification. It determines on how they go about doing it.

Mills: Now that leads to the question of remorse or even regret. I mean, do such people feel remorse? Do they regret or are they only remorseful when they get caught?

Schlesinger: Well, that’s a very difficult determination, how you determine if somebody is remorseful or not. Now, if you see any old criminal in prison, which I’ve been doing for 48 years now, almost all of them, not everyone, but almost all of them will say, oh, I never should have done it. I feel bad. It's terrible thing, and so on. So it’s very difficult to determine. The serial sexual murderer usually does not feel any type of remorse towards the victim himself. And I keep saying “himself” because these are 99.99% men killing women, generally speaking. So no, these are people again, as Cleckley said, they’re devoid of human emotion. They have trouble with empathy. Interestingly enough, although they don’t have bonding to other people, many people attach themselves to the psychopath and that’s why you see many psychopaths have an entourage following them around, hangers on and this type of thing.

Mills: Well, I mentioned Rex Heuermann in my intro. He was married. I mean, is that unusual for a serial sexual killer to actually have a marital relationship?

Schlesinger: No, that’s not uncommon. That’s not uncommon for the serial sexual murderer who plans his crimes because he has the type of personality that’s generally speaking, not off-putting. They look normal. They have a mask of normality. They can speak. They can engage, and so on. The other type of sexual murder who’s much more disturbed very often is not married. Any type of sexual involvement, it’s often with a sex worker. They very often live with a parent and so on. But those individuals that you see with a high number of victims very often are married or in a committed relationship at the time. And the partner, the wife usually says things like, “I knew something was odd about him or weird, but I never dreamed that he would be going around killing people.”

Now you say to yourself, now when you hear this, you say, “ah, come on, you live with this guy.” But this has been reported from Krafft-Ebing’s time, back in the 1800s. Because how would you know? To think that your partner is weird is one thing, but to think that he’s going out killing people is such an alien thought and it’s so remote, and that’s what so many of the women say who are subsequently interviewed—some serial sexual murderers, like the Boston Strangler for example, was generally speaking a fairly good husband and he was a good parent. I mean, the children of a lot of them said, my father is a fairly normal guy. He did this, he did that. And so on. Dennis Rader, BTK’s wife had no idea at all. As a matter of fact, the police who interacted with her said, she’s just a very, very nice person. And he raised a family and had a fairly responsible position. So this is way more complicated, this type of disorder, than for example, depression or PTSD and that sort of thing.

This is very complicated and I know that—well, let me say this a couple things. The American people want their serial killers to be evil geniuses with IQs of 180 who speak five languages, including Aramaic, who are connoisseurs of fine wine like Hannibal Lecter. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be further from the truth. And even those very few offenders who went to college for example, and had a degree—Bundy, you mentioned the Gilgo Beach guy— they really don’t use their intelligence as far as I can determine in any really, really productive way in carrying out their murders because we had the case up in the Pacific Northwest of Gary Ridgeway. They called him the Green River Killer. He eluded law enforcement for over 20 years. His IQ was 83 and so on.

Now you say, now why is that? Well, I’ll tell you a couple of reasons. The hardest thing—let me say it this way, the hardest thing for a serial killer is the abduction. How do you get a woman to go with you? That’s not so simple. And so that’s why you see sex workers are very often targeted. Part of their job description is to go with a stranger, have sex, take your clothes off, usually in a remote area. Also, if a sex worker turns up dead, you don’t know what her real identity is. She’s known on the street by a street name and she may have been killed in New York, but she could be from Chicago or Florida or anywhere. So it’s very, very, very, very difficult. And that’s why you see those women are targeted.

Mills: So what about female serial killers? Are they sexual serial killers, first of all, and is their profile similar to that of male serial killers?

Schlesinger: Well, female serial sexual murderers are generally non-existent. Now, there was a woman in Florida, Aileen Wuornos, who killed a bunch of men, but she was a sex worker. She hated men. She just killed men for the motivation of just revenge or something like that. And that was actually studied and a paper published on that as well. Yes, she killed in a series. So literally she was a serial killer, but the motivation was not sexual. Yeah, it’s really a different thing.

And again, keep in mind, in the past 20 years, we only have 22 publications on this. And so a lot of what you hear said is coming from folklore and Silence of the Lambs and people repeating these sorts of things, which can be dangerous in an investigation because serial sexual murderers, those who read the newspapers and follow the news, and they hear somebody pontificating about this may change their plan, may change their the method of operation.

We saw a good example of that about 10 years ago, I think in Washington, DC, where they had the DC sniper who was a guy with a young, I think 17-year-old juvenile with him going around shooting people, and there were people pontificating on TV about the signature, the signature. Now they got that from the serial killer routine, and then there was someone else talking about geographic profiling. And so the next murder that weekend was 90 miles away. It was outside of the DC area, which makes the investigation so much more difficult. Now you’ve got a tri-state area as opposed to a small area. So these sorts of things really don’t help.

Mills: But does there tend to be a signature in these types of serial sexual killings? I mean, part of the reason that Son of Sam got caught—I mean, there were a lot of reasons, but he did keep looking for the same type of woman to the point where women who lived in Brooklyn were wearing blonde wigs, that sort of thing. So are there signatures?

Schlesinger: Oh, well, let me say this. I did the only research study, empirical study on ritual and signature in serial sexual murder. It was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law back in 2010. And what we found is notwithstanding Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal Lecter who was talking about putting a moth or butterfly in the mouth of all these women, it’s way more complicated than that. They do behave in ritualistic ways, but not exact ways. Let me say two things of our study, without getting into the weeds, that I think people will find interesting. One thing is that their behavior at a crime scene tends to evolve, and so the more comfort they have in killing, the more elaborate their behavior at a crime scene will become. So initial torture becomes much more elaborate torture later on. But the most important finding that we found is that in 70% of the cases, a serial killer does something with one victim in a series that he does not do with others in a series.

For example, if they link five women in a series together, they’re linked for some reason. And you look at the five women, four of the bodies are just dumped with no clothes on, but one body is mutilated in some way. Her breasts are cut off, there’s something shoved in or that type of thing. Look at the average homicide detective with 25 years of experience. They’re going to say, that’s a different guy. Look at his behavior, what he did with that victim. That’s not true, and you would only know that if you studied a high number of these cases, which most don’t—the FBI does, I do, and there’s a couple of people in the country affiliated with the FBI that studies these sorts of things—but it’s counterintuitive. And so we found in 70% of the cases an offender will do something with one victim that he did not do with others in the series. So then we asked the question, well, where does he do it in the series, in the beginning, the middle, or the end? We thought in the end, once he gains more comfort, he’ll experiment at a crime scene and do something different. Not true. One third do it in the beginning, one third do it in the middle and one third do it in the end. That’s why you have to do the research rather than just rely on popular culture and this sort of thing.

Mills: But is it even possible to come up with an accurate profile—because it sounds like that’s what you’re trying to help with—when there are so few cases and there is this level of variety?

Schlesinger: Yeah, there is, and let me say it this way. You can come up with some sort of quote unquote “profile,” but not to go to court and link them with—link those crimes because there’s no scientific evidence that would pass the legal standard for the admissibility of scientific evidence, which is either called the Frye standard, is it generally accepted, or the Daubert standard, meaning is it more than generally accepted, is it empirically supported, published in peer reviewed journals and all the rest? The point of the Daubert standard is to keep junk science out of the courtroom, and so you can use a quote unquote “profile” in an investigation, but to go to court and say, this guy killed these five people based on behavior—there’s only one study, is my study basically, and that’s just not enough to meet the legal standard.

Mills: Earlier, I think you indicated that there may be some biosocial thing going on with people who become serial sexual killers. Has any study been done into the brains of these people to better understand what is going on that’s different?

Schlesinger: The answer is nothing really definitive at this point for a number of reasons. There’s so few cases, number one. Number two, to study their brains, they’re going to have to get their permission to become somewhat invasive, and a lot of these guys are just not doing that. There are some people that are looking at CAT scans and PET scans and MRIs and trying to come up with something, but it’s very, very difficult because of the number of cases. There just aren’t that many cases around, and there’s not that many cases accessible. As I mentioned before, if you want to study PTSD, easy to get cases, go to a VA hospital. You want to study alcoholism, go to a rehab center. You want to study bipolar disorder, go to a psychiatric hospital. You want to study serial sexual murder, where are you going to get the cases?

If you’re not connected with the FBI who has a national reach, it’s very, very, very difficult to do this. And at John Jay, we’ve had about a 20-year relationship with the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit down in Quantico, and we’re continuing to do this research and so on. I’ll tell you one interesting finding that was just published a couple of weeks ago in the Journal of Forensic Sciences is you would think that these individuals would have a history of sexual assault or rape in their background. They don’t. And so I looked very carefully at these studies going back to Krafft-Ebing. Even Krafft-Ebing described medical abnormalities, family histories, prior arrests, all sorts of characteristics, but didn’t describe one case of a history of sexual assault or rape. So we found in our cases, 26% of the offenders have a history of sexual assault, which means that three fourths of them don’t.

But we found something very important, that will help in an investigation, that is if an offender sexually penetrated a homicide victim in their series, there’s about an 80% chance he had a likelihood of a conviction in his rap sheet of sexual assault/rape. That helps enormously in an investigation because other things that we know in the background of serial sexual murders, such as inappropriate maternal sexual conduct in their upbringing, sadistic fantasy, animal cruelty, other types of mental health disorders, are not going to be available to an investigator in an investigation. Once you get a suspect, then you can get to mental health records and that might be available then. But in an investigation, you only have his rap sheet. And so if one in the series is sexually penetrated, that’s close to an 80% likelihood that he had sexual assault in his rap sheet, and it really helps the investigation a lot.

Mills: Do serial sexual killers as a rule, desire to become famous even as they need to hide their identity so that they can keep killing? I mean, how much of a motivator is that?

Schlesinger: No, that’s been overhyped right from the beginning. There’s so much of this is overhyped, that he’s playing with the police, he’s toying with the investigation, he’s sitting in his room and rolling his hands. No, they do not want to get caught, but very often they will do things that almost ensure that they’ll get caught. Take for example, Dennis Rader, the BTK guy from Kansas. Thirty years the cases were cold. What happened is a lawyer in the Topeka area where he was from wrote a book on these cases and it got some publicity and he wanted to get credit in a sense, in his own twisted mind. And so he started communicating with the police, and that will almost ensure that you’re going to get caught. And in fact, he did get caught—by and large did not want to get caught.

Let me just dispel one sort of myth that you mentioned about with David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam. Are they targeting people with specific characteristics? That came from the '70s and particularly the Ted Bundy investigation because the women that he killed in the 1970s when he was operative had brown hair parted down the middle. The problem with that is if you go to a yearbook of all coeds who were in college during the—they all had hair—long hair parted down the middle. That was a very, very popular hairstyle back then. And so no. Now, having said that, there is a subgroup of serial sexual murders that will target people based on specific physical characteristics, but it’s very, very rare. Most of them, it’s due to their vulnerability, the victim’s vulnerability and their accessibility. And it may not be as obvious as you might think, for example. Yes, certainly doing things like hitchhiking and leaving a bar with a stranger, those are all high risk things that most women know about. But if an individual is fixated on a victim obsessed with her, a neighbor, for example, and observes her when she goes to work, when she comes home Wednesday night and Friday night, her boyfriend stays over, is he going to try to abduct her on a Wednesday night or Friday night? No, because there’s a male figure there. And so that type of routine behavior pattern unwittingly is a vulnerability and very few people think about that as well.

Mills: Is it common for serial sexual killers also to be serial confessors? That is to confess to murders that they didn’t commit?

Schlesinger: Let me break it down this way. Yes, there are some people that will confess to murders that they didn’t commit to gain notoriety and to gain a lot of status in the institution. One of my cases is not a serial sexual murder, but it’s a very famous case that many people are aware of. Richard Kuklinski, the Iceman. He is a New Jersey case, and I evaluated him when he was apprehended back in the 1980s. He tells everyone he killed over a hundred people. He died a couple of years ago. I never believed that. Where are all the dead people? And when he is interviewed, it becomes more and more elaborate, all these things that—no, I never believed that at all, but generally speaking, that’s an aberration.

I’ll tell you what we did. We did a study—started to do a study of confessions in different types of crime. We know a lot about false confessions. I mean, there’s been a lot of research. Many of my colleagues at John Jay did some of the seminal research on false confessions, Saul Kassin, my colleague there and others as well. So we know a lot about that. But what about confessions in general? Do we know a lot about confessions? So we looked at intimate partner homicides and how they confess, and what we found is they’re not confessing to the police, they’re confessing to a family member. We also found eight cases where they confessed in a suicide note. So the type of confession depends upon the type of murder. And what we started to do is right before the pandemic started, we looked at serial sexual murderers and their confessions—and the study was stopped in the middle due to the pandemic. Our research is now back in gear since January of this year, but for almost 3 years it was shut down due to the pandemic. We just couldn’t do anything. So we started a study on serial killers and how they confessed, and what we found is 50% of them don’t confess. They say to the police, you do what you got to do, but I’m not saying a word. They’re sophisticated offenders. And that gives a little bit of insight into what you just said.

Mills: Now, a lot of people have violent, sexual and nonsexual fantasies, but they don’t act on them. Is there a precipitating factor that drives these people to actually finally act out on what they’ve been fantasizing about?

Schlesinger: Yes. In the general population, I won’t say most, but many, many people have very disturbed sexual fantasies that they keep private even to their partner because they’re afraid if they say to their partner, I want to do this, she’s going to say, what are you nuts? Do you have to see a doctor? I’m not doing that. What’s the matter with you? So they keep it very much to themselves. Same with those individuals who fantasize about killing women in this type of way. The number of people who have these perverse fantasies is much, much higher than those who actually acted out. And so why do some act it out? Well, I can say this. What we do know is that of those who do act out, there’s usually some precipitant, some sort of upsetting event, such as the loss of a relationship, which means a lot to a male, the loss of a job. Men usually get some level of status from a job. In so many ways, male psychology is much more fragile than women, for example, who a job, whatever, doesn’t mean all that much. And I’ve had a case where the guy began killing—he started his killing series when his girlfriend became pregnant, that upset him and so on. And so we can say in many cases what the precipitant is, but definitely not in all cases. And again, this requires more research and less hypothesizing and speculating and pontificating based on Silence of the Lambs and these other sorts of things.

Mills: Let me ask you about DNA evidence, which has become quite prevalent and very effective at this point, especially large-scale DNA databases that have really changed the way that police do their work. How is that changing the process of going after serial sexual killers?

Schlesinger: Well, DNA evidence, and not only serial sexual murder, but in all sorts of crime is just become enormously, enormously helpful. This is hard science and it’s very, very persuasive in court. In fact, in many, many cases, juries expect to hear DNA and other forensic evidence, although in some cases you can’t get DNA evidence. It’s very, very difficult. I had a case where the victim was underwater for a year, and of course you can’t get DNA evidence from that. Unfortunately, jurors expect it. Because of the popularity of crime shows in general,  the jurors are very different today than they were 20 or 30 years ago. I had a case I remember not that long ago where the jury hung on a case, and after it was all over, the judge who had a good rapport with the jury said, well, what was the problem? The evidence was overwhelming. And he said, well, we all thought he did it, but there was no luminol used. Luminol is a spray that makes blood—and you see it in all the shows. Well, what do you think the red stuff was coming out of the dead person? That’s blood. You don’t have to use luminol to determine it was blood, but they do in the shows. And so you have to be very careful now in jury selection. That’s really up to the judges, to voir dire these jurors to the extent that will you listen to what the judge is saying as opposed to what you heard on TV? And it’s very, very hard to undo something that you’ve heard so many times before.

Mills: Last question, and I guess I’m going to ask you to speculate a little bit here. Why do so many people, especially women, seem to find serial sexual killers and killing so morbidly fascinating?

Schlesinger: Well, yes. I mean, they certainly do. And if you look at the crime shows, like ID Discovery and I’ve done so many of those, and I speak to the producers, they say 80% of their viewers are women. And in my opinion, I think it’s a number of different factors. Number one, they tend to be the victim of these cases, and they want to learn how not to become a victim because so many of these guys, particularly the guys that they feature on the crime shows, look so normal and behave so normally. That’s one reason. The other reason is I think women, for example, more than men, are psychologically more interested in the complexity of the inner workings of the human mind as opposed to a guy. For example, in jury selection, you have one of these cases of someone going around and mutilating women. Many guys will say, kill him, he’s not a person. Whereas a woman may be more empathetic, may be more understanding, make sure to try to understand his background and this sort of thing. So I mean, those are two speculative answers as to why women become involved in this.

I’ll say one other thing as a closing thing, to answer your question a little bit differently. The death of a child of one of these people is devastating for not only the family members, but the community and even the country in highly publicized cases. And I’ve had the opportunity over the years to speak to family members who lost a child and talk about difference between men and women. In my experience, it particularly seems to affect fathers more than mothers. I mean, they’re just so devastated. And I remember one father said to me, I’ll never forget it, he said to me, if my daughter died of cancer, or my daughter died in a horrible car accident, that’s one thing. These things happen, but my daughter died because some guy got sexual gratification killing her. He said, I can’t wrap my head around that. I just can’t go on with that type of thought. And it’s a very, very disturbing thought. It just really, really is, and you just can’t help but feel such empathy for people and to spur us all on to try to unravel this as best we can. Also, in terms of preventing this, when we see some red flags like sexual burglaries and repetitive fire setting and these sorts of things, what kind of interventions can we have from a mental health perspective to intervene and try to prevent the development of these sorts of cases?

Mills: Dr. Schlesinger, I want to thank you for joining me today. This has been absolutely fascinating. Thank you.

Schlesinger: Thank you.

Mills: You can find previous episodes of Speaking of Psychology on our website at www.speakingofpsychology.org or on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get podcasts. And if you like what you’ve heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. If you have comments or ideas for future podcasts, you can email us at [email protected] . Speaking of Psychology is produced by Lea Winerman. Our sound editor is Chris Condayan.

Thank you for listening. For the American Psychological Association, I’m Kim Mills. 

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Episode 281: Understanding the mind of a serial killer, with Louis Schlesinger, PhD

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Your host: Kim I. Mills

Kim I. Mills is senior director of strategic external communications and public affairs for the American Psychological Association, where she has worked since 2007. Mills led APA’s foray into social media and envisioned and launched APA’s award-winning podcast series Speaking of Psychology  in 2013. A former reporter and editor for The Associated Press, Mills has also written for publications including The Washington Post , Fast Company , American Journalism Review , Dallas Morning News , MSNBC.com and Harvard Business Review .

In her 30+-year career in communications, Mills has extensive media experience, including being interviewed by The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal , and other top-tier print media. She has appeared on CNN, Good Morning America , Hannity and Colmes , CSPAN, and the BBC, to name a few of her broadcast engagements. Mills holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Barnard College and a master’s in journalism from New York University.

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Meet the woman whose research helped the fbi catch notorious serial killers, hulu documentary mastermind: to think like a killer traces career of dr. ann burgess..

Jennifer Ouellette - Jul 16, 2024 9:00 pm UTC

Fans of the Netflix series Mindhunter might recall the character of Dr. Wendy Carr (Anna Torv), a psychologist who joins forces with FBI criminal profilers to study the unique psychology of serial killers in hopes of more effectively catching them. But they might not know about the inspiration for the character: Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess , whose long, distinguished career finally gets the attention it deserves in a new documentary from Hulu, Mastermind: To Think Like a Killer .

Burgess herself thought it was "fun" to see a fictional character based on her but noted that Hollywood did take some liberties. "They got it wrong," she told Ars. "They made me a psychologist. I'm a nurse"—specifically, a forensic and psychiatric nurse who pioneered research on sex crimes, victimology, and criminal psychology.

Mastermind should go a long way toward setting things right. Hulu brought on Abby Fuller to direct, best known for her work on the Chef's Table series for Netflix. Fuller might seem like a surprising choice for making a true crime documentary, but the streamer thought she would bring a fresh take to a well-worn genre. "I love the true crime aspects, but I thought we could do something more elevated and cinematic and really make this a character-driven piece about [Ann], with true crime elements," Fuller told Ars.

There's no doubt that the public has a rather morbid fascination with serial killers, and Burgess certainly has had concerns about the way media coverage and Hollywood films have turned murderers into celebrities. "Despite how obviously horrible these killers were, despite their utter brutality and the pain they inflicted upon their victims, they'd somehow become romanticized," Burgess wrote in her memoir, A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind . "All the inconvenient details that interfered with this narrative—the loss of life, issues of mental health, and the victims themselves—were simply ignored."

That said, it's not like anyone who finds the twisted psychology of serial killers, or true crime in general, fascinating is a sociopath or murderer in the making. "I think we all grapple with light and dark and how we see it in the world," said Fuller. "There's an inherent fascination with what makes someone who they are, with human behavior. And if you're interested in human behavior, a serial killer exhibits some of the more fascinating behavior that exists. Trying to grasp the darkest of the dark and understand it is a way to ensure we never become it."

"I think it's a human factor," Burgess said. "I don't see anything wrong with it. There is a fascination to try to understand why people commit these horrifying crimes. How can people do these things? But I also think people like to play detective a little bit. I think that's normal. You don't want to be fooled; you don't want to become a victim. So what can you learn to avoid it?"

For Burgess, it has always been about the victims. She co-founded one of the first crisis counseling programs at Boston City Hospital in the 1970s with Boston College sociologist Lynda Lytle Holmstrom. The duo conducted research on the emotional and traumatic effects of sexual violence, interviewing nearly 150 rape victims in the process. They were the first to realize that rape was about power and control rather than sex, and coined the term "rape trauma syndrome" to describe the psychological after-effects.

(WARNING: Some graphic details about violent crimes below.)

Their work caught the attention of Roy Hazelwood of the FBI, who invited Burgess to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, to give lectures to agents in the fledgling Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU) on victimology and violent sex crimes. Thus began a decades-long collaboration that established criminal profiling as a legitimate practice in law enforcement.

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68 Serial Killer Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on serial killer, ✍️ serial killer essay topics for college, 🎓 most interesting serial killer research titles, 💡 simple serial killer essay ideas.

• Serial Killers: Speech Analysis
• Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy: Mental Disorder Analyzed
• Serial Killer Ted Bundy: Background and Psychological Theories
• Ted Bundy: A Notorious Serial Killer
• Andrei Chikatilo: Behavioral Analysis
• Social Construction of Serial Killers
• Female Serial Killers and Their Key Features
• Gary Ridgway: The Green River Killer Despite the strict measures against law-breaking, there are still natives partaking in continuous law-breaking behavior.
• Pop Culture and Serial Killer in Darkly Dreaming Dexter The essay compares and contrasts how the literary study could explore “Darkly Dreaming Dexter” differently than a film analysis could of the TV series.
• Ted Bundy: Social Behavior of the Serial Killer This paper is an in-depth investigation of the relationship between the early life, social behavior and criminal life of the serial killer, Ted Bundy.
• Offender Profiling in Apprehending Serial Killers The current essay proves the significance of offender profiling in apprehending serial killers by demonstrating the effectiveness of investigative psychology and other methods.
• American Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy John Wayne Gacy was an American serial killer who killed 33 victims mainly by strangling them. His childhood experiences contributed significantly to his serial-killing adult life.
• Why Are People Fascinated by Fictional Serial Killers? This paper dwells upon the factors that contribute to the popularity of serial killers in modern cinematography and the development of the audience’s views on these characters.
• Serial Killers: Patient Groups Investigated by Psychology and Psychiatry Serial killers are characterized as people with psychosis and dissocial personality disorders. The murder of a stranger is not seen as motivated by prior interpersonal frictions.
• The American Serial Killer in New Orleans From May 1918 through October 1919, the unidentified American serial killer terrorized the city of New Orleans and its neighboring areas, particularly the town of Gretna.
• Serial Killers’ Motivation for Committing Crimes Most rapist murderers who have committed a series of crimes have psychological or psychophysical problems due to the stress experienced in childhood.
• Serial Killers and Mayhem: What Makes Them So Fascinating for Society Celebrity monsters have been playing an essential part in popular culture since the 1970s. Multiple TV programs describe horror in their fictional and nonfictional themes.
• Albert Fish, The Grey Man and Serial Killer With his record of kidnapping, murder, grand larceny, and overall deviant behavior, Albert Fish wrote himself into the history of the most infamous and criminally dangerous people.
• Psychosocial Factors That Serial Killers Have in Common
• John Wayne Gacy: Becoming a Cold-Hearted Serial Killer
• Aileen Wuornos: The First Female Serial Killer
• Serial Killers: Society’s Strange Addiction
• Evaluating the Unique Characteristics of a Serial Killer
• Serial Killers and the Influences on Hollywood’s Pop Culture
• The Making of a Serial Killer: Nature or Nurture?
• Serial Killer: The Mechanism from Imagination to the Murder Phases
• Israel Keyes: Where Did Alaska Serial Killer Travel?
• The Mary Bell Story: The Eleven-Year-Old Serial Killer
• Hunting Serial Killers: Understanding and Apprehending America’s Most Dangerous Criminals
• Serial Killers and Abuse in Childhood
• The Main Identity Traits That Serial Killers Acquire
• Serial Killers: Born or Made Evil
• The Psychological Theories and Aspects That Make an Individual a Serial Killer
• The Problem of Serial Killers in the Philippines
• Analysis of the Mind of Serial Killers
• Frequencies Between Serial Killer Typology and Theorized Etiological Factors
• H.H. Holmes: One of America’s First Recorded Serial Killers
• Serial Killers: How Traumatic Childhood Events Are a Baseline for Criminal Behavior
• Differential Association Theory and Serial Killer Ted Bundy
• Erikson’s Theory-Based Analysis of the Behavior of Robert William Pickton, a Serial Killer
• Serial Killer Definition: History, Characteristics, and Motives
• Understanding What Drives Serial Killers
• Ed Gein, the Serial Killer Who Inspired Leatherface, and Norman Bates
• Serial Killer Couples: Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka
• Characteristics and Backgrounds of Serial Killers
• The Rise of Serial Killers: America’s Most Dangerous Criminals
• Serial Killers with Mental Illnesses
• The Reasons Behind the Rise of the Scary Phenomenon of Serial Killer Culture
• Zodiac: The Mysterious Serial Killer of 1960-1970s
• How Serial Killer Ted Bundy Shocked the United States
• How Juveniles Become Serial Killers
• Schizophrenic Serial Killer: David Richard Berkowitz
• Why the Glamorization of Serial Killers Is Dangerous
• The Mind and Motivation of a Serial Killer
• Treatment and Rehabilitation of Serial Killers after Crime
• The Jeffrey Dahmer Case: A Look into the Psychology and Criminal Typology of a Serial Killer
• Andrei Chikatilo: The True Story of the Rostov Serial Killer
• Serial Killers: Toxic Traits, Myths And Facts
• An Overview of the Famous Serial Killers and Their Crimes
• The Role of Childhood in Becoming a Serial Killer
• Psychological Problems of Serial Killers
• The Reasoning Behind Why Serial Killers Kill
• Understanding the Phases of Serial Killers
• Serial Killers as Heroes in Popular Culture
• The Rise of Serial Killers and the Role of Media in Society’s Perception
• Understanding Why Aileen Wuornos Became a Serial Killer
• Most Notorious Serial Killers in America
• The Main Motive Behind the Killings by Serial Killers

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StudyCorgi . "68 Serial Killer Essay Topics." July 18, 2023. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/serial-killer-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2023. "68 Serial Killer Essay Topics." July 18, 2023. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/serial-killer-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Serial Killer were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on June 24, 2024 .

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Serial killers research essay topics!

I know this is pretty random, but I feel like everyone in this group is like me lol.

I'm writing a research paper about serial killers, and I need a good topic within the serial killer category. If anyone has a good idea let me know :)

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Why We Should Focus on Positive Childhood Experiences

Benevolent childhood experiences are linked to flourishing and personality..

Posted July 19, 2024 | Reviewed by Tyler Woods

• Understanding Child Development
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• Psychology has historically focused its research on adverse childhood experiences.
• There is growing research on benevolent childhood experiences (BCEs).
• BCEs are correlated with flourishing and the light triad.
• A positive childhood environment influences the development of human flourishing and personality.

We’ve all heard of “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs). Psychology has focused a large chunk of research on these negative experiences of childhood and found that children with a high number of ACEs tend to develop higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of conscientiousness . ACEs are also correlated with the development of dark triad traits, including psychopathy , borderline personality disorder , and narcissism , as well as lower levels of happiness .

While the study of ACEs is certainly important, what about benevolent childhood experiences (BCEs)?

Childhood experiences can be either benevolent (positive) or adverse (negative). People differ substantially in the amount of stress they experienced as a child . Curiously, however, BCEs haven’t received as much attention in psychology. This is a pet peeve of mine: Psychology has disproportionately been focused on the darker aspects of human development and personality and has neglected research on benevolent developmental experiences and personality traits. Sometimes I think the field of psychology is like Netflix documentaries: Much more fascinated with understanding serial killers than serial saints.

This was a major impetus behind my team and I initiating an entire research program on the light triad , or as we alternatively refer to them, “everyday saints.” We found that the three light triad characteristics of Kantianism (the belief that people are ends unto themselves), Humanism (the belief that people are inherently worthy and have dignity), and Faith in Humanity (a belief in the fundamental goodness of humans) strongly predict a wide range of well-being variables, including higher meaning in life, spirituality , and prosocial behaviors.

Thus, I was happy to discover that there exists a small but growing research literature on benevolent childhood experiences . BCEs consist of the social and family support a person receives before the age of 18, and include comforting beliefs, opportunities for joy, stable home routines, self-acceptance, and school enjoyment (Narayan et al., 2018). Here is the full list of BCEs:

• At least one caregiver with whom you felt safe
• At least one good friend
• Beliefs that comforted you
• Liked going to school
• At least one teacher who cared for you
• Good neighbors
• Had an adult who supported or advised you
• Opportunities to have a good time
• Liked yourself or felt comfortable with yourself
• Predictable home routine

Recent research suggests that children with a higher number of BCEs tend to display reduced symptoms of depression , stress , and loneliness during adulthood. What’s more, BCEs appear to substantially predict mental health independently of ACEs . So it would seem that BCEs are pretty darn important to study!

Enter a brand new study that directly tackles the link among BCEs, the light triad, and human flourishing. I must admit, I was so excited and giddy when I saw this paper. I know, I’m a nerd. But I do think this line of research is so important. Let’s see what they found.

The Impact of Benevolent Childhood Experiences on Adult Flourishing: The Mediating Role of Light Triad Traits

In a new study , Miguel Landa-Blanco and his colleagues studied 410 participants in Honduras, considered one of the most violent countries in the world. This context is important. As the researchers note, “Research conducted in diverse cultural contexts helps us move beyond a narrow focus on Western perspectives and provides a more comprehensive understanding of the universal and cultural specific factors contributing to positive childhood development.”

While a number of studies have found a link between certain aspects of Honduran life and ACEs, researchers have overlooked key dimensions of well-being and positive life experiences. Their findings are interesting and important.

On average, respondents reported 7.34 benevolent childhood experiences. On average, men were more likely to have at least one teacher who cared about them, had more opportunities to have a good time, and were more likely to like/feel comfortable with themselves compared to women.

Critically, the more BCEs the person had, the more likely they were to report flourishing, which was measured by eight items assessing a sense of competence as well as purpose and meaning in life. The largest effect size was found for those who reported they liked going to school. Medium effect sizes were found for having at least one good friend, good neighbors, having comfortable beliefs, liking/feeling comfortable with oneself, and having a predictable home routine.

The researchers also found a positive link between BCEs and the light triad. In particular, those scoring higher in faith in humanity were more likely to report the presence of having at least one good friend, comforting beliefs, liking school, good neighbors, having an adult supporter/adviser, opportunities for a good time, liking/feeling comfortable with oneself, and having a predictable home routine. Humanism and Kantianism were higher for those who liked attending school and had an adult advisor/supporter. What’s more, all the light triad traits were significantly associated with flourishing scores.

Reflections

The results of this study have a number of important implications. For one, the findings suggest that benevolent childhood experiences are associated with the development of positive personality traits as well as a sense of flourishing in life. As the researchers note, their findings underscore “the importance of a positive childhood environment in fostering healthy personality traits." This seems pretty obvious to anyone who has lived life, but it’s nice to see researchers actually care about documenting this systematically.

The link to the light triad is especially interesting considering that the three members of the light triad are basically benevolent beliefs about others and how one should interact with others. The study found that Faith in Humanity and Humanism were particularly important pathways for nurturing flourishing through positive childhood experiences .

This suggests that our childhood experiences (positive or negative) can have an important influence on the beliefs we develop about how we should engage in our social world: Should I be exploitative, manipulative, and try to extract scarce resources from as many people as possible or should I be benevolent, caring, and treat all people with humanity and dignity? Along with our genetic endowment, our childhood experiences play a critical role in the development of these beliefs.

The key mechanism explaining this relationship may be that BCEs involve nurturing relationships and support from caregivers that foster trust and security. You can view our early childhood experiences like a weather forecasting system—if it’s harsh and unpredictable, our brains (which are essentially prediction machines) will come to expect a harsh and unpredictable world as an adult. On the other hand, experiencing a reliable and compassionate childhood can cause our brains to expect such a social world moving forward with our lives.

While families can offer such a nurturing relationship, this study also points to the importance of a nurturing school environment for positive development. Liking school was a big factor in explaining these relationships and no doubt lay an important foundation for adult growth. The researchers suggest incorporating socioemotional education and universal positive mental health screenings into school, as well as promoting teacher mental health and well-being.

The field of psychology has been obsessed with adverse childhood experiences and the development of dark triad traits. I look forward to seeing more research (and conducting more research with my team) on benevolent childhood experiences so we can shine a spotlight on the existence of these important childhood experiences.

Scott Barry Kaufman is a humanistic psychologist exploring the depths of human potential.

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Everything coming to Max (formerly HBO Max) in August 2024

How do you top season 2 of House of the Dragon ?  Turns out, you don’t, at least according to HBO and Max, which just released their lackluster August 2024 programming schedule. There’s not a lot of compelling new content to watch this month unless you’re a big fan of Maine Cabin Masters .

Among the highlights are the season 3 premiere of Industry , the series that takes a dramatic look at the lives of London financial workers, and Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Chicago Bears. Older movies returning to the service include the classic Julia Roberts rom-com Pretty Woman and the Liam Neeson action movie Taken .

Editor’s note: This list may not be comprehensive and is subject to change by the network.

3 Days to Kill (2014)

A Bigger Splash (2016)

Amelie (2001)

Arthur (2011)

Beetlejuice (1988)

Blackthorn (2011)

Brick Mansions (2014)

Down Terrace (2010)

Forever My Girl (2018)

Frontera (2014)

Grown Ups (2010)

Grown Ups 2 (2013)

Hercules (2014)

House Hunters International: Volume 8 (HGTV)

House Hunters: Volume 9, Season 216 (HGTV)

How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

No Place on Earth (2013)

Pathology (2008)

Pretty Woman (1990)

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

Something’s Gotta Give (2003)

Taken (2009)

The Convict (Skazana) seasons 2-4 (2022)

The Good Doctor (2012)

The Perfect Host (2010)

The Two Faces of January (2014)

Two Lovers (2009)

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes (HBO Original)

The Pioneer Woman, season 37 (Food Network)

Love Off the Grid, season 2 (2024)

Mini Beat Power Rockers: Back to School (2024)

Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Chicago Bears (HBO Original)

House Hunters: Where Are They Now?, Season 2 (HGTV)

See No Evil, season 13 (ID)

Finding Amelia (Discovery)

Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction, season 1 (Discovery)

House Hunters: All Stars, season 1 (HGTV)

Taken Together: Who Killed Lyric and Elizabeth? (Max Original)

Caught! season 2 (Discovery)

Hoffman Family Gold, season 3 (Discovery)

Industry, season 3 (HBO Original)

Celebrity IOU, season 8 (HGTV)

100 Day Hotel Challenge, season 1 (HGTV)

Mecum Full Throttle: Harrisburg PA 2024

Hop, season 1B (Max Original)

House Hunters, volume 9, season 217 (HGTV)

Gold Rush: Mine Rescue with Freddy and Juan, season 4 (Discovery)

Rick and Morty: The Anime (Adult Swim)

Where We Call Home, season 3 (Magnolia Network)

BBQ High, season 1 (Magnolia Network)

Chimp Crazy (HBO Original)

Impractical Jokers (Eps + Specials) (2024)

The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

The Official DC Podcast (2024)

Divided by Design, season 1 (HGTV)

Unbelievably Vegan with Chef Charity (Max Original)

House Hunters, volume 9, season 218 (HGTV)

The Thaw (Odwilż), season 2 (Max Original)

The Kitchen, season 36 (Food Network)

City of God: The Fight Rages On (Cidade de Deus: A Luta Não Para), season 1 (HBO Original)

Evil Lives Here, season 16 (ID)

Married to Evil, season 2 (ID)

Serengeti III (2024)

90 Day Fiance Pillow Talk: Happily Ever After? season 8 (TLC)

Andrew Tate: Icon or Toxic? A Faking It Special (2024)

Bellator: Fight Camp Confidential San Jose (2024)

Serial Killer Serial Liar Levi Bellfield: A Faking It Special (2024)

The Grindr Killer Scandal: A Faking It Special (2024)

Late Night Lockup, season 2 (ID)

Beat Bobby Flay, season 35 (Food Network)

Cookie Monster’s Bake Sale: Back to School (Max Original)

House Hunters, volume 9, season 219 (HGTV)

Maine Cabin Masters, season 10 (Magnolia Network)

I mpractical Jokers Specials (2024)

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But there's another streamer that is just as popular and doesn't get nearly enough of the attention it deserves. Tubi is a great platform to stream home to classics, hidden gems, and cheesy B-movies and TV shows. Tubi has a lot of content, so much so that it can be hard to choose which shows and films are worth your time.

Twenty-eight years ago, director Jan de Bont brought audiences into the eye of a tornado with Twister. The disaster film followed storm chasers and their efforts to deploy a new device that could revolutionize tornado research. While the data gathered could save lives, it's a dangerous undertaking, as the researchers must get close enough to the tornado to activate the device while still giving themselves a chance to escape its wrath.

This summer, a new group of daredevils travel to Tornado Alley in Twisters, a standalone sequel to Twister. Directed by Academy Award nominee Lee Isaac Chung, Twisters stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell, and Anthony Ramos as three storm chasers who find themselves in a life-or-death situation when multiple tornadoes converge in Oklahoma. Before racing to the theaters to watch Twisters, find out how to watch Twister at home. Where to watch Twister Twister (1996) | 4K Ultra HD Official Trailer | Warner Bros. Entertainment

If you've ever perused the selection of movies available on Max, you know that the streamer has one of the deepest libraries of titles available. The only issue is that the interface makes it difficult to actually find the movies you might be looking for, leaving you with just the algorithm's recommendations.

If you're looking for great action movies, though, we've got you covered with three titles that speak to the wide array of content available on the service. These are three action movies on Max you should definitely make time for in July. Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1982) Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) Mel Gibson Post-Apocalypse Movie HD