Question for true crime aficionados on serial killers

[Graphista]

Been binge watching criminal minds lately.

Leads me to googling real life serial killers who are often referenced on the show. I noticed a LOT of them were born in the decade after wwii ended.

A little more investigation revealed its recognised there was a "peak" of serial killings in the late 60's, 70's and 80's.

Now I know there are a lot of theories as to what "creates" a serial killer with most experts agreeing it's a "perfect storm" type deal

Biological
Psychological
Socialisation

But on the biological aspect I'm amazed after googling how little research seems to have been done as to the seemingly obvious correlation between quite a number of them being the children of parents who were involved in or exposed to nuclear testing/radiation.

I'm not daft enough to think I'm the first to consider this but I'm struggling to find any info on it.

Is the military thing cause or effect?

Are serial killers more likely to join up to the military because they crave power, weapons and violence - or are their experiences in the military or trigger? Or neither? Or both?

I don't believe forensic developments necessarily deter the worst offenders. They'll maybe employ certain forensic countermeasures but it won't stop them.

@maudspellbody exactly it's so hard to know which causes what I'd love to read/learn more about what the real life experts think. I find it fascinating.

It's also interesting because military life is of course inextricably linked to violence but it's also a very controlled life with strict adherence to chain of command (most serial killers don't respond well to the authority of others and tend to the narcissistic in the truest sense) and the need to follow orders and to rein in such heinous urges as any anti social behaviour certainly criminal behaviour if caught will find a person discharged so quickly!

But no one is suggesting better forensics are a deterrent, only that they may contribute to a murderer being caught and stopped far earlier, before they can properly count as a ‘serial killer’.

If radiation is a trigger for homicide then why is there no corresponding peak in the murderer population in the inhabited areas around Pripyat? Or Hiroshima? Or Fukushima? Or the Polynesian islands?

I was about to ask the same question Fenella. And serial killers in countries not involved in nuclear testing around WWII time.

Off the top of my head:

Japan is a much smaller country than USA so I'd be interested in knowing if the rate of serial killers there in the decades under discussion did spike commensurate with population number.

Other factors that contribute to the creation of a serial killer may not be as prevalent in those places

Ukraine at the time under discussion was part of USSR, not exactly known for publicising their "failings" plus Pripyat was a low populated area even before Chernobyl and after that population scattered fairly widely I believe.

Also the definition of "serial killer" can differ between countries. Cultural differences affect recording and reporting.

Ok, I'll bite. Do you want to know about psychopathy? They do have different brains, vmPFC, amygdala etc...

Dark triad?

Frontal lobe, acquired damage?

I'd love to! I find it fascinating.

I know a very little about this area as I have ocd myself and so brain physiology generally and related to that interests me but that is generally believed to be more about connectivity than formation I believe?

And the basal ganglia is the part most focused on but I know there are links to pre-frontal cortex function.

My stupid brain is overly risk averse whereas I think there are some studies that suggest that in psychopaths they can be the opposite?

Primary psychopaths have zero fear, their amygdala is smaller than average. Your amygdala is associated with fear responses. Secondary psychopaths are 'high anxious' but share most traits, however, they do feel empathy.

Yes it's a connectivity thing. The basal ganglia is important but it's generally thought to be (via fMRI) to be a vmpfc issue. It depends what you would like to know? Ask and if I can tell you, I will

On the thread topic:

Could exposure to radiation - or indeed other toxins given the situation with camp lejeune in particular - affect development of the amygdala and/or function - either pre birth/via conception with affected sperm or after birth perhaps during childhood or even late adolescence which is when many of these people would have been undertaking military training and service ?

On the ocd side would it be ok to pm you? Understand if not

And thank you for replying so kindly

I really don't know if pre birth exposure can cause it. Of course you can PM me.

Thanks pm'ing now but it is very late so understand if you reply at a more sociable hour.

No problem

I'd actually put it down to greed and abundance. In the 40s no one had bugger all but after the war people began to make money again and from the fifties onwards kids could be spoiled a little more.

A lot of serial killers are not psychopaths. Many are sociopaths and narcissists. Who are supposedly made, not born. I've heard it say that narcissists are created by spoiling in some ways but not being there emotionally for them.

Then obviously technology developed (eg: cctv) in more recent years that meant that even though there is probably still a culture of 'buy them stuff to cover for the fact that we dont spend time with them' at least it is easier to catch killers quicker.

@Pandamoore the things you mention I agree could definitely affect a child's development into someone who is very much skewed to being very self centred to the point of not caring about or even enjoying another's pain.

Toxic family setups even where there isn't "obvious" abuse can certainly royally mess a kid up!

"Stately homes" threads on here certainly acknowledge the devastating effects of emotional neglect and abuse. And yes often it's families repeating the cycle of how they were raised, that's certainly been true in my family particularly my fathers side which is massively dysfunctional and volatile.

And yes what working class families are able to materially provide their children in the post war years improved massively and very quickly!

Both my parents were born to very poor parents in glasgow slums. No electricity or running water, one room the whole family lived in...

By the time their youngest siblings were born (big families and the youngest siblings on each side as a result are both closer in age to me than to my parents) the families were in newly built tenements on schemes that had been built to replace the slums with what we would see now as basic but to them was luxurious fully plumbed in full bathrooms and kitchens, electricity and gas for the cooker and boiler. Not quite gch yet that came just after my parents married. My grandparents could afford to only work 1 job each of fairly standard hours, had money for a car for each family and for the dc (my younger aunts and uncles) to have radios, record players, fashionable non school non church clothes, even go on holidays abroad at times

A massive change within a fairly short period of time in human history.

OP

If you go back further, there’ll be an awful lot of serial killers we don’t know about though.

Think your looking for an obscure reason, if your going down the military route then I think it's recongised that a lot of un-diagnosed ptsd from returning fathers is more of a factor, but in the 70's especially America. they had

The completion of most of the Interstate highway system - This allowed killers to travel the country far more easily than in the past and assisted in their avoiding driving through smaller towns where they might have been stopped and questioned by local authorities.

Police officers were poorly trained and poorly disciplined in that time period - This likely lead to a number of “runaways" and "missing person" cases (which were actually serial murders) being allowed to grow cold due to incompetent or lax investigation.

More women were living alone and working outside the home. - This gave killers greater access to victims.

The “stigmas” associated with homosexuality were lessened , meaning that far more gay men cruised and engaged in anonymous liaisons. - This made it easier for killers to isolate and kill them.

Drug use/abuse became somewhat more acceptable socially. - Killers were able to use drugs (or the promise of drugs) to lure addicts and casual drug use was frequent and almost “legitimized."

Murder, theft, assaults - indeed the rate of incidence for most forms of crimes has diminished over the past 30 years. A range of theories have been put forward: better policing (including data analysis, CCTV and other technologies, as well as more police officers on the beat), contraception (leading to fewer people being born to unstable home environments), cheaper consumer goods (less incentive to steal or fence), video games (you can live out your serial killer fantasies in the streets of San Andreas), and unleaded petrol (lead inhalation as children can lead to impulsiveness in later years). Any one of these reasons may account to why violent crime was more prevalent in previous decades.

Add onto that the 70's heyday was also because hitchhiking became very popular in that Era, on the back of the summer of Hippy scene where a lot of young niave people had the guards down.