To think that serial killers can’t exist these days?

[Snooks1971]

Or actually get away with murder enough to become a serial killer maybe I should say. Just finished Night Stalker on Netflix, which made me think about this, although I’ve thought along these lines before. Have always been fascinated with Jack The Ripper after visiting Madame Tussaud’s as a young teen (late 40s now).

I haven’t googled any facts and I’m just an armchair observer, but surely with mobile phones, cctv, forensic developments, tech interfaces actually talking to each other this wouldn’t be possible now.

Then I wonder how many serial killers from the past that we have never of who must have got away with it. Makes my mind boggle a bit.

Op you should read a book called A History of British Serial Killers by David Wilson. It goes into a bit of detail about why there were so many serial killers post world war 1 & 2. Only half way through but it’s fascinating x

Quite a lot has been written and researched about this. The ‘golden age’ of serial killers was the 60s, 70s, 80s and decline from the 90s.

Now days most get caught after a smaller number. So you don’t get as many with long lists of victims any more. Mainly thought to be due to:

Forensic technology/ DNA
Computer databases
Mobile phone/ GPS positioning
CCTV everywhere - streets, clubs, shops, homes, cars
Decline in hitchhiking

There is an ongoing debate re. USA about whether today’s serial killers morphed into the mass shooters that make the news so often. But whether that is really a different sort of pathology I’m not sure.

We only know about those that have been caught. The really good ones never get caught, so how many there are is not possible to know.

Checkout the film mindhunters with Johnny lee miller, and the TV short series called killer net by Linda le plante

There was a case here in Australia the ‘Bodies in the Barrels’. The killers got the victims to call their family and tell them they were moving away and starting a new life. Then they claimed their welfare payments. If people aren’t missing nobody is going to look for bodies.

wise that was the situation in a book once, the group each took care of the other persons, person of interest

@2021sunshine

Christopher Halliwell got away with it for a long time!

I was thinking of this one too... they found loads of possible trophies in a lake and the lead officer on the case suspected there could be more victims

@WiseOwlRelaxing your daughters dna will not be freely available unless she uploads the data to to the open source website Gedmatch. They have a consent box regarding making the information available to law enforcement agencies,

Personally I would want to know if there was a body in my garden and to try and help the family get closure

I hope I would, too - though what might make me reluctant is the thought of all of the gawkers and "groupies" who would be hanging round my home for the rest of eternity, or even knocking on the door wanting to come in and have a look round and see the garden.

These horrible crimes attract a lot or very unpleasant and seriously weird people.

@SchadenfreudePersonified

Personally I would want to know if there was a body in my garden and to try and help the family get closure

I hope I would, too - though what might make me reluctant is the thought of all of the gawkers and "groupies" who would be hanging round my home for the rest of eternity, or even knocking on the door wanting to come in and have a look round and see the garden.

These horrible crimes attract a lot or very unpleasant and seriously weird people.

They're probably thinking about the resale value of their house when they move on.

There is an ongoing debate re. USA about whether today’s serial killers morphed into the mass shooters that make the news so often. But whether that is really a different sort of pathology I’m not sure

I think you're right ParlezVous - it's a different motivation altogether.

I think serial killers seem to like the power of being able to torture (very often), murder, and avoid capture. Seeing their name (whatever "nickname" the press or police give them") in the paper feeds their ego. Many get off on walking past people who are discussing the murders that they've committed. Others like to think "Here I am and you think I'm a really good guy, don't you? If you only knew . . . " and of course for others, its just how they get their sexual kicks - they don't want to get caught, and they don't particularly want anyone to even know that someone is a victim, because that would increase the risk of capture.

The mass murderes are more (I think) people - almost exclusively young men - who feel that everyone is against them and they set out to get revenge and to "show the world" that they are a force to be reckoned with. Again, many relish the though of having their name in the papers - they certainly relish the opportunity to "get back" at all of the people they feel have treated them badly.

The cult of celebrity plays into the egos of both these types of killers, I think. I was watching the "Night Stalker" on Netflix last night, and he loved his nickname - it made him "someone".

I always thinks very sad that the crimes of these people live on, and their names are remembered, while their victims are often forgotten, or perhaps so numerous that their names were never known, or so lost that they have never even been missed.

I can understand people being fascinated with these killers - what makes them tick? How did they evade capture for so long? How were they eventually caught? - I am myself as I think most of us are.

I can't understand the admiration they often stimulate, or why people, and particularly women, want to write to them, get engaged to them, even marry them in prison. Do these women think that they will be the one to "reform" this horrible, damaged individual?

I also think that we live in an era where crimes like this hold so much fascination for many women, and are admired/ envied by so many other men, that many people are just ticking time bombs waiting to be detonated - for an opportunity or an incident to occur which will cause the first explosion.

Fortunately, I also think that most people aren't like that, thank heavens.

They're probably thinking about the resale value of their house when they move on.

Yes - that, too. Katherine.

You'd be stuck with a House of Horror.

The West's house was demolished to stop this sort of thing, but it's harder when a property now belongs to someone else. And you can completely understand them worrying about it.

A pity that digging up the garden can't be done discreetly and secretly, but I can't see that it would really be possible.

Have you watched the Yorkshire Ripper documentary on Netflix? It’s astounding from a modern point of view to see how catastrophically badly the investigation went wrong but you only have to look at the cataloguing of paper copies of evidence to see why they missed the glaringly obvious.

Half way through this, it's gripping.

I do wounder though for a certain type of killers if the advances in technology, the pure amount of information out there now with the internet and documentaries about previous killers could mean its easier to get away with.

And I'm sure there are theories about a serial killer using the canals in Manchester.

Yes, the Manchester Pusher. Targeting young men. Or young men who have got a bit drunk, tried to walk home at night and have fallen in. I think there is a C4 documentary and plenty of theories online.

A different location but the murder of Susan Cadieux in Ontario always upsets me. Going back to comments others have made, there were / are a lot of itinerant men in the US and Canada with long highways through sparsely populated areas. One of the FBI theories is that it was the building of these highways that was one of the things that enabled the upsurge in serial killers after WW2.

The game would be up pretty sharpish if you targeted white, young girls.

Unless those white young girls are in care of course, or the police and social services have written them off as slags. See Rochdale, Rotherham etc.

@Snooks1971

You might like r/unsolvedmurders. It's a bit Canada and US focussed but terrifying.

The prime suspect in Madeleine McCann case could well be a serial killer, there may never be enough evidence to convict.

@ShandlersWig

I think, if you wanted to be a serial killer today, as long as you picked the right vulnerable, down trodden people in society, you'd get away with it for a while. So homeless, runaway boys, sex workers etc.

The game would be up pretty sharpish if you targeted white, young girls.

It’s definitely true about vulnerable groups being more difficult to investigate or even to identify a pattern of criminality if people aren’t reported missing or die in ways resembling natural causes such as medical killings , but your “white young girls” comment would be pretty offensive to families of Millie Dowler, Sian O’Callaghan, Fred West’s victims to name a few. Each is a tragedy.

I think it would be more difficult for a serial killer on the loose like the Yorkshire Ripper where police know he exists and are actively looking. It will be more like Stephen Port or Harold Shipman where the patterns aren't picked up until afterwards.

Having said that, hunting known serial killers was rare in the 20th century too and there was one in Ipswich not that long ago.

Canwecancel

I think you've missed my point. Unless you are a white, young girl, neither the press or police tend to be interested and therefore an imaginary serial killer would find it easier to remain at large if they picked that group (which is the topic of the thread, not how deserving the victims are).

I've worked in murder investigation teams and to say the police aren't interested unless the victim is a young white girl is not my experience at all. In fact I can't think of a young white female victim in any of those cases, I think the youngest white female victim was a prostitute who was about 40 and yes the killer was caught. Most of the victims were male, one was in her 80s and several were BAME, at least one was a teenager.

@ShandlersWig

Canwecancel

I think you've missed my point. Unless you are a white, young girl, neither the press or police tend to be interested and therefore an imaginary serial killer would find it easier to remain at large if they picked that group (which is the topic of the thread, not how deserving the victims are).

Only a certain type of young white girl though.

Only a certain type of young white girl though.

Yes.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_white_woman_syndrome

This is a real phenomenon dating back decades across the world; unsure why posters are trying to downplay it.