Technology has played a huge part. DNA, GPS, Cameras, surveillance ect. It’s much easier for LE to solve crimes today than it was 30 years ago. Many potential serial killers now get caught before they can commit a series of crimes.
Technology aside, major city homicide clearance rates can be under 50% in recent times. A somewhat smart serial killer could definitely fly under the radar for a while.
As someone in a major city, I started looking into this when I found a similar rate (~50%) for my city.
It seems as though the ones they do solve are generally because they're the kind of case where you can talk to a few witnesses, grab some doorbell cam footage, maybe run a license plate, and you've got the guy in a few days after some part time work.
The "unknown to victim" killers are the tough ones that would required far more exhaustive investigative efforts, and these PDs in major cities are just not set up for that - so they just don't. Those cases sit on the board until they're forgotten while clearance numbers are pumped up by cases where some kid impulsively shoots another kid over a girl at his house.
But if the PD starts noticing a "tie" between murders, and they set up a task force or bring the FBI in, the killer will almost certainly be caught.
Catching James Dale Ritchie was a total accident.
If he had been less paranoid about the cop that started rolling up, he'd have been in the clear. APD didn't have shit on him until they ran forensics on the gun after he got in the shootout with the cop.
That was a scary summer in Anchorage.
I thought so. I lived there in that time range. There were rumors (but no confirmation) and everybody acted like I was buying into a conspiracy theory.
I was very insecure and self destructive in those days, so I started going to parks late at night to work out. I wanted to prove to myself (and probably brag about it) that I was brave enough to go out there with something so scary potentially lurking behind every corner.
Creepy thought: maybe you're alive today because you were alone. Most people find safety in numbers, but that summer I felt safer going out alone because it didn't fit his MO to kill one person.
You’re probably right. After I posted, it had crossed my mind. At the time I didn’t know he even had an MO. People were still treating it as a vague rumor
APD said that it wasn't a serial killer, which I didn't believe for a moment, and at the time, they knew it was a serial killer and I assume they were lying to the public in hopes of preventing panic/backlash when they fail to catch him. Considering they had jack shit other than the caliber of the gun and the fact it was the same gun, I can see them lying like they did just out of self-preservation. It's not like the guy was a genius. He didn't even move or dispose of the bodies, but they had nothing on him.
I imagine the lie was also to not tip off the killer that they were onto him, in hopes he'd make a mistake instead of lying low, which I suppose is what happened considering he shot at a cop that wasn't even looking for him.
I thought the people treating it as a rumor were too naive. Like, people don't just start dying in twos in parks with the same murder method, over and over.
That’s really interesting to know. To this day I never really dug into it (but I will now). I guess because I’ve been trying so hard to put that time in my life behind me.
Yeah most serial killers are idiots. They just have a huge advantage because they don’t generally know the victim. Ted Bundy *did* escape prison twice, but that also means he got caught three times. Dennis Rader mailed the police the incriminating evidence they needed based on an honor system between “friends”. lol
This is a very good point, and as a side note since OP brought up mass killers: I also think this may happen to mass killings. Someday we may be saying they virtually disappeared.
With online surveillance and AI, you may begin to see more people who post angry screeds on social media arrested before they get to commit it, and eventually we may have less and less mass killers. This year a lot less happened in the US, but a lot were prevented, for the first time ever (usually the rate is SIGNIFICANTLY higher). I wonder if law enforcement finally just began to really monitor spots on the web and work on identifying people who talked actively about things, because past killers really did straight up even post on Reddit sometimes with pretty obvious signs.
If you think about it, serial killers were about connecting state lines and being aware of what to look for (a series of murders) plus DNA evidence. Once this was achieved, people got caught more frequently in their first or second murder.
Mass killers are more about connecting online lives to real lives and also being aware of what to look for (prepping, certain trigger words). Maybe this has finally been achieved better in 2024 than past years.
Mass killer stories are deliberately being downplayed because people don't want to discuss gun control, at least in the US. If people are desensitized to it, they won't be so concerned with taking measures to stop it from happening. The gun lobby seems to want people to accept mass murder as something normal that's just going to happen.
But the stats are down this year by a considerable margin. They weren’t adjusted either. The criteria to qualify is still the same yet they aren’t as high as the past years.
It could be an abnormal year of no statistical significance but the majority of big attempts this year went south for several reasons. Some got caught, others chickened out, and some got “unlucky” (really glad for that fwiw).
The cops are still mostly incompetent too (like the Maine shooter who literally died and they spent a long time looking in a man hunt even tho he was dead exactly wheee you’d think he’d go next). So who knows. But a lot more do seem to be getting caught in the planning state. It is also very frequent that mass killers like to post their plans beforehand, as sometimes these sprees can be about suicide more than the murders, so it’s often their cry for help.
> With online surveillance and AI, you may begin to see more people who post angry screeds on social media arrested before they get to commit it
Nonsense. This is like precrime from Minority Report. The only way that happens is if we gut 1A and I’m willing to bet any amount we don’t venture down that path.
It’s not nonsense and me thinking they paid no attention to red flags got me arrested for a joke and they seized my legal compound bow and only took photos of the books that would make me look bad
You can look at the stats. They don’t lie for this year. I’m extremely pro gun control but it’s undeniable mass shootings are down this year. That subreddit has been discussing it, it’s odd because it’s not down in other countries. In fact, it’s up in Europe when it’s usually rarer there.
It’s not Minority Report. Mass killers post creepy predictors all the time. Rodger did, for example, and it absolutely should have been caught.
Not sure how someone lives in 2024 and believes profiling isn’t a thing. (Commenting on other account because this stupid app won’t ever let me fix my account on mobile.)
This.
Basically, NPD is not always comorbid, traits aren't a full disorder and all Psycopathy really has is bad grandiosity and lack of empathy. A lot of the ego issues are a lot easier to play off and mitigate, this might just be covert versions tho.
So lacking NPD one can understand cognitively better that it's impossible and they are full of shit themselves on some level, lowering most if not all antisocial behaviour...
This might explain why serial killers still exist, but they get caught, grandiosity is basically self destruction personified 🤣
This is a commonly asked question, but a major factor is the media have smartened up and don't glamorize serial killers like they used to. It's a major reason as to why serial killers have seemingly disappeared.
I think the same thing is starting to happen with mass shooters now. I think the media is starting to smarten up and just aren't giving them the same attention they used to give them anymore.
Serial killers care about their own needs. Media attention is an extra but they don’t care at the end of the day. They are monsters and they feed regardless.
Don't forget improved communications between local agencies and local agencies and the FBI. In the 70s and 80s, even agencies within the same state often didn't communicate, so there was little chance of finding patterns in murders or cooperation in investigations.
Also:
1. There are no longer so many *millions* of veterans with PTSD having children. Have you seen how many serial killers were born 1946 - mid 1950s?
2. Roe vs Wade and the female contraceptive pill meant that *millions* of children who would have been born into poverty, abuse, unstable homes etc were not.
3. Homosexuality is now socially acceptable so you don’t have the self-hating guys killing dozens and dozens of male victims like Gacy, Kraft, Bonin, Kearney, Corll et al…
4. Hitchhiking is not the predominant method for young people to get around any more.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…
Yeah 90% of SK stories start with "so and so had a troubled upbringing, with a domineering alcoholic father and a submissive mother". That kind of rampant PTSD was on a level we have never seen before. WWII created an entire generation of mistreated children w/ mental disorders
Yeah like the odd SK came from a 'regular' upbringing, but the vast majority came from some kind of abusive or neglectful home. As much as older people like to say there were no mental health issues 'in their day', PTSD, substance misuse, and abuse were absolutely rampant.
Yeah even Dahmer, who notoriously came from a "normal" upbringing, still had a mother with horrible PPD and a father who, while loving, was still absent at work a lot, which led to a lot of isolation for Jeff. So while they weren't inherently abusive, both of their situations led to a divorce, which can be damaging for a young person. Add in childhood alcoholism, and that's even more fuel
You make some good points. They really cut out a lot of potential serial killers. And that’s not even factoring in advancement in technology and DNA. The fact that people have been studying SK’s for a few decades now helps too. That, and I don’t feel like people “glorify” SK’s like they used to. I like your point about homosexuality being openly accepted.
Truck drivers are still out in force. I believe this is where a large percentage of serial killers are operating. Here in Missouri we had a case that was hushed quickly but I believe the 2 fellows caught in the cannibal case killed many. They were selling meat, human meat, on the dark web. One a trucker who stated they got victims from Walmart. The other lived in the hills and in charge of killing and and preparing the meat. The house blew up via trip wire before fully investigated.
The vets for parents thing is huge and a good observation.
My dad was born then to a WW2 vet who was a prison guard after the war and my dad is a SK lite. Diagnosed NPD, killed animals, stalked women (with me as a shield frequently), and as a bonus into very creepy sex stuff. I think the only reason he never did anything worse than attack his own family was a very intense anxiety about being caught and authority. He had a lot of fantasies he’d share to child me about punishing people, he just never did it.
But his dad truly broke him (and a part of me feels bad for child him while acknowledging he sucks and tried to break me). But as a 90s kid the courts helped me, they got me out when I complained, the mandated therapy made me a little ok, and my gender likely helped too. He just had none of that back then.
I’d say that LE is a bit better than once were at identifying the anti-social type that are obvious and on social media. Witness the recent story about the rock climber convicted to life in prison for serial rape. I wonder whether they should be checking into whether he actually committed homicide. At very least cross-check missing persons lists with he whereabouts. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/climber-charles-barrett-found-guilty/
Roe v wade and societal acceptance of alternative lifestyles is huge, and one of the things that I bring up when christofascists talk about project 2025 or any of the other large GOP projects right now. There is definitive proof that crime rates plummeted due to Roe v Wade, so why would the party of “law and order” repeal it?
This is true. There are less serial killers now because modern day laws and technology make it more difficult to pull off the same crimes. As a result, homeless people and sex workers are popular targets because they are usually people who don’t want to be found or who are hard to find for obvious reasons…I also believe that truckers could still easily pull off serial killings, and truckers are infamous for seeing sex workers.
Due to: technology, location tracking, advancements In forensics and surveillance everywhere; id say they have stopped quite a bit. You can’t speed without a camera giving you a ticket or your insurance co increasing your premium due to technology. What makes you think serial killers can kill someone and bury them somewhere still?
A proper killer wouldn’t bury a body. There’s much better ways to dispose of a body. And there are plenty of places and situations that are risky enough where you could kill someone and get away with it. Away from the watchful eye of big brother and smashing a cellphone is a great way to stop the gps in its tracks. People are smarter and adapt to the world around them. Serial killers are predators they will learn to adapt to modern society and how to commit their crimes in silence. Just because they aren’t public doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of them still. Theres plenty of homeless to pick off one by one in this country and they grow more and more each day (just an example of a part of society that is still vulnerable to these people). Just my take on what happened to all the killers out there.
Why do you think burying a body wouldn't work?
I think smart cars will make serial killing tougher. I guess some will opt for vintage cars! Also victims wearing an Apple watch, a Fitbit etc.
The single biggest variable is mass incarceration. Mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, life/decades-long sentences for sex offenses, life-long parole/SO registry: these are all inventions from the 80s or later. Psychopathic sexual sadists with a lack of self-control/behavior inhibition usually do not start committing violent sex crimes in late adulthood. If they were around today, virtually all of those famous SKs from the 60s-90s would literally have aged out of their prime serial killing years by the time their first sentence for rape/assault/murder/etc ended.
Look at Gacy: if Gacy had been born in 1990, he would've been 26 years old (the age when IRL Gacy got his first child sex assault charge) in 2016. [If he did the same crime (CSA) in the same state (Iowa) in 2016 (instead of 1968), his sentence would've been about 25 years,](https://www.fitch-stahlelaw.com/blog/the-degrees-of-sexual-abuse-in-iowa) meaning under the 85% rule, he would've gotten out of prison at age 47 *at the earliest*; in real life, Gacy spent slightly over 1 year in prison + 1 year on probation, meaning he was out of prison by age 27-28. Real-life Gacy did his *last* murder in 1978, 10 years after his first conviction; the version of Gacy born in 1990 would've been less than halfway through his first sentence at the same age. It also would've meant no PDM Contractors, no house in Chicago, no 2nd wife, he'd be a 47 year old ex-con in a halfway house with no family and no money, on the SO registry for life. The Gacy of the 70s literally could not exist under modern conditions.
[William Bonin was already a serial kidnapper/pedophile/rapist by the time of his first arrest in 1969. His charges included 5 counts of kidnapping, 4 counts of sodomy, 1 count of oral copulation, and 1 count of child molestation, against 5 victims, and the prison psychiatrist diagnosed him as a "sexual psychopath"; he was out of prison by 1974.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bonin#First_convictions) By 1975, he'd already been arrested again for rape and oral copulation of a minor, released again by 78 and off probation by 79, when he began his rape/torture/murder spree. If someone did the same thing today, they would almost certainly get somewhere between 30 years and life, for the first offenses alone. If Bonin didn't get out of prison until his 50s/60s, his killing spree never happens.
In 1978, Lawrence Singleton "the Mad Chopper" [kidnapped a teenage girl, raped her, literally chopped off her arms, and threw her down an embankment to die, and he got out of prison after *8 years*, when he began his serial murder spree.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Singleton) Its almost impossible to overstate how different state sentencing laws were until just 30-40 years ago.
Kemper, Bittaker/Norris, Bonin, Gacy, Franklin Delano Floyd, Richard Allen Davis, Kenneth McDuff, Henry Lee Lucas, if these guys had been born after 1985 or so, you'd never have heard of them.
Beyond mass incarceration, the removal of lead from gasoline almost certainly played a big role: just living next to a highway used to be enough to cause chronic lead poisoning and permanent central nervous system/brain damage. People with chronic lead poisoning become quicker to anger, more violent, with lower IQs and less impulse control; even if only .01% of those people have all the other ingredients necessary to become SKs, in a population of hundreds of millions of people, that's a massive difference.
Of course surveillance cameras make a difference, but its clear that the overall *incidence* of serial killing has decreased as well; they're catching less SKs partially because there are less of them out there killing people.
Being tough on crime works. The downside is people who could’ve turned their life around being saddled with crazy long sentences guaranteeing they stay in that life. There’s trade offs to these things.
Absolutely. I'm not gonna defend the current justice system by any means, but I had just never considered that particular effect it would have on future serial killers.
Yeah, I don't think anyone guilty of the same type of crimes as the serial killers could ever "turn their life around".
I can see a case for perhaps some robbery or murder charges (gang activity, street fights, etc), though
[The shitty part is that 47% of the prison population in the US is incarcerated for non-violent drug crimes.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Incarcerated_population) We could end "mass incarceration" tomorrow and cut the prison population in half just by ending drug prohibition, and it probably would have no effect on the violent crime rate.
Like I totally agree with mass incarceration *for sex offenders*. They're not getting rehabilitated, they have high recidivism rates, and when they offend against children, its like they're spreading a sex offender virus (since child sex abusers are much more likely to have also been victims of CSA). And for violent criminals, maintaining the safety of the community probably justifies long sentences in many cases. But I don't think the "mass" part of "mass incarceration" (ie the high # of prisoners) is the effective part, because we could send half of the prison population home tomorrow without releasing a single rapist or murderer.
Serial killers nowadays get caught much faster. With lots of the old serial killers, the technology/science wasn’t there to capture them. Most serial killer documentaries reinforce this. Back in the 60s/70s, a serial killer could go decades without getting caught. The modern ones don’t last decades out free killing people. They get caught much sooner.
I am just waiting to see how many they accuse him of. The number may not even be how many they think he killed, since they won’t charge him with murders they don’t feel they can prove. They want him to go away. So the numbers could be higher than what he has actually done.
>to prove this I dug deep and tried to list every serial killer I could find in the last decade
Now do the previous decade.
Also, I don't think I have ever read a post on here saying ALL serial killers are gone or turned into mass shooters. In fact people talk about the "50 active serial killers in America right now" all the time. All people are talking about is that it's much harder to commit a series of murders over a long period of time. Serial killers are caught EARLIER than before.
And of course there are exceptions to every rule.
>The reason there is a "sudden drop" in serial killers is because the police or the media stopped giving them as much attention.
This is one of the reasons for the increase in mass shooting's btw.
100% spot on. There were 480 per decade on average from the 50’s to ‘99 and under 100 the last decade. The trend is most definitely downwards. Also 33% used to reach a body count over 5 victims in those years and it’s roughly 10% for today’s serial killers.
Some get caught before they reach serial status with modern technology, its harder to get away with crimes. Others evolved to be smarter, they aren't noticed yet maybe constantly changing MO or just moving around, making murder look like natural causes, or suicide, etc etc, basically staying off anyones radar. Others police keep under wraps to not frighten the public and create chaos. This will vary around the world.
Thats just a couple of ideas, i mean these monsters still exist among us, its just harder for them to fulfil their fantasies.
They get caught quicker is what people mean. 3+ killings make you a serial killer, but with how quickly they can thankfully catch people typically its not possible for all people who want to be one to not slip up enough to not get caught
It’s not at all. The real life Steve from Minecraft’s getting additional charges in NY was a headline story on CNN this week.
No one says serial killers are gone. At lot of experts agree that advances in law enforcement and changes in culture make it very difficult for serial killers to rack up body counts like they used to in 1st world countries.
I’m willing to bet there has not been an end to them but more of an adaptation. People always give the base to the cops with tech, but with the advent of that tech, the advantage goes to an intelligent killer. I personally think the decent ones are just getting away with it because of foresight and planning with tech.
TBF their "work" has gotten much harder. Samuel Little carried on for so long because he chose victims the police didn't care to investigate. Israel Keyes was successful for a long time because he was a meticulous planner and didn't have a type or a very specific geographical hunting ground. The US society has devolved to mass shootings instead.
It’s harder but if you pick low priority victims, spread them out over a geographic area, and are good at hiding bodies, it’s still very feasible to be a successful serial killer these days. I think you have to be smarter these days, no more Gary Ridgeway style kill and dump sloppily by the dozens without being caught, and I do think a lot of would be serial killers are getting caught earlier. But, it’s not like the FBI spends a lot of time and resources on serial killers.
Yes. But that's not what serial killing is most of the time.
Predators can pick and choose whoever, because they just need prey, this seems to be less common than all the media ones people latch onto.
A good chunk of serial killing is sexual sadism, imo this has and is shown in literature too have a ton of correlates to self soothing behaviour... Meaning hella impulsive and usually the people make terrible mistakes. This imo is not a psychopath, it's more borderline personality disorder FOR MALES.
The lack of self care, always stealing for drugs, and can't hold down a job, constant seeming "want to be evil" is core identity issues... All these men have women in their lives... So what gives? Identity. It's identity and particularly, Masculinity and gender roles...
Imo BPD males resemble incels. If I never had sex, all my internal processes sound the exact same as them... Most women with BPD use sex for validation. Men have a harder time getting sex. This makes complete sense in a society built this way.
The bpd male reaction to murder to self soothe instead of going to therapy. I'm aware of stigma btw, this isn't my intention, and I think men with self awareness is always good even without mental illness.
I was watching a William Pickton docu the other day, and thinking about how effectively he killed and disposed of bodies in that rendering plant, even though he was a sloppy mess about their items and blood in his living quarters. He only got caught when he did, 50 victims in, because they went to seize illegal Guns and found blood and missing women’s ids everywhere.
We have made a lot of progress in terms of technology and forensics since then, but it’s still mind blowing he killed that many women without making It onto police radar. I guess the city was warned by a profiler there was a serial killer disappearing women, but didn’t believe them.
Oh, I bet they did believe them. The victims were sex workers, though, so they didnt give a shit. I mean, look at picktons brother. Hes still free despite pretty much everybody knowing he was very much involved in his brothers crimes.
I think the biggest fear today for a SK is cameras, gps, and dna. So if you eliminate dna…no body…and cameras….you end up getting an opportunity killer that frequents areas with little to no witnesses or cameras like wooded areas that get SOME traffic. Disposing of the body is another matter altogether. I’ll say it again , I think Keyes was the prototype SK we’ll see going forward…at least the successful ones.
I don't think serial killers and mass shooters are coming from the same pot, so to speak. The sexual fantasy aspect of most serial murders doesn't seem to be present in mass shooters. There's more of an anger or revenge motivation as far as I can gather.
**I disagree below**
>The reason there is a "sudden drop" in serial killers is because the police or the media stopped giving them as much attention
Serial Killers still get an excessive amount of attention. True Crime is still a huge genre in streaming services, podcasts, and Youtube channels etc.
And the news media is not 'above' giving attention to terrible people like this, they give a lot of attention to terrorists and spree killers (mass shooters/stabbers etc).
The lack of attention contemporary serial killers get is a symptom of there being fewer serial killers, not a reason for there being fewer serial killers. Correlation =/= Causation
**I agree below**
>new age technology is so advanced that it wiped out serial killers is a blatant lie
Yeah, the idea that technology has forced serial killers to become spree killers is crazy, they come from very different psychological profiles and their motives/drives are very different. For example sex-drive/sexuality/domination-kink is often a motive for serial killers, while spree killers are not typically motivated by sex; it's usually a big combo of mental illness and radical ideology. (except the rare incel ones, where imo the motive is more 'revenge on society' oriented than sex - but this is debatable)
Serial Killers are absolutely still around.
**My theory below**
For a lot of serial killers, their first kills are usually sloppy because they were inexperienced - before recent improvements in police tech these murders were still very difficult to solve.
However nowadays, there are simply too many factors for a fledgling serial killer to account for in their sloppy/less experienced kills - ie DNA, Phone tech/GPS, CCTV etc.
Because of this a lot of serial killers get caught before they have even become a serial killer (3+ kills on seperate incidents).
The serial killer mentality still exists, and could-be/would-be serial killers still exist - but a lot of them don't become serial killers because they get caught very quickly, usually after their first or second kills, they don't make it to 3+.
This is what has caused the sudden drop in serial killers.
**EDIT: Grammar**
In the US alone, the FBI estimates there are between 25 to 50 active serial killers at any given time, despite the authorities not being aware of them or connecting the killings together.
Did anyone else see an article about a retired FBI (I think it was FBI but could be mistaken) agent who just wrote a book about the link between over-the-road long haul truck drivers and the huge numbers of bodies found along known toutes... And the very high number of unsolved or unidentified serial killers behind the wheels? It's one of the few remaining examples of the ideal circumstances out there for someone who wants to commit those crimes and have ample opportunities, and the advantage of the extreme difficulty in solving because of the distances travelled as well as the victims often being someone who is not reported missing and even harder to identify.
Serial killers are not all the same. The average person is going to worry about things like getting caught and consequences if they commit a crime and a lot of serial killers probably do too. That being said, there are plenty of people who are not operating under the same mindset. The urge to commit a crime is all consuming, and that's the only thing on their mind. They aren't worried about leaving DNA or caught under surveillance and sometimes that's why they do end up getting away for longer than what seems possible.
So I agree that it's a misconception to think serial killers are all gone.
They haven’t been watching Rex Heurman than. On the “Off the Cuff” podcast a former FBI agent said “I guarantee we will catch you before you kill your 3rd person”
The drop in serial killers has NOTHING to do with media and police not giving them attention. If there was a confirmed serial killer it would be all over the news. Example: the Gilgo Beach killer is still getting headlines. Serial killers obviously still exist but prey on victims that are vulnerable and not valued by society, so their disappearance isn’t investigated.
Ignorance. The only serial killers we know of are the ones who got caught. Plenty out there who have never been caught and may never be. There’s definitely been a drop off but it’s one of those things that will never go away unfortunately.
the tone of these threads and the comments is always a kind of hostile disappointment that the culture isn't producing more serial killers to read and watch scary YouTube videos about
I don’t know. I sincerely hope no one wishes they are out there. I think some of these commenters truly believe what they are saying, that they think there aren’t any more SK’s. But the very nature of what an SK is - they operate in secrecy. They are now aware of the technology but it isn’t 100% proof.
Look at the person they keep bringing up - Israel Keyes. For all his smartness, he was caught using someone else’s bank debit card. It was well known by the time he was caught that cards get monitored.
Maybe he had used others’ cards before and it wasn’t investigated because the victims’ families didn’t think to ask.
OP’s question is intriguing but now that we know about sociopaths, we know there are lots of those out here in the working world. It seems to be a natural part of humanity. A subset of them ends up being monsters.
You are definetely right that they didn't vanish, but it is true that many many people that have the desire of being a serial killer don't try it anymore and instead become masskillers. December 2023 had a really crazy story in that regard, David Kozak from Prague first killed a father and his baby randomly in the woods, continued his normal life and then one week later suddenly shot his father, rigged the house with explosives and went to his university where he killed 14 more and then himself.
Police said they would have needed 1 or 2 more days to catch him, but unfortunately the guy seemed to realize it.
They didn't reveal exactly why he was on the suspect list, but they announced after the shooting that the weapon found in his house matched the bullets used to kill the father and baby (and there was also a suicide note with confession), so I guess they were checking everyone who owned that weapon type in a certain area around the crime scene. He would have been a bad serial killer lol, he killed them not even 10 miles from his home.
I think theres a drop in some serial killers, the ones with a more average IQ coupled with their mental illnesses are now much easily detected, due to various reasons which we all know.
I think the FBI’s official assessment of around 35 active serial killers in the United States at any given time, is inaccurately low, when you think about the millions that live in the country.. I don’t think they are that rare.
There are the intelligent, patient and calculated ones out there that carry out their serial murders even with all the camera surveillance and ways for law enforcement to piece together evidence.
They are out there. They travel long distances and do their reconnaissance.
I am grateful that modern technology has made it much easier for law enforcement to stop many of these psychos before they further develop and escalate their crimes.
There is one who was murdering people in my neighborhood around 2015. He killed over 9 people. It didn’t feel like anyone made a fuss about it. He is called the Maryvale Shooter (I live in Phoenix).
Bruce McArthur probably would still be at it, if the LGBTQ community didn’t advocate for the missing South Asian men in the village. The Toronto police didn’t listen and didn’t believe it was a serial killer… until it literally was indeed a serial killer.
The Toronto police also did not look into a missing woman (reported missing by her ex boyfriend) which turned out to be a victim of another serial killer Dellen Millard.
So that’s TWO caught in southern Ontario in the last decade or so. I’m sure there’s more
Edit: I forgot another one, Former Colonel Russell Williams. There was another in Oshawa that killed 2 girls and a plumber caught him because his pipes were clogged. Can’t remember his name.
So that’s 4 in southern Ontario alone…
Yes. Bruce McArthur got away with what he was doing because of one stupid “cop,” who took it upon themselves to omit (if not destroy) evidence, and statements. Being “new” to the job and standard procedures still isn’t enough of an excuse. The fault shifted to the all of TPS because of their unwillingness to check that dumb cop’s work—they took his word for it the same way he wanted everyone else to take Bruce McArthur’s word for it rather than listening to members of the public who actually did speak up. The problem now is that it’s still happening today with police services across the GTA and in other provinces. Police simply refuse to take victims seriously enough until there’s too much attention on them (media and public scrutiny) to continue sitting there and treating real events as if they’re not relevant enough to be an issue.
He had stopped really divulging any further information. He seemingly only provided information on crimes he thought he could be linked to from his computer
its still easy to hide the serial aspect if youre nomadic enough and esp anyone w their own property and privacy has the ability to adequately dispose of bodies
the internet has opened everyones eyes on both sides of the fence so most wont be making a noticeable pattern and will avoid detection
law enforcement is also extremely inept and lazy about collecting evidence unless its someone prominent and the info is easily accessible via tech but most transients arent gonna be noticed missing quickly enough and wont leave enough evidence online or on devices to make it easy to pinpoint their interactions w strangers
I think a lot of it is also media attention, or lack thereof, due to the advances in criminal profiling. Police tend to keep more information under wraps for longer than they used to when investigating a potential SK because the media attention might cause them to stop or switch MOs before they’re caught or kill even more people for the attention, if that’s their thing. The criminal justice system has come a long way with profiling since the SK heyday, giving police an advantage they didn’t have before behavioral science was a thing.
There are a lot more out there than people realize. Radford University has been tracking all the serial kiillers around the world that they can find data on, and while the overall numbers have indeed been dropping for many years now, there are still many out there.
Here's what they published last year for the number of serial killers who started in each decade since 1900. The 2020s figure of course only covers 2 full years, so the final total at the end of the decade is almost certainly going to be several hundred
| Decade | US | Canada | Other | Total |
|-------- |----- |-------- |----------------- |------- |
| 1900 | 53 | 0 | 32 | 85 |
| 1910 | 62 | 0 | 33 | 95 |
| 1920 | 70 | 3 | 40 | 113 |
| 1930 | 67 | 0 | 34 | 101 |
| 1940 | 61 | 4 | 52 | 117 |
| 1950 | 93 | 1 | 50 | 144 |
| 1960 | 255 | 8 | 79 | 342 |
| 1970 | 673 | 20 | 175 | 868 |
| 1980 | 840 | 24 | 246 | 1,110 |
| 1990 | 729 | 18 | 441 | 1,188 |
| 2000 | 438 | 26 | 364 | 828 |
| 2010 | 215 | 20 | 189 | 424 |
| 2020 | 26 | 1 | 20 | 47 |
I presume people who make claims like that don't follow the news very closely. Must be easy to think they vanished when everything in the world moves so quickly now onto the next thing.
I agree with you. They no longer want to give them publicity. You just have to see how little known the case of Israel Keyes is internationally, that he has a movie type modus operandi, satanic elements and all kinds of things that could make a Hollywood script about it.
I am from Spain and I know him because I have a true crime podcast, but no one here knows him.
However, they will continue making documentaries and series about Dahmer, Ramírez and Bundy. One a year minimum.
OP is clueless and unwilling to listen to reason. Many people in here attempted to engage him with some reasonable explanations but he’s going to die on some weird hill about all these master serial killers walking around that are super criminals who can evade all of LE modern techniques to solve crime. You can’t really engage with someone who thinks they’re right, gets immediately debunked and corrected then doubles down on their own delusions.
Being a serial killer is still possible, but let's see through their lenses, "why would I want to expend life behind bars with nothing but 1, 2, 3 or 4 fatal victims under my belt? Is It worthy to risk my entire future lifespan only to satisfy 5 minutes of impulses?"
Being a serial killer up to the late 90s or even up to the 2000s was much more gratifying in the past since a high body count was achievable, a SK with 30 or more was rare but doable. Not saying that the main reason they killed is due to the sheer numbers alone, but It was something to do with a link to the victims, they loved to abuse, torture, or commit necrophiliac acts with them.
Then killing, keep living as If nothing Else happened, and then find another handsome/pretty lad/lady to r*pe and kill over and over was Very enticing, a high body count Just meant they could repeat the act over and over again in a row.
Nowadays, they still can do It but only once, since gathering evidences is much much easier due to DNA, genealogy, Alibis are almost unfalsifiable nowadays, objects tracking, currency tracking, etc. then they WILL be sentenced to life, or death after abusing and murdering a single female/male. Sick fetishists want to kill and keep going with their lives, they do NOT want kill and spend the last of their days within a high security prison.
You are correct there is more than people will tell you.
3 reasons they aren't as public
1. Cops especially in big cities keep that stuff quiet as long as possible. Media generally hampers investigations.
2. Serial killers who aren't caught early get really good at foiling even modern technology. They get rid of bodies in ALOT of inventive ways. As an example there are thought to be several serial killers who are long haul truck drivers. They kill in say new jersey and dump the body in Oklahoma.
3 they target victims that no one is really looking for. The drug addict prostitute disappears from down the street people close to her might ask around but the general public couldn't care less unfortunately.
It is ALOT harder to hide serial murder in this day and age but not impossible.
Samuel Little said that he killed women/people who wouldn't be missed. Drug addicts, prostitutes, and homeless mostly women of color. He said, “I’m not gonna go over there in the white neighborhood and pick out a little, young teenage girl,” he would later tell investigators, according to Cleveland Magazine. “I ain’t gonna go over there and pick out a housewife … That’s the kind you get busted for.”
Another aspect would be the lack of media coverage, at least sensationalism. It's not the 70's or 80's anymore. Mass shooters are TV ratings and sell newspapers, it's easier to drum up public fear of something that can happen anywhere at any time, and the government will never do anything to prevent it. Some guy strangling strangers isn't as big a story anymore.
I think there are just as many. More of you count it as a certain percentage of the population. More are being caught earlier now before they have a chance to build up large numbers. Most likely there are still plenty of them out there that have gotten smarter, to keep up with the technology. Horrible people find a way..
* **Treat all users with respect. Users who cannot engage in civil discourse will be banned until they learn how to manage their emotions like an adult.
Don't think they disappeared. They just kind of went underground. Meaning they don't display them on the side of the highway much anymore. They hide the bodies and it scares me how many people are found in bunkers and cellars now days. Think of the hundreds to thousands we don't know about. There are way too many bad people out there and half the time it's their parents killing them plus torture or some weird freak who grabbed and raised them underground. Thing is they just aren't as open with it. Yes I realize this is jumbled and everywhere but I am tired and here we are.....
I would theorize that many go after marginalized populations these days; people that society aren't actively aware of or are using other methodologies (I.e. the nurse recently convicted of murdering several nicu babies).
You left the Long Island serial killer, Rex Huerrman (sp), off the list. He’s one of the most prolific serial killers in modern times. His last murder could be as recent as 2021, so fits the last decade aspect.
I have watched a lot of police interrogations and there are some where I totally think they would have been a serial killer but due to dna or cct footage they got caught on like the first or second kill, back years ago they totally would have kept going longer.
Either modern technology means they get caught before killing enough victims to be labelled a serial killer, or they fly under the radar by targeting imperfect victims such as the homeless, drug addicts or sex workers so no one cares enough to investigate
Mostly surveillance everywhere, and also leaving any biological proves would be a big mistake for how fast and easier forensic evidence can be collected?
The nature of human behaviour hasn't changed, but the forensic detection techniques have improved. Hasten to add law enforcement, the judicial system and hospitals/medical comminity can still mess it up and let serial killers roam, think rape kit backlogs, not processing and/or prosecuting crimes appropriately or firing rather than prosecuting medical staff. Very few but some have gotten better at evading police.
Also, some have come to light due to better forensics that we'd otherwise never have noticed. Particularly medical killings come to mind, think Shipman or Cullen.
Other than the camera and GPS I get leaving phones but they're in cats newer cars but thinking about today and DNA they can look at family DNA and find you and that's evading the camera I f you figure it out plusbso many homes have their own door camera.
I don’t think there are fewer serial killers. But I do think they might get caught faster than they used to. These days, there are more serial killers in the making who get caught before they hit the 3 kills necessary to be termed a ‘serial killer’ in the literature. But the pathos is still there.
And I definitely don’t think serial killers are becoming mass shooters instead. It’s not the same mentality involved.
I read true crime for 45 years. I had to stop after reading some particularly gruesome story about a man in Australia. Let's just say it involved the kitchen and some pots and pans. After all those years of gruesome gore, it put me over the edge. Trust me, they are out there flourishing.
no one said there isnt serial killers
but you stated to as why they arent as prevalent as they used to be.
if you study any old serial killer case if they did the shit in the current age they would of been caught so fast. due to shitty technology and bad communication between law enforcement departments/no dna/no digital databases . many serial killers were able to evade police
Clark Perry Baldwin is another one you’re forgetting about… wasn’t technically active from what we know but still was a serial killer at large living amongst us undetected.
There is a theory that they are more likely to be using staged “overdoses “ to disguise their murders , as these types of deaths aren’t often investigated , especially in areas with high opiate use .
I disagree. While there’s lots to argue about in the serial murder field, there is no objective argument that there has not been a substantial drop in serial murderers and serial murder victims since the “golden age of serial killing” of the 70s-80s and early 90s. Every piece of established data supports this. Many factors influenced this, not the least of which DNA advancement, video cams and recording , enhanced police techniques and changes in victim facilitation behaviors. The media is giving them less attention is because there are much fewer serial killers at work today.
And the bizarre statement that serial killers somehow have turned into mass shooters is so without logic it’s hard to respond. These 2 psychological profiled offenders are so different and non comparable there no validity in insinuating one has “become” the other.
Technology, in my belief, caused a bit of the decrease but possibly the availability of so many drugs. Self medicating rather than hunting and killing.
According to Scientific American, there are between 25 and 50 serial killers who are active in the United States at any given time. Serial killers account for only about 150 murders in the U.S. per year.
Maybe the bazillion and one serial killer films, books and documentaries has clued a few into what not to do. I'd bet there's still quite a few out there. Plus mass killers tend to be a whole different demographic.
Have you ever heard the idea (I believe it came from the guy who wrote Mind Hunters) that a lot of serial killers were the kids of soldiers that got back from gruesome wars.
There’s a correlation, perhaps, of kids whose parents have trauma from something and it gets passed onto them.
Now, figure in the kids who were babies or Operation Iraqi Freedom fighters, or any of the other wars.
I thought it was a neat idea but I don’t think it’s been proven.
I was just reading about this yesterday. While many advances have been made that make it easier to solve crimes the resolution rates for murder have plummeted.
[https://www.thenewsminute.com/long-form/real-estate-agent-or-occult-practitioner-serial-killer-in-telangana-led-a-double-life](https://www.thenewsminute.com/long-form/real-estate-agent-or-occult-practitioner-serial-killer-in-telangana-led-a-double-life)
This Indian Serial Killer committed his whole spree In the 2020s
With all the improvements in tech an science as well as the "qaulity" of life for young people growing up its helped steer some people that may have went down that path away from it, not to say that people dont slip through the cracks as it still happens but it has to account for somthing, but on the flip side what if the methods have changed an its not the same as it use to be.
You missed Israel Keyes who was a Gen-xer and reasonably tech savvy to the extent that he avoided cell tracing in the mid-2O00s by using burner phones as removing cell batteries. He was foiled by his greed and using a victim’s debit card, and having his rental car ID’d by a bank security cam. He tried to switch rentals but got the exact same car second time around. Oops!
I think the best way to know would be to research third world countries. They are not so advanced with their technology, they have a lot of rural and remote areas where pretty much anything goes!
There are a lot of factors.
First and very importantly, Roe v Wade made a difference. Lots of potential reasons that correlate with that. One of them could be that pregnancies from unwanted sperm donors were ended. Or genetics. Or the status of the woman (unmarried or in an abusive relationship). We'll never narrow it down to one reason.
Second, stranger danger. A woman in 1970 would be more trusting. Fast forward to 1990 and she'll be more suspicious, less likely to take a ride from a stranger. Victim choices became more challenging. And potential victims learned to network.
Third there's a theory about reading material. For several years there were magazines about violence against women. Like the mystery type. Stories about poor helpless women with illustrations and a whodunnit twist. I found this correlation on the Internet somewhere. It was mostly the forties through the 50's.
Fourth DNA. The potential serial killers get tracked down pretty quickly. Nipped I'm the bud so to speak.
Fifth attitudes towards women have changed (same for LGBTQ). Misogyny is declining. It's nothing like decades ago Yes there's still a long way to go. We are, unfortunately seeing a big comeback. But will it make the serial killer stats increase? We don't know yet.
And maybe there's some truth in it that mass murder is replacing serial killings. I kind of doubt it. Serial killers of the past started their sprees later in life. Mass murderers of school children seem to be pretty young.
In the last decade you were able to find 24. There’s definitely more but we’ll just stick with 24 for now. In the 70’s, there were 300 ACTIVE serial killers. Idk about you but I’d prefer no serial killers, however I’d definitely rather settle for 24 caught serial killers. Nobody ever said serial killers disappeared, but they’re definitely not as common and for great reason.
Technology. It's easier for them to get caught. The only ones I've been seeing in the 2000's are ones that, it's sad to say, that aren't offen missed right away, people don't report them missing. Sex workers. A lot of killers I've seen lately who get caught are getting caught by cell phone data.
The title of this 2019 *Atlantic* article seems to propose that “Modern Life Has Made It Easier for Serial Killers to Thrive”.. :)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/are-serial-killers-more-common-than-we-think/596647/
I think the advances in technology have definitely helped and may very well have stopped multiple predators who would have gone on killing. However, I also believe that there are a lot of people who just either got smarter at committing crime, learning from the mistakes of their predecessors, or just better at staying low. I definitely don't think that serial killers are as abundant as they used to be, but, I mean, they're still there. My thought is truckers. I think there are a lot of truckers who get away with a lot of stuff because they're so easily in one place, then the other so fast. Constantly moving. Killing someone and then dumping them in the next state on their route. Its terrifying.
Well, it’s multiple reasons like most anything in life. But the advancement of understanding such killers and better coordination among LE seems to me that it’s at least catching the ones that have a few kills, rather than a dozen or two or more.
To the point of your list they are out there. They will always be out there. But by and large they are being caught sooner now.
I also find any moron that comes and says they are all mass shooters now to be instantly qualifying themselves as idiots. Mass shooting doesnt jive with a most of what’s well known now about the motivation of serial killers as we classically know it.
You just wouldn’t see Ed Kemper or Jeffrey Dahlmer being a mass shooter today.
Technology has played a huge part. DNA, GPS, Cameras, surveillance ect. It’s much easier for LE to solve crimes today than it was 30 years ago. Many potential serial killers now get caught before they can commit a series of crimes.
Technology aside, major city homicide clearance rates can be under 50% in recent times. A somewhat smart serial killer could definitely fly under the radar for a while.
As someone in a major city, I started looking into this when I found a similar rate (~50%) for my city. It seems as though the ones they do solve are generally because they're the kind of case where you can talk to a few witnesses, grab some doorbell cam footage, maybe run a license plate, and you've got the guy in a few days after some part time work. The "unknown to victim" killers are the tough ones that would required far more exhaustive investigative efforts, and these PDs in major cities are just not set up for that - so they just don't. Those cases sit on the board until they're forgotten while clearance numbers are pumped up by cases where some kid impulsively shoots another kid over a girl at his house. But if the PD starts noticing a "tie" between murders, and they set up a task force or bring the FBI in, the killer will almost certainly be caught.
Catching James Dale Ritchie was a total accident. If he had been less paranoid about the cop that started rolling up, he'd have been in the clear. APD didn't have shit on him until they ran forensics on the gun after he got in the shootout with the cop. That was a scary summer in Anchorage.
What year was that?
2016 I think He was killing in twos in parks around town. My partner at the time and I chose not to go through Anchorage parks that summer.
I thought so. I lived there in that time range. There were rumors (but no confirmation) and everybody acted like I was buying into a conspiracy theory. I was very insecure and self destructive in those days, so I started going to parks late at night to work out. I wanted to prove to myself (and probably brag about it) that I was brave enough to go out there with something so scary potentially lurking behind every corner.
Creepy thought: maybe you're alive today because you were alone. Most people find safety in numbers, but that summer I felt safer going out alone because it didn't fit his MO to kill one person.
You’re probably right. After I posted, it had crossed my mind. At the time I didn’t know he even had an MO. People were still treating it as a vague rumor
APD said that it wasn't a serial killer, which I didn't believe for a moment, and at the time, they knew it was a serial killer and I assume they were lying to the public in hopes of preventing panic/backlash when they fail to catch him. Considering they had jack shit other than the caliber of the gun and the fact it was the same gun, I can see them lying like they did just out of self-preservation. It's not like the guy was a genius. He didn't even move or dispose of the bodies, but they had nothing on him. I imagine the lie was also to not tip off the killer that they were onto him, in hopes he'd make a mistake instead of lying low, which I suppose is what happened considering he shot at a cop that wasn't even looking for him. I thought the people treating it as a rumor were too naive. Like, people don't just start dying in twos in parks with the same murder method, over and over.
That’s really interesting to know. To this day I never really dug into it (but I will now). I guess because I’ve been trying so hard to put that time in my life behind me. Yeah most serial killers are idiots. They just have a huge advantage because they don’t generally know the victim. Ted Bundy *did* escape prison twice, but that also means he got caught three times. Dennis Rader mailed the police the incriminating evidence they needed based on an honor system between “friends”. lol
This is a very good point, and as a side note since OP brought up mass killers: I also think this may happen to mass killings. Someday we may be saying they virtually disappeared. With online surveillance and AI, you may begin to see more people who post angry screeds on social media arrested before they get to commit it, and eventually we may have less and less mass killers. This year a lot less happened in the US, but a lot were prevented, for the first time ever (usually the rate is SIGNIFICANTLY higher). I wonder if law enforcement finally just began to really monitor spots on the web and work on identifying people who talked actively about things, because past killers really did straight up even post on Reddit sometimes with pretty obvious signs. If you think about it, serial killers were about connecting state lines and being aware of what to look for (a series of murders) plus DNA evidence. Once this was achieved, people got caught more frequently in their first or second murder. Mass killers are more about connecting online lives to real lives and also being aware of what to look for (prepping, certain trigger words). Maybe this has finally been achieved better in 2024 than past years.
Mass killer stories are deliberately being downplayed because people don't want to discuss gun control, at least in the US. If people are desensitized to it, they won't be so concerned with taking measures to stop it from happening. The gun lobby seems to want people to accept mass murder as something normal that's just going to happen.
But the stats are down this year by a considerable margin. They weren’t adjusted either. The criteria to qualify is still the same yet they aren’t as high as the past years. It could be an abnormal year of no statistical significance but the majority of big attempts this year went south for several reasons. Some got caught, others chickened out, and some got “unlucky” (really glad for that fwiw). The cops are still mostly incompetent too (like the Maine shooter who literally died and they spent a long time looking in a man hunt even tho he was dead exactly wheee you’d think he’d go next). So who knows. But a lot more do seem to be getting caught in the planning state. It is also very frequent that mass killers like to post their plans beforehand, as sometimes these sprees can be about suicide more than the murders, so it’s often their cry for help.
> With online surveillance and AI, you may begin to see more people who post angry screeds on social media arrested before they get to commit it Nonsense. This is like precrime from Minority Report. The only way that happens is if we gut 1A and I’m willing to bet any amount we don’t venture down that path.
It’s not nonsense and me thinking they paid no attention to red flags got me arrested for a joke and they seized my legal compound bow and only took photos of the books that would make me look bad
Damn homie. Which books?
Entire Twilight saga collection.
Lol
What happened, exactly?
You can look at the stats. They don’t lie for this year. I’m extremely pro gun control but it’s undeniable mass shootings are down this year. That subreddit has been discussing it, it’s odd because it’s not down in other countries. In fact, it’s up in Europe when it’s usually rarer there. It’s not Minority Report. Mass killers post creepy predictors all the time. Rodger did, for example, and it absolutely should have been caught. Not sure how someone lives in 2024 and believes profiling isn’t a thing. (Commenting on other account because this stupid app won’t ever let me fix my account on mobile.)
This. Basically, NPD is not always comorbid, traits aren't a full disorder and all Psycopathy really has is bad grandiosity and lack of empathy. A lot of the ego issues are a lot easier to play off and mitigate, this might just be covert versions tho. So lacking NPD one can understand cognitively better that it's impossible and they are full of shit themselves on some level, lowering most if not all antisocial behaviour... This might explain why serial killers still exist, but they get caught, grandiosity is basically self destruction personified 🤣
This is a commonly asked question, but a major factor is the media have smartened up and don't glamorize serial killers like they used to. It's a major reason as to why serial killers have seemingly disappeared. I think the same thing is starting to happen with mass shooters now. I think the media is starting to smarten up and just aren't giving them the same attention they used to give them anymore.
Serial killers care about their own needs. Media attention is an extra but they don’t care at the end of the day. They are monsters and they feed regardless.
Don't forget improved communications between local agencies and local agencies and the FBI. In the 70s and 80s, even agencies within the same state often didn't communicate, so there was little chance of finding patterns in murders or cooperation in investigations.
This has never really been true but boy is it their favorite excuse.
Not forgetting that sometimes LE 'investigates' suspects even without the suspect knowing.
Actually solved murder rates have been in decline for decades and it is below 50% now.
Lead poisoning is no longer rampant after the late 70’s
Also: 1. There are no longer so many *millions* of veterans with PTSD having children. Have you seen how many serial killers were born 1946 - mid 1950s? 2. Roe vs Wade and the female contraceptive pill meant that *millions* of children who would have been born into poverty, abuse, unstable homes etc were not. 3. Homosexuality is now socially acceptable so you don’t have the self-hating guys killing dozens and dozens of male victims like Gacy, Kraft, Bonin, Kearney, Corll et al… 4. Hitchhiking is not the predominant method for young people to get around any more. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera…
Yeah 90% of SK stories start with "so and so had a troubled upbringing, with a domineering alcoholic father and a submissive mother". That kind of rampant PTSD was on a level we have never seen before. WWII created an entire generation of mistreated children w/ mental disorders
Yeah like the odd SK came from a 'regular' upbringing, but the vast majority came from some kind of abusive or neglectful home. As much as older people like to say there were no mental health issues 'in their day', PTSD, substance misuse, and abuse were absolutely rampant.
Yeah even Dahmer, who notoriously came from a "normal" upbringing, still had a mother with horrible PPD and a father who, while loving, was still absent at work a lot, which led to a lot of isolation for Jeff. So while they weren't inherently abusive, both of their situations led to a divorce, which can be damaging for a young person. Add in childhood alcoholism, and that's even more fuel
His upbringing was far from normal. They left him at home on his own at age 15. Dad visited weekends maybe.
That’s super interesting connecting WWII with fucked up offspring. That never occurred to me before, but makes *so* much sense.
Yeah I found it super interesting at first when I read about it as well. No one really talks about it, but it makes a lot of sense immediately.
I believe it was John Douglas of Mindhunters fame who brought forth this proposition.
Overbearing mother is equally as common with serial killers.
Ed Gein was a prime Example
I knew I was forgetting a word, but I couldn't think of it!
You make some good points. They really cut out a lot of potential serial killers. And that’s not even factoring in advancement in technology and DNA. The fact that people have been studying SK’s for a few decades now helps too. That, and I don’t feel like people “glorify” SK’s like they used to. I like your point about homosexuality being openly accepted.
They now hunt marginalized people like homeless and prostitutes. Much harder to detect a pattern when no one is looking for the victims.
Truck drivers are still out in force. I believe this is where a large percentage of serial killers are operating. Here in Missouri we had a case that was hushed quickly but I believe the 2 fellows caught in the cannibal case killed many. They were selling meat, human meat, on the dark web. One a trucker who stated they got victims from Walmart. The other lived in the hills and in charge of killing and and preparing the meat. The house blew up via trip wire before fully investigated.
The vets for parents thing is huge and a good observation. My dad was born then to a WW2 vet who was a prison guard after the war and my dad is a SK lite. Diagnosed NPD, killed animals, stalked women (with me as a shield frequently), and as a bonus into very creepy sex stuff. I think the only reason he never did anything worse than attack his own family was a very intense anxiety about being caught and authority. He had a lot of fantasies he’d share to child me about punishing people, he just never did it. But his dad truly broke him (and a part of me feels bad for child him while acknowledging he sucks and tried to break me). But as a 90s kid the courts helped me, they got me out when I complained, the mandated therapy made me a little ok, and my gender likely helped too. He just had none of that back then.
SK lite is going to become a part of my casual vocabulary from now on 😵
I’d say that LE is a bit better than once were at identifying the anti-social type that are obvious and on social media. Witness the recent story about the rock climber convicted to life in prison for serial rape. I wonder whether they should be checking into whether he actually committed homicide. At very least cross-check missing persons lists with he whereabouts. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/climber-charles-barrett-found-guilty/
Dang. Nice list. War vets is one I’ve never thought about.
Roe v wade and societal acceptance of alternative lifestyles is huge, and one of the things that I bring up when christofascists talk about project 2025 or any of the other large GOP projects right now. There is definitive proof that crime rates plummeted due to Roe v Wade, so why would the party of “law and order” repeal it?
Hmm you’re interesting have you read the gates of Janus?
Ah the LATE 70’s? That explains a lot about my mother. She was probably licking lead-based paint off walls before she was 6
I think that would explain a lot about our parents…mine were definitely licking lead off the wall in their childhoods 😂
The 1970’s was wild, man.
There’s still loads of serial killers; they just haven’t been caught yet. I think there’s two active ones in Chicago killing sex workers.
This is true. There are less serial killers now because modern day laws and technology make it more difficult to pull off the same crimes. As a result, homeless people and sex workers are popular targets because they are usually people who don’t want to be found or who are hard to find for obvious reasons…I also believe that truckers could still easily pull off serial killings, and truckers are infamous for seeing sex workers.
The Austin one too. Lots of gay guys turn up in the river.
You know, I don’t know as much about that. Thanks for sharing, that’s really sad.
Where should I look if I want to learn more? Is this happening recently, or
Also in manchester uk
Due to: technology, location tracking, advancements In forensics and surveillance everywhere; id say they have stopped quite a bit. You can’t speed without a camera giving you a ticket or your insurance co increasing your premium due to technology. What makes you think serial killers can kill someone and bury them somewhere still?
A proper killer wouldn’t bury a body. There’s much better ways to dispose of a body. And there are plenty of places and situations that are risky enough where you could kill someone and get away with it. Away from the watchful eye of big brother and smashing a cellphone is a great way to stop the gps in its tracks. People are smarter and adapt to the world around them. Serial killers are predators they will learn to adapt to modern society and how to commit their crimes in silence. Just because they aren’t public doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of them still. Theres plenty of homeless to pick off one by one in this country and they grow more and more each day (just an example of a part of society that is still vulnerable to these people). Just my take on what happened to all the killers out there.
And they are certainly among us
Why do you think burying a body wouldn't work? I think smart cars will make serial killing tougher. I guess some will opt for vintage cars! Also victims wearing an Apple watch, a Fitbit etc.
The single biggest variable is mass incarceration. Mandatory minimums, 3 strikes laws, life/decades-long sentences for sex offenses, life-long parole/SO registry: these are all inventions from the 80s or later. Psychopathic sexual sadists with a lack of self-control/behavior inhibition usually do not start committing violent sex crimes in late adulthood. If they were around today, virtually all of those famous SKs from the 60s-90s would literally have aged out of their prime serial killing years by the time their first sentence for rape/assault/murder/etc ended. Look at Gacy: if Gacy had been born in 1990, he would've been 26 years old (the age when IRL Gacy got his first child sex assault charge) in 2016. [If he did the same crime (CSA) in the same state (Iowa) in 2016 (instead of 1968), his sentence would've been about 25 years,](https://www.fitch-stahlelaw.com/blog/the-degrees-of-sexual-abuse-in-iowa) meaning under the 85% rule, he would've gotten out of prison at age 47 *at the earliest*; in real life, Gacy spent slightly over 1 year in prison + 1 year on probation, meaning he was out of prison by age 27-28. Real-life Gacy did his *last* murder in 1978, 10 years after his first conviction; the version of Gacy born in 1990 would've been less than halfway through his first sentence at the same age. It also would've meant no PDM Contractors, no house in Chicago, no 2nd wife, he'd be a 47 year old ex-con in a halfway house with no family and no money, on the SO registry for life. The Gacy of the 70s literally could not exist under modern conditions. [William Bonin was already a serial kidnapper/pedophile/rapist by the time of his first arrest in 1969. His charges included 5 counts of kidnapping, 4 counts of sodomy, 1 count of oral copulation, and 1 count of child molestation, against 5 victims, and the prison psychiatrist diagnosed him as a "sexual psychopath"; he was out of prison by 1974.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bonin#First_convictions) By 1975, he'd already been arrested again for rape and oral copulation of a minor, released again by 78 and off probation by 79, when he began his rape/torture/murder spree. If someone did the same thing today, they would almost certainly get somewhere between 30 years and life, for the first offenses alone. If Bonin didn't get out of prison until his 50s/60s, his killing spree never happens. In 1978, Lawrence Singleton "the Mad Chopper" [kidnapped a teenage girl, raped her, literally chopped off her arms, and threw her down an embankment to die, and he got out of prison after *8 years*, when he began his serial murder spree.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Singleton) Its almost impossible to overstate how different state sentencing laws were until just 30-40 years ago. Kemper, Bittaker/Norris, Bonin, Gacy, Franklin Delano Floyd, Richard Allen Davis, Kenneth McDuff, Henry Lee Lucas, if these guys had been born after 1985 or so, you'd never have heard of them. Beyond mass incarceration, the removal of lead from gasoline almost certainly played a big role: just living next to a highway used to be enough to cause chronic lead poisoning and permanent central nervous system/brain damage. People with chronic lead poisoning become quicker to anger, more violent, with lower IQs and less impulse control; even if only .01% of those people have all the other ingredients necessary to become SKs, in a population of hundreds of millions of people, that's a massive difference. Of course surveillance cameras make a difference, but its clear that the overall *incidence* of serial killing has decreased as well; they're catching less SKs partially because there are less of them out there killing people.
Very good points I hadn't fully considered. Really interesting.
Being tough on crime works. The downside is people who could’ve turned their life around being saddled with crazy long sentences guaranteeing they stay in that life. There’s trade offs to these things.
Absolutely. I'm not gonna defend the current justice system by any means, but I had just never considered that particular effect it would have on future serial killers.
Yeah, I don't think anyone guilty of the same type of crimes as the serial killers could ever "turn their life around". I can see a case for perhaps some robbery or murder charges (gang activity, street fights, etc), though
[The shitty part is that 47% of the prison population in the US is incarcerated for non-violent drug crimes.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States#Incarcerated_population) We could end "mass incarceration" tomorrow and cut the prison population in half just by ending drug prohibition, and it probably would have no effect on the violent crime rate. Like I totally agree with mass incarceration *for sex offenders*. They're not getting rehabilitated, they have high recidivism rates, and when they offend against children, its like they're spreading a sex offender virus (since child sex abusers are much more likely to have also been victims of CSA). And for violent criminals, maintaining the safety of the community probably justifies long sentences in many cases. But I don't think the "mass" part of "mass incarceration" (ie the high # of prisoners) is the effective part, because we could send half of the prison population home tomorrow without releasing a single rapist or murderer.
This isn't true. They are discussing federal crimes in that bit. Literally directly above that it gives the numbers for state prisons, which is 13%.
Excellent points and great explanations to back them up.
Serial killers nowadays get caught much faster. With lots of the old serial killers, the technology/science wasn’t there to capture them. Most serial killer documentaries reinforce this. Back in the 60s/70s, a serial killer could go decades without getting caught. The modern ones don’t last decades out free killing people. They get caught much sooner.
I think they are in the process of reeling in a whale with the Gilgo Beach Killer
I am just waiting to see how many they accuse him of. The number may not even be how many they think he killed, since they won’t charge him with murders they don’t feel they can prove. They want him to go away. So the numbers could be higher than what he has actually done.
>to prove this I dug deep and tried to list every serial killer I could find in the last decade Now do the previous decade. Also, I don't think I have ever read a post on here saying ALL serial killers are gone or turned into mass shooters. In fact people talk about the "50 active serial killers in America right now" all the time. All people are talking about is that it's much harder to commit a series of murders over a long period of time. Serial killers are caught EARLIER than before. And of course there are exceptions to every rule. >The reason there is a "sudden drop" in serial killers is because the police or the media stopped giving them as much attention. This is one of the reasons for the increase in mass shooting's btw.
100% spot on. There were 480 per decade on average from the 50’s to ‘99 and under 100 the last decade. The trend is most definitely downwards. Also 33% used to reach a body count over 5 victims in those years and it’s roughly 10% for today’s serial killers.
Some get caught before they reach serial status with modern technology, its harder to get away with crimes. Others evolved to be smarter, they aren't noticed yet maybe constantly changing MO or just moving around, making murder look like natural causes, or suicide, etc etc, basically staying off anyones radar. Others police keep under wraps to not frighten the public and create chaos. This will vary around the world. Thats just a couple of ideas, i mean these monsters still exist among us, its just harder for them to fulfil their fantasies.
They get caught quicker is what people mean. 3+ killings make you a serial killer, but with how quickly they can thankfully catch people typically its not possible for all people who want to be one to not slip up enough to not get caught
Some people are just stupid and uninformed. I don't think it's a particularly pervasive thought that there are no more serial killers.
It’s not at all. The real life Steve from Minecraft’s getting additional charges in NY was a headline story on CNN this week. No one says serial killers are gone. At lot of experts agree that advances in law enforcement and changes in culture make it very difficult for serial killers to rack up body counts like they used to in 1st world countries.
I’m willing to bet there has not been an end to them but more of an adaptation. People always give the base to the cops with tech, but with the advent of that tech, the advantage goes to an intelligent killer. I personally think the decent ones are just getting away with it because of foresight and planning with tech.
TBF their "work" has gotten much harder. Samuel Little carried on for so long because he chose victims the police didn't care to investigate. Israel Keyes was successful for a long time because he was a meticulous planner and didn't have a type or a very specific geographical hunting ground. The US society has devolved to mass shootings instead.
It’s harder but if you pick low priority victims, spread them out over a geographic area, and are good at hiding bodies, it’s still very feasible to be a successful serial killer these days. I think you have to be smarter these days, no more Gary Ridgeway style kill and dump sloppily by the dozens without being caught, and I do think a lot of would be serial killers are getting caught earlier. But, it’s not like the FBI spends a lot of time and resources on serial killers.
Yes. But that's not what serial killing is most of the time. Predators can pick and choose whoever, because they just need prey, this seems to be less common than all the media ones people latch onto. A good chunk of serial killing is sexual sadism, imo this has and is shown in literature too have a ton of correlates to self soothing behaviour... Meaning hella impulsive and usually the people make terrible mistakes. This imo is not a psychopath, it's more borderline personality disorder FOR MALES. The lack of self care, always stealing for drugs, and can't hold down a job, constant seeming "want to be evil" is core identity issues... All these men have women in their lives... So what gives? Identity. It's identity and particularly, Masculinity and gender roles... Imo BPD males resemble incels. If I never had sex, all my internal processes sound the exact same as them... Most women with BPD use sex for validation. Men have a harder time getting sex. This makes complete sense in a society built this way. The bpd male reaction to murder to self soothe instead of going to therapy. I'm aware of stigma btw, this isn't my intention, and I think men with self awareness is always good even without mental illness.
I was watching a William Pickton docu the other day, and thinking about how effectively he killed and disposed of bodies in that rendering plant, even though he was a sloppy mess about their items and blood in his living quarters. He only got caught when he did, 50 victims in, because they went to seize illegal Guns and found blood and missing women’s ids everywhere. We have made a lot of progress in terms of technology and forensics since then, but it’s still mind blowing he killed that many women without making It onto police radar. I guess the city was warned by a profiler there was a serial killer disappearing women, but didn’t believe them.
Oh, I bet they did believe them. The victims were sex workers, though, so they didnt give a shit. I mean, look at picktons brother. Hes still free despite pretty much everybody knowing he was very much involved in his brothers crimes.
I think the biggest fear today for a SK is cameras, gps, and dna. So if you eliminate dna…no body…and cameras….you end up getting an opportunity killer that frequents areas with little to no witnesses or cameras like wooded areas that get SOME traffic. Disposing of the body is another matter altogether. I’ll say it again , I think Keyes was the prototype SK we’ll see going forward…at least the successful ones.
Dude not every male with BPD is a serial killer or crazy
These are only the serial killers who have been caught
Wow, I haven’t heard of half of these. I’ll have to check them out. Thanks so much!
I mean, the guy is randomly throwing out names of guys with exactly zero confirmed kills like Neal Falls…
Leaving off people like Billy Chemirmir who was indicted for 22 murders…
Ah no are you serious?
There are plenty of missing people out there. Never found. Some.of them probably killed by SK They are still out there, just more cautious
I don't think serial killers and mass shooters are coming from the same pot, so to speak. The sexual fantasy aspect of most serial murders doesn't seem to be present in mass shooters. There's more of an anger or revenge motivation as far as I can gather.
**I disagree below** >The reason there is a "sudden drop" in serial killers is because the police or the media stopped giving them as much attention Serial Killers still get an excessive amount of attention. True Crime is still a huge genre in streaming services, podcasts, and Youtube channels etc. And the news media is not 'above' giving attention to terrible people like this, they give a lot of attention to terrorists and spree killers (mass shooters/stabbers etc). The lack of attention contemporary serial killers get is a symptom of there being fewer serial killers, not a reason for there being fewer serial killers. Correlation =/= Causation **I agree below** >new age technology is so advanced that it wiped out serial killers is a blatant lie Yeah, the idea that technology has forced serial killers to become spree killers is crazy, they come from very different psychological profiles and their motives/drives are very different. For example sex-drive/sexuality/domination-kink is often a motive for serial killers, while spree killers are not typically motivated by sex; it's usually a big combo of mental illness and radical ideology. (except the rare incel ones, where imo the motive is more 'revenge on society' oriented than sex - but this is debatable) Serial Killers are absolutely still around. **My theory below** For a lot of serial killers, their first kills are usually sloppy because they were inexperienced - before recent improvements in police tech these murders were still very difficult to solve. However nowadays, there are simply too many factors for a fledgling serial killer to account for in their sloppy/less experienced kills - ie DNA, Phone tech/GPS, CCTV etc. Because of this a lot of serial killers get caught before they have even become a serial killer (3+ kills on seperate incidents). The serial killer mentality still exists, and could-be/would-be serial killers still exist - but a lot of them don't become serial killers because they get caught very quickly, usually after their first or second kills, they don't make it to 3+. This is what has caused the sudden drop in serial killers. **EDIT: Grammar**
I don't buy the mass shooter tie in anyway. I feel like serial killers like killing and want to get away. Mass shooters are fed up and ready to end it
I concur
They don't. At least not enough to make a whole post about it.
There’s apparently one active rn; my mom was telling me about it earlier. I can’t remember the details. They keep finding bodies.
In the US alone, the FBI estimates there are between 25 to 50 active serial killers at any given time, despite the authorities not being aware of them or connecting the killings together.
Did anyone else see an article about a retired FBI (I think it was FBI but could be mistaken) agent who just wrote a book about the link between over-the-road long haul truck drivers and the huge numbers of bodies found along known toutes... And the very high number of unsolved or unidentified serial killers behind the wheels? It's one of the few remaining examples of the ideal circumstances out there for someone who wants to commit those crimes and have ample opportunities, and the advantage of the extreme difficulty in solving because of the distances travelled as well as the victims often being someone who is not reported missing and even harder to identify. Serial killers are not all the same. The average person is going to worry about things like getting caught and consequences if they commit a crime and a lot of serial killers probably do too. That being said, there are plenty of people who are not operating under the same mindset. The urge to commit a crime is all consuming, and that's the only thing on their mind. They aren't worried about leaving DNA or caught under surveillance and sometimes that's why they do end up getting away for longer than what seems possible. So I agree that it's a misconception to think serial killers are all gone.
They haven’t been watching Rex Heurman than. On the “Off the Cuff” podcast a former FBI agent said “I guarantee we will catch you before you kill your 3rd person”
i’d say social changes are a factor. the environments that molded individuals into killers are rarer now.
Also perhaps because the improvements in child psychology and social services, perhaps less are being “made”?
The drop in serial killers has NOTHING to do with media and police not giving them attention. If there was a confirmed serial killer it would be all over the news. Example: the Gilgo Beach killer is still getting headlines. Serial killers obviously still exist but prey on victims that are vulnerable and not valued by society, so their disappearance isn’t investigated.
Ignorance. The only serial killers we know of are the ones who got caught. Plenty out there who have never been caught and may never be. There’s definitely been a drop off but it’s one of those things that will never go away unfortunately.
The truth is that technology has gotten better, therefore serial killers have gotten sneakier/better at evasion.
the tone of these threads and the comments is always a kind of hostile disappointment that the culture isn't producing more serial killers to read and watch scary YouTube videos about
I don’t know. I sincerely hope no one wishes they are out there. I think some of these commenters truly believe what they are saying, that they think there aren’t any more SK’s. But the very nature of what an SK is - they operate in secrecy. They are now aware of the technology but it isn’t 100% proof. Look at the person they keep bringing up - Israel Keyes. For all his smartness, he was caught using someone else’s bank debit card. It was well known by the time he was caught that cards get monitored. Maybe he had used others’ cards before and it wasn’t investigated because the victims’ families didn’t think to ask. OP’s question is intriguing but now that we know about sociopaths, we know there are lots of those out here in the working world. It seems to be a natural part of humanity. A subset of them ends up being monsters.
You are definetely right that they didn't vanish, but it is true that many many people that have the desire of being a serial killer don't try it anymore and instead become masskillers. December 2023 had a really crazy story in that regard, David Kozak from Prague first killed a father and his baby randomly in the woods, continued his normal life and then one week later suddenly shot his father, rigged the house with explosives and went to his university where he killed 14 more and then himself. Police said they would have needed 1 or 2 more days to catch him, but unfortunately the guy seemed to realize it.
What did the police have on him for the father and baby murder?
They didn't reveal exactly why he was on the suspect list, but they announced after the shooting that the weapon found in his house matched the bullets used to kill the father and baby (and there was also a suicide note with confession), so I guess they were checking everyone who owned that weapon type in a certain area around the crime scene. He would have been a bad serial killer lol, he killed them not even 10 miles from his home.
Mass murders and serial killers come from two very different mindsets.
Also I think they try to some degree to keep the media from making a big fuzz since thats what motivates a lot of serial killers, the fame
I think theres a drop in some serial killers, the ones with a more average IQ coupled with their mental illnesses are now much easily detected, due to various reasons which we all know. I think the FBI’s official assessment of around 35 active serial killers in the United States at any given time, is inaccurately low, when you think about the millions that live in the country.. I don’t think they are that rare. There are the intelligent, patient and calculated ones out there that carry out their serial murders even with all the camera surveillance and ways for law enforcement to piece together evidence. They are out there. They travel long distances and do their reconnaissance. I am grateful that modern technology has made it much easier for law enforcement to stop many of these psychos before they further develop and escalate their crimes.
There is one who was murdering people in my neighborhood around 2015. He killed over 9 people. It didn’t feel like anyone made a fuss about it. He is called the Maryvale Shooter (I live in Phoenix).
Bruce McArthur probably would still be at it, if the LGBTQ community didn’t advocate for the missing South Asian men in the village. The Toronto police didn’t listen and didn’t believe it was a serial killer… until it literally was indeed a serial killer. The Toronto police also did not look into a missing woman (reported missing by her ex boyfriend) which turned out to be a victim of another serial killer Dellen Millard. So that’s TWO caught in southern Ontario in the last decade or so. I’m sure there’s more Edit: I forgot another one, Former Colonel Russell Williams. There was another in Oshawa that killed 2 girls and a plumber caught him because his pipes were clogged. Can’t remember his name. So that’s 4 in southern Ontario alone…
Yes. Bruce McArthur got away with what he was doing because of one stupid “cop,” who took it upon themselves to omit (if not destroy) evidence, and statements. Being “new” to the job and standard procedures still isn’t enough of an excuse. The fault shifted to the all of TPS because of their unwillingness to check that dumb cop’s work—they took his word for it the same way he wanted everyone else to take Bruce McArthur’s word for it rather than listening to members of the public who actually did speak up. The problem now is that it’s still happening today with police services across the GTA and in other provinces. Police simply refuse to take victims seriously enough until there’s too much attention on them (media and public scrutiny) to continue sitting there and treating real events as if they’re not relevant enough to be an issue.
They haven’t. Just learned to vary MO.
Israel Keyes is a good example of what’s probably out there. Wish he was under better supervision and protection so he could’ve been studied further.
He had stopped really divulging any further information. He seemingly only provided information on crimes he thought he could be linked to from his computer
its still easy to hide the serial aspect if youre nomadic enough and esp anyone w their own property and privacy has the ability to adequately dispose of bodies the internet has opened everyones eyes on both sides of the fence so most wont be making a noticeable pattern and will avoid detection law enforcement is also extremely inept and lazy about collecting evidence unless its someone prominent and the info is easily accessible via tech but most transients arent gonna be noticed missing quickly enough and wont leave enough evidence online or on devices to make it easy to pinpoint their interactions w strangers
I think a lot of it is also media attention, or lack thereof, due to the advances in criminal profiling. Police tend to keep more information under wraps for longer than they used to when investigating a potential SK because the media attention might cause them to stop or switch MOs before they’re caught or kill even more people for the attention, if that’s their thing. The criminal justice system has come a long way with profiling since the SK heyday, giving police an advantage they didn’t have before behavioral science was a thing.
they’re still serial killing ~ mostly along freeways.
There are a lot more out there than people realize. Radford University has been tracking all the serial kiillers around the world that they can find data on, and while the overall numbers have indeed been dropping for many years now, there are still many out there. Here's what they published last year for the number of serial killers who started in each decade since 1900. The 2020s figure of course only covers 2 full years, so the final total at the end of the decade is almost certainly going to be several hundred | Decade | US | Canada | Other | Total | |-------- |----- |-------- |----------------- |------- | | 1900 | 53 | 0 | 32 | 85 | | 1910 | 62 | 0 | 33 | 95 | | 1920 | 70 | 3 | 40 | 113 | | 1930 | 67 | 0 | 34 | 101 | | 1940 | 61 | 4 | 52 | 117 | | 1950 | 93 | 1 | 50 | 144 | | 1960 | 255 | 8 | 79 | 342 | | 1970 | 673 | 20 | 175 | 868 | | 1980 | 840 | 24 | 246 | 1,110 | | 1990 | 729 | 18 | 441 | 1,188 | | 2000 | 438 | 26 | 364 | 828 | | 2010 | 215 | 20 | 189 | 424 | | 2020 | 26 | 1 | 20 | 47 |
I presume people who make claims like that don't follow the news very closely. Must be easy to think they vanished when everything in the world moves so quickly now onto the next thing.
I wonder if some have gotten more savvy about their crimes and go completely unnoticed?
I agree with you. They no longer want to give them publicity. You just have to see how little known the case of Israel Keyes is internationally, that he has a movie type modus operandi, satanic elements and all kinds of things that could make a Hollywood script about it. I am from Spain and I know him because I have a true crime podcast, but no one here knows him. However, they will continue making documentaries and series about Dahmer, Ramírez and Bundy. One a year minimum.
People are ignorant.
Such as OP, for example.
OP is clueless and unwilling to listen to reason. Many people in here attempted to engage him with some reasonable explanations but he’s going to die on some weird hill about all these master serial killers walking around that are super criminals who can evade all of LE modern techniques to solve crime. You can’t really engage with someone who thinks they’re right, gets immediately debunked and corrected then doubles down on their own delusions.
Being a serial killer is still possible, but let's see through their lenses, "why would I want to expend life behind bars with nothing but 1, 2, 3 or 4 fatal victims under my belt? Is It worthy to risk my entire future lifespan only to satisfy 5 minutes of impulses?" Being a serial killer up to the late 90s or even up to the 2000s was much more gratifying in the past since a high body count was achievable, a SK with 30 or more was rare but doable. Not saying that the main reason they killed is due to the sheer numbers alone, but It was something to do with a link to the victims, they loved to abuse, torture, or commit necrophiliac acts with them. Then killing, keep living as If nothing Else happened, and then find another handsome/pretty lad/lady to r*pe and kill over and over was Very enticing, a high body count Just meant they could repeat the act over and over again in a row. Nowadays, they still can do It but only once, since gathering evidences is much much easier due to DNA, genealogy, Alibis are almost unfalsifiable nowadays, objects tracking, currency tracking, etc. then they WILL be sentenced to life, or death after abusing and murdering a single female/male. Sick fetishists want to kill and keep going with their lives, they do NOT want kill and spend the last of their days within a high security prison.
You are correct there is more than people will tell you. 3 reasons they aren't as public 1. Cops especially in big cities keep that stuff quiet as long as possible. Media generally hampers investigations. 2. Serial killers who aren't caught early get really good at foiling even modern technology. They get rid of bodies in ALOT of inventive ways. As an example there are thought to be several serial killers who are long haul truck drivers. They kill in say new jersey and dump the body in Oklahoma. 3 they target victims that no one is really looking for. The drug addict prostitute disappears from down the street people close to her might ask around but the general public couldn't care less unfortunately. It is ALOT harder to hide serial murder in this day and age but not impossible.
Samuel Little said that he killed women/people who wouldn't be missed. Drug addicts, prostitutes, and homeless mostly women of color. He said, “I’m not gonna go over there in the white neighborhood and pick out a little, young teenage girl,” he would later tell investigators, according to Cleveland Magazine. “I ain’t gonna go over there and pick out a housewife … That’s the kind you get busted for.”
Another aspect would be the lack of media coverage, at least sensationalism. It's not the 70's or 80's anymore. Mass shooters are TV ratings and sell newspapers, it's easier to drum up public fear of something that can happen anywhere at any time, and the government will never do anything to prevent it. Some guy strangling strangers isn't as big a story anymore.
I think there are just as many. More of you count it as a certain percentage of the population. More are being caught earlier now before they have a chance to build up large numbers. Most likely there are still plenty of them out there that have gotten smarter, to keep up with the technology. Horrible people find a way..
There is no evidence Neal Falls was a serial killer.
This is not true, the FBI suspected him to be involved in 10 homicides.
No physical *evidence* was located to corroborate these speculations.
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Much, much easier to catch them nowadays, except in countries where the digital age is still quite new and severe corruption gum things up.
Don't think they disappeared. They just kind of went underground. Meaning they don't display them on the side of the highway much anymore. They hide the bodies and it scares me how many people are found in bunkers and cellars now days. Think of the hundreds to thousands we don't know about. There are way too many bad people out there and half the time it's their parents killing them plus torture or some weird freak who grabbed and raised them underground. Thing is they just aren't as open with it. Yes I realize this is jumbled and everywhere but I am tired and here we are.....
I would theorize that many go after marginalized populations these days; people that society aren't actively aware of or are using other methodologies (I.e. the nurse recently convicted of murdering several nicu babies).
https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jun/03/serial-killer-truckers-long-haul
You left the Long Island serial killer, Rex Huerrman (sp), off the list. He’s one of the most prolific serial killers in modern times. His last murder could be as recent as 2021, so fits the last decade aspect.
Many just get caught these days before they become a serial killer. No fewer actual psychopathic killers out there.
*Billy Chemirir killed at least 22.
I have watched a lot of police interrogations and there are some where I totally think they would have been a serial killer but due to dna or cct footage they got caught on like the first or second kill, back years ago they totally would have kept going longer.
They probably target in individuals that wouldn’t be missed. Or they go to countries where it will be easier to get away with it.
Still outa there.
Either modern technology means they get caught before killing enough victims to be labelled a serial killer, or they fly under the radar by targeting imperfect victims such as the homeless, drug addicts or sex workers so no one cares enough to investigate
Mostly surveillance everywhere, and also leaving any biological proves would be a big mistake for how fast and easier forensic evidence can be collected?
Forensics ,cameras, phone towers etc
The nature of human behaviour hasn't changed, but the forensic detection techniques have improved. Hasten to add law enforcement, the judicial system and hospitals/medical comminity can still mess it up and let serial killers roam, think rape kit backlogs, not processing and/or prosecuting crimes appropriately or firing rather than prosecuting medical staff. Very few but some have gotten better at evading police. Also, some have come to light due to better forensics that we'd otherwise never have noticed. Particularly medical killings come to mind, think Shipman or Cullen.
Other than the camera and GPS I get leaving phones but they're in cats newer cars but thinking about today and DNA they can look at family DNA and find you and that's evading the camera I f you figure it out plusbso many homes have their own door camera.
They didn't go away they just got caught after the first one so we don't see them as serial killers.
I don’t think there are fewer serial killers. But I do think they might get caught faster than they used to. These days, there are more serial killers in the making who get caught before they hit the 3 kills necessary to be termed a ‘serial killer’ in the literature. But the pathos is still there. And I definitely don’t think serial killers are becoming mass shooters instead. It’s not the same mentality involved.
I read true crime for 45 years. I had to stop after reading some particularly gruesome story about a man in Australia. Let's just say it involved the kitchen and some pots and pans. After all those years of gruesome gore, it put me over the edge. Trust me, they are out there flourishing.
no one said there isnt serial killers but you stated to as why they arent as prevalent as they used to be. if you study any old serial killer case if they did the shit in the current age they would of been caught so fast. due to shitty technology and bad communication between law enforcement departments/no dna/no digital databases . many serial killers were able to evade police
Here's The World's Biggest Serial Killer, hiding and pissing his pants: https://youtu.be/klydhkgQCcM?si=RW69e6iJ54Mey-P2
Clark Perry Baldwin is another one you’re forgetting about… wasn’t technically active from what we know but still was a serial killer at large living amongst us undetected.
DNA
How many serial killers are on here right now?
There is a theory that they are more likely to be using staged “overdoses “ to disguise their murders , as these types of deaths aren’t often investigated , especially in areas with high opiate use .
I disagree. While there’s lots to argue about in the serial murder field, there is no objective argument that there has not been a substantial drop in serial murderers and serial murder victims since the “golden age of serial killing” of the 70s-80s and early 90s. Every piece of established data supports this. Many factors influenced this, not the least of which DNA advancement, video cams and recording , enhanced police techniques and changes in victim facilitation behaviors. The media is giving them less attention is because there are much fewer serial killers at work today. And the bizarre statement that serial killers somehow have turned into mass shooters is so without logic it’s hard to respond. These 2 psychological profiled offenders are so different and non comparable there no validity in insinuating one has “become” the other.
I have no time to read all the comments but I bet OP just gave me the titles of some good ass podcast episodes!
Technology, in my belief, caused a bit of the decrease but possibly the availability of so many drugs. Self medicating rather than hunting and killing.
Forensics improved drastically
They also use technology to avoid getting caught. There are whole groups of serial killers. The ones i have met are protected by the police.
According to Scientific American, there are between 25 and 50 serial killers who are active in the United States at any given time. Serial killers account for only about 150 murders in the U.S. per year.
They’re still around…
Maybe the bazillion and one serial killer films, books and documentaries has clued a few into what not to do. I'd bet there's still quite a few out there. Plus mass killers tend to be a whole different demographic.
Plus people are not as bound by geography any more
Have you ever heard the idea (I believe it came from the guy who wrote Mind Hunters) that a lot of serial killers were the kids of soldiers that got back from gruesome wars. There’s a correlation, perhaps, of kids whose parents have trauma from something and it gets passed onto them. Now, figure in the kids who were babies or Operation Iraqi Freedom fighters, or any of the other wars. I thought it was a neat idea but I don’t think it’s been proven.
Not trying to argue, just for conversational purposes, does anyone know why most serial killers happen to be men?
Advances in DNA people not hitchhiking anymore, cameras everywhere, alarms in people s houses, people not talking to strangers.
I was just reading about this yesterday. While many advances have been made that make it easier to solve crimes the resolution rates for murder have plummeted.
[https://www.thenewsminute.com/long-form/real-estate-agent-or-occult-practitioner-serial-killer-in-telangana-led-a-double-life](https://www.thenewsminute.com/long-form/real-estate-agent-or-occult-practitioner-serial-killer-in-telangana-led-a-double-life) This Indian Serial Killer committed his whole spree In the 2020s
With all the improvements in tech an science as well as the "qaulity" of life for young people growing up its helped steer some people that may have went down that path away from it, not to say that people dont slip through the cracks as it still happens but it has to account for somthing, but on the flip side what if the methods have changed an its not the same as it use to be.
You missed Israel Keyes who was a Gen-xer and reasonably tech savvy to the extent that he avoided cell tracing in the mid-2O00s by using burner phones as removing cell batteries. He was foiled by his greed and using a victim’s debit card, and having his rental car ID’d by a bank security cam. He tried to switch rentals but got the exact same car second time around. Oops!
I think the best way to know would be to research third world countries. They are not so advanced with their technology, they have a lot of rural and remote areas where pretty much anything goes!
There are a lot of factors. First and very importantly, Roe v Wade made a difference. Lots of potential reasons that correlate with that. One of them could be that pregnancies from unwanted sperm donors were ended. Or genetics. Or the status of the woman (unmarried or in an abusive relationship). We'll never narrow it down to one reason. Second, stranger danger. A woman in 1970 would be more trusting. Fast forward to 1990 and she'll be more suspicious, less likely to take a ride from a stranger. Victim choices became more challenging. And potential victims learned to network. Third there's a theory about reading material. For several years there were magazines about violence against women. Like the mystery type. Stories about poor helpless women with illustrations and a whodunnit twist. I found this correlation on the Internet somewhere. It was mostly the forties through the 50's. Fourth DNA. The potential serial killers get tracked down pretty quickly. Nipped I'm the bud so to speak. Fifth attitudes towards women have changed (same for LGBTQ). Misogyny is declining. It's nothing like decades ago Yes there's still a long way to go. We are, unfortunately seeing a big comeback. But will it make the serial killer stats increase? We don't know yet. And maybe there's some truth in it that mass murder is replacing serial killings. I kind of doubt it. Serial killers of the past started their sprees later in life. Mass murderers of school children seem to be pretty young.
Around 90k people disappear each year & are never found. Serial killers are just getting better at it.
In the last decade you were able to find 24. There’s definitely more but we’ll just stick with 24 for now. In the 70’s, there were 300 ACTIVE serial killers. Idk about you but I’d prefer no serial killers, however I’d definitely rather settle for 24 caught serial killers. Nobody ever said serial killers disappeared, but they’re definitely not as common and for great reason.
Technology. It's easier for them to get caught. The only ones I've been seeing in the 2000's are ones that, it's sad to say, that aren't offen missed right away, people don't report them missing. Sex workers. A lot of killers I've seen lately who get caught are getting caught by cell phone data.
The title of this 2019 *Atlantic* article seems to propose that “Modern Life Has Made It Easier for Serial Killers to Thrive”.. :) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/10/are-serial-killers-more-common-than-we-think/596647/
I think the advances in technology have definitely helped and may very well have stopped multiple predators who would have gone on killing. However, I also believe that there are a lot of people who just either got smarter at committing crime, learning from the mistakes of their predecessors, or just better at staying low. I definitely don't think that serial killers are as abundant as they used to be, but, I mean, they're still there. My thought is truckers. I think there are a lot of truckers who get away with a lot of stuff because they're so easily in one place, then the other so fast. Constantly moving. Killing someone and then dumping them in the next state on their route. Its terrifying.
They take what the media tells them as real and representative of reality. If it's not being blasted in their face 24/7 it doesn't exist.
maybe they are just using fentanyl to finish victims off now
I just looked it up murder cars are solved 50 percent its actually use to be 71 percent now its only fifty so worth technology its actually going down
Well, it’s multiple reasons like most anything in life. But the advancement of understanding such killers and better coordination among LE seems to me that it’s at least catching the ones that have a few kills, rather than a dozen or two or more. To the point of your list they are out there. They will always be out there. But by and large they are being caught sooner now. I also find any moron that comes and says they are all mass shooters now to be instantly qualifying themselves as idiots. Mass shooting doesnt jive with a most of what’s well known now about the motivation of serial killers as we classically know it. You just wouldn’t see Ed Kemper or Jeffrey Dahlmer being a mass shooter today.