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Serial Killers

sherbetbizarre said:
Thanks for the head-up - it's actually tonight it starts (in the UK)
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Thanks, I'll be watching it tonight then! ..

edit .. shit .. we haven't got the history channel. Is there a way I can watch it online?
 
Swifty said:
Thanks, I'll be watching it tonight then! ..

edit .. shit .. we haven't got the history channel. Is there a way I can watch it online?
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Dunno but I noticed that a serial killer hung out in Cromer.

Dennehy and Stretch travelled into Norfolk on the A140 and used the A148 coast road to travel into the Cromer and were “in and around the towns around Cromer for a period of time that weekend.”
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/s...-out-in-norfolk-after-killing-spree-1-3590560
 
ramonmercado said:
Dunno but I noticed that a serial killer hung out in Cromer.

Dennehy and Stretch travelled into Norfolk on the A140 and used the A148 coast road to travel into the Cromer and were “in and around the towns around Cromer for a period of time that weekend.”
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/crime/s...-out-in-norfolk-after-killing-spree-1-3590560
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Holy shit! .. my flatmate worked there a year or so before and I used to work in a different capacity for the owner who still owns and runs The Roman Camp Hotel and restaurant just next to it .. I did a shift at that hotel so might have been working there at the same time ...
 
I watched The History Channel episode 1 last night about The Zodiac killer .. I must admit I've only ever read the basics, the new research on this Ross Sullivan suspect seems very interesting with seemingly overwhelming evidence pointing in his direction towards being The Zodiac .. it's only episode 1 so far though so I'm expecting later episodes to throw some spanners in the works ..

Ross Sullivan

Ross Sullivan.png





https://www.bustle.com/p/who-is-ros...diac-killer-explores-a-popular-theory-5465516
 
As soon as I saw his picture I thought "Wow!" It'll be interesting to see how this develops.
 
Tampa serial killer claims fourth victim.

The latest victim to be gunned down by the killer targeting a Tampa neighborhood was remembered by family and friends Saturday for his passion for helping others.

Ronald Felton, 60, was shot dead on Nov. 14 as he was walking to volunteer at a food pantry at Seminole Heights, where a suspected serial killer has killed at least four people since Oct. 9.

"If you knew him, you seen his caring service; he was the Superman of service,” one man said at the service, according to FOX 13 Tampa. “I was the supervisor at the food bank, but he was the one in charge."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/t...-remembered-as-superman-of-service/ar-BBFHWBk
 
Swifty said:
... new research on this Ross Sullivan suspect seems very interesting with seemingly overwhelming evidence pointing in his direction ...

https://www.bustle.com/p/who-is-ros...diac-killer-explores-a-popular-theory-5465516
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nothing in that article links this suspect to the confirmed zodiac murders, just seems to be a guy who can be circumstantially connected to the riverside murder, which may or may not have been the same perpetrator, and isnt especially supported in that murder by anything evidential
 
Swifty said:
.. it's only episode 1 so far though so I'm expecting later episodes to throw some spanners in the works ..
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I agree henry, that's partly why I also wrote this in the same post ... also/otherwise they wouldn't get a whole series out of it. On top of that, I'm not expecting the case to be solved by the end of the last episode, if they had, it would have made the international news by now.
 
Swifty said:
I agree henry, that's partly why I also wrote this in the same post ... also/otherwise they wouldn't get a whole series out of it. On top of that, I'm not expecting the case to be solved by the end of the last episode, if they had, it would have made the international news by now.
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I've a feeling it's going to turn out like the Hunting Hitler and American Ripper series - lots of coincidences, followed by team gasping and looking astonished which result in nothing:

Exploration of ruined building in rural Argentina turns up old bottles of stomach medicine...Hitler had a dodgy tum...WOW! We could be on to something!

HH Holmes had a mustache, Jack the Ripper was described as having a moustache...WOW! We could be on to something!
 
Bigphoot2 said:
I've a feeling it's going to turn out like the Hunting Hitler and American Ripper series - lots of coincidences, followed by team gasping and looking astonished which result in nothing:

Exploration of ruined building in rural Argentina turns up old bottles of stomach medicine...Hitler had a dodgy tum...WOW! We could be on to something!

HH Holmes had a mustache, Jack the Ripper was described as having a moustache...WOW! We could be on to something!
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I feel the same way about The Oak Island money pit shows .. again, if the riddle was solved, the media would leak it long before a TV series was allowed to run its length ..
 
Swifty said:
I haven't read either of his books so I don't know
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yeah i think it is, briefly fingered by graysmith subsequently dismissed as there was nothing linking him to the confirmed zodiac murders, and nothing linking him to the riverside victim other than proximity ... graysmith was all about ALA ... i never had much time for him as a suspect, wasnt a particularly cerebral chap, the cryptograms raise the case out of the ordinary serial killer interest zone, but its the radian theory that elevates it into the SK stratosphere, shame gareth penn hung his hat on that one poor guy in boston come what may !
 
ramonmercado said:
Tampa serial killer claims fourth victim.

The latest victim to be gunned down by the killer targeting a Tampa neighborhood was remembered by family and friends Saturday for his passion for helping others.

Ronald Felton, 60, was shot dead on Nov. 14 as he was walking to volunteer at a food pantry at Seminole Heights, where a suspected serial killer has killed at least four people since Oct. 9.

"If you knew him, you seen his caring service; he was the Superman of service,” one man said at the service, according to FOX 13 Tampa. “I was the supervisor at the food bank, but he was the one in charge."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/t...-remembered-as-superman-of-service/ar-BBFHWBk
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Suspect arrested.

Police in Florida say they have arrested a man suspected of the serial killings of four people since the beginning of October.

Howell Emanuel Donaldson III, 24, was being questioned on Tuesday afternoon after he was allegedly seen at a McDonald's restaurant with a gun.

He has strongly denied four counts of first-degree murder, reports say.

The killings terrorised people living in the Seminole Heights area of Tampa with many not walking there after dark.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42165028
 
Michael Stone, convicted of the murders of Lin and Megan Russell and the attempted murder of Josie Russell, has launched another appeal. His lawyers claim Levi Bellfield has confessed to the crimes and have asked the Criminal Cases Review Commission to look again at his conviction.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-wal...ne-sister-hopeful-over-russell-murders-appeal

Bellfield has denied all knowledge of this, but it wouldn't surprise me if he were responsible. There are a lot of loose ends around Stone's conviction and no forensic evidence.
 
Rosebud said:
Bellfield has denied all knowledge of this, but it wouldn't surprise me if he were responsible. There are a lot of loose ends around Stone's conviction and no forensic evidence.
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I agree, it was thin.

Stone however was, at the time of his arrest, a nasty, violent and dangerous man, even if he didn't commit this crime. I wonder myself, whether his 'previous' wasn't a major factor in his conviction.
 
Coal said:
I agree, it was thin.

Stone however was, at the time of his arrest, a nasty, violent and dangerous man, even if he didn't commit this crime. I wonder myself, whether his 'previous' wasn't a major factor in his conviction.
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That is true. However, if the wrong culprit is imprisoned it doesn't give the victims justice, because the real killer is still free. There is going to be Hell to pay if Bellfield was involved, because the Chillenden murders pre-date the ones he was locked up for, so if the police hadn't stopped looking when they charged Stone, other deaths might have been prevented.

There are also a number of posts in the Daily Mail comments section of the story saying a fresh look should be taken into the murder of Billie-Jo Jenkins in 1997.
 
I read an awful lot in the 90s about serial killers and one of the better books I read was this "The Serial Killers" by Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman.

Is there a modern equivalent?

I'm wondering two things, are the contributory factors towards the conditions that produce serial killers consistent through history?

As in, are the conditions that produced Jack the Ripper the same that produced Ted Bundy?

Do the behavioural elements remain consistent through the decades and centuries too?
 
Ascalon said:
I read an awful lot in the 90s about serial killers and one of the better books I read was this "The Serial Killers" by Colin Wilson and Donald Seaman.

Is there a modern equivalent?

I'm wondering two things, are the contributory factors towards the conditions that produce serial killers consistent through history?

As in, are the conditions that produced Jack the Ripper the same that produced Ted Bundy?

Do the behavioural elements remain consistent through the decades and centuries too?
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Not nearly as much as shows like 'criminal minds' and others seem to suggest. Try this for example:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/sep/14/psychological-profile-behavioural-psychology

Also 'serial' killer' isn't a well defined term:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer

Consider also; a serial killer may or may not be a psychopath and a psychopath may or may not be violent and may or may not be a serial killer.

It gives people comfort to think here is a 'profile' for such criminals, as it suggests they can be identified and caught...plus it suggest we can 'tell' who they are.

You mention JTR. So for example, we know very little, so it's impossible to compare with Bundy, but if you reference the FBI profile of JTR, it says (for example) that he was either above of below average height, had knowledge of anatomy gained in some profession capacity and had a domineering mother who enjoyed a lot of male company. Maybe, but JTR might just have well been of average height, respectable, was brought up in a 'respectable' family and gained his anatomy knowledge at the local library. And stopped killing because he thought it had got a bit risky now and anyway, he wanted a new hobby.

It's just not that simple, but the truth would make a rubbish film and Hannibal Lecter is utterly fictitious in all respects.
 
Coal said:
You mention JTR. So for example, we know very little, so it's impossible to compare with Bundy, but if you reference the FBI profile of JTR, it says (for example) that he was either above of below average height, had knowledge of anatomy gained in some profession capacity and had a domineering mother who enjoyed a lot of male company. Maybe, but JTR might just have well been of average height, respectable, was brought up in a 'respectable' family and gained his anatomy knowledge at the local library. And stopped killing because he thought it had got a bit risky now and anyway, he wanted a new hobby.
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I've been listening a lot to podcasts about serial killers recently, and while there's no one-size-fits-all, it does seem that an unusually high proportion of serial killers either suffered serious sexual abuse as children, sustained a traumatic brain injury at an early age, or both.
 
Coal said:
...It's just not that simple, but the truth would make a rubbish film and Hannibal Lecter is utterly fictitious in all respects.
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I remember seeing an interview with a very full of himself profiler (can't remember his name, or the circumstances - British, annoying, and I think he got the Rachel Nickell case totally wrong) and thinking, well, fuck me - most of that, I could have told you that...and the rest sounds like utter bobbins.

Some profilers seem to work very like astrologists: a very few specifics, lots of generalisations, enough nodes of detail to ensure a hit or two somewhere along the line.

That's not to say that I don't think that profiling is a legitimate discipline (I'm especially fascinated by geographical profiling), just that it seems to be a ripe field for chancers and snake-oil merchants.
 
James_H said:
I've been listening a lot to podcasts about serial killers recently, and while there's no one-size-fits-all, it does seem that an unusually high proportion of serial killers either suffered serious sexual abuse as children, sustained a traumatic brain injury at an early age, or both.
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It is (as I understand it) to do with the 'closed loop' relationship between the amygdala, the seat of emotion, and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). In simple terms the amygdala will kick an emotion off and the vmPFC is responsible for think things through. So most of us will be narked by a behaviour and the vmPFC say "yeah, maybe that's annoying but the axe is not the way to deal with this".

Dis-functioning amygdalas, either congenitally or perhaps as the result of lesions are linked to psychopathy, that is a lack of empathy and ability to recognise emotions.

An under developed or damaged vmPFC with a functioning amygdala can lead to anger issues and potentially impulse killings. There is evidence to show that underdeveloped vmPFC's can be the result of childhood physical trauma, so the bloke who smacks his kids about an say 'it didn't do me any harm' is wrong. There is some evidence that emotional trauma can lead to underdevelopment of the vmPFC (as opposed to underdevelopment caused by physical trauma) leading to the same sorts of issues.

It's possible for both to be present or one or the other, all in varying degrees. That's a lot of possibilities. And one can have such damage/underdevelopment in one's brain and function well is society without problems. Plus the above is a very simplified view of the workings of the brain! Otherwise it's simple...
 
Spookdaddy said:
I remember seeing an interview with a very full of himself profiler (can't remember his name, or the circumstances - British, annoying, and I think he got the Rachel Nickel case totally wrong) and thinking, well, fuck me - most of that, I could have told you that...and the rest sounds like utter bobbins.
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Andrei Chikatilo ('The Butcher Of Rostov', a murderer of over 50 people) was, before being caught, profiled with uncanny accuracy by a psychiatrist called Alexander Bukhanovsky. Chikatilo broke down in tears and confessed after having the profile read to him, saying 'yes, it's me'. Frustratingly, I can't find much detail about the profile online, but I remember hearing about it and thinking it was accurate in a great many details.

Bukhanovsky then went on to a controversial career of trying to treat potential serial killers (many of whom were already murderers or serial rapists) while keeping their identities secret from the police.
 
Yes, I don't mean to dismiss the entire discipline - just the hangers on.

As I say, geographical profiling is something I've always found fascinating. I first became aware of it after randomly picking up an academic magazine while waiting to see a tutor at university. It was relatively early days then, and the article was based on theoretical work in Canada, I think. The first succesful practical use in the UK that I'm aware of was David Canter's prediction of Kilburn as the home of the killer who would eventually turn out to be John Duffy.
 
Spookdaddy said:
As I say, geographical profiling is something I've always found fascinating. I first became aware of it after randomly picking up an academic magazine while waiting to see a tutor at university. It was relatively early days then, and the article was based on theoretical work in Canada, I think. The first succesful practical use in the UK that I'm aware of was David Canter's prediction of Kilburn as the home of the killer who would eventually turn out to be John Duffy.
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Do you have any more detail about that? It's not something I've heard of.
 
There's a rough overview of Canter and the Duffy case here. And a more general article on Canter himself here.

I have a copy of Criminal Shadows somewhere and would second the comments written about that book in the Guardian article:

...Criminal Shadows, which won the Gold Dagger award for crime non-fiction, was uncompromisingly scholarly: lurid details of crimes were kept to a bare minimum and, unlike many of his US counterparts, he virtually wrote himself out of the story, refusing to position himself as the hero...
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Canter's work on environmental psychology is also really interesting; at university I volunteered for a project studying the behaviour of crowds, and read some of Canter's stuff as background.
 
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Spookdaddy said:
There's a rough overview of Canter and the Duffy case here. And a more general article on Canter himself here.

I have a copy of Criminal Shadows somewhere and would second the comments written about that book in the Guardian article:

Canter's work on environmental psychology is also really interesting; at university I volunteered for a project studying the behaviour of crowds, and read some of Canter's stuff as background.
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I shall add those two books to the ever growing pile!
 
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