What they found is that the majority of serial killers simply kill for enjoyment. Whenever a motive was specifically defined (through interrogation, investigation, or admission), they recorded it. When we think of the serial killer in popular culture, figures like Ed Gein or John Wayne Gacy come to mind - troubled, often psychotic individuals who go on massive killing sprees dressed as clowns or eat their victims’ flesh.īut the Serial Killer Database uses the FBI’s official definition of serial killing (which is also the most common): “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender, in separate events.” This includes not just typical folkloric serial killers like Charles Manson, but also gang members and organized criminals - people who frequently commit repeat murders without much publicity.Īamodt and his researchers compiled and analyzed publicly available information - news clips, court reports, books - for thousands of these serial killers. Ultimately, though, as we’ll show, there isn’t much to fear: Serial killers have declined by 85 percent over the past three decades. The cases, ranging in data from 1900 to present, each contain hundreds of variables, shedding eerie light on serial killers’ motives and methodologies and giving us a specific idea of whom they most frequently target.įirst, we’ll explore why and how serial killers kill (according to public records) then we’ll take a look at who the victims have historically been and where they tend to live. Over a 25-year period, Aamodt and his students went through public records of serial murderer cases around the globe, collecting granular data on nearly 3,000 US serial killers and 10,000 victims. At the time, “there wasn’t much out there,” he says. Mike Aamodt, then a forensic psychology professor at Radford University, started to collect and code data on serial killers.
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