Serial killers are people who have been present in the history of mankind and who have shaken society at certain times and to a greater or lesser extent, but have also put human behavior analysts to think. For a murderer to be considered a serial killer, he must have certain key characteristics and behaviors.
A serial killer is a person who kills at least three times with an interval between one and another murder, usually in search of an abnormal psychological gratification, with the murders taking place for more than a month and including a significant break (a “reflection period”) between them. Different authorities apply different criteria when designating serial killers. While most set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or reduce it to two. The Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States (FBI), for example, defines serial murders as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by an aggressor acting alone". The crimes committed are the result of a compulsion, which may have its origins in youth or in the psychopathological imbalances of the murderer, contrary to those that are motivated by monetary gains (for example, paid murderers) or those that have ideological or political motivations (for example, terrorists, genocides).
Although psychological gratification is the usual reason for serial killings, and most serial killings involve sexual contact with the victim, the FBI states that the motives of serial killers can include anger, search for emotions, financial gain and attention search. Murders can be attempted or completed in a similar manner, and victims may have something in common: age group, appearance, sex or race, among others.
Serial murder is not the same as mass murder (killing numerous people in a single event) since the serial killer, in the interim period between his murders, has a fairly normal behavior, a condition that some analysts call "sanity mask”. While the mass murderer is an individual who commits multiple murders on an isolated occasion and in one place. The perpetrators sometimes commit suicide, therefore, knowledge of their mental state and what motivates them to act in this way, it is often left to speculation. The few mass murderers who have been caught claim that they do not clearly remember the event. Nor is he a spree killer, who commits multiple murders in different places, within a period of time that can vary from a few hours to several days. Unlike serial killers, they do not return to normal behavior between murders. However, cases of prolonged episodes of sequential killings over periods of weeks or months without apparent "reflection period" or "return to normal" have led some experts to suggest a hybrid category of serial killer.
All these types of crimes mentioned are usually consummated by a single person. But there have been examples in the categories in which two or more perpetrators have acted together. It is claimed that this happens in about a third of known cases.
There are other types of multiple murders as well, although they are often related to large organizations and not to two or three murderers: genocide and terrorist attacks.
The known multiple murderers have generally been white men between the ages of 20 and 40, but despite being a majority, that does not mean that there have been no murderers of various races and age ranges (including children and adolescents). Women represent the minority in the statistics of serial killers, although this does not mean that there have been no killer women of great notoriety throughout history.
Serial killers are specifically motivated by a multiplicity of psychological impulses, especially by power cravings and sexual compulsion. They often have feelings of maladjustment and worthlessness, sometimes due to humiliation and abuse in childhood and / or the constraint of poverty, also a low socioeconomic status in adulthood, compensating for this with their crimes and giving them a sense of power and often revenge, during and after committing crimes. The knowledge of their actions terrifies entire communities and often confuses the authorities, consequences that are an incentive for their sense of power. This motivational aspect separates them from hired killers and other multiple murderers, who are motivated by profit. Serial killers often have extremely sadistic impulses. These nullify the ability to empathize with the suffering of others, in this way, they are often called psychopaths or sociopaths, terms that have been renowned by psychologists as an antisocial personality disorder. Some serial killers make use of lust and torture, to obtain sexual pleasure by mutilation of the victim and also to kill slowly for a prolonged period of time.
The term "serial killer" is commonly attributed to former FBI special agent Robert Ressler in 1974, and became popular due to the crimes committed by Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz. However, there is ample evidence that the term was used in Europe and the United States before. The German term and concept was coined by the influential Ernst Gennat, who described an individual named Peter Kürten as Serienmörder (literally "serial killer") in his article "Die Düsseldorfer Sexualverbrechen" from 1930. And, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the specific term "serial killer" first arose in a German cinema article written by Siegfried Kracauer about the German expression film "M" (1931), which portrays a pedophile Serienmörder.
This term is also used to distinguish this from other types of murderers, such as those who kill large numbers of people or those who are paid for doing so.
In most cases, catching a serial killer is not a simple task for investigators, since they are usually organized criminals who try not to let loose ends on their actions, or because they often use some distractions to confuse who investigate them. When the police confirm that it is pursuing a serial killer, it usually engages the investigation with Psychiatry professionals who will allow to draw a profile of the murderer based on the evidence found in each case. That profile in many cases allows to find the killer or also prevent an attack. As they are murderers who have severe psychic problems (in some cases, not at a general level), it may be that justice confines them to life imprisonment in a mental institution once they are trapped.
On the other hand, serial killers are a type of criminal who arouses a notable interest among ordinary people as a result of their sadistic crimes, their personalities, the ability they demonstrate when it comes to evading the police and continuing to accumulate victims. This situation has caused many of them to transcend fame and become media figures (there have been cases of people who have fallen in love with the murderers, or other people who are dedicated to collecting items related to the murderer or his victims, this is often called "murderabilia"), whose stories are also represented in books, movies, comics, and popular culture in general.
Literature, cinema and television are the media that have most reflected the stories of serial killers, either adapting real-life cases or creating murderers of this kind that later become very popular. Much of these productions have achieved phenomenal success among the public.
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