Read complete books and articles on: Serial Killers

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15 of the Best Books and Articles on: Serial Killers

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Serial Murder: An Elusive Phenomenon » Read Now
by Steven A. Egger. 240 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This book provides a critical examination of the phenomenon of serial murder including the most recent research, estimates on the number of killers, a discussion on victims, and the psychology of the serial killer. Case studies are provided on the police response to the Yorkshire Ripper...
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This book provides a critical examination of the phenomenon of serial murder including the most recent research, estimates on the number of killers, a discussion on victims, and the psychology of the serial killer. Case studies are provided on the police response to the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, the "Gay" murders in Indianapolis, and the case of Henry Lee Lucas. The problems that serial murder presents for law enforcement investigators are analyzed and the variety of police responses to this crime are described. The future of serial murder investigation and serial murder research are presented in concluding chapters.
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2.

The Psychopathology of Serial Murder: A Theory of Violence » Read Now
by Stephen J. Giannangelo. 122 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

In this book, criminologist Stephen Giannangelo offers an original theory of the origins and development of the serial murderer. The author constructs a two-part model of the serial murderer's development. The first part outlines biological factors and concomitant psychological anomalies that can...
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In this book, criminologist Stephen Giannangelo offers an original theory of the origins and development of the serial murderer. The author constructs a two-part model of the serial murderer's development. The first part outlines biological factors and concomitant psychological anomalies that can predispose individuals toward homicidal behavior. Then, in developing the second part of his model, Giannangelo describes how a traumatic environmental stressor may trigger a cyclical pattern of violent behavior in those persons predisposed to kill. Having constructed his archetype of the serial killer, the author concludes by suggesting how diagnostic tools could be constructed and employed by psychologists, criminologists, and law enforcement officials to recognize the serial killer and to arrest the cycle of violence.
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3.

Profiles in Murder: An FBI Legend Dissects Killers and Their Crimes » Read Now
by Russell Vorpagel, Joseph Harrington. 300 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

More suspenseful than a detective thriller, Profiles in Murder packs a punch that few novels deliver -- and this book is all true.t FBI legend Russ Vorpagel, along with Robert Ressler, helped put the FBI Behavioral Science Profiling Unit on the map, as immortalized in The Silence of the Lambs.
Here...
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More suspenseful than a detective thriller, Profiles in Murder packs a punch that few novels deliver -- and this book is all true.t FBI legend Russ Vorpagel, along with Robert Ressler, helped put the FBI Behavioral Science Profiling Unit on the map, as immortalized in The Silence of the Lambs.
Here in this thrilling book, he reveals the inside story on how psychological profiling and old-fashioned detective work helped crack cases of serial killings, sex crimes, celebrity murders, hostage taking, terrorist crimes, and police cover-ups. Vorpagel -- the hard-boiled detective, yet disarmingly engaging guide -- takes us back in time to the actual scenes of the crime. His infectious enthusiasm not only inspires us to adopt his brilliant detective mindset and sleight of hand logic, but draws us in to experience the unbridled euphoria of solving the crime. This master detective skillfully transports us to the dramatic scenes leading up to each of these grisly crimes, subtly dropping clues, as he finetunes our own sense of detective logic.
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4.

Overkill: Mass Murder and Serial Killing Exposed » Read Now
by James Alan Fox, Jack Levin. 259 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

...knowledge about the sadistic acts of serial killers and the vengeful minds of mass...murder, what motivates other serial killers, and the role of pornography...so-called...
5.

Murder Most Rare: The Female Serial Killer » Read Now
by Michael D. Kelleher, C.L. Kelleher. 214 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

While the short, lethal careers of serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrew Cunanan terrorize the public and provide morbid inspiration for the entertainment industry, few people realize that it is the female serial killer, seldom heard of, who deserves most to be feared. Murder Most Rare...
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While the short, lethal careers of serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrew Cunanan terrorize the public and provide morbid inspiration for the entertainment industry, few people realize that it is the female serial killer, seldom heard of, who deserves most to be feared. Murder Most Rare provides startling information about the female serial murderer, who is shown to be far more deadly and determined, difficult to apprehend, and complexly motivated than her male counterpart. While serial murder by women is relatively rare, a surprising number of female serial killers are identified by the authors, nearly 100 in this century, with half of them having committed their crimes in America. By examining these women's backgrounds, motives and methods of killing, the book sheds new light on dozens of overlooked cases of murder and uncovers callous crimes and passions gone awry.
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6.

Clues from Killers: Serial Murder and Crime Scene Messages » Read Now
by Dirk C. Gibson. 254 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
7.

Serial Killers, in Differences » Read Now
by Mark Seltzer. 37 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
8.

Sex Killers » Read Now
by Nigel Cawthorne. 280 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...SEX KILLERS Nigel Cawthorne BOXTREE First published in...Unwanted Lovers 33 4. Lady-killers 47 5. The Eternal Triangle 64 6. Thrill Killers 82 7. Partners in Crime 98...
9.

Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior » Read Now
by Robert I. Simon. 358 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library
10.

Flash Point: The American Mass Murderer » Read Now
by Michael D. Kelleher. 228 pgs.

Collections: Psychology, Entire Library

The crime of mass murder is surrounded by myth, false assumptions, and misinformation. It is frequently sensationalized in the press, while the complex motivations of the perpetrator are ignored or soon forgotten. The mass murderer is rarely a crazed killer who lashes out against his victims in a...
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The crime of mass murder is surrounded by myth, false assumptions, and misinformation. It is frequently sensationalized in the press, while the complex motivations of the perpetrator are ignored or soon forgotten. The mass murderer is rarely a crazed killer who lashes out against his victims in a mindless frenzy of violence. This book examines not only the crime of mass murder, but also the complex motivations of the mass murderer, presenting a completely new method of categorizing and analyzing the crime and its perpetrator. The evolving nature of the crime is examined in the context of actual case histories of mass murder in America. Kelleher's insights will be of interest to criminologists and anyone interested in the sociology of crime.
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11.

The Infinite Series: Fathers, Cannibals, Chemists..., in Criticism » Read Now
by Akira Mizuta Lippit. 16 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Psychology, Entire Library

...construct a cipher for reading the serial killers pattern, the need to track seriality...that has been directed toward serial killers, discussions of seriality as...
12.

Serial Killers in 17th-Century England, in History Today » Read Now
by Bernard Capp. 6 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Serial killers in 17th-century England...there really `natural born killers, or should we look for answers...OMITTED Multiple murders and serial killings were probably...
13.

The Hunt for Jack the Ripper, in History Today » Read Now
by William D. Rubinstein. 10 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Even today, the photographs of the bodies are still deeply shocking. Jack the Ripper is often said to have been the first `serial killer (apparently random, sequential...
14.

The Atlanta Youth Murders and the Politics of Race » Read Now
by Bernard Headley. 241 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

Bernard Headley examines the political and racial elements surrounding a catastrophic period in the history of one of the South's most progressive cities.
Between the summer of 1979 and the spring of 1981, a killer terrorized Atlanta. Some thirty black youths, twenty-eight males and two females, were...
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Bernard Headley examines the political and racial elements surrounding a catastrophic period in the history of one of the South's most progressive cities.
Between the summer of 1979 and the spring of 1981, a killer terrorized Atlanta. Some thirty black youths, twenty-eight males and two females, were reported missing, and the bodies of twenty-nine murder victims were eventually found in and around the city. Atlanta appeared often on the nightly news, burning what came to be known as the "Atlanta tragedy" into the national consciousness.
The fury and fear steadily intensified as the death toll mounted and rumor raged. But the arrest, trial, and conviction of Wayne B. Williams for the murder of two adult males whose names had appeared on the special police task force of Atlanta's missing and murdered brought an abrupt halt to this Atlanta story.
Examining the various law enforcement and legal details of the case, Headley does not seek to remake or refute the case against Williams; in fact, heends up believing most of the state's case against this young black man. His objective is to put the interweaving and often conflicting details in historical perspective and, from a sociological point of view, to chronologically recall a set of events that were inextricably tied to a larger American dynamic.
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15.

Psycho Paths: Tracking the Serial Killer through Contemporary American Film and Fiction » Read Now
by Philip L. Simpson. 244 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Philip L. Simpson provides an original and broad overview of the evolving serial killer genre in the two media most responsible for its popularity: literature and cinema of the 1980s and 1990s.
The fictional serial killer, with a motiveless, highly individualized modus operandi, is the latest...
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Philip L. Simpson provides an original and broad overview of the evolving serial killer genre in the two media most responsible for its popularity: literature and cinema of the 1980s and 1990s.
The fictional serial killer, with a motiveless, highly individualized modus operandi, is the latest manifestation of the multiple murderers and homicidal maniacs that haunt American literature and, particularly, visual media such as cinema and television. Simpson theorizes that the serial killer genre results from a combination of earlier genre depictions of multiple murderers, inherited Gothic storytelling conventions, and threatening folkloric figures reworked over the years into a contemporary mythology of violence. Updated and repackaged for mass consumption, the Gothic villains, the monsters, the vampires, and the werewolves of the past have evolved into the fictional serial killer, who clearly reflects American cultural anxieties at the start of the twenty-first century.
Citing numerous sources, Simpson argues that serial killers' recent popularity as genre monsters owes much to their pliability to any number of authorial ideological agendas from both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. Serial killers in fiction are a kind of debased and traumatized visionaries, whose murders privately and publicly reempower them with a pseudo-divine aura in the contemporary political moment. The current fascination with serial killer narratives can thus be explained as the latest manifestation of the ongoing human fascination with tales of gruesome murders and mythic villains finding a receptive audience in a nation galvanized by the increasingly apocalyptic tension between theextremist philosophies of both the New Right and the anti-New Right.
Faced with a blizzard of works of varying quality dealing with the serial killer, Simpson has ruled out the catalog approach in this study in favor of an in-d
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