A snuff film, snuff movie or snuff video is a type of film, often explicit, that shows, or purports to show, scenes of actual homicide. The victims are supposedly typically lured to their murders by false pretenses.
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons, with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three murders, others extend it to four or lessen it to two.
A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders in a short time, often in multiple locations. There are different opinions about what durations of time a killing spree may take place in. The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics has spoken of "almost no time break between murders", but some academics consider that a killing spree may last weeks or months, e.g. the case of Andrew Cunanan, who murdered five people over three months.
Hybristophilia is a paraphilia involving sexual interest in and attraction to those who commit crimes. The term is derived from the Greek word hubrizein (ὑβρίζειν), meaning "to commit an outrage against someone", and philo, meaning "having a strong affinity/preference for".
The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. The victims consumed Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. Seven people died in the original poisonings, and there were several more deaths in subsequent copycat crimes.
A thrill killing is premeditated or random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement of the act. While there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders, such as identifying "thrill killing" as a type of "hedonistic mass killing", actual details of events frequently overlap category definitions making attempts at such distinctions problematic.
A murder–suicide is an act where an individual intentionally kills one or more people before or while killing themselves. The combination of murder and suicide can take various forms:
Copycat is a 1995 American psychological thriller film directed by Jon Amiel and starring Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, and Dermot Mulroney. The score was composed by Christopher Young. The film follows a criminal psychologist and a homicide detective who must work together to find a serial killer who is committing copycat crimes modeled after notorious murderers.
Daniel Julian Gonzalez, also known as the Freddy Krueger Killer and the Mummy's Boy Killer, was a British spree killer who murdered four people and injured two others during two days across London and Sussex in September 2004.
The Stoneman is a name given by the popular English-language print media of Calcutta, India to an unidentified serial killer who murdered at least 13 sleeping homeless people in Calcutta in 1989. The name is also given to the perpetrator of a similar series of murders in Mumbai from 1985 to 1988. It has been speculated that these were the work of the same person, who could have been responsible for as many as 26 murders.
Raman Raghav, also known as Sindhi Talwai, Anna, Thambi, and Veluswami, was a serial killer active during the mid-1960s, labelled by many as Jack the Ripper of India. Raghav went on a killing spree for over three years, with the first round of murders taking place in 1965 and 1966 when 19 people were attacked, and a second round of killings taking place in 1968. He was caught by Maharashtra Police on 27 September. Raghav was spared a death sentence due to mental illness, and was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment; he died in hospital while in prison custody in 1995.
Lee Chun-jae is a South Korean serial killer known for committing the Hwaseong serial murders. Between 1986 and 1994, Lee murdered fifteen women and girls in addition to committing numerous sexual assaults, predominantly in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, and the surrounding areas. The murders, which remained unsolved for thirty years, are considered to be the most infamous in modern South Korean history and were the inspiration for the 2003 film Memories of Murder.
The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer who operated in Northern California from at least the late 1960s to the early 1970s. His identity remains unknown. His crimes, letters and cryptograms to police and newspapers inspired many movies, novels, television and more.
Pedro Rodrigues Filho, also known as Pedrinho Matador, Killer Lil' Pedro, Killer Killer Petey, or simply Killer Petey, was a Brazilian serial killer, spree killer, vigilante, and YouTuber known for pursuing and killing exclusively suspected criminals as a teenager, between the age of 14 and 19, in particular an entire gang in response to the murder of his pregnant girlfriend. Officially sentenced for 71 murders but claiming to have killed over 100 drug dealers, rapists, and murderers, he served 34 years in prison before his release in 2007. In 2011, Rodrigues was imprisoned again on charges of inciting riot and deprivation of liberty; he was sentenced to eight years in prison, but was released again in 2018 after seven years on good behavior.
Internet homicide, also called internet assassination, refers to killing in which victim and perpetrator met online, in some cases having known each other previously only through the Internet. Also Internet killer is an appellation found in media reports for a person who broadcasts the crime of murder online or who murders a victim met through the Internet. Depending on the venue used, other terms used in the media are Internet chat room killer, Craigslist killer, Facebook serial killer. Internet homicide can also be part of an Internet suicide pact or consensual homicide. Some commentators believe that reports on these homicides have overemphasized their connection to the Internet.
Since the 1994 film Natural Born Killers was released, several attacks suspected to be copycat crimes have been committed by fans of the film, mostly by high school students within the age range of 15 to 18. Though apparent links have been claimed between the film and most of the incidents described below, certain causality has not been proven.
Instinto Asesino is a series produced by Endemol Argentina for the Discovery Channel. Each episode portrays a notorious Criminal case that occurred in a country in Latin America. So far, cases depicted occurred in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela.
In May 2012, Jun Lin, a university student, was fatally stabbed and dismembered in Montreal, Canada, by Luka Rocco Magnotta, who then mailed Lin's hands and feet to elementary schools and federal political party offices. After a video depicting the murder was posted online, Magnotta fled Canada, becoming the subject of an Interpol Red Notice and prompting an international manhunt. In June 2012, he was arrested in an internet café in Berlin. In December 2014, after eight days of deliberations, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder. Magnotta was given a mandatory life sentence and 19 years for other charges, to be served concurrently. Magnotta was previously sought by animal rights groups for uploading videos of himself killing kittens.
Mass shooting contagion theory is the studied nature and effect of media coverage of mass shootings and the potential increase of mimicked events. Academic study of this theory has grown in recent years due to the nature of mass shooting events, frequency of references to previous rampage shooters as inspiration and the acquisition of fame using violence, particularly in the United States. The Columbine High School massacre is cited as being the first shooting to receive nationwide 24/7 publicity, giving both shooters near instant widespread infamy, and thus often is claimed by researchers as being a source of inspiration for would be copycat mass shooters.
Gary James Lewingdon and Thaddeus Charles Lewingdon were American siblings and serial killers, who committed a series of ten murders in different Ohio counties from December 1977 to December 1978 for the motive of robbery. As a murder weapon, the criminals used .22 caliber pistols, due to which they received the nickname The .22 Caliber Killers. In 1979, both brothers were sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment.
