Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters

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Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters
Serial Killers The Method and Madness of Monsters by Peter Vronsky.jpg
Author Peter Vronsky
LanguageEnglish
Genre True crime History
Publisher Berkley Books Penguin Group
Publication date
2004
Published in English
2004
Pages412
ISBN 0-425-19640-2
OCLC 55671515

Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004) is a non-fiction true crime history by Peter Vronsky, a criminal justice historian. It surveys the history of serial homicide, its culture, psychopathology, and investigation from the Roman Empire to the early 2000s. [1] The book describes the rise of serial murder from its first early recorded instances in ancient Rome to medieval and Renaissance Europe, and Victorian Britain, and its rise and escalation in the United States and elsewhere in the world, in the postmodern era. The book also surveys a range of theoretical approaches to serial killers interspersed with dozens of detailed case studies of both notorious and lesser known serial murderers, illustrating the theory in practice. Considered by some a definitive history of serial homicide, [2] this was the book serial killer Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, was reading when he was arrested in 2005. [3]

Contents

Outline

Serial Killers is divided into three parts: Part one covers the history of serial murder from its ancient roots to approximately the mid-1960s, when Vronsky argues it became popular in its postmodernity. Vronsky proposes that modern culture, media, and society degrade certain classes of people in the perception of homicidal psychopaths, who serially target and murder them in an attempt to satisfy increasingly addictive sexual, hedonistic fantasies. Vronsky points to the high proportion of street prostitutes, runaway youths, cruising homosexuals, or people who are homeless, impoverished, disabled, or elderly among serial killer victims; i.e., victims who are often characterized as society's "throwaways". Vronsky argues that only the presence of children and young college girls among preferred victims of serial killers raise concerns about these predators in society at large. He reviews several sources of statistical data on serial homicide, its patterns, and trends, particularly in the United States, and explores the myth of the recent "serial killer epidemic". [4]

Part 2 focuses on the psychopathology of serial killers, their evolution from child to adult, and the various emerging and evolving categories and profiles of serial offenders. Vronsky points out that law enforcement, psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminologists disagree among themselves as to how to categorize the broad range of offender types, and explores some of the different approaches, all illustrated with case study examples. [5]

Part 3 focuses on the investigation of serial homicide, particularly on the various profiling systems from the FBI's "crime scene analysis" profiling, to British law enforcement's "psychological profiling", and Canadian police development of "geographic profiling". Vronsky explores the pros and cons of the various systems with case study examples of how profiling has both succeeded and failed in homicide investigations. [6]

Serial Killers concludes with a chapter based on FBI studies and statements by serial killers and a few survivors of serial killer attacks as how to best survive an encounter with a serial killer.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Rader</span> American serial killer (born 1945)

Dennis Lynn Rader is an American serial killer known as BTK, the BTK Strangler or the BTK Killer. Between 1974 and 1991, he killed ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and media outlets describing the details of his crimes. After a decade-long hiatus, Rader resumed sending letters in 2004, leading to his 2005 arrest and subsequent guilty plea. He is currently serving 10 consecutive life sentences at the El Dorado Correctional Facility.

The National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) is a specialist FBI department. The NCAVC's role is to coordinate investigative and operational support functions, criminological research, and training in order to provide assistance to federal, state, local, and foreign law enforcement agencies investigating unusual or repetitive violent crimes.

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Peter Vronsky is a Canadian author, filmmaker, and investigative historian. He holds a PhD in criminal justice history and espionage in international relations from the University of Toronto. He is the author of the bestseller true crime histories Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004), Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters and Sons of Cain: A History of Serial Killers From the Stone Age to the Present (2018), a New York Times Editors' Choice, and most recently American Serial Killers: The Epidemic Years 1950–2000 (2021), a history exploring the epidemic surge of serial killers in the second half of the 20th century. He is the director of several feature films, including Bad Company (1980) and Mondo Moscow (1992). Vronsky is the creator of a body of formal video and electronic artworks and new media. He has also worked professionally in the motion picture and television industry as a producer and cinematographer in the field of documentary production and news broadcasting with CNN, CTV, CBC, RAI and other global television networks in North America and overseas. Vronsky's 2011 book, Ridgeway: The American Fenian Invasion and the 1866 Battle That Made Canada, is the definitive history of Canada's first modern battle – the Battle of Ridgeway fought against Irish American Fenian insurgents who invaded across the border from the United States on the eve of Canadian Confederation shortly after the American Civil War. He currently lectures at Toronto Metropolitan University's History Department in the history of international relations, terrorism, espionage, American Civil War, and the Third Reich. He consults as an investigative criminal historian to a number of law enforcement cold case homicide units including the NYPD, New York State Police, and Bergen County Prosecutor's Office New Jersey.

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<i>Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters</i>

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References

  1. "Serial Killers by Peter Vronsky: 9780425196403 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books".
  2. June Pulliam, "Getting Serious About Serial Killers", Necropsy Volume XV Fall 2004, Augmented Edition, Louisiana State University, http://www.lsu.edu/necrofile/serial15.htm
  3. Stephen Singular, Unholy Messenger: The Life and Crimes of the BTK Killer, pp. 101-102
  4. Peter Vronsky, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters. New York: Berkley Penguin Group, 2004. pp. 3-95
  5. Vronsky, Serial Killlers. pp. 100-318
  6. Vronsky, Serial Killlers. pp. 321-383