The Axman of New Orleans specialized in killing grocers of Italian descent in the 1910s, apparently to promote jazz music. Dorothea Puente was a little old landlady who murdered her tenants, but kept cashing their government checks. The Manson Family terrorized California in the 1960s, as did the Hillside Stranglers a decade later. Twelve serial murder cases, occurring in eight decades between the 1890s and 1990s, had one thing in common: significant presence of the mass media. This book examines these specific cases of serial murder, and the way the media became involved in the investigations and trials of each. Gibson argues that the American media plays a multidimensional and integral role in serial killings and their investigation—and that this role is not generally a positive one. Serial murder cases motivate the media in unfortunate ways, and the result is that even typically respectable media organizations can be involved in such things as document theft, or in interfering with the capture of serial murderers on the run. This link between multiple murderers and mass communication is not accidental or coincidental; rather, the relationship between the press and serial killers is one of extraordinary importance to both parties. Gibson examines the role of the media in serial murder cases; the body of knowledge on serial murder as seen through the lens of mass communication; the effectiveness of law enforcement responses to serial murderers and how they might be improved if the mass communication influence was better understood; the magnitude of the serial murder problem; and the interaction between the media, the killers, and serial murder investigations. Specific examples and numerous quotes are provided throughout to illustrate this strange and detrimental relationship between media and serial murderers.

From Albert Fish to Jeffery Dahmer, these cannibals represent the most horrific parts of the human psyche. This text provides psychology students with in-depth examinations by professionals of the factors that create, motivate, and often lead to the capture of these savage killers. Readers can also take a personality disorder self-assessment quiz to learn more about psychopathy—the most common psychological condition for serial killers.

Serial murder is a global entertainment industry where the serial killer emerges as one of the most significant cultural figures of our time. No longer an exclusively Anglo-American phenomenon, narratives of serial killing are widespread in India, China, Japan, and other cultures. This book asks why this is the case, and how serial violence has been aestheticized in different contexts. It raises important questions regarding the ethics of spectatorship, complicity, and resistance. Unique in its transnational reach, it covers both novels and visual media, both West and East, both perpetrators and witnesses.

Serial Killers Around the World: The Global Dimensions of Serial Murder compiles serial murder case studies from several countries - from Australia to Great Britain, and from Japan to Pakistan. The author has covered accounts on a wide array of serial killers including some well known felons namely Jack the Ripper, The Butcher of Mons, Martin & Marie Dumollard, as well as some of the lesser known serial slayers such as Daisy DeMelker, Yoshio Kodaira, Javed Iqbal and many more. The book highlights six dimensions of each case: the killer(s), the serial murders, other crimes, communication, the investigation and trial and punishment of the accused. Readers, both general and aspiring criminologists alike, will find Serial Killers Around the World an interesting resource for critical information on serial murders committed in nations around the world.

This revised and updated edition of Murder in America presents a pragmatic examination of both common and unusual acts of homicide in the United States.

In this fascinating book, Peter Vronsky exposes and investigates the phenomenon of women who kill—and the political, economic, social and sexual implications buried with each victim. How many of us are even remotely prepared to imagine our mothers, daughters, sisters or grandmothers as fiendish killers? For centuries we have been conditioned to think of serial murderers and psychopathic predators as men—with women registering low on our paranoia radar. Perhaps that’s why so many trusting husbands, lovers, family friends, and children have fallen prey to “the female monster.” From history’s earliest recorded cases of homicidal females to Irma Grese, the Nazi Beast of Belsen, from Britain’s notorious child-slayer Myra Hindley to ‘Honeymoon Killer’ Martha Beck to the sensational cult of Aileen Wournos—the first female serial killer-as-celebrity—to cult killers, homicidal missionaries, and our pop-culture fascination with the sexy femme fatale, Vronsky not only challenges our ordinary standards of good and evil but also defies our basic accepted perceptions of gender role and identity. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

As any police officer who has ever walked a beat or worked a crime scene knows, the street has its hot spots, patterns, and rhythms: drug dealers work their markets, prostitutes stroll their favorite corners, and burglars hit their favorite neighborhoods. But putting all the geographic information together in cases of serial violent crime (murder, rape, arson, bombing, and robbery) is highly challenging. Just ask the homicide detectives of the Los Angeles Police Department who hunted the Hillside Stranglers, or law enforcement officers in Louisiana who tracked the brutal South Side rapist. Geographic Profiling introduces and explains this cutting-edge investigative methodology in-depth. Used to analyze the locations of a connected series of crimes to determine the most likely area of offender residence, geographic profiling allows investigators and law enforcement officers to more effectively manage information and focus their investigations. This extensive and exhaustive work explains geographic profiling theories and principles, and includes an extensive review of the literature and research in the areas of criminal profiling, forensic behavioral science, serial violent crime, environmental criminology, and the geography of crime. For investigators and police officers deployed in the field, as well as criminal analysts, Geographic Profiling is a "must have" reference.