serial killer


Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Legal, Financial, Acronyms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

serial killer

A person who murders 3+ people over a period of > 30 days, with a n inactive period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.

Prototypic serial killer (US)
White; age 30; 97% male; 80% sociopathic.

Typical profile
Arson tendencies, compulsive, drug and/or alcohol-abusing parents, often victims of cruel/abusive parenting, evidence of biochemical and/or genetic defects, history of sexual assault, drug or alcohol abuse, cruelty to animals, interrupted/absent happiness during childhood, pathological lying, sexual deviancy, suicidal tendencies, ritualistic behaviours, possible feeling of powerlessness to prevent killing, may have a history of perinatal head trauma, severe memory disorders.

serial killer

Forensic psychiatry A person who commits serial murders Prototypic SK White ♂ age 30; 97% are ♂; 80% are sociopaths. See Dahmer, Depraved heart murder, Ice Man. Cf Megan's law, Son of Sam law.
References in periodicals archive ?
Some of the featured items are from the Famous World Champion Boxer Hector "Macho" Camacho and letters and drawings from famous Serial Killers such as Ted Bundy, David Burkowitz (Son of Sam) and John Wayne Gacy.
He also happens to be a serial killer who helps to catch murderers in his spare time.
Photos of the 'monsters' and their victims were projected on a huge screen as he talked about serial killers from England, America, Russia, Japan and Australia.
The Birmingham City University professor has been dubbed a "real-life Cracker" as one of the country's foremost experts on serial killers.
A Birmingham crime expert is trying to prove some of the UK's most notorious serial killers committed far more murders than they were convicted of, in a new TV series.
Holmes is thought to be one of America's first documented serial killers.
Peter: A Portrait of a Serial Killer is released by High Fliers on October 24.
Dan McNicol, whose 18-year-old sister Dinah was abducted and murdered by serial killer Peter Tobin in 1991, spoke of his disgust after police told his family on Friday that it was "highly likely" that his voicemails were intercepted.
TODAY you can pick up your FREE Crime Files DVD: Portrait of a Serial Killer The Many Crimes of Peter Tobin.
b) WELLS, Dan I am Not a Serial Killer Headline, 2009 281pp $16.
At that time, everyone was fretting over what the media dubbed the "Maadi Serial Killer.
The serial killer kills primarily for a compulsive sexual reason, often a repulsive one, Lustmord, although, just to make things more complicated, adjunctive benefits may, accidentally as it were, accrue.