Serial killer

A serial killer is teepically defined as an individual who haes killt three or mair fowk^[1][2] ower a period o mair nor a month, wi doun time (a "ceulin aff period") atween the murthers, an whase motivation for killin is uisually based on psychological gratification.^[3][4] Some sources disregard the "three or mair" criteria, an define the term as "a series o twa or mair murthers, committit as separate events, uisually, but no aye, bi ane affender actin alane" or, includin the vital characteristics, a minimum o twa murthers.^[4][5] Aften, a sexual element is involvit in the killins, but the FBI states that motives for serial murther include "anger, thrill, financial gain, an attention seekin".^[5] The murthers mey hae been attemptit or completit in a similar fashion an the victims mey hae haed something in common, for example, occupation, race, appearance, sex, or age group.^[6]

Tha 'Nemesis o Neglect': Jack tha Ripper depictit as a phantom stalkin Whitechapel, an as an embodiment o social neglect, i a Punch cartoon o 1888.

Serial killers arena the same as mass murtherers, nor are they spree killers, wha commit murthers in twa or mair locations wi virtually nae break in atween.

Etymologie

The term an concept o the "serial killer" is commonly attributit tae umwhile FBI Special agent Robert Ressler in the 1970s.^[7][8] Author Ann Rule postulates in her 2004 beuk Kiss Me, Kill Me that the Inglis-leid credit for coinin the term "serial killer" goes tae LAPD detective Pierce Brooks, creator o the ViCAP seestem.^[9] Creeminal juistice historian Peter Vronsky, in his beuk Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, while arguin that umwhile FBI profiler Robert Ressler micht hae coined the offeecial polis uise o the term "serial homicide" whan guest lecturin in 1974 at the British Bramhill Police Academy in Britain, states that the terms "serial murther" an "serial murtherer" appear in 1966 in John Brophy's beuk The Meaning of Murder. Vronsky reports that in Anne Rule's seminal beuk on Ted Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me, published in 1980, the term "serial killer" disna appear an isna yet in popular uise.^[10]