US MAR-05-2005-1829e Number of U.S. Serial Killers Unknown

[AmyStrange]

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050305/ap_on_re_us/serial_killers_2


What is the point of my post, you may ask, since it so clearly seems not to be political, and thus not really DU material in any way, shape, or form?

What is the point of ANY post, but to inform and/ or create discussion. Missing persons and the wrongly accuused deserve as much democratic consideration and justice as any other person.

Personally, I think they deserve it more so, because their voices (unless they are a young white college kid or white clean-cut mostly female rich person - for example, Smart, Sjodin, Levy, Peterson, Hacking etc.) are rarely heard from or written about or acknowledged in any way shape or form.

Do you know how many persons went missing in California at about the same time as Laci Peterson? Two that I know of specifically. One was hispanic (and also pregnant and also found murdered not too long AFTER Laci) and another was a prostitute, but guess which was talked about incessantly by the media?

And finally, missing persons and serial killers and miscarriages of justice are an example of why the budgets of LE (both here in the U.S and abroad) should be raised (and NOT just for homeland security) which is A VERY POLITICAL subject - in my opinion,

d

[madrchsod]

1. the serial killings in the Peoria Illinois

were solved several weeks ago with the cooperation of the local ladies of the evening and the police force. several ladies came forward related their run ins with the alleged murderer. cases like this can be solved if law enforcement can create trust with those who are being victumized...

[AmyStrange]

5. Agreed...

this should be a model of how LE should apply it's sacred duty. Thanx for sharing this info,

d

EDIT: "this a model" to "this should be a model"

[Voltaire99]

2. "...sooner they are disabused of such notions, the safer they'll be."

Last week's arrest of Dennis Rader, a 59-year-old code enforcement officer and former Cub Scout troop leader, in the Wichita area's "Bind, Torture, Kill" slayings is yet another blow to some commonly held myths about serial killers. Katherine Ramsland says the sooner people are disabused of such outdated notions, the safer they'll be.

Or not.

Discarding serial killer stereotypes won't help many in the violence-happy US of A. People will still be many, many times likelier to be killed by a family member or neighbor than by a serial killer.

There's a reason, besides sheer sensationalism, that serial killers are so fetishized by our media. They fulfill the role of modern bogeyman, the convenient talisman of mass evil that helps distract us from the prevalence of typical, ordinary evil.

[benburch]

3. Depends.

That certainly isn't true of The Green River Killer's victims. They were a targeted population, and some education there might have helped.

[AmyStrange]

4. Actually...

if you study the FBI stats on murder suspects, the number of strangers (or near strangers) who murder are higher than you would imagine. It's something like 20 to 30%+ and THAT doesn't include the 2,000 murders (out of 16,000 murders - on average) that go unsolved EVERY year.

The family member and or friend murderer is a self-prophesizing myth (in my opinion) which is perpetuated by the fact that it is cheaper for LE to look within that framework than to search for a stranger. They use probability rather than good investigative techniques to solve murders.

They do three things which increase the percentage that a family member/ friend will be convicted.

1) All family members/ friends are asked for alibis.

2) Their criminal records are examined.

3) They are then given polygraphs.

If any family member/ friend fails any of these test, they are then investigated closer and any possibility of a stranger/ near stranger killer is thrown out the window. And if they can't find enough probability in the persons they investigate, the police from then on maintain that they know who the killer is but they don't have enough evidence to prosecute. It's what happened in the Jon-Benet Ramsey case.

It's why over 100 murderers on death row have been released (or given new trials) because of the advent of DNA forensics and or "new" evidence. And this doesn't even include non-murderers (esp. those serving time for rape) who are convicted and then later released because of DNA or "new" evidence that exonerates them. The number of those cases that are known underly what may be the actual numbers which I believe would stagger the general population and undermine and erode even further the credibility LE now holds,

d

EDIT: added stuff and corrected a couple mispelled words and (as always) my grammatical sensibilities.

[Minstrel Boy]

6. "Programmed to Kill: The Politics of Serial Murder"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595326404/002-6940009-7652828

It's more political than you might think.

[AmyStrange]

7. Excellent...

I appreciate the info. Will have to buy when I catch up on my bills. I've always known serial killers had a lot more to do with politics then many people are aware of or willing to admit. It's just very difficult to get people to change their established way of thinking,

d

[roguevalley]

8. a profiler said there are 50-60 serial killers at work in the USA at

any one time. As for Lacy, I think her smile ensured that she would be followed. The others deserve care too but that is the way people are.

[AmyStrange]

9. Good point...

about the smile.

As far as the number of serial killers, I believe there are atleast 100 and possibly closer to 500. Here is my reasoning:


I think conservatively about 120,000 folks are reported missing every year in the United States alone (many missing person sites estimate higher numbers in the hundreds of thousands), but fortunately only 2 percent stay missing for more than 30 days. That number is still over 2,000 A YEAR!

AND if only 10% of that is serial killer related, then that's over 400 serial killer victims in the US a year.

These stats are relatively meaningless by themselves without anything to back them up, but I've found in my research that between one and two bodies a day (on average) are found in remote areas that obviously died under suspicious circumstances and are either never identified or their murders never solved. That is between 300 and 500 bodies a year that "could" atleast be serial killer related.

I have been trying to keep track of all these found bodies on my website:

http://NEWS.OneMissingPerson.org/

and most of these news articles were found with google news alerts for "body found" (and from other missing person related groups I belong to) and I get (on average) five reports a day from google. There are probably a lot more I don't hear about.

Also, I have in my google and yahoo alerts with the keywords "skeletal remains" about 119+ news articles (since the beginning of this year alone!!! that I haven't gotten to yet) related to skeletal remains (most are found in remote areas - more are found during the winter and fall because that's when hunting season usually occurs around the country) that are practically impossible to determine how they died especially if they were strangled simply because one of the only ways to determine whether someone was strangled is to examine the hyoid bone and see if it is damaged. Unfortunately, the hyoid bone is one of the first bones to be destroyed or disappear (scavangers feasting on easy pickings) or simply fall off when the human body is reduced to its skeletal form.

Not to mention the (on average) 2,000 murders a year that go unsolved according to FBI stats.

That's atleast well over a thousand bodies (and/ or murders) that could be serial killer related, which could possibly mean anywhere from 50 to 500 serial killers as the average serial killer (those who have been caught anyway) has been found to kill (on average) anywhere from 2 to 10 victims a year.

In short, it's a problem that gets practically no attention which I am trying to rectify by posting here maybe 5% of the total alerts I get everyday. Part of the problem can be rectified by diverting drug and prostitution investigation and harrasment money to the violent crime departments of local LE agencies here and around the world,

Anyway, thanx for your comments.

d

EDIT: grammar