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Are There Fewer Serial Killers Now? Here's What the Experts Have to Say · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the deep dive. This is where we
• 0:02
  dig into the sources, the studies, the dense material and
• 0:05
  pull out the stuff you really need to know. We
• 0:07
  do the heavy lifting so you don't have to.
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  Speaker 2: And today we're diving into something that well fascinates a
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  lot of people. The serial killer. You know, you watch
• 0:16
  enough true crime, you read the books, listen to the podcasts,
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  and it feels like they're everywhere, this constant, lurking threat,
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  These really prolific anonymous predators just roaming around.
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  Speaker 1: Totally, and our whole cultural image is kind of stuck,
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  isn't it stuck? On those big names from the seventies
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  and eighties, it felt like they could operate for years
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  without getting caught. But here's the twist we found buried
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  in the data.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the core paradox. The actual statistics, the numbers,
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  they show this massive, almost unbelievable drop in serial killing.
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  It's actually in the US and similar developed countries.
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  Speaker 1: So that's our mission for this deep dive. We need
• 0:54
  to figure out what's really going on. We'll look at
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  the stats, definitely unpack the tech and the police work
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  that drove the numbers down.
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  Speaker 2: But we also have to dig into the other side.
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  The counter arguments this idea that maybe they haven't vanished
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  at all, maybe they've just changed, adapted, found new ways
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  to hide.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into it. But first things first, before
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  we even touch the numbers or the theories, we need
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  to be crystal clear on what we're actually talking about
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  when we say serial killer. What does that mean from
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  like an official standpoint, because the media sometimes plays fast
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  and loose with the term.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely critical, Yeah, if we want to analyze the
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  data properly, we need that precise definition. We're leaning on
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  the one the FBI set out back at their two
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  thousand and five symposium. Basically, a serial killer is someone
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  who murders two or more people. Two or more Okay, yes,
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  used to be three, but now it's two. And crucially,
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  there's a distinct cooling off period between those murders.
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  Speaker 1: The cooling off period. That's the behavioral hook, isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: That's the key thing, that's the absolute defining feature. It
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  tells you the killer isn't just on a rampage. They're
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  getting some kind of psychological satisfaction from the act itself.
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  You need time to step back, maybe plan fantasize before
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  they feel compelled to kill again, and.
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  Speaker 1: That makes them different from say a spree killer.
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  Speaker 2: Totally different. Spree killings are multiple murders, sure, but they
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  happen in a short burst, one continuous event, really no
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  real psychological break. And mass murders, well, that's multiple victims,
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  but all in a single incident. A single location usually
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  got it.
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  Speaker 1: So two or more victims, cooling off period in between.
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  That's our framework. Okay, So with that definition locked in,
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  let's look at the history. Where did this peak?
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  Speaker 2: Okay history? So the name that keeps coming up in
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  the research is James Allen Fox, a criminologist who's kept
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  this incredibly detailed database. His work really paints the picture
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  of the high point.
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  Speaker 1: And that high point was.
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  Speaker 2: The nineteen seventies and eighties, no question, that was the
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  absolute zenith for serial murder in the US. Fox's data
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  estimates that during that time you had somewhere between one
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  hundred and fifty and two hundred active serial killers operating
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  each year.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, one hundred and fifty to two hundred active. I mean,
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  that's a genuinely frightening number, and it explains the cultural
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  fear back then, right, The boogeyman killer, the highway predator.
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  Speaker 2: It perfectly aligns you had. Like you said, the interstate
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  system making travel easy, maybe less community connection in some
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  ways more transience, and.
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  Speaker 1: The police couldn't talk to each other easily across states, right,
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  records weren't centralized exactly.
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  Speaker 2: It was a perfect storm. Really, a killer could commit
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  a murder in one state, drive a thousand miles, do
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  it again, and the police in State A might have
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  absolutely no idea what just happened in State B. Not
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  immediately anyway, It could take years, decades even for those
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  links to be made if ever, which let these guys
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  operate for so long it facilitated unbelievable longevity for some
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  of them.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so that's the peak, one hundred and fifty
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  two hundred active killers a year. Now, contrast that with today.
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  This is where that statistical cliff comes in.
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  Speaker 2: It's a cliff. The drop is just staggering. By the
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  time we get to the twenty tens, those estimates they limitted.
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  We're talking fewer than fifty active serial killers annually.
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  Speaker 1: Fifty down from potentially two hundred.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're looking at something like a seventy maybe seventy
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  five percent reduction over just three decades. It's huge.
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  Speaker 1: A drop that big can't just be random noise. It
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  needs explaining. What about official crime stats? Do they back
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  this up?
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  Speaker 2: They absolutely do. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, the UCR,
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  shows the same trend loud and clear. Back in the
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  eighties peak, serial murders made up roughly one to two
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  percent of all homicides in the US, still a small
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  percentage overall, but significant.
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  Speaker 1: Violence one to two percent, okay, And now.
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  Speaker 2: By twenty twenty that number had fallen below half a percent,
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  less than point five percent. It's a fundamental shift in
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  the landscape of who is committing murder in America?
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  Speaker 1: And is this just a US thing? Or are we
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  seeing this elsewhere?
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  Speaker 2: Good question seems to be broader, at least in similar countries.
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  The data might not be quite as comprehensive everywhere, but
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  we see similar downward trends noted in places like Canada
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  and the UK. Suggests the causes are probably systemic, not
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  purely local.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So the numbers are pointing strongly downwards. Hard data.
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  But and this is the big butt, are we sure
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  the numbers mean what we think they mean? Are killers
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  actually disappearing or are we just not counting them the
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  same way or maybe not finding them.
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  Speaker 2: That is the absolute critical question. We can't just take
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  the numbers at face value without considering adaptation. And this
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  is where the skepticism really kicks in. There's a researcher,
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  doctor Enzo Yaksik, he runs the Serial Homicide Expertise and
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  Information Sharing Collaborative, ok And he puts it really bluntly.
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  He says, basically, serial killers haven't disappeared, they've.
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  Speaker 1: Adapted, adapted. Okay, that really shifts the perspective. If they
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  haven't disappeared, where did you know potentially one hundred and
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  fifty killers go? What change to make them adapt instead
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  of just continuing?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the argument is that the environment that allowed that
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  seventies and eighties style killer to operate, it's just gone
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  destroyed really by massive technological and institutional changes. The old
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  way of doing things, the old modus operandi, it's practically
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  obsolete now.
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  Speaker 1: So let's break that down. When you say the environment
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  was destroyed, what's the biggest piece of that. You mentioned technology.
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  Speaker 2: Technology is huge, Yeah, and the absolute foundation of that
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  is forensic tech, specifically the revolution that started in the
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  eighties reliable DNA profiling.
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  Speaker 1: Right before that, hair fibers, blood. It wasn't definitive proof,
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  was it exactly?
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  Speaker 2: It was circumstantial. It could place someone near a scene maybe,
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  but it couldn't say this specific person was here. DNA
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  changed everything. It provided that unique biological fingerprint.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not just finding DNA at the scene anymore.
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  The databases, the sharing pods cotis the combined DNA index system. Yes,
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  that allows labs all over the country to compare profiles
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  from crime scenes against known offenders. That was a massive
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  step in connecting cases.
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  Speaker 2: But it gets even more powerful now, doesn't it. It's
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  moved beyond just convicted offenders. Oh absolutely, This is where
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  it gets really transformative and frankly a bit scary for
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  someone trying to get away with something long term. We're
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  talking about using consumer genetic genealogy databases, you know, the
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  ones people used to trace their family trees, ged match
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  sites like that.
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  Speaker 1: That's how they caught the Golden State killer, wasn't it
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  years later? Using DNA from a distant relative who'd uploaded
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  their profile precisely.
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  Speaker 2: Think about the implications if you're an offender today, even
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  if you committed a crime decades ago. Your DNA doesn't change,
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  and as more and more people voluntarily put their genetic
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  information online.
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  Speaker 1: The net just gets tighter and.
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  Speaker 2: Tighter, inescapable almost. Doctor Scott Bond, another criminologist we looked at,
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  points out that now even a tiny trace, a single
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  hair or drop of blood, he says, can potentially lead
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  investigators right to your door or at least to your
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  family tree, even years down the line.
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  Speaker 1: That changes the entire risk calculation for a killer.
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  Speaker 2: Surely it has to. The risk of eventual capture goes
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  way way up. You're not just hiding from the police,
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  You're hiding from your own biology forever. It makes a
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  law a long career of killing incredibly difficult to sustain.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so DNA is a massive deterrent, It shortens careers,
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  increases risk. But you said it's only half the tech story.
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  What's the other app.
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  Speaker 2: The other half is the death of anonymity. The age
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  of surveillance that ability killers had in the seventies to
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  just melt away disappear. That's largely gone because we're.
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  Speaker 1: All leaving digital breadcrumbs everywhere we.
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  Speaker 2: Go constantly think about it. CCTV cameras on seemingly every building,
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  every street corner, Automated license plate readers tracking cars on highways, bridges,
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  even city streets. GPS data pinging from our phones are cars.
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  Speaker 1: Facial recognition tech is getting better and more widespread too.
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  Speaker 2: Right, All these systems mean that moving around in public
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  without leaving some kind of record is becoming almost impossible.
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  Doctor Bond made this exact point. Back then, killers could vanish. Today,
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  you stop for gas, use an ATM, drive through a
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  major intersection, You're probably being recorded track log somewhere.
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  Speaker 1: The source is called it a nightmare for would be
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  serial killers.
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  Speaker 2: It is instantly creating this trail digital visual that investigators
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  can potentially follow. It makes operating over large areas, hitting
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  multiple targets anonymously incredibly risky, much harder than it used
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  to be.
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  Speaker 1: So inescapable forensics, constant surveillance. What else changed systemically? You
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  mentioned institutional changes in law enforcement?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because back then the police structure was kind of
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  fragmented too, mirroring the killer's ability to move between jurisdictions.
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  That lack of coordination was a huge vulnerability.
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  Speaker 1: And the FBI tried to fix that.
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  Speaker 2: They did. The big institutional answer came in nineteen eighty
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  five with the creation of ICAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program.
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  This is a direct response to those high profile cross
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  country killers.
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  Speaker 1: And VISCAP is basically a big database.
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  Speaker 2: It's much more than just a list of names. It's
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  a centralized system where police departments from all over state
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  local get input, really detailed information about unsolved homicides, missing
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  persons cases, other violent crimes, not just who died where.
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  Speaker 1: But the behavioral stuff modus operanda, victim type, how the
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  body was left right, that kind of thing exactly.
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  Speaker 2: That it captures the signature aspects of the crime. So
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  instead of police in Arizona having no idea that a
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  very similar, unusual murder just happened in Nevada.
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  Speaker 1: My CAP can flag the pattern, connect the dots automatically.
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  Speaker 2: Right John Douglas, the famous FBI profiler, He's talked about
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  this a lot Before VISCAP, a killer could literally just
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  hop state lines and buy themselves years because the information
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  wasn't linked. ViCAP drastically cuts down that detection time. It
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  spots the patterns faster, gets warnings out.
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  Speaker 1: Quicker, so it shortens the killers run. Maybe they only
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  get two or three victims now, instead of dozens before
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  the net closes in.
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  Speaker 2: That's the idea. So you put it all together, the
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  DNA that never goes away, the surveillance attracts your every move, yeah,
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  and a centralized system designed to spot your patterns quickly.
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  Speaker 1: It really does feel like the traditional way of being
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  a prolific mobile serial killer has been systematically dismantled. The
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  opportunity just got.
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  Speaker 2: Largely yes, but remember technology isn't the only factor. The
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  sources also point to some really deep societal and even
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  psychological shifts that have reduced both the opportunities for killers
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  and maybe even the pool of potential offenders.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, societal shifts. We touched on the environment of the
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  seventies and eighties high crime transience. How has that changed
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  in ways that affect this well.
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  Speaker 2: Think about victim availability. Certain behaviors that made people incredibly
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  easy targets back then are just way less common now.
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  Speaker 1: Like hitchhiking. That's the classic example, right, Ted Bundy used
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  that constantly, he.
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  Speaker 2: Did, and culturally hitchhiking is practically vanished. You just don't
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  see it the way you used to. Why Partly because
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  we're all much more aware of personal safety.
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  Speaker 1: Ironically, maybe because of all the two crime stories about
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  people like Bundy.
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  Speaker 2: It's a definite possibility those stories in a way became
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  a massive public safety announcement. We learn not to get
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  into cars with strangers, to be more cautious. Basic safety
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  norms shifted.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not just specific behaviors like hitchhiking. Is it
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  the sources talk about the vulnerability of certain groups changing too.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Doctor Katherin Ranslin brings us up. She's a forensic psychologist.
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  Her point is that historically serial killers often targeted the
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  most vulnerable people, sex workers, runaways, people living on the
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  absolute fringes of society, people who wouldn't be missed quickly,
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  whose disappearance might not even be reported.
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  Speaker 1: For a while because they lacked strong social ties or
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  a stable footprint exactly.
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  Speaker 2: And doctor Ransland argues that today, while there are still
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  absolutely vulnerable populations, maybe fewer people are living completely off
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  the grid. Social safety nets, even imperfect ones, are maybe
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  a bit wider. Reporting systems are better.
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  Speaker 1: So it's harder to find someone who will just disappear
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  without a trace, someone whose absence won't trigger an alert
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  fairly quickly.
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  Speaker 2: It potentially raises the risk for the killer If the
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  potential victim has a cell phone, family, who would expect
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  to hear from them a job they suddenly don't show
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  up for the clocks. It's ticking much faster for the
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  offender the moment they act. Every potential victim is maybe
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  a bit more connected, a bit more visible than they
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  might have been forty years ago.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense. Fewer easy anonymous targets. Now, what
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  about the other side, not the victims, but the killers themselves?
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  Is it possible we're just getting better at stopping people
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  before they become killers, intervening earlier.
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  Speaker 2: That's a really important and maybe more hopeful part of
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  the discussion. Serial killing isn't usually something that comes out
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  of nowhere, right, It's often linked to this grim combination
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  of personality disorders, psychopathy, severe narcissism, often fueled by really
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  significant childhood trauma.
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  Speaker 1: Right. You hear about the pathway trauma leading to rejection, isolation,
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  than retreating into violent fantasy.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly that whole cycle, trauma, rejection, the fantasy life becomes
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  all consuming, and eventually the violence happens in the real
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  world to fulfill the fantasy.
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  Speaker 1: So can that cycle be broken more often?
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  Speaker 2: Now? Well? Doctor Michael Stone, another expert in this area,
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  suggest it may be. Yeah, we have much greater mental
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  health awareness today than we did in the seventies. Access
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  to treatment, while still flawed, is better, and crucially, we're
• 14:10
  perhaps better at spotting warning signs early on, like.
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  Speaker 1: In schools or the juvenile justice system, identifying kids who
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  show those really disturbing early signs animal cruelty, fire setting,
• 14:22
  severe aggression.
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  Speaker 2: Precisely, instead of a deeply troubled kid just falling through
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  the cracks and escalating in isolation for years, there's a
• 14:29
  better chance today, not perfect, but better that those behaviors
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  trigger some kind of intervention, therapy, maybe medication, social support programs,
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  things that could potentially interrupt that fantasy pathway before it
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  leads to extreme violence.
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  Speaker 1: It's about disrupting the psychological development of the potential offender.
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  Speaker 2: It's prevention basically. Yeah, think about the profiles of many
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  classic serial killers. So many had documented histories of abuse,
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  early violence, things that were known but largely ignored by
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  the systems back then. Today, those red flags are much
• 15:01
  more likely to trigger mandatory reporting, investigation, intervention.
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  Speaker 1: That's a fundamental shift. Okay, One more societal factor, the
• 15:08
  true crime obsession itself. We said it might make the
• 15:11
  public safer, but does it affect the killers directly? Could
• 15:14
  our fascination actually be a deterrent?
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: It's a fascinating paradox. Doctor Bond argues pretty convincingly that yes,
• 15:20
  it might be. Serial killers, especially the classic types, often
• 15:24
  crave anonymity and mystery. They rely on the public not
• 15:28
  understanding their methods, their psychology.
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  Speaker 1: But now their methods are dissected on Netflix on podcasts exactly.
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  Speaker 2: When their tactics, their lures, their patterns are constantly being
• 15:38
  exposed on Netflix. As Bond puts it, they lose that edge.
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  The element of surprise diminishes.
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  Speaker 1: The public becomes more savvy, more vigilant. We recognize the
• 15:47
  manipulation we do.
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  Speaker 2: We learn what grooming looks like, what common lures are used.
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  That shared knowledge makes the killer's job harder. They can't
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  rely on the victim's ignorance or the public's naivete in
• 15:59
  the same way, the spotlight itself becomes a kind of deterrence.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, So technology, surveillance, police coordination, changing social norms, better
• 16:07
  mental health intervention, even our own media consumption. It all
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  points to the classic serial killer becoming a much rarer breed.
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  Speaker 2: A very strong case can be made for that.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, but we have to come back to doctor Yaxik.
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  They haven't disappeared, They've adapted. If the classic killer is fading,
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  what are they adapting into. This brings us to the
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  blind spots right the ways killers might still be operating
• 16:31
  under the radar exactly.
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  Speaker 2: If the Ted Bundy type cruising the highways grabbing strangers
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  is largely extinct because of DNA and surveillance, then the
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  killers who are still operating must look different. They have
• 16:43
  to be exploiting weaknesses in the new system.
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  Speaker 1: And how do they do that? How do you operate
• 16:48
  less theatrically, as the source said.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Yaksik suggests a few things. Maybe they're just less prolific.
• 16:53
  They stop after two or three victims, specifically to avoid
• 16:56
  creating that obvious pattern that YCAP or a DNA dragnet
• 17:00
  would pick up on. Fewer victims means less data.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: Less linkage, keeping the profile low.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Keeping it low, and operating in less conspicuous ways, no
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  more dramatic public abductions. Instead, maybe exploding vulnerabilities where they
• 17:12
  already have access or trust.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Like in institutions, hospitals, nursing homes.
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  Speaker 2: That's a huge one. The angel of death scenario. Nurses, doctors,
• 17:21
  caretakers who harm patients. Death is expected in those settings,
• 17:25
  making it easier to hide murder as natural causes or
• 17:28
  medical complications or using.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: The internet ah the digital hunting ground.
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  Speaker 2: Right, luring victims online to a private place. It avoids
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  all the public surveillance during the hunting phase. The crime
• 17:39
  happens behind closed doors, minimizing witnesses and the digital trail
• 17:44
  associated with, say, driving around looking for someone. It shifts
• 17:47
  from public risk to exploiting trust or digital anonymity, and that.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Shift towards stealth brings us to a massive, tragic blind
• 17:55
  spot in the current data, especially in the US the
• 17:57
  opioid crisis.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: This is Yeah, this is a really vastating complication for
• 18:01
  tracking serial murder accurately. Doctor Ramsem points this out very clearly.
• 18:05
  The opioid epidemic has unintentionally created this perfect cover for
• 18:09
  certain types of serial killers.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: How so, because overdose deaths aren't always investigated as potential homicides.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Precisely, if someone is known to use drugs and they're
• 18:18
  found dead, the immediate assumption is oft an overdose. The
• 18:22
  medical examiner does a talk screen finds opioids.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: In case closed accidental death, Often yes.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: It gets ruled an accident, maybe suicide. A full homicide investigation,
• 18:32
  which is resource intensive collecting trace evidence, interviewing everyone, reconstructing
• 18:36
  timelines frequently doesn't even get started if overdose seems plausible.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: So a killer could deliberately provide a fatal dose or
• 18:43
  maybe even kill someone who uses drugs and just make
• 18:46
  it look.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Like an od and the system is almost designed to
• 18:48
  miss it. The homicide just disappears into the statistics as
• 18:52
  another tragic.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Overdose, and the victims in these cases might also fit
• 18:56
  that less likely to be missed quickly.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Profiles Sadly, yes, people deep in addiction can sometimes have
• 19:02
  fractured social networks, be transient, lack stable housing or employment.
• 19:06
  Their absence might not trigger immediate alarms. It gives the
• 19:09
  killer operating in that space space anonymity. We are almost
• 19:14
  certainly under counting serial killings hidden within the opioid crisis numbers.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: That really throws a wrench in the decline narrative, doesn't it.
• 19:22
  If a whole category is potentially being this classified.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: It significantly complicates it. And it's not just the opioid crisis,
• 19:29
  even the definition of serial killer keeps shifting, which muddies
• 19:33
  the statistical waters further.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: How So, we mentioned the FBI lowered the threshold from
• 19:37
  three victims to two back in two thousand and eight.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Right now, Logically, you'd think lowering the barl like that,
• 19:44
  making it easier to qualify as a serial killer, would
• 19:48
  make the numbers go up, wouldn't you.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Mathematically it should capture more cases.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And yet even with that broader definition, the overall numbers
• 19:54
  are still dramatically down, which actually strengthens the argument that
• 19:58
  the decline is real, but also means the category now
• 20:01
  potentially includes offenders who are much less prolific, who might
• 20:05
  not fit that classic image at all. It dilutes the
• 20:08
  concept of it.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: And on the flip side, are there killings that meet
• 20:11
  the technical definition but get excluded for other reasons.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Yes, think about cases classified as terrorism or ongoing gang violence.
• 20:20
  You might have individuals involved in multiple killings over time
• 20:24
  with clear cooling off periods between incidents. Technically that fits
• 20:29
  the FBI's two plus victims with a pause definition.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But they're not counted as serial killings.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Generally, not in the same way. They get categorized under
• 20:37
  terrorism or gang crime statistics because the primary driver is
• 20:40
  seen as political ideology or criminal enterprise, not the individual
• 20:44
  psychological compulsion associated with the traditional serial killer. So again
• 20:48
  it removes potentially quite prolific killers from the specific serial
• 20:53
  murder count.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: It's a classification minefield, it really is. Now we've been
• 20:56
  very US centric, maybe UK, Canada, Developed world far because
• 21:00
  that's where the best data is. But what about globally?
• 21:03
  Can we assume this decline is happening everywhere?
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. Doctor Eric Hickey, another expert in this field,
• 21:08
  is adamant about this. He basically says, we can't assume
• 21:11
  the decline is universal. What we're seeing is very much
• 21:15
  tied to resources. It's a phenomenon of nations with advanced forensics,
• 21:19
  centralized police databases, functioning legal systems.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: So in places lacking that infrastructure, the picture could be
• 21:27
  totally different.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: It almost certainly is in many parts of the developing world.
• 21:31
  Doctor Hicky mentions areas like South Asia, Sub Saharan Africa,
• 21:35
  the lack of forensic labs, computerized records, even basic investigative resources,
• 21:40
  combined sometimes with corruption or instability, it.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: Means killers could be operating much more freely undetected.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Entirely undetected, or their crimes misclassified or simply never even
• 21:50
  reported or investigated thoroughly. The killers might be just as prevalent,
• 21:54
  maybe even more so in unstable regions, but they don't
• 21:56
  show up in any statistics we can access the global
• 21:59
  data DEVI that is huge. We just don't know the
• 22:02
  true extent outside of a few well documented countries.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: So the narrative isn't really serial killers are vanishing. It's
• 22:08
  more like the highly visible classic serial killer is vanishing
• 22:12
  in places where we have the tools to catch them
• 22:14
  and elsewhere or in new forms. They're adapting. They're forced
• 22:18
  to be smarter, quieter, or operate where the system has holes.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: That sums it up pretty well. They're adapting to survive
• 22:24
  in a less permissive.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Environment, which leads us right into the future. If they're adapting,
• 22:30
  what does that evolving threat look like? What are the
• 22:32
  new patterns the new challenges.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Well, the biggest game changer looking forward is undoubtedly the Internet.
• 22:38
  We touched on it as a way to lure victims,
• 22:41
  but its impact is broader. Doctor Axx says It's completely
• 22:44
  changed the game.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: How so beyond just finding victims.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: It eliminates the need for physical risk during the stalking
• 22:51
  or hunting phase. You don't need to cruise the streets
• 22:53
  or hang out in bars anymore. You can vet potential
• 22:56
  victims online, build trust, groom them digitally, maybe across vast distances,
• 23:02
  all from relative safety.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: The physical encounter becomes just the final step after potentially
• 23:07
  months of online interaction.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: Right. It enables a whole new level of sophisticated planning
• 23:12
  and manipulation, creating new forms of cyberstalking and exploitation that
• 23:16
  weren't possible before the crime landscape shifts online.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: And we also have to keep talking about those institutional killers,
• 23:23
  the medical ones. They seem uniquely positioned to bypass a
• 23:27
  lot of the modern deterrence.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Well they really are. It's a persistent, terrifying threat because,
• 23:32
  as we said, the environment itself provides the cover. The
• 23:35
  decline in street crime doesn't affect someone operating inside a
• 23:38
  hospital or care home.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: The Herald Shipman case in the UK is just shilling
• 23:42
  a doctor, killing over two hundred patients over decades.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: And he wasn't caught because he was some forensic genius.
• 23:49
  He's caught eventually because he got greedy and sloppy with
• 23:51
  a will. But for years he operated because death and
• 23:54
  his practice wasn't inherently suspicious. He controlled the narrative, the
• 23:58
  death certificates, the access to the victims, no CCTV in
• 24:02
  the examination room, no DNA needed. If it looks like
• 24:05
  natural causes, these killers exploit trust and systemic loopholes.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: And we also need to think beyond the lone wolf
• 24:12
  right organized crime trafficking networks. They commit repeated murders too.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, this really blurs the lines when criminal organizations use
• 24:21
  murder repeatedly as a tool to eliminate rivals and force silence,
• 24:26
  control territory, and there are clear cooling off periods between
• 24:30
  these targeted killings. It technically fits the definition, but it's.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Not driven by that individual psychopathy.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Not necessarily. It's instrumental violence, goal oriented, but it's still
• 24:40
  repeated killing. It makes tracking difficult because the motive isn't
• 24:43
  the personal, ritualistic drive. VISCAP is good at spotting, it's organizational.
• 24:48
  It requires a broader understanding of what patterns of lethal
• 24:51
  violence look like.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, so the threats are evolving, What about the tools
• 24:54
  to fight them? Can technology continue to adapt? What about
• 24:58
  things like AI predictive.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: There's huge potential there. Definitely, AI algorithms could potentially analyze
• 25:04
  vast amounts of crime data locations, times, victim types, mo
• 25:07
  fragments much faster and maybe more accurately than human analysts,
• 25:11
  spotting connections between seemingly unrelated cases very early.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: On, maybe flagging a potential serial pattern after just two
• 25:19
  incidents rather than waiting for five or six.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: That's the hope, catching offenders before they escalate significantly. Nah,
• 25:25
  But and it's a big butt.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: The ethical concerns Using AI to predict who might become
• 25:31
  violent based on data patterns, that sounds fraught with peril,
• 25:35
  bias profiling.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely huge ethical questions. How do you ensure the algorithms
• 25:41
  aren't biased against certain communities? What about privacy data security?
• 25:45
  Using AI for predictive policing is incredibly powerful, but the
• 25:49
  potential for misuse or unintended consequences is massive. It needs
• 25:53
  incredibly careful oversight and public debate. We can't let the
• 25:56
  tech run ahead of the ethics.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: So while tech might offer new tools, the experts seem
• 26:01
  to keep coming back to prevention. Doctor Stone's point about
• 26:04
  early intervention.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Ultimately, yes, that seems to be the most sustainable path,
• 26:08
  improving mental health access, supporting families, intervening early when those
• 26:12
  warning signs appear in childhood. That's how you potentially reduce
• 26:15
  the supply of individuals who might go down that path,
• 26:18
  addressing the root causes rather than just getting better at
• 26:21
  catching them after the fact.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: And finally looking globally again, those vulnerabilities we talked about, poverty, instability,
• 26:28
  weak law enforcement, they aren't going away, and new factors
• 26:33
  might even make things worse.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Potentially, Yes, endemic poverty and corruption in many regions will
• 26:39
  continue to provide cover for predators. Lack of resources means
• 26:43
  lack of detection.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned climate change and migration. How does that
• 26:46
  fit in.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: It's an emerging concern. Large scale climate disasters or conflicts
• 26:51
  could force mass migrations, creating huge populations of displaced people,
• 26:56
  people who are vulnerable, maybe undocumented, disconnected from some board systems,
• 27:00
  living in temporary or unstable conditions.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Basically recreating some of the conditions of high transience and
• 27:06
  marginalization that existed back in the seventies, but on potentially
• 27:10
  a much larger scale.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly when people are desperate and invisible, they become easier targets.
• 27:15
  So global instability could paradoxically create fertile ground for predators
• 27:19
  even as technology makes things harder for them elsewhere.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's try and wrap this up. What are the
• 27:24
  big takeaways from this deep dive.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Well, the data is pretty clear. The kind of serial
• 27:30
  killer that dominated the headlines in the late twentieth century,
• 27:33
  that highly prolific mobile predator. They are statistically way down,
• 27:38
  at least in developed nations.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: And that decline seems directly linked to game changing technology
• 27:43
  DNA first and foremost, plus pervasive surveillance and much better
• 27:48
  police coordination like viscap right.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Those things combined have made the old way of operating
• 27:53
  incredibly difficult, incredibly risky.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: But they haven't disappeared. The impulse, the capacity for this
• 27:59
  kind of vile it's still there. It's just adapted exactly.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: The threat has shifted away from the highways in public
• 28:06
  spaces and into the blind spots, exploiting the anonymity of
• 28:09
  the Internet, the trust within institutions like healthcare, or the
• 28:13
  systemic chaos of something like the opioid crisis. They've gotten smarter, stealthier.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: So the conclusion really lands on that quote from Doctor Bond,
• 28:20
  doesn't it? Serial killers are still out there, but they're
• 28:23
  not the boogeyman they once were. They've had to get smarter,
• 28:25
  and so have we.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: That nails it. Our detection methods forced them to change,
• 28:30
  and now our vigilance has to adapt to meet that new,
• 28:34
  more hidden threat.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: Which leaves us with a final thought for you, our listeners,
• 28:39
  to chew on. Building on everything we've discussed today, If
• 28:42
  the forensic tech just keeps getting better, if things like
• 28:45
  genetic genealogy make it virtually impossible to leave a trace
• 28:48
  of DNA without eventually being linked even decades later.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if that physical evidence becomes an almost guaranteed path
• 28:55
  to capture, then.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Could that classic, hands on, prolific serial killer be come
• 29:00
  truly extinct? Could they be replaced only by those who
• 29:04
  can operate entirely within closed systems like hospitals or completely
• 29:08
  anonymously behind layers of encryption online? Is that the future landscape.
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: Definitely some to think about. Where does the adaptation go
• 29:14
  from here?
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Indeed, that's all the time we have for this deep dive.
• 29:17
  Thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you next time.