ABSTRACT
In 1984, in a desperate move to secure government funding to study serial murder, ocials claimed that 5,000 murder victims per year were the result of serial murders. at number was ultimately deemed to be drastically inated, but how that number came to be remains a mystery. What is clear is that funding was released and data collected, and so began the media’s relationship with murder that permeates pop culture entertainment and yields a plethora of misinformation and fascination regarding the challenge of serial killers.
