ABSTRACT
In 2005, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC) invited 135 international experts in serial homicide to a dedicated symposium on the topic. Those invited included law enforcement personnel who had been involved in investigating cases of serial homicide, legal professionals including prosecutors and defense attorneys who had been part of the court process in serial homicide cases, members of the media and investigative journalists who had reported on these cases, clinicians who had been involved in the assessment of serial offenders, and academics who had written on the topic. The objective of the symposium was to create a reference manual for investigators of serial homicide covering issues such as how serial homicide should be defined, the offenders’ characteristics, and the linking of homicide series. One of the major conclusions from this meeting was that there was a real lack of valid empirical research in the field that could be relied upon to inform serial homicide investigations (NCAVC, 2005). Most of what was known up to that point either came from investigative experience or was based on case studies. In addition, much of this work had, until that date, been focused primarily on the United States. During this meeting, representatives from numerous countries highlighted the very real need for an understanding of trends and patterns from different cultural and national viewpoints, as input from a US perspective may not provide a valid perspective on investigations in other countries.
