ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the factual assertions commonly made about the serial murder problem are incorrect or misleading in virtually every particular. In the early 1980s, it was common to hear very high figures for the extent of serial murder activity in the United States. As the Justice Department and the FBI played so central a role in presenting the serial murder problem as a major social menace, it is instructive to examine their own internal lists of offenders, compiled at the Behavioral Sciences facility in Quantico, Virginia, and based largely on news clippings services. Public fascination with serial murder seems difficult to justify solely in terms of the objective damage caused by the activity. In any given year, serial murder will account for perhaps one out of every ten thousand deaths that occur in the United States, a mere 0.01 percent—99.99 percent of Americans will die from causes other than irrational multiple homicide.
