ABSTRACT
This chapter describes how the proliferating number of multiple-murder cases came to be constructed as part of a broader phenomenon, and how the newly identified problem was constructed and typified. Serial murder cases proliferated from about 1966 onwards, and during the early 1970s, there were several cases of extreme serial murder, all of which attracted national and international attention. New views of serial murder derived chiefly from the Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU) of the Justice Department, with its headquarters at Quantico, Virginia, within the FBI National Academy. The serial murder threat was particularly convincing because it seemed to be especially directed against children, an association formulated in the years between 1980 and 1983. In 1984 and 1985, concern about serial murder became intense, and the problem was clearly defined according to the model proposed by the BSU authorities. A serial murder problem had been established on the lines advocated by the Justice Department.
