Why We Love Serial Killers Read Online Free PDF

two highly organized, homicidal partners involved in a massive, multi-state killing spree. After their capture, it was revealed that the shootings were carried out by a forty-two-year-old man named John Allen Muhammad and his seventeen-year-old male accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo. The duo used a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan as a sniper’s nest—that is, they shot their victims from the customized trunk of their car using a high-powered rifle.
    The massive three-week manhunt for the Beltway snipers came to an end on October 24, 2002, when a team of Maryland State Police, Montgomery County SWAT officers, and FBI agents from the Hostage Rescue Team arrested the pair without a struggle as they slept in their car at a rest stop on Interstate 70 near Myersville, Maryland. Defense attorneys in the Malvo trial and the prosecution in Muhammad’s trial argued that Muhammad’s ultimate goal of the killing spree was to murder his ex-wife, Mildred, so that he could regain custody of his three estranged children. Such highly personal and retaliatory motivations are common in both spree killings and mass murders but not at all common in serial murders. After their convictions for first degree murder in separate trials, Muhammad was executed by lethal injection in 2009 and Malvo was given a life sentence, which he is now serving.
    Mob Hit Men
    There is some debate among criminologists and law enforcement authorities as to whether organized crime hit men should be considered serial killers. Generally speaking, hit men are professional contract killers who are employed by organized crime groups such as the Italian Mafia inthe US. One of the most infamous of all professional hit men was Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll who, despite the fact that he was Irish, committed dozens of contract murders for the Italian Mafia in New York City in the 1920s. He gained infamy for the accidental killing of a young child during a mob kidnapping attempt. Coll’s exploits have been chronicled in numerous books and Hollywood films such as Mobsters in 1991.
    Unlike serial killers who select their own victims, the targets of hit men are carefully chosen for them by their employers who pay them handsomely to kill on demand. Although professional hit men do meet some of the criteria of serial killers specified in this book, including the minimum number of victims, I argue that they are not serial killers because their motivation to kill is strictly financial. The murders fulfill no emotional or psychological needs on their part. Moreover, professional hit men do not require a cooling off period in between their murders because of the pragmatic nature of their killings.
    A unique exception to the clear distinction between serial killers and contract killers is the late Richard Kuklinski who was both a serial killer and a professional hit man. When he wasn’t committing contract killings for the Gambino crime family, Kuklinski was killing strangers who irritated or annoyed him. He claimed to derive great pleasure and exhilaration from the challenge of killing his victims. Kuklinski was given the nickname “Iceman” for his method of freezing a victim to confuse the time of death.
    It should be apparent that spree killing and mass murder generally constitute very short spans of criminal activity, while serial murder and contract killing can involve very long criminal careers. However, as previously discussed, an important distinction exists between serial killers and all other multiple murderers. That distinction is the emotional cooling off period between murders during which time serial killers blend back into their seemingly normal lives. Serial predators reemerge from a cooling off period to strike again when the urge to kill becomes overwhelming to them. A serial killer may not even understand his/her compulsion to kill but knows that it is both undeniable and uncontrollable when the urge arises.
    The cooling off period between murders is highly subjective,