Why does America have so many serial killers?

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cmiller4642@reddit

Because the west coast of the US is heavily populated in some areas and remote in other areas. It used to be easy to hop between states, commit your crime, hide the evidence, then disappear to another state.

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BigPapaPaegan@reddit

It's not even just the West Coast, it's anywhere outside of major metropolitan areas. The only state in the Union that's densely populated throughout is Rhode Island.

The Russian comparison is the closest that makes sense and is flawed heavily by the propaganda put out during the days of the Soviet Union and under Putin. Andrei Chikatilo's crimes went underreported for years because the Soviet government refused to entertain the idea that they were connected, believing serial killers were strictly a Western problem. Who knows how many more existed and were never brought to light as a result?

It may very well be more of an American thing, but due to the long history of sensationalist journalism combined with how vast the continental US really is? I'd be thoroughly surprised if that was truly the case.

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Exciting_Vast7739@reddit

Bringing up journalism is another excellent point - the US is unparalleled in freedom of the press. Russian definitely not so much, and even the UK has stronger controls on its freedom of the press than we do.

We can presume that if Andrew Mountbatten would have been a serial killer, it might have been stifled in the press for a lot longer. And there was that television host who was a serial child molester, he walked for decades before that came to light.

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Conscious_Moment_727@reddit

"the US is unparalleled in freedom of the press" Is this a joke ?

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InevitableRhubarb232@reddit

The interstate system definitely contributes

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eapaul80@reddit

C’mon man, this isn’t an American thing. You said so yourself. I guess Jack the Ripper is a nobody compared to Manson.

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Downtown_Ikea@reddit (OP)

I never said this was an American thing specifically, I'm asking why are the so many?

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

In the United States, we have much more open records than other countries do.

https://www.aetv.com/articles/why-more-serial-killers-in-us-than-other-countries

Is Google just not available in your country?

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Jorost@reddit

Our records are no more open than in Canada, Australia, UK, etc. The United States is not the world’s only democracy.

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

You’re attributing to my comment something so neither stated nor implied.

Everything is not equal across democracies. Some keep better records than others.

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Jorost@reddit

I never said you made any claims about democracies, so you’re arguing against an imaginary assertion. But democracies usually have pretty open records. Many better and more open than in the US. There’s nothing particularly special about American record keeping.

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

Again, you’re attributing to my comment something I neither implied nor stated. I’m telling you all is not equal across democracies.

Many better and more open than in the US.

Again, all is not equal across democracies.

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Jorost@reddit

Now who’s misattributing things? You said the US appears to have more serial killers because better record keeping. I said many other democracies have just as good or better record keeping, so that’s not it. Nowhere did I say it was uniform across the board.

Be careful throwing stones in that glass house.

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Jorost@reddit

Okay that's one. Name another British serial killer without looking it up. Now think of how many American serial killers you have heard of.

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

Isn’t that similar to asking British people how many British people they’ve heard of?

It’s a bit absurd to use how many they’d could probably name as some kind of example. Of course Americans would know more about their own country, same as British people.

I can’t imagine why you’d find your comment reasonable. It’s honestly astonishing.

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Jorost@reddit

It’s astonishing that serial killers are an overwhelmingly American phenomenon, I agree.

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

So, you’re stupid and don’t understand what you’ve read.

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No-Double679@reddit

Fred and Rose west

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BigPapaPaegan@reddit

Think of how prevalent American media is, as well. You're going to hear a lot more about Ted Bundy than you would Harold Shipman, even if the latter has over 200 confirmed murders to his name.

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eapaul80@reddit

So we have John Wayne Gacy, and the like. But yeah, we are terrible killers while you sit and eat porridge, minding your ps and qs.

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Downtown_Ikea@reddit (OP)

Dennis Nilson, Harold Shipman

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jessek@reddit

Peter Sutcliffe

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asteriskelipses@reddit

Manson wasn't a serial killer. He wasn't even a spree killer.

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FondleGanoosh438@reddit

Better at catching them. Stay safe rest of the world.

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Jorost@reddit

Maybe we're not better at catching them, maybe our serial killers are just stupider.

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revengeappendage@reddit

Smart enough to get away with at least 2 murders for long enough to commit a third tho.

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Jorost@reddit

But maybe German serial killers routinely get away with dozens of murders. That's the problem with unknown unknowns!

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revengeappendage@reddit

But that still would make us better at catching them. Clearly, you’re no serial killer or homicide detective lol

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Jorost@reddit

Maybe it doesn’t make us better at catching them, it just makes ours easier to catch.

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Virtual_Ad_8487@reddit

Flair checks out. Home of Ted Bundy and Gary Ridgway

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FondleGanoosh438@reddit

Funny, my mom was talking about how her mom would only let her walk certain places when one of the killers was on the loose. I think it was Bundy because this would have been the 80’s.

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Virtual_Ad_8487@reddit

It could’ve been Gary Ridgway too. They were active at the same time.

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DontH8DaPlaya@reddit

What was that about bundy? We usually claim him.

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segascream@reddit

We're better at putting lead in our water and air.

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therealbamspeedy@reddit

USA has more murders (total and as % of population) than UK, so logical to assume there will also likely be more serial killers in USA.

Highest body counts (killing the longest before getting caught) seems to be some countries in South America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_number_of_victims

Most high profile serial killers i think of were back in the 70s, when hitchhiking was common, police from other jurisdictions didnt often communicate and work together to connect similar killings, DNA was decades away, etc. Remoteness (non urban areas) to not be seen killing/dumping bodies (obviously there have been some urban serial killers like Dahmer)

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Yeah, these days they do mass shootings instead. 🙄 what happened to the good old days when these people would just try and shoot the president?

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CannaBeeKatie@reddit

The ratio of American mental health care workers to how many guns are owned by civilians is about 1: 327.5. I am not saying this is cause and effect, but it is a staggering number that I don't think other nations have. Guns and the lack of mental health services are big problems in my area.

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

That is a very depressing but unsurprising statistic.

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Lugbor@reddit

How does that number compare by population? Or to the EU, which has a similar landmass?

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Per capita, our numbers are still insane (we have about 1.1 per 100k people; next highest, Australia, has 0.3). Whatever is going on here, it’s not due the size of our population.

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elainegeorge@reddit

Lead pollution in the mid 1900s, lack of mental health services, and a centralized DNA database (CODIS).

I believe in the lead pollution theory of why the US had so many serial killers erupt from the 1960s. It also seems like serial killers have either traumatic brain injuries, or mental health issues stemming from either abuse or other biological causes (born with it/genetic). The lack of healthcare in the US probably leads to some of the manifestation of actions taken by killers.

Then there is the legal capturing of criminals. I think we could do better here, especially in sharing information across jurisdictions. It seems like when law enforcement does share, we have better outcomes.

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Not just serial killers; the crime rate in general started decreasing (and has continued to do so, despite what Fox News would have you believe) around the time they took lead out of gasoline and stopped using it in paint. It’d be foolish to say that’s the only reason, but it’s certainly a noteworthy correlation.

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swampy998@reddit

More people, more killers. Try per capita.

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

I checked, our numbers are still insane (about 10x the rate of other countries, on average)

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quizzicalturnip@reddit

Her population is much greater, it’s basic math.

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

I did the math and our numbers are still insane.

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whatisakafka@reddit

They just have better marketing here. I doubt we have significantly more than other countries with similar violent crime rates

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Oh we definitely do. Unless all the other countries are underreporting their numbers by a factor of 10, or have drastically different standards for what constitutes a serial killer, the US is a huge outlier on serial killers per capita.

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Individual_Check_442@reddit

I actually never knew that we had so many more, learned something, when you said “internationally infamous” it made me wonder how big of a media sensation is it when you do have one? Serial killers love notoriety, the enjoy being infamous, so it actually makes me wonder if downplaying their crimes some would actually help, but obviously legitimate news stories so not saying blame the media just trying to speculate on the answer to your question.

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anonymouse278@reddit

There were some apparently motiveless point-blank shootings of pedestrians in Chicago a few years ago on two consecutive days, and the suspect was caught on tape and had a weird gait. The media dubbed him "The Duck-Walk Killer" and after that there were no more killings with that MO. I don't think those facts are unrelated, personally.

The media should absolutely stop giving serial killers ominous names like Night Stalker and Zodiac Killer- they should all be called dorky and unappealing things like "The Duck-Walk Killer."

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Exactly. Just like Nazis, these people cannot handle being mocked.

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Exciting_Vast7739@reddit

Show me the per capita numbers - all listed countries have lower populations than the US.

And I don't trust numbers from the Russian justice system.

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

In terms of per capita, I did some calculations based on this list. * the US has 3,690 known serial killers; the 35 other countries have 1,795 combined (less than half, despite having a combined population almost 7x our size) * per capita, the US has a rate of 1.102 serial killers per 100k people. The next highest is Australia, at 0.345. The average rate across all non-US countries is 0.118, and if all those countries were one big country, the rate would be 0.036. * You mentioned not trusting Russia’s numbers, so let’s be generous and assume they actually have 3.84x the number of serial killers, which would make their rate the same as ours. Here’s how the above numbers would change: ** total # of serial killers across all non-US countries: 2,532 (about 64% of our number) ** average per capita rate per country: 0.141 ** per capita rate across all non-US countries: 0.047. * But let’s be even more generous. Let’s assume the rate is 5x higher in Russia, instead. In fact, let’s assume it’s 5x higher in every non-US country on this list! We’re now looking at: ** 8,975 total serial killers ** a per capita average per country of 0.592 ** a total per capita rate of 0.180

It may well be that different cultural definitions and reporting practices are skewing these numbers. But unless every other country is underreporting their numbers by a factor of 10, the US is absolutely an outlier, and it’s not even close. It’s 100% worth asking why that is.

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Exciting_Vast7739@reddit

Hell yeah data analyst!

Thank you. Enjoy y our lunch!

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Gianavel1@reddit

There's a movie called Citizen X that's based on the true story of a serial killer in Soviet Russia. Folks in charge dragged their feet on catching the guy because they didn't want to admit that a member of the Communist Party was a serial killer, much less just having one in Russia was a bad look. Guaranteed China is the same way.

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PureOrangeJuche@reddit

Wow the countries with more people have more people

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Per capita our numbers are still insane.

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Fast_Plastic446@reddit

Our population is 5x that of Britain. The odds are in our favor

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Our per capita rate is 10x that of Britain, though.

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MaggieJack1@reddit

Because you all cleaned out your prisons and mental hospitals and sent them here. Just genetics.

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Downtown_Ikea@reddit (OP)

I think that was Australia

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Australia does have the second-highest per capita rate of serial killers, weirdly enough, but it’s still barely a third of ours. (And I imagine there are many other, much more relevant factors at play than whether your great granddaddy was a convict).

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MaggieJack1@reddit

This is also why USA and Australia have some of the highest rates of mental illness in the world.

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MaggieJack1@reddit

USA and Australia.

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IzzybearThebestdog@reddit

A lot of these types of questions can be answered by the US being all of

Highly Developed
High population
Transparent (free press, social media, pop culture putting more eyes on us etc)

No other country has all 3

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Don’t forget our abysmal social safety net, which means (1) mentally unwell people who may be prone to violence aren’t identified or treated before that can happen, and (2) homeless people, sex workers, and others on the fringes are more abundant and less likely to be noticed or cared about when they go missing or turn up dead, so it’s easier for killers to find victims, and they’re less likely to be noticed until they escalate to a more distinctive pattern (or start killing people who ‘matter’).

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TooManyDraculas@reddit

So for one.

The US has more than 5 times as many people as the UK. So number gonna be higher.

But beyond that the concept of a serial killer. Along with most of the investigative methods to identify and catch them; and research on the subject. Were conceptualized in the US, starting in the 60s.

The US started looking earlier, and built the model and body of research to identify them. We also just tend to run with a looser definition of serial killers. The FBI model cites 2 or more victims in discrete events usually with a cooling off period. IIRC the UK cites 3 or more victims in 2 or more discrete events, always with a cooling off period.

So the US also tends to be counting more repeat killers as serial killers than many other countries.

In line with that you have things like Russia. Because of Cold War, both the concept and research around it made it to Russia fairly late. Along with a lot of other modern policing and investigative methods. Layered on that, even today the Russians are kinda resistant to labelling people serial killers, or digging into incidence even when people are caught. Because there was and is, propaganda value in saying "We don't have that in Russia, that's a problem of the decadent west".

So you've got base population differences. Combined with serious difference in how long different countries have focused on it. Plus serious differences in capability to even identify that it's going on, none the less catch people.

The US does seem to have a serious spike in incidence, from about the late 60s, through the 80s. But that's actually hard to tell, because that's the period where we first realized this was a thing, and that it could have a baseline level to begin with. So no one really knows how far outside the box it was.

And when I've seen interviews with, or talked to, experts on the subject. If they asked where they think the largest number are operating today. Pretty routinely they answer places like Russia or Latin American countries, and they cite population numbers and lack of modern policing approaches when they get into why.

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RepresentativeCry294@reddit

Americans have a special way of making others homicidally enraged. Perhaps that has something to do with it.

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

You lot will believe whatever appeals to your biases.

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BED_AA@reddit

The per capita is going to be the true indicator of "more."

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bellegroves@reddit

It's still more.

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BED_AA@reddit

Please show your work.

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Careless_Studio_1293@reddit

You shouldn’t need to work anything out. You should be able to look at the numbers OP cites and intuit that it’s more. Like I intuitively know the US has a much bigger population than Russia without googling anything. But I also know that it’s not nearly 20 times as big. That would be insane.

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bellegroves@reddit

Also, look at India with its larger population and drastically smaller number of serial killers (both in total and per capita).

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bellegroves@reddit

You could have googled this yourself.

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Phyrnosoma@reddit

Are there even academic studies about per capita serial killers per country?

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uncloseted_anxiety@reddit

Not that I’ve been able to find, probably because the sample sizes are so vanishingly small that you wouldn’t learn much of value. However, when one country has twice as many serial killers as the total number from every other listed country combined (3,690 in the US, 1,795 from the 36 other countries on the list) despite having about 1/7th of their combined populations, and about 5x the per capita rate of the second highest country (1.1 per 100k people in the US, 0.23 per 100k in Russia), it’s worth asking ‘wtf is going on here’.

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bellegroves@reddit

Not super sure, but this page talks about the challenges of comparing data and the definition differences.

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TumbleFairbottom@reddit

I’d like to see something tangible; whatever you’re using to say definitively that there have been 190 serial killers in the UK since 1500.

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Enkir@reddit

When countries sent their people to the US, they weren't sending their best...

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MyUsername2459@reddit

We don't, but we have a good law enforcement system that's good at catching them and good at piecing together serial killer actions over time.

In a lot of other places they'd either not be caught, or they'd only be caught for one murder and the entire string of murders would never be pieced together.

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btnzgb@reddit

Guns. In some metrics you will see serial killers and all killers who have killed multiple victims listed as the same thing. I bet that “3600” number includes people who have killed multiple people with a gun in a single event even though that’s not really a “serial killer” as most people would think of them.

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SpinosaurRingTone@reddit

Most serial killer victims aren't shot. While a gun may be used to force the victim to comply with moving into a secluded area, they are usually not the cause of death.

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No-Double679@reddit

We make movies and TV shows about them

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HarlequinKOTF@reddit

We have a better track record for solving crimes and connecting murders than other countries.

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smoke_sum_wade@reddit

The United States has the highest number of documented serial killers both in total and per capita. While the U.S. accounts for only about 4% of the global population, it has produced 67% to 76% of all known serial killers worldwide

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jade420420@reddit

Well most countries don't eat cereal in the same way Americans do. So it makes sense we kill it.

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DontH8DaPlaya@reddit

HackersCerealKiller.gif

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InevitableRhubarb232@reddit

Key word is “known”

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Dwrecked90@reddit

You really don't think it has anything to do with other countries not tracking them or counting them as serial killers?

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Vikingaling@reddit

USA #1

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TroubledButProductiv@reddit

The USA has a massive population, relatively few gun laws, and almost no government provided mental health care. We also tend to glorify violence; as there are already people selling Luigi Mangione t-shirts.

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_gooder@reddit

The US has almost 5 times as many people as the UK, lax gun laws, a constantly declining educational system, poor health (including mental health) care, and anger issues constantly stoked by opportunistic "entertainers" on tv, radio and computer.

The surprising thing is that there aren't more.

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Honest_Road17@reddit

The younger generation can't handle delayed gratification, they do spree killings now.

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SakaWreath@reddit

The plaque on the Statue of Liberty reads “please send us your crazy people” and they came.

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Swimreadmed@reddit

Demographics.. the US and NA in general have h8ge set apart populations with myriad of local and state laws and freedom to travel, it's very difficult to be serial killer in the old world

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InevitableRhubarb232@reddit

“World Atlas suggests there's a super simple reason that there's so many more serial killers in the US and the UK than in other countries, and that's because their law enforcement agencies are simply better at keeping records, reporting crimes, and linking murders that are committed by the same person. There is likely something to the theory: countries like Russia, for example, would probably have much higher numbers if serial killers were more likely to be reported on a global scale”

Read More: https://www.grunge.com/338708/these-countries-have-the-most-serial-killers-heres-why/

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SabresBills69@reddit

America is the same size as non Russia Europe.

American has easy to get gun laws making killing easier

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Courwes@reddit

Really America likes to sensationalize our murderes and killers. Like there are about 100 documentaries on Bundy/Gacy/Corll/Dahmer. They you get media getting involved with murders and sensationalizing them. Think about Jodi Arias/Casey Anthony/the Murdoughs/OJ.

These people have their trials blasted on TV they are talked about in magazines in news stories movies and docs made about them

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shadowmib@reddit

We have a big population

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ucbiker@reddit

Some combination of catching more of them and more exposure in media because American culture has generally had more exposure.

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InevitableRhubarb232@reddit

And they are not comparing per capita either

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Tron_35@reddit

Also population size, obviously a bigger country is likely gonna have more than a tiny country.

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bellegroves@reddit

We have more serial killers than our population difference can account for. By a lot.

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ucbiker@reddit

True but we also have seemingly more per capita, which shouldn’t be discounted.

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helen790@reddit

I think about this a lot tbh, but the answer is beyond the scope of sub. A forensic sociologist could provide better insight.

There are definitely multiple factors, large population is certainly one. However, I’m not convinced we’re actually that much more adept at catching them. I’ve watched an upsetting amount of true crime shows and read a lot about serial killers and a non-insignificant chunk of the time they are discovered/caught on accident or because a civilian noticed something weird.

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Downtown_Ikea@reddit (OP)

I had to stop watching true crime because it just made me sad, but I recently thought of that genre again and I realised like so many of them were specifically American, so thats what led me to making this post.

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helen790@reddit

That could be due to differing privacy laws and cultural attitudes toward publicizing details of horrific crimes as much as it is due to us having more psychos. Probably both!

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Wunktacular@reddit

This is the number of convicted serial killers. The stats do not claim to magically know about all serial killers that have existed.

For south and central America you would have to count every single gangster that's killed several people. Brazil's raw number is probably higher than the US.

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OrganizationSouth481@reddit

More internationally famous - Hollywood/ media in general. And I think our overall enjoyment of diving into true crime.

Attributing why we have so many more than other nations per capita. We might not in reality even if we do statistically. We have a proven track record for connecting and solving crimes. I think we overall cover them more, we have whole fields of the FBI dedicated to this, combined with higher population and ease of moving around the country overall.

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Jorost@reddit

It's probably not that we have more serial killers in the United States. It is probably more that American serial killers are just as dumb as the rest of the country, so they get caught more often.

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GemarD00f@reddit

hey speak for yourself i havent been caught yet... i mean.... i mean.... i mean,.....

(legally required /s)

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alicat777777@reddit

It has a large number of people. The bigger the population, the more sickos you see. Maybe more aggressive at catching them.

Maybe you just don’t hear about them as much as in other countries too.

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mostie2016@reddit

Idk we’re a big country with a big population. That’s probably why we have more of them tbh.

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paralea01@reddit

Lack of free universal healthcare that might help identity psycopaths before they become killers.

Extensive road/highway networks through rural areas that allows for people to go missing easily and many bodies to never be found.

Sensationalizing of serial killers in our media.

Criminalization of sex work which contributes to serial killers being able to find "easy" targets that may "not be missed."

Large migrant and homeless population that would be less likely to report missing people to the authorties or may be dismissed by the police.

The "easy" targets are often a serial killers first ones before they move onto targets that have a higher chance of getting them caught.

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Beccalu11@reddit

There is something in the water, especially Washington state.

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apokrif1@reddit

https://www.editionsladecouverte.fr/le_complexe_du_loup_garou-9782707172679

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Bootmacher@reddit

Not so much now as the 60's through 80's. The surveillance state makes it harder.

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SecretRecipe@reddit

Because we romanticize and glorify them

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searchableusername@reddit

american culture is very evil

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Reader124-Logan@reddit

“Can do” attitude.

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msabeln@reddit

In the U.S. we tell kids that “There are no rules! Don’t let anyone tell you what you can or can’t do!”

What we don’t tell them is that there are severe consequences to wrongdoing.

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Outrageous-Pause6317@reddit

We are city on a hill. Like Gotham City, Central City, or Metropolis. We grow supervillains for our super society.

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houdini31@reddit

We also have a massively larger population so the per capital really isn't that much at all.

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RedditWidow@reddit

You could easily google this

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asteriskelipses@reddit

Well Jack the Ripper is amongst the most famous SKs ever, and he was British. So...

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Fit_Permission_6187@reddit

Probably for the same reason that the rest of the world knows all our singers, entertainers, celebrities, politicians, and CEO's.

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msabeln@reddit

Some countries don’t record a death as “murder” until there is a successful prosecution of the perpetrator.

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Background_Humor5838@reddit

We are good at catching them and also the country is big enough that it's kind of easier to commit crimes unnoticed in an empty place and then drive away. People might not get caught in the act easily so they can kill more people before being caught.

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LastOfTheAsparagus@reddit

Our water is poisoned.

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5oco@reddit

I would first question if all these serial killers are measured by the same requirements. What is a serial killer could vary from one country to another.

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SpinosaurRingTone@reddit

Well per capita is important.

But in any event, there are a lot of unsolved or unreported cases all over the world. Every country has stories of people going missing or bodies being discovered. There's neighborhoods that are just accepted to be unsafe at night, or parts of the forest that the locals know to stay away from.

I think the better question is "Why do so many serial killers in America get caught?"

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damnim30now@reddit

Lotta factors at play-

Have to look at per capita for one thing.

Catch rate for another (entirely not confident in Russia's number reflecting reality)

Cultural influences

The whole lead in the gasoline thing from the 70s, and how heavily polluted some areas on the west coast were. I have no idea about the lead content of other countries gas, or how much was in the air.

Geographical factors

Are ones I can think of off the top of my head.

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Janeiac1@reddit

US federal police (the FBI) invented a whole field of study on these deviants, collecting reams of data and having it properly analyzed by trained psychologists. There is an entire department dedicated to it.

We simply identify and catch them more, especially now that crime data is digitized and shared nationally.

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chirop1@reddit

We don't have a bunch of peat bogs to hide the bodies in for centuries.

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luckystrike_bh@reddit

Because we have places like Florida.