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Crime Technology

Serial Murders Have Dwindled, Thanks To a Cautious Citizenry and Improved Technology (nytimes.com) 184

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Rex Heuermann, the meticulous architectural consultant who the authorities say murdered three women and buried them on a Long Island beach more than a decade ago, may have been among the last of the dying breed of American serial killers. Even as serial killers came to inhabit a central place in the nation's imagination -- inspiring hit movies, television shows, books, podcasts and more -- their actual number was dwindling dramatically. There were once hundreds at large, and a spike in the 1970s and '80s terrified the country. Now only a handful at most are known to be active, researchers say. The techniques that led to the arrest of Mr. Heuermann, who has pleaded not guilty to the crimes, help explain the waning of serial killing, which the F.B.I. defines as the same person killing two or more victims in separate events at different times.

It is harder to hide. Rapid advances in investigative technology, video and other digital surveillance tools, as well as the ability to analyze mountains of information, quickly allow the authorities to find killers who before would have gone undetected. At the same time, Americans have adopted more cautious habits in their everyday lives -- hitchhiking, for example, is less common, and children are driven to and from school. That reduces easy targets. And, some theorize, those bent on killing now opt for spectacular mass murders. "The 'perfect crime' concept is more of a concept than it ever has been before," said Adam Scott Wandt, an assistant professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. More than a decade ago, prosecutors said, Mr. Heuermann tried to cover his digital tracks by communicating with victims using so-called burner phones, prepaid units purchased anonymously for temporary use. But thanks to exponential progress in technology since 2010, investigators were able not only to chart Mr. Heuermann's decade-old movements; they could also monitor exactly what he was searching online in recent months. They saw that he was using an anonymous account for internet queries like "Why could law enforcement not trace the calls made by the long island serial killer," prosecutors said. He had also been visiting massage parlors and contacting women working as escorts, they said.

The ubiquity of technology has made it harder to get away with murder, Mr. Wandt said. The amount of data people create in their daily lives is more than many can conceptualize, he said. Just by walking outside, people are now tracked by ever-present cameras, from Amazon's Ring units outside homes to surveillance at banks and retail stores, he said. Every use of a phone or computer creates streams of data that are collected directly on devices or immortalized on servers, he said. A concerted effort by the federal government to ensure that even the smallest police departments can use technology to their benefit has also helped give investigators an upper hand, Mr. Wandt said. In 1987, there were 198 known active serial killers -- people connected to at least two murders -- and 404 known victims across the United States, according to a report published three years ago by researchers who run Radford University and Florida Gulf Coast University's Serial Killer Database. By 2018, there were only 12 known serial killers and 44 victims, according to the report.
"The big question is: Are they going underground and finding other techniques?â said Terence Leary, an associate professor in the psychology department at Florida Gulf Coast University and the team leader for the database.

He said that some serial murderers have killed for discrete periods before taking prolonged breaks: "Maybe they decided to give it up. Who knows?"
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Serial Murders Have Dwindled, Thanks To a Cautious Citizenry and Improved Technology

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  • by sonamchauhan ( 587356 ) <sonamcNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @08:17AM (#63750046) Journal

    "The big question is: Are they going underground and finding other techniques?"

    Gun massacres have increased in recent years. Maybe this is an acknowledgement by evil cowards that they're likely to be caught. They lather themselves up, taking wrong turn after wrong turn, and then do it quicker.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      AR-15's allow parallel murders. Serial is so 80's.

    • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @01:15PM (#63751022)

      "The big question is: Are they going underground and finding other techniques?"

      Gun massacres have increased in recent years. Maybe this is an acknowledgement by evil cowards that they're likely to be caught. They lather themselves up, taking wrong turn after wrong turn, and then do it quicker.

      I doubt it's directly related. Mass shooters tend to be suicidal in one way or another (why they are so rarely taken alive), very different from serial killers who plan extensively not to get caught.

      I think some of it is better investigative techniques, this guy had serial written all over him [bbc.com] but got caught with help from cameras and phone tracking [wikipedia.org]. Not to mention the guy who tried to be Dexter [wikipedia.org].

      But I wonder if the biggest effect of the investigative techniques and surveillance is deterrence. I'm probably leaning into TV show psych profiles here, but serial killing really seems to be about the idea of having control. You move around undetected, stalk your victim, disappear without a trace, and maintain your image as a nice normal not-serial killer in your community. Almost like it's a game where the objective is to kill without getting caught.

      I'm not sure how you do that with all the tech around now. Are you going to take your cellphone with you while you're stalking? Well then you're just giving the cops an easy trail to follow. And if you don't take your phone then you might have to explain why you were offline. Not to mention every block has a doorbell camera that might record you driving by.

      I think we've just made all the things serial killers like to do that much harder, and as such a lot of them have decided to stick to just fantasizing about it.

      • You don't need to explain why you don't have your phone on you. It's not illegal, yet, to leave your phone at home. All the tracking through cameras is definitely a large part of it though. We have license plate readers everywhere now and as you mention, ring cameras and also red light and speed detection cameras as well.

        It's much harder to move around without being tracked and it's easier then ever to go backwards from a crime scene to figure out who done it.

    • by Kisai ( 213879 )

      That's the obvious thing.

      Serial killers, generally have a goal in mind. Killing women or children, and defiling the corpse.

      Gun massacres are the same psychopaths, but instead of wanting their victim to "feel it" they want the community to feel it, which is why ... you guessed it "school shootings"

      So the typical incel that has gone too deep goes out and buys a shit load of weaponry and then goes to find a school for women or children to shoot up and hope to go out by "death by cop". They don't want to be hel

      • Of the mass shooters, are they are actually psychopaths? Like, have we done the clinical forensics and really determined they are in fact psychopaths? We can say they are "evil" but that's not really a useful term. Their actions can be classified to be evil but do we have enough to say they are all actually psychopaths?

        They all clearly have "issues" but to lump all mass shooters into a psychopaths category is just being lazy. Plus, the word mass now means 4, if I'm not mistaken. Most gang warfare would coun

    • I would thought they are getting caught before they become serial killers
  • by test321 ( 8891681 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @08:19AM (#63750048)

    I am surprised to have to contradict the professor in criminal law quoted by the NYT, but the perfect crime is unfortunately commonplace. There is a frightening amount of unsolved murders, about 25% in developed countries. Here the data for Canada https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com] (20-25% 2012-2014) and here for France https://www.lemonde.fr/societe... [lemonde.fr] (30% in 2016, 37% in 2020 -- they say situation worsened in 2020 due to COVID confinement causing lack of witnesses).

    Plus there is a certain number of unidentified bodies found every year that are not even in these statistics because they don't get classified as homicides (body decomposition, lack of evidence).

    For the interested, there is a long academic publication on the factor influencing the elucidation of homicides: https://www.cairn.info/revue-d... [cairn.info] (in French).

    • by evanh ( 627108 )

      I wouldn't be surprised if encouraging others to commit crimes and then being able to identify each by the specifics has the same thrill for them.

    • As you point out, your Canadian statistics cover 2012-2014 which is around 10 years ago now.
      Since you quote statistics from Canada, do you have any idea whether they have caught the killer who has been operating on the Yellowhead Highway west of Prince George BC for a fair number of years? When I was there a lot of people had gone missing but they had no clue who was responsible.

      • Canada 33% unsolved in 2021. "As of December 31, 2021, there were 525 homicides solved out of the 788 reported that year. This translated to a solved rate of 67%," https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n... [statcan.gc.ca]

        I cannot help you regarding the murder cases you are facing in your region; I am just a random guy who was shocked to read in 2021 that one out three made it away with murder; I looked around and found it was the same number in different countries.

        • I'm fairly sure even straight forward murder cases take quite a while to investigate, get to court and count as solved. Considering these stats are taken on the last day of that year, I'd be surprised if many of the murders in the preceding days, weeks, even months had yet been officially solved. In fact the document has some statistics about time taken to solve cases, with 100 days being a timeframe used for comparison - so no wonder all those murders on 30th December hadn't been solved by the end of the y

          • by rbrander ( 73222 )

            Not forgetting that they may know very for sure who did it, but can't prove it. Under our laws, that's "unsolved".

            A lot of murders in Vancouver are gang-related, and honestly, most figure that the killer will get his eventually, live by the sword, etc. As long as we know "that's just gang-related, I'm safe in my lifestyle far from them", we probably don't vote for a zillion dollars to nail the exact hitman every time.

          • 1) These stats are not from the last day of year, they were published late November next year. 2) "Solved" in police statistics means "an arrest was made".

            Rationale for the definition 1) That's the moment police closes its investigation and the file and the suspect are transferred from the hands of the police to the justice system. It's a simple yet sensible criterion 2) Any definition involving the result in court would make definitive statistics impossible to establish, due to the variable timeframe from

            • 1) These stats are not from the last day of year, they were published late November next year.

              That's not what you said, nor in fact the article you were quoting from: "As of December 31, 2021, there were 525 homicides solved out of the 788 reported that year." The paragraph continues: "...It should be noted that during subsequent data collection cycles, outstanding unsolved homicides may be cleared, which would then increase the solve rate for homicides reported in 2021, as well as any other year prior.". Publication date is irrelevant, because they have stated when the data was collected.

              • Here is corrected data for France, year 2019: 62.09% same-year report and resolution; 72% day-to-day 12 month from police report.

                Sources:
                A) Yearly performance report of the government: within same year 2018-2021: 70.29% 62.09% 62.60% 58.3% (same year report and resolution), https://www.budget.gouv.fr/doc... [budget.gouv.fr] (report called "Police Nationale", table 2.1 page 11 of the pdf; collating data from reports of year 2021 and 2023)
                B) Statistical bureau, from their exhaustive analysis of the police database https://www [insee.fr]

    • Missing persons (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bruce66423 ( 1678196 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @08:54AM (#63750166)

      Whilst murders attract much police attention, a person disappearing from sight is usually ignored by law enforcement. As a result we have no idea how many of those missing people are victims of murder.

      • Whilst murders attract much police attention, a person disappearing from sight is usually ignored by law enforcement. As a result we have no idea how many of those missing people are victims of murder.

        In some cases the people are never reported missing [cbsnews.com], by anyone.
        • Whilst murders attract much police attention, a person disappearing from sight is usually ignored by law enforcement. As a result we have no idea how many of those missing people are victims of murder. In some cases the people are never reported missing [cbsnews.com], by anyone.

          That poor woman was obviously murdered by her husband. They found her in a shallow grave behind a body shop he used to work at. I guess he sold her family a convincing story to prevent them from reporting her missing, but they won't say what it was because the investigation is still ongoing.

    • I'm a bit surprised that more "perfect crimes" aren't committed. All the cops I've met are average to below average intelligence, which would ordinarily be fine, but in casual conversation they want to insist that 22 weeks of police academy have honed them into psychical and intellectual supermen. I don't doubt they learned plenty in police academy, but they were sort of an empty bucket to begin with. The real ubermenschen are those detectives with an associate degree's in criminal justice.

      Of course on TV t

      • A lot of those 'unsolved' remainb that way because nobody cared enough to investigate properely in the first instance.
    • And there's good evidence that when we thought they were caught we had an innocent man. Again, DNA evidence.

      It does help that we don't have lead in our air anymore, though we're seeing more of it in our water lately which is scary. Lead is well known to make people loopy and violent. Crime rates have been declining for years now everywhere (despite what "if it bleeds it leads" media would tell you) and lead is the one thing that every state of the nation has in common.
    • A little off-topic, but this stuck out to me:

      but the perfect crime is unfortunately commonplace. There is a frightening amount of unsolved murders, about 25% in developed countries.

      Maybe "the perfect crime" is just slang for "a crime who's victim we don't care about". And that's a depressing thought.

  • by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @08:40AM (#63750112) Homepage Journal

    Do you remember the good old days? When you could dismember a few hitchhikers and then go home for a peaceful evening with your family? How far has America fallen that we can't even hold on to the title of world's most serial killers? Globalization and the surveillance state truly have destroyed the fabric of our nation's once create culture.

    • I LOVED how those "good old days" were depicted in "The Sandman". The serial killer convention was one o the creepiest and funniest thing I've ever seen. Especially at the same time.

    • Do you remember the good old days? When you could dismember a few hitchhikers and then go home for a peaceful evening with your family? How far has America fallen that we can't even hold on to the title of world's most serial killers? Globalization and the surveillance state truly have destroyed the fabric of our nation's once create culture.

      At this point when the kids come to my van I just give them the free candy. Then I start the engine, drive off, and think back to better days.

    • by hawk ( 1151 )

      As the hitchhiker climbed in, he asked, "Aren't you afraid that I might be a serial killer or something?"

      "Nah," the driver replied. "The chances of two in the same car are astronomically low."

  • Look at all the shootings every day.
    • by PPH ( 736903 )

      Not a lot of serial killing victims are shot. It's noisy, attracts attention and creates a bunch of forensic evidence that's difficult to clean up.

  • They just found this guy in New Jersey, and until they can link victims to either the way they were killed or their characteristics then the FBI can't correlate them as being killed by a serial killer.

    There are over 600,000 people who disappear in this country annually. [fox13now.com] While most are "runaways." until the others are conclusively found they're just "missing" like the three women this guy was alleged to have killed. Some of the "missing" wind up being found in plastic bags. [cnn.com] Only forensics and good police wor

  • From a genetic point of view, there's no short term selective pressure that would reduce the incidence rate of psychopathy and sociopath. Psychopaths and sociopaths are are still out there, but maybe they are finding other release valves for their urges. Like politics.

  • "Mr. Wandt said. In 1987, there were 198 known active serial killers -- people connected to at least two murders -- and 404 known victims across the United States, according to a report published three years ago by researchers who run Radford University and Florida Gulf Coast University's Serial Killer Database. By 2018, there were only 12 known serial killers and 44 victims, according to the report." Only 404 victims? There are more deaths caused by the Amazon delivery guys delivering those stupid Ring d
  • For a single young woman to live in the Pacific Northwest!

  • by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Tuesday August 08, 2023 @12:58PM (#63750972)
    A few degenerate animals are caught or deterred, at the cost of millions abandoning their sense of easy friendship and adventure that used to define American society? I wasn't around for that culture, but it looks impressive even at a distance.
  • Absurd. No one knows why, and only advocates claim to.

  • Either there is less serial killer... Or the great filter of "police inquiries, arrest" removed the one which were sloppy. 51% murder are solved on average. And that's an average so there are places in the US with higher rate of unsolved murder. And that's not counting all the vagrant population for which there is a relatively high probability if they disappear nobody is reporting it, and if it is reported, the police will shrug it - no bodies no problem.
  • Serial killers, lightning, and shark attacks reside mostly in the hobgoblins of the mind from watching too many movies. A more deleterious social effect is the prevalent avoidance of social interactions from the paranoia of stranger danger.
  • That article if published in the UK or Australia would have led to the Editors being in court for contempt of court and facing an almost certain jail sentence.

    So much for presumed innocent.

  • and not making it look like it's the same guy who did it all.

  • Considering that according to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons some 600,000 people simply disappear each year without trace, I challenge the assertion that there are only 12 serial killers out there. There could easily be 10,000 serial killers each disposing of 10 victims per year and it would barely make a dent in the missing persons statistics. What makes the person who wrote this so sure that technology has led to fewer serial killers? Maybe there are ten times as many, yet because of advanc

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