Abstract
The crimes of serial and sexual murderers regularly attract the attention of the lay press, and the response of the public on learning of these acts is typically outrage and disgust. Paradoxically, a number of recent box office hits have been based on serial killers (e.g., Copycat, Seven, Heat), suggesting at the same time a certain fascination by many people with this form of violence. Adding to the macabre and mysterious quality of these violent crimes is the limited scientific literature available to explain them. This void is slowly being filled by the combined effort of workers in the fields of law enforcement, mental health, and sociology.
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Myers, W.C., Burgess, A.W., Burgess, A.G., Douglas, J.E. (1999). Serial Murder and Sexual Homicide. In: Van Hasselt, V.B., Hersen, M. (eds) Handbook of Psychological Approaches with Violent Offenders. The Plenum Series in Crime and Justice. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4845-4_9
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