Serial killers don’t stand out: criminologist

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MULTIPLE killers wouldn’t necessarily stick out in a crowd, according to a Boston criminologist.

“They don’t look bizarre,” said Northeastern University professor James Alan Fox. “They’re the people you wouldn’t necessarily expect. In fact, if someone looks like a stereotype of a serial killer, like a monstrous guy with this crazed look, he wouldn’t be very dangerous because we’d avoid him like the plague.”

Fox said the most dangerous offenders are those who look trustworthy. “Most serial killers, in fact, do have a skill at playing a role and appearing trustworthy, and have a veneer of respectability,” he said.

Fox said that helps killers to relax their victims, allay suspicion and evade authorities.

He said serial killers will generally escalate their behaviour over time. “In general, as a perpetrator gets more and more comfortable with murder and violence, the crimes become more brutal,” he said.

“One, because of the comfort level that they achieve, but two, because whatever fantasies they’re fulfilling, whatever fulfillment they may get out of a crime, their fantasies begin to grow.”

He said the fantasies can become more complex over time.

“They experiment with different and more heinous ways of killing and controlling their victims.”

He said that’s why serial killers are often older than most violent criminals — in their 30s and 40s.

They may not have a criminal record as a teenager or young adult.

“It’s part of their maturation process,” he said. “It’s very rare to find an 18-year-old serial killer — 18-year-olds are just happy to have sex.”

Fox said there are not always “warning signs” in the history of a serial killer. “The way a person acts… in their 40s is not necessarily a reflection of how they were in their 20s,” he said.

Fox noted that Col. Russell Williams, the suspect in the killings of two women, was in the military.

“One might wonder how much control is an important theme in his life,” he said. “There are people who find through military experience that they satisfy a need for power and control, and that’s often what serial killers do, that they achieve, they satisfy their excessive need for power and control through violent means.”

gabrielle.giroday@freepress.mb.ca