Serial Murder: A Forensic Psychiatric Perspective
When law enforcement apprehends a serial murderer, the event is consistently the focus of unswerving media coverage. For local communities, the ordeal can be particularly shocking and upsetting. Residents living in a community that is exposed to serial murder may even experience posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms for varying periods of time (Herkov and Beirnat, 1997). Over the past three decades, our society has become fascinated by the phenomenon of serial murder as evidenced by the numerous books, movies and television shows on the subject. Yet, despite the high level of interest, there is no current theory that adequately explains the etiology of serial murder (Holmes et al., 2002). This Is primarily due to the fact that serial murder is an event with an extremely low base rate and therefore is difficult to study via rigorous scientific methods (Dietz, 1986). While serial murder is a universally terrifying concept, it is an extraordinarily rare event. In a study of the frequency of serial sexual homicide
