What It Means

Origin of the Term:

People tend to think that serial killing is a terrifying new phenomenon because it wasn't until about 20 years ago that any one had heard of such a term.

Credit for the term is given to former FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler, one of the founding member of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. He is also the model for the character Jack Crawford in Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lector trilogy.

According to Ressler, he attended a weeklong conference in the 1970's at the British police academy, where he heard a fellow participant refer to "crimes in series" meaning "a series of rapes, burglaries, arsons or murders." He was so impressed with the term that upon returning to Quantico, he began to use the term "serial killer" in his lectures.

The official FBI definition of serial killer stands as follows:

• Three or more separate events in three or more separate locations with an emotional cooling- off period between homicides. -FBI Crime Classification Manual (1992)

This definition stresses three elements:

1. Quantity: There has to be at least three murders.
2. Place: The murders have to occur at different locations.
3. Time: There has to be a "cooling-off period" - an interval between the murders that can last anywhere from several hours to several years.

The last two characteristics are meant to differentiate serial killing from mass murder, in which a suicidal, rage-filled individual slaughters a bunch of people at once. Two examples of this would be the Columbine shooting in 1999, or the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012.

The major issue with the FBI definition is that it doesn't have any sense of the nature of the crimes.

Overall the definition of serial killer has been used for many natures of homicide, and continues to do so today.