There are many cultural myths about serial killers, often propagated even by mental health professionals. Many assume there is a profile of a serial killer, that serial killers always go for the same victim type or always use the same MO, that they are more clever than ordinary people, and that they are inevitably charming and attractive. The truth is not as simple as that. There are different types of serial killers, and while there are many books that discuss the serial killer phenomenon especially in relationship to victim types or context, researchers have not yet been able to come up with a definition, or type, that covers the broad spectrum of serial killers and their complex psychological dynamics. Ramsland looks at the variety of serial killer types, illustrating that it is difficult to accurately depict these elusive, intriguing, and dangerous killers. There are many cultural myths about serial killers, often propagated even by mental health professionals. Many assume there is a profile of a serial killer, that serial killers always go for the same victim type or always use the same MO, that they are more clever than ordinary people, and that they are inevitably charming and attractive. The truth is not as simple as that. There are different types of serial killers and while there are many books that discuss the serial killer phenomenon especially in relationship to victim types or context, researchers have not yet been able to come up with a definition, or type, that covers the broad spectrum of serial killers and their complex psychological dynamics. Ramsland looks at serial killer types, illustrating that it is difficult to accurately depict these elusive, intriguing, and dangerous killers. This book examines a variety of serial killers, from sexual predators to psychotic killers, from murder teams to odd eccentric stalkers, in order to present the distinct psychological dynamics that set serial killers apart from other violent murderers. Among the motives addressed are lust, control, glory, profit, thrill, delusions, rage, the desire for company, the need to please a partner, and even murder as an intellectual exercise. Serial killers live double lives, hiding their violence even from those who live with them, so along with a study of motives are chapters devoted to how close associates have described killers, including parents, siblings, co-workers, lovers, and survivors. There is no profile of a serial killer, and this book establishes that in vivid and frightening detail.

In 2004, Charles Cullen was arrested and charged in the deaths of more than 30 patients in his care. Crossing several jurisdictions in seven counties in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, he was stopped after a fifteen-year spree at ten institutions. While many people do not think of healthcare workers as serial killers, their profession is disproportionately represented among the serial killer population, and they tend to be more prolific than other serial killers, having more opportunities, better cover, and easy alibis. Healthcare professionals who kill have learned how to exploit the atmosphere of trust in the healthcare community and to hasten deaths that may go unnoticed in an already vulnerable arena. This book delves into the world of the healthcare serial killer, looking at the special characteristics of the different groups of murderers, the motives, the methods, and the outcomes. Crime specialists have long suspected that many healthcare serial killers have gone undetected. Because it is easier to cover up their crimes, it is harder to uncover that a crime has even been committed. Here, Ramsland identifies some of the warning signs that a serial killer may be on the loose in a healthcare setting. Further, she offers suggestions for reform in the healthcare and criminal justice communities that would help identify potential killers before they have a chance to strike, or strike again. Using numerous real-life cases in every chapter, she provides a fuller picture of this most deadly type of serial killer and helps readers understand how they work, and how they can be stopped.

Four turn-of-the-century fiends whose “crimes, even by today’s standards, are still shocking—because they were committed by women” (Yorkshire Magazine). Their names may not be as familiar as such notorious female serial killers as Aileen Wuornos, Myra Hindley, Martha Beck, or Belle Gunness. But more than a century ago they made headlines and enthralled a bloodthirsty public. Now, venturing into the darkest side of human behavior, journalist Stephen Jakobi unearths the life and crimes of four of history’s most twisted women: Agnes Norman, a London servant girl whose victims of choice were children, including three infants. Most startling is that Agnes was a child herself—only fifteen-years-old. Louie Calvert, a prostitute condemned for only one murder. But her unique death cell autobiography revealed much more to her story. Kate Webster committed one of the sickest slayings of the Victorian era. Was she also responsible for the Thames Torso Murders which rivaled Jack the Ripper? Finally, the mysterious Mrs. Willis, an English “baby farmer” whose services included foster care, wet-nursing, and infanticide. Using original research based on family-owned primary sources and government files only recently made available, In the Mind of a Female Serial Killer delves into to the grisly psyche of these infamous murderesses.

In this memoir, a forensic psychiatrist chronicles her work with more than 80 serial killers and her thoughts on what compels them. Judging by appearances, Dr. Helen Morrison has an ordinary life in the suburbs of a major city. She has a physician husband, two children, and a thriving psychiatric clinic. But her life is more than that. She is one of the world’s leading experts on serial killers, and has spent as many as four hundred hours alone in rooms with depraved murderers, digging deep into killers’ psyches in ways no profiler ever has before. In My Life among the Serial Killers, Dr. Morrison relates how she profiled the Mad Biter, Richard Otto Macek, who chewed on his victims’ body parts, stalked Dr. Morrison, then believed she was his wife. She did the last interview with Ed Gein, who was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. John Wayne Gacy, the clown-obsessed killer of young men, sent her crazed Christmas cards and gave her his paintings as presents. Then there was Atlanta child killer Wayne Williams; rapist turned murderer Bobby Joe Long; Fred and Rosemary West, who killed girls and women in their Gloucester “House of Horrors”; and Brazil’s deadliest killer of children, Marcelo Costa de Andrade. Dr. Morrison has received hundreds of letters from killers, read their diaries and journals, evaluated crime scenes, testified at their trials, and studied photos of the gruesome carnage. She has interviewed the families of the victims—and the spouses and parents of the killers—to gain a deeper understanding of the killer’s environment and the public persona they adopt. She has also studied serial killers throughout history and shows how this is not a recent phenomenon with psychological autopsies of the fifteenth-century French war hero Gilles de Rais, the sixteenth-century Hungarian Countess Bathory, H.H. Holmes of the late nineteenth-century, and Albert Fish of the Roaring Twenties. Through it all, Dr. Morrison’s goal has been to discover the reasons serial killers are compelled to murder, how they choose their victims, and what we can do to prevent their crimes in the future. Her provocative conclusions will stun you. Praise for My Life Among the Serial Killers “A scary piece of work, with even scarier implications.” —Kirkus Reviews “A profoundly enlightening book. Morrison provides startling insights into what factors breed serial killers, and she avoids the broad generalizations that make other books of the topic seem slick and superficial. . . . This is an absorbing, disturbing book that makes it clear just how much we have yet to learn.” —Booklist

A human monster stalked the streets of Florida's Suncoast for six months, leaving in his wake a trail of mutilated corpses. This book examines the compelling and disturbing question: What made Bobby Joe tick?

An in-depth study examining just what drives men to kill. Illustrated with fascinating real-life murder cases, this title probes the psychological reasons why they happen. Some say there is a bit of sado-masochism in everyone, so are sexual killers actually responsible for the crime they commit? Here are all the answers, chronicled in a fascinating voyage through the dark inner regions of the mind and brought vividly to life with case histories drawn from all over the world.

By using true tales of thieves, swindlers, and fraudsters at work, Financial Serial Killers illustrates how these perpetrators get their hooks into investors' wallets, savings accounts, and portfolios—and never let go. The worst financial crisis since the great depression revealed that thousands of mom and pop investors had lost millions to so-called Mini-Madoffs. They are the thieves and conmen who had used phony financial acumen to steal investors' money, wipe out savings, and damage lives. Financial Serial Killers reveals the cons—from the grand to picayune—advisers cultivate with their victims—relationships that are essential to the fraud. Take the story of Lillian, the little old lady who invested with Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world. After her husband died, she thought her family's treasure of $24 million in stock controlled by Buffett was safe. It was—until a family relative introduced the eighty-nine-year-old grandmother to a pair of unscrupulous insurance agents who convinced her to reinvest her savings in life insurance—decimating her nest egg while padding the agents' pockets. Lillian's story, as well as other accounts of deceit and fraud, is the core of Financial Serial Killers. Readers will learn how to better protect their family's wealth and savings after reading this book.

After over twenty-five years interviewing the most dangerous contemporary serial killers, bestselling true crime author Christopher Berry-Dee explores the darkest corners of these thrill-killers’ minds in Talking with Serial Killers: The Sinister Study of Stalkers. As law-enforcement authorities, including the FBI’s elite Behavioral Science Unit, will confirm, the majority of sexual psychopaths gain most of their perverse thrills from the stalking of their unexpecting victims. The target has often been followed and watched for weeks or even months, and sometimes even visited before they are attacked. But the actual kill is frequently less satisfying than the pursuit, after which the murdered victim is usually abandoned or thrown away. Exhaustively studying the case histories of more than sixty modern-day sexually motivated serial murderers—some still alive, others subsequently executed—Berry-Dee zeroes in on the Internet porn industry as one of the main motivating drivers in cultivating fantasy stalking, which can lead to multiple rapes and homicides graduating to serial murder. Even more chilling, anyone who is active on social media has a higher potential to be a stalker’s next target.

A criminal profiler journeys inside the dark minds of serial killers to provide a portrait of these deadly predators, how they hunt for victims, how to identify them, and how to protect oneself from them.

From New York Times bestselling author Pete Earley—the strange but true story of how a young man’s devastating brain injury gave him the unique ability to connect with the world’s most terrifying criminals. Fifteen-year-old Tony Ciaglia had everything a teenager could want until he suffered a horrific head injury at summer camp. When he emerged from a coma, his right side was paralyzed, he had to relearn how to walk and talk, and he needed countless pills to control his emotions. Abandoned and shunned by his friends, he began writing to serial killers on a whim and discovered that the same traumatic brain injury that made him an outcast to his peers now enabled him to connect emotionally with notorious murderers. Soon many of America’s most dangerous psychopaths were revealing to him heinous details about their crimes—even those they’d never been convicted of. Tony despaired as he found himself inescapably drawn into their violent worlds of murder, rape, and torture—until he found a way to use his gift. Asked by investigators from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to aid in solving a murder, Tony launched his own searches for forgotten victims with clues provided by the killers themselves. The Serial Killer Whisperer takes readers into the minds of murderers like never before, but it also tells the inspiring tale of a struggling American family and a tormented young man who found healing and closure in the most unlikely way—by connecting with monsters.