Where Do Serial Killers Come From? Caroline Fraser on America’s Murderland

This week I’m joined by Caroline Fraser, author of Prairie Fires, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of beloved author Laura Ingalls Wilder. Fraser’s latest book, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust In The Time Of Serial Killers, is a notable departure from the world of sunbonnets and covered wagons. This time, she explores the proliferation of serial killers—figures like the Green River Killer Gary Ridgeway, I-5 killer Randall Woodfield, and, of course, Ted Bundy—who haunted the Pacific Northwest during the 1970s to 1990s.

Why were there so many serial killers during this time and in this region? Fraser points to the “lead-crime hypothesis,” which suggests that a spike in violent crime during this era can be traced back to widespread childhood lead exposure from gasoline, paint, and industrial sources. In the book, Fraser expands on this theory, connecting the ecological and societal dots between environmental toxins and waves of violent crime. She also draws on her own experience growing up in the Seattle area, giving personal context to a much larger story.

GUEST BIO

Caroline Fraser is the author of Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which won the Pulitzer Prize as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Heartland Prize, and the Plutarch Award for Best Biography of the Year. She is also the author of God's Perfect Child: Living and Dying in the Christian Science Church, and her writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, and the London Review of Books, among other publications.

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Stuff to read and listen to:

New York Times, Jan 31, 2025: The L.A. Fires Taught Me To Accept Help

Recent(ish) solo episodes:

• January 9: The First 24 Hours
• January 16: The Immaterial World
• January 27: Housing Wars
• February 5: Remembrance Of Things Past
• February 13: What Is A "Catastrophe?"
• March 2: A Mental Infection
• March 31: Dignity Is Out Of Style

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Housekeeping

📺 Visit The Unspeakable on YouTube.

✈️ The Unspeakeasy has new retreats for 2025. We’ll be in T