Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
There is a lot of buzz out there about serial
killer news, some of it grounded in careful police work
and some field by rumor and the gravitational pull of
the unknown. Here is the bottom line. Up front. In
the United States, verified serial killer activity remains relatively rare
compared to prior decades, and several recent headline cycles about
supposed active serial killers have been challenged by criminologists, who
(00:24):
caution against jumping to patterns without evidence. At the same time,
a handful of threads are making news in twenty twenty five,
including renewed public speculation about clusters of unsolved deaths across
New England, continued interest in which states historically account for
the most serial killings, and ongoing public appeals tied to
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older serial cases that remain unresolved or periodically re examined
by law enforcement. According to criminology experts, the current evidence
for a New England serial killer does not meet the
behavioral hallmarks of a coordinated series, even as as social
media rumors spread widely. Meanwhile, national overviews show serial homicide
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counts are down sharply from their nineteen eighties peat, though
historically high states like California continue to dominate the tallies
of known victims, and Alaska consistently ranks highest per capita.
These insights come from the latest reporting and analysis in
twenty twenty five and recent expert commentary that push back
on more sensational claims while keeping the spotlight on victim
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identification and case linkage where it is warranted. One three three.
I am Detective Emily M. Carter. You and I are
going to dig into the current serial killer headlines with
the rookie on the beat perspective and a criminology nerds
appetite for the evidence. This is not about glamour. It
is about facts, patterns, and empathy. Serial murder cases test
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everything we learn in the academy about behavioral analysis, investigative
method and human nature them and we keep our feet
on the ground and our minds open. So listeners, buckle up.
We'll walk you through what is actually new, what is contested,
and how professionals think through these claims without getting swept
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into the undertow of rumor. Let us start with the
cycle that lit up my phone on night patrol more
than once. Is there a serial killer stalking New England?
The Internet wants a yes or a no? But police
work rarely deals in absolutes that fast. In recent months,
online threads have tried to draw a single line through
a set of deaths and disappearances across Massachusetts, Connecticut, and
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Rhode Island, especially those near Highway quarters. The idea is
tidy and terrifying, the data is messy. Northeastern University criminologists,
including veteran profiler and mass killing scholar James Allan Fox,
have publicly explained that the known evidence does not fit
the behavioral signatures common to serial murder. Specifically, the cases
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being lumped together show me major differences in victim profiles,
causes of death, and circumstances of discovery, which undermines the
theory of a single offender or even a coordinated series.
In short, according to these experts, correlation by geography alone
is not enough, and the case details do not align
with a classic serial pattern. That is a polite academic
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way of saying, the rumor has outrun the facts. I
get why the rumor spread. When you were looking at
multiple tragic outcomes in a concentrated area and police say
some involve no foul play, the human brain still looks
for a pattern. It is a survival reflex. A local
outwit framed it as smoke with maybe a little fire,
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highlighting that many of the deaths are unsolved and clustered
near highways, which feels suspicion even when medical and investigative
findings point to different causes. The same coverage echoed of
familiar caveat that police have pushed back on foul play
in many cases, while acknowledging the Internet sleuth energy is
not going away. It is the kind of cycle where
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every new discovery becomes grist for a serial narrative, even
if it is unrelated in method or motive. Two, As
a rookie, I have already learned that unsolved does not
mean linked. It means we do not yet have the answer.
Those are very different realities, So how do we parse
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this responsibly? First, we look for case linkage criteria. Investigators
and analysts ask whether the victims share demographic or lifestyle
characteristics that would possibly intersect with an offender's hunting grounds.
We ask whether the cause and manner of death converge,
whether there are consistent pre and post offense behaviors, whether
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the crime scenes show ritual or signature elements, and whether
the timing and geography track with a viable offender mobility profile.
That is the behavioral science triage you learn on day
one of serial crime seminar in the New England Chatter.
The expert takeaway is that these building blocks are not
present in a consistent way, so stitching the cases together
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is not justified by curt evidence. Five. That does not
rule out the possibility that a smaller subset might be linked,
only that the sweeping claim of a region wide serial
is not supported. Now step out of the rumor stream
and consider the broader twenty twenty five snapshot. Are serial
killers as common as the headlines make them feel? Here
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is where perspective matters the arrow. When serial homicide dominated
the public imagination was the late nineteen seventies through the
nineteen eighties. Systems were less integrated, forensic methods were limited,
and there was a clearer path for a single offender
to leave multiple crime scenes unconnected. Contemporary reviews emphasize that
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the number of active serial killers has fallen dramatically since
that peak. Do nations include DNA profiling, cross jurisdictional data
sharing databases that flag patterns and changes in sentencing that
incapacitate repeat violent offenders longer. Even the ubiquity of mobile
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phones and location data shifts offender and victim behavior and
creates digital traces, which has raised the capture risk. Analysts,
writing in twenty twenty five, DASH de this decline while
reminding us that new offenders do still emerge and unsolved