Why was there so many crazy serial killers around in the 70s and 80s?

badabing106

All the most deranged and notorious serial killers did their killing in the 70s and 80s

Gacy, kemper, Bundy, Chikatilo, Ramirez, Pedro Lopez, Koll

And why did this trend stop? Does this stuff still happen but doesn't make same kind of headlines because of the internet?

Wanderer2010

Sex crime against strangers was virtually unheard of before the 1960s due to harsh conditions in America meaning your day was spent toiling hard day and night just to have enough money to eat and get a roof over your head. The swinging 60s roared in and sexual attitudes relaxed considerably. The family unit was also more stable before this so that any sex could be obtained freely from your partner. After the 1960s, people wanted more, they wanted to kill for sex and hence the serial killing increased.
Combine this with an enormous geography across multiple states and terrains where anyone could literally vanish and assume any name they wanted (remember, this was way before internet and CCTV) and it was a perfect storm.

archer22

Fashions change I guess serial killing seems to have had its day...mass shootings are all the rage now.
Get it all over and done with in a hour or so instead of dragging it out over years.

People have less time and patience these days.

Ubbquittious

Ahh these are the original legends that would-be serial killers try to live up to. They wouldnt even try to outdo them out of respect. Kind of like 80s music, no artist really thinks they can beat the crowd from the 80s

dmc17

No social media to keep them distracted

Raconteuse

And the Golden State killer, the Green River killer. Why so many in California/the northwest? It's something I've wondered too. It's like the hippy counter culture turned in on itself and revealed its dark side. I associate cults with it too - Manson, Jones and lesser known names (e.g. the Greens).

Now of course they weren't all connected to the hippy movement. But it's like the late 60s brought out lowlives from the woodwork, who equated free love and no laws with rape and violence. Too much acid might not have helped either. Were some Nam vets or affected by that trauma? Richard Ramirez was certainly affected greatly by his uncle's PTSD induced violence.

4068ac1elhodqr

Too much lead on the water pipes, combined with malnutrition or deficiencies.
Unfortified breads and cereals{zinc} combined with poor heating methods/ventilation,
throw in widespread smoking and boozing, recessions and it all led to very cranky individuals.
No sunshine nor sunny holidays would also rub some folks the wrong way, Eastern bloc & (rainy) Pacific NW.

Quartzy99

What with advances in DNA testing and CCTV being so widespread now, they just have far greater chance of being caught.
Also, people in general are more cautious nowadays, for example hitchhiking is in major decline here and in the US.

Raconteuse

Quartzy99 wrote: »

What with advances in DNA testing and CCTV being so widespread now, they just have far greater chance of being caught.
Also, people in general are more cautious nowadays, for example hitchhiking is in major decline here and in the US.

And I'd assume in hiking in the wilderness.

archer22

A good question though would be why the United States with only around 6% of the world's population produced 67% of the world's known serial killers.

biko

The biggest nuts come from America

The Tetrarch

Cars and motorways.
No car, no distance between the crime and the perpetrator.

freshpopcorn

I watched loads of episodes of Crimewatch UK online a common accuracy was women who were hitchhiking.

Quartzy99

The Tetrarch wrote: »

Cars and motorways.
No car, no distance between the crime and the perpetrator.

Yes - for example Ted Bundy committed murders across seven different states, spanning a huge geographical area.

BattleCorp

badabing106 wrote: »

All the most deranged and notorious serial killers did their killing in the 70s and 80s

Gacy, kemper, Bundy, Chikatilo, Ramirez, Pedro Lopez, Koll

And why did this trend stop? Does this stuff still happen but doesn't make same kind of headlines because of the internet?

It's the feckin CCTV cameras innit. Plus the feckin DNA. Plus smartphones.

Load of sh1te. Do you know the efforts that I have to go to nowadays to kill a hooker. FFS. It would make you sick. :mad::mad::mad:

wakka12

archer22 wrote: »

A good question though would be why the United States with only around 6% of the world's population produced 67% of the world's known serial killers.

I'm sure youd find a similar statistic for atheletes,celebrities, actors and many other famous people

Irish Guitarist

There's been a few since then. The Washington snipers comes to mind although they killed people from afar rather than in a more gruesome fashion.

Here's a Canadian killer from the nineties that's up there with the likes of Ted Bundy. https://www.thesun.ie/news/2086338/harrowing-story-of-serial-killer-robert-pickton-who-ground-49-women-into-mincemeat-and-sold-the-meat-to-cops/

wakka12

archer22 wrote: »

A good question though would be why the United States with only around 6% of the world's population produced 67% of the world's known serial killers.

I'm sure youd find a similar statistic for atheletes,celebrities, actors ,musicians and many other famous people...it's just a very dominant culture on the world stage

BattleCorp

archer22 wrote: »

A good question though would be why the United States with only around 6% of the world's population produced 67% of the world's known serial killers.

Known serial killers. That's the point there. I'm sure there are a sh1t ton of serial killers in other countries but they either weren't caught or weren't publicised as much.

ITman88

Quartzy99 wrote: »

What with advances in DNA testing and CCTV being so widespread now, they just have far greater chance of being caught.
Also, people in general are more cautious nowadays, for example hitchhiking is in major decline here and in the US.

I think this is exactly why. In the 70s or 80s after committing the crime the perpetrator only had to flee the scene and they were usually safe from the law!
DNA and advances in suspect profiling mean nowadays that justice ain’t far away!

Ubbquittious

freshpopcorn wrote: »

I watched loads of episodes of Crimewatch UK online a common accuracy was women who were hitchhiking.

Yea. Fecking shame that is. Ruined hitch hiking fo the rest of us these bloody serial killers

odyssey06

There weren't ... it was just it took until the 1970s for police to catch up with them.

Also given the size of America, one single country with 50 different police jurisdictions and a single language, easier for murderers to hit and run.

CiarraiAbu2

Do we not have one here that's never been caught?

ITman88

CiarraiAbu2 wrote: »

Do we not have one here that's never been caught?

Yeah think that’s the thoughts regarding the so called vanishing triangle.
Check out the website https://www.missing.ie/ its insane the numbers of people vanished within the last 25 years in Ireland without a trace

Hangdogroad

Quartzy99 wrote: »

What with advances in DNA testing and CCTV being so widespread now, they just have far greater chance of being caught.
Also, people in general are more cautious nowadays, for example hitchhiking is in major decline here and in the US.

Yes, they're being caught earlier generally.

fryup

dmc17 wrote: »

No social media to keep them distracted

yep, plus no video games, no dvd's, no 24hr TV......suppose they had to find some way to pass the time

Peatys

archer22 wrote: »

A good question though would be why the United States with only around 6% of the world's population produced 67% of the world's known serial killers.

They only catch the ones who are bad at it.

archer22

BattleCorp wrote: »

Known serial killers. That's the point there. I'm sure there are a sh1t ton of serial killers in other countries but they either weren't caught or weren't publicised as much.

I am sure there are and have been loads of unknown serial killers in America also, given they often tend to kill over a vast area and law enforcement often fail to join up the dots.

Probably even more so than in other countries as America has a huge number of police forces operating in a semi independent manner...one lot often not being aware of what happened in another police force's area.

kyote00

Its a global phenomena ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_serial_killers_by_number_of_victims

biko wrote: »

The biggest nuts come from America

1o059k7ewrqj3n

I used to think the Vietnam war had a lot to do with all the serial killers in America. Men coming back from the war having been brutalised and very damaged. I don’t think that holds up to much scrutiny though except in a few cases that men had fathers who were Vietnam vets and had ****ed up childhoods.

I think a combination of societal pressure on men in the form of immense pressure to succeed alongside being unable to accept being rejected by peers or by women causes a lot of damage to men, but when you throw in a sociopathic personality, you will get a serial killer.

America is just a big enough country to get away with it (for awhile). Detection methods weren’t great back then, different forces not networked together, no central databases.

Nesta99

Hangdogroad wrote: »

Yes, they're being caught earlier generally.

Law enforcement in the US has changed too, they are a lot less territorial so greater cooperation, access to federal databases etc mean trends are spotted. Bundy et al prior to the digital age didnt even have to cross state boundaries to prevent flagging seriel murders as even crossing a county boundary was enough. There are some interesting and frightening stats on missing persons associated with the highway system as it was developed from the 1920s.

Across Northern Canada particularly there are serious hotspots of missing persons predominantly among First Nation people. Highway 16 or 'The Highway of Tears' probably the highest profile area. They believe there are a number of prolific and active seriel killers but they are not bein investigated properly due to the remoteness but also supposedly due to their status as First Nation and in general being the poorest in society. Most are classed as 'runaways'. 'Cold North Killers' is as frightening to read as any fiction.

All that said, in terms of victims, the UK has had some of the worst and undoubtedly will include Irish victims.

Stacksofwacks

because crimes are harder to commit these days. You can hardly fart these days without someone knowing or a twitter army on your case

archer22

Nesta99 wrote: »

Law enforcement in the US has changed too, they are a lot less territorial so greater cooperation, access to federal databases etc mean trends are spotted. Bundy et al prior to the digital age didnt even have to cross state boundaries to prevent flagging seriel murders as even crossing a county boundary was enough. There are some interesting and frightening stats on missing persons associated with the highway system as it was developed from the 1920s.

Across Northern Canada particularly there are serious hotspots of missing persons predominantly among First Nation people. Highway 16 of 'The Highway of Tears' probably the highest profile area. They believe there are a number of prolific and active seriel killers but they are not bein investigated properly due to the remoteness but also supposedly due to their status as First Nation and in general being the poorest in society. Most are classed as 'runaways'. 'Cold North Killers' is as frightening to read as any fiction.

All that said, in terms of victims, the UK has had some of the worst and undoubtedly will include Irish victims.

Saw a programme once about that..quite shocking stuff.

Tony EH

Serial Killers have always existed. They just get caught more, that's all. Crime detection has come on leaps and bounds since the times of Albert Fish, or Peter Kurten. But, make no mistake, these type of people were always around.

The truly scary thing is that the crimes of the serial killers of yesteryear usually went unsolved/unpunished.

Bill 2.0

The Tetrarch wrote: »

Cars and motorways.
No car, no distance between the crime and the perpetrator.

I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts and read alot of stuff about serial killers and this was one of the main reasons for their "success".



That and the social upheaveal of the 70s and 80s in the States (that's the same reason a lot of cults sprung up around this period).



Also, police departments pretty much operated independently of each other from state to state or even city to city within a state so you could have a serial killer active in a few reasonaly close locations and it would usually only be noticed after a while by a particularly vigilant person working on the case.


Even outside of the States the serial killers of the past with high body counts tended to be transient because it made them much harder to detect. Two bodies turning up in Lyon doesn't match the murdered woman in Frankfurt even if the M.O. was exactly the same because the investigating police in each jurisdiction would have no idea that the other murder happened.



Modern technology has pretty much eliminated the concept of the notorious serial killer but there are still a number active. The key now seems to be that they are completely random. There's no more taunting the police or sending letters to newspapers. It's just bodies turning up on the side of the road or people disappearing forever.

Hard to say, but I’m sure investigators have gotten so much better over the years. There is protocol in place now for handling such matters.

So basically, it’s harder to get away with it.

BattleCorp

Fcukin CCTV everywhere.

The lengths I have to go to nowadays to cover my tracks. :mad::mad::mad:

BattleCorp

Fcukin CCTV everywhere.

The lengths I have to go to nowadays to cover my tracks. :mad::mad::mad:

Stacksofwacks

It sucks being a loner weirdo these days

scooby77

Interesting thread, surprised though little reference to a possible, and more recent, Irish serial killer who has evaded capture and conviction (at least for murder).

BattleCorp

Stacksofwacks wrote: »

It sucks being a loner weirdo these days

Murder eases the pain.

Marcusm

badabing106 wrote: »

All the most deranged and notorious serial killers did their killing in the 70s and 80s

Gacy, kemper, Bundy, Chikatilo, Ramirez, Pedro Lopez, Koll

And why did this trend stop? Does this stuff still happen but doesn't make same kind of headlines because of the internet?

Lead in petrol and then they stopped it.

Pauliedragon

badabing106 wrote: »

All the most deranged and notorious serial killers did their killing in the 70s and 80s

Gacy, kemper, Bundy, Chikatilo, Ramirez, Pedro Lopez, Koll

And why did this trend stop? Does this stuff still happen but doesn't make same kind of headlines because of the internet?

boards.ie didn't exist then. We all spend our time now sitting alone behind a screen too lazy to hunt for the next kill.

Stacksofwacks

Anytime I watched this Bundy interview I'm just amazed..such an incredibly articulate man, with that combination of intellect and charisma he had he could have been anything he wanted but he chose the dark side. Shame

Ipso

Supposed to be a lot in Russia, too. But it didn’t go well with their perfect society so it was coveeed up.

kyote00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Popkov

Ipso wrote: »

Supposed to be a lot in Russia, too. But it didn’t go well with their perfect society so it was coveeed up.

Nesta99

scooby77 wrote: »

Interesting thread, surprised though little reference to a possible, and more recent, Irish serial killer who has evaded capture and conviction (at least for murder).

Yes, and happened to be working in the vicinity durin the days of one of the most high profile cases of missing persons. Served damn all time really and has lived and roamed freely in the UK and Holland.

fryup

Stacksofwacks wrote: »

because crimes are harder to commit these days. You can hardly fart these days without someone knowing or a twitter army on your case

is farting a crime?? if so i'm a serial offender

L1011

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Sex crime against strangers was virtually unheard of before the 1960s due to harsh conditions in America meaning your day was spent toiling hard day and night just to have enough money to eat and get a roof over your head. The swinging 60s roared in and sexual attitudes relaxed considerably. The family unit was also more stable before this so that any sex could be obtained freely from your partner. After the 1960s, people wanted more, they wanted to kill for sex and hence the serial killing increased.
Combine this with an enormous geography across multiple states and terrains where anyone could literally vanish and assume any name they wanted (remember, this was way before internet and CCTV) and it was a perfect storm.

This is an incredible stack of gibberish. I'm actually surprised there's full stops in it, albeit its clearly missing some paragraph breaks.

thomasm

According to the FBI there are 85,000 active open cases related to missing children. This makes you think there are serial killers/abductors operating in the mix of this that they are not aware of when you strip away family related issues and runaways

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/2018-ncic-missing-person-and-unidentified-person-statistics.pdf/view

Unknown Soldier

Marcusm wrote: »

Lead in petrol and then they stopped it.

I read this "somewhere" recently. They reckoned that Lead in petrol/fumes was behind a lot of the violence/lunatic behaviour back in ye day.