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

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.

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.

Fcukin CCTV everywhere.

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

It sucks being a loner weirdo these days

Stacksofwacks wrote: »

It sucks being a loner weirdo these days

Murder eases the pain.

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.

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.

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.

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.

dmc17 wrote: »

No social media to keep them distracted

No social media but some of these guys courted newspapers, taunted police by letter or phone call, media at the time giving them nicknames and then they thrived on notoriety.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

That's an infuriating watch, we're seeing Ted Bundy through the lens of someone pushing an agenda re pornography. Bundy says at the start of the interview he'd not come to terms with being executed in a matter of hours, and this was, I think, an attempt to get leniency.



I've not seen the Netflix documentaries. And he does come across as articulate.

Ted consistently denied having anything to do with his murders during questioning and would instead talk about them in terms of "if a person was to kill that girl he would have done it like this.....".

It wasn't until he had exhausted all of his options and was scheduled for execution that he admitted to anything. He then lead the police to some bodies and also spoofed them with wild goose chases to buy time. They finally got fed up with this and executed him anyway.

He was a very odd human being. Even when he was caught he was pretty much unflappable and it was as if he always had the opinion that he was somehow going to get away with it all because he considered himself the smartest guy in any room.