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Speaker 1: in Cider to hear these programs and many more truly

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Speaker 1: thought provoking shows from Coast to Coast. Now here's a

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Speaker 1: highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeart Radio and

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Speaker 1: welcome to Coast to Coast. Let me tell you about

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Speaker 1: the Peter Vronsky. He's an author, filmmaker, investigative historian. He's

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Speaker 1: the author of a couple of books on the history

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Speaker 1: and psychology of serial homicides. He began writing about serial

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Speaker 1: killers after he had brief random encounters with two different

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Speaker 1: serial killers before they were apprehended. When in New York

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Speaker 1: City back in ninth the other in Moscow in moscow

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Speaker 1: In has a PhD in history from the University of Toronto.

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Speaker 1: His book is called Sons of Kine, A History of

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Speaker 1: serial Killers from the Stone Age to the President. Peter,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the program, looking forward to this. Hi, George,

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Speaker 1: thanks for having me in my pleasure. That statistic that

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Speaker 1: I read about the FBI saying that at any given

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Speaker 1: time there might be twenty five to fifty serial killers

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Speaker 1: roaming just throughout the United States. So you think that's

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Speaker 1: pretty accurate, Um, you don't. We don't really know. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a good guess. Uh, probably towards the lower end,

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Speaker 1: you know, towards the twenties, because in general, there's been

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Speaker 1: a decline in in ordinary homicides and in serial homicides

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Speaker 1: as well in the last uh, you know, fifteen eighteen years.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, at least twenty five. I would estimate if

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Speaker 1: there's a decline, what would cause the decline? That's the mystery.

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Speaker 1: If we only knew the right, we would race some

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Speaker 1: more of that stuff. Whatever it is. We don't know.

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Speaker 1: But you know, crying tends to happen in in waves.

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Speaker 1: You have surges, you have peaks and and and valleys. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, you may know, Stephen, in in cities you

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Speaker 1: have sometimes clusters of of of of shootings. Um. And

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Speaker 1: we don't understand why these clusters occur, but they do,

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Speaker 1: they sure do, they sure do. Indeed, with with the

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Speaker 1: serial killer, I've always believed, Peter, that they are created

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Speaker 1: almost at birth, possibly by their parents doing horrendous things

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Speaker 1: to them. What do you think, Um, I think that's

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Speaker 1: part of the formula. Um, it's probably, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: all sorts of it. Can you know it's not necessarily parents.

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Speaker 1: It could be the neighbor, It could be fellow kids. Um.

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Speaker 1: But you know that horrible thing, the trauma. Indeed it it.

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Speaker 1: We believe it happens very early in childhood that some

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Speaker 1: serial killers are formed in their um fantasies and in

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Speaker 1: their angers and hurts as early as five years old.

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Speaker 1: Are they Are they born or created? Well, it's probably

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Speaker 1: a little bit of both. Um. And you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: arguing in my book Sons of Cain that we're all

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Speaker 1: sons of Caine. We're born with this capacity for serial

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Speaker 1: violence because you know, in the uncivilized world, out in

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Speaker 1: the jungle or in the cave where most of the

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Speaker 1: time human beings in their history have spent um. We

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Speaker 1: had to be serial killers. UM. If we weren't, if

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Speaker 1: we didn't have that capacity, we'd be dead ourselves very quickly.

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Speaker 1: So our entire species is capable of this kind of violence.

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Speaker 1: And so I argue that all those things you described

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Speaker 1: the opposite, right, good parenting, a stable family, uh, happy environment,

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Speaker 1: UM unmakes most of us as these born serial killers

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Speaker 1: we are, we become civilized, we learned how to inhibit

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Speaker 1: are violent um impulses. That's not the case for this

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Speaker 1: small minority of human beings that becomes serial killers. So

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Speaker 1: you know, it's we're we're essentially the majority of us

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Speaker 1: are unmade. When what remains are the serial killers? I'm

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Speaker 1: familiar with just a few serial killers of modern times,

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Speaker 1: of course, John Way, gay Cy, Jeffrey Dalmer, Ted Bundy,

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Speaker 1: Ed Geen. I mean, there seems to be a lot

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Speaker 1: of them in the same time period exactly. It's what

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Speaker 1: you know, some historians of true crime are are calling,

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Speaker 1: you know, the golden age of serial killers, UM, where

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Speaker 1: you had these kind of almost um superstar celebrities that

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Speaker 1: we all knew just the way you know, you had

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Speaker 1: rattled off their names, the Ted Bundy's, UM, you know,

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Speaker 1: Richard Ramirez is and they all seem to come from

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Speaker 1: this three decade period between seventy UM and uh. UM.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, when when you look at the twentieth

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Speaker 1: century and all the serial killers in it, um over

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Speaker 1: appear in this three decade period between seven in nineties.

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Speaker 1: Something must have happened during that time period. It's this

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Speaker 1: huge surge. Um. You know there were in that period,

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Speaker 1: there were sometimes up to as many as um you know,

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Speaker 1: three hundred, three hundred and fifty new serial killers every decade.

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Speaker 1: Most serial killers are white males, right, that's a myth, um.

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Speaker 1: It's by now statistically it's almost fifty fifty white males

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Speaker 1: UM and UH African Americans Asians, um make up the

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Speaker 1: other half. Okay, And what about sex? Does do we do?

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Speaker 1: We ever have female serial killers? One in six serial

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Speaker 1: killers an extraordinary around six are women. Just don't realize

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Speaker 1: that we don't. They kill in a different way. That's why, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, they're called the quiet killers. So so often

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Speaker 1: we have to think twice before we recognize a female

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Speaker 1: serial killer. The motivation Peter generally of a serial killer

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Speaker 1: is what are they looking for the same kind of victim?

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Speaker 1: And then what's that motivation. Well, the motivation we think

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Speaker 1: for female serial killers and male serial killers is mostly

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Speaker 1: about control, control over the victim, control over themselves, control

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Speaker 1: over the trauma that they're trying to fantasize their way

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Speaker 1: out of. But it's about control. Do they actually enjuy

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Speaker 1: the killing? Not all serial killers, um, you know, for

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Speaker 1: some serial killers, it's not about the killing at all.

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Speaker 1: It's um. You know. They may want to harvest your

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Speaker 1: liver or your skin or some body part UM. They

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Speaker 1: may want to um use you as a sexual object

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Speaker 1: in a way that um embarrasses them, and they preferred

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Speaker 1: that you were dead. And and they see it as

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Speaker 1: a chore. It's something that they don't necessarily want to

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Speaker 1: be doing, but have to to arrive at that one

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Speaker 1: thing they need, you know. Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, UM,

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Speaker 1: Jeffrey draw Damer wanted to have a body close to him,

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Speaker 1: a person like somebody he had total control over, like

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Speaker 1: a zombie sex doll, and and so UM to avoid killing.

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Speaker 1: One of the things he tried to do this he

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Speaker 1: tried to inject battery acid into the brain of one

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Speaker 1: of his victims. And and and the intention was to

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Speaker 1: zombify him essentially, and of course you know that failed,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't work, ends up killing that person. Didn't he

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Speaker 1: have a victim escape his house or something like that.

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Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. You know. The controversy at that time, UM,

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Speaker 1: you know was that that um a police patrol returned

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Speaker 1: him back to Jeffrey Dahmer thinking that it was a

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Speaker 1: gay lovers spat ah. Unbelievable. Now do the serial killers

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Speaker 1: all kill the same sex? I mean, well, well, one

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Speaker 1: serial killer kill all men, another kill all women. They don't.

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Speaker 1: They don't mix and match, do they? Um, the majority don't.

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Speaker 1: I'm just you know, that's an interesting question. UM. You know,

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Speaker 1: depends on the motive, because if we're talking about lust

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Speaker 1: killers sexual um killers, then we're talking about of course

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Speaker 1: whatever sexual predulege, and they have kind of being focused

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Speaker 1: on that. But you know, you have, for example, the

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Speaker 1: case of the Zodiac killer who killed um, you know,

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Speaker 1: there were males as much as he killed females. UM.

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Speaker 1: It depends on you know, the class of serial killer,

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Speaker 1: because you have the sexual serial killers, but you also

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Speaker 1: have so called missionary serial killers that um are on

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Speaker 1: some mission to eliminate a certain kind the victim. For example, um,

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Speaker 1: serial killers who focus on homeless people. Uh and and

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Speaker 1: it could be male or female. Right, that's interesting, that

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Speaker 1: is I mean that they have something against homeless people,

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Speaker 1: something was to happen. Yeah, absolutely, Um, they may uh

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Speaker 1: you know homeless people in general. Serial killers target those

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Speaker 1: people that are devalued by society in general because they

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Speaker 1: feel they won't be missed, that's part of it, but

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Speaker 1: partly because society encourages them to objectify these people as

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Speaker 1: being um, you know, uh, suitable for for death. So

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Speaker 1: we see um devalued victims like runaway kids, homeless, um

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Speaker 1: inner city or uh uh you know, a street prostitutes

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Speaker 1: and and and so forth. So so um, society discounts

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Speaker 1: these victims. I mean you can just see it. The

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Speaker 1: difference when say, a street prostitute in an inner city,

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Speaker 1: um ghetto, she's uh crack addicted, um and and is murdered. Um,

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Speaker 1: and a white child in a suburb is murdered. The

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Speaker 1: difference between what page that's going to appear in the

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Speaker 1: newspaper or in the television report is is is very evident. Oh,

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Speaker 1: it's the small child will get the headlines all the time.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely as well. The missing girl on campus, because those

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Speaker 1: are people we value more in our society than a

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Speaker 1: drug addicted, homeless prostitute. Peter. Are you called in by

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Speaker 1: law enforcement at all for any of these possibilities? Um? No,

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Speaker 1: you know, And I don't present myself as a forensic expert.

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Speaker 1: I'm a historian, um and and and so I I

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Speaker 1: look at you know, certainly, how law enforcement operates. I

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Speaker 1: look how these cases are investigate and investigated. Um and

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Speaker 1: I look as well as how psychiatrists have developed the

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Speaker 1: various psychopathologies and theories for why there are serial killers

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Speaker 1: and how they have occurred in the past. So that's

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Speaker 1: that's essentially my my my field. Um I'm, I'm. I

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Speaker 1: have not been called by law enforcement, but you know,

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Speaker 1: you never know. Listen to more Coast to Coast AM

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Speaker 1: every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go to

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