We will soon provide a link to watch this talk through a video.
Mass killings are unusual events but devastating when they occur. Although the absolute risk of dying at the hands of such a killer are low, people stubbornly refuse statisticians’ earnest assurances of relative safety. This should not surprise us. Mass killings are, among many other things, a deliberate attempt to drive a wedge into the existing social order. That is why they are public, and why the killer seeks to maximise attention.
Ogas and Gaddam (2012) note “It turns out that killing people is an effective way to elicit the attention of many women: virtually every serial killer, including Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and David Berkowitz, has received love letters from large numbers of female fans” (p. 98).
Here, Rob King will report on two studies into spree killings in the USA.
