Ed Kemper definitely stands out, and not just for his imposing stature. Along with his high IQ, he seemed to have the highest degree of insight into how his own mind worked, compared to other infamous serial killers (as you’ve said, he recognized his victims were a proxy for his mother— which, isn’t unique in itself, as Bundy’s victims were proxies for the ex who’d dumped him— but the level of awareness seems rather rare). His interviews are probably the most fascinating to me (sidenote: that actor who played him in Mindhunter freaking nailed it, imo. His skill was a damn pleasure to watch). I agree that Kemper vibes as Ti-dom.
Yeah, Cameron Britton was pretty good. (He was also in Season 1 of The Umbrella Academy on Netflix, if you want to see him in something else.) It helps that he's a similar build but he also seems to have the right demeanor for the role too. (low key, matter of fact, quietly pleasant, etc.) Kemper had been considered a model prisoner both times he was incarcerated and often managed to wrangle positions of some responsibility because of his intelligence and demeanor, lol.
It’s always annoyed me that the media portrays serial killers as genius-tier masterminds. In reality, most of them range from “unremarkably average†to “about as brilliant as a clump of dryer lint.â€
I mean, take BTK, for instance.... he took decades to be caught, and he was painfully average in every way. And how he was caught was the icing atop his dumb-cake. Communicating with law enforcement via the newspaper: “Gee officers, you *SURE* sending you a floppy disk won’t be traceable?†Then he’s actually offended that LE lied to him about that.
Yeah, BTK was the other one that I thought of, that I had to reject as being smart. (I could have mentioned Dahmer, who was another of the rare smart ones along with Bundy.) He had seemed highly intelligent because of his early communications + his managing to just disappear without ever getting caught. Then when he was caught, it was rather shocking because he was mostly a mean and petty bully and not actually that smart at all on the IQ chart. A grumpy, old, surly man with a domination fetish. (Which actually makes sense if you revisit BTK's crimes. Should we have expected anything else? But there was a certain mystique about them.) I remember rolling my eyes when he got caught because he didn't realize the header information in word processer programs embeds the author of the document in it. What a dumb-ass. I mean, I guess he wouldn't know, he's of a generation that grew up without computers, but someone more adept would have picked up on that... I learned it just through using such programs, because my brain likes to understand a lot of context. It suggests he's only interested in learning the obvious.
Ridgway was actually way under normal IQ wise, as you note, and yeah it was more his victim selection pool + dumping locations that made him really hard to pinpoint.
Even with a higher degree of intelligence, as in Bundy’s case, the poor impulse control eventually gets ‘em in the end, it seems. I think, if Kemper hadn’t killed his mother & his mother’s friend/subsequently turned himself in, he likely never would have been caught. At least, not until forensic science caught up with any trace evidence potentially left on any of the victims’ recovered remains.
Yup. I do think it's a different ballgame nowadays based on our forensic approach and capabilities + the powers of computer networking. At this point, a criminal's goal is (1) not to leave trace evidence if at all possible or (2) make sure your DNA is never included in any widely used database. Even when they get DNA, it only matters if the criminal has submitted DNA for some reason to a wide network or if a family member (which has partial DNA matching to the criminal) has done so.
But I get why the media clings to that trope. It makes for more complex storytelling.
Yeah, it's not nearly as interesting to investigate a dim-witted or dull killer, unless it's a parody of some kind.
Yeah, I think the speed of communication plays a huge role in our collective perception that the these crimes are more prevalent than before. They’re not. The trees fall in the woods, regardless if anyone hears.
I think overall it's that way for many things, involving the news.
A lot of social groups people think are new (like trans) are not new at all, most people just were not exposed to the concepts before, but there's documented cases out there going back decades if you're a reader. Same thing for a lot of crimes and conflicts and social problems and whatever else -- it just seems new because people hadn't received the information in the past, now we can be crushed under a tidal wave of information shortly after any event around the world occurs.
I do wonder if spree killings (ie mass shootings & the like) have been steadily rising more, since it’s harder now to get away with leaving a trail of victims. But, I’m probably oversimplifying it, as motivations (particularly sexual components) and individual psych issues are huge factors in how this sort of thing manifests to begin with. There’s some overlap w/homicidal ideation, obviously, but everything else probably varies too much, now that I think about it...
Sure, it is complex, but your theory sounds fairly likely. Again, we are more liable to hear about shootings because our social fixation and the increased ease of getting guns capable of such things into the hands of nuts. But it's kinda like steady quiet damage (stabby rogues!) versus AOE burst damage (machine gun harry!), especially if the point is to make a splash.