Killer Among Us: Public Reactions to Serial Murder

by Joseph C Fisher

Overview

What effects does the presence of a serial killer have on the collective health of a community? What strategies do people adopt to manage the fear and anxiety that accompany news of a serial killer's predations? And why do citizens and the media respond as they do to serial killers, who usually account for only a small portion of the homicides in the communities in which they are active? Killer Among Us examines serial murder from this fresh perspective: an exploration of the ways people react when a killer is at large in their community. Drawing on 19th-century tabloid accounts of the predations of Jack the Ripper and on 20th-century media coverage of such villains as The Son of Sam and Jeffrey Dahmer, the author constructs vivid and provocative retellings of many of the most infamous cases of serial murder.

In 1973, teenage girls began disappearing from Folly Beach, a small town on a barrier island in South Carolina. Initially thought by police to be a spate of runaways, the real story emerged when a police officer on patrol heard a cry for help and found three girls bound and gagged in an abandoned beach cottage. Further investigation turned up bodies buried in the dunes nearby. The police reacted quickly and closed off the only bridge to the mainland, thereby trapping the townspeople with the certain knowledge that one among them was a serial killer. Everyone became a suspect, as neighbor turned against neighbor in an atmosphere of rapidly growing hysteria.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780990567806
Publisher:	Angler Publishing
Publication date:	01/07/2020
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.58(d)

About the Author

JOSEPH C. FISHER is President of InterData, Inc., a research firm specializing in advertising evaluation studies and marketing investment analysis. His previous books include Advertising, Alcohol Consumption and Abuse (Greenwood, 1993) and Advertising, Alcohol Consumption and Mortality (Greenwood, 1995). He is also the author of several works in criminology including a study of the relationship between the availability of firearms and homicide rates.

Table of Contents

Tables and Figures

Preface

1. Introduction

Richard Raymond Valenti

Folly Beach, South Carolina (1973–1974)

2. Serial Murder: Public Reactions

3. The Common Denominator

Albert Henry DeSalvo: The Boston Strangler

Boston, Massachusetts (1962–1964)

4. The Coed Killer and Clairvoyant

John Norman Collins

Ypsilanti, Michigan (1967-1969)

5. The Media and the Murderer

David Richard Berkowitz: The Son of Sam

New York, New York (1976–1977)

6. A House Divided

Wayne Bertram Williams

Atlanta, Georgia (1979–1981)

7. There All the Time

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer

Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1987-1991)

8. The Classic Case

Jack the Ripper

London, England (1888)

Epilogue

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

A semi-scientific study of modern serial killers.

Fisher, a market researcher and author of several books on crime, here addresses a host of American killers, as well as Jack the Ripper. Fisher discusses the infamous, like Jeffrey Dahmer, to good effect, and provides an interesting view of how nearly everyone involved in the case ended up suing each other; one victim's mother even sued Dahmer's parents for bad parenting. The chapter on Atlanta child killer Wayne Williams provides valid insights into his crime spree, which left at least 28 children dead. But Fisher, after the first chapter, seems to lose touch with his point, ostensibly to measure public outcry against the crime and how the community's response affects the killer. Most of the material, however, consists of gory synopses of the crimes, and the book is littered with graphic charts that little serve his purpose. In the chapter on Coed Killer John Norman Collins, Fisher reports, many victims went willingly with the killer despite enormous community pressure to avoid strangers. While Fisher reports this phenomenon, he does little to investigate it or to explain how the excitement of risk could so outweigh the promise of danger in towns under siege. More troubling is his invocation of self-styled psychic Peter Hurkos, who was called upon during investigations ranging from the Boston Strangler to the Coed Killer. Hurkos, long since discredited, is seen here as something of an affable buffoon who sometimes had the right answers, rather than as the last resort of desperate police investigators.

The idea of a scientific analysis of a community response to fear is an intriguing one, but this book provides little in the way of real analysis.

Kirkus Reviews