# Do Serial Killers ever just stop?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 1, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538 "2012-05-01T17:52:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Otara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otara)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/21 "2012-05-03T04:07:58Z")
Kemper reads to me as someone who gave himself in once he’d been identified.
Ie it wasnt so much a case of deciding to stop killing as he knew the game was over.
Otara
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### Author:  [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/22 "2012-05-03T04:31:14Z")
> [@JillGat](#):
>
> I lived in Santa Cruz when Kemper was killing people. He killed his grandparents when he was 15 and then later started killing again (also killed his mom and some of her friends, as well as a number of strangers). There were actually two different serial killers active at the same time in Santa Cruz then and it was really scary. Three years before that, a random, Charles Manson-type killer murdered Dr. Ohta and his family. He was everybody’s eye doctor and everyone knew his kids.
My uncle was a prominent local M.D. in Santa Cruz at that time. He was constantly, and I mean _constantly_ going on and on and on about the serial killings and the dangers of hitchhiking. He never let it drop. I wonder if he knew that eye doctor personally.
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### Author:  [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/23 "2012-05-03T10:43:00Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#):
>
> A lot of what serial killers do is sexual in nature. It seems to make sense that a drop in the libido due to age might be enough to make a serial killer stop.
There’s a Freudian theory that predicts the opposite. Eg if a serial killer gets sexual pleasure from killing and as they get older it may get harder and harder to get sexual pleasure from any normal activity while they still get sexual pleasure from killing.
Which is the problem with psychology in general, you can have two perfectly valid theories predicting opposite results.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/24 "2012-05-03T12:14:26Z")
> [@coremelt](#):
>
> There’s a Freudian theory that predicts the opposite. Eg if a serial killer gets sexual pleasure from killing and as they get older it may get harder and harder to get sexual pleasure from any normal activity while they still get sexual pleasure from killing.
>
> Which is the problem with psychology in general, you can have two perfectly valid theories predicting opposite results.
But in this case you only have one possible valid theory because the other one’s Freudian 🙂
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### Author:  [@Cicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cicero)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/25 "2012-05-03T12:41:02Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I think one of the suspects died and another was incarcerated shortly after the last known murder. So it’s possible that’s why those killings ended.
Care to elaborate? There were any number of suspects- quite a few were really out of left field.
To throw that statement into GQ doesn’t really help.
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### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/26 "2012-05-03T13:07:49Z")
> [@coremelt](#):
>
> There’s a Freudian theory that predicts the opposite. Eg if a serial killer gets sexual pleasure from killing and as they get older it may get harder and harder to get sexual pleasure from any normal activity while they still get sexual pleasure from killing.
In what way is that Freudian? Just because it refers to sex? It does not appeal to any of the controversial and distinctive concepts of Freudian theory: no superego, no Oedipus complex, nothing like that.
> [@coremelt](#):
>
> Which is the problem with psychology in general, you can have two perfectly valid theories predicting opposite results.
Assuming that you mean plausible rather than valid, you could say exactly the same thing about physics, or any other science. That is why scientists do experiments.
:rolleyes:And yes, psychologists do do experiments to test their theories. It might be impractical to an experiment about serial killer motivation in an ethical way, but that has nothing to do with the scientific status of psychology. If we do not know so much about psychology as we do about about physics, it is because the phenomena it studies are a lot more complicated.
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### Author:  [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/27 "2012-05-03T13:35:44Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> [Dennis Rader](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Rader#Arrest), the BTK killer, killed his last victim in 1991, but was not arrested until 2005. However, he did continue to send letters to the police and the media until 2005.
He stopped killing people, but not victimizing them. His job as a compliance officer for the city apparently was enough to satisfy him for a while.
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/28 "2012-05-03T13:59:23Z")
> [@Jormungandr](#):
>
> He stopped killing people, but not victimizing them. His job as a compliance officer for the city apparently was enough to satisfy him for a while.
Wow. 🙂
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/29 "2012-05-03T16:44:17Z")
> [@coremelt](#):
>
> There’s a Freudian theory that predicts the opposite. Eg if a serial killer gets sexual pleasure from killing and as they get older it may get harder and harder to get sexual pleasure from any normal activity while they still get sexual pleasure from killing.
>
> Which is the problem with psychology in general, you can have two perfectly valid theories predicting opposite results.
Funny. I had that thought about half formulated in my mind when reading about the sexual nature of some killings. You worded it much better.
Of course, we might be wrong. But you worded it well.
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### Author:  [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/30 "2012-05-03T17:33:37Z")
> [@JillGat](#):
>
> I always wondered why Rader (BTK)quit, as he seemed to be still really enamored by his secret killer side.
Probably took an arrow to the knee.
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### Author:  [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/31 "2012-05-03T18:08:00Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#):
>
> Yeah but I thought he didn’t start corresponding with the media until about 2004, so he was idle for about 14 years. In the interim, he joined a church and was appointed to its board, which is how he was eventually caught, because he stupidly used the church’s computer to create the messages he sent to the media, which they traced back to the church. And he was one of about 5 people that had access to the computer in question.
To be fair, he did ask the police first if they’d be able to trace him if he sent them a floppy disk. And those lying cops told him that sending a disk would be perfectly safe.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/32 "2012-05-03T18:28:27Z")
> [@Cicero](#):
>
> Care to elaborate? There were any number of suspects- quite a few were really out of left field.
>
> To throw that statement into GQ doesn’t really help.
I don’t understand your objection here. Anyway, I was referring to the fact that one famous suspect (Montague Druitt) killed himself a few weeks after the last “confirmed” Jack the Ripper murder, and ‘David Cohen’ was institutionalized around that time. So if either of them committed the murders, then they stopped because the killer died or was institutionalized.
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### Author:  [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2012, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/33 "2012-05-03T20:37:44Z")
Gary Ridgeway (The Green River Killer) killed most of his victims in the 80s and 90s. He was finally arrested in 2002 or 2003. I can’t remember exactly. He may not have stopped completely, but he definitely slowed down.
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### Author:  [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2012, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/34 "2012-05-04T13:42:26Z")
The Green River Killer got remarried, slowed and the stopped killing. There were 11 years between his last known victim and his arrest. He was arrested for attempting to pick up a prostitute a few weeks before his arrest so he may have been thinking about getting back into killing.
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### Author:  [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2012, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/35 "2012-05-14T20:00:06Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I don’t understand your objection here. Anyway, I was referring to the fact that one famous suspect (Montague Druitt) killed himself a few weeks after the last “confirmed” Jack the Ripper murder, and ‘David Cohen’ was institutionalized around that time. So if either of them committed the murders, then they stopped because the killer died or was institutionalized.
Add [Aaron Kosminski](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Kosminski)to that list.
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### Author:  [@thumpic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thumpic)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2012, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/36 "2012-05-14T20:12:35Z")
I did…
for now…
😃
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### Author:  [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2012, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/37 "2012-05-14T20:37:08Z")
> [@ftg](#):
>
> One of the problems with the unsolved cases like the Zodiac killer is we don’t know if they voluntarily stopped. Perhaps they died, were jailed for a very long time for another crime, or moved to someplace far enough away that their crimes in the new locale weren’t connected to the crimes in the old one.
>
> If with arrest, confession and conviction, things are not always simple. [The Boston Strangler](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_strangler) is a particularly muddied case. We have no idea if Albert DeSalvo committed most of the crimes. It’s possible that someone else let DeSalvo take the blame and the “real” strangler continued to commit crimes in Boston and possibly elsewhere.
I’ve often thought the ones that just “disappear” may have just decided to do something more careful. It can’t be that hard to murder people without anyone being able to link the deaths, if you really can pick random targets, change methods etc. I don’t know much about the psychology of serial killers but maybe some just “grow up” and find a way to satisfy their desire to kill without unnecessary risk.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/38 "2012-05-14T20:43:12Z")
> [@StusBlues](#):
>
> Add [Aaron Kosminski](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Kosminski)to that list.
I was thinking of him earlier, but as the link says, he was not institutionalized until several years later (1891) and may only be on the ever-growing roster of suspects because he was confused with another inmate (Cohen).
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### Author:  [@Dan\_Norder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dan_Norder)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2012, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/39 "2012-05-20T01:45:14Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I was thinking of him earlier, but as the link says, he was not institutionalized until several years later (1891) and may only be on the ever-growing roster of suspects because he was confused with another inmate (Cohen).
Kind of getting a little off topic here, but it’s actually more likely Cohen was confused with Kosminski. The last killing in the official police file of the Whitechapel murders did happen in 1891. Most people these days think of Mary Kelly in November of 1888 as the last Ripper murder, but which killings should be attributed to the same killer was and is still very much disputed.
The police officials who wrote about Ripper suspects didn’t seem to know much at all about them and confused the facts about their various lives together. The various facts listed about Kosminski actually combined information about Piser, Sadler and another lesser known suspect together into one imaginary character. Similarly, the description of Tumblety as a suspect in Littlechild’s letter is clearly talking about Druitt half the time instead.
But, back to the point. You can’t really use the Jack the Ripper murders as an argument for or against a serial killer just deciding to stop because we don’t know who the killer actually was (anyone who says they do is deluding themselves) or when the murders stopped.
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### Author:  [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)
#### Post date: [May 21, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-serial-killers-ever-just-stop/620538/40 "2012-05-21T15:28:22Z")
> [@puddleglum](#):
>
> The Green River Killer got remarried, slowed and the stopped killing. There were 11 years between his last known victim and his arrest. He was arrested for attempting to pick up a prostitute a few weeks before his arrest so he may have been thinking about getting back into killing.
Ridgway was convicted of 48 murders, and 43 of them took place in a span of about 18 months (1982-84). The average time between murders was about 8 days. Ridgeway says that his kill rate slowed after he got married. but in reality, what stopped him may have been the fact that the police identified him as a suspect. The police gave him a polygraph test and took hair and saliva samples.
After that, he committed three murders in four years, then one 8 years later.
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