In recent news here in Austin, they’ve put out a warning about a “serial rapist.” Now, there are a few things about the story I have questions about (the fact that all three police sketches look nothing alike, for one), but here is the current run down.
1999-two (attempted) rapes
2002 - one attempted rape.
Now, is it just me, or for someone to be labeled a “serial rapist,” shouldn’t there be a bit more of a pattern than three (attempted) rapes over a three year period with a two year interval? I always took “serial” to mean very common reoccurrences with some sort of patern to them.
Like with murderers. If someone kills three people, no connection that can be told, are they a “serial murderer,” or a “multiple” murderer? What makes them “serial” as opposed to “multiple”?
I don’t know about rapists, but I believe the FBI definition of a serial killer requires at least two murders be committed, in a similar style or MO, and with an interval of time in between (so Columbine wouldn’t count as a serial killing, but a spree killing). Attempts don’t count, so if we use the same criteria for rape as for murder, the case in the OP technically wouldn’t be a serial anything.
I’m not certain about this, as my library of death and depravity is at home. Hopefully, I can give some more info later.
X done in a series would define a serial X’er. Sublight is correct in sayng that an interval between X’s would be required to distingusih a series of Xings from two Xings that occured essentially at once. So by the FBI definition, Speck’s killing of a number of women in a dormitory on one occasion constitutes a mass murder (not “parallel” killer, Jenericho), but Bundy’s killings spread over time (and distance) constitute serial murder.
I don’t think the FBI’s definition requires the same MO be used in killings to constitute serial murder. I am not up on murderers, but I would think there are at least a few who used different MO’s.
Wow, I just caught onto this a week ago myself. The local news idjits are calling a bank robber that the FBI is looking for a “serial bank robber”. Willie Sutton must be turning over in his grave.
I think it’s just adjective inflation. Like actors used to be “stars” then “superstars” etc.
IIRC, for it to be serial murder there must be at least three murders (or rapes, in your case) and must take place separately and with a period of ‘cooling down’ in between. For the it to constitute mass murder, at least four people must be slayed in one short interval of time at one location.
It seems to me that while the serial killer label has a definate definition, the label is applied to other crimes fairly indiscriminately to identify someone who commits the same crime more than once. IIRC from John Douglas’ book Anatomy of Motive(excellent book BTW), a serial killer is someone who commits murder repeatedly, with a definate MO and a “cool-down” period between attacks. this is in contrast to a “spree killer”(eg Andrew Cunnanan) who kills multiple people in seperate incidents, but does so without the cool - down period. This may seem like a spurious distinction, but it has proved fairly accurate in profiling two very different types of killers. The explaination is fairly involved, but basically there is a very different motive behind the crimes. The spree killer is killing to further their attempts to escape and elude the consequences of their initial crime. The serial killer is more motivated by the ritual violent-sexual* aspect of each individual crime.
*I don’t want to confuse this with the whole rapist portion. for Serial killers, the murders themselves have a psychological sexual component, even when the crime has no physical sexual act.
One other thing, there is one other crime that can follow the same psychosexual pattern as serial murder, Serial Arson. The connections are quite involved, and I don’t think I could come up with a good explanation without the book handy, but I’ll look it up again if anyone wants to know.