Why do serial murderers stop killing?

[Fuzzy_wuzzy]

@Kobal2

Why does anybody stop doing anything they really enjoy(ed) ? One gets bored. Maybe they move on to advanced self-mutilation, or necrophilia, or law school. But I repeat myself.

Zodiac also abruptly stopped. Jack the Ripper too.
That’s for the really famous ones, I’m sure plenty flew under the radar (because making bodies disappear is really not *that *hard particularly if one lives near the coast, and there are hundreds of people who just up and vanish without a trace every year in the US alone). Possibly some “landed” under the radar as well.

Consensual sex ? With his WIFE ? That *bastard *!

I think the Dennis Rader case may have forced behavioural scentists to re-think some of their previous assumptions on serial killers. Though I have relatively little faith in the FBI profilers and behavioural scientists. As for Jack the Ripper and Zodiacit is not known why they stopped. Or indeed if they did stop. Both may have died; imprisoned for a different crime; or, perhaps (less likely) they changed MO.

[smithsb]

@Fuzzy_wuzzy

I think the Dennis Rader case may have forced behavioural scentists to re-think some of their previous assumptions on serial killers. Though I have relatively little faith in the FBI profilers and behavioural scientists. As for Jack the Ripper and Zodiacit is not known why they stopped. Or indeed if they did stop. Both may have died; imprisoned for a different crime; or, perhaps (less likely) they changed MO.

I’d like to think they caught the plague, got run over by a horse and carriage, or a taxi cab. A mundane twist to their life of murder/danger/excitement/intrigue.

[robert_columbia]

@Tapioca_Dextrin

There could be all kinds of reasons. The most obvious one being suicide. It’s possible that the killer had a hit list, did the business and simply stopped. Mission accomplished, if you will. Victim fights back and either kills the killer or gives him a big enough fright to make him stop. Checked into an mental institution. I’m sure there are many more…

Good point. Maybe the serial killer is doing 20-life for an armed robbery, but we don’t know it because we haven’t been able to link the murders to him yet. Or maybe he died in a car wreck. Maybe he gave up his killing ways and settled down to teach third grade in rural Tennessee. We just don’t know - because the killer was never identified, we can’t track what happened to him.

Have there been any serial killers identified a long time after the last known crime? Was any investigation done as to what they had done with their life in the intervening years (e.g. commit more crimes that were not reported, backpack around China, finish a degree at Florida State, whatever)?

[Measure_for_Measure]

@robert_columbia

Have there been any serial killers identified a long time after the last known crime? Was any investigation done as to what they had done with their life in the intervening years (e.g. commit more crimes that were not reported, backpack around China, finish a degree at Florida State, whatever)?

Yes. Yes. Three examples are in post 55.

I don’t know how prevalent stopping without arrest is among serial killers though.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Horatio_Hellpop

I’m not current on my Ripperology, but I understand the best theory is that his four victims were involved in different degrees in a scheme to blackmail Prince Albert Victor.

Apparently that hypothesis has been debunked. Casebook is the go-to website for Ripperology:

Intro page: Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Introduction to the Case
FAQ page: Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Frequently Asked Questions
From the FAQs, the debunking: Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Frequently Asked Questions

@Casebook

One of the most popular books ever written on the Ripper crimes was Stephen Knight’s Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution. It has gone through several editions, and is still in print today – even though the basic premise of the book has been thoroughly invalidated by modern research. Knight suggested that the Ripper murders were part of a Freemasonic plot to intimidate and eliminate a group of East End women who were intent on blackmailing Prince Eddy, grandson of Queen Victoria and heir apparent to the throne. …the Queen’s physician, Sir William Gull, hatched a plot…

Of course, not a word of this is true.

Prince Eddy was in all likelihood a homosexual, who would have had little interest in marrying a Catholic girl. Sir William Gull, on the other hand, was 72 at the time and had recently suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed down one side of his body. There is no evidence to suggest a royal marriage, let alone a child, nor do the mutilations performed by the Ripper adhere to any specific Freemasonic “code”.

In all likelihood, there was no Royal conspiracy involved in the Jack the Ripper murders.

IANARipperologist: I’ve only read the intro and part of the FAQs.

[EdwinAmi]

an even creepier question is: isn’t it possible that there is a serial killer out there who has been killing for decades, but not with any particular method or pattern, so they just haven’t realized it!?

DUN DUN DUHHHHHH!!!