Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

“Multiple murderers are not insane and they are very much products of their time. Far from being a randomly occurring freakish event, the arrival of the multiple murderer is dictated by specific stresses and alterations in the human community.” Elliott Leyton examines four instances of serial killing and two of mass murder to reach certain conclusions about the motivation of the ‘typical’ multiple murderer, should such a creature exist.

A closer look at the Boston Strangler and Son of Sam, among others, is distasteful but informative. As do others who carry out the “mission,” of murdering various harmless strangers or acquaintances, they typically show absolutely no remorse for their vile behavior, which they deem to be the successful accomplishment of a task. Society has not satisfied their ambitions — and they therefore have punished society.

This ugly phenomenon is more prevalent now than ever in the past. Elliott’s explanation of the underlying causes, dimly understood by the murderers themselves, is chillingly convincing. This is an interesting work, though necessarily depressing; badly expressed and ungrammatical at times, but readable by interested lay persons as readily as by specialists. Notes and references are included.