Forensic Profiling Time Line

Jean Exquirol founded Forensic Psychiatry in France

Alfred Packer guilty of killing five companions and cannibalizing them to survive a Colorado winter. Sentence commuted by the necessity of survival associated with the crime [Ref. 49, p. 295]

Herman Webster Mudgett killed 27 women and was considered America’s first serial killer [Ref. 50, p. 3]. Some might argue Packer was the first

The throat of Victoria Prostitute Polly Nichols was slashed in Buck’s Row on Bank Holiday. Serial murder became associated with Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders

Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler, murdered 13 women in and around Boston, Massachusetts. Left bodies with an elaborate bow tied in ligatures around their necks

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderers, hunted their victims in the Manchester area of England

John Collins drew motivation from Dostoevsky’s student murderer Raskolnikov who believed that some men have an absolute right to commit wicked criminal acts. He picked up female student hitchhikers

Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, attacked 20 women in Northern England, murdering 13. Imitated Jack, attacking prostitutes with a claw hammer or screwdriver

David Berkowitz. Known as the Son of Sam from a phrase in a letter taunting police. He sought couples in parked cars

Richard Trenton Chase, the Vampire Killer, was a chronic paranoid schizophrenic who believed that his blood supply was being dried up by aliens. He therefore reasoned that the only way he could stay alive was by drinking the blood of others. He engaged in postmortem evisceration, anthropophagy, and vampirism. Arrested based on a psychological profile and canvassing the neighborhood where the crimes were committed

Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, the serial killer pair known as “The Hillside Stranglers,” killed as many as 10 women [Ref. 49, p. 11]

Jeffrey Dahmer. Unlike other serial killers he did not own a car but traveled by taxi or public transit. He prayed on homosexual men he picked up at bars, brought them back to his apartment where they were drugged and strangled

Ted Bundy, Serial Killer, convicted for killing as many as 28 women [Ref. 49, p. 8]

Clifford Olson, a veteran con man, picked up victims from suburban shopping malls, arcades, and bus stops, luring them into his car with flashy business cards and promises of employment

Chicago Tylenol tampering

“Patterns of murders committed by one person, in large numbers with no apparent rhyme, reason, or motivation.” Title of hearing before the U.S. Senate, 98^th Congress, on the issue of serial murder; Patterns of Murders

Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, found guilty for attacking 33 people and murdering 15 of them [Ref. 49, p. 8]

Joel Rifkin murdered New York street prostitutes. He preferred women who reminded him of the high school girls he knew during the 1970s

Aileen Wuornos. She is incorrectly called the first female serial killer. She was one of the few serial killers to hunt her victims in a predatory manner. She was a prostitute who found her customers at truck stops from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico

John Wayne Gacy, executed for killing 33 young men and boys [Ref. 49, p. 9]