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The so-called ‘Golden Age of Serial Killers’ lasted three decades, from 1970 to 2000. So what happened? Where did they all go? Here’s the answer most criminologists provide, but just to clarify: the theory has more nuance than I could fit into a minute. Criminologists generally agree most serial killers are born psychopaths—that’s key. Some of these people then grow up in violent, chaotic homes, often with fathers who were WW2 vets. This helps explain the 1970s spike, as post-war children reached adulthood. The numbers stayed high through the 80s and 90s as Vietnam and Cold War vets returned home. Many of them were also psychopaths, before the military began screening for it. Since then, we’ve had fewer large-scale wars with mass conscription, so there are fewer war-traumatised fathers and fewer vets desensitised to violence. Add to that the rise of DNA profiling, and the landscape has shifted dramatically.
