I am constantly amazed at the incredulous remarks reported by the media whenever some savage killer is brought to justice. It's almost like history teaches us nothing. The same scenario played last year when Detroit police apprehended John Eric Armstrong for the murders of three Metro Detroit women. Armstrong's friends, family and associates professed total disbelief that he was capable of such atrocities. Now that he has been convicted of murder, it is slowly sinking in that we can hardly ever spot those capable of such terrible crimes.
Serial killers are part and parcel of American society.
They have been immortalized in books, on television and on the big screen. And still, despite our vast frames of reference, we seem to turn a blind eye to the threat serial killers pose. It was perhaps the most infamous serial killer, Ted Bundy, who gave us the following warning the night before he was executed in Florida in January 1989. It's not unlikely that you stood next to him in the grocery check-out line one day. They're human beings.