Some are drawn by the temptation to redeem lost souls. The more grotesque the deed, the greater the killer's appeal. In the panoply of murderers, Long Island landscaper Joel Rifkin, who goes on trial this month for the death of 17 young women, is just a garden-variety killer. The man-eating Dahmer is the pick of the crop. Americans now wallow in the horror and gore and take a guilty delight in killers' eluding capture.
Some experts believe the number of serial killers is rising.
Today we're running 25,000 homicides a year, and a significant number of those homicides are going unsolved. We're seeing a great increase in stranger killing and in many of these cases, the victims are falling to serial and multiple killers. Still, the notoriety these killers enjoy is out of proportion to their numbers. They kill to satisfy some inner psychological and sexual pressure, and they favor such killing methods as hanging, strangling or stabbing, which put them in intimate contact with their victim. That's why they keep totems.