Recognition and Acknowledgment of Serial Murder

This chapter focuses on the recognition and acknowledgment of serial murder. It discusses the main factors that decide how investigators survive the psychological rigors of investigating serial murder cases. Investigation may, right from the outset, lag behind the ongoing events of the case, if the investigators are unaware that there have been previous victims of the same killer. This happened in the Ted Bundy cases in the Pacific Northwest in 1974. Two young women went missing from Lake Sammamish State Park in July. These cases were within the King County Sheriff's jurisdiction. In reality, a string of six disappearances and killings had already begun as early as January of that same year in Oregon and Washington prior to any involvement from the King County Sheriff's detectives, or at least before a positive connection had been made among any of the law enforcement agencies in the area. The inability of the officers to link murders or missing persons to the same offender is referred to as “linkage blindness”, which occurs when police administrators and investigators refuse to admit or do not know that a serial killer is operating.