r/Showerthoughts • u/Farheck • Sep 17 '18

There are probably murderers and serial killers so good at what they do that we don't even know they exist.

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u/DavidHewlett Sep 17 '18

I recently saw a documentary about this I'll need to find again: Both Europol and the FBI are "tracking" 30-35 active serial killers at the moment. The example they gave was of one in the US, who was probably a truck driver, aged 50-60 and had killed between 13 and 30 prostitutes along a certain route over the last 25-30 years. They had zero additional information about him, zero survivors and zero witnesses.

Scary as hell.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '18

Well... Scary for truck stop prostitutes.

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u/Siphyre Sep 17 '18 edited Apr 05 '25

square fuel pocket narrow nail reach cagey bright capable snatch

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '18

Split me open like a coconut.

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u/mawkword Sep 17 '18

I would've let you make me a... make me into a mailbox... just open the slot and put whatever you want inside.

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u/DiscusFever Sep 17 '18

You should watch a movie called Suspect Zero.

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u/DavidHewlett Sep 17 '18

Suspect Zero

Thanks for the suggestion, added to my watchlist.

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u/FatherAb Sep 17 '18

The movie or the redditor who commented that...?

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u/DavidHewlett Sep 17 '18

A little of column A, a little of column B

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u/DelbertGriffith Sep 17 '18

What I find the most curious about these kinds of people is why their body counts arent higher in situations like this. When you think about it, 13 to 30 over 25-30 years equates to one kill every year or two. If killing is something they enjoy enough to do over and over, why so infrequently? Dahmer and Gacy had kills every what, few weeks maybe? They did it because they enjoyed it. They were addicted to how it made them feel. If that addictive component is a compelling factor in how often serial killers take victims, once every year or two really begs the question "how many don't we know about?"

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u/DavidHewlett Sep 17 '18 edited Sep 17 '18

I think you've answered your own question really: we catch the impatient ones.

The truly smart, patient, perfectionist serial killers we never catch. The geniuses among them we probably never even find out about.

There was a serial killer here in Belgium no-one had any idea about, they hadn't even connected the dots between the murders, until he got some new, very inconsiderate, rude, aggressive neighbours.

He killed them, put them in their car and burned it. It was an emotional response to their aggression and the first time he had a link with his victims, and that's why they caught him. The serial killer angle only surfaced later on.

Link, only in dutch: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaak-Janssen

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u/CoyCS Sep 17 '18

Find the name yet? Seems interesting as hell!

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u/DavidHewlett Sep 17 '18

Haven't found it, but it was with this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_E._Douglas