Word: ressler
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...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. "People are getting very morbidly involved in violence, especially violent sexual behavior," says criminologist Robert Ressler, who says he first coined the term serial killer 20 years ago when he worked in the FBI's behavioral-research branch. Americans now wallow in the horror and gore and take a guilty delight in killers' eluding capture. (Indeed, it is a chilling emulation of Gacy's reaction...
Some experts believe the number of serial killers is rising. "Going back to 1960, you had about 10,000 homicides a year in the U.S., and most of these were solved and very few of them represented multiple or serial killers," notes Ressler, now a forensic consultant in Spotsylvania, Virginia. "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...
...devices to gain the trust of victims, they are "failures at life," observes Birnes, "at every single level of their life." Experts blame the creation of serial killers on the breakdown of the family and physically and sexually abusive childhoods. Of the 36 serial killers he has studied, says Ressler, "most of them had single- parent homes, and those who didn't had dysfunctional families, cold and distant fathers, inadequate mothers. We are creating a poor environment for raising normal, adjusted young males...
...public fascination with serial killers, it may not create the monsters but it can drive them on. Berkowitz, notes Ressler, admitted that the biggest thrill of his life was seeing his letters printed in the papers during his murderous spree. "That actually encouraged him," says Ressler. Rolling admitted in a Gainesville court that one reason he committed the slayings was that he wanted to be a "superstar in crime." Says Florida prosecutor Rod Smith: "It's frightening if someone who craves attention can get so much by doing something so horrible. How many others out there with meaningless lives...
Back in the late 1950s, Stuart Ressler was one of the eager young scientists trying to crack the genetic code of the DNA molecule. In the mid-'80s, he works the night shift for a computer billing outfit in Brooklyn. What brought Ressler to this dead-end job? That is only one of the questions posed and answered by this demanding, dazzling novel. Also on display are two love stories, two intertwined narratives, vast erudition and a white-knuckled, suspense-filled investigation into the meaning of life...