According to the FBI, serial murder is a relatively rare event, comprising less than 1% of all homicides committed in a single year. Furthermore, contemporary serial killers are not prolific, with most killing fewer than five victims. Based on the media, especially film, one would think these numbers would be higher. In “Serial Murders and Their Victims,” E.W. Hickey reports that between 2000 and 2015, more than 500 movies with serial murder themes were produced in the United States alone. Hickey indicates that these films have perpetuated particular myths of the serial killer, including that they are exclusively male, Caucasian, psychotic or psychopathic, driven by lust, and using one weapon of choice to kill their victims.
Therefore, we decided that an intensive analysis of these serial killer films was necessary to determine if the portrayed serial killer possessed any characteristics that were compatible with their real-life counterpart. Our research, entitled The Cinematic Serial Killer Project, began in early 2020 and involved my supervising two forensic student co-leads; their responsibility was to monitor pairs of students who coded a number of films that had cinematic serial killers who were based on actual murderers, e.g., Aileen Wuornos in “Monster” (2003) and Ted Bundy in “Bundy” (2002). The students used a “Cinematic Serial Killer Survey- Revised Version (CSKS-R)” in their codings that was originally designed by myself and then modified with my forensic co-leads to assess more features of these murderers, such as their motives (e.g., sexual gratification, thrills, power, and/or financial gain), their methods (e.g., gun, knife, hands, and/or poison), and their victim types (whether strangers, acquaintances, or family members). To date, we have coded 68 films and have identified a number of correlations between the film killers and their real-life counterparts such as their gender (mainly male), age (between the ages of 25 and 44), motives (including enjoyment, sexual gratification and power), using a combination of weapons (including knife and hands), and choosing victims of either gender. However, some myths were still identified, such as their being mainly Caucasian and having higher victim body counts, i.e., more than five kills.
We are continuing the Cinematic Serial Killer Project into the future and hope to have 100 films coded in the next few years. Our research is intended not only to develop a film database on these murderers but also to disseminate the information collected from the database at our The Chicago School Online Forensic Bi-Annual Residencies and other organizations to better inform and educate The Chicago School students, faculty, and administrators as well as the public as to which serial killer characteristics are factual and which ones are fictitious in these films. We have already delivered the results of our CSK Project at four Forensic Virtual Residencies. In addition, I presented a Fever Talk on our research project to the Chicagoland Community in June 2020.
I would like to acknowledge the contributions that my forensic student co-leads and student coders (more than 100 to date) have made to the project and showcase how research conducted within the Online Forensic Department has truly become an interactive process involving both faculty and students.
Jim Iaccino, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Forensic Psychology Department at The Chicago School.