Editing Serial killer (section)

==Etymology and definition==
The English term and concept of ''serial killer'' are commonly attributed to former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] [[special agent]] [[Robert Ressler]], who used the term ''serial homicide'' in 1974 in a lecture at Police Staff College, in [[Bramshill]], [[Hampshire]], England.<ref>{{harvnb|Ressler|Schachtman|1993|p=29}}, {{harvnb|Schechter|2003|p=5}}</ref> Author [[Ann Rule]] postulates in her 2004 book ''Kiss Me, Kill Me'', that the English-language credit for coining the term goes to [[Los Angeles Police Department]] [[detective]] Pierce Brooks, who created the [[Violent Criminal Apprehension Program]] (ViCAP) system in 1985.{{sfn|Rule|2004|p=225}}

The German term and concept were coined by criminologist [[Ernst Gennat]], who described [[Peter Kürten]] as a ''{{lang|de|Serienmörder}}'' ('serial-murderer') in his article "{{lang|de|Die Düsseldorfer Sexualverbrechen}}" (1930).{{sfn|Gennat|1930|pp=7, 27–32, 49–54, 79–82}} In his book, ''[[Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters]]'' (2004), criminal justice historian [[Peter Vronsky]] notes that while Ressler might have coined the English term "serial homicide" within the law in 1974, the terms ''serial murder'' and ''serial murderer'' appear in [[John Brophy (writer)|John Brophy]]'s book ''The Meaning of Murder'' (1966).<ref name="=Vronsky"/> The Washington, D.C., newspaper ''[[The Washington Star|Evening Star]]'', in a 1967 review of the book:<ref>{{cite news |title=Review: ''The Meaning of Murder'' |work=[[The Washington Star|Evening Star]] |location=Washington, D.C. |date=May 30, 1967 |at=p. 12, col. 4 }}</ref>

{{blockquote|There is the mass murderer, or what he [Brophy] calls the "serial" killer, who may be actuated by greed, such as insurance, or retention or growth of power, like the [[House of Medici|Medicis]] of Renaissance Italy, or [[Henri Désiré Landru|Landru]], the "[[bluebeard]]" of the World War I period, who murdered numerous wives after taking their money.|author=|title=|source=}}

Vronsky states that the term ''serial killing'' first entered into broader American popular usage when published in ''[[The New York Times]]'' in early 1981, to describe Atlanta serial killer [[Wayne Williams]]. Subsequently, throughout the 1980s, the term was used again in the pages of ''The New York Times'', one of the major national news publications of the United States, on 233 occasions. By the end of the 1990s, the use of the term had increased to 2,514 instances in the paper.{{sfn|Vronsky|2013}}

When defining serial killers, researchers generally use "three or more murders" as the baseline,<ref name="Most common"/> considering it sufficient to provide a pattern without being overly restrictive.{{sfn|Petherick|2005|p=190}} Independent of the number of murders, they need to have been committed at different times, and are usually committed in different places.{{sfn|Flowers|2012|p=195}} The lack of a cooling-off period (a significant break between the murders) marks the difference between a [[spree killer]] and a serial killer. The category has, however, been found to be of no real value to law enforcement, because of definitional problems relating to the concept of a "cooling-off period."<ref name="fbi.gov" /> Cases of extended bouts of sequential killings over periods of weeks or months with no apparent "cooling off period" or "return to normality" have caused some experts to suggest a hybrid category of "spree-serial killer".<ref name="=Vronsky">{{harvnb|Vronsky|2004}}</ref>

In ''Controversial Issues in Criminology'', Fuller and Hickey write that "[t]he element of time involved between murderous acts is primary in the differentiation of serial, mass, and spree murderers", later elaborating that spree killers "will engage in the killing acts for days or weeks" while the "methods of murder and types of victims vary". [[Andrew Cunanan]] is given as an example of spree killing, while [[Charles Whitman]] is mentioned in connection with mass murder, and [[Jeffrey Dahmer]] with serial killing.<ref>Fuller, John R. & Hickey, Eric W.: [https://books.google.com/books?id=EnxHAAAAMAAJ ''Controversial Issues in Criminology'']; Allyn and Bacon, 1999. p. 36.</ref>

In 2005, the FBI hosted a multi-disciplinary symposium in San Antonio, Texas, which brought together 135 experts on serial murder from a variety of fields and specialties with the goal of identifying the commonalities of knowledge regarding serial murder. The group also settled on a definition of serial murder which FBI investigators widely accept as their standard: "The unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s) in separate events".<ref name="fbi.gov" /> Serial homicide researcher Enzo Yaksic found that the FBI was justified in lowering the victim threshold from three to two victims given that serial murderers from these groups share similar pathologies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yaksic |first=Enzo |date=2018-11-01 |title=The folly of counting bodies: Using regression to transgress the state of serial murder classification systems |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359178918300235 |journal=Aggression and Violent Behavior |volume=43 |pages=26–32 |doi=10.1016/j.avb.2018.08.007 |issn=1359-1789|url-access=subscription }}</ref>