A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more
murders or
homicides in a short time, in multiple locations. The
U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a spree killing as "killings at two or more locations with almost no time break between murders".
Definition
According to the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
(FBI), the general definition of "spree killer" is a person (or more than one person) who commits two or more murders without a cooling-off period; the lack of a cooling-off period marks the difference between a spree killer and a
serial killer
A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A
*
*
*
* with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...
. 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". Serial killers commit clearly separate murders, happening at different times.
Mass murderers are defined by one incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders.
How to distinguish a spree killer from a mass murderer, or from a serial killer, is subject to considerable debate, and the terms are not consistently applied even within the academic literature. For example, ''The Encyclopedia of Crime and Punishment'' lists five different categories of spree killers and cites
Mark O. Barton as an example of the second one. He is also noted alongside mass murderers, such as
Patrick Sherrill, in the respective entry about mass murder. In ''The Anatomy Of Motive'',
John E. Douglas cites
Charles Starkweather
Charles Raymond Starkweather (November 24, 1938 – June 25, 1959) was an American spree killer who murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming between December 1957 and January 1958, when he was nineteen years old. He killed ten of his victi ...
and
Andrew Cunanan as examples of spree killers, while
Jack Levin
Jack Levin (born June 28, 1941) specializes in research on murder, prejudice and hate, sociology of aging and sociology of conflict at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. He has interviewed and corresponded with brutal killers, ...
calls Starkweather a mass murderer and Cunanan a serial killer.
In ''Controversial Issues in Criminology'', Fuller and Hickey write that "
e 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
Charles Joseph Whitman (June 24, 1941 – August 1, 1966) was an American mass murderer who became known as the "Texas Tower Sniper". On August 1, 1966, Whitman used knives to kill his mother and his wife in their respective homes, then went to ...
is mentioned in connection with mass murder and
Jeffrey Dahmer
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer (; May 21, 1960 – November 28, 1994), also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismemberment, dismembered seventeen men and boys ...
with serial killing.
In ''Serial Murder,'' Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes define spree murder as "the killing of three or more people within a 30-day period" and add that killing sprees are "usually accompanied by the commission of another felony." They cite
Charles Starkweather
Charles Raymond Starkweather (November 24, 1938 – June 25, 1959) was an American spree killer who murdered eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming between December 1957 and January 1958, when he was nineteen years old. He killed ten of his victi ...
and the
Beltway Snipers
The D.C. sniper attacks (also known as the Beltway sniper attacks) were a series of coordinated shootings that occurred during three weeks in October 2002 throughout the Washington metropolitan area, consisting of the District of Columbia, Mary ...
as examples of spree killers.
Ronald and Stephen Holmes define serial murder as "the killing of three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period between the killings." Under this definition, Andrew Cunanan would be categorized as a serial killer and not a spree killer.
Douglas wrote that the identity of a serial killer is generally unknown until they are caught, and a mass murderer's identity is learned only after they have committed the crime. The identity of the spree killer, on the other hand, usually becomes known by police while the spree is still in progress.
Another term, ''rampage killer'', has sometimes been used to describe spree killer.
''sfgate.com'' Jul. 18, 1997
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See also
* Active shooter
Active shooter or active killer describes the perpetrator of a type of mass murder marked by rapidity, scale, randomness, and often suicide. The United States Department of Homeland Security defines an ''active shooter'' as "an individual acti ...
* Going postal
''Going Postal'' is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the 33rd book in his '' Discworld'' series, released in the United Kingdom on 25 September 2004. Unlike most of Pratchett's Discworld novels, ''Going Postal'' is divided in ...
* List of rampage killers
A rampage killer has been defined as follows:
This list should contain, for each category, the first fifteen cases with at least one of the following features:
* Rampage killings with 6 or more dead
* Rampage killings with at least 4 peopl ...
* Mass shooting
There is a lack of consensus on how to define a mass shooting. Most terms define a minimum of three or four victims of gun violence (not including the shooter or in an inner city) in a short period of time, although an Australian study from 20 ...
* Massacre
A massacre is the killing of a large number of people or animals, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when per ...
* Running amok Amok syndrome is an aggressive dissociative behavioral pattern derived from Malaysia that led to the English phrase, running amok. The word derives from the Malay word , traditionally meaning "an episode of sudden mass assault against people or obj ...
* Thrill killing
A thrill kill is premeditated or random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement of the act. While there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders, such as identifying "thrill killing" as a type of "hedonistic mass killing", ac ...
References
Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Spree Killer
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Murder