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Hunting Humans: Rise of the Multiple Murderer
Pioneering anthropologist Elliott Leyton examines the psyche and motivations of his six original multiple-murderer subjects and now takes stock of how far we've come since then in our understanding of why people commit gruesome assaults on innocent strangers.
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First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Elliott Leyton
17 books16 followersElliott Leyton is a Canadian social-anthropologist, educator and author who is amongst the most widely consulted experts on serial homicide worldwide. He has also served as president of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association.
Leyton earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of British Columbia then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Toronto in 1972. During his ensuing career, he dedicated himself to the analysis and research of social ills such as juvenile delinquency and the psychology behind perpetrators of serial killings. Leyton's achieved level of expertise has led to his giving lectures at the College of Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa.
Professor Leyton has held faculty positions at Queen's University of Belfast in Ireland (where he is a research Fellow), and at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario; University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland; Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel; and at Memorial University of Newfoundland where he currently is Professor Emeritus of anthropology.
Leyton earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of British Columbia then went on to obtain his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Toronto in 1972. During his ensuing career, he dedicated himself to the analysis and research of social ills such as juvenile delinquency and the psychology behind perpetrators of serial killings. Leyton's achieved level of expertise has led to his giving lectures at the College of Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa.
Professor Leyton has held faculty positions at Queen's University of Belfast in Ireland (where he is a research Fellow), and at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario; University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland; Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel; and at Memorial University of Newfoundland where he currently is Professor Emeritus of anthropology.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
February 26, 2008
An interesting idea but one I cannot agree with. He chooses to look at people whose crimes fit his paradigm- with that kind of research I tihnk I could prove that Elvis was really Hitler's love child.
It got to the point where, truth be told, I skimmed the last 1/4 of the book. I just couldn't buy that serial killers and multiple murderers are simply a product of class oppression and alienation (I can buy the alienation as a factor bit but not in the light he presents). His theory is Marxist class revolt mixed with some Sarte & Camus for existentially modern angst.
I was slightly to majorily dissappointed in this but possibly b/c it didn't fit with my own opinions. That would be fine except the burden of proof to convince me to change my mind was found to be greatly lacking.
It got to the point where, truth be told, I skimmed the last 1/4 of the book. I just couldn't buy that serial killers and multiple murderers are simply a product of class oppression and alienation (I can buy the alienation as a factor bit but not in the light he presents). His theory is Marxist class revolt mixed with some Sarte & Camus for existentially modern angst.
I was slightly to majorily dissappointed in this but possibly b/c it didn't fit with my own opinions. That would be fine except the burden of proof to convince me to change my mind was found to be greatly lacking.
March 6, 2018
Took me longer then normal to finish reading Hunting humans. This is a perfect example as to why I prefer to read books about a specific case rather then a book about multple subjects. Never really giving a clear picture into the killers. The book is nothing more then looking at a case file and placing it into the author's framework. I thought this was suppose to be a study? Instead it's basically a critic watching a movie and reviewing it all within a idealogical context. I wanted more.
Some cases are reviewed literally within a couple paragraphs. I could of learned and understood each case better if I had read books on these cases. So in that sense it is good advertising. I was never into the case of Albert Desalvo, but after reading Hunting humans....seems like a pretty interesting case to look into.
One of my problems is the fact that it seems to dismiss the psychological factors and at one point even compares the genetic factors to the pseudo science of phrenology and the XYY hypothesis.
Or at least it doesn't make it clear. Which might explain why I've seen other reviews with contradictory statements about this. Which means he didn't make it clear and confused the issue with his readers.
Several times he says "a lot of people are abused." or he looks at cases where the killer wasn't abused and pretty much incites that as an example. His argument is pretty much "A lot of people are abused and don't grow up to be killers." and "not all killers came from abusive childhoods."
Then at the very end of the book he says these killers have issues that play into it, so he doesn't deny it, but he downplays it, and it took until the last few pages for him to even say this and what about all the stuff he said before where it seemed to downplay it and imply it's largely cultural?
Yet he never looks at the opposite extreme of that where killer's came from incredibly privileged families and developed a narcissistic personality. A combination of nurture and nature. A narcissistic personality that allows them to feel as though they are better then others and therefor can use and abuse others who are "lower then them." Instead he once again states the social and economic pressures. Not the fact that they were raised by narcissistic parents and there might be a biological component.
I also noticed that when he talked about Ted Bundy he never talked about his grandfather [who pretended to be his father.] who would abuse cats in front of him, abuse his daughters [Ted's aunt and mother.] verbally and even physically where he would toss them down the stairs if they stayed up to late. This was a violent man who Ted admired and saw as a role model. A real life role model.
It also never focuses on why Ted Bundy or any of the others specifically saw these hierarchy issues at such a young age and were very much effected by it and why they became serial killers as opposed to others. At one point he brings up lack of families or other facts, but many serial killers have families, have stuff to loose. Serial killers like John Wayne Gacy, Israel Keyes, Robin Gecht, etc had successful businesses.
Also I felt like saying "A lot of people feel isolated and disenfranchised, and yet don't become a serial killer or go on a shooting spree." Instead they kill them selves, become a nazi or a social justice warrior, fundamentalist religious person, or something else less harmful as killing people.
Only really near the end does he implore other factors without ever really explaining it.
At one point it also seems to dismiss the idea that one part of insecurity is the killer's size. For instance, it states that Mark Essex was a small man and several psychologist and so forth pointed this out as a possible factor, In that he was insecure about his height. The author totally dismisses this. I don't know if Essex's small frame bothered him and played a role in him possibly having a flawed image of him self, which played into his fantasy of wanting to be a "revolutionary." going after Whites and "pigs." but with many serial killers and mass murderers stuff like this along with speech disabilities, weight, and so forth do play some role. This is more then just cultural economics, but also simply how you feel about your self. Which is innate.
The book near the end goes into the pre industrial age and Leyton is right in a lot of ways, but misses a lot of points.
He claims that the only serial killers were wealthy aristocrats [cites Bathory and Rais.] and the others killed for profit.
Yet Peter Stumpp was brutally killing young peasant girls and leaving their dismembered body parts around Germany. He was a simple farmer. He wasn't the only one either who was a simple peasant who committed atrocious crimes.
I also have a problem with this because they were the ones that were documented.
Murder would of been incredibly hard to link. It wouldn't be until the 18th century France that the first serial killer profile was made. So when I say "documented" I mean documented. I am willing to bet there were multiple serial killers around this time who were just never ever caught or had their murders linked.
Of course the elite who did atrocious acts and were caught would be heavily documented while peasants weren't.
Also, this was a time during a lot of cruelty. Knights would invade villages after a war. They would kill, they would rape, steal, etc. So those who would of probably become serial killers would of found a legalized form in the army.
Also they had other problems to worry about. Constant bloody war and the plague which killed a large portion of them. War is another reason for my case of "documented." because in some of these wars documents were lost to history. So theres no telling how many cases of serial murder were in fact discovered but lost to history due to war.
The best part of the book is when he talks near the end about the industrialization but never really goes into detail and doesn't look at it fully.
Many serial killers in California during the 70s loved to use the freeway. Same in the 80s and the reason was because it made it easier to pick up strangers and to get away. The invention of the car and the highway as well. So while it mentions the expansion of the US and so forth he doesn't really go into it.
In the beginning the author dismisses serial killer's intelligence. He absurdly compares the absolutely laughable Hannibal Lector to other serial killers to make his point. Very much like a movie critic criticizing a gory and violent 80s movie with a 1930s movie. Using an extreme example.
He then states the truth is that the ONLY reason why serial killers are able to get away with it for so long and kill so many because they attack strangers. This is one reason, but another reason is because they attack what are referred to as the "less dead." Meaning they are less valued by society. Albert Fish said he liked to target black children to torture and abuse because of racist cops who wouldn't dedicate any time to try and catch him. Another serial killer referred to poor children as "throw away kids." Prostitutes are a popular target for this reason. Instead Leyton describes this as simply the middle class killers going after the lower class. Serial killers are normally described as "in the bright range." typically. The only people who see serial killers as all brilliant masterminds who are larger then life are people in hollywood and people who believe in an absurd exaggeration portrayed in fiction. It's unfair to compare real life serial killers to a gross exaggeration as Hannibal Lector. No serious person is saying they are as accomplished and larger then life as Lector. James Fox who Leyton cites in this very book says serial killers tend to be "cunning" others would say "street smart." and of course that doesn't mean highly intelligent. So I would argue that this is a straw man or he's speaking to the poorly misinformed who think they know everything about serial killers because they watched too much CSI.
The biggest problem I have is the fact that it contradicts our state right now.
It was first published in the 80s and the revised version was 2003. Since 1994 the crime rate in the U.S. has gone down and the serial murder rate has also gone down. Mass murder/shootings are the same, although it really got worse during the 80s due to Reagan economics and all that came with it.
I highly recommend Steven Pinker who wrote The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
If everything Leyton said was correct. Wouldn't the opposite be true? Wouldn't it be worse or just about the same as before?
A lot of what he says is correct, but doesn't go deep enough, too dismissive, and or doesn't explain all of it. He also doesn't really qualify his statements. Now because I am a true crime fanatic who studies several cases like Leyton does....I know what he is referring to when he talks about "freedom" gave way to multiple murder rising. So you could argue that for a layman who hasn't thought this through, it's not as insightful as it could be.
It mentions that a few of the killers were "paranoid" and he mentions the word "psychopath." but never goes into it. He says that they kill for "trivial reasons." He never mentions schizotypal personality disorder, he never talks about paranoid personality disorder. Instead he blames the paranoia on pure cultural factors. Both of them have shown to have to be probably linked to relatives who had schizophrenia. Which suggests that theres a biological factor.
I must also point out a problem I have with a case he mentions a few times but never actually goes into it. He mentions James Huberty who shot and killed 21 people at a Mcdonald's in 1984. He claims several times it was a racist attack because -
1.He was racist against mexicans.
2.The majority killed were mexicans.
It's one of my all time favorite cases and I've researched it extensively.
It deserves a lot more then "he hated mexicans, he killed mexicans. It was a racist attack. Lost his job. That's all you need to know." which is all Leyton really explains.
James Huberty's attack was not racist. I base this on several reasons.
1.He hated everyone. His neighbor said the Huberty's "seemed to be against the world a lot of the time and against people."
2.He moved with his family to Mexico because he hated the United states.
3.Mexicans just became another segment of society to be put on his "hate list." for rejecting him.
4.He told his wife "Society had it's chance" and "I'm going hunting for humans." If he was gonna target specifically mexicans, then he would of said mexicans.
5.He went to the Mcdonald's several times and knew when it would be packed, and it was in full view of his apartment he shared with his family.
6.He shot anyone, including white people.
7.It was a largely hispanic neighborhood. Which would explain why the majority of the victims were mexicans. In fact it's one of the top cities in the U.S with the largest hispanic population. Reminds me of psychics saying "oh he was polish" or he was "cuban" and when you look at the area it has a very large cuban or polish population. So the psychic is obviously just betting more then 50/50 it's gonna be a cuban or polish person.
8.He had a lot of trouble with his neighbors and many of them were white. Made threats towards his neighbors.
9.He had been and felt alienated all of his life. Since childhood.
10.He wanted to do it before moving to San Ysidro. Before he was fired he told a coworker "if this is the end of me making a living with my family, I'm going to take everyone down with me." this was in Ohio. He later attempted suicide. Then once in California surrounded by hispanics he falsely confessed to a made up crime to get him self thrown into prison and then called a mental help hotline. All last attempts to stop him self. He was fired a week before the massacre. The final straw.
Huberty hated everyone and his attack was a statement and revenge against a society that alienated him since childhood and destroyed any happiness he did and could achieve and this included Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Both white men. In fact Huberty believed Ronald Reagan was in a conspiracy against him along with the rest of American society. This is why he left the U.S and moved to Mexico for a short time. Huberty also saw no future because it was 1984 at the height of the cold war. It's clear he had added anxiety about the nuclear threat. He was obsessed with survivalism. His wife gave him one last chance to try and build a future again [told him their money came back from selling their home and maybe they could buy their own business to bounce back up.] and he rejected it. He most probably saw it as just another probable disappointment and was sick of it all. He had enough.
Huberty's attack was not like Marc Lepine who went into a college and killed 14 women. He divided the men and women in one room and said "I hate feminist" before shooting and executing them. He blamed women for him failing to get a degree at that school. As another expert said condescendingly "they were taking man's jobs away." Lepine blamed women for his failures. Leyton largely blamed Lepine's abusive misogynistic father. Never brings up the psychological issues Lepine was dealing with. Once again....too simplistic. Not the full story.
Huberty blamed society and over all white politicians who "controlled your government." as his wife said in an interview. Politicians who made economic decisions which resulted in Huberty losing a job he had for 14 years.
I must also point out that Huberty was paranoid and had a history of aggression since childhood. Where he would get into rages and attack people.
Leyton also at one point sounds like he is blaming movies and in fact does. Particularly action movies that portray strong "manly" men shooting people. He also mentions what is known as the Mean world syndrome but like everything else barely goes into it. That is my biggest problem....he mentions it but doesn't qualify what he is saying.
As Marilyn Manson said "The president was shooting bombs over seas, yet...I'm a bad guy because I sing a couple rock and roll songs and who is the bigger influence? The president or Marilyn Manson? I'd like to say me, but I'm gonna go with the president." same goes with the Mean world syndrome. Which was made into a movie where the researchers explain how this works. It isn't fantasy violence, it's the blurring of the lines between fiction and reality. Particularly the news and TV shows that show victimization.
The narrator who is also a researcher and best friends with Dr.George Gerbner who coined the term "mean world syndrom" explained that "it isn't enough to analyze individual TV programs or films, or video games. The entire media context is what matters. How one story or another blends into another." to enforce a specific worldview. They mention how in movies you have hispanic criminals. Which is all well and fine as far as I am concerned. but then you look at TV and as the narrator says "In the real world they don't fair any better." where hispanics are brought up obsessively over and over again within "the context of a single issue" and that is immigration. In the documentary they show America's most wanted's episode on the border patrol. I remember watching that episode when it first aired and it was obvious why. It was aired during the time where illegal immigration was a big issue and there was debate about wasting taxpayer's money to build a wall. I was in high school at the time and we had to do a report on our views on immigration. That is how serious of an issue it was. The documentary mentions that Hispanics are mentioned only 2% of the time in the news and yet are mentioned 70% in the Lou Dobb's news reports all within the context of illegal immigration.
We saw the same thing with the satanic panic. The exorcist just came out along with Rosemary's baby. You had metal and rock and roll bands using satanism to scare people as a gimmick....all of which is fine in my book, but then you had in the real world preachers trying to scare people claiming these things possessed evil spirits and were "witch craft" trying to enter your soul and bring you down to hell. You had posers who killed and mutilated animals because of the made up stories by preachers and this blended into fiction as well. You had the satanic child day care ritual abuse scare where day care workers were accused of raping children within a satanic cult all of which was found to be totally made up. Then you had isolated incidents like Richard Rimarez. You had talk shows talking about how 'satanism is on the rise." you had preachers looking at innocent toys and games and calling them 'satanic", you had fraudulent books like Michelle remembers and The satan seller, books about former "members of the satanic cult." The claims about Michelle were absurd and false, and the author of The satan seller was exposed as a fundamentalist christian fraud. All of this mixed together to form a narrative. The narrative being that there is a world wide satanic conspiracy where masses of children are being raped and sacrificed to satan. Scaring the hell out of America.
Is this really fiction's fault? No. I blame the mass media and all those preachers and pastors.
Does Elliot Leyton agree with me? I can't tell.....that's a problem.
I'm a child of the 90s and I saw the same thing with aliens and so forth.
Richard Dawkins back in the 90s blamed the awesome TV fictional show The X files for spreading pseudo science and conspiracy theory nonsense and so forth. Which is once again wrong and misses the big picture.
As I said I was a child of the 90s when The X files came out. You also had shows like Unsolved mysteries and In search of. All shows that reported to be factual and reinforcing the belief without any skepticism. In fact a famous skeptic investigator almost made it on the show but was quickly kicked off the show being told "our show is called UNSOLVED. We don't need anyone solving mysteries." He pretty much showed that the moth man was likely a Barn owl, not an alien creature. Instead the show dismissed his research and suggested it was an alien. Doing the whole "I'm just asking questions." pathetic excuse making. I also remember the news supporting this nonsense. They had a two hour news report about UFOs with barely ANY skeptic view. I forget which news station. Might of been MSNBC or Fox. You had the infamous alien autopsy being payed on national TV. All of this made me believe aliens and El Chupacabra existed. Not the X files. Even as a child I knew it was pure fiction clearly inspired and playing off those beliefs with their own spin on it, X files never pretended to be factual.
That is what the Mean world syndrome is describing and I don't blame fiction. I blame real life role models such as the U.S. army, our presidents, our citizens, etc. At the same time there is such a thing as fiction being made for propaganda purposes. I would suggest Rambo is not U.S. military propaganda. The exact opposite actually. Rambo gave him self up early in the film, the police shoot at him and make it escalate. At the end of the film his army commander tells him "it's over." Rambo begins crying because of PTSD from the war and an indifferent society. Not a pro war or "might makes right." movie. Stallone even compared Rambo to Frankenstein in interviews. I mention Rambo because Leyton cites Rambo in his blaming fictional media glorifying war and justifying violent retaliation.
Could of been written far better. A big disappointment. I wanted an in depth look into the matter.
I give it a 3 instead of a 2 because I think it's valuable for those who have never heard the sociological economical aspect of "multiple murder" before.
Some cases are reviewed literally within a couple paragraphs. I could of learned and understood each case better if I had read books on these cases. So in that sense it is good advertising. I was never into the case of Albert Desalvo, but after reading Hunting humans....seems like a pretty interesting case to look into.
One of my problems is the fact that it seems to dismiss the psychological factors and at one point even compares the genetic factors to the pseudo science of phrenology and the XYY hypothesis.
Or at least it doesn't make it clear. Which might explain why I've seen other reviews with contradictory statements about this. Which means he didn't make it clear and confused the issue with his readers.
Several times he says "a lot of people are abused." or he looks at cases where the killer wasn't abused and pretty much incites that as an example. His argument is pretty much "A lot of people are abused and don't grow up to be killers." and "not all killers came from abusive childhoods."
Then at the very end of the book he says these killers have issues that play into it, so he doesn't deny it, but he downplays it, and it took until the last few pages for him to even say this and what about all the stuff he said before where it seemed to downplay it and imply it's largely cultural?
Yet he never looks at the opposite extreme of that where killer's came from incredibly privileged families and developed a narcissistic personality. A combination of nurture and nature. A narcissistic personality that allows them to feel as though they are better then others and therefor can use and abuse others who are "lower then them." Instead he once again states the social and economic pressures. Not the fact that they were raised by narcissistic parents and there might be a biological component.
I also noticed that when he talked about Ted Bundy he never talked about his grandfather [who pretended to be his father.] who would abuse cats in front of him, abuse his daughters [Ted's aunt and mother.] verbally and even physically where he would toss them down the stairs if they stayed up to late. This was a violent man who Ted admired and saw as a role model. A real life role model.
It also never focuses on why Ted Bundy or any of the others specifically saw these hierarchy issues at such a young age and were very much effected by it and why they became serial killers as opposed to others. At one point he brings up lack of families or other facts, but many serial killers have families, have stuff to loose. Serial killers like John Wayne Gacy, Israel Keyes, Robin Gecht, etc had successful businesses.
Also I felt like saying "A lot of people feel isolated and disenfranchised, and yet don't become a serial killer or go on a shooting spree." Instead they kill them selves, become a nazi or a social justice warrior, fundamentalist religious person, or something else less harmful as killing people.
Only really near the end does he implore other factors without ever really explaining it.
At one point it also seems to dismiss the idea that one part of insecurity is the killer's size. For instance, it states that Mark Essex was a small man and several psychologist and so forth pointed this out as a possible factor, In that he was insecure about his height. The author totally dismisses this. I don't know if Essex's small frame bothered him and played a role in him possibly having a flawed image of him self, which played into his fantasy of wanting to be a "revolutionary." going after Whites and "pigs." but with many serial killers and mass murderers stuff like this along with speech disabilities, weight, and so forth do play some role. This is more then just cultural economics, but also simply how you feel about your self. Which is innate.
The book near the end goes into the pre industrial age and Leyton is right in a lot of ways, but misses a lot of points.
He claims that the only serial killers were wealthy aristocrats [cites Bathory and Rais.] and the others killed for profit.
Yet Peter Stumpp was brutally killing young peasant girls and leaving their dismembered body parts around Germany. He was a simple farmer. He wasn't the only one either who was a simple peasant who committed atrocious crimes.
I also have a problem with this because they were the ones that were documented.
Murder would of been incredibly hard to link. It wouldn't be until the 18th century France that the first serial killer profile was made. So when I say "documented" I mean documented. I am willing to bet there were multiple serial killers around this time who were just never ever caught or had their murders linked.
Of course the elite who did atrocious acts and were caught would be heavily documented while peasants weren't.
Also, this was a time during a lot of cruelty. Knights would invade villages after a war. They would kill, they would rape, steal, etc. So those who would of probably become serial killers would of found a legalized form in the army.
Also they had other problems to worry about. Constant bloody war and the plague which killed a large portion of them. War is another reason for my case of "documented." because in some of these wars documents were lost to history. So theres no telling how many cases of serial murder were in fact discovered but lost to history due to war.
The best part of the book is when he talks near the end about the industrialization but never really goes into detail and doesn't look at it fully.
Many serial killers in California during the 70s loved to use the freeway. Same in the 80s and the reason was because it made it easier to pick up strangers and to get away. The invention of the car and the highway as well. So while it mentions the expansion of the US and so forth he doesn't really go into it.
In the beginning the author dismisses serial killer's intelligence. He absurdly compares the absolutely laughable Hannibal Lector to other serial killers to make his point. Very much like a movie critic criticizing a gory and violent 80s movie with a 1930s movie. Using an extreme example.
He then states the truth is that the ONLY reason why serial killers are able to get away with it for so long and kill so many because they attack strangers. This is one reason, but another reason is because they attack what are referred to as the "less dead." Meaning they are less valued by society. Albert Fish said he liked to target black children to torture and abuse because of racist cops who wouldn't dedicate any time to try and catch him. Another serial killer referred to poor children as "throw away kids." Prostitutes are a popular target for this reason. Instead Leyton describes this as simply the middle class killers going after the lower class. Serial killers are normally described as "in the bright range." typically. The only people who see serial killers as all brilliant masterminds who are larger then life are people in hollywood and people who believe in an absurd exaggeration portrayed in fiction. It's unfair to compare real life serial killers to a gross exaggeration as Hannibal Lector. No serious person is saying they are as accomplished and larger then life as Lector. James Fox who Leyton cites in this very book says serial killers tend to be "cunning" others would say "street smart." and of course that doesn't mean highly intelligent. So I would argue that this is a straw man or he's speaking to the poorly misinformed who think they know everything about serial killers because they watched too much CSI.
The biggest problem I have is the fact that it contradicts our state right now.
It was first published in the 80s and the revised version was 2003. Since 1994 the crime rate in the U.S. has gone down and the serial murder rate has also gone down. Mass murder/shootings are the same, although it really got worse during the 80s due to Reagan economics and all that came with it.
I highly recommend Steven Pinker who wrote The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
If everything Leyton said was correct. Wouldn't the opposite be true? Wouldn't it be worse or just about the same as before?
A lot of what he says is correct, but doesn't go deep enough, too dismissive, and or doesn't explain all of it. He also doesn't really qualify his statements. Now because I am a true crime fanatic who studies several cases like Leyton does....I know what he is referring to when he talks about "freedom" gave way to multiple murder rising. So you could argue that for a layman who hasn't thought this through, it's not as insightful as it could be.
It mentions that a few of the killers were "paranoid" and he mentions the word "psychopath." but never goes into it. He says that they kill for "trivial reasons." He never mentions schizotypal personality disorder, he never talks about paranoid personality disorder. Instead he blames the paranoia on pure cultural factors. Both of them have shown to have to be probably linked to relatives who had schizophrenia. Which suggests that theres a biological factor.
I must also point out a problem I have with a case he mentions a few times but never actually goes into it. He mentions James Huberty who shot and killed 21 people at a Mcdonald's in 1984. He claims several times it was a racist attack because -
1.He was racist against mexicans.
2.The majority killed were mexicans.
It's one of my all time favorite cases and I've researched it extensively.
It deserves a lot more then "he hated mexicans, he killed mexicans. It was a racist attack. Lost his job. That's all you need to know." which is all Leyton really explains.
James Huberty's attack was not racist. I base this on several reasons.
1.He hated everyone. His neighbor said the Huberty's "seemed to be against the world a lot of the time and against people."
2.He moved with his family to Mexico because he hated the United states.
3.Mexicans just became another segment of society to be put on his "hate list." for rejecting him.
4.He told his wife "Society had it's chance" and "I'm going hunting for humans." If he was gonna target specifically mexicans, then he would of said mexicans.
5.He went to the Mcdonald's several times and knew when it would be packed, and it was in full view of his apartment he shared with his family.
6.He shot anyone, including white people.
7.It was a largely hispanic neighborhood. Which would explain why the majority of the victims were mexicans. In fact it's one of the top cities in the U.S with the largest hispanic population. Reminds me of psychics saying "oh he was polish" or he was "cuban" and when you look at the area it has a very large cuban or polish population. So the psychic is obviously just betting more then 50/50 it's gonna be a cuban or polish person.
8.He had a lot of trouble with his neighbors and many of them were white. Made threats towards his neighbors.
9.He had been and felt alienated all of his life. Since childhood.
10.He wanted to do it before moving to San Ysidro. Before he was fired he told a coworker "if this is the end of me making a living with my family, I'm going to take everyone down with me." this was in Ohio. He later attempted suicide. Then once in California surrounded by hispanics he falsely confessed to a made up crime to get him self thrown into prison and then called a mental help hotline. All last attempts to stop him self. He was fired a week before the massacre. The final straw.
Huberty hated everyone and his attack was a statement and revenge against a society that alienated him since childhood and destroyed any happiness he did and could achieve and this included Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Both white men. In fact Huberty believed Ronald Reagan was in a conspiracy against him along with the rest of American society. This is why he left the U.S and moved to Mexico for a short time. Huberty also saw no future because it was 1984 at the height of the cold war. It's clear he had added anxiety about the nuclear threat. He was obsessed with survivalism. His wife gave him one last chance to try and build a future again [told him their money came back from selling their home and maybe they could buy their own business to bounce back up.] and he rejected it. He most probably saw it as just another probable disappointment and was sick of it all. He had enough.
Huberty's attack was not like Marc Lepine who went into a college and killed 14 women. He divided the men and women in one room and said "I hate feminist" before shooting and executing them. He blamed women for him failing to get a degree at that school. As another expert said condescendingly "they were taking man's jobs away." Lepine blamed women for his failures. Leyton largely blamed Lepine's abusive misogynistic father. Never brings up the psychological issues Lepine was dealing with. Once again....too simplistic. Not the full story.
Huberty blamed society and over all white politicians who "controlled your government." as his wife said in an interview. Politicians who made economic decisions which resulted in Huberty losing a job he had for 14 years.
I must also point out that Huberty was paranoid and had a history of aggression since childhood. Where he would get into rages and attack people.
Leyton also at one point sounds like he is blaming movies and in fact does. Particularly action movies that portray strong "manly" men shooting people. He also mentions what is known as the Mean world syndrome but like everything else barely goes into it. That is my biggest problem....he mentions it but doesn't qualify what he is saying.
As Marilyn Manson said "The president was shooting bombs over seas, yet...I'm a bad guy because I sing a couple rock and roll songs and who is the bigger influence? The president or Marilyn Manson? I'd like to say me, but I'm gonna go with the president." same goes with the Mean world syndrome. Which was made into a movie where the researchers explain how this works. It isn't fantasy violence, it's the blurring of the lines between fiction and reality. Particularly the news and TV shows that show victimization.
The narrator who is also a researcher and best friends with Dr.George Gerbner who coined the term "mean world syndrom" explained that "it isn't enough to analyze individual TV programs or films, or video games. The entire media context is what matters. How one story or another blends into another." to enforce a specific worldview. They mention how in movies you have hispanic criminals. Which is all well and fine as far as I am concerned. but then you look at TV and as the narrator says "In the real world they don't fair any better." where hispanics are brought up obsessively over and over again within "the context of a single issue" and that is immigration. In the documentary they show America's most wanted's episode on the border patrol. I remember watching that episode when it first aired and it was obvious why. It was aired during the time where illegal immigration was a big issue and there was debate about wasting taxpayer's money to build a wall. I was in high school at the time and we had to do a report on our views on immigration. That is how serious of an issue it was. The documentary mentions that Hispanics are mentioned only 2% of the time in the news and yet are mentioned 70% in the Lou Dobb's news reports all within the context of illegal immigration.
We saw the same thing with the satanic panic. The exorcist just came out along with Rosemary's baby. You had metal and rock and roll bands using satanism to scare people as a gimmick....all of which is fine in my book, but then you had in the real world preachers trying to scare people claiming these things possessed evil spirits and were "witch craft" trying to enter your soul and bring you down to hell. You had posers who killed and mutilated animals because of the made up stories by preachers and this blended into fiction as well. You had the satanic child day care ritual abuse scare where day care workers were accused of raping children within a satanic cult all of which was found to be totally made up. Then you had isolated incidents like Richard Rimarez. You had talk shows talking about how 'satanism is on the rise." you had preachers looking at innocent toys and games and calling them 'satanic", you had fraudulent books like Michelle remembers and The satan seller, books about former "members of the satanic cult." The claims about Michelle were absurd and false, and the author of The satan seller was exposed as a fundamentalist christian fraud. All of this mixed together to form a narrative. The narrative being that there is a world wide satanic conspiracy where masses of children are being raped and sacrificed to satan. Scaring the hell out of America.
Is this really fiction's fault? No. I blame the mass media and all those preachers and pastors.
Does Elliot Leyton agree with me? I can't tell.....that's a problem.
I'm a child of the 90s and I saw the same thing with aliens and so forth.
Richard Dawkins back in the 90s blamed the awesome TV fictional show The X files for spreading pseudo science and conspiracy theory nonsense and so forth. Which is once again wrong and misses the big picture.
As I said I was a child of the 90s when The X files came out. You also had shows like Unsolved mysteries and In search of. All shows that reported to be factual and reinforcing the belief without any skepticism. In fact a famous skeptic investigator almost made it on the show but was quickly kicked off the show being told "our show is called UNSOLVED. We don't need anyone solving mysteries." He pretty much showed that the moth man was likely a Barn owl, not an alien creature. Instead the show dismissed his research and suggested it was an alien. Doing the whole "I'm just asking questions." pathetic excuse making. I also remember the news supporting this nonsense. They had a two hour news report about UFOs with barely ANY skeptic view. I forget which news station. Might of been MSNBC or Fox. You had the infamous alien autopsy being payed on national TV. All of this made me believe aliens and El Chupacabra existed. Not the X files. Even as a child I knew it was pure fiction clearly inspired and playing off those beliefs with their own spin on it, X files never pretended to be factual.
That is what the Mean world syndrome is describing and I don't blame fiction. I blame real life role models such as the U.S. army, our presidents, our citizens, etc. At the same time there is such a thing as fiction being made for propaganda purposes. I would suggest Rambo is not U.S. military propaganda. The exact opposite actually. Rambo gave him self up early in the film, the police shoot at him and make it escalate. At the end of the film his army commander tells him "it's over." Rambo begins crying because of PTSD from the war and an indifferent society. Not a pro war or "might makes right." movie. Stallone even compared Rambo to Frankenstein in interviews. I mention Rambo because Leyton cites Rambo in his blaming fictional media glorifying war and justifying violent retaliation.
Could of been written far better. A big disappointment. I wanted an in depth look into the matter.
I give it a 3 instead of a 2 because I think it's valuable for those who have never heard the sociological economical aspect of "multiple murder" before.
November 25, 2012
Although this book is valuable for its analysis of some not-all-that-famous multiple murderers (Carl Panzram and Charles Starkweather for example), I found its argument to be complete... well... bull. The author basically said serial and mass murderers were striking back against the economic and social hierarchies in American society by their choice of victims, that the killers were attacking the middle class which they had been unable to enter themselves.
I'm sure that can be considered a partial explanation for some multiple murderers' behavior, but it certainly isn't everything, and I thought the author disregarded a lot of evidence that did not fit his theory. I mean, to begin with, not all serial killers are poor or low-class; some are born into wealth (Charles Ng) or become wealthy through their own efforts (John Wayne Gacy made a great living as a contractor for awhile; ditto Christopher Wilder) and kept killing the whole time.
The reader should also be aware that this is much more an anthropology book than true crime (the author is an anthropologist after all). If you're looking for gore, watch a slasher film. If you're looking for in depth personal stories about the killers or their victims, go read Ann Rule. This is an academic kind of book -- not a bad book at all, but not as good as it could have been, and not what it was presented as.
I'm sure that can be considered a partial explanation for some multiple murderers' behavior, but it certainly isn't everything, and I thought the author disregarded a lot of evidence that did not fit his theory. I mean, to begin with, not all serial killers are poor or low-class; some are born into wealth (Charles Ng) or become wealthy through their own efforts (John Wayne Gacy made a great living as a contractor for awhile; ditto Christopher Wilder) and kept killing the whole time.
The reader should also be aware that this is much more an anthropology book than true crime (the author is an anthropologist after all). If you're looking for gore, watch a slasher film. If you're looking for in depth personal stories about the killers or their victims, go read Ann Rule. This is an academic kind of book -- not a bad book at all, but not as good as it could have been, and not what it was presented as.
August 17, 2011
Wow. I love the show Criminal Minds and thought a book about understanding serial killers and what makes them the way they are would be fascinating. This book was nightmarish with chapter upon chapter of detail on the actual murders done by these serial killers and very little emphasis on describing the behavior. I was not prepared for what was inside this book.
March 20, 2022
El autor es un antropólogo canadiense, que vivía en St. John's Terranova. Fue asesor del FBI en el tema de asesinos seriales. Este libro nos da un vistazo a la mente de los asesinos en serie.
Desafortunadamente, Elliott Leyton falleció este año (2022). Era una gran persona y disfrutaba mucho de nadar
Desafortunadamente, Elliott Leyton falleció este año (2022). Era una gran persona y disfrutaba mucho de nadar
December 8, 2016
Hunting Humans (Elliot Leyton, 1985) is another in a long list of interesting ethnographies that I've had the pleasure to peruse during the course of my studies. Like In Sorcerys Shadow or Money Has No Smell, it is not a work of fiction nor is it even based on a true story: it's a textbook, written by a respected social scientist that just happens to be the worlds most consulted expert on serial killers and multiple murderers.
Even though it's very scientifically written like Money Has No Smell, because of the subject matter it's much more accessible, even more so than In Sorcery's Shadow. The reason is that this book excels where others have failed is the subject matter of serial killers and multiple murderers. This is a subject that has fascinated our society for decades, and makes for a compelling read... Partly because the book seems to pin some of the reason for the rise of the multiple murderer on society itself.
There are two versions of this book, the original and the updated 20th anniversary with new killers such as the DC Snipers. Ive read both and suggest the new version. It's much the same with more material, you can't go wrong there.
Some of the more chilling entries have to do with Ted Bundy. At one point the book recounts how he entered a sorority late at night and went room to room killing and maiming young women. It sent chills down my spine to read the account. Previous to this I had though that such material was simply the fare of slasher films... Now I know that it was based on a nugget of truth. Thinking about it disturbs me, and the impact hasn't faded in the years since I originally read it.
There's much more, too much to go into here. It's an amazing read. The cover touts it as required reading for homicide detectives and it's true, but I would also recommend it for horror authors... It's a lesson in how terrifying the truth can be. Even more so than the often outlandish fiction our bookshelves are cluttered with.
Highest recommendations possible. 5/5
Even though it's very scientifically written like Money Has No Smell, because of the subject matter it's much more accessible, even more so than In Sorcery's Shadow. The reason is that this book excels where others have failed is the subject matter of serial killers and multiple murderers. This is a subject that has fascinated our society for decades, and makes for a compelling read... Partly because the book seems to pin some of the reason for the rise of the multiple murderer on society itself.
There are two versions of this book, the original and the updated 20th anniversary with new killers such as the DC Snipers. Ive read both and suggest the new version. It's much the same with more material, you can't go wrong there.
Some of the more chilling entries have to do with Ted Bundy. At one point the book recounts how he entered a sorority late at night and went room to room killing and maiming young women. It sent chills down my spine to read the account. Previous to this I had though that such material was simply the fare of slasher films... Now I know that it was based on a nugget of truth. Thinking about it disturbs me, and the impact hasn't faded in the years since I originally read it.
There's much more, too much to go into here. It's an amazing read. The cover touts it as required reading for homicide detectives and it's true, but I would also recommend it for horror authors... It's a lesson in how terrifying the truth can be. Even more so than the often outlandish fiction our bookshelves are cluttered with.
Highest recommendations possible. 5/5
November 20, 2017
Las teorías de Elliott Leyton me parecen muy parciales y demasiado poco argumentadas, por seguro que parezca estar de lo que dice. Que los factores sociales sean importantes en la aparición de asesinos en serie nadie se lo discute, pero parece que fueran determinantes un cierto desclasamiento y una ambición de ascenso social frustrada para que uno se ponga a matar a todo el que se ponga por delante. Justo lo que Leyton reprocha a algunos psiquiatras, hacer tanto énfasis en la teoría de la infancia, es lo que él mismo hace con el rollo de la desubicación de clase. Los ejemplos que toma para ilustrar su teoría son muy limitados y cuidadosamente escogidos para que cuadren con sus intereses, y cuando le conviene omite la violencia que algunos asesinos en serie tuvieron que pasar en la niñez (como en el caso de Joseph Kalinger o el de Carl Panzram, a los que alude casi de pasada al final del libro).
Lo mejor del libro son los prólogos, en los que Leyton demuestra un sentido del humor que, por motivos obvios, no podía ejercitar en este libro.
Lo mejor del libro son los prólogos, en los que Leyton demuestra un sentido del humor que, por motivos obvios, no podía ejercitar en este libro.
Want to read
January 31, 2012Thanks to the problems with amazon details of this edition were lost. I do have a copy but it is in one of the boxes in my house somewhere. I did find the cover on my hard disk. Now I need to figure out how many pages. I remember it was a small book.Anyone? Otherwise I will just guess a number till I find my book. I hate seeing 0 pages.
August 21, 2015
An excellent collection of different insights into famous mad murderers. However, the section on Mr. Berkowitz is severely flawed, having Leyton proclaim his adherence to two biographies that are pretty much pure fiction.
January 21, 2016
This is a priceless resource on understanding serial killers. I recommending it to everyone. Instead of dinkweeding around with theories about killer's relationship with his mother, the author, an anthropologist, gets down to brass tacks and examines the real payoffs of being a homicidal maniac.
February 2, 2025
While I find Leyton's theory of origin about serial killers more dialectic and materialistic in comparison of the ones proposed by the FBI agents (as one would expect), I still find some remnants of the sociological resentment theory in many chapters of the book (even if Leyton argues, correctly, again and again that the pressure the capitalist system produces is what conforms the serial killer).
His studies of each case are enriching: no detail is overlooked, on the contrary, it is profound and interesting.
His historical proposal of serial killers in other modes of production is one of the best chapters of the whole work. I'd say is the most solid.
As an anthropologist, the critique to the culture industry, violence and misoginy are on point: context and cultural commodities do influence on the production of serial killers without a doubt.
Still, I find the subtle resentment theory a bit suspicious. Of course a cultural ambient that endorses violence, aspirational and competitive ideologies, null social mobility, and many other structural products of capitalism produce as a whole serial killers, yet the 'protest kills' they make as a wicked way of shouting that something is wrong feels like a misinterpretation of class struggle going wrong or something like that.
I'd love to speak to another marxist to see if I'm wrong about these doubts.
Also, Leyton reproduce the antisoviet propaganda and anticommunist arguments, which is also more suspicious.
As for now, the most solid book (maybe not as captivating as Douglas' first work 'Mind Hunter', yet more scientific).
His studies of each case are enriching: no detail is overlooked, on the contrary, it is profound and interesting.
His historical proposal of serial killers in other modes of production is one of the best chapters of the whole work. I'd say is the most solid.
As an anthropologist, the critique to the culture industry, violence and misoginy are on point: context and cultural commodities do influence on the production of serial killers without a doubt.
Still, I find the subtle resentment theory a bit suspicious. Of course a cultural ambient that endorses violence, aspirational and competitive ideologies, null social mobility, and many other structural products of capitalism produce as a whole serial killers, yet the 'protest kills' they make as a wicked way of shouting that something is wrong feels like a misinterpretation of class struggle going wrong or something like that.
I'd love to speak to another marxist to see if I'm wrong about these doubts.
Also, Leyton reproduce the antisoviet propaganda and anticommunist arguments, which is also more suspicious.
As for now, the most solid book (maybe not as captivating as Douglas' first work 'Mind Hunter', yet more scientific).
January 22, 2020
This consisted of well-written profiles of several serial killers and mass murderers. It’s a good example of the case study approach to research. It’s academic but not dry like a textbook and it’s an interesting thesis. The chapter on Essex was particularly gripping.
I wish structurally the last chapter was at the front so that his thesis was a little clearer. Of course with this type of research is it fair to make generalizations based on eight cases. There are lots of people alienated and disenfranchised and they are not at all violent.
I didn’t really learn much new here in terms of the case studies, but I do recommend it if you want more specifics on the difference between serial killers and mass murderers with examples. Recommended to those who have more dark-sided reading tastes.
I wish structurally the last chapter was at the front so that his thesis was a little clearer. Of course with this type of research is it fair to make generalizations based on eight cases. There are lots of people alienated and disenfranchised and they are not at all violent.
I didn’t really learn much new here in terms of the case studies, but I do recommend it if you want more specifics on the difference between serial killers and mass murderers with examples. Recommended to those who have more dark-sided reading tastes.
August 22, 2017
Criminology and anthropology has always interested me but I have never studied it.
I found this book a fairly heavy read but this could be because I do not have the education behind it.
However it was very insightful and I was able to follow the authors logic behind his reasoning and explanation.
The descriptions of some of the events was obviously a little disturbing but the detail was relevant and not just included for the shock factor.
I found the layout difficult and had to go back sometimes to check what had been written earlier to make connections with the footnotes and follow the conclusions.
I would highly recommend this text to anyone
I found this book a fairly heavy read but this could be because I do not have the education behind it.
However it was very insightful and I was able to follow the authors logic behind his reasoning and explanation.
The descriptions of some of the events was obviously a little disturbing but the detail was relevant and not just included for the shock factor.
I found the layout difficult and had to go back sometimes to check what had been written earlier to make connections with the footnotes and follow the conclusions.
I would highly recommend this text to anyone
Read
May 17, 2021Disappointing.
I must be the unusual resident of Canada; I'm uninterested in most of what happens in the land that lies mostly just to the south of this one. When I saw that Leyton is Canadian, working in a Canadian university, I jumped to the conclusion that his discussion would range farther than the confines of the United States. Beyond that, I did not expect to read about 300 pages of descriptions of crimes larded with his moral condemnations of the perpetrators and rehashed pop psych followed by a meagre 100 pages or so of lite analysis.
Dreary reading.
I must be the unusual resident of Canada; I'm uninterested in most of what happens in the land that lies mostly just to the south of this one. When I saw that Leyton is Canadian, working in a Canadian university, I jumped to the conclusion that his discussion would range farther than the confines of the United States. Beyond that, I did not expect to read about 300 pages of descriptions of crimes larded with his moral condemnations of the perpetrators and rehashed pop psych followed by a meagre 100 pages or so of lite analysis.
Dreary reading.
October 28, 2023
The writer claims to be an expert in this field.....and yet!
Towards the end of the book he gives us a potted biography of Lucian Staniak a Polish serial killer who actually didn't really exist. And in his list of well known multiple murderers he includes Frederick Wyman Hodge who is also fictitious.
Not that much of an expert!
Towards the end of the book he gives us a potted biography of Lucian Staniak a Polish serial killer who actually didn't really exist. And in his list of well known multiple murderers he includes Frederick Wyman Hodge who is also fictitious.
Not that much of an expert!
August 23, 2019
Leyton does a little cherrypicking but overall his insights are interesting. If you are familiar enough with the serial killers Leyton describes, you could just read the introduction, conclusion of every chapter, and the overview / conclusion and not miss much.
April 9, 2019
Six shallow documented cases, all recent are enough to show "a rise" in something was simply was not documented a century ago.
September 3, 2020
I bought this book as part of a course by Leyton, and loved it! I could (and did) listen to him lecture for hours!
September 20, 2020
Intriguing though I would rather read individual cases separately
April 14, 2023
Leyton looks at the larger sociological rise of serial killers in modern city & how they are a symptom of a larger problem.
April 3, 2024
Read for a university class years ago but kept my copy for rereading! Insightful and well written!
March 12, 2017
While I certainly learned a lot from the book, I found the organization of the content to be scattered and a bit overwhelming. I liked the way he pulled in multiple perspectives, but it could have been organized better.
September 11, 2015
Having always been a fan of books and movies about serial killers and mass murderers, I really looked forward to delving into the minds of a few with Elliott Leyton’s Hunting Humans.
In the book, Leyton explores some of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century. From Ted Bundy to Edmund Kemper to David Berkovitz. He tries to find the answer as to how and why the killers’ minds work, what possesses them to do what they do. He goes back to their childhoods to find clues. Most lived normal lives. Unfortunately, we may never know the answers to any of these questions.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Call me morbid, but I have always been fascinated with these kinds of stories. Elliott Leyton certainly did his research. He goes into much detail and gets very graphic at times. There are many things to be learnt from the book. Mistakes have been made that hopefully people will learn from.
Overall great book. For anyone interested in this kind of thing, it’s a great read.
In the book, Leyton explores some of the most horrific crimes of the 20th century. From Ted Bundy to Edmund Kemper to David Berkovitz. He tries to find the answer as to how and why the killers’ minds work, what possesses them to do what they do. He goes back to their childhoods to find clues. Most lived normal lives. Unfortunately, we may never know the answers to any of these questions.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Call me morbid, but I have always been fascinated with these kinds of stories. Elliott Leyton certainly did his research. He goes into much detail and gets very graphic at times. There are many things to be learnt from the book. Mistakes have been made that hopefully people will learn from.
Overall great book. For anyone interested in this kind of thing, it’s a great read.
April 12, 2008
A critique of contemporary criminology and psychiatry, Leyton considers these highly-touted approaches to the serial killer -- indeed, a Western phenomenon -- whereby a psychiatrist's opinion often depends on which side of the courtroom s/he is sitting on. And criminology: a *science* that fails to take into account the fact that acts must first be criminalized (an arbitrary process at best) before one can be a criminal. Taken together, criminology and psychiatry continue in failing to consider the tangled web of social factors: we profile the killer, but not the victims nor the cultural causes, and thus fail to recognize the white, middle-class, female trophy. Hmmm . . . why might a society like the U.S. not want to come to terms with that? Psychologizing the social; it's much easier, after all, to blame/treat an individual than an entire society.
December 31, 2011
The details provided in this book will make you shutter but the analysis will leave you contemplating the changing nature of serial killing. While the author chooses to profile some of the best known serial killers in recent history, his analysis avoids falling exclusively into the perils of singular case studies. He blends both the most recent research from psychology, medicine and sociology to highlight some common themes that emerge as a changing with the narrative of contemporary multiple murderers.
November 1, 2013
Wow... What can I say? I read this as a required course text in university for a course in Sociology / Anthropology and I loved every page! This is a thorough text, a great analysis and history of many infamous serial / multiple murderers in North America in the 20th century. I couldn't put his book down and kept it after I had finished the course (a rarity). Some people may find this dry , but if you have any interest in true crime, psychology, or anthropology or crime / aggression, I can't recommend this text enough.
March 27, 2011
definitely a scholarly work, this book would put you to sleep if it was not filled with so much interesting material. I read it hoping to understand criminals better than TV shows like law and order, and I got more than I hoped for. Leyton not only goes over several cases that are important to his point and then brings it all home.
July 30, 2012
very interesting read, rather than a scattershot sensationalist approach Elliot Leyton concentrates on specific cases where there is a lot of background material, in an attempt to explain phenomena recently in the news (the Batman shootings) without resorting to jargon and psychiatric mumbo jumbo, and more or less succeeds.
Read
February 27, 2010One of my favorite serial killer books (other than Jenkins' near perfect Using Murder), even though I don't think Albert DeSalvo was the Boston Strangler, nor that David Berkowitz killed alone. The book examines class in a way that most books about multiple murder don't.
April 5, 2015
The case studies made this hard to read. I had to intersperse my reading with other books. Some parts where there are large excerpts from killers diaries I had to skim over. However the research and hypothesis seem sound.
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