What constitutes calling someone a serial killer?

MandyL

A Serial Killer is someone who kills several victims in three or more separate events with an emotional cooling off period in between the homicides . The cooling off period may last days, weeks, months, or years, and reference to separate events and separate locations, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killer Mar 06 07, 3:09 PM

skysmom65

The term serial killer is widely believed to have been coined either by FBI agent Robert Ressler or by Dr. Robert D. Keppel in the 1970s (the credit for the term is disputed). The term allows criminologists to distinguish those who kill several people over a long period of time from those who kill several people during a single event (mass murderers). A third type of multiple killer is a spree killer. A serial killer is someone who commits three or more murders over an extended period of time with cooling-off periods in between. In between their crimes, they appear to be quite normal, a state which Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hare call the "mask of sanity." There is often — but not always — a sexual element to the murders. All the murders must be completed/attempted in a similar fashion or the victims must have something in common, ex. occupation, race, sex, etc. The accepted stereotype of American serial killers is that they are disproportionately likely to be white and male, but there have been exceptions. The white male stereotype is very deceptive, however, since white males are less likely to be serial killers than male Hispanics or male blacks. African Americans make up 12 percent of the American population but 22% of serial killers and Hispanics roughly the same. Whites make up around 75% of the population but only 55% of all serial killers making whites proportionately less likely to be serial killers. Serial killers frequently have extreme sadistic urges. Those who lack the ability to empathize with the suffering of others are frequently called psychopathic or sociopathic, terms which have been renamed among professional psychiatrists as antisocial personality disorder. Some serial killers engage in lust and torture murder, loosely defined terms involving, respectively, mutilation for sexual pleasure and killing victims slowly over a prolonged period of time. http://www.answers.com/serial%20killer Mar 06 07, 3:27 PM