Read Online Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters by Peter Vronsky - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter Vronsky
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stranger serial killers, as John Walsh claimed, but relatives, predominately parents, are the most frequent killers of children up to age nine. Strangers were involved in only 14.6 percent of homicides of children between ages five and nine; and 28.7 percent ofthose between ages ten and fourteen. The offender relationship was unknown in 10.4 and 20.1 percent of homicides in the two age groups, respectively. Acquaintances murdered 30.2 percent and 39.2 percent of victims in each age group, and females comprised 36.4 percent and 18.7 percent of the killers, while relatives including parents killed 44.8 percent and 11.9 percent, respectively. 37 Of children between ages ten and fourteen the motive behind their murder was a dispute in 60.9 percent of the cases, a firearm was used in 64.2 percent, and a public place was the location in 51.5 percent. In summary, young children are killed at home by relatives, while more mobile and independent older adolescent children are increasingly killed by acquaintances first, and then by strangers in public places.
The incredible stranger child abduction figures of 30,000 to 45,000 so often cited became more frequently challenged in the late 1980s. People began to wonder: Where were these abductions occurring? Why were they not being reported in the papers? Where were the anecdotal accounts? Who were the serial killers committing these abductions? Finally Congress sponsored a program to determine exact statistical data on missing and abducted children called the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART).
The study determined that there were two definitions of âabductionâ: a legal one and a stereotypical one held by the public. In public perception a child abduction occurs when a victim is taken away by a stranger a great distance, held for ransom, kept overnight or longer, or killed. Crimes such as the 1993 abduction-murder of Polly Klaas or the recently resolved kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart fit the public perception of the threat posed by strangers to children. But the law is broader than the publicâs perception. For example, California courts define abduction as when a victim is lured or forcibly moved farther than twenty feet or held longer than half an hour if no movement occurs. 38 So when the FBI reported an annual average of 90,000 forcible rapes in the 1980s, in which teenage girls comprised commonly a third to a half of the victims, still defined as children, the circumstances of many of these crimes easily fit the legal definition of child abduction. Thus the figure of 30,000 to 45,000 âabducted childrenâ emerged under those kinds of definitions. But this was not what the public was thinking in their definition of the type of child abduction they feared.
The NISMART study reevaluated child abduction statistics in the context of the public perception of abduction. The study determined that in atwelve-year period between 1976 and 1988, an average of 43 to 147 children were victimized yearly in the United States in the stereotypical public perception of abduction. That brings the statistic more in line with the highly rare anecdotal and press reports of stranger abductions of children that we hear about. The reality is that the abduction and murder of children by strangers is a very rare crime. The degree of fear and concern generated by exaggerated and misrepresented statistics during the early 1980s far exceeded the reality of the danger. This fear persists to this day, despite the extremely low probability of such threats to children. Of course, this fact is of little consolation to the parents of the 43 to 147 children who on average every year are abducted by strangers.
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Back in 1981â1983, as the committee hearings unfolded in Washington, the press darted like schools of fish to the Senate hearings and the various press conferences. Articles in large-circulation magazines such as Time,
The incredible stranger child abduction figures of 30,000 to 45,000 so often cited became more frequently challenged in the late 1980s. People began to wonder: Where were these abductions occurring? Why were they not being reported in the papers? Where were the anecdotal accounts? Who were the serial killers committing these abductions? Finally Congress sponsored a program to determine exact statistical data on missing and abducted children called the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART).
The study determined that there were two definitions of âabductionâ: a legal one and a stereotypical one held by the public. In public perception a child abduction occurs when a victim is taken away by a stranger a great distance, held for ransom, kept overnight or longer, or killed. Crimes such as the 1993 abduction-murder of Polly Klaas or the recently resolved kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart fit the public perception of the threat posed by strangers to children. But the law is broader than the publicâs perception. For example, California courts define abduction as when a victim is lured or forcibly moved farther than twenty feet or held longer than half an hour if no movement occurs. 38 So when the FBI reported an annual average of 90,000 forcible rapes in the 1980s, in which teenage girls comprised commonly a third to a half of the victims, still defined as children, the circumstances of many of these crimes easily fit the legal definition of child abduction. Thus the figure of 30,000 to 45,000 âabducted childrenâ emerged under those kinds of definitions. But this was not what the public was thinking in their definition of the type of child abduction they feared.
The NISMART study reevaluated child abduction statistics in the context of the public perception of abduction. The study determined that in atwelve-year period between 1976 and 1988, an average of 43 to 147 children were victimized yearly in the United States in the stereotypical public perception of abduction. That brings the statistic more in line with the highly rare anecdotal and press reports of stranger abductions of children that we hear about. The reality is that the abduction and murder of children by strangers is a very rare crime. The degree of fear and concern generated by exaggerated and misrepresented statistics during the early 1980s far exceeded the reality of the danger. This fear persists to this day, despite the extremely low probability of such threats to children. Of course, this fact is of little consolation to the parents of the 43 to 147 children who on average every year are abducted by strangers.
Â
Back in 1981â1983, as the committee hearings unfolded in Washington, the press darted like schools of fish to the Senate hearings and the various press conferences. Articles in large-circulation magazines such as Time,
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