DNA testing’s a huge advance in stranger murders? Honestly I think think the boom period of the ‘80s comes down to computers and procedures and network effects playing out in such a way that we developed the ability to connect dots well enough to realize that isolated deaths and disappearances were linked before we developed much ability to attribute them to someone

Which is to say I suspect that at least since the dawn of nationwide automobile travel there’ve been similar things but we didn’t realize, and that today there are still similar things but they either get caught after fewer victims or we haven’t realized they’re there… yet

The thing I wonder about is if more certain or severe punishment has made killers “upgrade” to spree killing – like someone who “snaps” and disassembles his wife with a tactical knife, where before he might hide the body with a reasonable chance of success and say she ran off (to wherever people run off to), or turn himself in for the possibility of a lesser-degree charge and parole in 15 years, now why not follow up by driving around to shoot your 4 closest enemies followed by yourself?

A classic critique of execution as a penalty for robbery was that the robber had no disincentive and every incentive to eliminate witnesses by killing; might it be that an apparent certainty of lifetime imprisonment encourages killers to go out in the biggest blaze of glory?