The term "Serial Killer" not common in 1976

[RivkahChaya]

I know people debate a lot about when this term became part of everyday vocabulary, and I happened to come across some evidence that it wasn't something people in the US used as of January, 1976.

Background (Americans over 40 can skip this part): there's an old game show called Match Game, which aired in the 1970s in the US, which was sort of the golden age of TV game shows. I remember any time I was home sick, or had a snow day from school, afternoon TV was soap operas, which I hated, but morning TV was these campy game shows with adults acting ridiculous, and I loved them. The version I'm talking about is the '73-'79 version. The part of the game was "Super Match," where the contestant who just won a match against someone else, has to guess the most popular response to a "match" poll asked of a previous studio audience. The third most popular answer is worth $100, the second, $250, and the most popular is worth $500. I looked for a youtube clip of just this section, but I find mostly just whole episodes, or clips of the celebrity segments. But you can look for yourselves.

So, the Game Show Network has been airing reruns of this in the mornings, and while looking for some background noise while I cleaning, I put it on this morning. The show airing was from sometime in early 1976, probably still in January, although they tape in advance, so it may actually have been filmed in November of '75, or something, and the audience poll even earlier.

The question was "__[blank]__ killer."

The contestant gets to ask three of the celebrity panelists for suggestions, after that, the host usually offers a suggestion as well, if he thinks the other suggestions were off the mark (although, I think the game was fair in that the host didn't know what the actual answers were).

Then, the contestant picks one, or uses another idea.

The panelists' suggestions, in order, were "weed" killer; "bug" killer; and "ant" killer. The host suggested "lady" killer.

The actual answers were $100 = "pain" killer; $250 = "man" killer; and $500 = "lady" killer.

The contestant picked weedkiller, and lost entirely, which from what I remember, is unusual.

I thought is was worth mentioning, because I see lots of debate on when the term "serial killer" actually came into common parlance. I see that "serial murderer" appears in a 1966 book, and "serial homicide" is documented as having been used in a lecture in 1974, but no one is quite sure when people were commonly using "serial killer."

It sure wasn't by New Year's of 1976.

[Abby Normal]

I know people debate a lot about when this term became part of everyday vocabulary, and I happened to come across some evidence that it wasn't something people in the US used as of January, 1976.

Background (Americans over 40 can skip this part): there's an old game show called Match Game, which aired in the 1970s in the US, which was sort of the golden age of TV game shows. I remember any time I was home sick, or had a snow day from school, afternoon TV was soap operas, which I hated, but morning TV was these campy game shows with adults acting ridiculous, and I loved them. The version I'm talking about is the '73-'79 version. The part of the game was "Super Match," where the contestant who just won a match against someone else, has to guess the most popular response to a "match" poll asked of a previous studio audience. The third most popular answer is worth $100, the second, $250, and the most popular is worth $500. I looked for a youtube clip of just this section, but I find mostly just whole episodes, or clips of the celebrity segments. But you can look for yourselves.

So, the Game Show Network has been airing reruns of this in the mornings, and while looking for some background noise while I cleaning, I put it on this morning. The show airing was from sometime in early 1976, probably still in January, although they tape in advance, so it may actually have been filmed in November of '75, or something, and the audience poll even earlier.

The question was "__[blank]__ killer."

The contestant gets to ask three of the celebrity panelists for suggestions, after that, the host usually offers a suggestion as well, if he thinks the other suggestions were off the mark (although, I think the game was fair in that the host didn't know what the actual answers were).

Then, the contestant picks one, or uses another idea.

The panelists' suggestions, in order, were "weed" killer; "bug" killer; and "ant" killer. The host suggested "lady" killer.

The actual answers were $100 = "pain" killer; $250 = "man" killer; and $500 = "lady" killer.

The contestant picked weedkiller, and lost entirely, which from what I remember, is unusual.

I thought is was worth mentioning, because I see lots of debate on when the term "serial killer" actually came into common parlance. I see that "serial murderer" appears in a 1966 book, and "serial homicide" is documented as having been used in a lecture in 1974, but no one is quite sure when people were commonly using "serial killer."

It sure wasn't by New Year's of 1976.

I believe people used the term mass murderer prior to serial killer. And the FBI claim credit for coining the term in the late 70s early 80s.

[RivkahChaya]

Technically, though, "mass murderer" does mean something else. A mass murderer kills a lot of people at once. Charles Whitman (the bell tower sniper) was a mass murderer, who had just one episode, and so was, to my mind, Jim Jones.

The Zodiac and David Berkowitz did sometimes kill more than one person at a time, but the "cooling off" period in between episodes is what makes the difference. I think it takes three episodes to be a serial killer, the way the FBI defines it, which would make the Manson gang mass murderers, but not serial killers.

I realize that at the time, and in 1976, people did not make a distinction, really. The FBI probably did, but the general public did not.

I just made the post because I've heard people debate the use of the term "serial killer," and when it was actually coined. Whatever it meant when it was first used, and what other terms people may have used instead, here is evidence that it was not yet current in early 1976.

Actually, I suspect it may not have been current until later than people realize. Even though it seems like it's been around for a while, I really honestly don't recall hearing it until Jeffrey Dahmer was in the news. Then, he was being called a "gay serial killer," as though the term serial killer was self-explanatory, and was being applied retroactively to people who were already dead, and soon Aileen Wuornos was "the first woman serial killer," as though the term had been around forever, and that was the early 1990s.

[martin wilson]

I've been trying to remember when I first became aware of the term serial killer, it seems like it has always been around, something which may have been used at first as an uncommon term and then increasingly used until it became common parlance.
It is perhaps primarily a distinction used by law enforcement agencies, so Whitman is a mass murderer, Charles Starkweather is a spree killer and David Berkowitz is a serial killer.
We apply the term retrospectively when referring to the likes of Berkowitz, it might be interesting to research contemporary press reports to see if at the time they were referred to as serial killers, and if not then what?
It may also be interesting to learn when nicknames for particular serial killers first came into being, other than those suggested by the killers themselves.

[DVV]

The concept of lust murderer is in my opinion more telling.
For example, a lust murderer that would kill two persons and get caught would not be defined as a serial killer. But he truly is, in essence, what we use to call a serial killer.

[DVV]

And conversely, a man who would kill 3 or more persons just for money would be defined as a serial killer, while he would hardly belong to the category in which we put Gacy, Bundy, JtR, etc.

[sdreid]

I remember seeing the Ripper slayings referred to as a "murder series" in a contemporary newspaper article so they were very close to it back in 1888. It's just one more step from that to call the perpetrator a serial murderer or serial killer. Perhaps someone even used the term then but it didn't catch on and wasn't written down anywhere. The earliest the term was known to have been used for sure was in a 1966 crime book and even before that similar terms like "chain murders" had been used. I don't think it came into common use until the 1980s.

[Abby Normal]

Technically, though, "mass murderer" does mean something else. A mass murderer kills a lot of people at once. Charles Whitman (the bell tower sniper) was a mass murderer, who had just one episode, and so was, to my mind, Jim Jones.

The Zodiac and David Berkowitz did sometimes kill more than one person at a time, but the "cooling off" period in between episodes is what makes the difference. I think it takes three episodes to be a serial killer, the way the FBI defines it, which would make the Manson gang mass murderers, but not serial killers.

I realize that at the time, and in 1976, people did not make a distinction, really. The FBI probably did, but the general public did not.

I just made the post because I've heard people debate the use of the term "serial killer," and when it was actually coined. Whatever it meant when it was first used, and what other terms people may have used instead, here is evidence that it was not yet current in early 1976.

Actually, I suspect it may not have been current until later than people realize. Even though it seems like it's been around for a while, I really honestly don't recall hearing it until Jeffrey Dahmer was in the news. Then, he was being called a "gay serial killer," as though the term serial killer was self-explanatory, and was being applied retroactively to people who were already dead, and soon Aileen Wuornos was "the first woman serial killer," as though the term had been around forever, and that was the early 1990s.

I know it means something different now but back then they were basically called mass murderers. Charles Manson, zodiac, son of Sam. As someone just previously mentioned some experts in the field referred to them as chain murders or chain killers.

From what I understand some FBI were in England in the late 70s for meetings on homicide investigations and heard the term series when referred to certain repeating crimes committed by the same person. From that they claim they were the first to take it one step further and coin the term serial killer.

[sdreid]

I have even proposed that the term "mass murders" should only apply to killings that result from a single action like the Oklahoma City Bombing. Events like the James Huberty slaughter would be in another category called "cluster murders" or some such thing.

There was a brief period, maybe in the 1970s, when there was an attempt to differentiate serial killers from mass murderers by calling them "multiple murderers". Of course, this idiom was not descriptive enough either.

[Errata]

Terminology is dictated by need. And there are some serious cultural differences between the late 60's and 70s and today. My mom worked in New York during the Son of Sam murders. It was a topic of conversation amongst her and her friends. My dad was working in Philly, and it never came up until my mom came home on the weekends. Certainly they knew about the Son of Sam in Philly, it got press, but people didn't sit around talking about it. Dad says it would have been considered extremely inappropriate. My aunt was a member of Chi Omega at FSU when Bundy struck. She lived in a different house. When the news hit, of course her family called to make sure she was okay, but after that it was never discussed. I found out when I made some crack about Ted Bundy and my aunt slapped me and left. Eventually she felt bad enough about slapping me to answer some questions, but even now nobody talks about it. And everyone of that generation and above doesn't understand why it would be interesting.

Since terminology is dictated by need, differentiating parlance doesn't need to exist until frankly you rack up a certain number of murderers. It also isn't needed until either it is required by a science or becomes a part of socially acceptable conversation. Today, a serial killer, a spree killer, and a mass murderer are different. They have to be different because we know that the behaviors and choices of Jeff Dahmer, Adam Lanza, and Jim Jones are different. And we care about those differences. If we don't care about those differences (and we used to not care) then they are all mass murderers because they all killed more than one person. We are far more interested in the whys and hows than we were 40 years ago. Even though my mom talked about Son of Sam with her friends, the conversation revolved solely around not getting murdered. Now when we talk about a serial killer in the area we talk about how to not get murdered, but we also talk about the flaws in society that are revealed. We talk about what makes a guy do something like that. We are interested in the killer and the crimes, not just how to not be a victim. The conversation about murder had to change for the term "serial killer" to be born. And I think it wasn't until after Bundy that the conversation changed. And I think it was because he did not typify anyone's vision of what a serial killer looks like, who he is, how successful he is. He wasn't crazy homeless guy. People now had to to talk about the idea that they might not be able to pick out one of these guys on sight. It changed the conversation. It brought out the conversation. I imagine it would not be difficult to find out who academically used the term "serial killer" first. But I don't think it became part of national discourse until after Bundy. Which is why "weed killer" would be far more popular than "serial killer".

[Colin Roberts]

Technically, though, "mass murderer" does mean something else. A mass murderer kills a lot of people at once. ...

I know it means something different now but back then they were basically called mass murderers. Charles Manson, zodiac, son of Sam. As someone just previously mentioned some experts in the field referred to them as chain murders or chain killers.

Dean Corll perpetrated one of the most horrific series of murders in American history: the so-called Houston Mass Murders.

[RivkahChaya]

There was a brief period, maybe in the 1970s, when there was an attempt to differentiate serial killers from mass murderers by calling them "multiple murderers". Of course, this idiom was not descriptive enough either.

"Multiple murderer" has been around for a long time, but I tend to associate it with fiction, as when some person gets caught in a trap of intending to commit one murder, but then committing others, stemming from the same motive, even if they are far apart in time, like in an Agatha Christie novel, when a person commits one murder for profit or revenge, then again to silence a witness, then again when someone confides that he witnessed a new will, etc.

Something like that probably has happened in real life, some time, but again, it seems like the thing that happens much more often in novels and movies.

I guess you would probably call the Tylenol poisoner a "mass murderer," because the murders stemmed from one act, and another character that separates mass murder from "multiple murder," or "serial killings," is probably the facelessness of the victims. Just like Jim Jones, the Tylenol poisoner didn't even know how many victims he would eventually have.

Still, if some people thought "multiple murderer" fit better, because the actual deaths were separate in time and place, and as far as the victims and their families were concerned (emotionally, at the time of the event), they were all singular events.

I also understand the "lust" factor of serial killing, although I still think that the description fits Aileen Wuornos, whose means of supporting herself, was in good part, robbing the men she killed, and taking their cars. She didn't have to kill them to rob them, and I think she enjoyed doing so for a lot of the same reasons a "power assertion" rapist rapes women, or Ted Bundy liked killing them.

Regarding whether or not murder was a fit topic for discussion, my family returned from the Soviet Union in the summer of 1977, and should have gone back to our house in Queens. Instead, we spent the summer cramped into my grandmother's little house very far upstate. I was aware that there was a person called Son of Sam killing people in New York City, but it didn't quite register on me (I was 10) how close the murders were to where we lived. My parents told me we were staying at my grandmothers, because our renters asked to stay a little longer, but that wasn't the truth. My parents were hoping the police caught Son of Sam before my brother and I had to start school.

Anyway, my friends and I talked about the case, sort of the same way were talked about scary Urban Legends, and I asked my parents a little about it, and they answered. However, once when I brought it up at supper, I was rebuked, because that was not dinner table conversation.

Back then, it wasn't uncommon to be told something wasn't dinner table conversation, so I didn't think much of it. It's just one of the many social nuances that has gone the way of evening clothes.

[martin wilson]

Errata makes a good point that after Bundy,the whole frame of reference was shifted, an entire genre of the film industry has used that shift in perception,and has 'educated' the public that the serial killer can be anyone.
It is noted that very few real serial killers live in a cramped apartment with newspapers,magazines and photo's of people with their eyes cut out all over the walls,or certain items circled in red, or write biblical quotes on their skin, but nethertheless, there is a rough understanding that the serial killer will be the person you least suspect.
In real life this educative aspect helps us identify what differentiates one murder from another, 3 is mentioned, but if there were 2 reports of murder victims of a similar type,with the same m.o.,within a short space of time, how many of us can say they wouldn't think serial killer?

[kensei]

At the end of the 2002 film "Ted Bundy" starring Michael Reilly Bruke as Bundy (which I think was a straight to video production), a written message on screen states that the term "serial killer" was first coined to describe Bundy. I'm dubious about that. That movie wasn't half bad but it did contain several inaccuracies.

(Actually, when I first saw the movie I thought it was awful in its number of embellishments and inaccuracies, but I'd only done a minimum of reading on Bundy at the time and had only seen the much tamer t.v. movie "The Deliberate Stranger" about him starring Mark Harmon. After doing a lot more study, I realized that some of the crazier things in the "Ted Bundy" movie were actually true!)

[martin wilson]

I'll keep an eye out for that, although the past record of the film industry is not good when it comes to serial killers, torture porn being acceptable within a fiction but representing the reality of what some of these guys did is pretty much off limits,perhaps because of effronting public decency or out of respect for the victims, or perhaps because the penal system prefers to treat these guys as sane for the necessary retribution demanded by the public, if their actions were shown in full,I think most people would accept they are batshit crazy.
My advice to youngsters is whenever you have your photo taken,make sure you have a huge grin and two big thumbs up, that way if you turn out to be a serial killer the tabloids will have a hard time publishing a photo of you looking suitably psychotic.
It's still the disturbed loner with weird obsessions or paraphilias over here in good old Blighty, not of us, other, move on folks, nothing to see here, a society based on inequality didn't put someone with the worst possible genetic predisposition in the worst possible circumstances, go back to bed,everything is all right now.