- I ate his liver with some

fava beans and a nice Chianti.

- I've never encountered a serial killer

who would behave quite so

much in that pantomimic way.

I have encountered serial killers

who have tried to scare me,

but I wouldn't be scared

by Anthony Hopkins.

I'd have laughed, frankly,

if you'd told me about fava

beans and a nice Chianti.

Hi, my name is David Wilson.

I research, write about,

and work with people

who've committed violent crimes,

specifically murder and serial murder.

Today, we're gonna be breaking

down clips from TV shows

and movies about serial killers.

This scene is from "Zodiac."

- Don't get up.

I want her to tie you up.

- Okay.

- What's interesting about this clip

is that you begin to see

one of the basic original

FBI binary classifications,

that serial killers are organized

or they're disorganized.

By organized, we simply
mean that the serial killer

brings with him those things

which he's going to need to
incapacitate his victims.

So in this scene, the Zodiac

Killer brings with him rope,

he's wearing gloves, he's masked.

Usually we would also say

that if you're an organized serial killer,

that will imply, for example,

that you're employed,

that you've got a higher intelligence,

that you're sexually competent,

that you're able to drive a car.

The other aspects of organization

that we see in this particular clip

is just how much control

the serial killer has over his victims.

A serial murderer as a
phenomenon, in my experience,

always starts from a sexual fantasy.

And I think we've got some

of that sexual fantasy

in this particular clip around bondage,

being powerful, being in control.

Not only is he masked and wearing gloves,

he's also wearing black clothing.

He's also got a symbol

on his black clothes.

All of these things are about

instilling fear in his victims.

It's also about how he

can make his fantasy real.

He's fantasized about

what he's going to do
for a very long period of time.

I always say that nobody

wakes up overnight

and decides that they're

going to be a serial killer.

A serial killer is a
long time in the making.

This is simply a way

that he now wants to make

the fantasy become real.

Once they've engaged in

the fantasy once or twice,

it's no longer fantastic,

and therefore, the sorts

of things they'll do

within the crime scene

will become more bizarre,

more exaggerated, more extreme.

It's interesting that

he also brings a gun,

but he chooses not to

use the gun initially.

He ties his victims up,

he's gonna threaten them with the knife.

This is the difference

between those serial killers

who are act focused,

and those serial killers

who are process focused.

The act focused serial killer

simply wants to kill his victims.

End of, bang, they're dead.

The process focused serial

killer is interested
in extending the length of time

that he has with his victims.

He wants to tie them up,

he wants to see the fear

that they're experiencing,

he wants certain words to be spoken,

he wants them to plead for their

lives before he kills them.

That actually makes him

feel sexually powerful,

sexually in control, to be the

person that he wants to be.

- Get on your stomach

so I can tie your feet.

- We hear the flatness in

the Zodiac Killer's voice.

- I'm taking your car and going to Mexico.

- That is often characteristic

of an underlying personality
trait called psychopathy,

an inability to show
empathy, to show sympathy,

to walk in another person's shoes.

- It gets really cool out here

at night, we could freeze.

- Of course, we see the

male victim in the scene

trying to engage in conversation.

In my experience of working
with serial murderers,

they are simply not interested

in that kind of rapport.

They don't want to see you

as being another human being.

Usually they're psychopaths,

and therefore they can't
walk in your shoes.

They don't care about your suffering.

In fact, your suffering is actually

what they're seeking to do.

Next up is a fictional
serial killer called Dexter.

[man grunting]

- You're mine now, so do exactly as I say.

- Dexter fits a type of serial killer

called the mission

orientated serial killer.

He's a serial killer who's on a mission

to rid the world of other serial killers.

And that's very typical of a number

of actual serial killers criminologically.

- Trust me, I definitely understand.

See, I can't help myself either.

But children?

I could never do that.

Not like you.

Never, ever kids.

- He establishes very quickly

that there's some kind of moral hierarchy

in the phenomenon of serial murder.

Of course, there's no such

thing as a moral serial killer.

Everybody who takes another person's life

is by the very nature of the fact immoral.

In "Dexter," we've got the ultimate

organized serial murderer.

He has a garrote that he's
able to control his victim.

Ultimately he's going to inject his victim

so that he becomes paralyzed.

Dexter has a very elaborate MO

and a very unique signature.

MO stands for modus operandi.

It is the means by which the serial killer

or the murderer kills.

The MO would change because

of how the victim might react,

whilst the signature is a particular way

that a killer will leave the crime scene

what will be unique to

that particular individual.

Dexter is somebody who's going to torture,

and the context for that

torture is almost medicalized.

He's usually giving poisons,

he's in a particular
medical room, his kill room.

That kind of medicalized signature

is not that common in my experience,

with one particular caveat,

because, of course, a significant number

of healthcare professionals
have been serial killers.

This next clip is one that is

a particular favorite of mine,

"The Silence of the Lambs."

- You're one of Jack

Crawford's, aren't you?
- I am, yes.

- May I see your credentials?

- Certainly.

- Hannibal Lecter does something

which is very true to

life, in my experience.

When I'm interviewing murderers,

they're only prepared to talk

to me once they've got my CV.

They love knowing that

they're being interviewed

by the "top bloke."

- You use Evyan skin cream,

and sometimes you wear L'Air Du Temps,

but not today.

- I've never had a serial

killer mention my aftershave,

but that seducing behavior

is something that I have to

manage on a regular basis.

So, for example, I had

to speak on the telephone

to an infamous serial
killer who's in jail.

He was sometimes known as the

Bikini Killer or the Serpent.

He said, "You look much

younger than your 64 years."

It was the very first thing that he said.

It just shouted out as psychopathy.

The next scene is from

"Se7en" by David Fincher.

- This was found on the

wall behind the refrigerator
in the obesity murder scene.

- Long is the way and hard,

that out of Hell leads up to light.

- It's from Milton.

"Paradise Lost."

- Some serial killers do leave evidence,

clues if you want to call them clues.

And often in my implied work,

I'm asked, "Is that because

they want to be caught?"

Well, that's not why the clues are left.

That's not why the

evidence is left at all.

It's usually simply by the

end of their killing cycle,

they're operating in an
entirely parallel moral universe

that is different to the moral universe

that you and I inhabit,

that they simply don't understand

that what they're doing is so

bizarre, is so extraordinary,

that of course these kinds of

things left at the crime scene

are going to be able to be harvested

to identify who the killer is.

However, there are some serial killers

who do want to be caught,

ultimately, a very small number,

because of course they want to stand out.

They want to be seen as extraordinary,

and therefore they can't

be seen as extraordinary
if they don't get caught.

- Have you ever seen anything like this?

- No.

- What we have in "Se7en"

is the sense in which

the serial killer is super

intelligent, is a super predator.

And again, this is playing

on one of the stereotypes

that the media have about serial killers,

that they'll be super

intelligent and trying to outfox

almost as if they were

playing a game of chess

with the law enforcement.

The other thing about "Se7en"

that I think is interesting,

spoiler alert if you haven't seen "Se7en,"

but the head of one of

the chief characters

in the movie is cut off.

Serial monitors will often

take body parts as trophies,

and we tend to call that,

in my world, overkill.

The killer is using much greater

violence than is necessary

to achieve what it is
that he wants to achieve,

which is to affect the kill of his victim.

- Put your gun now.

- No, show me the box.

What was in the box?

- When I first started out

in my professional world,
I had only ever encountered one man

who had beheaded his victim.

Of late, I've seen overkill

during the pandemic

become much more common.

I now encounter overkill

and mutilation all the time.

This next scene is from Alfred Hitchcock's

extraordinary movie, "Psycho."

- Is anyone at home?

- No.

- Is somebody sitting up in the window?

- N-N-no, there isn't.

- Oh sure, go ahead, take a look.

- Oh, that must be my mother.

She an invalid.

It's practically like living alone.

- Ah, I see.

- Norman Bates, Anthony

Perkins, is wonderful

as a particular type, or a trope,

of what we've come to understand

as being the serial killer,

somebody who is transsexual, transvestite,

he wants to dress up as his mother.

What Hitchcock gets wrong

is the sense in which

it's these transgressive sexual identities

that is the motivating

force behind serial murder.

And, of course, he's also

wanting to present Norman Bates
as effectively psychotic.

I wouldn't necessarily
describe Norman Bates

as a psychopath.

He probably does have

some psychopathic traits

as a character.

I would see him as having

some sort of psychosis.

In other words, he's hearing

voices, having visions.

He's operating in an unreal world.

If Norman Bates had existed in reality,

Norman Bates would have

behaved so bizarrely,

so aberrantly that he would

have been caught very quickly,

because he would have stood out.

Of course, there's another

media trope being used here,

which is that the detective

is actually interviewing

the serial killer, but doesn't realize,

but might suspect that he's

interviewing the serial killer.

That really doesn't happen in real life,

although a phenomenon that

does occur on a regular basis

is that often murderers will return

to where they've committed murder.

Sometimes they just simply

like the risk taking

that they are engaging with,

which is one of the reasons

why often photographs are taken

at the crime scene,

because there might be the perpetrator

within that photograph.

- Let's just say, just

for the sake of argument,

that she wanted you to

gallantly protect her.

You'd know that you were being used,

that you wouldn't be made

a fool of, would you?

- But I'm not a fool, and I'm

not capable of being fooled,

not even by woman.

- In my real work with people

who've committed serial murder,

I often say that they are beta males

trying to become alpha males.

They are often losers,

and we get that sense of the

loser I think in Norman Bates.

This is somebody who doesn't

seem to be able to be competent

in any way that one would

expect of an adult man.

And therefore, for me,

Bates fits that pattern

that I see a lot of my applied work

that the serial killer, far

from being a super predator,

is often just simply a loser.

Our next clip is from the film "Ma,"

played by Octavia Spencer.

- I can feel those big
doe eyes watching me.

Maggie.

You are something else.

That much diazepam can

knock out a Great Dane

for five hours.

- "Ma" really is just simply

a genre Hollywood's movie

about a serial murderer,

but what's really interesting about it

is that we tend to think

of serial murderers

as white professional
men, as super predators,

and rarely do we get a character portrayed

who is of a different gender

and of a different ethnicity.

And yet, the reality of serial

murder in the United States

is that some 20% of serial

murderers will be women.

- I got us a beer pong table

and a keg of Bud Light is on ice.

- The thing though about Ma as a character

is that she's desperate to be liked.

She wants to fit in,

but of course, in fitting in,

she's also secretly

desperate to stand out,

and that's actually got a

kernel of truth it seems to me.

They want to be seen as

being like you and me,
but secretly, they want
to also be different.

They want to stand out from you and me,

because they want to be

seen as somehow special.

Ma's victim group, of

course, are also students.

We tend not to see students

as being particularly
vulnerable in reality

to serial murder.

If a serial killer was to

start to attack a group

who had social capital, and

who certainly have parents

who are likely to have social capital,

that serial killer will

by and large be caught

much more quickly than serial killers

that would target sex workers,

the homeless, the elderly.

This next clip is from "American Psycho."

- Howard.

It's Bateman, Patrick Bateman.

You're my lawyer, so I
think you should know

I've killed a lot of people.

Some escort girls in the apartment uptown,

some homeless people, maybe five or 10,

an NYU girl I met in Central Park.

I left her in a parking

lot behind some donut shop.

I killed Bethany, my old

girlfriend, with a nail gun.
- I've never encountered a
white collar investment banker

as a serial killer.

They will often be delivery

drivers, taxi drivers.

They will often have a

background in law enforcement.

I've encountered several

white investment bankers

who undoubtedly were psychopaths,

and if I was to encounter

Patrick Bateman in real life,

I would just simply find

him very fetishistic.

He is wearing particular clothes,

he has a particular look,

he's very surface, he's very

shiny, he has no deep emotion.

I would think of him as a psychopath.

And frankly, I'd try and avoid him.

- I don't want to leave anything out here.

I guess I've killed maybe

20 people, maybe 40.

- I have encountered
serial killers in real life

who just simply couldn't remember.

Certainly wouldn't remember

the names of their victims.

Certainly wouldn't remember

what they did with their victims.

And that's partly because

often by the stage

that they have been arrested,

there have been killing for

such a long period of time
and so regularly, that they
literally don't remember.

With one or two serial killers

that were prepared to talk about

the murders that they committed,

I felt that they were

talking to me about them

because they were wanting

to relive the moment

that they took another person's life,

and I merely became, therefore,

a vehicle for them to

relive their fantasy.

And you see a sense of joy

in this particular characterization

of Patrick Bateman.

You know, he moves from being remorseful

to one in which he's boastful.

- I killed Paul Allen

with an ax in the face.

His body is dissolving in a

bathtub in Hell's Kitchen.

- Batement ends this clip by

having this sort of insight.

- I mean, I guess I'm a pretty sick guy.

- He's a pretty sick guy,

which of course he is.

But by and large, I've

never had serial killers

talk about themselves

in that derogatory way.

I've had serial killers

who've thought of themselves as Superman,

as extraordinary human beings.

And you think, "My gosh, do
they have no insight at all

"about what they've done?"

And the answer to that question is,

of course they have no

insight into what they've done

or they wouldn't have done

it in the first place.

This next clip is from

"No Country For Old Men."

- What's this about?

- Step out of that car, please, sir.

- What is that?

- I need you to step out of the car, sir.

- What is that for?

- You.

Would you hold still, please?

- We're dealing really

with a characterization

of the serial killer

that isn't really at all based on reality.

This is the serial killer

as the super predator, the bogeyman.

What is accurate about the

movie is the sense in which

lots of serial killers who

are able to repeatedly kill

without being caught have to

be geographically transient,

have to be mobile, are

often engaged in occupations

which allows them to

be in different places

at different times legitimately.

You see instrumental
reasons being expressed

by Javier Bardem's character,

and also psychological

reasons being shown.

He simply wants to steal the car,

that's the instrumental,

whereas the psychological

will be when he's playing

cat and mouse with the gas station owner.

He's simply expressing his power.

He's simply expressing his control.

- [Chigurh] What's the most

you ever lost on a coin toss?

- Sir?

- The most you ever lost on a coin toss.

- But here's the downside

that I think the Cohen

brothers get completely wrong.

If somebody like Javier Bardem's character

existed in real life,

he wouldn't need to kill

because he's so powerful

and in control anyway.

He'd be running
multinational corporations.

He'd be running for president.

He doesn't need to get his kicks

through killing people in gas stations.

It just doesn't hold water for me.

This next clip is from

the show "Riverdale."

- Can any of you guess

what the murderers all have in common?

- Nothing.

Isn't that kind of the point?

- Actually, they all

have one thing in common.

A specific set of genes.

[dramatic music]

- They discovered that you have the MAOA

and the CDH 13 genes.

- CDH 13.

Also known as--

- The serial killer genes.

[dramatic music]

- Let's get rid of immediately

the idea there's a serial killer gene.

It's an attractive idea,

and of course it's cropped

up repeatedly in our history,

and so we have to nail

that one on the head.

- Now, before I start

filling in all the details,

any guesses on which one of

these men is the murderer?

- It's the third man.

- The idea that there could be somebody

who is going to be able to

simply look at photographs

or walk down the street

and identify who the serial killer is,

is just complete nonsense.

I hope that isn't too

disappointing to you,
but it is complete and utter nonsense.

Serial killers are banal and ordinary.

Serial killers are never spectacular.

They're always too human.

If the serial killer really

wants to be effective,

they've got to fit in,

because if they stand out,

they're not gonna be able

to get access to the people

that they want to kill.

This next clip is from "Copycat."

- Nine out of 10 serial

killers are white males,

age 20 to 35, just like these.

- I love this movie,

because it both plays

on some of the cliches

that I've been talking about,

but it also provides just enough

authentic information to be credible.

- The FBI estimates that there could be

as many as 35 serial
killers cruising for victims

even as I speak.

- The truth is, well, the FBI has said

that there are between 25

to 50 active serial killers.

What Sigourney Weaver's doesn't say

is that they will only kill about 1%

of all the murder victims

in the United States.
She makes it sound as if there
are lots of serial killers

killing lots of victims.

- The act of killing makes

him feel intensely alive.

What he feels next is not

guilt, but disappointment.

It was not as wonderful as he'd hoped.

Maybe next time it will be perfect.

- The other thing that she captures

that seems to me to be
absolutely authentic

is what the serial killer is

getting from having killed,

and how he probably feels

disappointment after killing

because he wants to kill again,

because it's the moment

of killing that he seeks.

That scene is so like

scenes from my own life

whereby I've had to

address public audiences,

and I've had to have

security at those lectures

because I've had to deal with

some pretty bizarre things.

This next clip is from the

TV series "Mindhunter,"

when we see the real

serial killer, Ed Kemper,

being interviewed.

- You see, Bill, I knew

a week before she died,

I was gonna kill her.

She went out to a party.

She got soused.

She came home alone.

I asked her how our evening went.

She just looked at me.

She said, "For seven years,"

she said, "I haven't had sex

with a man because of you,

"my murderous son."

So I got a claw hammer

and I beat her to death.

Then I cut her head off

and I humiliated her.

I said, "There, now you've had sex."

- It is true that Ressler and Douglas

did interview 36 convicted serial killers,

which was the beginning

of the FBI's understanding

about serial murderers,

and one of the serial murders

that they did interview

was Ed Kemper.

And, of course, what

we see portrayed there

is a very chilling picture

of the kinds of things

that he did, and he did

indeed kill his mother

in the way that he was describing,

and he did indeed behead her,

and he did indeed have sex

with her decapitated body.

So, there's a lot going on here

that's completely and utterly accurate.

- Even as a child, I had

kind of a rich fantasy life.

- You had fantasies of what, real women?

- Oh yeah.

And my mother would yell and scream at me,

tell me I was sick.

- The one that seems to connect

all of the serial murderers

is that there is an
underlying sexual fantasy

that is a seed that then

grows and grows and grows

until that particular

individual serial killer

wants to make that fantasy real.

And why they choose to do that

will be specific and

unique to that individual.

- In this modern society,

what do we do with the

Ed Kempers of the world?

- Death by torture?

- Of course, Kemper
requested the death penalty.

Lots of serial killers I've worked with

can be quite moral in other

aspects of their life.

They will have standards about behavior

that they will insist the I

should have about my life.

One serial killer would

constantly correct my grammar

or my punctuation in letters
that I'd send to them.

- Did your mother humiliate you?

[disquieting music]

Ed?

- What's interesting about the series

is that it's also about

that other trope that we see

in a lot of Hollywood
movies, that people like me

would try and enter the

mind of a serial killer.

I am not interested in what

motivates a serial killer.

I am much more interested in who is is

the serial killer is able to kill.

If we concentrated our
attention on the groups

that serial killers constantly target,

we would do a lot more

to reduce the incidence

of serial murder in our cultures,

as opposed to any number

of offender profilers

who claim that they can enter

the mind of a serial killer.

If you really want to do something

to reduce the incidence of

serial murder in our culture,

let's challenge homophobia,

let's have a grownup

debate about how we police

those young men and young

women who sell sexual services,

and above all, let's try and work out

why the elderly are so
vulnerable in our culture

because they don't have a

voice and have no power.

Thank you so much for watching,

and thank you Vanity Fair for inviting me.