Killer Among Us: Public Reactions to Serial Murder [Hardcover]

Joseph C. Fisher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0275955583 | ISBN-13: 978-0275955588

In 1973, teenage girls began disappearing from Folly Beach, a small town on a barrier island in South Carolina. Initially thought by police to be a spate of runaways, the real story emerged when a police officer on patrol heard a cry for help and found three girls bound and gagged in an abandoned beach cottage. Further investigation turned up bodies buried in the dunes nearby. The police reacted quickly and closed off the only bridge to the mainland, thereby trapping the townspeople with the certain knowledge that one among them was a serial killer. Everyone became a suspect, as neighbor turned against neighbor in an atmosphere of rapidly growing hysteria. What effects does the presence of a serial killer have on the collective health of a community? What strategies do people adopt to manage the fear and anxiety that accompany news of a serial killer's predations? And why do citizens and the media respond as they do to serial killers, who usually account for only a small portion of the homicides in the communities in which they are active? Killer Among Us addresses these questions by examining serial murder from this fresh perspective: an exploration of the ways people react when a killer is at large in their community. Drawing on 19th-century tabloid accounts of the predations of Jack the Ripper and on 20th-century media coverage of such villains as The Son of Sam and Jeffrey Dahmer, the author constructs vivid and provocative retellings of many of the most infamous cases of serial murder.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

How does a killing by a serial killer affect the community? Fisher (Ph.D., Tufts Univ.) ponders that question here, using as examples the cases of killers Richard Valenti, Alberto DeSalvo, John Norman Collins, David Berkowitz, Wayne Williams, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Jack the Ripper. He concludes that "a community will attempt to contain the threat by attributing it to an outsider or someone from another part of society, or by ultimately finding the victims themselves responsible for their own misfortune." In the Williams case, the black community had a hard time accepting him as the serial killer because he was one of their own; the fact that he was tried by a black judge and a predominantly black jury did not ease their feelings. Academic libraries will want to purchase this straightforward, well-researched book; larger public libraries with a strong crime section may also want to consider.?Michael Sawyer, Clinton P.L., Iowa
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A semi-scientific study of modern serial killers. Fisher, a market researcher and author of several books on crime, here addresses a host of American killers, as well as Jack the Ripper. Fisher discusses the infamous, like Jeffrey Dahmer, to good effect, and provides an interesting view of how nearly everyone involved in the case ended up suing each other; one victim's mother even sued Dahmer's parents for bad parenting. The chapter on Atlanta child killer Wayne Williams provides valid insights into his crime spree, which left at least 28 children dead. But Fisher, after the first chapter, seems to lose touch with his point, ostensibly to measure public outcry against the crime and how the community's response affects the killer. Most of the material, however, consists of gory synopses of the crimes, and the book is littered with graphic charts that little serve his purpose. In the chapter on Coed Killer John Norman Collins, Fisher reports, many victims went willingly with the killer despite enormous community pressure to avoid strangers. While Fisher reports this phenomenon, he does little to investigate it or to explain how the excitement of risk could so outweigh the promise of danger in towns under siege. More troubling is his invocation of self-styled psychic Peter Hurkos, who was called upon during investigations ranging from the Boston Strangler to the Coed Killer. Hurkos, long since discredited, is seen here as something of an affable buffoon who sometimes had the right answers, rather than as the last resort of desperate police investigators. The idea of a scientific analysis of a community response to fear is an intriguing one, but this book provides little in the way of real analysis. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Praeger Trade (April 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0275955583
• ISBN-13: 978-0275955588
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #795,823 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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