My Account Wish List
Advanced Search
Print - Close Window
www.greenwood.com/catalog/C5558.aspx
All Greenwood Products
Killer Among Us Public Reactions to Serial Murder
(Click to Enlarge)
Joseph C. Fisher
Book Code: C5558
ISBN: 0-275-95558-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-275-95558-8
256 pages, figures, maps,
Praeger Trade
Publication: 4/30/1997
List Price: $38.95 (UK Sterling Price: £21.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects: Reviews:
  • Academic libraries will want to purchase this straightforward, well-researched book; larger public libraries with a strong crime section may also want to consider.
    —
    Library Journal
  • 'Between 1968 and 1974, I had the dubious distinction of living in two communities that were threatened by serial killers.' So begins this rigorous report by Fisher, a criminologist with a flair for archival research, on the ways in which communities respond to the trauma of serial killings....Along the way, Fisher debunks some stereotypical notions about serial murder investigations, including the value of complicated personality profiles and of psychic investigators in apprehending the guilty....[H]e presents a wealth of information and, especially in his coverage of the Son of Sam investigation, offers a mildly satirical look at 'the bond of mutual exploitation' created among the public, the authorities, the killer and the press--a bond, he suggests, that may excite the killer, desperate for media attention, to strike again.
    —
    Publishers Weekly
Description: 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.
Table of Contents:
  • Introduction: Richard Raymond Valenti
  • Serial Murder: Public Reactions
  • The Common Denominator: Albert Henry DeSalvo (The Boston Strangler)
  • The Coed Killer and Clairvoyant: John Norman Collins
  • The Media and the Murderer: David Richard Berkowitz (The Son of Sam)
  • A House Divided: Wayne Bertram Williams
  • There All the Time: Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer
  • The Classic Case: Jack the Ripper
  • Bibliography
  • Index
LC Card Number: 96-33198
LCC Class: HV6529
Dewey Class: 364
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2008 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571