I am a criminologist – serial killers hide in this “dangerous place”

A British criminologist and true crime writer has revealed the ideal hunting ground for serial killers – and it’s closer to you than you think.

Christopher Berry-Dee, who has met notorious killers, says the internet has become a powerful tool for criminals to identify victims.

“Many men [are] like serial killer John Edward Robinson, the first killer to use the internet for serial murder,” Berry-Dee told The Sun of Robinson, who has been linked to the murders of eight women from 1985 to 2000.

These killers usually go to online chat rooms “like someone else”, posing as a businessman, for example, to lure “lonely women into his house” and strike.

“People underestimate the internet. It becomes a trawling ground for predators,” Berry-Dee said. [of] women… it goes back a long way.

Before dating apps, there were “lonely hearts” sections in newspapers, where people could advertise that they were in the love business.

Harvey Carignan, known as the “Want-Ad Serial Killer”, used print advertisements to find victims in need of help. He died earlier this month in prison, where he was serving time for the murders of three women in Minnesota and Alaska nearly 50 years ago.

The ‘Lonely Hearts Killers’, Raymond Martinez Fernandez and Martha Jule Beck, found their victims in newspapers that advertised singles and allegedly killed 20 people – despite the couple only being convicted of one murder.

They were executed at Sing Sing Prison in New York in 1951.

From print to pixels, “MOs” have remained consistent over the decades, Berry-Dee claims.

“The internet is really just an extension of that, it hasn’t changed. It’s just that the method of doing it is electronic now,” he said, calling the internet a “dangerous place”. .

Chase Seneca used Grindr, a popular gay dating app, to locate victims, mirroring the horrific crimes of notorious serial killer Jeffery Dahmer.

Seneca pleaded guilty last year to kidnapping and attempted murder of a gay man, and was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Authorities say he intended to eat and preserve the bodies of his victims, as Dahmer had done.

John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted of murdering 33 young men and boys in the Chicago area in the 1970s, targeted male prostitutes, teenage boys who wanted to work for his company, and hitchhikers.

“Gacy knew where to look,” Berry-Dee said.

“He knew where these weaker people were.”

Despite advances in technology, the approach taken by serial killers has remained consistent, finding their “hunting ground like an animal” where they know “prey” might be found, Berry-Dee said.

On the prowl, killers are “patient” until it is time to “strike”.

“They know where their intended prey is swimming in the shoals, they sniff it out and they’ll watch and they’ll wait,” he continued, “and then they’ll select the weakest of the herd or the one that left the group, the one that walks to a taxi in the rain and waits.