Signature Killers - Softcover

Keppel, Robert

4.04

1,439 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671001302 ISBN 13: 9780671001308

Publisher: Pocket, 1997

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In a real-life scenario straight out of The Silence of the Lambs, Robert Keppel went one-on-one with the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, who advised Keppel on the detective's highly publicized search for the elusive Green River Killer. Bundy's chilling revelations were chronicled in The Riverman, "a page-turner" (Ted Montgomery, Detroit News) praised by Ann Rule as "the definitive book on serials." But Ted Bundy wasn't the first killer of his kind -- or the last.

Signature Killers

They leave telltale identifiers, their gruesome "calling cards," at the scenes of their crimes. They are driven by a primitive motivation to act out the same brutality over and over. With brilliant detection, high-tech analysis -- and a little luck -- they can be caught. But what does the signature killer seek from victim to victim? The answers are hidden among the grisly evidence, the common threads that link each devastating act.

Sparked by a growing concern over the steady rise of signature murders, Robert Keppel explores in unflinching detail the monstrous patterns, sadistic compulsions, and depraved motives of this breed of killer. From the Lonely Hearts Killer who hunted the most desperate of women in 1950s America, to the savage Midtown Torso Murders that stunned the NYPD, to such infamous symbols of evil as Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and John Gacy, these are the cases -- horrifying, graphic and unforgettable -- that Keppel ingeniously taps to shed light on the darkest corners of the pathological mind.

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Review:

Signature Killers is a peculiar yet valuable book--repetitious, brilliant, turgid, passionate, and indispensable for understanding serial killers. Those who persevere through the prolix writing style will be rewarded by compelling insights into the psychological needs, and evolution over time, of a specific type of murderer, one whose key characteristic is not so much that he kills multiple people, but that he leaves a signature behind at every crime scene. Robert Keppel knows what he's talking about: He's been involved in more than 2,000 murder investigations, including 50 high-profile serial cases. The topics he covers in exhaustive and harrowing detail (Signature Killers is not for the faint of heart) include "the essence of torture," "the anger-retaliation signature," "the picquerism signature," "the psychological imprint of a sadist," "the retaliation-to-excitation continuum," and why Jeffrey Dahmer is "the black hole at the end of the continuum."

About the Author:

Robert D. Keppel is the chief criminal investigator for the Washington State Attorney General's Office. He has a Ph.D in criminal justice from the University of Washington and has been an investigator or consultant to more than two thousand murder cases and more than fifty serial murder investigations, including the Atlanta child murders and the Green River murders. With William J. Birnes, he is coauthor of The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer, published by Pocket Books.

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