Robert Keller - True Crime: Rampage Killers: The World’s Worst Mass Murderers And Spree Killers

• Aaron Alexis
• George Emil Banks
• Mark Orrin Barton
• Carl Robert Brown
• Mark Chahal
• Seung-Hui Cho
• Scott Evans Dekraai
• Campo Elias Delgado
• Gian Luigi Ferri
• Baruch Kappel Goldstein
• Nidal Malik Hasan
• Robert Hawkins
• George Jo Hennard
• Victor Ernest Hoffman
• James Eagan Holmes
• Adam Lanza
• Michael McLendon
• James Edward Pough
• Christopher Bryan Speight
• Robert Stewart
• Omar Thornton
• Joseph Wesbecker
• Jeffrey Weise
• Jiverly Antares Wong

They are the most destructive of criminals, human killing machines who strike without warning, leaving in their wake, carnage and bloodshed and enduring sorrow. But what exactly is a rampage killer, and why do they feel compelled to reek such havoc on society?

To answer these questions, we must first understand the differences between the various categories of multiple murderers the serial killer, the spree killer and the mass murderer.

Serial Killers

Weve all heard of the most high profile cases. Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer, for example, have become near household names. These are killers who commit at least three murders, in separate incidents, over a period exceeding 30 days, with a cooling off period between each crime. Typically they are psychopaths who will continue killing until they are caught. Seldom, if ever, do they stop killing of their own free will.

Spree Killers

Similar in many ways to serial killers, but the murder spree is compacted into a much shorter period (30 days is the generally accepted timeframe). Quite often the murders have an inciting incident and occur while the killer is on the run, as in the high profile cases of Charles Starkweather, Christopher Wilder, and Paul John Knowles. But the lines are often blurred. Richard Trenton Chase, most often considered a serial killer, would be labeled a spree killer under this definition, as the murders he committed occurred within a 30-day period. The opposite is true of Andrew Cunanan, who is usually called a spree killer, even though his murder spree lasted for longer than 30 days.

Finally, there are the Mass Murderers or Rampage Killers , who are the subject of this book.

These are individuals who, through their failed lives, have become alienated from human society. They feel embittered by their inability to amount to anything and develop a deep sense of animosity towards other people. They tend to be intelligent underachievers with chaotic lives and patchy employment records. They are loners who find it difficult to interact with others. Many suffer from paranoia and harbor complex revenge fantasies. Most have a fascination with firearms.

When they eventually act out, they do so in the most explosive way, taking as many with them as possible. The rampage is both an act of revenge and an announcement to the world that, all evidence to the contrary, the killer is someone to be reckoned with. The final act is also essentially an act of suicide. Very few rampage killers surrender, choosing either to end their own lives or to force the police into shooting them (suicide by cop).

Rampage killers usually target strangers, although many (such as Charles Whitman, Michael Ryan and Ronald Gene Simmons) also wipe out members of their own family. Their weapons of choice are firearms, although explosives may also be employed (Andrew Kehoe and Anders Breivik for example). They are driven by hatred, although another motive is also a powerful force behind their actions. The drive for recognition, to finally be recognized as a somebody in a world that has largely ignored them.

In this volume we examine the lives and dreadful deeds of thirteen rampage killers from the murderous death walk of Howard Unruh to the senseless shootings carried out by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine High School, from the heartless mass infanticide committed by Thomas Watt Hamilton, to the deadly sniper attack perpetrated by Charles Whitman.

Many of the cases are from the United States, but the presence of such killers as Martin Bryant, Anders Breivik, Michael Ryan, Woo Bum-Kon, and Marc Lpine, prove that rampage killers are not just an American problem, but a global phenomenon.