Excerpt from The Killing Frenzy - Profiling Mass Murder

You think that mass murder is a new thing? Or that it isn't new, but it's getting worse?  It is getting worse, but it has been going for 1000's of years.  The Malaysians called it Amok.  The Vikings called it Berserker.

"Prior to 1949, mass murder only occasionally made headlines.  Only after 1949, with the actions of Howard Unruh who killed thirteen people on a gun-wielding rampage, did mass murder begin to gain the notoriety of today.  It was not sensationalized as it is in the modern press.   A review of the literature finds eleven documented occurrences from the 1400’s to 1949.  These eleven include:  Vlad the Impaler, the 1450s Romanian ruler who ordered the impalement of 500 murders on one occasion and 1000 on another; Jean-Baptiste Troppman, who in 1869 killed the eight members of his business partner’s family, including the partner, for the partner’s fortune; Floyd and Claude Allen, a father and son pair who were upset with the 1912 Virginia court decision against father Floyd for his assault on a police officer and began shooting, killing five; John D. Lee, who in Utah in 1857 led a group of horsemen and acted as rescuer to a group of settlers being attacked by Indians, but then turned on the settlers killing 123 of them; James Carroll, who in Canada in 1880, led a group of extremist Catholic vigilantes who killed four members of a family over a racial disagreement; William Gouldstone of London, who in 1883 murdered all five of his young children because the burden of too many children overwhelmed him; Edgar Edwards of London, who in 1903 killed a family of three so he could profit from selling their furniture; Carl Panzram, though a notorious serial killer, did shoot in the back six native porters in the Belgian Congo around 1922 and fed them to the crocodiles; Andrew Kehoe, who in Michigan in 1927 killed 45 when he planted a bomb under the school where he had been a school board member and treasurer; and, Eric George Graham of New Zealand, who in 1941, started his rampage by killing four police officers who came to talk to the failed dairy farmer about his unstable behavior.  He also killed two passersby who stopped to help.

The era of the modern mass murder is recognized to begin in 1949 with the actions of Howard Unruh.  Unruh killed thirteen people in twelve minutes on a shooting rampage before returning to his home and waiting for the police.  It was his actions that seemed to mark a new era in murder, as there was an increase in public awareness of the action of mass murder.  It gained public recognition.   Police reaction to the phenomena of mass murder did not occur until seventeen years later.  The public shock of the actions of Richard Speck in 1966, who killed eight nurses, and Charles Whitman who killed his wife, mother, and thirteen others from the clock tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus brought tremendous press coverage causing political pressure which ushered in the age of police SWAT teams.

Since the beginning of this modern era of mass murder, more information and documentation is available in the study of mass murder.   “The Mass Murder Hit List” compiles the names and a brief description of the scenarios of 208 incidents of mass murder around the globe since 1949.  Another list has 55 murders from 1949 to 1991 in their review of those occurring in the United States alone.  Since the Columbine school murders in 1999, there have been a sharp uptake of mass murder.  The 2014 FBI study indicates that there have been 160 mass shootings from 2000 to 2013, with 64 of the 160 mass shootings resulting in the death of three or more victims."


The Killing Frenzy: Profiling Mass Murder
http://amzn.com/B0163JZG0U



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P. O. Doe

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