Major 3
Compare/Contrast
Serial Killers
Mass Murders vs. Serial Killers
Mass Murderer- The act of simultaneously murdering people , typically over a very short period of time.
Serial Killer- The act of murdering many people on separate days, often stalk victims before murder.
There are three major differences when deciding whether somebody is a mass murderer or a serial killer. The first major difference is that mass murderers go on killing sprees that last for no longer than a day or two; in fact, these killings are often last for no more than 2 hours. For example and according to cnn.com, Adam Lanza, age 20, shot his mother just 13 minutes prior to breaking into Sandy Hook Elementary and killing 26 people before taking his own life. This entire series of murder lasted only five minutes. Serial killers often like to space out their murders for they tend to do research on their victim before committing the murder. For example, Richard Ramirez was found guilty of killing 13 people. Prior to every killing, he would stalk them throughout the…show more content… Serial killers are famous for doing all their killings in a private area, often their own home or the victim’s home, while mass murderers are famous for murdering in public areas such as schools or movie theatres. Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer committed almost all of his murders in the privacy of his own home. His targets were younger homosexual men in which he would invite to his own home with promises of sexual activities, but in the end would strangle them to death. Mass murderer James Holmes attended “The Dark Knight Rises” midnight showing at a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. He brought tear gas and an automatic assault rifle in a bookbag to this event. Midway through the movie, he threw the tear gas and opened fire, killing 12 people and wounding 6 more. In his trial he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, but was found guilty and