Obsessed with Serial Killers ////// 790

Summary

True Crime Garage: Obsessed with Serial Killers (Episode 790)

Release Date: October 2, 2024
Hosts: Nic & The Captain
Special Guest: Dr. Scott Bonn, Criminologist & Author

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Episode Overview

This episode is a riveting, in-depth interview with Dr. Scott Bonn—a criminologist, author, and seasoned profiler—on the psychology, motivations, and cultural impact of serial killers. From infamous murderers like BTK and John Wayne Gacy to recent suspects like Rex Heuerman (the Long Island Serial Killer), the conversation explores what drives these offenders, the myths and realities of their behavior, why society is obsessed with them, and how investigative techniques have evolved. Quotes from actual killers, analytical insights into criminal minds, and a candid look at society’s fascination blend into a chillingly compelling discussion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Societal Fascination with Serial Killers

[04:11–08:55]

• Dr. Bonn explains the enduring public obsession:

  • Emotional thrill and adrenaline ("adrenaline pumping entertainment", haunted houses for adults).
  • Psychological drive to understand the incomprehensible.
  • The overwhelmingly female audience, often seeking empathy, education, and self-protection.
  • Serial killer stories force listeners to examine the darkness in their own psyche.

  "True crime and serial killers in particular are for many adults what those things like fun houses and haunted houses are for kids."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [05:10]

  "I've had so many women say to me, 'I don't want to be the victim of the next Ted Bundy. Help me... How can I identify a psychopath?'"
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [06:10]

2. What Defines a Serial Killer: Fact vs. Myth

[08:55–12:56]

• No single demographic—killers come from all walks of life.
• The one common denominator:
  • "Killing complete strangers serves some underlying insatiable psychological need..."
    — Dr. Scott Bonn [09:45]
• Distinction from typical murder:
  • Most homicides are emotional or accidental—serial killing is premeditated, emotionless, and driven by compulsion.

3. Variations & Motivations: Sexual vs. Non-Sexual Drives

[13:11–16:42]

• Sexual motivation prevalent but not universal (approx. 50–60%).

• "Mission killers" and "comfort/gain killers" often lack sexual motive, sometimes kill for ideology or financial gain.

• Examples:

  • Dorothea Puente (killed for Social Security checks).
  • BTK’s motives evolved—primarily about power and control with a secondary sexual aspect.

  "Serial killers are truly an aberration in every way from the average murder..."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [11:35]

4. The Role of Fantasy and Compulsion in Serial Crimes

[16:42–19:12]

• All serial killers, regardless of motive, become consumed by a "fantasy" or internal "script."

• Roy Hazelwood referred to killers as "directors" casting real people into deadly roles ([18:18]).

  "They do dream about it and they do think about it and they are obsessed with it... it is something that they have in common."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [16:55]

5. Case Study: BTK (Dennis Rader)

[19:12–27:21]

• Split personality/compartmentalization ("cubing").

• Extended cooling-off periods—Raider could delay acting out for years, unlike typical escalation patterns.

• Deep introspection yet chilling lack of remorse; coined "factor X" for his compulsion.

  "He tried to control his own compulsion to kill, because he didn't want to be controlled by it." — Dr. Scott Bonn [24:19]

6. The Long Island Serial Killer (Rex Heuerman) & Profiling

[34:53–48:00]

• Dr. Bonn’s early, detailed profile of Heuerman closely matched the eventual suspect: meticulous, educated, local, a hunter.

• Speculation that there are many undiscovered victims due to property holdings in several states.

  "My profile really had penetrated his psyche... he was the white, middle-aged guy with children, living openly in plain sight."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [41:22]

• Heuerman, like BTK, is a “power and control” killer, possibly biding time before revealing more details to maintain leverage.

7. Why There Are Fewer Serial Killers Today

[64:38–70:54]

• The actual prevalence is far less than media coverage suggests (now just 1–2% of homicides).

• 1970s/80s: hundreds of active serial killers; modern numbers are much lower—partially due to DNA, profiling, vigilant society, and procedural improvements.

• Many "wannabe" serial killers today are caught after their first crime.

• Case reference: Brian Kohberger (Idaho), apprehended after a single event.

  "It's just much more difficult now to be a successful, prolific serial killer than it was back in the 70s and before."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [68:50]

8. Nature vs. Nurture & Historical Trends

[71:13–73:19]

• Discussion of war (Vietnam/Iraq) and disrupted families as contributing social factors.
• Nature and nurture both play roles; stories of trauma or violent childhood incidents awakening latent tendencies.

9. Challenges of Profiling & Crime Scene Evidence

[73:45–75:23]

• Quality and specificity of crime scene evidence directly affect profiling accuracy.

• Meticulous killers (like Heuerman or BTK) provide more for profilers to analyze.

  "The more evidence that's available at the crime scene, the more vivid your profile is going to be."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [74:41]

10. The Psychology of Visual Stimulation and Control

[59:31–64:38]

• Many killers are visually driven; aroused by terror, the "look on the face" of their victims.
• Several are artists (Gacy, BTK, Heuerman—architecture).
• No known blind serial killers—a testament to the core importance of visual stimuli for such offenders.

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Notable Quotes & Chilling Moments

• Dennis Rader (BTK), describing his double life:

  "I lived as an ordinary person most of my life, even though I was living a parallel and increasingly sick life."
  [02:01]

• On BTK as “God”:

  "When he kills, he is God. It's not that he wants to be God...he is God in his own mind."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [52:16]

• On killers’ need for adulation (BTK and Heuerman):

  "He needs a grandstand from which to preach from... now, he just stepped onto a different stage."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [49:10]

• On Ramirez (Night Stalker) & thrill-killing:

  "For Richard Ramirez, even murder was not enough... he would improvise and decide what to do."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [54:20]

• Serial killer fantasy as movie direction:

  "He says, I was a movie director...I envisioned that scene. I directed it in my mind a thousand times..."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn on BTK [62:11]

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Memorable and Lighthearted Moments

• The AC/DC Namesake:

  "Please tell me that your parents were huge AC/DC fans and named you somewhat after Bon Scott."
  — Nic [77:41]
  "I wish... but no, it's a coincidence that I like because I happen to be big AC/DC fans."
  — Dr. Scott Bonn [78:06]

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Obsessed with Serial Killers – Why are we fascinated? [04:11–08:55]
• The Myth of the Serial Killer Profile [08:55–12:56]
• Sexual vs Non-Sexual Serial Killers [13:11–16:42]
• Fantasy, Compulsion & Roy Hazelwood’s Influence [16:42–19:12]
• Insights into BTK/compartmentalization [19:12–27:21]
• Rex Heuerman & the Art of Profiling [39:08–41:22]
• Evolution of Serial Killers as a Social Phenomenon [64:38–70:54]
• Profiling and Crime Scene Details [73:45–75:23]
• Visual Stimulation & Artistry among Killers [59:31–64:38]
• Nature, Nurture & Societal Factors [71:13–73:19]
• Fan Q&A and Dr. Bonn’s Current Tour [78:26–79:35]

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Further Information

Dr. Scott Bonn is currently touring with his live show, "Serial Killers with Dr. Scott Bonn." Tour info and tickets: docbonn.com
He promises a “thrilling and chilling evening” with stories, analysis, and live Q&A.

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For listeners: This episode delivers a comprehensive, thoughtful, and, at times, unsettling exploration of why serial killers both horrify and captivate. Nic, the Captain, and Dr. Scott Bonn skillfully blend expertise, storytelling, and dark humor—making it a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the minds behind the world’s most infamous crimes.

Transcript

[Nick]

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[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Can you say how many people might be doing crimes like you were doing?

[Serial Killer (Dennis Rader)]

It would be a guess, but it's not. It's far more than 35. It isn't that impossible in this society. It happens.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

You were able to appear like a ordinary person, non threatening to.

[Serial Killer (Dennis Rader)]

I lived as an ordinary person most of my life, even though I was living a parallel and increasingly sick life. Other life. One victim let me back in the car. I locked myself out. She opened the door for me. My gun was under the seat. What in the hell am I doing telling you that? Am I looking, am I a masochist? Am I looking to be tormented further? Trying to show you just how awful this got, how commanding these rages got. I was raging inside. There was just incredible energies, positive and negative, depending on a mood that would trigger one or the other. And outside I looked troubled at times. Other times I looked moody. Other times perfectly serene. Not very sane.

[True Crime Garage Host]

All right, joining me in the garage,

[Nick]

I have Dr. Scott Vaughn. We're going to be talking about serial killers here today. Doctor, could you introduce yourself to our beautiful listeners, let them know where you are. What kind of doctor are you and how you got interested in this field?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Sure thing. Well, Yes, I am Dr. Scott Bond. I am based in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although I spent most of my life living and working in New York City. My PhD is in criminology and I also have a background, interestingly in media and communications. So I do study crime generally, but specifically serial killers. And I look at their motivations, what drives them, the hungers, the insatiable pathologies they have that lead them to kill. But I'm also extremely interested because of my media background in why we are so fascinated by them. And I mean the public and true crime fans, etc.

[Nick]

Well, that's a good question.

[True Crime Garage Host]

Why do you think that we are?

[Nick]

I mean, of course, it's only a certain percentage of our population. I know, you know, I been living in the true crime world with True Crime Garage for eight or so years and my book the Delphi Murders, but I have friends in my social circles that are like, yeah, don't talk to me about any of that stuff. I want to stay as far away from it as possible. But for the people that are interested in this kind of stuff, why do you think that is?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, well, you know, it is, it is definitely a growing genre. You know, with all the podcasts and television networks like hln, Discovery Investigation, Discovery, Oxygen, you know, I mean, it definitely is growing. But you're right, not everyone is interested in this stuff. But there are those who are not only interested, but, you know, downright even obsessed with it. And I think that there's a, you know, like most things in life, when you really bore down and take a look at it, the. It's more complicated than you might think on the surface. And I think that when it comes to the fascination with true crime, that's also true because at one level it's, it's, it's adrenaline pumping entertainment. You know, whether, whether you're watching a Ted Bundy documentary or listening a podcast, there's that, you know, there's that adrenaline rush that goes along with it. And you know, even as kids, you know, we were attracted to haunted houses and monster movies and things like that. And I've maintained that true crime and serial killers in particular are for many adults what those things like fun houses and haunted houses are for kids. And that is adrenaline pumping entertainment. But there's a lot more to it than that, of course, and some of it has to do with the incomprehensible nature of what individuals, where we're talking serial killers here, like a Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy did to their victims, you know, complete strangers, people that they didn't even know and did these absolutely horrible, heinous acts of abduction and torture and in some cases even, you know, beyond killing, dismemberment and, and Dahmer even ate some of his victims. And for most of us, that is just so incomprehensible that we're drawn to it to understand it, because psychologically, I believe many of us just don't like ambiguity. We don't like not understanding. And I think that there's this, this underlying psychological need to understand, and if we can somehow just wrap our minds around it, then maybe it's not so terrifying after all. I go around the country doing public speaking, performing a, actually a one man theatrical event, serial killers with Dr. Scott Bond. And what I find is that my audience almost across the board is between 80 and 90% female. And this is true of the true crime audience in general. It's definitely a female skewing audience in my experience. And women in particular, when it comes to true crime and even serial killers, I believe there's an empathy factor. They empathize with both the victims, certainly many of which, and the majority of which are often women in these stories. But also then the empathy or the need to understand the perpetrator. And I've had so many women say to me, I don't want to be the victim of the next Ted Bundy. Help me to understand it. Help me to give me clues of what to look for. How can I identify a psychopath? How can I identify a sociopath? And so I find that many women are drawn to my shows for an educational reason and for safety and security. So I think that is at play here as well. And I think it goes even deeper psychologically in that someone like a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Ted Bundy even get us to look at ourselves, you know, our own dark inner instincts and, and get us to question what I might I be capable of could I ever do something like that? You know, you might hear someone say at work, you know, I can't stand my boss. He's. He's a jerk. Man, I, I'd love to kill that guy. But we don't do it. You know, we don't do it, the vast majority of us, but these people do they, do they. They kill complete strangers. So it gets us to kind of look in the mirror even at ourselves, the dark side of ourselves, to say, what might I be capable of under duress, under dire circumstances? So I think it's multifaceted, you know, multifaceted the interest with these diabolical characters.

[Nick]

But it's also not like studying elephants, right, like you with, with serial killers. I wouldn't say any, from my experience anyway, observing them and learning about them over the years, I've not found. And this is why you're a doctor and I'm not. I've not found one particular trait that they all seem to have, right? I mean, or is there?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Well, that is a great question. And I Address this in, in my show. And there is a great myth out there that they're all sort of the same. They're all motivated by the same thing. They're all these sort of dysfunctional young men like the Tooth Fairy or Buffalo Bill and the Hannibal Lecter movies. And it's just not, it's just not the case. They're very diverse. They come in every race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, iq, socioeconomic status across the board. But to answer your question, they do have one common characteristic. And that common characteristic or common denominator is the fact that for these individuals, killing complete strangers serves some underlying insatiable psychological need that is borne out through their lives in fantasy and over time becomes a hunger until it reaches a tipping point. And oftentimes it takes 10, 15, sometimes 20 years for this to happen, where they reach a tipping point where they can no longer just fantasize about killing, they actually have to do it. So there is a common factor. And serial killers don't kill because of the reason that most murders happen. Most homicides are actually not premeditated murders. They are reactionary, reactionary or manslaughter really fall in the realm of manslaughter. They're not first degree premeditated murders. They're not even second degree murders where the intent to kill. Most murders tend to be even accidents, where a couple of people get into a fight, one gets angry, punches the other, the other one falls down, hits their head and dies. So manslaughters are actually the most common type of serial killers, therefore are a complete aberration because there is the desire and the premeditation and the deliberation to kill. But taking it even a step further, most homicides result from anger, from something that triggers anger and homicide as a result. In the case of serial killers, there's no anger involved. These are emotionless murders. They're based upon, once again, a hunger to kill. So they, serial killers are truly an aberration in every way from the, the average murder, if you will, in, in

[Nick]

the United States, yeah, They're nine times out of ten, they're setting out to go and kill. They're, they're hunting, essentially, yes.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

They may not have a specific target in mind, although some of them do. Some of them have a specific target. Like, like Dennis Rader, who called himself Bind, torture, kill. I'm very, very familiar with Dennis Rader, studied him, interviewed him, and he would have a specific target he had been watching and preparing for. Others have an intent to kill, but they don't have a specific Target Richard Ramirez, the night stalker, for example, in California, he would literally go into a neighborhood that he didn't know at night and find an open window, climb inside and kill whoever and whatever he found inside. He had the intent to kill, but he didn't even know who or what he would be killing.

[Nick]

Yeah, Ramirez was looking for a house and an opportunity, an easy opportunity. And yes, Raider. Raider, I think he called them. What, PJs, projects. Yeah, his. I think he would refer to him as PJs, as projects.

[True Crime Garage Host]

Yeah.

[Nick]

The thing that I've found, I see time and time again, even if it's not obvious at the crime scene or obvious with the victim, to me it appears that there's always some kind of sexual. Sexual nature to. Or they're sexually driven. Most serial killers.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Well, the ones that we are most familiar with, the btk, since we're talking about him, or the John Wayne Gacy's, There's a, there's a sexual aspect to many of these. But, but in fact, you know, it's. It's hard to get definitive numbers on this kind of stuff because there's not even a really the true database of serial murder per se. I would say it's about 50 to 60 have a sexual component. There are others where there's just absolutely no sexual component at all. For example, you have, you have individuals who are mission killers. And they may say it's. I have decided I'm giving myself the mission to rid the world of homeless individuals, homeless men. And there's no sexual component there at all. They simply their fantasy, you know, going back to the fantasy need once again, is that they must rid the world of these particular individuals. You also have comfort. They're called comfort or gain killers. And many times female serial killers will fall into this category and they will kill for purposes of, for example, extorting individuals, or the landlady killers who will take in people, milk them of their Social Security and then kill them and bury them in the backyard like Dorothy Puente out in California. So no, it's, it's not all, it's not all sexual in nature, but I would say yes, probably about half, you know, half has a. Either a specific sexual motive in the. Like Jeffrey Dahmer, who was a hedonist lust killer. That's the category he fell into. And he truly obsessed sexually for these, for these men that he killed. And he actually believed that he was in love with him. He was deluded. You know, his. In his delusions he truly loved them. The sexual component can Be direct and overt like that, or it can be secondary. In the case of btk, his primary objective or motive was really power, domination and control, the extermination of others. But then after the fact, post mortem, he would masturbate on their bodies. So there was a sexual component, but it wasn't really the driving force behind his murders.

[Nick]

And he would sexually relive those crimes over and over again. You know, he talked about going in, in this bizarre hobby of, of going and staying in a hotel. Right. Overnight so he could live out his, in a one man show, live out his, his fantasies and fantasize about all this stuff. Yeah, before and after and. But, but then I guess the thing is though, you know, we talk about that they live in fantasy and it's, it's a characteristic that they share is living out this fantasy. But I wouldn't think that a greed motivated serial killer is living out a fantasy. Right? Like if you're taking, if you're taking in the elderly and you're killing them to collect your, collect their Social Security checks, I can't imagine that they're fantasizing about that for an extended period of time or any time at all.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

They are. When you say fantasy, you know, we oftentimes we think of like a, you know, a sexual fantasy, but it's not played out that way. This is, this is their compulsion. They're compelled, compelled to do it and they do dream about it and they do think about it and they are obsessed with it. So that, you know, the fantasy can just, can even just be. It's, it's an obsession, but it's something that compels them that they absolutely must do and they generally speaking have no control over it. It reaches this tipping point where they simply must act out on it. And again, it varies by individual and it varies by the nature of this fantasy or compulsion. But it is something that they have in common. The thing that drives them to kill is as I said, is very different than what is in a normal case of homicide. So Dorothea Puente for example. Yes, she did, she did obsess and, and dream and think about how to get the next victim, how to bring them in, how to manipulate them and coerce them in, into bringing them into her, her lair, if you will.

[Nick]

I'm guessing that you're familiar with Roy Hazelwood's work.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Roy Hazelwood in fact was a, was a very good friend of mine.

[Nick]

Oh wow.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah. Sadly he passed away a few years ago.

[Nick]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

But yeah, he, he was a very good Friend of mine, the way that I go about, you know, profiling myself is very much drawn from his dichotomy of the organized versus disorganized killer.

[Nick]

Yeah. And so I guess when I think of serial killers and think of fantasy, I'm thinking of how Roy Hazelwood described it and I thought, I loved the way that he described it. Of okay, you have this, this guy, this, this sick perverse guy has this fantasy and at some point he's, you know, he's the director, he's written the script, he's the director and now he just needs somebody to play the role, play the role of the victim. And so when I think of fantasy, that's, I guess I'm equating it to the way that Hazelwood described it, I think in Dark Dreams. But yeah, no, that's interesting to hear about the, the greed motivated serial killers and that they do that. They're compelled to do it. Speaking of compelled to do it, of course everybody's familiar with John Wayne Gacy, but I don't know how much you've studied him in particular.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Quite a bit. I'm pretty familiar with Gacy.

[Nick]

So one thing that I saw, I think it was his. I can't remember the gentleman's name. One of his defense attorneys wrote a book decades after the case and years after Gacy was executed. But he describes in his book a situation where he, he's in a confined space with Gacy. He said that at some point Gacy almost went into like this zombie like state. And, and he had said that he thought that, that that is what Gacy, this similar state that he would have been in during the course of committing some of these homicides. And one thing that I found very strange, there was another gentleman who's no longer with us. I can't remember his name either, forgive me. A book called the Last. I think it was called the Last Victim. He traded letters with Gacy and went to visit him in prison. And he described exact, a very similar thing with Gacy many years later obviously where he said Gacy tried to grab him and attack him during the course of their visit. And he, he said the same thing where Casey's face almost changed, it contorted and, and he went into like the zombie like almost Frankenstein ish kind of state. And Gacy said that he doesn't remember the killings, which I don't believe. But I tend to think everybody's guilty and more guilty than they, they will ever admit. But have. In your work and your research, have you found any of that.

[True Crime Garage Host]

Do you believe any of that to be true?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Oh, yes, yes. Well, first of all, you know, Gacy was a pathological liar. You know, you have to take a lot of what he said with, you know, a great.

[Nick]

Almost all of them are right.

[True Crime Garage Host]

Like.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, well, many of them. Yeah, many of them. Not all, but, but, but, but, yes, many of them are. Are pathological liars. But in. In terms of this, like, flipping a switch and almost becoming a different person. Yeah, I am very much aware of that phenomenon and have had many people describe it to me in. In, you know, in encounters with these individuals. And one that I think it. It. It bears mentioning because it's just. It's so profound, is back to Dennis Raider once again. His. His daughter. I don't know if, you know, Carrie Rawson. She wrote the book Serial Killer's Daughter, which became bestseller. She was in her 30s when she found out that her father was, you know, one of the most diabolical killers of the. Of the 20th century. And you can imagine the, you know, the psychological implications of that and, you know, troubled her. Well, when her father was arrested in 2004, she cut off all communication with him. She had not spoken to him until very recently because they're cold cases that they're attempting to connect to Raider. And so she got back involved at the request of police, and actually agreed to go and sit with her father to see if she could get any information about these cold cases. Well, so Carrie, throughout her life had believed that this man was, you know, a loving father and had no reason to believe that there was anything strange about him. And yet when she went to see him this time, she said she saw him transform into BTK for the first time. When she started to question him about these people, potential cold cases, she said his eyes blackened and hardened and he became someone different right in front of her. So that's very much what you're describing.

[Nick]

Do you prefer studying somebody like a BTK who's able to articulate some of. Some of the stuff behind the mask for us? You know what I mean? Like, I think John Douglas said that Ed Kemper was always one of the most interesting to him because he was one of the few that could really offer true insight.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nick]

Because of his intelligence.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think Dahmer was.

[Interjecting Speaker]

Was.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Was very interesting for that reason, because it almost seemed like he was trying to do some. Some introspection. And, you know, I don't know whether you want to call it soul searching, but. But in the, you know, in his during incarceration, you know, he seemed to try to understand himself. And BTK or Raider, definitely. Well, of course he loves to talk about himself because he thinks he's the most interesting guy he knows, but he really tried to understand, and he told me he wanted to understand this compulsion that led him to kill, but he, he really couldn't understand it. And that's why he came up with the term factor X. You probably heard that term, factor X, which is what he calls his own compulsion to kill. You know, and I had many conversations with Roy Hazelwood about btk. He told me that he thought that Raider was in fact the most stone cold psychopath that he ever. That he ever encountered. And he interviewed many, if not most of them. And Raider, you mentioned his use of autoerotic fantasy where he would relive his killings and he actually kept a trophy chest in the house, buried. He called it the mother lode of trophies. And when he felt that, that itch rising up to kill, he would dress up dolls, as you said, and then vividly reenact his killings, including bondage and fetishism and strangulation, then of course, masturbation. And the incredible thing about, or even more incredible than the act itself, was why he did it. He. He tried to control his own compulsion to kill because he didn't want to be controlled by it. So it's the ultimate irony. He's the control freak playing God. And he would not allow himself to be controlled by his own compulsions to kill. Therefore, he used this autoerotic fantasy as a way to try to keep it under control, which I just find so fascinating and disturbing. But at the same time, it's because he's willing to be so introspective that I was able to unearth, you know, this, this explanation.

[Nick]

I think he also referred to it as cubism, right? Where he, when he would be Dennis Raider and, and hide factor X and then when he would allow factor X to, to come out and take over.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, well, it's, it's psycho. I mean, in psychological terms, we call it compartmentalization. But he had his own word for it. You're right. Cubing. And that's what allowed him to not have any sort of cognitive dissonance or even acknowledge any kind of contradiction or irony. You know, you say, well, how can you be this killer and torturer and also be the loving father on one hand and the church leader, the president of your Lutheran Church association and Boy Scout leader on the other? And he would simply say, they're just three different things, you know, those are three different things there. There's no crossover. So when he's in BTK room, he is not in daddy room or in, you know, a Lutheran church room. So to him there is no contradiction which of course allows him to sleep like a baby at night because he doesn't see any, you know, any, any contradictions there.

[Nick]

I don't know if Roy Hazelwood was a part of this or not. I'd be interested to hear your, your thoughts. But one thing that I thought was fascinating when reviewing btk, it was John Douglas that said that when, when they, when he was still at large. Right. Like along. We're going back many years now, but when they were still hunting btk, he said they sat down, the profilers sat down and round. Tried to round table discussion. A profile of btk. And he said anytime they attempted to do it, the room would always end up, end up in an argument because nobody, they could never agree on a profile for somebody like Dennis Raider.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, I do remember Roy talking about that. And that's one of the reasons he. Even among serial killers, Raider kind of stands out as a bit unique for a number of reasons. And one is that, you know, trying to control his own compulsion to kill and the autoerotic fantasy. But another is that tremendously long period that would, that would transpire in between his murders. You know, typically, you know, might be weeks or months, but in the case of Raider, it was years, you know, and that's just almost unprecedented. If anything, it tends to be the opposite. They tend to escalate, you know, like Bundy escalated over time, whereas Raider did the opposite. And, you know, so again, that's, that's another one of the reasons why, you know, he's just, you know, he's, he's rather interesting in terms of the ilk, you know, the category there of serial killers.

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[Nick]

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[Nick]

Well and the thing too that that strikes me as unique about Dennis Raider, Rex Herriman, those two in particular. I have a hard time thinking of other serial killers that didn't just completely spiral out of control right like they where Bundy started off very organized he eventually turns into like this almost frenzy killer and you look at and usually that's their downfall and when I say downfall meaning leading to their their capture. Dahmer did it Even, even Ed Kemper who might have the highest IQ out of all of the serial killers that that I can think of even he turned into a frenzy killer. I've always equated it to like a drug with, with like like Bundy in particular. Dahmer, Kemper that it that it's a drug and you once you Start chasing that dragon. It gets harder and harder to catch, and you need more. And just like heroin, you need. You need more and more and more to get you there. And you're always trying to get as close to the edge without going over. Why do you think that somebody like a Raider or, or the Long island serial killer, why do you think that they. Do you think on a long enough timeline they would eventually become frenzy killers, or do you think that it's just they were able to avoid that somehow?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

I'm very familiar with the, you know, the Long island serial killer, Heuerman. In fact, I profiled him back in 2011. And there's an interesting story that I'll tell you about there, but we don't know. In the case of Heuermann, I think there are many, many other bodies out there that we simply don't even know about yet. In the case of Raider Raeder, again, power and control. Everything was about power and control. And so he was attempting even to control himself. He's a control figure freak, which is what makes him a bit different. And of course, as he got older, it's interesting, Raider tended to pick victims who weren't quite as young, youthful, and vigorous. You know, he tended to go for older women as time went on. So it's almost like he was aware of his own mortality or limitations to a certain extent. But it is one of the things that makes him stand out because as you said, many of them do escalate. And I think your. Your use of the, of the drug addiction analogy is very apt. Because I had. I had David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, explained to me with each murder. Now, his fantasy. Fantasy is that he thought he was serving Satan. He believed that he was, you know, he was killing at the behest of his master, Satan. And. But each time he went out there, he was hoping that this particular killing would live up to his fantasies that he had beforehand, but it never did. And so he would be compelled to do it again and again and again. So it is very much like you said, chasing that drag and chasing that narcotic high. However, interestingly, when I wrote about this and Berkowitz found out that I used the drug addiction analogy to describe him, he didn't like it at all. He seemed to prefer the devil made me do it because to him, it made him sound more like he couldn't control it. It was beyond his control. Whereas the drug analogy made him feel weak or that he was responsible, and he didn't like that very much. So as much as I believe the drug addiction analogy is very useful, Son of Sam didn't like it very much.

[Nick]

Yeah, it makes it easier for him to rationalize his own actions if he wasn't in control.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Right, exactly. The devil made me do it. Yeah.

[Nick]

Yeah. And, and he's, he's certainly a whole different specimen. Let's go back to Rex. A lot of people would agree with you that there's, there's some bodies out there.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[Nick]

Give us a little more thought, a little more detailed thought on, on Rex.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, sure.

[Nick]

And potential other victims. You know, there's some speculation. I think he and maybe a brother owned a property out of state together or something of that nature.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

He owned property at different times in Las Vegas as well as in South Carolina. And I've been very involved with this. So let me take you back a little bit. This all started was December of 2010 when the so called Gilgo 4 were, you know, were discovered there in that remote area on the south shore of Long Island. Four young female bodies. And it was quickly determined that they were missing sex workers. And it was also quickly determined that there was a serial killer. They were all killed by the same hand because three of them were wrapped in matching camouflage burlap and the fourth was bound in a belt and they were all arranged together there. And at that time I was teaching just outside of Manhattan, New York at Drew University. And, and I was doing my own research into serial killers and interviewing the likes of Son of Sam and btk. And so I wasn't surprised when a couple of months later, when it, when an additional seven bodies were discovered nearby there in Gilgo beach, that the New York Times newspaper reached out to me and they asked me to put together an extensive psychological and behavioral profile of this unknown killer. And I predicted at that time that we would be looking at a middle aged white male family man, father of a couple of adult children, and that he would be professional, highly educated, highly meticulous, very persuasive, able to manipulate and control these, these young women. I even predicted that he would be a gun collector and a hunter, but also a sadist, and that he would live right there in the neighborhood of his sacred burial ground, as I was calling it, on Gilgo Beach. And, and here's where it gets back to a couple of individuals that we've been talking about, because I was, I went to Roy, I went to Roy Hazelwood and I said, Roy, look at the profile I put together. What do you think? And he said, he said, I think you're dead on. He said, I think you're, we're dealing with a sexual sadist, an insatiable killer, a narcissist, and very much like btk. And I said, well, thank you, Roy, because that's exactly what I'm thinking. And in fact, I'm corresponding right now with Raider, so I'm going to run this by him as well. And being the complete narcissist and psychopath that Raider is, he was more than happy to play my game. And so I was sort of his Clarice Starling to his Hannibal Lecter. And I said, oh, you know, teach me, oh wise one. And Raider said to me, he said, this man that you're looking for will absolutely be a clone. He is going to be a copycat. And he meant a clone of himself, you know, a sexual sadist very much like himself, which is exactly what I thought. And so I went ahead, you know, published my profile. But then, as you know, as we know, the years went by and it became somewhat cold, this case, over time, or at least on the surface. And there were even allegations of corruption there in the police department on Long Island. But lo and behold, when the new regime came in last summer, all of a sudden one day my phone just blew up and my computer and I was being contacted by journalists all over the United States and all over the, over the world saying, have you heard? Rex Heuerman has been arrested for these murders and your profile was 100% accurate. And, well, I was, you know, obviously gratified to hear that. But mostly I was happy that someone had been apprehended. And the more I got into it, the more I learned, the more I realized that my profile really had penetrated his psyche. Because, you know, he was the white, middle aged guy with, you know, children, living openly in plain sight. But he's, he's an architect in terms of precision education. He was trained in engineering, mathematics and design. And he was his own salesman because he had his own architectural firm. He was selling his own ideas. So highly persuasive and articulate. And recently, I don't know if you're aware of this, just a couple of weeks ago, they unearthed his blueprints for murder. They asked. They found in his house these blueprints for murder. So not only was he doing blueprints for buildings, architecture, but blueprints for murder. So he was this incredibly precise, detail oriented individual that I predicted. And he was a gun collector and a big game hunter. He hunted bear and, and would skin them after the Fact. And probably the biggest thing of all is he lived literally in viewing distance of the beach, of the burial ground. And I have no doubt he went back there to fantasize and relive, and I have no doubt that there are additional bodies. I'm sure he did not stop killing. People ask me all the time, do you think he stopped killing in 2010 when his burial ground was discovered? And. Absolutely not. He's just been charged with two more murders just a few weeks ago. And unfortunately, I have a feeling that there are burial grounds out there that have not even been discovered yet.

[Nick]

Do you think he killed the Asian male, the baby doe, Jane Doe number three? Who's.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

You know, that's a great question. You know, you could make a case. You could make a. A case where he picked up a sex worker and it ended up being a sex worker in, you know, in drag. And he. And that one was killed differently because. Because that the male had his head bashed in. So you could potentially see where Heuerman could have gotten angry if he didn't realize he picked up a sex worker in drag and bashed their head in. That's a possibility. In terms of the baby, you know, there. I've said this before. There's no, you know, there's no sex worker daycare out there, and it's not uncommon for. For sex workers to have their, you know, their children in a nearby room or in the car or something like that while they're doing their work. So, yeah, I could. I can definitely envision scenarios where he could be responsible for potential. Potentially all those bodies with those.

[Nick]

And if. If he is, in fact, responsible for those, it appears it's just an evidence situation where we just don't have the evidence to.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, well, you know, there were partial remains of two bodies. They're in Manorville and then right there in Gilgo Beach. And those two have. Jessica Taylor, and I forget the other one's name, have now been, you know, linked. Have been. He's been charged. He's been charged with the murders. So already they've linked, you know, some of those.

[Nick]

Well, and that's interesting. So not just on the, you know, to kind of bookend his serial killing career, if we want to call it that. On the one side, you have the question, did he continue to kill after 2010? You say? Yes, I think many would agree with you on that. But I believe that the. The average age when. When these guys typically start killing is. Is what, mid, mid 20s, early to mid 20s.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 20 normally at some point during the 20s, whether it's, you know, 20 years old or in the case of BTK, he was 28. So he was kind of like a late bloomer, if you will.

[Nick]

But, but Rex would be approximately 60 years of age, so. And you referenced Jessica Taylor, who I believe she, she disappeared in 2003. He would have still been, he would have still been on the older side then. So how early do you think he started?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Oh, I think the early 90s. One of the, one of the victims that he's been linked to did disappear in the early 90s. So I think he's been active at least since, you know, say 91, 92.

[Nick]

Going undetected like this, I, I have a hard time believing that he was only killing when his wife happened to be out of state.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Agreed. Total. Totally agreed. In fact, he traveled. He, you know, he was a hunter and he traveled. So, so it's not inconceivable that there are bodies out there that he, that he was responsible for on his hunting trips that haven't even been linked to him yet. And I really believe that when all is said and done, you know, he's awaiting trial now, and there are all these open investigations in Las Vegas and South Carolina. You know, he's potentially linked to so many different cold cases that he may one day actually rival Joel Rifkin in New York as the most prolific serial killer in the, in this, in the state of New York history, Joel Rifkin had 17 victims. And, and I, I, it's not an, you know, it's not unlikely that that one day Heuerman may actually rival that.

[Nick]

And aside from the shame that Raider brought to his fan, like, I, like, I don't know, I don't want to get into a whole long discussion on, do these individuals, are they even capable of love? I think that, I think that Raider thinks that he is, but it would be a much different, a much different love than, than you and I possess then. You know, I think Raider thinks that he can do that because I think he said in his book with, Was it Kathleen Ramslin, he had expressed that that was the only major fear that he had for getting caught was, was his wife and kids. And so Rex would fall into that same category. And if he truly is like Raider thinks, he would be a clone of, of Raider Raider, to me, if he didn't have a wife and kids, seems like he was just itching to brag about all of this stuff. And now that he's been detected, caught, apprehended and living behind bars.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

He.

[Nick]

It seems like no shortage of people that he's willing to talk with.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Well, agreed. He, you know, he needs. He needs a grandstand from which to preach from. And, and, you know, which is why even when he was killing, he was engaging in his terror campaign where he was sending letters to the news media and law enforcement and playing this game of, you know, catch me if you can, even giving them clues and sending them poems and ciphers and all kinds of stuff, because that was just part of the game. It just made it more exciting for him and especially that he could show. Look, look, you know, I'm. I'm. I'm the puppet master here. You have. You have no idea who I am, and I'm playing with you. And it just, you know, gave him that excitement. Well, once that was taken away and he was unmasked and taken into custody, well, he just stepped onto a different stage.

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[Dr. Scott Bonn]

I'm going to horrify you. I'm going to make you relive these murders. I'm going to make the victims relive the murders, and I'm going to tell you just how great I think I am and how what fools you are because it took you 30 years to catch me. So, yeah, he. He needs that. That pulpit, if you will, and he'll find it any way he can. And so now, you know, this irony didn't escape me as I, As I was corresponding with him and as I'm sure as Kathleen Ramslin also was corresponding with him, she was aware of the fact that we're, in a way, we're feeding his ego. You know, we're giving him what he wants, we're giving him attention. But at the same time, valuable things can be learned from the interactions with an individual like this. But he, you know, he's so grandiose. He. He told me, he said. He said, people must study me. You know, the world must comprehend me. You know, I mean, he's so incredibly grandiose and full of himself.

[Nick]

Yeah, he. He certainly has a strong opinion of. Of himself. But with Rex, with. With how they, you know, in BTK's words, a clone of Dennis Rader. I really thought we would see a similar thing where once he's picked up, he'll just start, the floodgates will open up and he'll just start talking to police. But clearly that's not happened. I don't think that there's. Maybe his defense team is the only people on this planet that think that. That there is a defense and that we live in a world where he doesn't get convicted, but once he's convicted of several of these murders and the appeals start to run out, do you think that. That somebody like. Do you think that Rex will just start telling us, okay, this is what I've done. This is the. Here's my victims. Here's where they are. Here's what I was. What. Because he had. We talk about compulsion. He had that compulsion to taunt the family members of the victims. Right. He couldn't stop himself from calling them.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

That's right.

[Nick]

So he. He does want to talk. He does want an audience.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yes, I think. Yes, he's cut out very much the same cloth as btk. I think he has similar, you know, grandiosity and. And attention needs and control, definitely. He's what's known as a power and control killer. Very much like btk. It's. It's not about the sex, per se. It's about the domination, control, extermination of human life. I mean, BTK told me in no uncertain terms, when he kills, he is God. It's not that he wants to be God. It's not that he tries to be God or he thinks he might be. He is God in his own. In his own. In his own mind. And you can't really get more, you know, of a power and control freak than that. But to answer your question, I think Heuerman is holding that card back. He is a power and control freak, too, and I think he is going to do whatever gives him that gratification that his ego needs. And right now, he's holding it back. He's saying, oh, no, no, I didn't do this. He may be thinking down the line, you know, there's cases out there that they don't know about. There may be an opportunity. Opportunity for me to bargain here, you know, the way the Green River Killer and Bundy did about, you know, about other cases. So I think he's holding that card back. Is it possible down the road where he plays out his hand and there's nothing left except to step on the grandstand and like. Like BTK has done and say, look at me. Look what I did. I killed 25 people. Well, hopefully not, but, you know, and brag about it. I. I could definitely foresee that down the road, but I think that's a card he's, you know, he's holding back at this point.

[Nick]

Out of. Out of all the serial killers that you've studied, who is the one that either you're intrigued the most by or. Or is a complete mystery to you, even after you've spent time studying them. Maybe it's somebody that we're. We're the masses are not so well aware of. Who. Who is that for you?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Great. Really good question. And I would have to say Richard Ramirez, the night stalker. And the reason is he's such. It's hard to pin him down in terms of exactly what his motivations were really. He falls into a category that's known as a thrill killer. And the Zodiac would be another one that would fit in this category as well as Israel Keys up in Alaska. These are individuals that. It's not about the killing. It's not the act of killing. It's the excitement that. The killing and leading up to the killing and the process of it, almost like a big game hunter, that it provides them. And for Richard Ramirez, even murder was not enough. We touched on this earlier. He would go into a house in the dark, climb in the window. He had no idea what was going to be inside. There could be 10 Dobermans inside. There could be 10 people with guns. He had no idea. Well, that just upped the ante for him. It just upped the thrill. And once he was inside, he would then improvise and decide what to do, because he was happy to rob, he was happy to rape, he was happy to do whatever would. Might give him satisfaction. So, for example, he would improvise. And this is, you know, it's a horrible thing to. To talk about, but let's say he finds a married couple inside. He might decide on a whim to tie the man up in a chair and force the. The husband to watch as he repeatedly raped and tortured the wife. And then he, when he was satisfied with that, he would then kill her in front of the man and then kill the man. So it's just so incomprehensible that even he didn't know what he was going to do. He would improvise on the spot. And that kind of mind, that kind of twisted thinking and need is just. It's just so almost incomprehensible. And even the fact, taking it a step further, is again, even for his own safety, he didn't know what he was going to find. Whereas people like Bundy and John Wayne, Gacy and Rader were meticulous planners. They wanted to be in control of every detail. They wanted to be the master of the moment, whereas in the case of Ramirez, it was completely the opposite. He wanted to up the ante and make it riskier. For himself. So. So it's just. So. It's so hard to wrap your mind around.

[Nick]

Yes. So little control. I mean, he was smoking crack. I mean.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Oh, yeah, he was very. I'm so. I'm so glad you mentioned that. Serial killers typically are not substance abusers. Now, Dahmer was an alcoholic, so that, that, that, you know, that was, you know, an exception there. But typically the high is the killing, and they don't need the drugs and the alcohol. But you're right. Ramirez, on top of everything else, he was also an alcoholic and a drug addict.

[Nick]

I don't want to get into something that's impossible to answer, but. But you're an expert, so I'll throw it out there. Since we're talking about Ramirez, one thing that's always. That's always like, stuck in the back of my mind with him is when he talked about his older cousin, and I think the cousin spent some time in Vietnam. And how much do you think. Do you think if he never had that relationship, he still. Does he still turn into the monster that he ended up?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yes. You're talking about where the. He came back from Vietnam and he was showing him photos of terrible things that they did to Vietnamese women, and Ramirez became sexually aroused. And, yeah, if that hadn't awoken the monster inside of him, something else would have. You know, Raider had a somewhat similar evolution when he was about 10. I don't know if you. If you know this story. When he was about 10, he was visiting his. His grandmother's farm, and he witnessed her killing a chicken. She was going to cook it for dinner, and as he. As she chopped the head off the chicken and the blood squirted out, he became sexually aroused. Raider, we're talking about, so many of these individuals have some sort of an experience like that that sort of awakens something in them. And, and, and what happened. And this happened to. For Bundy, it had. That I'm aware of. It happened for Dahmer, btk Ramirez, where somewhere around adolescence, sex, sexual pleasure and sadism and. And dismemberment and blood and torture somehow became all intertwined and it became sexually arousing to them. It's not a. I don't think it's a. It's an absolutely necessary component to the evolution of a serial killer, but it definitely is a trait that you. That you see. So something awakens this in them. And, you know, the majority of these individuals are psychopaths, meaning that they are essentially unplugged emotionally from the world, can't feel the normal range of emotions. But they can feel excitement. You know, they can feel physical pleasure and physical excitement. Oftentimes that's what, you know, what compels them, them and, and, and drives them.

[Nick]

They're also very visual that like, like many of the, and this just grosses me out beyond anything and it just, I mean it gives me the shivers to even think about. But, but I've, I've seen several of them reference the, one of the things that drove them to do this again and again was the, the look of terror on their victim's face. You know, BTK talked about getting sexually aroused at the, the fantasy of tying a woman up to the train tracks and watching her as she, as she goes into a state of terror as the train gets closer and closer and she can't do anything about it. And yes, I think Jill Bear or however we want to say his name, Juber, he expressed that when he once he was in prison saying that it was the look on the boy's face when he was doing horrible things to him. And I think Joseph Duncan said something like that as well. For, for Rex. I always thought, even before they caught him, I always thought that there was, there was something, something to his perversion of the look on the face of the sex worker when they realize he tricked them.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Oh yeah, yeah, no, I, I, I, I absolutely think that that's the case. I think it was true for Joel Rifkin and you know, who also preyed on runaways and sex workers. BTK Bundy. Absolutely. It gets to that power and control again. You know, it's the shock. It's like when the victim realizes oh my God, I've been taken in and you know, this is it, you know, my life is over. And I think that definitely escalates the fantasy. And I really, I wanted to comment on something you said earlier, you know, in your conversations about Roy Hazelwood when you were saying that, you know, it's almost like a, they're, they're like a director of a movie. And I think where he, where Roy may have gotten that gotten that is is is btk. Because I asked, I asked him when he killed and I guess for your, for your audience's purposes, BTK's first murder was actually a mass murder of four members of a home the Oteros Latino family. And terribly he saved the 11 year old girl for last, made her watch as he killed the other members of her family and then he took her in the basement and hanged her from the ceiling rafters in the basement just Let her dangle there and die, and watched her, sat in a chair right across from her, eye to eye and watched her die. And as unimaginable or as incomprehensible as it might seem. And I asked him, I said, why did you do that? And he said exactly that. He says, I was a movie director. He said, I'm like Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg. And I envisioned that scene. I directed it in my mind a thousand times with Josephine, and specifically Josephine because he had been watching her. And he said, when she died, when I watched the light of life extinguish in her eyes in that movie scene, I knew that I was God. And again, that gets to the just incredible nature of power and control pathology that he had. But he, he definitely used and would repeatedly use that movie director analogy. And he said that his fantasy mind was, was, was so vivid it was better than any Technicolor movie. His, in his, his fantasies.

[Nick]

The whole basement thing with him too, because he would talk about, even as an adult, going to his parents house and masturbating in the basement. Just really weird stuff with, with him. And of course, weird stuff with all of them. The, the visual thing. Here's something I never even thought about until just this moment, but has there ever been a blind serial killer?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

A blind serial killer. That's interesting. No one comes to my mind.

[Nick]

Me neither.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, but that would be pretty hard to pull off, you know, I think that would be rather, you know, rather difficult to pull off. Nothing, no, nothing comes to mind. But, but in terms of the visual, you know, many of them, many of them love to draw, you know, many. I mean, John Wayne Gacy, of course, being the, you know, the king there, you know, with his pogo paintings, the clown paintings and so forth. Raider loved, you know, loved to sketch. Ramirez would sketch, of course. Heuerman being an architect, he's, you know, very skillful, skillful artist. So it's interesting, the visual, you know, the visual aspect of it and, and then also visually, pornography being a, you know, a stimulant. So many of them talked about how pornography was part of their early evolution into this, that they would look at pornography and then fantasize about death and murder and things like that.

[Nick]

A conversation I've had found myself in several times recently in the last couple years, anyway, in my neck of the woods, I'm looked at as somewhat of an expert on these things. So when people have questions, they true crime or serial killer, they usually bring them to me. And the one that I get A lot, or at least one that sticks out is, hey, Nick, why, why, why are we seeing less serial killers these days than in the 70s, 80s, maybe even in the 90s? And my, one of my quick answers is that I think that it's not for a lack of, it's not for a shortage of these types. It's more that I think in a lot of cases we're catching these guys after victim number one. Is that true? Do we have, do we think we have less serial killers today in the last five, ten years than we, than we did from what we saw in the 70s and the 80s?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Absolutely, absolutely. And you know, this is a question I'm asked all the time, and based upon the pop culture depiction of these individuals and how prevalent they are in our entertainment media and in our news media, there is this erroneous opinion among, among so many people that they're far more prevalent than they really are. In fact, no more than 1 to 2% of all homicides that occur in the United States every year are attributable to serial killers. And there's currently about 20,000 homicides a year in the U.S. the number is actually going down, contrary to a lot of news media statements, to the opposite, but it is going down, but it's about, there's. So that. What are we looking at? We're looking at 200 to 400 at the most of those being serial killer victims. Now, if you go back to the 70s and 80s, which is, are often considered the, the heyday, if you will, of serial killers, when the Bundys and the BTKs were out doing their thing and, and John Wayne Gacy's in the 1960s. It's been documented that there were at least 650 serial killers active during the 1970s. That number escalated to 800 or more by the 1980s. But then by the 1990s, the number started to drop off. And it's been dropping off steadily ever since. Currently in the 2000s, the decade we're in right now, there'd been documented somewhere between, let's say two to three dozen. So you can see just how far down the numbers have gone. And I would totally agree with you. It's not that this pathology, this, this, this need, the, the, the twisted combination of, of nature and nurture that leads people to become serial killers. I don't believe that's left humanity. I wish it had, but I don't think it has. I think what, what's happened is that first and foremost, our friends like Roy Hazelwood and John Douglas and Bob Ressler and some of the others, thanks to them, in the 1970s, they developed these new techniques for identification, profiling, and ultimately apprehension. And when you develop tools, good tools that work, you find a lot of what you're looking for. You know, up until the 1970s, it was very difficult for them to even link crime scenes. They didn't even know they had serial killers. And suddenly now, you know, you're, you're. They were better able to do it. And then what happened is they got a lot better at apprehension with better policing techniques. And of course, the big changer there came in the form of science DNA in 1986, when, when DNA was, was first used. And now you've got the ultimate game changer because now you can, you can link someone to a crime scene where there is never, you know, any other physical evidence available. And many of these individuals like btk, left their DNA readily at crime scenes. You know, like, you know, his, his semen after he would masturbate, never thinking that could ever be linked to him. And so now people like the Golden State Killer, btk, the Long Island Serial killer, as he was matched through DNA, hair and on, on the victims, these individuals are being apprehended, many of them cold cases that had been open for, for decades. I'll take it a step further. I think that all of the true crime programming and podcasts like this one, you know, that we're right now, that people love it served an educational purpose. And people are just not as cavalier as they were in the 60s and 70s. People don't leave their doors open, they don't invite strangers in, you know, and God forbid, go Chris hitchhiking across the country with John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy. You know, we're just a much more vigilant society. So when you put all these factors together, I think it's just much more difficult now to be a successful, prolific serial killer than it was back in the, in the 70s and before. And I do believe, I think you're, I think you're right on the money. I think that fledgling wannabe serial killers are being apprehended after their first murder before they even reach serial killer status. And a likely candidate there, which is also ripped right out of the headlines, is, is, is Brian Coburger, who's been charged with the mass murder of four students in Idaho. I've looked at his background, I've looked at his evolution, his profile. It's very similar to Bundy and, and btk and even Heuerman and I think had he not been apprehended foolishly, stupidly, a rookie error that, you know, he left a knife sheath there with touch DNA on it. If he, thankfully. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If, if he hadn't been apprehended, I think there's an excellent chance he would have gone on to become a, a serial killer.

[Nick]

Talking about the, the 70s and the 80s, the golden, you know, era, if you want to call it, for just the sheer number of serial killers at the time. And I, I'm probably going to butcher his name, but I think it was Peter Vronsky, who. I don't know if you're familiar with his work, but he's another friend of mine.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Peter's a friend.

[Nick]

I need to get in your circle somehow. Everybody I'm reading you, you've been chums with. But the. I think he said that he cited Vietnam as, as a pretty major factor for. And if I'm speaking out of, you know, if I'm getting this incorrect, feel free to cut me off. But I think he cited something like Vietnam, the Vietnam War, for maybe driving those numbers up. Because we, it's a situation where men go off to war, fathers go off to war. They, some of them don't come back. And we've, we've certainly seen a direct correlation between parents and, and serial killers. And some of the fathers don't come back, but some of the ones that do come back, they're all messed up and then they mess up their kid.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, well, you know, that gets, that gets back to the nature versus nurture debate. You know, are they nature, are they born that way? Nurture, they environmentally conditioned or socialized into it. And, and, and I, yeah, I think Peter's absolutely right. I think there's a number of societal factors that can contribute to that and sometimes even directly there was a. I forget his name exactly. But this is a while back there was a, a soldier. And this was during the Iraq War. He was trained to be a sniper, but when he got over to Iraq, he wasn't utilized that way. He was, he was given a very mundane job. And he was so resentful of the fact that the government had trained him, spent all this money and trained him and not utilized his skills that when he came back to the United States, he decided that he was going to utilize those skills that had been not used properly, and he decided to rid Los Angeles of homeless men. So he became a sniper and he started killing homeless men in Los Angeles. So there's a, you know, as a direct result Of, Of. Of the way he felt that he had been, you know, misused during the war.

[Nick]

Have you studied the i70 killer? Because I feel like he's very, very. And I'm talking not talking about the truck driver one. I'm talking about the, The. The man that went into a few different businesses and in and out within minutes and, and kill somebody in the store. I, I find him to be incredibly, distinctly different than most of the serial killers that I'm familiar with.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, I'm not as. I mean, I know the case, but I'm not familiar with a lot of the details of it. But, you know, I, I know what you're saying. I know that there's a bit of. It seems to be a bit of an aberration.

[Nick]

Yeah, he's. He's one that I've. I've always really wanted to see a proper profile put together on him, but I don't know that his crimes lend themselves to. To a profile. You've done profiles where. What would prevent you from being able to put together a profile on a particular serial killer?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Well, you know, tip of the hat to, you know, to our, Our. Our friend Roy Hazelwood here. I'm a big proponent of the belief that the crime scenes tell the story. You can derive so much information psychologically and from a behavioral standpoint from the crime scene that they leave, and particularly the way that they dispose of the victim. So the more information that is available, the more evidence that's available at the crime scene, the more vivid your profile is going to be. And because Rex Hurman, for example, was so meticulous and so organized in the way that he left his victims and, and creating his own sacred burial ground the way it did it gave me a plethora, if you will, of information to, to work from. So the less evidence, the less crime scene evidence you have, the more difficult it is to profile.

[Nick]

And you already referenced four Thomas Harris characters in our conversation. So that makes me the. The crime scene information makes me think of Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter's nemesis, who is. Would look at a crime scene and say, this is my. Try to put himself in the mind of the killer, saying, this is my design.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that is very much what you do. And that's what I learned from Roy and which is why he was such. Such a visionary, you know, such.

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[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Such a genius. I mean, they all, they all added their things, you know, I mean, whether it's Douglas, John Douglas and, And Bob wrestler and, you know, and others wrestlers. The one that's actually credited with using the term serial killer for the first time in the FBI. And, and that's actually. Did you, did you ever hear the story of how, you know, where, where that came from?

[Nick]

Where what came from, the term serial

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

killer and how wrestler used it the first time?

[Nick]

Yeah, because I think back in the day they, they called it mass murder, which is.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, they just lumped them together. They, up until 1973, they just lumped them together with, with mass murderers or what we would today would look at as like a public shooter. So that, you know, I live in Las Vegas, so The, the, the October 1st killer here would be lumped together with a, with a Ted Bundy. And boy, oh boy, you, you cannot have two more different individuals than that. The motives and, and the rationale and the, and the reasons are just, you know, completely opposite. But anyway, yeah, it's kind of interesting. Little story is wrestler, I think he was over in the UK and he was lecturing at a university over there. And, and he was trying to explain how serial killers work. And he says it's almost like, like a, like a, like, like serial, like a serial entertainment. And he's thinking back to the times, like in the 1940s and 1950s when kids on a Saturday afternoon would go to the theater and watch the adventures of Flash Gordon or Superman or something like that, and then would have to go back every Saturday to see the latest installment. They call them serials. So he said that these individuals are like serial killers. They just do it again and again and again, which I thought was kind of an interesting little, you know, anecdote.

[Nick]

Well, I'll tell you what, let's end on a light note here. Something much more fun. I cannot avoid this. It cannot be ignored for one more second. Forgive me if you think that I'm an idiot because most of the time I am Dr. Scott Bond, please tell me that your parents were huge AC DC fans and named you somewhat after Bon Scott.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

I wish, I wish I could say that that's the case. But no, it's a, it's a, a coincidence. But it's a coincidence that I like because I happen to be big AC DC fans.

[Nick]

Brilliant conversation. Thanks so much for talking with me today. How can our listeners learn more about what you do? Do you have anything that you want to promote?

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Yeah, I sure do. I'm currently touring the country with my one man theatrical event which is called serial killers with Dr. Scott Bond. But if you want to find out where I'm going to be performing at a theater near you. You can go to my website, which is docbon.com and I'll spell that-o c B-O-N-N.com and the whole tour schedule is there, along with the dates, cities and and links to purchase tickets. And I promise you a an exciting, thrilling and chilling evening where I'm going to share anecdotes from all my experiences with these individuals. We're going to go into their motivations, their desires, and I always do a live Q and A session with the audience where I take questions. And we always have a lot of fun with that because it always seems that people have, you know, that one question about serial killers that they've always been burning to ask. And so it proves to be a pretty, pretty fun evening.

[Nick]

Perfect. Hey, thanks so much for your time today and let's do this again sometime.

[Dr. Scott Bonn]

Sounds great. Thank you for having me. Sam foreign.

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