The Golden State Killer’s barrage of rapes and murders began in a gold mining area east of Sacramento in 1976. By 1986, it seemed to have stopped.

• Long Island Serial Killer Websleuths
• Long Island Serial Killer Victims
• Long Island Serial Killer Caught
• Long Island Serial Killer Caught

The Long Island serial killer (also referred to as LISK. Police did not find any evidence of any wrongdoing, and Brewer was quickly cleared as a suspect. Famed forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden agreed to conduct an independent autopsy of Shannan Gilbert's remains in hopes of determining a clear cause of death. Long Island serial killer? Medical Examiner to study unidentified beach-area remains. Which could possibly provide still more evidence of a serial killer using South Shore beaches as a dumping.

Long Island Serial Killer Websleuths

Why?

With the arrest Tuesday of Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who has been charged so far with eight counts of murder, more than 30 years had passed since the last episode in the series. That long period of quiescence seems to fly in the face of the popular belief that serial rapists and killers are incapable of stopping.

But forensic psychiatrists, criminal profilers and homicide detectives who pursue cold cases say that assumption is more myth than reality.

Why the Long Island Serial Killer Holds Us Hostage The Cold Case Squad, Dec. 2011 Dating back to “Jack the Ripper,” who terrorized London, England, and the world in the 1880s, serial killers have captured our collective imagination while sending chills down our spines. Police believe all 10 victims are linked to the same killer, who may have been killing in the area for nearly 20 years. So, Who Is the Long Island Serial Killer? FBI profilers and criminologist have tried to put together a profile of the killer based off what little evidence they have. Here is what they believe. Josh and Rachel will break new developments in the Long Island Serial Killer case in the 10pE hour, when we also be joined by forensic psychologist Dr. Clarissa Cole. In the 9pE hour, Joel and Eric will delve the week’s paranormal news and give thoughts on the new year.

“These are not acts that a person is compelled to do,” said J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. “They are intentional and predatory. There is choice, capacity and opportunity that is exercised.”

Any number of factors can contribute to a dormant stretch. An extensive 2008 study on serial murder for the F.B.I.’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime found that killers may quiet down when they find other outlets for their emotions. The study mentioned Dennis Rader, known as the BTK Killer, who murdered 10 people from 1974 to 1991, but had no other victims before being apprehended in 2005. “During interviews conducted by law enforcement, Rader admitted to engaging in autoerotic activities as a substitute for his killings,” the report said.

Other killers might have changed behavior after moving away from the original epicenter of activity. Ted Bundy mutilated and murdered perhaps more than 30 young women in the 1970s. Yet there were stretches along his peripatetic travels when he was not associated with murders in those areas.

In some cases, jobs and families might have stabilized and exacerbating sources of stress might have faded, some experts said.

Dr. Michael H. Stone, a professor of forensic psychiatry at Columbia University who has extensively studied serial killers, noted that Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer, murdered prostitutes during his first two difficult marriages. He married a third time, more happily, and the killings dwindled.

“Some of these men have little oases of compassion, within the vast desert of their contempt and hatred of women,” Dr. Stone said.

So far, the authorities have not offered any public explanation as to why the Golden State Killer spree, for which Mr. DeAngelo was arrested this week, began and continued, much less stopped. But some experts point to the most banal explanation: In 1986, when he was 40, Mr. DeAngelo may have aged out.

“The testosterone levels are down,” Dr. Stone said. “His capacity to perform is weakened,” he added, noting that he was merely speculating. The prey drive is lessened.

Long Island Serial Killer Victims

Mark Safarik, a retired F.B.I. criminal profiler and consultant to crime shows like “Bones” and “The Blacklist,” recently worked on a study with academic researchers about older sexual homicide offenders. “They are really rare over age 50,” he said. “We just don’t see them. Pedophiles over 50, yes. But not rape-murderers.”

There is little research on why spree killers desist for reasons other than getting caught. No one knows what has happened to a serial killer of young women on Long Island.

“There has never been a survey of serial killers asking them why they stopped,” said Eric Witzig, a retired homicide detective and chairman of the Murder Accountability Project, a database of unsolved murders. “All we have are anecdotal hunches,” he said.

Perhaps a victim struggled and spooked the attacker, he said. The killer “might think then, ‘Maybe I don’t want to do this anymore because I might get caught.’ Or, ‘I want to stop and reflect on the carnage I wreaked in the past.’”

Or, said Dr. Bruce E. Harry, a retired forensic psychiatrist with the University of Missouri medical school: “Maybe they get tired or bored and just don’t want to do it anymore.”

Mr. Safarik, the retired F.B.I. Solar radiation data handbook definition. crime profiler, was a beat cop in the late 1970s in Davis, Calif. and remembers being on stakeouts for the Golden State Killer, watching with night surveillance scopes for a man scrambling over rooftops or escaping into nearby fields.

Then as now, police believed that the suspect had military or law enforcement training, which helped him evade detection. One reason the rapist-murderer may have stopped in the late 80s, speculated Mr. Safarik, is that he was becoming aware of the ability to collect DNA evidence, left by the most meager material. The public was becoming familiar with it, he said, particularly through television dramas.

Several experts, underlining the notion that so little is yet known about Mr. DeAngelo — including most significantly whether he committed the crimes — wondered whether the criminal behavior did stop entirely in 1986.

“I would want to look at other rapes and murders in the areas where he lived over time,” Dr. Meloy said. “I would be skeptical that there was a complete shutdown at age 40.”

(CBS/WCBS/AP) NEW YORK - The Nassau County Medical Examiner is expected to begin forensic analysis Tuesday on the additional sets of human remains found east of Jones Beach State Park to determine if they're connected to four other victims whose bodies police say could be linked to a Long Island serial killer.

State police said they completed their search of the extended area, aside from helicopter searches which will continue, reports CBS station WCBS.

On Monday, Nassau County police found a ninth, and possible tenth set of human remains, which could possibly provide still more evidence of a serial killer using South Shore beaches as a dumping ground, reports the station.

The first set of bodies found were four women discovered by police back in December. All were identified as prostitutes who advertised on Craigslist, leading authorities to believe they could possibly be dealing with a serial killer.

Long Island Serial Killer Caught

More recently, four more remains were found that have yet to be identified.

Then days ago, in addition to the eight sets of remains already found, a skull was discovered near a bird sanctuary in Nassau County, as well as another set of human remains near a landmark water tower, reports the station.

'I think this is an area that the killer feels very safe in and there's no reason to believe that it's not the same killer. There are some subtle differences. The first four were covered in burlap, the last four were not, but that doesn't mean they're different people,' said Lawrence Kobilinsky of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, reports the station.

Police in December were following up on the disappearance of a Jersey City woman, Shannon Gilbert, who was seen working as a Craigslist escort in Long Island area. Her disappearance remains an open case.

Long Island Serial Killer Caught

• CBS News AppOpen
• ChromeSafariContinue