Murder

Per Ann Rule's book, A Rage To Kill, there are mass murderers, serial killers, and a third category of murder who kills a lot of people that I had not previously known about. Pages 183-238 follows the story of Chris Wilder, a spree killer.

A Rage to Kill is all about true to live murders. The chapter on Chris Wilder has affected me more than the others. I found myself more afraid of the idea of a spree killer than a mass murder or a serial killer. For lack of quoting a large section of her book to define a spree killer, I'll paraphrase. A spree killer is someone who is seemingly normal but who morphs into a killing machine, killing gobs of people in a very short amount of time. The spree killer only stops because he is stopped by being caught. Unlike a serial killer, there aren't long breaks between killing. After reading the section on Chris Wilder, I understood that a spree killer is probably the human most equivalent to a predator. There is no longer the fear of being accepted into normal society once the killing begins, nor is there necessarily the careful calculation that a lot of serial killers go through when plotting a murder. In the case of Chris Wilder, he made more and more mistakes becoming bolder and bolder over time. He killed a lot of women in just a number of weeks.

I intend to write a review of this book after I finish it on RedKissedReviews.blogspot.com. I'm not sure when that will be, but hopefully soon!