Serial killers come from different backgrounds, attain different levels of education, and hold various types of jobs. However, many serial killers do have at least one thing in common: the desire to communicate regarding their crimes. Killers from Jack the Ripper to the Son of Sam often provide clues to their identities, their motives―even their future targets―through crime scene notes, letters to the media, calls to police, messages scrawled on victims, and, increasingly, email and other technology. Here, Gibson takes a look at ten notorious serial killers, their crimes, their victims, and their communications to uncover the hidden clues into the minds of these unusual and dangerous people.

Gibson’s study of 1,000 serial killers worldwide describes and quantifies the significance of serial killer communication. Twenty-seven mutually-exclusive modes of serial murderer communication are identified, exemplified and quantified. This communication occurs before, during and after the slayings themselves, and is an important intrinsic element in the murders of three-quarter of the cases investigated. This communication is motivational, recreational and purposeful.