That’s the thing - both spree and serial killers are so rare that trying to generalize about their backgrounds is largely a pointless exercise, except for a small group of law enforcement, clinical, and academic practitioners. And trying to use general criteria to “predict” if a given person will become a spree or serial killer is even more pointless, because 99.999% of the time you will be wrong. The phenomena is so rare, and psychological evaluation so subjective and error-prone, that statistically the odds of making a correct prediction out of the general population would be nearly impossible.

The majority of serial killers tend to be sociopathic, while most spree killers lack this extreme form of narcisism and, as aforementioned, tend more toward emotion-provoking disorders such as paranoia and bipolar.

In any sense, if Loren meant “spree” killers as opposed to “serial” killers, he would be dead on the money, because spree killers prefer more of a fanciful way of thinking– evading their troubles by fully immersing themselves into subjects such as conpiracies, cults, UFOs, magik, and the like…

Of course, having these characteristics doesn’t neccessarily mean you’re going to be a spree killer one day– their psychological makeup is a lot less definate than that of a serial killer…

…otherwise most of us on here would probably end up becoming spree killers and, well… that would just be bad publicity for us cryptos. =P

They are a Fortean topic, and you will find more on them in Mysterious America, updated to 2001, with new accounts. But the book goes out of print at the end of March, so pick it up soon, before the hardcover price goes through the roof, if you wish.

- You’re mixing spree killers up with serial killers, which traditionally have different profiles and different motivations. This has a lot to do with sensationalism, as the media likes to mix all of them together in one pot. Part of the whole macabre “if it bleeds, it leads” process of modern media journalism.

- The FBI Behavioral Science Unit and allied experts have gone over the histories and backgrounds of many convicted and incarcerated serial killers with a fine-tooth comb, getting down to fine points like bedwetting. I think if “interest in cryptozoology” was significant it would have been noted at some point.

- I think more of a common denominator is the areas in which these individuals lived, they just happened to live in areas where a lot of Bigfoot sightings or activity took place. At one point there was a theory that disproportionately high serial murder activity occurred near the coasts for some reason. A lot of this was on the West Coast, specifically the Pacific Northwest. There was a lot of high-profile activity there - Ted Bundy started there, the Green River killer was there, etc. As you know, the Pacific Northwest is also basically Bigfoot central, so its not surprising that many people in the area develop an interest in the phenomenon.

Serial killers are a highly sensationalized phenomenon, so there are always these attempts by people to draws links where none actually exist. The sensationalism leads to lots of correlation/causation errors and treating coincidences as more significant than they actually are.

Of course both are rare phenomena, but then rare phenomena are what I study.
Overstating a link? Nay, I am merely bringing this to a level of awareness for discussion.

Perhaps there are others? for example.

I don’t know unless I ask, unless I look, unless I comment.