Crime Time Office Hours
This is a podcast that cuts through the noise to make crime and justice clear, one issue at a time. I’m Kevin Buckler, PhD in Criminal Justice, and a professor at a four-year public university. I plan to bring you sharp, unfiltered conversations and content about the issues shaping our legal system, our communities, and the academic world.
Crime Time Office Hours
S 1 E 2 Houston Serial Killer Panic: Cultural Understandings and Empirical and Definitional Realities
This is the second episode in our four-part series on the Houston serial killer panic of 2025. This episode takes a closer look at how we think—and often misthink—about serial murder. I sit down with two criminologists who bring both clarity and nuance to a topic that’s usually buried under myth and media hype. First, Krista Gehring joins me to unpack the cultural narratives we’ve built around serial killers: the tropes we repeat, the fears we amplify, and the ways pop culture shapes what the public believes these offenders look like, think like, and act like. Then, Casey Akins helps ground the conversation in the empirical reality, walking us through how serial murder is actually defined, what the data really show, and why our cultural imagination so often drifts far from the facts. Together, their insights help us understand how the gap between perception and reality played a significant role in shaping the 2025 Houston scare.
I remember the orientation where the Associate Dean, Jack McDevitt, said, if you want to be a criminal profiler, you should go to Hollywood. Because that's where that career, and I'm putting it in air quotes, that career exists. Because what we see in pop culture and the movies is like not what happens. He said at that point, there were like 13 recognized criminal profilers in the entire world. So for me to think that that was like a viable career path, I mean, he totally like dashed my hopes, right?
Kevin Buckler (Host):This podcast explores crime and justice topics by cutting through the noise to make crime and justice clear, one issue at a time. Here, we examine social, cultural, and political forces that shape America's crime and justice narratives while giving you the straight information on what's going on in the world of crime and justice and why. This is episode two in a four-part series on the 2025 serial killer scare in Houston, Texas. The panic began after several bodies were discovered in local bayous, prompting a wave of public speculation. In episode one, we trace the cultural and pop culture history of serial killers in America. In this episode, we examine how our cultural understanding of serial murder stacks up against the empirical evidence and the actual definitional realities of what constitutes a serial killer.
News Segment:For many, the numbers are alarming. At first, two bodies were recovered in Bayous on Monday, including that of college student Jade McKissick embrace Bayou. Her death still under investigation. Then three more bodies were found on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. In all, at least thirteen bodies found in Houston Bayous this year.
Kevin Buckler (Host):It began quietly. A single discovery. Then another. By the time anyone realized something bigger might be happening, Houston's Bayous had become the center of a citywide mystery. A body was found on March 31, 2025, floating in Bray's Bayou. Local outlets like Click2 Houston covered it, but it was treated as a very routine recovery. Tragic, but not unusual in a city built around water.
Kevin Buckler (Host):A few weeks later, on May 9th, divers pulled another body from Buffalo Bayou near North York Street in Houston's second ward. Then, on May 16th, yet another was found in Berry Bayou. Each case appeared isolated, different victims, different locations. There was no talk yet of a connection. But as summer approached, the discoveries began to accumulate. By mid-summer, Fox 26 reported at least ten bodies recovered from Houston area bayous since June. That number alone might not have raised alarms. Large urban waterways tragically claim lives every year. But then came September. Between September 15th and 20th, five bodies surfaced in just five days across Greens, Brays, White Oak, and Buffalo Bayou.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The coincidence was too striking to ignore. Social media lit up with speculation that Houston had a serial killer. Hashtags spread. Videos racked up hundreds of thousands of views. And suddenly the story wasn't just local, it was viral. On September 19th, ABC 13 ran a feature addressing the rumor directly. Criminologist Dr. Krista Gehring was among the first experts to speak publicly, warning that the speculation was unfounded, that there was no evidence linking the deaths. But by then the narrative had already taken a life of its own. Within days, city leaders stepped in. On September 22nd, Mayor John Whitmire and Houston Police Chief Troy Finner held a press conference, emphatic that there was no serial killer at work. Here is a segment of the mayor's statement.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire:Enough is enough of misinformation, wild speculation by either social media, elected officials, candidates, the media. We do not have any evidence that there is a serial killer loose in Houston, Texas. Let me say it again. There is no evidence that there is a serial killer loose on the streets of Houston. If there was, you would hear it from me first.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But fear, once it's loose, is hard to catch. The next day, on September twenty third, the Houston Chronicle reported that fourteen bodies had been found in the bayous that year, and that videos and posts about a supposed serial killer had been viewed more than three million times on TikTok. By October 1st, forensic data showed that the number was even higher. Twenty-two bodies were covered in 2025, but only six confirmed causes of death. The rest were still pending investigation.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The lack of clear answers and the slow official pace of disclosure only fueled more suspicion. In an October 28th segment, Click2 Houston reported on an analysis of data from multiple years. Since 2017, Harris County's medical examiner records show that 189 bodies had been recovered from bayous within the Houston area, a figure compiled by KPRC by requesting data from the medical examiner's office.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The year-by-year breakdown reveals variability 18 in 2017, dipping to 12 in 2019, then rising to 26 in 2020, 34 in 2024, and 27 in 2025 through the date of the article. The geographic data show concentrations in central and eastern zip codes, including 77002 Downtown Buffalo Bayou, and 77023 Eastwood Lawndale Wayside. The manner of death breakdown underscored the complexity behind the numbers. At the time of publication, 39% of the cases were still undetermined, 24% were accidental drownings, 13% were suicides, 9% were homicide, and the rest were listed as other accidents, natural causes, or pending.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The sex distribution further showed that most victims were male. Of the 189 bodies recovered from Houston area biuse since 2017, the age distribution reveals a wide range of victims, cutting across generations. Only about 3% were minors, while the largest share, 25%, were adults between 30 and 39 years old. Another 21% fell within the 18 to 29 age group, suggesting that nearly half of all recoveries involved individuals under the age of 40. Middle-aged adults were also well represented. 16% were between 50 and 59, and 15% were between 40 and 49. Notably, older adults aged 60 to 69 accounted for another 15%. Only a small fraction of victims were elderly, with 2% aged 70 to 79, and another 2% over the age of 80. Overall, the data suggests that those found in Houston's waterways are predominantly working age adults spanning young adulthood through late middle age, rather than concentrated in any single demographic group.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The sheer proportion of undetermined cases has become a significant point of concern for both the public and victim families. For many, the ambiguity fuels suspicion that something more sinister may be occurring. That these deaths are not isolated accidents, but potentially connected acts of violence. The lack of closure has also generated frustration among families seeking answers, with some accusing local authorities of being too quick to rule out foul play. In online discussions and neighborhood forums, the undetermined classification has become almost synonymous with unresolved, feeding into broader mistrust of official explanations and sustaining the social media speculation that a serial killer could be involved.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Also, by late October, the story had gone international. A Spanish newspaper ran a feature with the title translated as The Discoveries of Twenty Four Bodies in Houston's Bayous fuels fear of a serial killer. The article described not just the deaths, but the global fascination with what can be called the new American urban myth. The panic, like the bayous themselves following a tropical storm or hurricane, had overflowed its banks, moving from local tragedy to international spectacle.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In Houston, the Bayou has always carried more than water. A September 13th, 2025 article in the Houston Chronicle written by columnist Joy Sewing, captured this context well. I will read now from the article. "Growing up near Houston's bayous came with a warning stay away. That was the refrain of many parents back then. They didn't need to explain why. The bayous weren't just unguarded bodies of water. They were the city's shadow, a murky undercurrent threading through the urban underbelly. They carried snakes, stray dogs, debris and weeds, and the constant threat of danger, real or imagined, was woven into its current. As kids we concocted tales about the boogeyman rising from the dark waters. The older women in the neighborhood who walked along the bayou every morning clutched long, heavy sticks, not just to ward off stray dogs, but to guard against dangers of the man-made kind."
Kevin Buckler (Host):The columnist also quoted Houston novelist Attica Locke, who described Buffalo Bayou like this in one of her crime thrillers: "The thick brush along the banks of the water provides cover for all manner of bad behavior."
Kevin Buckler (Host):This narrative from both columnist Sewing and author Locke explains a lot. What began as a handful of unconnected deaths became a story about something larger, how we respond to fear, how rumors spread faster than facts, and how the idea of the serial killer, a figure born from the 1970s media age, still lives on in the social media era.
Kevin Buckler (Host):My first guest for this episode is Dr. Krista Gehring, professor of criminal justice. Dr. Gehring earned her PhD in criminal justice from the University of Cincinnati. Her scholarship explores crime and popular culture, particularly horror films and how they reflect cultural fears about deviance and morality. Recently, she's been at the center of both Houston's and the national media's coverage of what some are calling the Houston Serial Killer Panic. She's been interviewed and quoted as the story has taken on a life of its own across both traditional and social media. For this episode, she joins Crime Time Office Hours to help us unpack why the public seems to want this to be the work of a serial killer, and what that desire reveals about our collective relationship with popular culture, fear, crime, and storytelling.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Welcome, Krista. Thank you for joining me today. First off, can you tell me a little bit about your recent media experiences in terms of this issue of serial killers in Houston?
Krista Gehring (Guest):Oh, the serial killer sort of craze. Yeah. I have been interviewed probably eight or nine times from not only like local news outlets, but also some national and international. The other day I was interviewed by CNN. So that article came out on Monday. And I was also interviewed by Daily Mail, which is sort of an international sort of outlet. I've done Houston Chronicle twice. I've been on television twice. I mean, I think people saw my name in the first initial article. So then other news outlets are like, oh, let's ask her about this. So I feel like I've been saying the same thing every time somebody asks me for an interview. So it's been really interesting. And at one point, actually, I decided against doing a particular interview because I was doing them back to back to back. And at one point I thought, how much am I contributing to this? Because I'm part of this also. So I wanted to just stop for a minute and just let things settle because it was just a lot.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Sure. That makes sense. You know, one element of what has been referred to as news making criminology suggests that we need to, as criminologists, do this more. So I'm I'm interested in understanding what sort of challenges did you experience when you were trying to take criminological and criminal justice information and get it to journalists. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Krista Gehring (Guest):I think the challenge isn't necessarily getting the information to the journalists, it's how much the journalists highlight it. Because I always found that in the articles, whenever the information that came out that I said was always like at the end of the article. So they would have a bunch of information about the bodies and law enforcement. And then at the end, it's like the expert says that there's no serial killer. And, you know, I found that they were never leading with that, right? They were always leading with this sensationalized body, serial killer, those sorts of things. And I think they wanted an expert, you know, and not that I'm an expert on serial killers, although I do have kind of a background in that, if you want to hear about that. But with that idea, you know, I feel like it was this notion of like, well, we have to get an expert just to sort of like check all the boxes, even though what I said a lot of the information they weren't necessarily using. You know, if I talked to a reporter for 15 or 20 minutes, I would see like one or two lines that I said that sort of would fit into the narrative, or, you know, they would create some sort of story and then, oh, but the experts say. And I think it's not difficult getting the information there. It's it's difficult in what the media chooses to present.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Right. So they have a different end goal than we do. We have the end goal of presenting accurate information. They have an end goal of selling newspapers and selling media segments and things of that nature in terms of generating advertising dollars.
Krista Gehring (Guest):So Yeah, absolutely. And and, you know, I actually said this to many of the media when they would say, you know, why do you think this is happening? And why does everybody think this is a serial killer? And I'm like, well, the media has something to do with it. Like you're talking to me. You are creating these headlines with the word bodies and bayou and serial killer. And I know it's a business. You know, I know that they want advertising dollars. I know that they want views. I know that they want clicks. And I think it's sort of a difficult balance for them because they want to present information to the public, but they also want the public to read it. And unfortunately, the public, you know, if it bleeds, it leads. So the public is only going to, you know, click on view whatever things that they think are interesting or engaging. So the media, it's sort of set up that way to create and generate and promote these sort of sensationalized cases.
Kevin Buckler (Host):So in many ways, even though the media seem to be, or at least most media outlets seem to be promoting the idea that there is no serial killer out there, just the presence of their coverage alone is generating and sparking some of the panic.
Krista Gehring (Guest):Yeah, absolutely. Especially if, you know, you have one media outlet that starts it, and then all the other media outlets are like, oh, we got to jump on this too. And that's what happened. That's why I was doing so many interviews, because it was like, you know, the paper and the television news and all of these sorts of places didn't want to miss out. They wanted to have sort of that piece of the pie because they knew that people were interested. So I think that's something that is interesting to see in real time, especially when you're talking about sort of creating these narratives and how pop culture sort of seeps into this and all of those sorts of things, too.
Kevin Buckler (Host):You mentioned some connection to serial killer a minute ago. I'm not gonna let you get it get off. Tell me a little bit about that before.
Krista Gehring (Guest):Oh my gosh. Okay, let's give a little background of how one of the reasons why I got into the criminal justice field, and this is gonna date me. So when I was a senior in high school, I saw Silence of the Lambs in the movie theater, and I left that movie theater thinking, I'm gonna be the next Clarice Sterling. I'm going to hunt serial killers. And I was very interested in serial killers too, because you know, they're just fascinating and weird, and you can't understand like how a person would do this.
Krista Gehring (Guest):And I also lived in a small town in Kansas that was about an hour north of Kans City, and we had a serial killer in Kans City, Bob Burdella. Like he it news broke about him when I was a sophomore in high school. And I was fascinated with like, how could a guy like kidnap these people, keep them in his house, tie them up with piano wire, inject them with Drano, like all of this stuff. Fascinated, right?
Krista Gehring (Guest):So therein became my sort of self-education on serial killers. I read all the books, I knew a lot about it. And then when I did my was getting ready to do my master's degree, I got accepted to Northeastern University in Boston. And I decided to go there because James Allen Fox was there. And he is like the talking head when it comes to serial killers and mass murder, both he and Jack Levin. And so I was gonna go there, I was gonna study under Jamie Fox. And I remembered the orientation where the associate dean, Jack McDevitt, said, if you want to be a criminal profiler, you should go to Hollywood because that's where that career, and I'm putting it in air quotes, that career exists because what we see in pop culture and the movies is like not what happens. He said at that point, there were like 13 recognized criminal profilers in the entire world. So for me to think that that was like a viable career path, I mean, he totally like dashed my hopes, right?
Krista Gehring (Guest):But that was fine. I was still gonna study with James Allen Fox, and I took classes from him, and I would be in his office, and he would show me like these serial killer knickknacks he had, whatever. But then by the end of the time that I was there, I remember telling him, like, you know, serial killers just don't do it for me anymore. Because I realized that serial killers, it's such a small percentage of the overall criminal population. I think the FBI says that there are 50 serial killers working at any moment in time in the United States. When you compare that to the actual population of the United States, I was like, how can we police these people? How can we write any policies or laws? I mean, at best, we can try to maybe prevent things from happening, you know, but with children and, you know, but I sort of like abandoned my serial killer. But that doesn't deny the fact that I still have all this knowledge in my brain about it. And it's funny, I remember there was one student in my classmate in my cohort, she referred to me as serial killer girl. So like I was known to like know about serial killers. So that really ties into what I'm getting into now is sort of studying crime and popular culture and how those images within pop culture and media sort of shape how we think about crime and criminals and how often what we see is not really aligned with reality. So that's my serial killer.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That's great. For the record, I think you would have been an excellent Clarice Starling.
Krista Gehring (Guest):So oh my God, I still love that movie. I think it's phenomenal. And thank you for even thinking that I could get through the FBI Academy. I don't know about that.
Kevin Buckler (Host):So we've been talking about entertainment media. You've you've been alluding to Silence of the Lambs, there's other films out there, Natural Born Killers was a serial killer film. By and large, from the 80s into the 90s, can you talk a little bit about how you think entertainment media, even though it's entertainment media and it's there to entertain us, there's this idea that people take more from it and give it more legitimacy than it necessarily deserves. So can you talk a little bit about that?
Krista Gehring (Guest):Yeah. I mean, when we're talking about the public being exposed to ideas about crime and criminals, they're more likely to get their information from pop culture or from media news as opposed to experiencing it themselves. So that's something that Nikki Rafter really talks about when she talks about popular criminology. I remember a quote, she said something to the effect of that, you know, even a flop at the movie theater is going to have more views than like a research article. And because of that, you know, we need to understand that all of these things that are coming out that portray crime and criminals and reasons people commit crime and all of this is that it's meant for entertainment purposes. It's not, it doesn't necessarily mean that some of it isn't sort of couched in truth, but a lot of it is embellished. A lot of it is done for entertainment's sake, a lot of it is inspired by, even when you know, they say this is based on a true story. A lot of times you just see sprinklings of the truth in these sort of series or films or whatever. And I think that the public isn't necessarily aware of how much creative liberty. I mean, I can necessarily I can point to the most recent Ed Gean, the Ed Gean story on Netflix. I don't know if you've seen it yet.
Kevin Buckler (Host):I've not yet.
Krista Gehring (Guest):Okay. So when I took a horror film class when I was an undergrad, which is the only class I remember as an undergrad, we were told to read this book Deviant by Harold Schechter, which is pretty much like the seminal Ed Gean biography. And we were to read it because we were gonna watch Psycho, we were gonna watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So I'm pretty familiar with Ed Gean. Remember, I'm a serial killer girl, right? So I'm watching the Netflix, the Ed Gean story. And the entire time I was like, well, that didn't happen. That's not true. What is going on? You know, and for me, it is concerning because A, it's so popular. And B, there are a lot of things in it that sort of created its own sort of fantasy. So now the public who watch that, I don't know if they're necessarily going to be able to tease out what's fact and fiction unless they read a book like Deviant or unless they actually like research Ed Geen. And that's something that I think can be a little problematic, especially if you have the public getting their ideas about crime and criminals from the media that may be fictionalized, but then that influences their opinions about how we should deal with crime and criminal criminals. And I think that can be really problematic.
Kevin Buckler (Host):You know, one of the things that I came across in terms of putting this podcast together is if you look back at the 1970s and 80s and the serial killer panic that kind of struck, by and large, a lot of that panic emanated because government officials were doing various things to tout the whole idea of a serial killer and their existence and their importance in terms of contributing to homicide and things of that nature. The media, the traditional media, were promoting this as well in terms of their coverage. Here, in terms of the Houston serial killer panic that we're experiencing, it seems to be driven by social media. And now we have people sort of out there who can put ideas out to the world without really much verification or consequences. So can you tell talk a little bit about social media and the role that it's played in this panic?
Krista Gehring (Guest):Oh gosh. I mean, I have been looking at social media, especially when it comes to, I think they called them the bayou butcher, right? I mean, I don't know. And in the comments, it's hilarious because you see people saying, I've watched too many crime shows to know that this is a serial killer. And then when you get sort of people feeding off of each other, commenting, you know, if somebody sort of Of says something contrary, like it's not a serial killer, then other people sort of attack it. Mind you, none of these people, I'm assuming none of these people have really done extensive studies on serial homicide, nor do they know much about police investigations, nor do they know much about the actual causes of death. I mean, you and I know about as much as the next person when it comes to how these individuals died in the bayous, but all of these sort of conclusions are being jumped to. And social media, again, just like regular media, it's about getting clicks, likes, views. I know that some people have been like Scooby-doing it and going on the bayou looking for the serial killer, like taking their phone, asking people on the bayou, looking for clues. And I just think, what are you gonna find? Like, do you think that somebody's hiding in hiding in the bushes, just grabbing people and pulling them into the bayou and drowning them? Like, is that what you think is happening? Or do you think that you're gonna catch somebody with a dead body, like walking from their car and dumping it into the bayou? Like, let's think about this. Like, that's really risky for someone to do. But again, these people are, it's exciting. It's fun, it's interesting, it gives them something to do. It maybe takes their mind off of other things that are going on in the world right now. But social media, I think that's where all of this started initially was this speculation that there was a serial killer in Houston. And it just continues with hashtags and clicks and more, you know, views and videos and everything, TikTok, especially.
Kevin Buckler (Host):So it seems like a segment of the population wants it to be a serial killer operating in Houston. Can you talk a little bit about sort of the psychology behind that desire?
Krista Gehring (Guest):Oh gosh. Well, I think there are a lot of things going on. First and foremost, like we talked about, like pop culture sort of primes the public to think it's a serial killer because there's so much true crime, so much documentaries and docuseries. And I just talked about the Ed Geane story, and there's some like BTK killer's daughter is doing a documentary. Like every time you turn on these streaming services, it's some true crime thing. I mean, I'm the first person. I watch that stuff all the time. So that's something that because people consume it so much, then they think that it happens a lot. So that makes them look for it in real life, especially if they think that they're seeing quote unquote patterns. And the only pattern here is that people are perishing in the bayous. There's no pattern in regards to the victims, the manner of death, the gender, the age, the race and ethnicity. There's no pattern, there's no connection. The only connection is that they're being pulled out of the bayous, right? So I think pop culture makes us look for these things. The second is that I think it's easier to have a villain in this situation to sort of put your fears on, as opposed to maybe looking at some of the more realistic causes of these deaths in the bayou. That means we would have to talk about social factors and social issues related to homelessness, mental health, substance abuse, poverty, all of those sorts of things. I think that, and this, I'm gonna be kind of flippant about this, but I think that those reasons aren't as sexy and aren't as exciting as a serial killer. And it would make us have to confront the fact that sort of our society and our culture does not address those issues in a way that unfortunately results in people dying because of it. And I think that for some, not all, but for some victims' families, I think it might be difficult for them to sort of reconcile with the fact that maybe their loved one was sort of struggling and having some sort of, you know, deep life-limiting problems and issues, because there's a lot of heartache that goes with knowing that your loved one has died in this way, and that maybe you could have done something about it, or maybe you didn't know that there was a problem, and you know, you feel sort of helpless. So acknowledging that maybe you obviously loved this person, but they were dealing with a lot of these issues that maybe they didn't get help with, or, you know, whatever the case may be, I think it's easier to attribute it to a serial killer or the police aren't investigating and doing a good enough job, or, you know, not admitting that maybe the person took their own life or were using drugs and alcohol and became disoriented and felt. I mean, there are all of these other more realistic explanations. It's it's Occam's razor, right? Like the simplest explanation is often the right one, as opposed to this sort of sensationalized, let's put it on sort of a rare instance of a serial killer running around Houston.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Well, Krista, I really appreciate you being with me today. Valuable information, and I think the listeners will love this interview. Thank you very much.
Krista Gehring (Guest):Thanks for having me.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Before we jump into the next interview, I want to remind listeners where this series has taken us so far. The previous episode of Crime Time Office Hours dug deep into the history of the serial killer panic of the 1970s and 1980s. How fear, media coverage, and political incentives converged to create what felt like a national crisis. And in the first half of this episode, Dr. Krista Gering helped us think about how that legacy continues today. She walked us through the way media, both traditional and social, shape our cultural understandings of serial killers and why communities so easily slip into fear when something unexplained happens. Her interview alluded to a cultural definition of serial killers and its power to deceive.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But here is something important. When we use the word myth, we're not saying the phenomenon doesn't exist. A myth isn't a lie. It's a story with outsized cultural power. In this case, the myth of the serial killer exaggerates their frequency, amplifies their traits, and simplifies the complexity of their crimes. The myth distorts the reality, but it doesn't erase it. Serial killers are real. They're just not as common, as superhuman, or as theatrically calculated as movies and news cycles have led us to believe. And as we implied in the previous episode, there's another side to this story. The same FBI attention, behavioral science development, and institutional infrastructure that contributed to the moral panic also had real investigative value. The creation of profiling units, national databases such as VICAP, and clearer homicide linkages improved law enforcement's ability to detect patterns, to connect cases, and to catch dangerous offenders. The narrative may have ballooned, but the tools built around that narrative did help solve real crimes.
Kevin Buckler (Host):So for the rest of this episode, we're shifting from mythology to materiality, from cultural definition and understanding to actual definition and empirical reality. We're stepping away from the fear and the storytelling and turning toward what the research actually shows about serial killers, who they tend to be, how they commit their crimes, and what their cases really look like once you strip away the cinematic layers. Because understanding the difference between the myth and the reality isn't just an academic exercise. It's essential to understand why scares like the one unfolding in Houston take hold. And what it really means when we ask whether a serial killer is at work. Casey Akins is a lecturer of criminal justice at a public four-year university. She teaches a class called serial killers. She is here to talk about that class, but Casey will also delve into the distinctions between mass murder, spree murder, and serial murder. She will also discuss the difference between cultural understandings of serial killers and the actual definition of the phrase serial murder. Casey will also direct us through what we know about serial killers, their victims, and their crimes. Crime Time Office Hours welcomes Casey Akins. To start us off, can you tell me a little bit about the class you teach and how you got interested in developing a class on serial killers?
Casey Akins (Guest):Sure. Well, thanks for having me here. I got interested by taking a class in graduate school and got really hooked. I just became fascinated by the dark side of humanity and sort of where that line is between good and bad, good and evil. And I think that most of my students feel that way too. They feel an urge to be fascinated by it, but a little bit guilty by feeling that way. So I always start off by giving people permission to be fascinated by the subject.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Yes, those guilty pleasures. I understand that completely.
Casey Akins (Guest):But we talk about typologies, different types of serial serial killers, like healthcare killers and team killers, male versus female serial killers, and really kind of delve into the theoretical aspects of it and psychopathy versus psychosis. So we get we tell some stories about serial killers, and that's their final project, too, is they have to research a serial killer and tell me about the MO and the theoretical explanation for the killing. So it's it's a pretty intense class.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay, that sounds exciting. So is there a favorite serial killer amongst students that they pick?
Casey Akins (Guest):I don't know. The students I've I've told them they cannot do papers on Jeffrey Dahmer because I can't read one more paper about Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. So those are always the favorites. My favorite serial killer is Ed Kemper. So I use him as an example a lot.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Tell me a little bit about Ed Kemper.
Casey Akins (Guest):Ed Kemper was somebody who was 14 and killed his grandmother first because he just wanted to see what it felt like to kill grandma. And then he saw his grandfather walking up the driveway, and he's like, Oh no, grandpa's gonna be really upset that I killed grandma. So he killed grandpa too.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay, get rid of the witness, right?
Casey Akins (Guest):Yes. And so then he was a juvenile, so he was really just put on probation. He served a little time in a juvenile detention facility and then was put on probation. And then he got out and started killing again. And he was right now, he's still incarcerated, but now what he does is he reads books for blind people that can't read. So he does audio books for people with disabilities.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Oh, interesting.
Casey Akins (Guest):Yes, yes. But he's a true, he befriended a lot of the police officers that were investigating his case. So by the time he turned himself in after he killed his mother, finally, he said, I hey, it's me. I'm I'm the one you're looking for. And they're like, No, there's no way. And he's like, Yeah, really, it's me. And they were they just didn't believe him because they weren't used to they they had seen him as a friend.
Kevin Buckler (Host):He was too normal and too much of a friend.
Casey Akins (Guest):And a and a friend he'd been hanging around, but he was picking up tips the whole time on like where they were on the investigation.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Oh, wow. During the background work, I think I came across him. When you said his name, it hit me that okay, he's the one that killed his mother. And then you started with grandparents. I did not find that he killed his grandparents. So that's that's very interesting.
Casey Akins (Guest):Yeah. And that's and he will talk about if my probation had been successful. So he still blames sort of the system on failing him for the reason why he killed his mother, his mother and other, other people, other co-eds.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay. All right, interesting. So yeah, you mentioned Dahmer. I I have the same reaction to that. That case is just so so dark. So dark. That it's something that I haven't ever wanted to to talk about. So I totally get your your desire to have them go in a different direction, other than that.
Casey Akins (Guest):Yes, yes. And you can just only read so many papers about one specific serial killer. I want to I want to get a variety because I'm learning too from them.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Right. Do you do you have any students that do the Hillside Strangler case from the from California, I believe?
Casey Akins (Guest):Yeah. And I also get a lot of students who do Rich Groomiras, the Night Stalker from California. He captures a lot of interest as well.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay. Okay, very cool. So, you know, you and I were around in the 1970s and 80s when we had this, what people have referred to as the golden era of the serial killers. So I'm guessing a lot of your students are sort of not from that generation and didn't experience that. So I'm just curious about when you teach the class, do you have to, is there a lot of like bridging the cultural and social divides that goes goes into teaching students about serial killers?
Casey Akins (Guest):There really is. An example I can give you is recently talking about hitchhikers. It's a huge cultural divide because in the 70s, hitchhiking was really popular. But the kids today never even think about hitchhiking. It's it's not part of their experience in life. But serial killing kind of put an end to hitchhiking because people got very fearful of either being picked up by a serial killer or encountering a serial killer in hitchhiking in some way. So they that was one of the cultural divides that I had to sort of bridge, explaining how times have shifted. And of course, now with Netflix doing their documentaries, it's revisiting a lot of it. So they know it all from media. They don't know it from living through it.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Right, right. And it's completely different. Speaking of hitchhiking, I have to tell you, have you heard the hitchhiking joke that people pull?
Casey Akins (Guest):No.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Oh, I did this many years ago with my grandmother. And it's basically you come in, I walked in the door, and I was like, you know, you just never believe what happened to me. And they're like, you know, what? And I said, you know, I was traveling from from Lexington back to Paris. I grew up in in Kentucky, and I came across this person who was hitchhiking. I thought, you know, I need some karma in my life. So I'm gonna give them a ride and they get in. But they have this box with them. And a couple minutes in, I say to the guy, you know, what you got in the box? And he says, none of your damn business. And, you know, the the joke is that you keep going and then you ask again, none of your damn business. Well, the third time this happens, I'm like, you have to either get out of the car or tell me what's in the box. And now you've got you've got grandma hooked. I told my grandma this joke. And I said, You will never guess what's in the box. And she's like, What? I said, none of your damn business. And she was on my case, not for the joke, but she she took it as me being like too lighthearted about the whole idea of hitchhiking. And I had to promise her at least 30 times that month that I don't pick up hitchhikers, right? It was just this damaging thing to her psychologically, anyway. So, one of the things that I wanted to also do with uh you in this conversation is talk a little bit about definitions because we're talking about serial killers. And, you know, when you start thinking about the various types of killing, you know, you've mentioned typologies and things of that nature. But I think there's some confusion out there that we can maybe bridge the gap here. Tell me a little bit about the distinctions between three different things that people may confuse: mass murder, spree killings, and serial killers.
Casey Akins (Guest):Sure. Mass murders is killing multiple people at one time in one event. So it's it comes down to number of victims and number of events, is really the distinguishing factor between mass murder and serial killing. Spree murders are it's a term that's sort of going out of favor now because there's uh with the definition of serial killing, it's two or more victims with a cooling off period in between. And so trying to define what is the cooling off period gets very difficult. And with spree killing, they originally the definition was killing a number of people in separate events with no cooling off period in between. But then we realized who are we to decide what was cooling off and what was not cooling off. So it really confused the definition. So now we either use mass murder or serial killing. We don't use spree murder anymore.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay, so it's actually fallen out of favor. Okay. Okay. So someone who one of my one of my favorite cases to sort of read about, it's very, it's very weird. I don't know why I'm drawn to this, is Richard Speck. Richard, from what you're telling me, would probably be a mass murderer, not a serial killer.
Krista Gehring (Guest):Yes, yes. That would definitely fall into mass murder care uh territory. And it's interesting because mass murders are really on the rise. Serial killing has decreased significantly, but mass murders are the new, the new serial killers, the new notoriety, kind of famous, famous people.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Yeah, and just for those listeners who may not know about uh Richard Speck, Richard Speck was someone who killed, I think it was eight nursing students in Chicago one night where he entered their apartment building and literally took them one at a time into another room and and killed them. And the the reason why we were able to catch him is one of the nursing students rolled underneath the bed and he lost track of how many people was in the room. So it was just it was just this weird, interest, interesting thing that allowed them to solve the case. So a case like the DC snipers from was it early 2000s?
Casey Akins (Guest):I think it was early 2000s.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Early 2000s, that would be probably a serial killer.
Krista Gehring (Guest):Yeah, they count that as serial. They initially would have labeled that as spree killing, but that case kind of turned on made us challenge our definition because we could not figure out if there was a cooling off period in between their activities. So the DC sniper case would be definitely classified as serial killing now.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay. And with the DC sniper case, it was again, uh some of my listeners may not have been born at that point. We're we're moving so quickly in terms of through time. Basically, you had two individuals who were sort of going around and using a rifle to kill people randomly in the Washington, D.C. area, and it happened over multiple days. Uh, actually, I think it maybe went even maybe over the course of a month. It took a while for them to figure this out, right? And it was multiple events where they were doing this. So that would be sort of the serial killer.
Casey Akins (Guest):Right, right.
Kevin Buckler (Host):So this leads me to another definitional point I'd like to talk to you a little bit about. This distinction, maybe, between cultural understanding of what serial killers are all about versus the reality of the definition, right? Can you so can you talk a little bit about that? And maybe it's a how we started sort of started to view serial killers from the 70s and 80s, and how sort of the definition of what the you look at, look for is much narrower than than that.
Casey Akins (Guest):Well, it's it because it used to be that the definition was for more victims. Okay. And now the definition is two or more victims according to the FBI. Again, you can look at three different sources and get three different definitions of what what it is. Our in our minds culturally, I think that we have this image of multiple, multiple victims, 10 victims, 15 victims. I think Gary Ridgway claimed over a hundred victims. So that's sort of our cultural, those are the ones that hit the news and people make a big deal about. And so it's changed our, it's changed the way that we it's actually created a real seismic shift in how we investigate serial killing is if it's only two victims, I say only, it's I don't mean to be insensitive, but picking out things like what kind of victim was targeted, what kind of victim was vulnerable, all of those characteristics become much more challenging when you've got two. When you've got 10, you can see a pattern. When you've only got two, it's really hard to see a pattern.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Right. Right. So the so the nature of the definition really makes it hard to sort of identify sort of the the patterns of the case. Exactly. Okay. And you know, one of the controversies that has been going on has been around this idea of a pattern. Law enforcement in Houston and some of the academic experts in Houston keep saying, you know, we've we've been having bodies pulled out of the bayous. Yeah, we're we're in a context where you have heat that makes the ME determination really hard, but you add into the to the fray the idea of water, you know, that makes in terms of decomposition, and it it sort of messes, messes that up in terms of this. But there's been this sentiment that there's no pattern. So can you talk a little bit more about what that means and how maybe it is shifted? You it indicated some things, but over time, now that we have a different sort of definition.
Casey Akins (Guest):Sure. But most serial killers will pick a specific victim type most of the time. Doesn't happen all the time. So you can usually see a pattern in the type of victim that is has been selected by the serial killer. People that don't show a pattern are generally the serial killers that are mentally ill, but they will not do things like dispose of the body in the same place, like the bayou, because they would, they're just too disorganized to dispose of the body in the same place. They'll just leave the body where they've where they killed it. So those are the ones that don't have patterns in terms of their victim type. So it I think that you're probably seeing a variety of victim types, but this the location makes is what everybody's focusing on. But if the victim types are very different, then that does not indicate a serial killer is involved.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay. And given the definition you indicated earlier, when you think about the definition only requiring two, it really becomes even harder to establish that a serial killer is involved because a pattern with two cases is Is it really a pattern?
Casey Akins (Guest):Exactly. Yeah, it's very difficult. It's very difficult. But you know, the the technology has changed so much in our ability to catch serial killers now that the victim counts are much lower. So I think the victim counts are the average is 3.6 to 4.7 now victims. So a lot of if it we hadn't changed the definition, we would be missing a lot of the of the serial killers.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Oh, okay. So so you think maybe that the func the changing of the definition perhaps was a function of changes in technology, like like FBI databases and things of that nature?
Casey Akins (Guest):Right. And being just being able to catch them quicker.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay. Okay. That that makes a whole lot of sense. Can you, you know, we've been focusing perhaps a little bit on offenders. Can you can you talk a little bit about the about victims? What what are the things that sort of stand out with victims who who sort of perish because of at the hand of serial killers?
Speaker 4:Sure. About 70% of victims are women. It's not surprising. It's people are not going to want to try and overpower somebody who's stronger than them. So they're usually vulnerable in some way. Sex workers unfortunately tend to be victimized a lot, as do homeless people, because the transient nature of their lifestyle can makes it easy for them to disappear without being noticed very quickly. So that is one of the unfortunate realities of the serial killing victimization population. Serial killers are not going to pick people who are stronger than them or more intellectually capable than them. They're always going to pick somebody who is who they perceive to be weaker or less intellectually capable that they can fool. But the vulnerability shifts. I mean, one of the uh the types of serial killers is healthcare killers. They just recently caught one within the past two weeks who they consider themselves angels of mercy and they inject drugs into patients in the hospital. And you think being a patient in the hospital is a very, very vulnerable place to be. So it's not just sex workers, but it's also anybody in a vulnerable position. Also, we have most of serial killing as most crime is intra racial. So for a long time we were only paying attention to white victims, and now we're starting to pay more attention to black victims of serial killing, and that's starting to get more attention.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Yeah, I I read somewhere someone mentioned who knew I was doing this that that sort of shifted where you have more known cases of black serial killers and non-white serial killers than we did in the past.
Casey Akins (Guest):Yeah, absolutely. The number of black serial killers has gone up significantly and now outnumbers the number of white serial killers. And I I personally think that has to do with the attention that we've given to the victims and just being more aware of the victim types and seeing when black women go missing, giving that more attention than we had in the past.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay. Yeah, that's it, that's a really, really good point. We often, when you when you think about homicide historically, just getting away from the whole idea of serious, if you look at homicide, there's been a lot of studies done about media coverage, the intensity of media coverage for various groups. And one of the things that we that we always find is that, you know, more quote unquote, and this is not me saying it, me using air quotes, and I have a witness, Casey, you're my witness, the more valuable victims, at least in terms of media and you know, selling newspapers, selling advertisement space and things of that nature, garners more attention in terms of space dedicated likelihood of coverage, things of that nature.
Casey Akins (Guest):So exactly, exactly. I don't know if you remember the case of JonBenet Ramsey. This was not a serial killing case.
Kevin Buckler (Host):I do.
Casey Akins (Guest):But little beautiful white girl and gained so much attention for her murder. Meanwhile, multiple black girls had gone missing and received almost no media coverage. And I think we're starting to see a shift in that now.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Okay. Very good. Yeah, another one that I remember from I I can't remember, it was probably early 2000s, wasn't a serial killer, but oh, what was it? Natalie Holloway. Do you remember all of that coverage we had? And it's it's a horrific case. Don't we're not trying, we're not being insensitive here, but the what the point is is that there is a there is a discrepancy in terms of attention historically that we're absolutely starting to see change. When we look across known serial killer cases, what demographics or psychological traits tend to appear most frequently in terms of offenders?
Casey Akins (Guest):In terms of offenders, it's really interesting because it used to be known as sort of a white man's gig, but now the majority of serial killers are black. We also have about 17% of our serial killers are women, and about 20% of our serial killers work in teams. So it's a little bit defies some of the stereotypical nature of it. Most of them have some sort of psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder, but they're presumed to be mentally ill, which they're not, because antisocial personality disorder does not qualify as a mental illness in the DSM V. So they feel no remorse, they treat people like objects, and it allows them to be very sadistic in their killing.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Are there consistent patterns when you look at methods of death that serial killers use? How do these methods reflect psychological, logistical, or situational factors in their crimes?
Casey Akins (Guest):Well, we generally think about typologies when we think of that. And a very fundamental, almost rudimentary typology is the organized versus the disorganized killer. And an organized killer will bring their weapon to the crime scene with them. They generally will target their victims, they'll have a plan for escaping or disposal of the body. Whereas a disorganized killer is just the opposite. They will use whatever weapon they have on hand. Um, they won't have planned. Their victims are going to be much more haphazard. But what's interesting about that typology is that over time it changes. So an organized killer gets a little lazy and sloppy after a while and will appear disorganized. And a disorganized killer gets practiced and can learn methods of operation that makes them appear more organized. So it's easier to use those typologies in earlier cases than it is in later cases.
Kevin Buckler (Host):What is uh can you think of uh an example that you know listeners would sort of know in terms of both organized versus disorganized?
Casey Akins (Guest):Joel Rifkin is one who has been classified both as an organized and a disorganized killer. And he is interesting because he tends to be someone who will accommodate whatever the interviewer is asking of him. So if the interviewer is asking him as questions from a particular point of view, he'll come off one way. And if they're asking from a different angle, he'll come off as a different way. But he was disorganized in the sense that he was pulled over for a faulty license plate, as license plate was falling off. And he's like, oh, by the way, I have a body in the back of my car.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Oh, he admitted it.
Casey Akins (Guest):He just admitted it. So he was he was not very organized in that, in that way. Whereas Ted Bundy would be a very organized killer in that he selected his victims, he planned out meticulously how he was going to trap them and then how he was going to dispose of the bodies afterwards.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Mentioning the notion of body disposal, what patterns can we find in body disposal such as clustering, concealment, or symbolic placement? And what can those patterns tell investigators about offender behavior, risk tolerance, and familiarity with the areas that they utilize?
Casey Akins (Guest):Well, they it can actually tell us a lot because there's bodies can be staged in certain ways to confuse or to make a statement towards investigators. And that can be part of the method of operation that serial killers use. But they also have staging, which is where they might pose bodies in a particular way. And that's actually part of their signature, not their MO, but their signature. That's part of their something unique to them that's involved in their fantasy that leads up to the crime. And we also are very curious about whether or not they've moved the body. A lot of place-specific serial killers will move the body to another location so that their location can remain anonymous.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Oh, so they like the familiarity of a particular area. So after the death, they move to dispose of the body.
Casey Akins (Guest):Exactly. Exactly.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Do serial killers typically follow any kind of discernible progression in their crimes, either in terms of frequency method or victim type?
Casey Akins (Guest):You know, it's different for every serial killer. We usually think of serial killers as just going on these rampages and killing over and over and over in short periods of time, but they actually can have quite long careers. And some serial killers will even stop for several years and then restart. So it's really different for each one. The defining factor it tends to be their level of fantasy. So they they have a buildup where they are fantasizing about killing, fantasizing about killing, and then it just builds up within them, and then they have to satisfy that fantasy. If they go for long periods of time without killing, uh frequently it's because they got married, they found somebody else to fulfill their sexual fantasies. Sometimes it's because they became incarcerated for a different crime. And so they stop and then as soon as they're released, they start the killing again.
Kevin Buckler (Host):You mentioned earlier in the interview the idea of myths that exist in terms of serial killers. So if you think about pop culture, it often shapes our perceptions of what serial killers are, how they behave and what they do. From your perspective, what's the most persistent myths about serial killers and how do those misconceptions end up impacting how the public perceives these cases?
Casey Akins (Guest):I think one of the biggest myths is that all serial killers are insane. And insanity is a legal term. It's not a psychological term. And psychopathy or sociopathy does not qualify as insane because they actually know what they're doing is wrong. They just don't care. Only about 1% of serial killers are actually what we would consider psychotic or mentally ill. Another one is that sex is often seen as the primary motivation. And it is a motivation in many serial killings, but it's not a motivation in all serial killings. And the problem is that we tend to overlook other types of serial killing where there wasn't a sexual assault or no sexual component in the body. And so we tend to overlook that as a potential case of serial killing because we've we've made that assumption. Things like healthcare killers, people who will poison, like nurses or nurses' aides that will poison their patients, for example, do not generally have a sexual component to their killing. And so they can get, they can have quite a long killing career and it gets overlooked.
Kevin Buckler (Host):My conversation with Dr. Krista Gehring really underscored something important. When your average Joe or Jane hears the phrase serial killer, it doesn't register as a legal or a criminological term. It triggers a reaction shaped by decades of cultural storytelling. The image that flashes in people's minds isn't drawn from crime data or FBI definitions. Culturally, serial murder is imagined as a pattern of killings committed by a highly intelligent, deeply disturbed predator. The predator travels, stalks, taunts police, and kills out of compulsion or psychological gratification. The predator randomly selects strangers as victims, haunts them methodically, and leaves behind clues that only the most skilled investigators can decode. It's the version built from news anchors locking their tone into urgency, from cases like Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, Coral, and Ramirez, from Silence of the Lambs, Mindhunter, horror films, and true crime documentaries.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In this cultural script, serial murder is rare but ever present, unpredictable yet patterned, and always lurking in the shadows. It is less a criminological category and more a narrative archetype. The ultimate embodiment of the unknown stranger who kills again and again with motive hidden, identity masked, and danger seemingly everywhere. The cultural definition of serial killer came first. The criminological one has been trying to catch up ever since. And the mismatch matters. These stories we grew up with shape the beliefs we carry now, including the concerns driving today's Houston panic.
Kevin Buckler (Host):But here is the twist. As the discussion with Casey Akins shows, the official definitions of serial murder didn't neatly fit with the cultural ones. They never have. Over the past fifty years, criminologists and law enforcement agencies have gone through several versions of what serial murder even means. Early scholars insisted on patterns of psychological gratification. The FBI's early definitions required at least three to four victims with cooling off periods. Later versions reduced that number to two. Some definitions emphasized sexual motivation, others didn't. And the most recent FBI operational definition appears intentionally broad. The FBI definition of serial murder is two or more victims killed in separate events by the same offender. No required motive, no psychological profile, no cinematic ritual or master plan.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Meanwhile, researchers understand the complexities. They often distinguish between typologies, visionary, mission-oriented, hedonistic, and power control killers. Others definitionally emphasize diversity and variability, showing that not all serial killers fit the charismatic white male archetype popularized by the news. And other scholars proposed even more streamlined definitions, arguing that we should focus on behavioral repetition rather than motive or pathology.
Kevin Buckler (Host):The current official FBI definition paints a very different picture than the one we've absorbed through film reels and Netflix cues. In reality, when we stick to the official FBI definition, serial murder is more mundane, more varied, and far less theatrical than the cultural script suggests. These offenders aren't often masterminds. For the most part, they don't stalk strangers along moonlit highways. Many target people they know are vulnerable.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Because of the low threshold, two or more victims killed in separate events by the same offender, cases don't resemble each other enough to produce the clean narrative arcs that television has taught us to expect. So when someone thinks there must be a serial killer in Houston, what they're really responding to is not the data. It's the cultural memory of a threat that once dominated the national imagination. They're reacting to a story more than a statistic, a script more than a pattern. And part of what we're doing in this series is pulling those threads apart, showing how the myth and the reality coexist, producing confusion.
Kevin Buckler (Host):When Houston mayor John Whitmire held his press conference, when the academic experts, including Dr. Krista Gearing, spoke to say there was no evidence of a serial killer in Houston, they were talking about the version of the serial killer that we all know. The serial killer that is the legend of cultural stories that we tell and retell.
Kevin Buckler (Host):In practice, the FBI's current official definition sweeps together radically different kinds of killers. Offenders with entirely different motives, methods, and psychological profiles. Under the current FBI standard, a gang member who kills two rivals on separate weekends, a domestic abuse offender who murders a partner and then a family member at two different points in time, a caregiver who intentionally overdoses two patients at two points in time, a burglar who kills two homeowners in separate break-ins, and a compulsive sexual predator like Bundy or BTK. These are all placed under the same label serial killers. That's an enormous conceptual umbrella, one so broad that it blurs distinctions that actually matter for understanding, investigating, and preventing violent crime.
Kevin Buckler (Host):What makes the classic serial killer meaningful as a category isn't the number of victims, it's the pattern, the cooling off period, the compulsion, the personal gratification, the return to fantasy. When the definition includes offenders with totally different motives, methods, and psychological dynamics, the term loses its explanatory power. It becomes a numerical threshold, not a behavioral type. This is where the cultural meaning of serial killer and the criminological meaning drift apart. One describes a mythic figure, the hyperviolent folk devil of the late twentieth century. The other, at least in the FBI's broadest form, is simply two murders on two different days. When we conflate these, confusion follows. The public imagines Bundy. The FBI means anyone who is killed twice on two separate days. The conversation gets muddied before it even begins.
Kevin Buckler (Host):Understanding that gap matters, especially in moments like the 2025 Houston Panic. When people online say serial killer, they're almost always referencing the cultural version, the cinematic, psychologically driven predator. But when investigators assess cases, they're working from a definition so broad that it collapses dozens of homicide patterns into one category. That mismatch fuels fear, misunderstandings, and sometimes even moral panic.
Kevin Buckler (Host):That brings us to the end of episode two in the four-part series on the Houston serial killer panic. In episode three, we'll dig into the medical examiner's findings and the concerns that helped fuel the scare.
Kevin Buckler (Host):If you learned something or laughed, even nervously, go ahead and give that like button some love. Believe me, it's a lot easier than my course exams and writing assignments.
Kevin Buckler (Host):I am Kevin Buckler, your host, and I hope you return for additional episodes of Crime Time Office Hours, the podcast where we cut through the noise to make crime and justice clear one issue at a time.