Multiple Homicide

All homicides can be said to create multiple victims, in the sense that relatives of the deceased are also caused significant and enduring distress of several kinds. A small proportion of homicides, however, involve the killing of more than one person. Multiple homicide takes a number of forms; and the possibility of it happening is an understandable source of far-reaching concern, and sometimes outright terror, in any community. Alongside those reactions there is also a kind of morbid fascination, fed by a steady stream of crime novels, films and television series, which often depict how such individuals are eventually caught in a way that bears little resemblance to actual events. (Perhaps it is this, more than anything else, that has created a misleading image of what most forensic psychologists do for a living.) The reality of the crimes, however, is often extremely grisly in itself and can pose extraordinary challenges on a number of levels, without any need for creative embellishment.