Vronsky, who is extensively cited in the Rolling Stone article that this Boing Boing post links to, is one of the leading experts on serial killers and has spent his career writing several well-researched & well-regarded books on serial killers. Here’s the website for this book, with the entire Table of Contents laid out. He makes a convincing case in the book that serial killers have always been with us and most likely always will.
I’m not entirely convinced that there are fewer serial killers now. But if so, it could be because of our constantly-connected culture.
Serial killers typically prey on those whose disappearance isn’t immediately noticed. But with the connected culture it seems it would be harder to find victims. Sex workers are the unfortunate victims in many cases, but it seems like they are more connected now and work to warn each other of danger.
Not to mention cell phones, basically tracking devices that most people carry around at all times.
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In two words:
Leaded gasoline.
This has been my suspicion. A lot of recent articles give a 60% nation clearance rate for murders—that average varies widely with some areas in the single digits. The numbers from 50 year ago claim closer to a 90% clearance rate—which is suspiciously high. Poor and marginalized groups are often ignored, even today. When you read about famous cases, even when they’re caught and confess, they still often ballpark the number of victims. With such poor numbers it’s impossible to tell if the numbers have changed over time.
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VHS and Betamax is to blame.
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And then they’re still at large but having trouble finding any targets.
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Based on what I have heard and seen it always seems like several factors contributed to the boom:
- Much more media coverage due to a lot more media in general. This meant that serial killers wanted their names out there more on top of just more people being aware of things that had always probably existed before.
- The use of DNA was still new and slow to adopt, so simply driving across state lines would meant your cold cases were just left in a bin forever. Especially if the killer had an in with law enforcement.
- It takes a long time for suburban white people to get into trouble and that’s somewhat shifted over time. It’s like with domestic terrorists, there was a perception that a white Christian man with a job had no reason to be a serial killer.
- There’s more attention and activism around bringing visibility to crimes against marginalized communities. A lot of these crimes are against sex workers or drug users or LGBT folks.
There are a lot of potential reasons, but those seem to be a big crossover of practical and societal reasons that pop up a lot in true crime stories.
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Serial killers are still with us-the FBI estimates that there are over a dozen working as long haul truckers and preying on sex workers and truck stop workers. If the body is dumped states away from where the person was snatched, it can end up as an unidentified cold case pretty easily.
And the media exposure was a huge part of the phenomenon. Non parental child abductions have remained flat in numbers for decades, but the worldwide media frenzy that happens when a white prepubescent kid disappears makes parents sure every kid is in imminent danger every time they leave the house.
The decline seems to coincide with the advent of widespread internet usage. Also seems to be the time period of the purported ASD “epidemic”. Maybe vaccines prevent serial killers? Maybe they are deterred by cellphones? Widespread video surveillance?
Has anyone here read the linked article?
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The bb article or the Rolling Stone one?
I was going to make a joke about USB availability, then I remembered what the S stands for. Probably for the best.
I ran into a paywall, so no, sadly.
In my defense, Miss Cellania, I did try before running my mouth off! 
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Look what I found:
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Ha, new to the internet? Just kidding, I have spent many years enjoying your submissions here and on “Neatorama”. I think the Rolling Stone article invites this speculation, which is what we all love and why we come here. For instance, the book the article features by Vronsky seems to contradict his earlier one where he argues ‘there have always been serial killers’. I forget the details, don’t want to pull the article up again and have to delete cookies again 
Patrick Bateman as a right leaning politician?
Seems highly plausible.
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