Why Do So Many Serial Killers Come From the Pacific Northwest? A New Book Offers a Theory

Time​ Magazine

a day ago

For lack of a better term, the 1970s and '80s are often called America's 'Golden Age' of serial killers throughout the Pacific Northwest. (Its nickname, after all, is 'America's Killing Fields.') In the decades since, theories about how and why the era produced a disproportionate amount of murderous psychopaths—among them: Ted Bundy, the Hillside Strangler, the Green River Killer, and the I-5 Killer—have included everything from Eisenhower's 1954 hitchhiker-happy interstate highway system to post-World War II child abuse by traumatized soldiers to sensationalized media coverage of then-new ' true crime.'
Any or all of the above may have contributed to the era's serial killer surge, as could some less obvious explanations like this one: poisonous chemicals, specifically lead, copper and arsenic, that leached into the air from industrial smelters. ASARCO in Tacoma, Wash., for example, regularly released a cloud of lead and arsenic that floated down as a white ash that killed pets and eroded paint off cars. The air was literally the color of lead and the pungent 'aroma of Tacoma' lingers to this day. Killers Gary Ridgway, Israel Keyes and Ted Bundy all lived nearby.
So too did Pulitzer Prize -winning writer Caroline Fraser, just 7 years old and mere miles away during Bundy's 1974 summer murder spree. In her new investigative book out June 9, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, she thoroughly explores the so-called 'lead-crime hypothesis,' a theory that circulated first with academics before entering the mainstream in the early 2010s. Through her unique position of coming of age in Seattle during the era, Fraser's book marks the largest and most in-depth examination of the controversial theory so far. From her home in New Mexico, Fraser explains why she's convinced toxic chemicals helped cause a sudden spike in serial killers, why she got so obsessed with them to begin with and why serial killers really aren't as smart as they think they are.
TIME: Your last book was a biography of Little House on the Prairie author Laura Ingalls Wilder. How do you go from that to serial killers?
Fraser: This book has been in my mind for a long time. I was born and raised in Seattle and remember growing up with the presence of Ted Bundy. Even though I wasn't touched by the case directly, just having it happen so close to where I lived was a big deal. Bundy kidnapped and killed two women on the same Sunday afternoon from Lake Sammamish—just six miles from me. After that, people knew that his name was Ted, so there were posters, drawings, and police composites of his face all over the place. It was all anybody could talk about. That summer left me with a pretty strong impression of a chaos and craziness that was happening. And then there were so many others…
…the Zodiac Killer, John Wayne Gacy, Gary Ridgway, Jeffrey Dahmer, Son of Sam, Richard Ramirez. Did it feel like suddenly serial killers were everywhere?
Certainly by the time of Ramirez [in the mid-'80s], people were thinking, 'What the hell is going on here?' It's striking to me now that nobody was asking why. Nobody was looking at the larger pattern and asking, 'Are there more killers than before? Is there something about the Pacific Northwest?' The FBI was presenting themselves as the experts, but they weren't explaining anything about the phenomenon. Serial killers have always been with us in some fashion, but certainly not in those numbers.
Many theories over the years have sought to explain. How did you arrive at yours?
I figure it's got to be a combination of things, first of all, and all kinds of things can make a serial killer. Physical and sexual abuse was the leading theory of FBI profilers for a long time. A lot of these guys grew up in very, very poor environments. They often have a missing father, or an abusive father, or they didn't know who their father was at all—which they blame their mothers for. As we learn more about the brain, we're thinking more about the effects of concussion and brain damage. Some people think forceps by doctors delivering babies in the '50s caused brain damage in infants. Certain vitamin deficiencies when you're in utero or an infant can produce real deficits in terms of your brain development. All this before chemical exposures.
The 'lead-crime hypothesis' posits a direct correlation between crime and lead, or as you put it, 'More lead, more murder.' What's the connection?
During the post-war period, an enormous amount of lead was in the air from mainly two sources: Leaded gas, which everybody used for decades, and heavy industry like smelting. People are still debating the numbers, but it is pretty well accepted now that between 20 and 50% of the sharp rise in crime in the 1980s and '90s is attributable to lead. We know lead causes aggression. We know lead damages the brain in developing children. I don't think anybody thinks lead isn't at least a factor anymore, as there's a clear association between the withdrawal of leaded gas in the '90s and the drop-off of crime. In the '50s and '60s, geochemist Clair Patterson proved that lead exposure had caused what he called 'a loss of mental acuity.' But the effects of lead are all over the map; besides intelligence, it can affect personality. Many studies connect lead exposure to a particular kind of frontal cortex damage that leads to heightened aggression. This is observed largely in males. The higher the lead exposure, the greater the brain volume mass, and reduced brain volume has been linked to higher levels of psychopathy.
Is there something specific about males from the Pacific Northwest?
While it's true that there were smelters all over the country, Tacoma is particularly interesting because its smelter sits right in the middle of the city. All the emissions were being spread over not just Tacoma but the entire Pacific Northwest in this plume that was up to a thousand square miles. They measured it all the way up to British Columbia. Crime was up in all of America but it was up in Washington State by almost 30%—three times the national average. That said, and this is one of the reasons I focused on him, a lot of the idea about the Northwest Pacific comes right from Bundy. He was early in this phenomenon, and he eventually talked a lot, to the point that he was mythologized, almost glamorized. The media described him as 'terrific looking' and 'Kennedyesque.'
Serial killers thrive on attention and want their names out there. How do you write about them without buying into the hype? And does hype encourage others?
Serial killers care a lot about their reputations and are known to have obsessions with one another; Israel Keyes, for example, was a big 'fan' of Ted Bundy. I'm trying to paint a very different portrait of Bundy than 'very attractive genius.' In part by the Hannibal Lecter phenomenon, there's this idea that serial killers are fiendishly clever, smarter than anybody else. That's really not true. The truth is, we build these people up in our minds. We have an idea of what they're like and the power they have. Then when they're finally unveiled, they're these sad, pathetic losers. The public should see that. But would any of this make someone take up serial killing in the first place? I don't think so. These crimes are sexual in nature and something has happened that makes them sexually excited by violence and terrorizing their victims. The prevalence of necrophilia during this period is very weird. It all points to something that has gone wrong with the wiring of the brain.
America's Serial Killer Database counted 669 serial killers in the 90s, 371 in the 2000s and 117 in the 2010s. Where do you think they're all going?
A police officer will probably tell you that we're better at catching them now because of increased resources given to police departments. Proponents of mass incarceration will tell you they're in jail earlier and longer. Certainly forensic evidence, specifically DNA, makes identifying serial killers far easier than before, as does technology and video surveillance. But I like to think of it this way: In the same way that we've built cars that are safer to drive, we've also improved health outcomes to build better humans. Pregnant mothers take prenatal vitamins, we raise our children very differently and mental health services have greatly improved. Thanks largely to American football, we better understand the connection between repeated blows to the head and later degradation of cognition and increased aggression. Toxic chemicals including lead were phased out and banned, and then the crime rate took its largest plunge in recorded history. I don't think serial killers are going anywhere as much as we didn't grow them to begin with.