Victimology, Sociocultural Determinants, and Capture Dynamics in the 20 Most Prolific Serial Killers: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Analysis

Serial homicide is among the most feared yet least understood forms of interpersonal violence, and the scholarship that defines it has been built overwhelmingly upon Western, and especially American, cases. This dissertation challenges that parochialism by examining the victimology, sociocultural determinants, and capture dynamics of 20 of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history, distributed across nine countries on five continents—India, Pakistan, Colombia, China, the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, South Africa, and the United States. Using a qualitative comparative case-study design, the study applied a four-phase mixed-methods analytic strategy—reflexive thematic analysis of victim selection, comparative matrix analysis of sociocultural context, timeline and process analysis of capture, and integrative cross-case synthesis—to archival data coded across four domains (victimology, sociocultural context, offender characteristics, and capture dynamics), with inter-rater reliability established at Cohen’s κ ≥ .80. Findings were striking in their consistency. In 95% of cases, offenders targeted “less-dead” populations—people whose social marginalization rendered their disappearances unlikely to be investigated—although the specific vulnerability pools were culturally contingent, ranging from street children in Colombia and Pakistan to hospital patients in Britain and Germany. The single strongest correlate of prolonged predation was an Enabling Triad of victim marginalization, institutional oversight failure, and linkage blindness. An institutional trust paradox emerged in developed nations, where deference to professionals replaced poverty as the enabling mechanism. Five cross-cultural offender archetypes were identified, periods of social transition functioned as risk multipliers, investigative failure or delay occurred in 100% of cases, and offender error or self-disclosure precipitated 40% of captures. The study concludes that serial predation exploits universal social hierarchies through culturally specific pathways, and it advances an Integrated Cross-Cultural Model of Serial Predation intended to reorient comparative criminology toward the victims and the structures that predation depends upon.