tal , 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago)

I was thinking that people returning from WW2 might be a factor, war trauma or something, but that seems like it’s a little too early.

In 1944, this data shows the largest cohorts in an infantry unit being measured being 19-24 years old.

old.reddit.com/…/what_was_the_average_age_of_the_…

A 19-year-old – the youngest cohort listed – would be 33, maybe the end of the peak period to start serial killing – 14 years after 1944. That’s in 1958, and that’d have been the tail end of American WW2 veterans being in the prime serial killer initiation age. The boom had started then, but the highest rate of increase came later…and that’s looking at the very tail end of the WW2 vets.

The serial killers would mostly have been children or young teens during World War II, not actually served in it.