An industry's complicity in murder

I had heard the term "serial-killer" way before I knew its definition.

- SNEHA PATHAK

The US Department of Justice defines it like this: Anyone who has committed two or more murders on separate occasions is deemed a serial killer. Ted Bundy, whose face appears on the cover of Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, murdered dozens of women.

Bundy was just one of many such serial killers who roamed the streets of America during the 1970s and 1980s, preying on women. Why were a number of these killers connected with the Pacific Northwest, home to Caroline Fraser, the author of Murderland? Why did this phenomenon of the serial killer rise with such intensity during a certain time period and then, just as suddenly, come to an end? These are the questions that Pulitzer Prize winner Fraser asks in her latest book. She also supplies her unexpected and thought-provoking answer—lead poisoning.