RESEARCH

To be honest I didn't really have to even look elsewhere for inspiration because for the past 5 years or so I have always watched tv shows and films that are in the crime genre. When coming up with my idea and the moodboard, from the top of my head I knew to reference films and TV shows like Silence of the Lambs, Seven, Flashpoint, Dexter and many more. My story came to me rather quick. It was just a matter of rewriting it until it made more sense.

My main inspiration to produce a story about a serial killer came from a TV show I watch known as, Criminal Minds. The show revolves around government agents catching murderers. I thought I should research both fiction and non-fiction serial killers.

http://www.criminalmindsfanwiki.com/page/The+ABC+of+Serial+Killers

I briefly read through the traits of the serial killers and their stories.

From this page I recognised a real serial killer known as Ted Bundy. He was one of the most prolific serial killers in US history. He was executed for 30 homicides. Prior to being executed he gave up information on 50 women he had murdered.

http://crime.about.com/od/serial/p/tedbundy2.htm

I wanted to find out what one of his early triggers were and I learnt that in his teenage years his girlfriend broke up with him because 'he lacked any real future and was not husband material'. This became an obsession and from then he started murdering women. I decided to base my character, Andrew Kaufner off this serial killer. He would have hate for women because his girlfriend had broken up with him. She cheated on him and became a stripper which was the trigger for him to label all strippers as whores.

I wanted to find out the age limit for people to visit Gentleman's clubs aka Strip Clubs. I searched google for relevant information from the 1980s. I found only one article that helped me.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-23/local/me-330_1_strip-club-owner

I learnt that 'Patrons need only be 18 to enter' and the clubs 'enforce a 21-year-old- age limit' to be served liquor. I needed to know this information so that my character's age would be above 18 when he started killing strippers. He would need to get into the strip club to choose his victim.

I also decided to make his killing spree period occur during the 1970s as DNA testing hadn't been admissible in court.

I learnt this information from a website that presented the history of DNA.

http://www.prophase-genetics.com/history_dna_paternity.html

I also needed to learn some terminology that would be commonly heard in cases relating to serial killers. I knew to look for the TV Show 'Criminal Minds' glossary page as this talked about words that were used in the show.

http://www.criminalmindsfanwiki.com/page/Criminal+Minds+Glossary 

Key words that I would be using were:

Trophy – A personal item taken from a victim and kept by the offender in order to be used as a memory aid for the offender to relive the crime.

UNSUB – (Unknown Subject) The term used by Profilers in lieu of a suspect’s name.

Sociopath – A person with behavior identical/similar to a psychopath, but the personality was forged by social forces and environment during the maturing process.