How many people does someone have to murder before they are considered a "serial killer?"

I actually looked that question up. The answer is 3 or more people. So, if you have only killed two you are not there yet.

How many serial kills has a small state like Wyoming had? You'd think some of their names would go down in history. Well, here are the folks that have terrorized The Cowboy State:

1939- Walter Earl Durand

Walter killed 5 people.

Walters's story as a killer begins and ends when he escaped from jail and a manhunt ensued. 5 people were dead by the time it was over.

1977-1979 Mark A. Hopkinson

Mark killed 4 people in Wyoming. The facts in Mark's care are bizarre. Mark Hopkinson returned to his native home in the Bridger Valley area of southwest Wyoming in 1975. He had been away on a University of Arizona football scholarship. He had been arrested for dealing drugs. Once release he returned home.

It was as if Mark was unstable in that he continued to get into disputes with neighbors, and then kill them.

He is the only person to have been executed in Wyoming since the 1960s.

1957-1958 Charles Raymond Starkweather

Charles killed 11 people.

We have to share Charles with Nebraska.

He was born there and killed people between the two states.

He killed ten of his victims between January 21 and January 29, 1958, the date of his arrest.

During his spree in 1958, Starkweather was accompanied by his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate.

 

They were finally captured in Douglas, Wyoming.

But I wonder if we have to go back and include some of Wyoming's most notorious outlaws. They killed several people each, yet we don't call them "serial killers."

Is there a difference between an outlaw and a serial killer?

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