TERMIUM Plus®

The Government of Canada’s terminology and linguistic data bank.

SPREE KILLING [1 record]

Record 1 1999-12-20

English

Subject field(s)
  • Criminology
  • Criminal Psychology
DEF

A person who kills in a sudden, random, and apparently motiveless manner, especially one who kills a number of people at a single location in such an attack.

OBS

A kind of multiple murderer, the other being a serial killer.

CONT

Richard Speck was not really a serial killer, but what I call a "spree killer." One terrible night in Chicago during the late 1960s, he had entered a house with the intent of robbing it, and found student nurses there.... He tied them up.... One by one, he took them into another room, assaulted them, and then killed eight of them, mainly so they could not identify him.

OBS

spree killer: Term believed to be coined by former FBI detective Robert Ressler.

Key term(s)
  • spree killing

French

Domaine(s)
  • Criminologie
  • Psychologie criminelle
CONT

Contrairement au meurtrier de masse, qui ne frappe généralement qu'une seule fois au cours de sa vie, mais de façon spectaculaire, le tueur en série tue tant et aussi longtemps qu'il n'est pas appréhendé.

Spanish

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