Discussion: Victim Vulnerability
Contrary to a popular belief that serial murderers secretly want to be apprehended, most go to great lengths to avoid detection. One way they try to evade identification and arrest is by choosing victims who are unlikely to ward off attacks and thus report incriminating information about them to law enforcement. In addition, serial murderers often victimize populations who are on the fringes of mainstream society. Victims from these populations are unlikely to generate as much police effort as victims from conventional society and are likely to be missing for a lengthy period before someone reports their disappearance. In contrast, the victims of mass murderers are chosen in a much more random fashion and can be considered as having been "in the wrong place at the wrong time." Using victims to profile murderers therefore is usually limited to serial, not mass, murderers.