What warped the minds of serial killers? Lead pollution, a new book argues.

Ted Bundy was hunted for frogs in nearby swamps in Washington when Tacoma was a child in the 1950s. Gary Ridgway, a future Green River killer, grew up in a short driving north. Both men continued to be productive serial killers by raping and disabled dozens of women, starting from the 1970s and 80s. Such sociopaths are extremely rare and represents less than 1 percent of all killers with some accounts. Nevertheless, it was surprisingly widespread in Tacoma – and there was only more than Bundy and Ridgway.

In his new book Murderland: Serial killers timely crime and Bloodls, Pulitzer award -winning writer Caroline Fraser matches the rise of serial killers in the Northwest Pacific with the proliferation of pollution. In this case, in the northwest of Tacoma, the lead and arsenic poisoned feathers flowing from the metal trash of Asarco, which has been operated for almost a century and dirty More than 1,000 miles Puget Sound Area is the source of the famous “Tacoma Aroma ..

In the 1970s, Fraser grew by a floating bridge on Mercer Island, not far from a scary serial killer series by a floating bridge with a deadly design. George Waterfield Russell Jr. (Not surprising, his family was once living in Tacoma.) He always thought that the idea that the Northwest Pacific was a reproductive area for serial killers was “a kind of urban legend”.

But after looking at the pollution maps and spent a lot of time by looking at the old addresses of the serial killers, he found an irresistible hypothesis: What if the exposure of the country solves the minds of the country’s most sad killers? Inside MurderIn the youth of these murderers, Fraser is often a convincing lawsuit that they were exposed to heavy metal pollution from the nearby gasoline, which was once burned in every way of the country.

Studies have shown that the exposure of lead in childhood is due to increasing crime rates, aggression and psychopathy. In children, it can lead to brutal, impulsive and “crazy -like behaviors; It is linked to the loss of brain volume especially for men, especially for men. Fraser does not fix sociopathy only to lead exposure, but he argues that this is an important component.

Fraraser can change, including recipes for making serial killers, poverty, coarse forceps deliveries, weak diet, physical and sexual abuse, brain damage and neglect, ”he says. “Many fear plays a role in the collision of this torture souls, but what if we add a slight dust on all this trauma from the periodic picture?”

Fraser said that he was a fan of the real crime, but he tried to correct what he saw as the problems of the genre when writing the book. Biographies usually get closer on a killer like TED Bundy or Zodiac killer and emerges as a kind of brain. As Fraser said, when all the deprived murders are placed side by side, these murderers seem to be almost predictable. “It was revealed that only Hollywood was not as smart as we thought they were after passing with them, but their behavior was very similar,” he said. “It’s almost a kind of vending that their behavior is like a robot.”

Fraser is a parallel between the murderers we normally understand and more indirect killers, the real belt-bridge of the book: melting Companies and people who benefit from them, like the famous Guggenheim family Asarco acquired. In 1974, Idaho made an estimated from behind Napkin, Idaho, Bunker Hill Smelter in Kellogg, and found that the poisoning of 500 children with bullets was a legal obligation of $ 10-11 million. So the choice was easy.

“The behavior of the people who build and investing these izabe facilities, ran them, continued to spread tons of bullets and arsenic in the air in the populated cities – that is not surprising, they did.” Tacoma Smelter Medical Director, who claims that the deaths of lung cancer among workers are only due to pneumonia. Take Sherman Pinto. “He hit me how much his behavior is compared with serial killers, because they are constantly lying,” Fraser said.

Beyond the Northwest Pacific, the book followed the immoral behavior of Dennis Rader in Kansas in the 1970s and 1980s, and Richard Ramirez in California in the 1980s – both grow near the melting. Even London’s famous Jack The Ripper was probably poisoned by a bullet -melting explosion directed to the demand for paint in the 19th century. Yet Murder For some reason, he focuses on the state of Washington. When he looked at the map of the lead and arsenic contamination of the Washington Department of Ecology, he saw four feathers: Serpinti from ASARCO’s Tacoma İzabe facility, another tracking place in Everett, the old orchards of the old orchards in the center of Washington Pesticide was sprayed with lead arsenateAnd a cleaning site on the upper Columbia River.

“Each of these feathers, including the farthest and minimum populated site in Columbia, hosted the activities of one or more serial rapist or killer, Fras says Fraser. (Serial Killer and Necrofiliak Israel Keyes, British Columbia went down the trace izabe facility.)

Kurşunlu Gas was completely gradually removed in the United States until 1996 and metal İzabe facilities were largely removed from the service for financial reasons. But the bullet legacy remains with us. A recent experiment Approximately 90 percent of toothpastes Tested lead; A few weeks ago, supermarket chain Publix Remembering baby food pouches After the product test, he detected bullet contamination. Last year, Biden Management made an arrangement Drinking water systems throughout the country to replace lead pipes within 10 years, but some Republicans in Trump Administration and Congress Trying to get back these guards.

Orum I think that, regardless of whether you accept my connection between lead exposure and serial killers, I think that people really know that this is a big part of our history and that it is still there, ”Fraser said. “I hope this book does something to help people make a connection between what they can be exposed to and what it can mean.”