Not to be confused with any earlier or later film called "Murder By Numbers" - factual or otherwise - this nearly two hour documentary about serial killers includes interviews with these monsters, with victims, with legal professionals, and not least with Ann Rule, who was both a crime writer and a former colleague of Ted Bundy.
Bundy was of course the man for whom the phrase "serial killer" was coined, and the man who coined it (in English) also makes an appearance. Robert Ressler died in 2013, two years before Rule.
Originally, a serial killer was said to be someone who committed four murders at different locations with a cooling off period between each. The number of required murders has since been reduced to three or even two. That definition is inadequate, for example, Stephen Port committed four murders in his East London apartment; few people are more deserving of the term. But some of those who appeared in "Murder By Number" are, including Christine Falling. Female serial killers are of course a lot rarer than the male of the species, but they are not that rare. Falling was a babysitter in Florida; fittingly her maiden name was Slaughter, and slaughter she did. Somehow she managed to murder no fewer than six of her charges, although she was tried only for three. Florida is a death penalty state, but she received only life imprisonment.
Wesley Allen Dodd was not so lucky, or perhaps he was, because he said he deserved to die and welcome his execution. Dodd committed three murders and was hanged in 1993, which is said to have been the first legal hanging in the country since 1965. Charles Rodman Campbell (who is not discussed here) was the last person to be so executed the following year. Since then, Washington State has carried out only three executions (the last in 2010), all by lethal injection. Dodd speaks at length here.
More interesting are the women who survived serial killers. One of these was teenager Lisa McVey who was kidnapped and raped repeatedly by Bobby Joe Long. Incredibly, he let her go, and thanks to her, this monster was brought to book. Long also appears in this documentary. In July 1986, he was sentenced to death for two of the ten murders he is believed to have committed but was not executed until May 2019. Florida got it right this time.
If this documentary has one fault, it is its heavy American bias. Serial murder is a global phenomenon, but as with many other fields, America leads the world in quantity, if not quality!
