National expert Eric W. Hickey, speaking with The Daily Advertiser from his Fresno, Calif., home, said that police sometimes make assumptions based on race.
?It?s a myth that serial killers are all white. There are actually several black serial killers, but historically, we have not paid much attention,? Hickey said. ?If a poor, black male was preying on black prostitutes, it wouldn?t make the news.?
Hickey said roughly 80 percent of serial killers are white, but a recent study he conducted of 400 serial killers showed 22 percent to be of African-American descent.
At any given time, Hickey said, there are 30 to 40 active serial killers on the loose in the United States.
Most serial killings tend to be within race lines, white-on-white or black-on-black, Hickey said. That should have tipped off police in Atlanta when they were investigating the slayings of more than 20 black children, for which Wayne Williams, a black man, was arrested in June 1981.
