I have to research a serial killer or "famous" murderer and do a profile for Criminology.
Answer
Most serial killers, murderers, and other "famous" criminals begin life as private citizens. Thus you can assume that written records of their lives up to the point they were arrested were private. This means finding information about a criminal's early life can be tricky.
Frequently, police, detectives, journalists, and newspaper writers are the first to pursue information about a criminal's childhood, education, and family life. The journalists tend to share the information they find, in real-time, in newspaper articles. In addition, sometimes those articles are compiled into a biography published as an article and/or book.
Thus, start with books to see if a biography or chapter in a book has been written about your criminal.
1. Check Ebooks via EBSCO and search serial killers to locate the books on that topic.
2. The Cloud Library also contains books on serial killers. Again, enter serial killer in the textbox at the top of the search to locate books on that topic.
If you can't find any books, see if there are magazine or journal article biographies on your criminal.
- Check a broad, all-purpose database for articles:
- Check a criminology database for crime-oriented articles:
Finally, move to newspaper articles written around the time your criminal was arrested and in court.
- News and Newspapers via ProQuest is another great newspaper source.
Consult the Justice Studies guide for more information:
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