Where have all the serial killers gone?

All In The Mind

ABC listen

Life Sciences, Health & Fitness, Science

4.4 • 785 Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The backpacker killer. The Claremont killer. Ted Bundy. The crimes serial killers commit linger in our memories for decades.

But when was the last time you heard about an active serial killer in the news?

In our final episode of Criminal Psychology, we probe the lead-crime hypothesis, find out about 'chemical castration' and ask — where have all the serial killers gone?

And a heads up that this episode explores some heavy themes including sexual assault, child abuse, suicide and murder. It also contains the names of Aboriginal people who have died. Please take care while listening.

If you've got more questions for our forensic psychiatrist Dr Rajan Darjee, please send them to us! We're going to make a special mail-bag episode featuring your burning true crime questions. Get in touch by emailing us at [email protected] with the subject line "criminal psychology question".

Guests:

Dr Rajan DarjeeForensic psychiatristClinical Director, Forensic Behavioural Assessment and Consultation Services

Dr Xanthe MallettCriminologistAssociate Professor of Criminology, Central Queensland UniversityCo-Director, Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence ResearchPodcast co-host, Motive and Method

Credits:

Presenter/producer: Sana Qadar
Senior producer: James Bullen
Producer: Rose Kerr
Sound engineer: Emrys Cronin

More information:

The lead-crime hypothesis: A meta-analysis

Support resources:

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	ABC Listen, Podcasts, Radio, News, Music and more.
0:07.0	Hi, it's Norman Swan.
0:08.2	And Tegan Taylor from your friendly neighbourhood podcast, What's That Rash?
0:11.8	We answer the health questions everyone's asking and have some fun along the way.
0:15.6	Now what I want you to do is just pretend that you need to stop weeing for a moment.
0:19.5	Just lift.
0:20.3	What?
0:20.5	Oh wait. I don't know what noise I meant to be making over here. You introduced me to, I think, my least favourite Scottish slang term that you've ever told me. The plook. We're hilarious. Oh, are we just? Listen on Radio National or on the ABC Listen app.
0:39.5	A quick warning before today's show.
0:43.7	This episode is about serial killers, so it does get a bit dark.
0:49.6	We touch on some heavy themes like sexual assault, child abuse, suicide, and yes, murder.
0:53.3	It also contains the names of Aboriginal people who have died.
0:55.6	Do take care while listening to this one.
1:01.7	So a bit of behind-the-scenes backstory to begin with.
1:05.9	This is our final episode in our series, Criminal Psychology, on All in the Mind.
1:13.7	And we, the team here, we hesitated for a while on whether to do an episode on serial killers. Like we thought, hasn't enough been said?
1:16.5	Haven't the plethora of true crime pods and documentaries and YouTube videos covered it all?
1:22.1	So let's get into the murders.
1:24.4	You know, why if he had two kids?
1:25.6	I mean, how could he be a serial killer?
1:27.1	We can look at one of Thailand's earliest known serial killers.
1:31.6	Like, is there anything new left to say?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from ABC listen, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of ABC listen and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.