Murderland - 99% Invisible

"Then one day, Caroline discovered a map which documented the amount of arsenic in the soil in the Tacoma region. The map was the first of many clues she used to try to make sense of what plagued the Pacific Northwest of her childhood. What Caroline found was this: the 70s and 80s were the heyday of the mining and smelting of heavy metals in America-metals like copper, lead, and zinc, which all released huge amounts of toxic fumes like lead, arsenic, and asbestos into the air."

"In her new book, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, Caroline argues that the wave of serial killing of the 70s and 80s might be related to the smelting industry's environmental pollution, an idea that builds on the existing theory connecting lead toxicity and crime. Caroline makes the case that all those toxic fumes in the Pacific Northwest possibly fueled a generation of serial killers."

Caroline grew up on Mercer Island, where her youth was haunted by numerous local deaths including murders, suicides, and fatal car crashes on a poorly designed bridge. She found a map documenting arsenic concentrations in Tacoma soil and traced environmental clues across the Pacific Northwest. The 1970s–80s marked a peak in mining and smelting of copper, lead, and zinc, which emitted large quantities of lead, arsenic, and asbestos into the air. That period also saw a sharp rise in serial killings. She proposes that smelting-related pollution, building on links between lead toxicity and violent crime, may have contributed to that surge.

Read at 99% Invisible