title: Serial killer

text: There are exceptions to these criteria, however. For example, Harold Shipman was a successful professional (a General Practitioner working for the NHS). He was considered a pillar of the local community; he even won a professional award for a children's asthma clinic and was interviewed by Granada Television's "World in Action" on ITV. Dennis Nilsen was an ex-soldier turned civil servant and trade unionist who had no previous criminal record when arrested. Neither was known to have exhibited many of the tell-tale signs. Vlado Taneski, a crime reporter, was a career journalist who was caught after a series of articles he wrote gave clues that he had murdered people. Russell Williams was a successful and respected career Royal Canadian Air Force Colonel who was convicted of murdering two women, along with fetish burglaries and rapes.


title: Serial killer

text: Many serial killers have faced similar problems in their childhood development. Hickey's Trauma Control Model explains how early childhood trauma can set the child up for deviant behavior in adulthood; the child's environment (either their parents or society) is the dominant factor determining whether or not the child's behavior escalates into homicidal activity.


title: Serial killer

text: Family, or lack thereof, is the most prominent part of a child's development because it is what the child can identify with on a regular basis. "The serial killer is no different from any other individual who is instigated to seek approval from parents, sexual partners, or others." This need for approval is what influences children to attempt to develop social relationships with their family and peers. "The quality of their attachments to parents and other members of the family is critical to how these children relate to and value other members of society."


title: Serial killer

text: Wilson and Seaman (1990) conducted a study on incarcerated serial killers, and what they concluded was the most influential factor that contributed to their homicidal activity. Almost all of the serial killers in the study had experienced some sort of environmental problems during their childhood, such as a broken home caused by divorce, or a lack of a parental figure to discipline the child. Nearly half of the serial killers had experienced some type of physical or sexual abuse, and more of them had experienced emotional neglect.


title: Serial killer

text: When a parent has a drug or alcohol problem, the attention in the household is on the parents rather than the child. This neglect of the child leads to the lowering of their self-esteem and helps develop a fantasy world in which they are in control. Hickey's Trauma Control Model supports how parental neglect can facilitate deviant behavior, especially if the child sees substance abuse in action. This then leads to disposition (the inability to attach), which can further lead to homicidal behavior, unless the child finds a way to develop substantial relationships and fight the label they receive. If a child receives no support from anyone, then they are unlikely to recover from the traumatic event in a positive way. As stated by E. E. Maccoby, "the family has continued to be seen as a major—perhaps "the" major—arena for socialization".


title: Serial killer

text: There have been studies looking into the possibility that an abnormality with one's chromosomes could be the trigger for serial killers. Two serial killers, Bobby Joe Long and Richard Speck, came to attention for reported chromosomal abnormalities. Long had an extra X chromosome. Speck was erroneously reported to have an extra Y chromosome; in fact, his karyotype was performed twice and was normal each time. While attempts have been made to link the XYY karyotype to violence, including serial murder, research has consistently found little or no association between violent criminal behaviour and an extra Y chromosome.


title: Serial killer

text: Children who do not have the power to control the mistreatment they suffer sometimes create a new reality to which they can escape. This new reality becomes their fantasy that they have total control of and becomes part of their daily existence. In this fantasy world, their emotional development is guided and maintained. According to Garrison (1996), "the child becomes sociopathic because the normal development of the concepts of right and wrong and empathy towards others is retarded because the child's emotional and social development occurs within his self-centered fantasies. A person can do no wrong in his own world and the pain of others is of no consequence when the purpose of the fantasy world is to satisfy the needs of one person" (Garrison, 1996). Boundaries between fantasy and reality are lost and fantasies turn to dominance, control, sexual conquest, and violence, eventually leading to murder. Fantasy can lead to the first step in the process of a dissociative state, which, in the words of Stephen Giannangelo, "allows the serial killer to leave the stream of consciousness for what is, to him, a better place".


title: Serial killer

text: Criminologist Jose Sanchez reports, "the young criminal you see today is more detached from his victim, more ready to hurt or kill. The lack of empathy for their victims among young criminals is just one symptom of a problem that afflicts the whole society." Lorenzo Carcaterra, author of "Gangster" (2001), explains how potential criminals are labeled by society, which can then lead to their offspring also developing in the same way through the cycle of violence. The ability for serial killers to appreciate the mental life of others is severely compromised, presumably leading to their dehumanization of others.


title: Serial killer

text: This process may be considered an expression of the intersubjectivity associated with a cognitive deficit regarding the capability to make sharp distinctions between other people and inanimate objects. For these individuals, objects can appear to possess animistic or humanistic power while people are perceived as objects. Before he was executed, serial killer Ted Bundy stated media violence and pornography had stimulated and increased his need to commit homicide, although this statement was made during last-ditch efforts to appeal his death sentence. There are exceptions to the typical fantasy patterns of serial killers, as in the case of Dennis Rader, who was a loving family man and the leader of his church.


title: Serial killer

text: The FBI's "Crime Classification Manual" places serial killers into three categories: "organized", "disorganized", and "mixed" (i.e., offenders who exhibit organized and disorganized characteristics). Some killers descend from being organized into disorganized as their killings continue, as in the case of psychological decompensation or overconfidence due to having evaded capture, or vice versa, as when a previously disorganized killer identifies one or more specific aspects of the act of killing as their source of gratification and develops a "modus operandi" that focuses on them.


title: Serial killer

text: Organized serial killers often plan their crimes methodically, usually abducting victims, killing them in one place and disposing of them in another. They often lure the victims with ploys appealing to their sense of sympathy. Others specifically target prostitutes, who are likely to go voluntarily with a stranger. These killers maintain a high degree of control over the crime scene and usually have a solid knowledge of forensic science that enables them to cover their tracks, such as burying the body or weighing it down and sinking it in a river. They follow their crimes in the news media carefully and often take pride in their actions as if it were all a grand project.


title: Serial killer

text: Often, organized killers have social and other interpersonal skills sufficient to enable them to develop both personal and romantic relationships, friends and lovers and sometimes even attract and maintain a spouse and sustain a family including children. Among serial killers, those of this type are in the event of their capture most likely to be described by acquaintances as kind and unlikely to hurt anyone. Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are examples of organized serial killers. In general, the IQs of organized serial killers tend to be normal range, with a mean of 98.7.


title: Serial killer

text: Disorganized serial killers are usually far more impulsive, often committing their murders with a random weapon available at the time, and usually do not attempt to hide the body. They are likely to be unemployed, a loner, or both, with very few friends. They often turn out to have a history of mental illness, and their modus operandi (M.O.) or lack thereof is often marked by excessive violence and sometimes necrophilia or sexual violence. Disorganized serial killers have been found to have a lower mean IQ than organized serial killers, at 89.4. Mixed serial killers, with both organized and disorganized traits, have an average IQ of 100.9, but a low sample size.


title: Serial killer

text: Some people with a pathological interest in the power of life and death tend to be attracted to medical professions or acquiring such a job. These kinds of killers are sometimes referred to as "angels of death" or angels of mercy. Medical professionals will kill their patients for money, for a sense of sadistic pleasure, for a belief that they are "easing" the patient's pain, or simply "because they can". Perhaps the most prolific of these was the British doctor Harold Shipman. Another such killer was nurse Jane Toppan, who admitted during her murder trial that she was sexually aroused by death. She would administer a drug mixture to patients she chose as her victims, lie in bed with them and hold them close to her body as they died.


title: Serial killer

text: Another medical professional serial killer is Genene Jones. It is believed she killed 11 to 46 infants and children while working at Bexar County Medical Center Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, United States. She is currently serving a 99-year sentence for the murder of Chelsea McClellan and the attempted murder of Rolando Santos, and became eligible for parole in 2017 due to a law in Texas at the time of her sentencing to reduce prison overcrowding. A similar case occurred in Britain in 1991, where nurse Beverley Allitt killed four children at the hospital where she worked, attempted to kill three more, and injured a further six over the course of two months.


title: Serial killer

text: A 21st-century example is Canadian nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer, who murdered elderly patients in the nursing homes where she worked. William George Davis is another hospital nurse who was sentenced to death in Texas for the murdering of four patients.


title: Serial killer

text: Female serial killers are rare compared to their male counterparts. Sources suggest that female serial killers represented less than one in every six known serial murderers in the United States between 1800 and 2004 (64 females from a total of 416 known offenders), or that around 15% of U.S. serial killers have been women, with a collective number of victims between 427 and 612. The authors of "Lethal Ladies", Amanda L. Farrell, Robert D. Keppel, and Victoria B. Titterington, state that "the Justice Department indicated 36 female serial killers have been active over the course of the last century." According to "The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology", there is evidence that 16% of all serial killers are women.


title: Serial killer

text: Kelleher and Kelleher (1998) created several categories to describe female serial killers. They used the classifications of "black widow", "angel of death", "sexual predator", "revenge", "profit or crime", "team killer", "question of sanity", "unexplained", and "unsolved". In using these categories, they observed that most women fell into the categories of the black widow or team killer. Although motivations for female serial killers can include attention seeking, addiction, or the result of psychopathological behavioral factors, female serial killers are commonly categorized as murdering men for material gain, usually being emotionally close to their victims, and generally needing to have a relationship with the victim, hence the traditional cultural image of the "black widow".


title: Serial killer

text: The methods that female serial killers use for murder are frequently covert or low-profile, such as murder by poison (the preferred choice for killing). Other methods used by female serial killers include shootings (used by 20%), suffocation (16%), stabbing (11%), and drowning (5%). They commit killings in specific places, such as their home or a health-care facility, or at different locations within the same city or state. A notable exception to the typical characteristics of female serial killers is Aileen Wuornos, who killed outdoors instead of at home, used a gun instead of poison, and killed strangers instead of friends or family. One "analysis of 86 female serial killers from the United States found that the victims tended to be spouses, children or the elderly". Other studies indicate that since 1975, increasingly strangers are marginally the most preferred victim of female serial killers, or that only 26% of female serial killers kill for material gain only. Sources state that each killer will have her own proclivities, needs and triggers. A review of the published literature on female serial murder stated that "sexual or sadistic motives are believed to be extremely rare in female serial murderers, and psychopathic traits and histories of childhood abuse have been consistently reported in these women."


title: Serial killer

text: A study by Eric W. Hickey (2010) of 64 female serial killers in the United States indicated that sexual activity was one of several motives in 10% of the cases, enjoyment in 11% and control in 14% and that 51% of all U.S. female serial killers murdered at least one woman and 31% murdered at least one child. In other cases, women have been involved as an accomplice with a male serial killer as a part of a serial killing team. A 2015 study published in "The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology" found that the most common motive for female serial killers was for financial gain and almost 40% of them had experienced some sort of mental illness.


title: Serial killer

text: Peter Vronsky in "Female Serial Killers" (2007) maintains that female serial killers today often kill for the same reason males do: as a means of expressing rage and control. He suggests that sometimes the theft of the victims' property by the female "black widow" type serial killer appears to be for material gain, but really is akin to a male serial killer's collecting of totems (souvenirs) from the victim as a way of exerting continued control over the victim and reliving it. By contrast, Hickey states that although popular perception sees "black widow" female serial killers as something of the Victorian past, in his statistical study of female serial killer cases reported in the United States since 1826, approximately 75% occurred since 1950.


title: Serial killer

text: Elizabeth Báthory is sometimes cited as the most prolific female serial killer in all of history. Formally countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Báthory Erzsébet in Hungarian, August 7, 1560 – August 21, 1614), she was a countess from the renowned Báthory family. Before her husband's death, Elizabeth took great pleasure in torturing the staff, by jamming pins under the servant's fingernails or stripping servants and throwing them into the snow. After her husband's death, she and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and young women, with one witness attributing to them over 600 victims, though the number for which they were convicted was 80. Elizabeth herself was neither tried nor convicted. In 1610, however, she was imprisoned in the Csejte Castle, where she remained bricked in a set of rooms until her death four years later.


title: Serial killer

text: A 2010 article by Perri and Lichtenwald addressed some of the misconceptions concerning female criminality. In the article, Perri and Lichtenwald analyze the current research regarding female psychopathy, including case studies of female psychopathic killers featuring Münchausen syndrome by proxy, cesarean section homicide, fraud detection homicide, female kill teams, and a female serial killer.


title: Serial killer

text: Juvenile serial killers are rare. There are three main categories that juvenile serial killers can fit into: primary, maturing, and secondary killers. There have been studies done to compare and contrast these three groups and to discover similarities and differences between them. Although these types of serial killers are less common, oftentimes adult serial killers may make their debut at an early age and it can be an opportunity for researchers to study what factors brought about the behavior. While juvenile serial killers are rare, the youngest felon on death row is a juvenile serial killer named Harvey Miguel Robinson who was 17 at the time of his crimes and 18 at the time of his arrest.


title: Serial killer

text: The racial demographics regarding serial killers are often subject to debate. In the United States, the majority of reported and investigated serial killers are white males, from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in their late 20s to early 30s. However, there are African American, Asian, and Hispanic (of any race) serial killers as well, and, according to the FBI, based on percentages of the U.S. population, whites are not more likely than other races to be serial killers. Criminal profiler Pat Brown says serial killers are usually reported as white because serial killers usually target victims of their own race, and argues the media typically focuses on "All-American" white and pretty female victims who were the targets of white male offenders; that crimes among minority offenders in urban communities, where crime rates are higher, are under-investigated; and that minority serial killers likely exist at the same ratios as white serial killers for the population. She believes that the myth that serial killers are always white might have become "truth" in some research fields due to the over-reporting of white serial killers in the media.


title: Serial killer

text: According to some sources, the percentage of serial killers who are African American is estimated to be between 13% and 22%. Another study has shown that 16% of serial killers are African American, what author Maurice Godwin describes as a "sizeable portion". A 2014 Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database annual statistics report indicated that for the decades 1900–2010, the percentage of white serial killers was 52.1% while the percentage of African American serial killers was 40.3%.


title: Serial killer

text: In a 2005 article Anthony Walsh, professor of criminal justice at Boise State University, argued a review of post-WWII serial killings in America finds that the prevalence of non-white serial killers has typically been drastically underestimated in both professional research literature and the mass media. As a paradigmatic case of this media double standard, Walsh cites news reporting on white killer Gary M. Heidnik and African-American killer Harrison Graham. Both men were residents of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; both imprisoned, tortured, and killed several women; and both were arrested only months apart in 1987. "Heidnik received widespread national attention, became the subject of books and television shows, and served as a model for the fictitious Buffalo Bill in "Silence of the Lambs"", writes Walsh, while "Graham received virtually no media attention outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, despite having been convicted of four more murders than Heidnik".


title: Serial killer

text: In one study of serial homicide in South Africa, many patterns were similar to established patterns in the U.S., with some exceptions: no offenders were female, offenders were lower educated than in the U.S., and both victims and offenders were predominantly black.


title: Serial killer

text: Beverley Allitt of Grantham, Lincolnshire, a nurse showing symptoms of Munchausen syndrome claimed 4 young lives and attempted to kill 9 others.


title: Serial killer

text: The motives of serial killers are generally placed into four categories: "visionary", "mission-oriented", "hedonistic", and "power or control"; however, the motives of any given killer may display considerable overlap among these categories.


title: Serial killer

text: Visionary serial killers suffer from psychotic breaks with reality, sometimes believing they are another person or are compelled to murder by entities such as the Devil or God. The two most common subgroups are "demon mandated" and "God mandated".


title: Serial killer

text: Herbert Mullin believed the American casualties in the Vietnam War were preventing California from experiencing the Big One. As the war wound down, Mullin claimed his father instructed him via telepathy to raise the number of "human sacrifices to nature" to delay a catastrophic earthquake that would plunge California into the ocean. David Berkowitz ("Son of Sam") may also be an example of a visionary serial killer, having claimed a demon transmitted orders through his neighbor's dog and instructed him to commit murder. Berkowitz later described those claims as a hoax, as originally concluded by psychiatrist David Abrahamsen.


title: Serial killer

text: Mission-oriented killers typically justify their acts as "ridding the world" of certain types of people perceived as undesirable, such as the homeless, ex-cons, homosexuals, drug users, prostitutes, or people of different ethnicity or religion; however, they are generally not psychotic. Some see themselves as attempting to change society, often to cure a societal ill.


title: Serial killer

text: An example of a mission-oriented killer would be Joseph Paul Franklin, an American white supremacist who exclusively targeted Jewish, biracial, and African-American individuals for the purpose of inciting a "race war".


title: Serial killer

text: This type of serial killer seeks thrills and derives pleasure and satisfaction from killing, seeing people as expendable means to this goal. Forensic psychologists have identified three subtypes of the hedonistic killer: "lust", "thrill", and "comfort".


title: Serial killer

text: Sex is the primary motive of lust killers, whether or not the victims are dead, and fantasy plays a large role in their killings. Their sexual gratification depends on the amount of torture and mutilation they perform on their victims. The sexual serial murderer has a psychological need to have absolute control, dominance, and power over their victims, and the infliction of torture, pain, and ultimately death is used in an attempt to fulfill their need. They usually use weapons that require close contact with the victims, such as knives or hands. As lust killers continue with their murders, the time between killings decreases or the required level of stimulation increases, sometimes both.


title: Serial killer

text: Kenneth Bianchi, one of the "Hillside Stranglers", murdered women and girls of different ages, races, and appearance because his sexual urges required different types of stimulation and increasing intensity. Jeffrey Dahmer searched for his perfect fantasy lover—beautiful, submissive and eternal. As his desire increased, he experimented with drugs, alcohol, and exotic sex. His increasing need for stimulation was demonstrated by the dismemberment of victims, whose heads and genitals he preserved, and by his attempts to create a "living zombie" under his control (by pouring acid into a hole drilled into the victim's skull).


title: Serial killer

text: Dahmer once said, "Lust played a big part of it. Control and lust. Once it happened the first time, it just seemed like it had control of my life from there on in. The killing was just a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. That's why I tried to create living zombies with acid and the drill." He further elaborated on this, also saying, "I wanted to see if it was possible to make—again, it sounds really gross—uh, zombies, people that would not have a will of their own, but would follow my instructions without resistance. So after that, I started using the drilling technique." He experimented with cannibalism to "ensure his victims would always be a part of him".


title: Serial killer

text: The primary motive of a thrill killer is to induce pain or terror in their victims, which provides stimulation and excitement for the killer. They seek the adrenaline rush provided by hunting and killing victims. Thrill killers murder only for the kill; usually, the attack is not prolonged, and there is no sexual aspect. Usually, the victims are strangers, although the killer may have followed them for a period of time. Thrill killers can abstain from killing for long periods of time and become more successful at killing as they refine their murder methods. Many attempt to commit the perfect crime and believe they will not be caught.


title: Serial killer

text: Robert Hansen took his victims to a secluded area, where he would let them loose and then hunt and kill them. In one of his letters to San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in San Francisco, California, the Zodiac Killer wrote "[killing] gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl". Carl Watts was described by a surviving victim as "excited and hyper and clappin' and just making noises like he was excited, that this was gonna be fun" during the 1982 attack. Slashing, stabbing, hanging, drowning, asphyxiating, and strangling were among the ways Watts killed.


title: Serial killer

text: Material gain and a comfortable lifestyle are the primary motives of comfort killers. Usually, the victims are family members and close acquaintances. After a murder, a comfort killer will usually wait for a period of time before killing again to allow any suspicions by family or authorities to subside. They often use poison, most notably arsenic, to kill their victims. Female serial killers are often comfort killers, although not all comfort killers are female.


title: Serial killer

text: Dorothea Puente killed her tenants for their Social Security checks and buried them in the backyard of her home. H. H. Holmes killed for insurance and business profits. Puente and Holmes had previous records of crimes such as theft, fraud, non-payment of debts, embezzlement and others of a similar nature. Dorothea Puente was finally arrested on a parole violation, having been on parole for a previous fraud conviction.


title: Serial killer

text: Contract killers ("hitmen") may exhibit serial killers traits, but are generally not classified as such because of third-party killing objectives and detached financial and emotional incentives. Nevertheless, there are occasionally individuals that are labeled as both a hitman and a serial killer.


title: Serial killer

text: The main objective for this type of serial killer is to gain and exert power over their victim. Such killers are sometimes abused as children, leaving them with feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy as adults. Many power- or control-motivated killers sexually abuse their victims, but they differ from hedonistic killers in that rape is not motivated by lust (as it would be with a lust murder) but as simply another form of dominating the victim. Ted Bundy is an example of a power/control-oriented serial killer. He traveled around the United States seeking women to control.


title: Serial killer

text: Many serial killers claim that a violent culture influenced them to commit murders. During his final interview, Ted Bundy stated that hardcore pornography was responsible for his actions. Others idolise figures for their deeds or perceived vigilante justice, such as Peter Kürten, who idolized Jack the Ripper, or John Wayne Gacy and Ed Kemper, who both idolized the actor John Wayne.


title: Serial killer

text: Killers who have a strong desire for fame or to be renowned for their actions desire media attention as a way of validating and spreading their crimes; fear is also a component here, as some serial killers enjoy causing fear. An example is Dennis Rader, who sought attention from the press during his murder spree.


title: Serial killer

text: Many movies, books, and documentaries have been created, detailing serial killers' lives and crimes. For example, the biographical films "Ted Bundy" (2002) and "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile " focuses on serial killer Ted Bundy's personal life in college, leading up to his execution, and "Dahmer" (2002) tells the story of Jeffrey Dahmer. A on the life of Jeffrey Dahmer and his victims was released in 2022.


title: Serial killer

text: Serial killers are also portrayed in fictional media, oftentimes as having substantial intelligence and looking for difficult targets, despite the contradiction with the psychological profile of serial killers.


title: Serial killer

text: Theories for why certain people commit serial murder have been advanced. Some theorists believe the reasons are biological, suggesting serial killers are born, not made, and that their violent behavior is a result of abnormal brain activity. Holmes believe that "until a reliable sample can be obtained and tested, there is no scientific statement that can be made concerning the exact role of biology as a determining factor of a serial killer personality."


title: Serial killer

text: The "Fractured Identity Syndrome" (FIS) is a merging of Charles Cooley's "looking glass self" and Erving Goffman's "virtual" and "actual social identity" theories. The FIS suggests a social event, or series of events, during one's childhood results in a fracturing of the personality of the serial killer. The term "fracture" is defined as a small breakage of the personality which is often not visible to the outside world and is only felt by the killer.


title: Serial killer

text: "Social Process Theory" has also been suggested as an explanation for serial murder. Social process theory states that offenders may turn to crime due to peer pressure, family and friends. Criminal behavior is a process of interaction with social institutions, in which everyone has the potential for criminal behavior. A lack of family structure and identity could also be a cause leading to serial murder traits. A child used as a scapegoat will be deprived of their capacity to feel guilt. Displaced anger could result in animal torture, as identified in the Macdonald triad, and a further lack of basic identity.


title: Serial killer

text: The "military theory" has been proposed as an explanation for why serial murderers kill, as some serial murderers have served in the military or related fields. According to Castle and Hensley, 7% of the serial killers studied had military experience. This figure may be a proportional under-representation when compared to the number of military veterans in a nation's total population. For example, according to the United States census for the year 2000, military veterans comprised 12.7% of the U.S. population; in England, it was estimated in 2007 that military veterans comprised 9.1% of the population. Though by contrast, about 2.5% of the population of Canada in 2006 consisted of military veterans.


title: Serial killer

text: There are two theories that can be used to study the correlation between serial killing and military training: "Applied learning theory" states that serial killing can be learned. The military is training for higher kill rates from servicemen while training the soldiers to be desensitized to taking a human life. "Social learning theory" can be used when soldiers get praised and accommodated for killing. They learn or believe that they learn, that it is acceptable to kill because they were praised for it in the military. Serial killers want accreditation for the work that they have done.


title: Serial killer

text: In both military and serial killing, the offender or the soldier may become desensitized to killing as well as compartmentalized; the soldiers do not see enemy personnel as "human" and neither do serial killers see their victims as humans. The theories do not imply that military institutions make a deliberate effort to produce serial killers; to the contrary, all military personnel are trained to recognize when, where, and against whom it is appropriate to use deadly force, which starts with the basic "Law of Land Warfare", taught during the initial training phase, and may include more stringent policies for military personnel in law enforcement or security.


title: Serial killer

text: In 2008, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a handbook titled "Serial Murder" which was the product of a symposium held in 2005 to bring together the many issues surrounding serial murder, including its investigation.


title: Serial killer

text: According to the FBI, identifying one, or multiple, murders as being the work of a serial killer is the first challenge an investigation faces, especially if the victim(s) come from a marginalized or high-risk population and is normally linked through forensic or behavioral evidence (FBI 2008). Should the cases cross multiple jurisdictions, the law enforcement system in the United States is fragmented and thus not configured to detect multiple similar murders across a large geographic area (Egger 1998). Ted Bundy was particularly famous for such geographic exploitations. He used his knowledge about the lack of communication between multiple jurisdictions to avoid arrest and detection. The FBI suggests utilizing databases and increasing interdepartmental communication. Keppel (1989) suggests holding multi-jurisdictional conferences regularly to compare cases giving departments a greater chance to detect linked cases and overcome linkage blindness.


title: Serial killer

text: One such collaboration, the "Radford/FGCU Serial Killer Database Project" was proposed at the 2012 FDIAI Annual Conference. Utilizing Radford's Serial Killer Database as a starting point, the new collaboration, hosted by FGCU Justice Studies, has invited and is working in conjunction with other universities to maintain and expand the scope of the database to also include spree and mass murders. Utilizing over 170 data points, multiple-murderer methodology and victimology; researchers and Law Enforcement Agencies can build case studies and statistical profiles to further research the "Who, What, Why and How" of these types of crimes.


title: Serial killer

text: Leadership, or administration, should play a small or virtually non-existent role in the actual investigation past assigning knowledgeable or experienced homicide investigators to lead positions. The administration's role is not to run the investigation but to establish and reaffirm the primary goal of catching the serial killer, as well as provide support for the investigators. The FBI (2008) suggests completing Memorandums of Understanding to facilitate support and commitment of resources from different jurisdictions to an investigation. Egger (1998) takes this one step further and suggests completing mutual aid pacts, which are written agreements to provide support to each other in a time of need, with surrounding jurisdictions. Doing this in advance would save time and resources that could be used on the investigation.


title: Serial killer

text: The structural organization of an investigation is key to its success, as demonstrated by the investigation of Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. Once a serial murder case was established, a task force was created to track down and arrest the offender. Over the course of the investigation, for various reasons, the task force's organization was radically changed and reorganized multiple times – at one point including more than 50 full-time personnel, and at another, only a single investigator. Eventually, what led to the end of the investigation was a conference of 25 detectives organized to share ideas to solve the case.


title: Serial killer

text: The FBI handbook provides a description of how a task force should be organized but offers no additional options on how to structure the investigation. While it appears advantageous to have a full-time staff assigned to a serial murder investigation, it can become prohibitively expensive. For example, the Green River Task Force cost upwards of $2 million per year, and as was witnessed with the Green River Killer investigation, other strategies can prevail where a task force fails.


title: Serial killer

text: A common strategy, already employed by many departments for other reasons, is the conference, in which departments get together and focus on a specific set of topics. With serial murders, the focus is typically on unsolved cases, with evidence thought to be related to the case at hand.


title: Serial killer

text: Similar to a conference is an information clearing-house in which a jurisdiction with a suspected serial murder case collects all of its evidence and actively seeks data that may be related from other jurisdictions. By collecting all of the related information into one place, they provide a central point in which it can be organized and easily accessed by other jurisdictions working toward the goal of arresting an offender and ending the murders.


title: Serial killer

text: Already mentioned was the task force, FBI 2008, Keppel 1989 which provides for a flexible, organized, framework for jurisdictions depending on the needs of the investigation. Unfortunately due to the need to commit resources (manpower, money, equipment, etc.) for long periods of time it can be an unsustainable option.


title: Serial killer

text: In the case of the investigation of Aileen Wournos, the Marion County Sheriff coordinated multiple agencies without any written or formal agreement. While not a specific strategy for a serial murder investigation, this is certainly a best practice in so far as the agencies were able to work easily together toward a common goal.


title: Serial killer

text: Finally, once a serial murder investigation has been identified, the use of an FBI Rapid Response Team can assist both experienced and inexperienced jurisdictions in setting up a task force. This is completed by organizing and delegating jobs, by compiling and analyzing clues, and by establishing communication between the parties involved.


title: Serial killer

text: During the course of a serial murder investigation, it may become necessary to call in additional resources; the FBI defines this as Resource Augmentation. Within the structure of a task force, the addition of a resource should be thought of as either long-term or short-term. If the task force's framework is expanded to include the new resource, then it should be permanent and not removed. For short-term needs, such as setting up roadblocks or canvassing a neighborhood, additional resources should be called in on a short-term basis. The decision of whether resources are needed short or long term should be left to the lead investigator and facilitated by the administration (FBI 2008).


title: Serial killer

text: The confusion and counter productiveness created by changing the structure of a task force mid investigation is illustrated by the way the Green River Task Force's staffing and structure was changed multiple times throughout the investigation. This made an already complicated situation more difficult, resulting in the delay or loss of information, which allowed Ridgeway to continue killing (Guillen 2007). The FBI model does not take into account that permanently expanding a task force, or investigative structure, may not be possible due to cost or personnel availability. Egger (1998) offers several alternative strategies including; using investigative consultants, or experienced staff to augment an investigative team. Not all departments have investigators experienced in serial murder and by temporarily bringing in consultants, they can educate a department to a level of competence then step out. This would reduce the initially established framework of the investigation team and save the department the cost of retaining the consultants until the conclusion of the investigation.


title: Serial killer

text: The FBI handbook (2008) and Keppel (1989) both stress communication as paramount. The difference is that the FBI handbook (2008) concentrates primarily on communication within a task force while Keppel (1989) makes getting information out to and allowing information to be passed back from patrol officers a priority. The FBI handbook (2008) suggests having daily e-mail or in-person briefings for all staff involved in the investigation and providing periodic summary briefings to patrol officers and managers. Looking back on a majority of serial murderer arrests, most are exercised by patrol officers in the course of their everyday duties and unrelated to the ongoing serial murder investigation (Egger 1998, Keppel 1989).


title: Serial killer

text: Keppel (1989) provides examples of Larry Eyler, who was arrested during a traffic stop for a parking violation, and Ted Bundy, who was arrested during a traffic stop for operating a stolen vehicle. In each case, it was uniformed officers, not directly involved in the investigation, who knew what to look for and took the direct action that stopped the killer. By providing up-to-date (as opposed to periodic) briefings and information to officers on the street the chances of catching a serial killer, or finding solid leads, are increased.


title: Serial killer

text: A serial murder investigation generates staggering amounts of data, all of which needs to be reviewed and analyzed. A standardized method of documenting and distributing information must be established and investigators must be allowed time to complete reports while investigating leads and at the end of a shift (FBI 2008). When the mechanism for data management is insufficient, leads are not only lost or buried but the investigation can be hindered and new information can become difficult to obtain or become corrupted.


title: Serial killer

text: During the Green River Killer investigation, reporters would often find and interview possible victims or witnesses ahead of investigators. The understaffed investigation was unable to keep up the information flow, which prevented them from promptly responding to leads. To make matters worse, investigators believed that the journalists, untrained in interviewing victims or witnesses of crimes, would corrupt the information and result in unreliable leads (Guillen 2007).


title: Serial killer

text: Notorious and infamous serial killers number in the thousands and a subculture revolves around their legacies. That subculture includes the collection, sale, and display of serial killer memorabilia, dubbed "murderabilia" by Andrew Kahan, one of the best-known opponents of collectors of serial killer remnants. Kahan is the director of the Mayor's Crime Victims Office in Houston. He is backed by the families of murder victims and "Son of Sam laws" existing in some states that prevent murderers from profiting from the publicity generated by their crimes.


title: Serial killer

text: Such memorabilia includes the paintings, writings, and poems of these killers. Recently, marketing has capitalized even more upon interest in serial killers with the rise of various merchandise such as trading cards, action figures, and books such as "The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers" by Harold Schechter, and "The A-Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers" by Schecter and David Everitt. Some serial killers attain celebrity status in the way they acquire fans and may have previous personal possessions auctioned off on websites like eBay. A few examples of this are Ed Gein's 150-pound stolen gravestone and Bobby Joe Long's sunglasses.


title: Def Leppard

text: Def Leppard are an English rock band formed in 1976 in Sheffield. Since 1992, the band has consisted of Rick Savage (bass, backing vocals), Joe Elliott (lead vocals), Rick Allen (drums, backing vocals), Phil Collen (guitar, backing vocals), and Vivian Campbell (guitar, backing vocals). They established themselves as part of the new wave of British heavy metal movement of the early 1980s.


title: Def Leppard

text: The band's greatest commercial success came between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. Their first album, 1980's "On Through the Night", reached the Top 15 in the UK but received little notice elsewhere. Their second album, 1981's "High 'n' Dry", was produced by Mutt Lange, who helped them begin to define their melodic hard rock style, and the album's most popular track "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" became one of the first rock videos played on MTV in 1982, but the album only reached the Top 30 and 40 in the UK and US. Def Leppard's next studio album, "Pyromania", was released in January 1983, with "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" both topping the US Rock Tracks chart and reaching the top 20 of the Hot 100. Reaching No. 2 on the US album chart, "Pyromania" was certified Diamond in the US and 7× platinum in Canada and reached the top 20 in the UK but did not sell much elsewhere.


title: Def Leppard

text: Def Leppard's fourth album, the more pop-oriented "Hysteria" (1987), topped the UK, US, New Zealand, Canadian, Australian and Norway charts. It also went to No. 2 in Sweden and No. 10 in Germany without any Top 50 singles in those countries. It has been certified 12× platinum for sales in the US and 13× platinum in Canada, selling over 25 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. The album spawned six Top 20 US singles, including the US "Billboard" Hot 100 No. 1 "Love Bites" (went Top 10 in several other countries including No. 2 in NZ), alongside "Pour Some Sugar on Me" (US No. 2), "Hysteria", "Armageddon It" (No. 2 in NZ), "Animal" (at No. 6, the biggest UK hit), and "Rocket" (a Top 15 hit in many countries). "Hysteria" had four Top 10 hits in New Zealand.


title: Def Leppard

text: Their next studio album, "Adrenalize" (their first following the death of guitarist Steve Clark), reached No. 1 on the UK, US, NZ, Canadian and Australian charts in 1992, while going Top 10 in Sweden and Germany. It contained several hits, including the US Rock Tracks chart-topper, "Let's Get Rocked", which became their biggest hit in several countries, including No. 2 in the UK, No. 3 in Canada and Switzerland, and the Top 20 in Sweden and Germany. The third single, "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad", was a Top 15 song in the US, UK and Canada. "Adrenalize" went on to sell over 8 million copies worldwide. Their 1993 album, "Retro Active", contained the acoustic Top 5 North American hit "Two Steps Behind". Their greatest hits album "", released in 1995, featured the UK No. 2 hit "When Love & Hate Collide" and reached the Top 10 in several countries, going 5× platinum in the US. Beginning with "Slang", Def Leppard released five albums between 1996 and 2008, with most usually reaching the Top 15 in several countries, including the UK, US and Canada. Their self-titled album was released in 2015 and reached the Top 10 in several countries. The band's newest studio album, "Diamond Star Halos" was released in May 2022 and reached the Top 10 in the US, the UK and Australia.


title: Def Leppard

text: As one of the world's best-selling music artists, Def Leppard have sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and have two albums with RIAA diamond certification: "Pyromania" and "Hysteria", making them one of only five rock bands with two original studio albums selling more than 10 million copies in the US. The band were ranked No. 31 in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" and ranked No. 70 in "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Def Leppard were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.


title: Def Leppard

text: Rick Savage, Tony Kenning, and Pete Doubleday, all students at Tapton School in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, formed a band called Atomic Mass in 1976. Pete Willis joined in 1977. The band originally consisted of Doubleday (and later Willis) on guitar, Savage on bass guitar after briefly playing guitar, and Kenning on drums. Only 18 at the time, Joe Elliott tried out for the band as a guitarist following a chance meeting with Willis after missing a bus in November 1977. During his audition it was decided that he was better suited to be the lead singer. The band's initial rehearsals took place at Portland Works, and their first gig was in the dining hall in A Block in Westfield School in Mosborough, Sheffield.


title: Def Leppard

text: Elliott proposed the name "Deaf Leopard" which was originally a band name he thought of while designing band posters in art class. At Kenning's suggestion, the spelling was slightly modified in order to make the name seem less like that of a punk band. In January 1978, Steve Clark joined the band. According to Elliott, he successfully auditioned for the band by playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" in its entirety.


title: Def Leppard

text: In November, just prior to recording sessions for a three-song release known as "The Def Leppard E.P.", Kenning abruptly left the band; he later formed the band Cairo. He was replaced for those sessions by Frank Noon. By the end of the month, Rick Allen, then only 15 years old, had joined the band as its full-time drummer. Sales of the EP soared after the track "Getcha Rocks Off" was given extensive airtime by renowned BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, considered at the time to be a champion of punk rock and new wave music.


title: Def Leppard

text: Throughout 1979, the band developed a loyal following among British hard rock and heavy metal fans and were considered among the leaders of the new wave of British heavy metal movement. Their growing popularity led to a record deal with the major label Phonogram/Vertigo (Mercury Records in the US). Def Leppard's original management, MSB, a local duo consisting of Pete Martin and Frank Stuart-Brown, were fired after Martin and Joe Elliott got into a fistfight over an incident on the road. The band approached Peter Mensch of Leber-Krebs management, who had booked them on a tour of the UK supporting AC/DC. Mensch, who admitted that he had had his eye on the band, became their manager.


title: Def Leppard

text: Def Leppard's debut album, "On Through the Night", was released on 14 March 1980. Although the album hit the Top 15 in the UK, many early fans were turned off by the perception that the band was trying too hard to appeal to American audiences by recording songs such as "Hello America" and touring more in the US (supporting Pat Travers, AC/DC, and Ted Nugent); a performance at the Reading Festival in August was marred when audience members expressed their displeasure by pelting the band with beer cans and bottles filled with urine. This incident was partially blamed on a cover story in "Sounds" music newspaper by the journalist Geoff Barton titled, "Has the Leppard changed its spots?", accusing the band of selling out to the American market. In a documentary on the band recorded for BBC 2, Barton recalls feelings of guilt over the story and having a "stand-up row" with the band's manager, Mensch, backstage at the show. In the documentary series "Metal Evolution", Joe Elliott says that the media had exaggerated the event and all bands on the day had experienced 'abuse' from the crowd.


title: Def Leppard

text: The band had by then caught the attention of AC/DC producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who agreed to work on their second album, "High 'n' Dry", released on 6July 1981. Lange's meticulous approach in the studio helped them begin to define their sound. Despite the album's unimpressive sales figures (it only peaked at number 26 in the UK and 38 in the US), the band's video for "Bringin' On the Heartbreak" became one of the first metal videos played on MTV in 1982, bringing the band increased visibility in the US. The band continued to use the up-and-coming music television industry to reach fans over the years with their unique videos and the extravagance of their concerts. After the album's release, European and American tours followed. The band opened for Ozzy Osbourne and Blackfoot.


title: Def Leppard

text: On 11 July 1982, Pete Willis was fired due to excessive alcohol consumption on the job and was replaced by Phil Collen of Girl the next day. This personnel change took place during the recording of their third album, "Pyromania", which was released on 20 January 1983 and also produced by Lange. The cover artwork depicted a cartoon image of a huge flame emerging from the top floor of a skyscraper, with a bullseye aimed at the flame. The lead single, "Photograph", turned Def Leppard into a household name, supplanting Michael Jackson's "Beat It" as the most requested video on MTV and becoming a staple of rock radio (holding the number 1 position on the US Album Rock Track Chart for six weeks), and sparked a headline tour across the US. The second single, 'Rock of Ages, also reached number 1 on the Rock Tracks chart, with both singles reaching the Top 20 of the Hot 100 ("Photograph" number 12 and "Rock of Ages" number 16), unusual for hard rock songs.


title: Def Leppard

text: Fuelled by "Photograph", "Rock of Ages", and the third single "Foolin'", "Pyromania" went on to sell six million copies in 1983 (more than 100,000 copies every week in that year) and was held from the top of the US charts only by Michael Jackson's "Thriller". With the album's massive success, "Pyromania" was the catalyst for the 1980s pop-metal movement. In 2004, "Pyromania" was certified Diamond having sold over 10 million copies in the US; it was also certified 7× platinum in Canada, where it had peaked at number 4, its second highest certification. With their music videos becoming a staple of MTV "Rolling Stone" named them among the artists of the Second British Invasion. The "Pyromania" tour began in England at the Marquee Club in Oxford Street, London in February 1983. Def Leppard's US tour in support of the album began in March opening for Billy Squier and ended with a headlining performance before an audience of 55,000 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, California in September. As a testament to the band's popularity at the time, a US Gallup poll in 1984 saw Def Leppard voted as favourite rock band over peers such as The Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and Journey. Interestingly, "Pyromania" was not as successful in their native UK where it reached number 18 on the album chart.


title: Def Leppard

text: Following their breakthrough, the band moved to Dublin in February 1984 for tax purposes to begin writing the follow-up to "Pyromania". Mutt Lange initially joined in on the songwriting sessions but then suddenly declined to return as producer due to exhaustion. Jim Steinman of Meat Loaf's "Bat Out of Hell" was brought in. However, Steinman worked only briefly with the band, and the recording work was not released.


title: Def Leppard

text: On the afternoon of 31 December 1984, drummer Rick Allen was involved in a car accident, with his then-girlfriend Miriam Barendsen, on the A57 road in the countryside a few miles west of Sheffield. While trying to pass another car at a high speed, he lost control of his Corvette C4, which hit a dry stone wall and entered a field; his left arm was severed. Doctors initially reattached the arm, but it was later amputated due to an infection.


title: Def Leppard

text: Despite the severity of the accident, Rick Allen was committed to continuing his role as Def Leppard's drummer and realised that he could use his legs to do some of the drumming work previously done with his arms. He then worked with Simmons to design a custom electronic drum kit. The other members of the band supported Allen's recovery and never sought a replacement. Allen was placed in a separate studio to practice his new drums. After a few months, Allen gathered the band together and performed the intro to the Led Zeppelin version of "When the Levee Breaks" to showcase his progress to the band. Joe Elliott reports this as being a "very emotional moment." During this period, Mutt Lange returned as producer. Def Leppard brought in Jeff Rich in August 1986 to play alongside Allen during Def Leppard's warm-up mini tour of Ireland. When Rich turned up late for a gig, he and the band realised Allen could drum alone. Allen's comeback was sealed at the 1986 Monsters of Rock festival in England, with an emotionally charged ovation after his introduction by Joe Elliott.


title: Def Leppard

text: After over three years of recording, Def Leppard's fourth album, "Hysteria", was released on 3August 1987. One of the first singles from the album, "Animal", became the band's first Top 10 hit in the UK, reaching No. 6 on the UK Singles Chart. "Animal" also started their run of ten consecutive US "Billboard" Hot 100 Top 40 singles. The next single off "Hysteria", its mid-tempo title track, became the band's first Top 10 single in the US, and, peaking at number 13, their highest-charting song in Canada to that date. "Hysteria" topped the UK Album Charts in its first week of release, and has since spent 105 weeks on the chart. Initial US album sales were relatively slow (compared to "Pyromania") until the release of the fourth single, "Pour Some Sugar on Me". The song hit No. 2, on the Hot 100 and "Hysteria" finally reached the top of the US "Billboard" 200 in July 1988. Although "Pour Some Sugar On Me" was not initially a big hit in other countries (number 18 in the UK, number 22 in Canada, and number 26 in Australia), it has come to be regarded as the band's signature song, and was ranked No. 2 on VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 80s" in 2006. "Hysteria" also topped the album charts in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway, at No. 10, was their first album to chart in Germany, and was eventually certified Diamond in sales in the US and 13× Platinum in Canada.


title: Def Leppard

text: The band's UK success saw them nominated for the 1988 Brit Award for Best British Group. In October 1988, the power ballad "Love Bites" reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100; it was a Top 10 hit in several other countries, including reaching number 6 in Canada. In January 1989, the band scored another US Top 5 hit with "Armageddon It", and by spring of 1989 the final single "Rocket" was in the Top 15 in the US and several other countries. Wanting to give fans something new after the massive radio and video airplay for not only the seven singles but also the album tracks that radio DJs were playing off the album, the band performed "Tear It Down", a Hysteria B-side at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards.


title: Def Leppard

text: "Hysteria" is one of only a handful of albums that has charted seven singles or more on the US Hot 100: "Women" (#80), "Animal" (#19), "Hysteria" (#10), "Pour Some Sugar on Me" (#2), "Love Bites" (#1), "Armageddon It" (#3), and "Rocket" (#12). Aside from "Women", these same songs all made the Top 25 on the UK Singles chart. It remained on the charts for three years and has sold over 25 million copies worldwide. Equally successful was the accompanying 16-month "Hysteria" tour, in which the band performed in the round. This concept proved wildly popular with fans (as seen in the videos for "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Armageddon It") and was used again for the "Adrenalize" tour.


title: Def Leppard

text: At the 1989 Brit Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, Def Leppard were again a nominee for Best British Group, and the band performed "Pour Some Sugar on Me" at the ceremony. At the 1989 American Music Awards, Def Leppard won Favorite Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Artist, as well as Favorite Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Album (for "Hysteria").


title: Def Leppard

text: Following "Hysteria", the band quickly set out to work on their fifth album, hoping to avoid another lengthy gap. Steve Clark's alcoholism worsened to the point that he was constantly in and out of rehab. Recording sessions suffered from this distraction, and in mid-1990, Clark was granted a six-month leave of absence from the band. Clark died from a mix of prescription drugs and alcohol on 8January 1991, in his London home. The remaining band members decided to carry on and recorded the album as a four-piece, with Collen mimicking Clark's style on his intended guitar parts.


title: Def Leppard

text: Def Leppard's fifth album, "Adrenalize", was finally released on 31 March 1992. The album simultaneously entered at number one on both the UK and US album charts, staying number one on the latter for five weeks, while also reaching the summit on the Canadian and Australian charts and hitting No. 8 in Germany. The first single, the anthemic "Let's Get Rocked", was an instant hit and remains the band's highest-charting song ever in several countries, including the UK (No. 2), Canada (No. 3), Australia (No. 6) and Germany (No. 22), while reaching No. 1 on the US Rock Tracks chart and No. 15 on the Billboard Hot. 100. The band performed the song at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards where it was nominated for Best Video of the Year. Like with "Hysteria", several singles were released off "Andrenalize", including the rocker "Make Love Like a Man", the ballad "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad" and the mid-tempo "Heaven Is", each of which made the Top 15 in the UK, with "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad" being the most successful track in Canada (No. 7) and on the US Hot 100 (No. 12) . Another single, the mid-tempo "Stand Up (Kick Love into Motion)", was a hit in Canada, peaking at No. 11, and also reached No. 1 on the US Rock Tracks chart, edging out "Make Love Like a Man" (No. 3) as the second most successful track off the album on US rock radio.


title: Def Leppard

text: In a period between late-1991 and early 1992, auditions for another guitarist commenced. Among the guitarists who auditioned included Adrian Smith, John Sykes, and Gary Hoey. Ultimately, the band chose Vivian Campbell in 1992, formerly of Dio and Whitesnake. In April 1992, Def Leppard appeared at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, London, performing a three-song set of "Animal", "Let's Get Rocked" and Queen's "Now I'm Here" with guitarist Brian May. Joe Elliott later performed "Tie Your Mother Down" with the remaining members of Queen and Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash. Another world tour followed but the band's fortunes began to be affected by the rise of alternative rock, including grunge. Amidst the increasing popularity of alternative rock, the band decided to balance their original image as rebellious rock stars with a slightly friendlier energy, combining heavy metal with melodies and hooks more reminiscent of pop music. On 6June 1993, Def Leppard performed the first ever rock concert at the Don Valley Stadium in their home city of Sheffield before an audience of over 50,000.


title: Def Leppard

text: A collection of B-sides and unreleased tracks recorded between 1984 and 1993, called "Retro Active", was released in October 1993, preceded by the success of the acoustic ballad "Two Steps Behind" (from the Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Last Action Hero"). The song charted in many countries, reaching Top 5 in Canada and peaking at No. 12 in the US, where it was their last significant hit song. Another single from "Retro Active", "Miss You in a Heartbeat", was also successful in Canada (No. 19) while a cover of "Sweet's" "Action" was popular in the UK, reaching No. 14. "Retro Active" made the Top 10 in the UK, US, and Canada and has sold 3 million copies worldwide to date. In 1995, Def Leppard issued their first greatest hits collection, "", which reached number3 in the UK, Top 10 in several other countries, and eventually sold over 5 million copies in the US. Alternate track listings of the album were issued for North America, the UK, and Japan. The compilation included a new track, the power ballad "When Love & Hate Collide", which became their biggest ever hit in the UK, hitting No. 2 on the UK Singles Chart, while also hitting No. 6 in Canada., their last major hit single in both countries, but barely charted in the US.


title: Def Leppard

text: On 23 October 1995, the band entered the "Guinness Book of World Records" by performing three concerts on three continents in one day (Tangiers, Morocco; Sheffield, England; and Vancouver, Canada). "Slang", released in May 1996, marked a drastic musical departure for the band by featuring darker lyrics and a stripped-down alternative rock edge. The band rehearsed and played the songs together in the studio instead of recording parts separately, resulting in a much more live-sounding album. The US audience reception for "Slang" and its subsequent tour was a major drop-off from a decade earlier, although "Q Magazine" nonetheless listed "Slang" as one of their Top Ten Albums of 1996. The album only reached No. 14 on the US album chart, and although the track "Work It Out" reached No. 6 on the US Rock Tracks chart, neither it or any of the other singles released off the album charted on the Hot 100. For the first time, a Def Leppard studio album peaked higher in the UK than in the US as it hit No. 5 there, with two singles, the album's title track (No. 17), and "Work It Out" (No. 22) performing well on the UK singles chart. In Canada, "Work It Out" was a Top 10 single and while the album only peaked at No. 12, it eventually still went double platinum in sales.


title: Def Leppard

text: VH1 revived the band's fortunes in the US in 1998 by featuring them on one of the first episodes of "Behind the Music". Re-runs of the episode yielded some of the series' highest ratings and brought the band's music back into the public consciousness (following years of burial by the alternative rock climate). The episode was even parodied on "Saturday Night Live". In an effort to capitalise on this new momentum, Def Leppard returned to its classic sound with the 1999 album "Euphoria". The first single, "Promises", reunited the band with Mutt Lange and hit the US Mainstream Rock Track charts at No. 1 for three weeks although it did not receive much play on Top 40 radio; it was also a moderate hit in the UK and Canada. "Euphoria" peaked at No. 11 in both the UK and US, and at No 14 in Germany, although it was less successful in Canada and Australia.


title: Def Leppard

text: On 5 September 2000, Def Leppard were inducted into Hollywood's RockWalk on Sunset Boulevard by their friend Brian May of Queen. In 2001, VH1 produced and aired "Hysteria – The Def Leppard Story", a biopic that included Anthony Michael Hall as Mutt Lange and Amber Valletta as Lorelei Shellist (Steve Clark's girlfriend). The docudrama covered the band's history between 1977 through 1986, recounting the trials and triumphs of Rick Allen and Steve Clark. Def Leppard's eighth album, "X", saw the band's musical direction moving more towards pop and further away from the band's hard rock roots. "X" ultimately became the band's least successful release, peaking at No. 11 on the US "Billboard" 200. No. 14 on the UK Albums Chart, No. 12 in Canada, and No. 19 in Germany. Its first single, "Now", reached the Top 30 in the UK and Canada but missed the US Hot 100, only reaching No. 26 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.


title: Def Leppard

text: An expanded and updated best-of collection, "Best Of", was released internationally in October 2004. The North America-only version, "Rock of Ages—The Definitive Collection", was released the following May. Def Leppard participated at the Live 8 show in Philadelphia and toured in the summer with Bryan Adams. In 2005, the band left their long-time management team, Q-Prime, and signed with HK Management. On 23 May 2006, Def Leppard released an all-covers album titled "Yeah!". The disc pays homage to classic rock songs of their childhood, originally recorded by Blondie, The Kinks, Sweet, ELO, and Badfinger among others. It debuted at No. 16 in the US, their tenth consecutive Top 20 album.


title: Def Leppard

text: The band, along with Queen, Kiss, and Judas Priest, were the inaugural inductees of VH1 Rock Honors on 31 May 2006. During the show, The All-American Rejects paid homage to the band with a cover of "Photograph". Soon afterwards, they embarked on a US tour with Journey. That October, "Hysteria" was re-released in a two-disc deluxe edition format, which combined the original remastered album with B-sides, remixes, and bonus tracks from single releases. Def Leppard began their Downstage Thrust Tour, on 27 June, which took them across the US and into Canada.


title: Def Leppard

text: On 25 April 2008, Def Leppard released their first album of new studio material in six years, "Songs from the Sparkle Lounge". The album debuted at No. 5 on the "Billboard" 200 in the US. The first single was entitled "Nine Lives" and featured country singer Tim McGraw, who co-wrote the song with Joe Elliott, Phil Collen, and Rick Savage.


title: Def Leppard

text: A tour in support of the album began on 27 March 2008 in Greensboro, North Carolina, with Styx and REO Speedwagon. They also played several European rock festivals. An arena tour of the UK took place in June in which the band co-headlined with Whitesnake and were supported by Black Stone Cherry. The band then returned to Europe before coming back for a second leg of the UK tour in June. The first of these dates was at the Glasgow SECC on 17 June. Again they were joined by Whitesnake; however, hard rock band Thunder supported at some of these shows. Black Stone Cherry continued to support most of the dates, including some of the Thunder ones. Six shows which were cancelled during the USA/Canada leg of their world tour due to illnesses affecting Joe Elliott and Phil Collen were rescheduled and played in August of that year. On 11 June, Def Leppard announced further dates for their 2008 World Tour. The extension saw them visit Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Whitesnake continued to support Def Leppard for their Indian and Japanese dates. Def Leppard toured 41 US cities plus Toronto during mid-2009 with Poison and Cheap Trick and also headlined the Download Festival at Donington Park, England to a sell out crowd of 83,000 with Whitesnake and ZZ Top.


title: Def Leppard

text: In October 2008, Def Leppard played with country star Taylor Swift in a taped show in Nashville, Tennessee, in a show called CMT Crossroads: Taylor Swift and Def Leppard. This was released as a DVD on 16 June 2009 exclusively at Wal-Mart. The release was the best-selling DVD of the week, and the 10th best selling Wal-Mart music release. In October 2009, the band announced that they would be cancelling the last leg of the 2009 North American tour, a total of 23 shows. The band cited, "unforeseen personal matters", as the reason for the cancellations. At the time, the band denied rumours about a breakup, saying, "We're not splitting. Not at all. We often joke, what else would we do? You just can't imagine doing anything else."


title: Def Leppard

text: After taking a year off from touring in 2010, the band announced on 22 February 2011 that they would be releasing their first live album in the summer. "Mirror Ball – Live & More", a two-disc live album, with three new studio tracks. It was released in parts of Europe on 3June, the rest of Europe on 6June, and on 7June in the US; it was announced at the same time that Def Leppard would perform at the Download Festival on 10 June 2011. Of the three new studio tracks, two were released as singles, the first single being "Undefeated" released in April 2011.


title: Def Leppard

text: Def Leppard embarked on a two-month US tour in the summer of 2011 with Heart, as well as another seven shows in Australia in October with The Choirboys and Heart, two shows in Japan in November, and six shows in the United Kingdom in December with Steel Panther and Mötley Crüe. The next year, they toured with Poison and Lita Ford from 20 June through 15 September, dubbed the "Rock Of Ages 2012 Tour".


title: Def Leppard

text: The year after, Def Leppard played an 11-show residency at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada from 22 March through to 13 April 2013. The residency, referred to as Viva! Hysteria, featured a two-part show, with the first half featuring Def Leppard opening for themselves, under the alias "Ded Flatbird", (jokingly called the best Def Leppard cover band in the world), when they played songs they very rarely play live, going all the way back to "Good Morning Freedom", a B-side from the single "Hello America" released in February 1980, an era usually left untouched by the band. The opening set varied each night, from playing the best hits from albums like "On Through the Night", "Slang", and "Euphoria", to being the entire first half of "High 'n' Dry". The second half, and "main event" was Def Leppard, as themselves playing their best-selling album, "Hysteria", from start to finish. A live album, also titled "Viva! Hysteria" was released on 22 October 2013. This was the first time the band had played an album live from start to finish. The band has re-recorded several hits and even the entire album "Hysteria" in an effort to circumvent their record label from future royalties, though of these re-recordings, only "Rock of Ages", "Pour Some Sugar on Me", and "Hysteria" have been released.


title: Def Leppard

text: On 11 February 2014, the band released a remastered deluxe edition of their 1996 album "Slang" after much delay. The album, still coveted by many loyal fans of the band, now features 30 tracks including demos, B-sides, and unreleased material. From 23 June 2014 to 31 August 2014, Def Leppard and Kiss toured 42 cities, with one dollar per ticket donated to such military charities as Wounded Warrior Project. Def Leppard contributed one song, "Helen Wheels", to the Paul McCartney tribute album "The Art of McCartney" released on 18 November 2014. Joe Elliott also contributed another track, "Hi, Hi, Hi". At certain recent points in time the band had projects, such as a cartoon and a documentary, in development. However, these projects seem to have been shelved indefinitely. The band had originally planned to do another residency in Las Vegas, this time in honour of "Pyromania" (called "Viva! Pyromania"), but due to the "Heroes 2014" tour with Kiss, and the recording of their new studio album, the project had been pushed back indefinitely. The new album was originally planned to be an EP, but the set-list increased to 15 songs by June 2014. The album was released on 30 October 2015 with a tour following.


title: Def Leppard

text: In December 2014, the band announced a 13-date Canadian tour in April and May 2015. This was followed in February 2015 with the announcement of a 2015 US summer tour with Styx and Tesla from June to October 2015. The tour was then extended to include dates in Japan and Australia throughout November, and a tour of the UK and Ireland with Whitesnake in December. Def Leppard then returned to North America with REO Speedwagon and Tesla in early-2016.


title: Def Leppard

text: The eleventh studio album, titled "Def Leppard", was recorded in 2014 and 2015, and released on 30 October 2015. The band released the lead single from their self-titled album on 15 September 2015, titled "Let's Go", with a music video for the song being released on 30 October. The 14-track album debuted at number 10 in the US and number 11 in the UK.


title: Def Leppard

text: During the break following their 2015 tour, Def Leppard led the "Hysteria on the High Seas" concert cruise aboard the "MSC Divina" in January 2016. Joe Elliott became ill with laryngitis on the night of their cruise performance. This led to the band performing without Elliott for the first time in their history. Vivian Campbell and Phil Collen sang lead vocals on two songs of the shortened seven song set in addition to two songs with vocals by Andrew Freeman and two more with Eric Martin and Kip Winger. in addition to this, Campbell and Freeman's Last in Line bandmate Jimmy Bain, former bassist of Dio died of lung cancer aboard the ship the same night, causing Last in Line to cancel their show the following day. Back on land, Elliott struggled through the first concert of the 2016 tour, resulting in Tesla's Jeff Keith joining Elliott on lead vocals. The following day's concert was also postponed "due to illness", with Rick Allen stating on Twitter "The Doctor basically said that if Joe continues to sing without resting his throat for a month he might do permanent damage." By July 2016, the band were performing regularly again and intended to complete 48 dates. When the tour stopped at DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan on 15 July, the show was recorded for future release. On 10 February 2017, the band released "And There Will be a Next Time... Live from Detroit", a double live album and concert video. In August 2017, the band celebrated the 30th anniversary of "Hysteria" by releasing a collector's edition box. The singles were also re-released on vinyl.


title: Def Leppard

text: In January 2018, Def Leppard announced they would embark on a 58-date North American tour with Journey. The tour included 10 dates in baseball stadiums, a first for the band, with special guests Cheap Trick. The tour was highly successful, as the bands played in front of more than a million fans in North America in just three months, marking the tour out as one of the most successful in 2018. In addition, the group's discography was made available for streaming and digital download after a deal was reached between the band and Universal Music Group.


title: Def Leppard

text: On 30 November 2018, the band released a new two-disc best of compilation, "The Story So Far – The Best Of". In addition to 34 of Def Leppard's greatest hits, the collection featured the band's new cover of the Depeche Mode hit "Personal Jesus" (which was originally released in July 2018 for Spotify Singles), the new Christmas track "We All Need Christmas", and the new remix of "Rock On". On the same day, a new limited edition, 10-disc vinyl box set featuring all of the 7" singles from the Hysteria album was released. The band finished the year off with a sell-out tour of the UK and Ireland titled Hysteria & More Tour. They embarked on a world tour in 2019 beginning with the Sweden Rock Festival on 6June. In March 2019, it was announced that the band would undertake a second Las Vegas residency titled Def Leppard Hits Vegas—The Sin City Residency. The box set "The Early Years 79-81" was released in March 2020, featuring remastered versions of the band's first two albums plus a variety of live recordings, B-sides, and studio outtakes from the 1979 to 1981 period.


title: Def Leppard

text: On 4 December 2019, the band announced they would be touring with Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Joan Jett on The Stadium Tour in summer 2020, which was later rescheduled to 2021, and then to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Def Leppard

text: On 15 March 2022, Def Leppard announced their twelfth studio album, "Diamond Star Halos". The album is named after a lyric in the Marc Bolan-penned T. Rex song "Get It On". On 17 March, the band released the lead single, "Kick".


title: Def Leppard

text: Def Leppard's musical style has been described as glam metal, hard rock, heavy metal, arena rock, and pop rock. Def Leppard's music is a mixture of hard rock, AOR, pop and heavy metal elements, with its multi-layered, harmonic vocals and its melodic guitar riffs. Though they were often considered one of the top bands of the new wave of British heavy metal movement of the late 1970s, the band disliked the branding, stating: "We didn’t agree that our music was anything like Iron Maiden's." In the mid-1980s, the band were associated with the growing glam metal scene, mainly due to their mainstream success and glossy production. "Pyromania" has been cited as the catalyst for the 1980s pop-metal movement. Def Leppard, however, expressed their dislike of the "glam metal" label as well, as they thought it did not accurately describe their look or musical style. By the release of the "Hysteria" album, the band had developed a distinctive sound featuring electronic drums and effects-laden guitar sounds overlaid with a multi-layered wall of husky, harmonised vocals. According to Joe Elliott, Def Leppard are influenced by "everything from pure pop to downright hardcore rock". He has cited Ian Hunter and Mott The Hoople among the band's early influences. Def Leppard themselves have been cited as an influence by a wide range of musical artists, including Matt Nathanson and Taylor Swift.


title: Def Leppard

text: With "Pyromania" and "Hysteria" both certified Diamond by the RIAA, Def Leppard are one of only five rock bands with two original studio albums selling over 10 million copies each in the US, alongside the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Van Halen. Both "Pyromania" and "Hysteria" feature in "Rolling Stone" list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.


title: Def Leppard

text: Def Leppard were among the most successful of the new wave of British heavy metal bands in the early 1980s. They combined the raw power of metal with a pop emphasis on melody, catchy hooks and vocal harmonies that, particularly later on, contrasted sharply with harsher contemporary metal and punk bands. Their early album "On Through the Night" (1980) appealed to metal fans like of Dimebag Darrell of Pantera and Jeff Hanneman of Slayer. Their hugely popular later albums, such as "Hysteria" (1987), were different due to their perfectionism in the studio, but appealed to a broad range of music fans.


title: Def Leppard

text: In 2006, the band received a Sheffield Legends plaque in their hometown of Sheffield, England. Despite their huge commercial success, Elliott has said in an interview that he feels the band does not receive its fair share of respect from the British music press and he claimed the band had been barred from the BBC's "Later with Jools Holland" series because they were "not cool enough".


title: Def Leppard

text: On 9 October 2018, Def Leppard received an induction nomination from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to the 1,000 members of the Hall of Fame voting committee, the general public also had an opportunity to participate in the "Fan Vote". On 13 December 2018, Def Leppard were named in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Class of 2019. The band won the Klipsch Audio Fan Vote, beating 14 other nominees with 547,647 general public votes (119,803 and 28% more than second vote receiver Stevie Nicks).


title: Def Leppard

text: The current lineup of the band, along with past members Pete Willis and Steve Clark, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on 29 March 2019 at a ceremony at Brooklyn's Barclays Center. Def Leppard were inducted by Queen guitarist Brian May, who said they were "a magnificent rock group, in the classic tradition of what a rock group really is" and "a bunch of magnificent human beings."


title: Def Leppard

text: Phil Collen played guitar, uncredited, on Sam Kinison's "Wild Thing" in 1988. The video featured members of bands such as Poison, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, Guns N' Roses, Ratt, and Aerosmith. Collen also produced and played on the 1991 album "On the Edge" by Australian band BB Steal.


title: Def Leppard

text: Joe Elliott sang lead vocals on two tracks on Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood's 1992 solo album, "Slide on This". His then-wife Karla appeared in the videos for "Always Wanted More" and "Somebody Else Might". Various members of Def Leppard have played on tribute records for Jeff Beck, AC/DC, and Alice Cooper.


title: Def Leppard

text: A fan of his local football club Sheffield United F.C., Elliott performed on two tracks to the soundtrack of the 1996 Sheffield-set motion picture, "When Saturday Comes" (featuring fellow Sheffield native Sean Bean as a star football player), the title track and an instrumental, "Jimmy's Theme". Elliott sang and co-wrote the opening track, "Don't Look Down" on Mick Ronson's farewell album "Heaven and Hull". A promotional video was issued for the song as well.


title: Def Leppard

text: Cybernauts was a side project consisting of Elliott and Collen teamed with members of The Spiders From Mars (David Bowie's former band), minus the late Mick Ronson. The group played several shows, covering Bowie's Ziggy Stardust-era songs and released one internet-only album (since deleted).


title: Def Leppard

text: Vivian Campbell has played with two side bands in recent years, Clock and the Riverdogs, and recorded a solo album, "Two Sides of If", released in 2005. Campbell toured with Thin Lizzy in early 2011 before joining Def Leppard on their Mirrorball tour.


title: Def Leppard

text: Collen sings lead vocals and plays guitar in a side band called Man Raze with Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook and former Girl bandmate Simon Laffy. They released their debut album "Surreal" in 2008 and a second album, "PunkFunkRootsRock", in 2011.


title: Def Leppard

text: Joe Elliott founded and fronts the band Down 'n' Outz with members of The Quireboys. The band plays covers of Mott the Hoople and related artists such as British Lions and Ian Hunter. They have released two studio albums of covers, one of original material and one live album since their incarnation in 2009.


title: Def Leppard

text: Following the death of Ronnie James Dio, Vivian Campbell reunited with the rest of the original Dio lineup with vocalist Andrew Freeman to form Last in Line. The band pays tribute to Dio by playing songs from their original tenure in the band and released an album titled Heavy Crown in February 2016.


title: Def Leppard

text: Joe Elliott, along with various other musicians including Glenn Hughes, Duff McKagan, Sebastian Bach, Matt Sorum, Gilby Clarke and Steve Stevens formed a supergroup called Kings of Chaos, whose catalogue consists of songs by Deep Purple, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses and others. In 2012, Kings of Chaos recorded their version of Deep Purple's classic, "Never Before" featuring Elliott singing lead vocals. Kings of Chaos played Stone Fest in Australia along with a few dates in South America in 2013.


title: Def Leppard

text: Phil Collen formed a blues project by the name of Delta Deep with vocalist Debbi Blackwell Cook which released an eponymous debut in 2015.


title: Def Leppard

text: In October 2020, Joe Elliott and Phil Collen played on the Struts song, "I Hate How Much I Want You", part of their "Strange Days" album.


title: Def Leppard

text: Def Leppard won two awards at the 1989 American Music Awards for favourite Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Artist and album for "Hysteria".


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: Notre-Dame de Paris (; meaning "Our Lady of Paris"), referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the Seine River), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. Several of its attributes set it apart from the earlier Romanesque style, particularly its pioneering use of the rib vault and flying buttress, its enormous and colourful rose windows, and the naturalism and abundance of its sculptural decoration. Notre Dame also stands out for its musical components, notably its three pipe organs (one of which is historic) and its immense church bells.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: Construction of the cathedral began in 1163 under Bishop Maurice de Sully and was largely completed by 1260, though it was modified frequently in the centuries that followed. In the 1790s, during the French Revolution, Notre-Dame suffered extensive desecration; much of its religious imagery was damaged or destroyed. In the 19th century, the coronation of Napoleon I and the funerals of many of the French Republic's presidents took place at the cathedral.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: The 1831 publication of Victor Hugo's novel "Notre-Dame de Paris" (known in English as "The Hunchback of Notre-Dame") inspired popular interest in the cathedral, which led to a major restoration project between 1844 and 1864, supervised by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. On August 26, 1944, the Liberation of Paris from German occupation was celebrated in Notre-Dame with the singing of the Magnificat. Beginning in 1963, the cathedral's façade was cleaned of centuries of soot and grime. Another cleaning and restoration project was carried out between 1991 and 2000.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: The cathedral is one of the most widely recognized symbols of the city of Paris and the French nation. In 1805, it was awarded the honorary status of a minor basilica. As the cathedral of the archdiocese of Paris, Notre-Dame contains the "cathedra" of the archbishop of Paris (Laurent Ulrich).


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: In the early 21st century, approximately 12 million people visited Notre-Dame annually, making it the most visited monument in Paris. The cathedral has long been renowned for its Lent sermons, a tradition founded in the 1830s by the Dominican Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire. In recent years, these sermons have increasingly often been given by leading public figures or government-employed academics.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: Over time, the cathedral has gradually been stripped of many of its original decorations and artworks. However, the cathedral still contains several noteworthy examples of Gothic, Baroque, and 19th-century sculptures, a number of 17th- and early 18th-century altarpieces, and some of the most important relics in Christendom – including the Crown of Thorns, a sliver of the true cross and a nail from the true cross.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: On 15 April 2019, while Notre-Dame was undergoing renovation and restoration, its roof caught fire and burned for about 15 hours. The cathedral sustained serious damage as a result. The flèche (the timber spirelet over the crossing) was destroyed, as was most of the lead-covered wooden roof above the stone vaulted ceiling. This resulted in contamination of the site and the nearby environment with lead. After the fire, many of the proposals for restoration suggested modernizing the cathedral's design, but the French National Assembly rejected this approach, enacting a law on 29 July 2019 that required the restoration to preserve the cathedral's "historic, artistic and architectural interest". The task of stabilizing the building against possible collapse was completed in November 2020, and reconstruction began in 2021. The government of France has said it hopes the reconstruction can be completed by Spring 2024, in time for the opening of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. President Emmanuel Macron confirmed on 14 April 2021 that the cathedral site will be formally returned to the church on 15 April 2024, and that the first mass since the fire will be held in the cathedral nave on that day, even if the reconstruction has not been finished by then.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: It is believed that before the arrival of Christianity in France, a Gallo-Roman temple dedicated to Jupiter stood on the site of Notre-Dame. Evidence for this includes the Pillar of the Boatmen, discovered beneath the cathedral in 1710. In the 4th or 5th century, a large early Christian church, the Cathedral of Saint Étienne, was built on the site, close to the royal palace. The entrance was situated about west of the present west front of Notre-Dame, and the apse was located about where the west façade is today. It was roughly half the size of the later Notre-Dame, long—and separated into nave and four aisles by marble columns, then decorated with mosaics.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: The last church before the cathedral of Notre-Dame was a Romanesque remodeling of Saint-Étienne that, although enlarged and remodeled, was found to be unfit for the growing population of Paris. A baptistery, the Church of Saint-John-le-Rond, built about 452, was located on the north side of the west front of Notre-Dame until the work of Jacques-Germain Soufflot in the 18th century.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: In 1160, the Bishop of Paris, Maurice de Sully, decided to build a new and much larger church. He summarily demolished the earlier cathedral and chose to recycle its materials. Sully decided that the new church should be built in the Gothic style, which had been inaugurated at the royal abbey of Saint Denis in the late 1130s.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: The chronicler recorded in the "Memorial Historiarum" that the construction of Notre-Dame began between 24 March and 25 April 1163 with the laying of the cornerstone in the presence of King Louis VII and Pope Alexander III. Four phases of construction took place under bishops Maurice de Sully and Eudes de Sully (not related to Maurice), according to masters whose names have been lost. Analysis of vault stones that fell in the 2019 fire shows that they were quarried in Vexin, a county northwest of Paris, and presumably brought up the Seine by ferry.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: The first phase began with the construction of the choir and its two ambulatories. According to Robert of Torigni, the choir was completed in 1177 and the high altar consecrated on 19 May 1182 by Cardinal Henri de Château-Marçay, the Papal legate in Paris, and Maurice de Sully. The second phase, from 1182 to 1190, concerned the construction of the four sections of the nave behind the choir and its aisles to the height of the clerestories. It began after the completion of the choir but ended before the final allotted section of the nave was finished. Beginning in 1190, the bases of the façade were put in place, and the first traverses were completed. Heraclius of Caesarea called for the Third Crusade in 1185 from the still-incomplete cathedral.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: Louis IX deposited the relics of the passion of Christ, which included the Crown of thorns, a nail from the Cross and a sliver of the Cross, which he had purchased at great expense from the Latin Emperor Baldwin II, in the cathedral during the construction of the Sainte-Chapelle. An under-shirt, believed to have belonged to Louis, was added to the collection of relics at some time after his death.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: The decision was made to add transepts at the choir, where the altar was located, in order to bring more light into the centre of the church. The use of simpler four-part rather than six-part rib vaults meant that the roofs were stronger and could be higher. After Bishop Maurice de Sully's death in 1196, his successor, Eudes de Sully oversaw the completion of the transepts, and continued work on the nave, which was nearing completion at the time of his own death in 1208. By this time, the western façade was already largely built, though it was not completed until around the mid-1240s. Between 1225 and 1250 the upper gallery of the nave was constructed, along with the two towers on the west façade.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: Another significant change came in the mid-13th century, when the transepts were remodelled in the latest Rayonnant style; in the late 1240s Jean de Chelles added a gabled portal to the north transept topped off by a spectacular rose window. Shortly afterward (from 1258) Pierre de Montreuil executed a similar scheme on the southern transept. Both these transept portals were richly embellished with sculpture; the south portal features scenes from the lives of Saint Stephen and of various local saints, while the north portal featured the infancy of Christ and the story of Theophilus in the tympanum, with a highly influential statue of the Virgin and Child in the trumeau. Master builders Pierre de Chelles, , Jean le Bouteiller, and succeeded de Chelles and de Montreuil and then each other in the construction of the cathedral. Ravy completed de Chelles's rood screen and chevet chapels, then began the flying buttresses of the choir. Jean le Bouteiller, Ravy's nephew, succeeded him in 1344 and was himself replaced on his death in 1363 by his deputy, Raymond du Temple.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: An important innovation in the 13th century was the introduction of the flying buttress. Before the buttresses, all of the weight of the roof pressed outward and down to the walls, and the abutments supporting them. With the flying buttress, the weight was carried by the ribs of the vault entirely outside the structure to a series of counter-supports, which were topped with stone pinnacles which gave them greater weight. The buttresses meant that the walls could be higher and thinner, and could have much larger windows. The date of the first buttresses is not known with any great precision beyond an installation date in the 13th century. Art historian Andrew Tallon, however, has argued based on detailed laser scans of the entire structure that the buttresses were part of the original design. According to Tallon, the scans indicate that "the upper part of the building has not moved one smidgen in 800 years," whereas if they were added later some movement from prior to their addition would be expected. Tallon thus concluded that flying buttresses were present from the outset. The first buttresses were replaced by larger and stronger ones in the 14th century; these had a reach of fifteen metres (50') between the walls and counter-supports.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: John of Jandun recognized the cathedral as one of Paris's three most important buildings [prominent structures] in his 1323 "Treatise on the Praises of Paris":


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: On 16 December 1431, the boy-king Henry VI of England was crowned king of France in Notre-Dame, aged ten, the traditional coronation church of Reims Cathedral being under French control.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: During the Renaissance, the Gothic style fell out of style, and the internal pillars and walls of Notre-Dame were covered with tapestries.


title: Notre-Dame de Paris

text: King Louis XIV, on the insistence of his father, Louis XIII, decided in 1699 to make extensive modifications to Notre-Dame. He tasked Robert de Cotte with the renovation. Cotte replaced the rood screen with a sumptuous and gilded wrought iron fence, opened up the choir and ambulatory, and removed the tombs in the nave. New furniture was produced as well as the current high altar, depicting Louis XIV and Louis XIII kneeling before a "pietà".