“The impact that violent acts have on society at large is powerful not only because they produce fear but also, and perhaps more importantly, because they produce disorientation. In this relation, Clive Bloom has suggested that the “legendary power” of the violence of a figure like Jack the Ripper “acts as a gaping maw into which perception of order and rightness are sucked” (135-36). One way of dealing with this uncertainty is to affirm that mass murderers and serial killers are neither civilized nor really human—i.e., to stress their monstrosity so as to perceive them as belonging to the realm of the other.”

-	Joseph Grixti, Consuming cannibals: Psychopathic killers as archetypes and cultural icons