Serial Killers...Would you be worried?

Of course I'd be worried. I don't think there's anyone who wouldn't be worried if someone was going around killing animals in their neighbourhood. Even if they never progress to killing people, I'd still worry for the safety of my pets. I wouldn't really do anything about it, though. Not that there's anything I /can/ do.

I would be concerned, yes. Torturing and/or killing small animals is not something that normal people do. Whether this person graduates to larger animals or humans is not something that anyone, other than a professional treating him/her can predict.

Our area of Ohio just had a serial killer caught not too long ago. Within the past couple of months. Total of 11 women (so far)were found in his house, all tortured and killed. Yes, I would be definitely concerned and worried if I even thought that might be happening, even if it was just animal related. If somebody is sick enough to kill and/or torture animals, who knows what they'll do eventually. I've read that too that there is a common thread being childhood animal torturers. I don't know if this one here tortured or killed animals as a youth. It's scary that that cat head & spine was left at that office. That would sure creep me out! One wouldn't think it could be done by a wild dog, or anything like that, because the head would not still be attatched to the spine yet. (We have coyotes here that attack cats and other small animals, and the head usually isn't still attatched when they're done with their 'kill & feast'. You be careful!! This is one of those things where ignorance is NOT bliss.

Though I think there is wide acceptance that serial killers do "start out small", it still doesn't follow that the occurrence of something like this would mean that there is a serial killer in the vicinity. I'm more inclined to think that there is someone out there who needs professional help, rather than taking measures to "punish" the person. We could also use the same logic from the original premise: if small animals are normally observed to be tortured by "young serial killers", all the more that they'll need some form of intervention to arrest the development. To sum it all up, I'd be concerned, but more for the welfare of the person involved.

Call me biased, but I would be concerned if that were happening in my neighborhood and people were NOT doing something about it. Torturing or killing animals is no less serious than doing the same to people in my eyes...and even though my opinion is in the minority, I'd hope no one could disagree that animals are living beings and that torturing and butchering one like you described is nothing short of cruel and not very sane. Like you said, serial killers usually start with testing out their ability to kill...what's easier than killing someone whom is so innocent they simply cannot cry for help? Animals are easy to kill and hardly ever missed. Serial killing is a lot about control...enjoying what one is doing. If cats are going missing one at a time and the person behind it is enjoying doing this, can you imagine how much more satisfaction they'd realize they'd get out of killing and torturing a kid or a woman? Killing people is so much more dangerous and risky than killing animals, which gives many serial killers a thrill to kill. Once that person is ready, you can bet they'll try to move on up to that next level. If animals started showing up like that around where I lived...I would report it to the police each and every time and voice my concern over the possible insane, serial killer like minded person that could be behind it. If the police were smart they'd figure out who was doing the evil act before they could kill any more innocents or move up to people altogether.