Serial killing follows predictable pattern based on brain activity

(PhysOrg.com) -- Over a period of 12 years, Andrei Chikatilo murdered at least 53 people before being arrested in Rostov, Russia, in 1990. While Chikatilo’s killings, mainly of women and children, may have been senseless, a new study has found some sense in the distribution of intervals between the murders, which closely follows a power law. The researchers propose that the murder activity can be explained by a model describing neuronal firing in the brain, very similar to the model that describes the distribution of intervals between epileptic seizures.