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Cooling-off periods have been described as the state of returning to the offender’s usual way of life between homicides (Burgess, 2006) and are a crucial factor in defining serial homicide (Douglas, Ressler, Burgess, & Hartman, 1986). If the clinical aspect referring to the offender’s emotional and motivational state is removed, these episodes can be aptly termed time intervals between homicides. Factors such as geography, victim selection, and the offender’s level of social involvement may instead serve as more appropriate starting points for studying this concept. In the present study, these factors were examined using 16 series containing 90 time intervals with a reported median interval length between events of 34.5 days.

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