Serial Killer John Fautenberry

Would you recognize a serial killer if you rubbed elbows with him in a bar or if he struck up a conversation with you on a hiking trail? Maybe something about the person would set off alarm bells, especially if you found yourself alone with him. A sociopath or a psychopath can often present a charming demeanor, though, so most of us would never notice the predator in our midst. We might not realize the friendly stranger is a brutal murderer until we read the news the next day.

I learned about the killing spree of John Fautenberry in a Facebook message from a reader named Brian Akre. Brian was an Associated Press correspondent in Juneau, Alaska, in 1991, when he encountered Fautenberry at a bar on the night Fautenberry murdered his last victim. Brian said he talked to Fautenberry at the bar and saw him with the man he would murder a few hours later. Brian said, “It was a weird experience. When I saw the news story in the Juneau Empire and realized it was the same guy I had seen at the bar, it sent a shiver down my spine. He just seemed like any other loud, intoxicated guy at a bar on any Saturday night.” Akre said the incident at the Juneau bar was the closest he ever wanted to come to meeting a serial killer.

The FBI defines a spree killer as a person who commits two or more murders in different locations without a cooling-off period between the murders. This lack of a cooling-off period differentiates a spree killer from a serial killer, but what is the definition of a cooling-off period? If a murderer goes on a multi-state killing rampage over several days, he clearly fits the description of a spree killer, but what if his murders span several months? Is he still considered a spree killer? Of course, his victims don’t care how he is classified, but I think of a spree killer as someone who suddenly starts murdering people. What switch flips in a person’s head to make him murder strangers? Has he always had the impulse to kill but managed to keep it under control until some defining moment when he decided to embrace his inner demons?

Although he fits the broad definition of a serial killer, John Joseph Fautenberry cannot easily be categorized as either a spree killer or a serial killer. He murdered at least five people in four different states over four months. The motive for his murders was not sexual, and he did not…