Political Weirdos

Eh. A lot of “traits of serial killers” have extremely weak or no evidence base. AFAIK the constellation of bedwetting, setting fires, and animal abuse is the only real evidence based set of personality traits (which was still extremely weak). And even then it’s widely anecdotally repeated that any of these behaviors counts the way you describe (“he abused animals? That’s a sign of being a serial killer!!”) when the Macdonald triangle was considered a predictor with all three behaviors in conjunction.

But generally even that is considered kind of crap nowadays. predictors in the modern sense are more predictable and less salacious: significant neglect and abuse history, empathy issues, antisocial behavior, impulsivity, and narcissism. But this list is so vague (intentionally so) because it’s less about predicting “serial killers” (which is a foolish game) and more about predicting who is at risk of committing violent crime.