Delirio omicidiario condiviso nelle coppie di serial killer

Serial killers acting in pair represent an event which is statistically very rare. A sort of common delirium gradually structured between the two members of the pair, brings them to reiterate their homicidal actions. This clinical situation provides that a person described as dominant and called “inducer” or “primary” or “principal” imposes on another person knows as “the secondary”, “acceptor” or “associate” who gets to share the delirium of the “inducer”. The secondary person does not often come from a criminal subculture and does not have any psychiatric pathology which can justify his/her compliance to the actions of the “inducer”. This syndrome described for the first time at the end of the 19th century by Lasègue and Falret was called “Folie à deux”. In the DSM-IV-TR is known as Shared Psychotic Disorder.