Cartage killers: considering highway serial homicide as a novel offender typology

With vocation-specific serial offenders being a relatively understudied phenomenon, the increased (and overdue) scrutiny of the intersectionality between the US long-haul trucking industry through initiatives such as the FBI's now well-publicised Highway Serial Killer Initiative (HSKI), along with associated mainstream media reportage regarding this same phenomenon in the context of specific cases, raises questions about the motivational models of such offenders, their common psychological characteristics, and how to consistently define them. By way of comparison, healthcare serial killers have long been recognised in the literature and among both law enforcement and regulatory bodies as a distinct subtype of serial offender and there are correspondingly an array of specific investigative methodologies and failsafes now used to investigate and ameliorate their associated crimes. In this article, we seek to designate 'cartage killers' (serial offenders variously employed in logistics and Interstate long-haul tractor-trailer trucking) as a similarly specific phylum of perpetrator and to also establish corresponding nomenclature through a synthesis of the existing multidisciplinary literature.