Serial Killers in 17th-century England

At one level the conviction of Rosemary West has drawn a line under the grim story of life and death in Cromwell Street, Gloucester. At another, the issue remains wide open. How, we wonder, can apparently ordinary people commit such deeds? Are there really 'natural born killers', or should we look for answers in terms of the alienation of late twentieth-century society? Surely, we feel, such things could never have happened in earlier times?

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