Caroline Fraser grew up in the shadow of Ted Bundy, the most notorious serial killer in the brooding landscape of the Pacific Northwest. But in the 1970s and 80s, Bundy was just one perpetrator amid an uncanny explosion of serial rape and murder across the region. Why so many? Why so nightmarishly gruesome? Why the senseless rise of an epidemic of serial murderers?

As Murderland maps the lives of Bundy and his infamous peers – the Green River Killer, the I-5 Killer, the Night Stalker, the Hillside Strangler, Charles Manson – Fraser begins to uncover a deeper mystery and an overlapping pattern of environmental destruction. At ground zero in Ted Bundy’s hometown stood one of the most poisonous lead, copper and arsenic smelters in the world. And it was only one among many that dotted the area.

Gradually, evidence mounts that the plumes of western smelters not only sickened millions but also warped young minds – potentially spawning a generation of serial killers.