There are two worlds that have shaped me: criminal law and animal protection.
Before working in animal welfare, I worked within the police system as a civil servant and later in a police-court environment. Criminal law was one of my main interests then, and it still is today. In my free time, I have always followed crime cases and watched documentaries about serial killers, not out of fascination for violence, but to understand how it starts.
What strikes me most, again and again, is that extreme violence rarely appears suddenly. It often begins early, quietly, and in ways that are easy to dismiss.
When studying the childhood and adolescence of several infamous serial killers, a recurring element appears: violence against animals, or an early fixation on animal death and control over vulnerable beings. In many documented cases of extreme violence, animal abuse was part of a broader developmental trajectory, one marked by desensitization, domination, and gradual escalation.
Take Jeffrey Dahmer. Long before his crimes against humans, Dahmer displayed a sustained fascination with dead animals. He collected roadkill, preserved bones, and dissected animal bodies. These acts mattered not because they were “strange,” but because they reflected an early normalization of death and a lack of emotional response to suffering. Violence did not begin with murder; it was rehearsed.
A similar pattern can be observed in the case of Dennis Rader. Rader later described killing animals during childhood and linked these acts to feelings of power and control. His trajectory shows how small acts of cruelty can function as a first experience of domination, testing boundaries, reducing empathy, and paving the way for escalation.
Even in cases where the record is more debated, such as Ted Bundy, researchers have pointed to early violent tendencies, boundary violations, and cruelty toward vulnerable beings as part of a wider pattern. The exact details matter less than the logic they reveal: violence develops. It is practiced. It becomes familiar.
What these cases have in common is not a single behavior, but a process. Animals are often the first victims because they are accessible, defenseless, and voiceless. Their suffering is easier to ignore, minimize, or excuse. But that minimization is precisely what allows escalation to continue unnoticed.
This perspective deeply informs my work today.
Last year, through Voices for Animal Welfare, we proposed within our campaign Safe for Every Being a focus on the link between child abuse and animal abuse. The aim was prevention. Violence does not exist in silos. Where animals are harmed, other forms of violence may also be present, or may follow.
For me, this connects everything I have done: criminal law, prevention, and animal protection. Recognizing the link between violence against animals and violence against people is not an emotional claim. It is a violence-prevention insight.
Animals are often the first victims.
Ignoring them means ignoring the warning signs.
