Profile Details

S. A. Deepak is the pioneering researcher on serial killing in India, known for advancing the systematic study of extreme violent behavior within the Indian context. His work includes some of the earliest in-depth case studies of serial killers from Kerala and Tamil Nadu, offering detailed insights into offender trajectories, behavioral patterns, and socio-psychological backgrounds. Through extensive qualitative and longitudinal analysis, he has proposed the Life-Course Theory of Serial Killing, a developmental framework that explains how individuals evolve into serial offenders over time. His research bridges criminological theory, forensic psychology, and investigative practice, contributing to a more nuanced understanding of repetitive homicidal behavior. Distinctively, his scholarship focuses on rare and underexplored forms of violence in India, examining phenomena such as multiple murders, mass murders, familicide, filicide, and necrophilic behavior, areas that remain largely neglected in mainstream criminological research. Furthermore, he has contributed to the criminological lexicon by coining the term 'Romanticide' in the academic sense to conceptualize distinct patterns of lethal violence in nonmarital romantic relationships. He is the author of The Unfathomable Lives: Biographies of Indian Serial Killers, which presents comprehensive biographical analyses of offenders and their pathways to crime. With over 15 years of experience in teaching and research, he serves as a faculty of Criminology at the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), Gandhinagar, Gujarat. He is also the founder of Criminologia E Cinema, a unique national initiative started in 2022 that utilizes cinematic art as a medium for criminological education and public engagement.