This case shows why the days of the big serial killers are done. I reckon it would be virtually impossible to kill 20 people anymore without being spotted on video.
Serial killers will always be with us, I suspect. But murderers like Ted Bundy, who operated in populated areas, would probably be found much more quickly given the prevalence of video today. Although Tim's case took place in a rural area, it is one that is highly populated and where many businesses are located, thus the plentiful security video found that is relevant to the case.
If you go to very sparsely populated or wilderness areas, such surveillance systems are few and far between, and so are cell phone towers (though any serial killer with half a brain would be taking the battery out of his cell phone). Killers with M.O.s like the "Green River Killer" (Gary Ridgeway) or Cary Stayner could simply select victims in remote areas (hitchhikers, or ones working on a vehicle by the road) and decamp to another remote location for the rest of the crime. One reason for so many missing and murdered indigenous women is that they tend to be in areas not heavily surveilled and for which information on the crimes is hard to obtain (there is also a bias against proper investigation in some cases, but the locales do play a role).
We don't have to look too far away for cases that suggest that location is a variable. Think of the murders of the Lyle and Marie McCann in Alberta a few years ago. Their bodies have never been found. There is circumstantial evidence against Travis Vader but no video. The Crown may not be able to convict Vader:
http://edmontonjournal.com/news/cri...es-uphill-battle-in-travis-vader-murder-trial
Then there was the murder of Nathan O'Brien and his grandparents in Calgary two years ago; there's certainly strong circumstantial evidence of violence, but again, no bodies found and no compelling (video or telephone) evidence, so far as we know, against the major suspect in the case. A publication ban was issued at the time of his preliminary hearing, so there may be more evidence that we won't learn about until later.
But a canny serial killer could still have numerous victims if he selected the most vulnerable in remote locales and avoided cell phones. Hitch-hikers and runaways are obvious potential targets, as are wilderness campers and hikers. Even in a populated area, killers can get away with it with no evidence found, as in the case of little Cedrika Provencher in Trois Rivieres in 2007. There is no evidence whatever in the case, even though she went missing in a populated neighbourhood. It was Nicole Morin all over again.
Modern technology certainly makes catching serial offenders early on much more probable, though.
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