Jake Bird

Jake Bird (December 14, 1901 – July 15, 1949) was an American serial killer who was executed in Washington for the 1947 murders of two women in Tacoma. He is also known to have murdered at least eleven other people across several states between 1930 and 1947. Prior to his execution Bird had implicated himself in up to 46 murders.

In 1991, criminologist Eric W. Hickey, Ph.D., Director of Alliant International University's Center for Forensic Studies, wrote about how the Bird case challenges stereotypes of serial killers, who are mostly thought to be Caucasian males, whereas African-American killers typically are associated with urban violence. Hickey wrote, "Revelations that Jake Bird, a black man, had actually stalked and killed dozens of white women in the 1940s in dozens of states...continue[s] to challenge traditionally held profiles of serial killers."