Jennifer Hillier’s The Butcher is set against the backdrop of a real-world panic that gripped the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and 1980s, when the region became infamous as a hunting ground for serial killers. High-profile murderers like Ted Bundy, who preyed on young women across Washington and Oregon in the mid-1970s, Randall Woodfield, known as the I-5 Killer, who sexually assaulted and murdered at least 10 victims along the I-5 corridor, and the Green River Killer (Gary Ridgway), who was responsible for at least 49 murders in the Seattle area beginning in the early 1980s, created a climate of intense public fear. Killers like these created both panic, which resulted in curfews and intense public scrutiny, and pressure on law enforcement.

Recent scholarship around the spate of serial killers based in the region offers varied explanations for the phenomenon, including geography and environmental concerns. Caroline Fraser’s 2025 book, Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers, posits that the phenomenon is the result of industrial pollution. In support of this theory, The Harvard Gazette points out, “Ted Bundy, whose crimes and background are discussed more than any other character, grew up in the shadows of the ASARCO copper smelter in Tacoma, Washington. Gary Ridgway grew up in Tacoma, too, and Charles Manson spent 10 years at a nearby prison, where lead has seeped into the soil” (Sweet, Jacob. “Why was Pacific Northwest home to so many serial killers?” The Harvard Gazette. 19 Aug. 2025). Other theories point to the dark, heavily forested region as a factor, allowing crime to often go unseen. In addition, the highways winding through the area have been pointed to as a factor, facilitating a highly transient population in which victims and killers alike could disappear unseen.

Media coverage of these cases was relentless, fueling what the novel describes as the “mass hysteria that had taken over Seattle” (39). This atmosphere of paranoia is central to the fictional Beacon Hill Butcher case, which culminates in April 1985, a period when the Green River Killer was still actively terrorizing the region. Hillier leverages this historical context to build a believable world where a killer could operate for years, generating immense pressure on law enforcement. The novel notes how, during the manhunt, “[t]he city had been on the verge of imposing a curfew” (39), a detail that reflects the real-life anxieties of the era. The immense public and political pressure to stop the Green River Killer led to one of the longest and most expensive criminal investigations in US history. This history and context offer a credible motive for the police to seek a swift resolution, elevating Captain Edward Shank to the status of a local hero after he supposedly stops the Butcher.