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Serial Killer Break Down |
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There is no such thing as a profile of a serial killer- no single description that covers who they are and why they kill. Serial Killers live a normal and an alter life. Behavioral scientists say that serial killers kill over a period of time with at least twenty four hours in between their murders. This twenty-four hour period is called a cooling off period. To be classified as a serial killer, the killer must have at least three or more victims. The majority of serial killers are white males between the ages of twenty-five and forty, and they have at least an average intelligence. Serial killers fall into two groups: psychopaths and psychotics.
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| Psychotics |
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Psychotics are the minority of serial killers. They are usually insane and delusional. They fail to perceive reality correctly and usually hear voices, see visions, or both. Their madness produces an unquenchable murder drive.
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| Psychopaths |
| Psychopaths (also called sociopaths or antisocial personalities) are the majority of all serial killers. They do not suffer from mental illness, but from character flaw. They are not in touch with reality. They do know right from wrong, but they often do not care. They lack a conscience or it is too weak to inhibit the violent acts that they commit. They kill withot guilt or remorse.
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| Justifying the Unjustifiable |
| Many psychologists speculate why serial killers kill. Psychologists have narrowed down all possible reasons for the serial killers to kill to two theories: the theory of Genetics and the theory of environmental behavior. The theory of Genetics says that a serial killer kill due to an inborn predisposition to kill. The theory of environment behavior says that a serial killer kills due to factors in an individuals up-bringing that contribute to the developement. The latter is the more accepted of the two. The theory speculates that the killer goes through a dramatic change in their life. The killer experiences a social crisis where he discovers that he or she cannot be what he wishes to be, or live out his version of the "Great American Dream." When the killer reaches this existential divide, the seeds are planted for a vengeance spree.
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| Motives |
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There are so many motives behind why they kill. Sometimes they are conscious of them, and someitmes their acts are only slightly understood. They, the serial killers, are motivated by the desire to even the score with the class group that they feel has oppressed them or excluded them. Some require minimal justification for their acts obtaining temporary relief through their rage and from the adrenaline of their killings, then forgetting or compartmentalizing their memories. Some construct intellectual (Carl Panzram) or spiritual (Son of Sam and his demons) reasons to explain and justify their killings. Only a few (Joseph Kallinger, and California's Hubert Mullins who murdered to "stop earthquakes") detach themselves from conventional reality and construct their own universe where they use their godlike powers to decide who shall live and who shall die; this place is what psychologists like to call "madness". Then some of them are merely "addicted" to the act as if it were a potent drug.
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| The Man Next Door |
| Perhaps the serial killer's most frightening quality is his or her ability to blend into society. The serial killer seems normal; he may even be intelligent and charming. Ted Bundy, who killed countless numbers of women, was this sort of psychopath. Beneath the suface of the killer, two traits are almost always present: sexual abnormality and a consuming need for power. Killing satisfies them sexually and it satisfies their need for control- the control of life and death, and desire- desire in the victim's agony, expressions of terror, cries of dispair, and reactions to pain. Simply put, killing gives them pleasure. They kill because they want to, and, strangely enough, because they need to.
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| Famous Serial Killers |
Ted Bundy
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| Source |
| Information provided by Forensic Science scholar Candice Zamudio. HTML by James Edmondson.
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