may cause the killer to be severely out of touch with reality. Consider Harvey Carignan, a man who was convicted of killing six women, though he claimed to have killed many more. He claimed that he killed the women because God told him to, that God was using him to do away with all of the evil in the world. In psychiatric terms, this type of serial killer could be seen as psychotic as well as antisocial. (Holmes and Holmes 1998) The second group of killers is called the mission-oriented killers. When these kill, they have a goal to target and eliminate certain groups of people. (Holmes and Holmes 1998) Mission oriented killers are able to articulate ambitions of social betterment and utopian aspirations (Haggerty 2009). The mission-oriented killer is not psychotic, he does not hear voices or see visions. He does, however, have a self-imposed duty to rid the world of some unworthy group of people. These people may be Catholics, prostitutes, young women, old men, or any other group of people who deems no longer worthy to live. (Holmes and Holmes 1998) One serial killer of this kind that I came across in the literature is Ronald Dominique. Dominique was teased and bullied throughout the entirety of his school career. He felt powerless in the face of the merciless ridicule of which he was on the receiving end. During his late adolescence and early adulthood, Dominique generated an arrest record including telephone harassment, disturbing the peace, and forcible
The mind of a serial killer is not right and is considered a psychopath. This can be caused by brain damage. “After Henry Lee Lucas was convicted, he underwent numerous neurological tests that revealed fairly extensive brain damage. Small contusions indicated a frontal lobe injury, and there was damage to his temporal lobe and pools of spinal fluid at the base of his brain” (Vronsky, 2005). Lucas’s brain damage is just one cause. Another common reason is that the serial killer would of had an abusive childhood. “Traditionally, the answer has been a horrific upbringing. Most serial killers were abused as children, many hideously so.” (Sandi, n.d) This can have a range of different abusive activities. One example would be an abusive mother. The killer’s mother would have abused him therefore making him hate women. That would be an example of how a man killing female serial killer would relate. He would physically abuse the women just like his mother abused him. Another form of abuse is an alcoholic parent. The serial killer would wait outside of a bar and look to see of his potential victims were under the influence. If they were then they would most likely kill the person. A serial killer can also have a euphoric moment. He could see his
People who have been diagnosed with this cluster are sexually inappropriate, prone to a grandiose view of their own uniqueness and abilities, emotionally unstable, self-centered, lacking and sense of guilt, shame or empathy and are often superficially charming, manipulative and exploitative. Most serial killers exhibit a well known triad of behaviors in childhood: a fascination with fire, cruelty to animals and prolonged bed-wetting. Many become almost uncontrollably interested in pornography as teenagers and anti-social when they reach adulthood. Most were physically and/or sexually abused. However, they appear normal in surface appearance and behavior. Typically with this illness, comes overpowering waves of compulsion to kill that wax and wane over time but normally get worse with age. Serial killers are described by law enforcement as organized or unorganized. Organized killers often appear normal in their appearance and socially. They typically plan their killing, have a mode of transportation and bring some sort of murder “kit”, containing the tools they will need. Most serial killers don’t use guns. The victims usually fit into a certain profile (e.g. gender, race, hair color etc.) and they will hunt down their victims. The organized killer is more likely to have a crime scene picked out, take or discard the weapon, and move or transport the body to a hiding place. In contrast to the organized killer the
Mass murder is defined by the FBI as the killing of three or more people in a single event or in the same day (Petersen & Farrington, 2007). Mass murderers are complex and can be examined by the many factors that regularly appear among them, such as violence precipitating events, weapon of choice, and mental illnesses. The motivations and methods for committing mass murder are easily broken down into specific groups, and through the examination of these definitions and specific cases there is much to learn about the mind of a mass murderer.
A Serial Killer is often defined as a person who murders more than three people in separate events with a "cooling off period" between the killings. Serial killers will often be overwhelmed with a desire to kill often during a period of stress in their lives. After they
You’d be hard pressed to find one in a crowd. The average serial killer generally blends in with everyone else (Directory Journal, 2010). In fact, most are soft-spoken and even polite. Their monstrous nature only comes through when you dig deeper into their personalities, actions, and habits. Most seem to have come from dysfunctional family settings and were emotionally, sexually, or even verbally abused as children (Directory Journal, 2010). It is almost as if this background activates some psychological trigger that increases their feelings of inadequacy or worthlessness that led them to seek out their own heinous form of release.
They see these people as expandable and as a means to an end. They can be divided in two types of Hedonistic Serial Killers: killing for lust or for the thrill. The lust killer kills purely for sexual fulfillment. Their primary motive is sex, even after their victim is dead. They also get pleasure out of the murder. These murders are usually followed by cannibalism (eating the victim), necrophilia (sexual attraction to the corpse), or dismembering. They have a psychological need to be have absolute control and dominance over their victims, and the torture and ultimate death of their victim is an attempt to fulfill their need. They use weapons that require close contact with the victim (e.g. a knife or their hands) (Holmes & Holmes, 1998). Jeffrey Dahmer was a lust killer, after his victims were dead, he performed cannibalism, necrophilia and dismembering. The thrill killer kills purely for the pleasure he/she gets from killing. They usually take a long time to kill, they torture their victims before killing them. After their victims are dead, they lose interest. They believe that they will never be caught (Holmes & Holmes, 1998). Robert Hansen was a thrill killer, he took his victims to a secluded area where he would let them go and then hunt them
Many of times we think of serial killers as all being a Visionary serial killer, especially when we watch films and documentaries on them, often times when they are described as insane, or really detached from the world, and then script right of their kill sites it's often times very bloody messy unclean but not all killers are like this. In fact, Visionary serial killers are the minority. One example of a Visionary serial killer that we learned about in our lectures is Cleo-Green, he was a black male in his early thirties and was in a suburb of Kentucky. Cleo-Green Was quite detached from the world in fact after returning to his car after a night out he believed that there was a demon in his car and the demon
Serial killers are the byproduct of many different things: trauma, death of loved ones, abuse, neglect, adoption, and even witnessing abuse (Are Serial). Serial killers have had to endure a massive amount of something such as trauma or abuse to an unimaginable extent to become what they are; the extent of the abuse, the trauma, the psychological damage they endure is incomprehensible to many. The destruction of one’s innocence can occur at any given time in his or her life, but he or she is more impressionable in his or her youth by the negativism of someone else’s actions (Scott, Shirley L. What Makes Serial Killers Tick ~ Childhood Event). People are susceptible to what they endure in their adolescence, and cruel upbringings, such as
Ever heard of the zodiac killer? He was a serial killer who operated in northern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The killer's identity remains unknown. The Zodiac murdered victims in 5 states between December 1968 and October 1969. The general profile for a serial killer is a person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern. There are many types of serial killers. There are natural born killers who are born willing to kill someone, insane killers which have mental and physical disorders and criminaloids who do not exhibit specific traits. The childhood of a serial killer would typically be someone who is neglected by their family mainly their mothers. They tend to be antisocial and have anger issues. Poor families often cannot provide what the child always wants so they might commit crimes to get want they want. Abused children have a higher chance of being killers also because they have a lot of built up aggression and anger. All can lead to substance abuse which is never a good thing to mix in with a potential serial killer in the making. General behavioral progression from pre-crime to post-crime are that they use killing as a source of relief. Before committing a serious crime they could have built up anger and hatred. They is a high possibility that they are suffering from depression and anxiety too. After killing someone the killer feels relieved. They also feel
There are 4 major typologies of serial murders. One type is referred to as visionary type. A visionary type serial killer murders due to pressure from delusions, hallucinations or visions. They exhibit extreme psychopathy and do not clean up their crime scene. They often report that they have committed the crime because voice in their head told them too. Another type is power and control serial killers, they tend to enjoy their victim’s suffering and torture. They often sexually abuse their victims, but they are not interested by feelings of desire. Mission orientated serial murders feel as through they are doing society a favor by murdering certain people such as prostitutes, drug dealers, or homosexuals, people they feel that society could do without. These murders are very seldom psychopathic. Last, but not least is known as trill-orientated motive type,
Valentine’s Day Massacre”). Mission-oriented killers are murderers that believe they are cleansing the Earth, like the Boston Strangler who had presumed that the women he had killed were worthless. Similar to mission-oriented, disciple killers are deluded in that they are influenced to kill by an influential figure, like the followers of Charles Manson. he last type of organized killer is the thrill-seeker. This killer is sometimes interpreted as disorganized as though they may plan, they often kill impulsively, like James Holmes of the Aurora Shooting who had been equipped like a pseudo-commando but had killed for the thrill. While organized mass murders are premeditated, killers can also be classified into the unorganized category which consists of disgruntled employees, visionary/missionary killers, and the aforementioned thrill-seeker. Disgruntled employees are killers that experience recent termination and lash out, like the workplace shooter Andrew Engeldinger. Visionary/missionary killers meanwhile, kill because they believe that it is the will of a higher power, like the nine assailants of the Paris attacks. Defining and categorizing types of mass murderers is a complex task as breeds of mass killers branch out massively into several subtypes that each reveal aspects and insights like depth of planning, methodicalness, and drive.
On July 20, 2012 James Holmes enter a theater in Aurora Colorado and shot and killed 12 people. Attorneys tested Holmes and called for a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist stated that Holmes was so crazy that he could not distinguish what’s right and what’s wrong during the period he committed the crime. Dr Jonathan Woodcock interviewed Holmes during the time he was in jail on July 24 just four days after the shooting occurred for two hours duration. Holmes’s testimony drew questions from prosecutors that doubted his analyzation of Holmes being severe delusional during the mass shooting. Doctor claimed that they found Holmes suffering from severe mental illness and because of that it made him act violently. Holmes thought that if he snitch and went on and told the public of attempting to kill strangers he would be obligated to pay for the consequences. Doctors testified that one of Holmes delusion was to go out and do what he had to do. Woodcock was a witness by the defense to purpose the idea that Holmes was indeed crazy the moment he shot and killed people dead. Before the shooting occurred Holmes had already symptoms of mental illness disorder which made him anxious and stress and committed the crime.
Serial killers is a person that kill three or more people in a short amount of time. He or she murder one after another in a similar way with an inactive period between each murder. The motivation for murdering an adult or child is based on psychological gratification. The serial killer is normally an adult white male in his late twenties, who has killed four or more individuals in separate incident with an inactive period between. It is impossible to tell just by looking at a person who will become a serial killer, the traits of some criminals or serial killers appear to be similar most of the time. The types of behaviors
There are many people who choose to do bad things and break the law; however, there are people known as serial killers who take breaking the law and harming others to an unbelievable level. Murder is a very serious crime. Murders happen for many different reasons such as turf wars and drugs for gangs, by having an argument with another person and not being able to control your anger, or murdering because of a troubled past. Serial killers often come from a troubled past and seek some sort of revenge to what happened to them when they were younger. Serial killers are people who murder over and over again. There are many different types of serial killers. There are serial killers who choose to rape their victims, choose victims whom they know, choose victims because they are a different gender, choose their victims because of some fantasy that they have, or some even choose their victims to prevent them from going through what they had to go through as a young teen. There is no set description of what a serial killer looks like or if they are a woman or a man. Women serial killers tend to be more alluring with their crimes. Women tend to choose victims they may know but murder in a less heinous way. However, there are more male serial killers then women. The male serial killers tend to keep to the more violent and heinous murders. Although not all serial killers have something happen to them in order
What is a serial killer? Retired Special Agent Robert Ressler, a twenty-two year veteran of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia, is responsible for creating the term “serial killer.” He defines this person as “one who commits a series of murders, usually three or more, the victims most often being strangers, and usually with a cooling-off period in between each kill” (Kelleher & Kelleher, 1998; Pearson, 1998; Ressler and Shactman, 1997). This precise definition is necessary to distinguish this type of predator from the mass murderer (who kills many simultaneously), mercenaries, war criminals, or mafia hit men.