Jack The Ripper, The Zodiac Killer

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

Statistically, the average serial killer is a white male from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in his twenties or thirties. Many were physically or emotionally abused by parents. Some were adopted. As children, fledgling serial killers often set fires, torture animals, and wet their beds (these red-flag behaviors are known as the “triad” of symptoms.) Brain injuries are common. Some are very intelligent and have shown great promise as successful professionals. They are also fascinated with the police and authority in general (Scott).

Are Serial Killers Born or Made? It is a common misconception that serial killers are created from their childhood and become sociopaths. The flaw in a serial killer is not that they weren’t love enough, it is a genetic mutation that makes them the way they are. When a person is born disconnected to their orbital cortex they do not have the “normal” feelings that people who are connected to it have.

Throughout time many have had a fascination with serial killers and with help from the media they have become celebrities within our culture. There are many books, movies, television shows, and news coverage to introduce viewers to their lives. With all the interest behind serial killers, many wonder how they come to be this violent. The question is often asked, are serial killers born or made?

In one specific case, being a serial murderer appears to be hereditary. An 8 year-old girl murdered more than her fair share of people before graduating from elementary school. Her mother, with whom she had never met, was a convicted killer. Whether or not this is a rare coincidence, is unknown, but for an 8-year-old girl to brutally murder her peers, she would have to have been subjected to an extreme amount of corruption.

Serial killers not only exhibit similar qualities as adults, but forensic psychologists have discovered that they also possessed parallel childhood tendencies and family lives. It is common for serial killers to have grown up with at least one biological parent present; however, family life is often unstable upon closer look. Other common childhood characteristics of serial killers include being a bed-wetter late in childhood, pyromaniac, and showing cruelty to animals.

“I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in

There are many theories as to why people become serial killers. Almost all of these concepts are associated with the Nature vs. Nurture theory. Are serial killers born with the need to kill, or is it something that they learn to long for as they grew up? Many believe that the nurture theory is the likely concept to believe; that serial killers are created from bad childhood experiences including being abused by their parents, or molested at an early age. Psychologist and sociologist have interviewed serial killers and picked apart their minds, to find out what it is that makes them feel the need to perform these heinous crimes. It is the nature theory that they are looking for when

The nurture part of the debate is how the person was raised. The national center for crisis posted article “Serial killers: nature vs. nurture. How serial killer are born” going into detail about the crimes that have happened and if it was connected to their past and if they were abused at a young age. The serial killer may have been beat when they were young and they learned from their parents.

Bundy was born as Theodore Robert Cowell on November 24, 1946 at a home in Burlington, Vermont for unwed mothers. He started his life as a secret shame. His mother, Eleonor Cowell, also known as Louise, was a 22-year-old unwed woman, whose parents were deeply religious. Bundy was raised as the adopted son of his grandparents and was told that his mother was his sister to hide the fact that he was an illegitimate child born out of wedlock. Bundy later found out that his sister was actually his mother and her husband, Johnnie Bundy, formally adopted him. Bundy grew to be very articulate and intelligent as well as charming. However, when he was younger, Bundy was shy and he didn’t do well with his peers. By the time he was in his teens, he started showing signs of a darker side. Bundy recalled that he wandered the streets looking for discarded pornography and peering into other people’s windows. When Bundy was 18, his extensive juvenile record for theft was dismissed. Eventually, in 1972, Bundy discovered his true passion, which was viciously assaulting his earliest confirmed victim in 1974. Ultimately, Ted Bundy and Charles Manson had completely different upbringings.

No one knows who one of the world’s most notorious serial killer is. The Zodiac was a serial killer that terrorized Northern California. He claimed to have taken the lives of many civilians. While his identity remains unsolved to this day, there are many theories as to who it is. Although many believe the identity of the Zodiac Killer was Arthur Leigh Allen, others believe a few lesser known suspects could have been the Zodiac.

Solving the Zodiac mystery has been a long and involved process for many for the past 40 years, but based on the following evidence, there doesn’t seem to be much of a mystery left. “The self-proclaimed Zodiac Killer, although claimed to have killed 37 people, authorities have only attributed 5 victims to the Zodiac in California around 1968 and 1969. After he mocked police and made threats through letters sent to area newspapers from 1969 to 1974, further communication from him abruptly stopped. Despite an comprehensive search for the killer and the investigation into several suspects, no one was ever arrested for the crimes and the case remains open. The mystery surrounding it has been the subject of countless books, theories, and the inspiration for several movies” (Biography.com Editors).

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

They usually hate their parents. Almost every serial killer is abused as a child, whether it is sexually, emotionally, physically, or psychologically. This abuse may come from a stranger or a family member, but many serial killers try to lie about this history of abuse. Most serial killers have records of early psychiatric problems and often spent time in institutions as children (i.e.: mental hospitals or psychological rehabilitation centers). They have an intense interest in voyeurism, fetishism, and sadomasochistic porn at a very early age, and they also have a very high rate of suicide attempts. Future serial killers share three other traits in their childhoods. More than sixty precent of serial killers wet their beds past the age of twelve. They also have a fascination with fire, which may be an early manifestation of their fondness for mass destruction. In addition, almost every serial killer starts his abuse and sadistic torture on animal victims (Fisher and Fisher, 2003).

One side of this argument is that all serial killers are raised in such a manner that causes them to commit murders. Donald Henry Gaskins is one serial killer that many believe committed his crimes based on the way his family raised him. Gaskins mother Eulea Parrott otherwise known as Molly got pregnant at the age of fourteen when she has sex with “Mr. Gaskins, a wealthy, well-known neighbor of Molly, who loved to gamble and drink… he paid Molly $1 for sex several times a week” (Donald Henry Gaskins). Later Molly would live on Mr. Gaskins farm and get paid ten dollars by Mr. Gaskins each month. Donald would later in his childhood be known as “Pee Wee because of his small height and weight,” and he was “teased and made