Serial Killer History

As if molded directly from the depths of nightmares, both fascinating and terrifying. Serial killers hide behind bland and normal existences. They are often able to escape being caught for years, decades and sometimes an eternity. These are America’s Serial Killers (America’s Serial Killers). “Even when some of them do get caught, we may not recognize what they are because they don’t [sic] match the distorted image we have of serial killers” (Brown). What is that distorted image? That killers live among everyday life, they are the ones who creep into someone’s life unknowingly to torture and kill them. The serial killers that are in the movies, Norman Bates, Michael Myers, and the evil master mind of SAW, these characters are just that

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.

A serial killer is someone who has murdered at least three people on at least three different occasions with a break between the murders (Egger, 2002; Hickey, 2002). … It is likely that they kill during a time of stress and after it is done, they feel temporarily

In order to identify serial killers before they kill repeatedly, a person needs to study the characteristics that makes up this type of criminals. Most serial killers have been abandoned, by one or both parents, they are emotionally, physically, and even

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,

Serial killers are a relatively rare, yet commonly publicized, part of our society. The media portrayal of serial killers skews the opinions and creates a stereotype of murderers for the public. James Knoll, MD states in his article, “Serial Murder: A Forensic Psychiatric Perspective”, that no evidence supports the idea that serial murder is a “growing epidemic” as people believe it is (qtd. in Johnson-Sheehan & Paine, “Writing Today”, pg 332). This misperception of serial killing was exhibited in the way the media portrayed the “Hillside Strangler”, a murderer who was killing women in the Los Angeles area by strangling them and leaving them nude in the hilly areas in 1977. The articles reporting the

Henry Herman Holmes was known to many as the first American serial killer. Better known as just H. H. Holmes, he committed many murders in a suburb on the south side of Chicago during the late 1800’s. Holmes once admitted to police that he killed 27 people, but many actually predict that the number of murders he committed is near 200 (Handley). So what is the real number of people that he killed? Let’s take a closer look at the facts of Holmes’ life, occupation, and the mansion that he built to determine how many people he may have actually murdered.

Serial killers have plagued the world since before the 1500s. Theories have evolved over long periods of time for explanations as to why people begin killing. The earliest explanation was rooted in witchcraft and demonic possessions overtaking the person causing them to commit these acts of violence. Biological, psychological, and social theories have emerged over the years as society has developed and advanced. The latest theory suggests that the behavior of serial killers results as a combination of biological, psychological, and socialization factors. Despite the numerous theories trying to explain the phenomena of serial killing, no one knows exactly why or how seemingly normal people begin killing others. One of the most infamous serial killers was Donald Harvey. Harvey was a self-proclaimed “angel of death.” He murdered dozens of victims as a hospital aid. Due to Harvey’s difficult childhood and prolonged sexual abuse,  Donald developed a psychopathic-type personality disorder and killed dozens of victims.

Serial killers can be defined as a person who kills multiple people over a long period of time. American media spreads stereotypical information about serial killers. The media portrays serial killers as either a monster or a charming guy next door (Forsyth 868). Serial killers cannot be fitted into the medias cookie-cutter definition. Everyone has experienced unique events throughout their life that shapes their personality and serial killers are not an exception. Ronald Dominique, a serial killer suffered a traumatic event while in jail; he was raped, and this event triggered his serial killings. “Serial murderers like those who kill only once, fit into no single profile; and create too wide a burden to be explained with one idea. They do seem to have one similar characteristic –that is; to blend into society and appear normal” (Forsyth 872).

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

Men, women, and children from all over the world came to experience the Chicago World Fair in 1893. Little did they know, about 200 of them would fall victim to Herman Mudgett. Herman Webster Mudgett, or more commonly referred to as H. H. Holmes was known as “America’s First Serial Killer”. Holmes had over 200 estimated victims, whom he had specifically picked out from the Chicago World’s Fair crowd. Chicago’s encounter with Holmes changed how people lived their own lives, people’s outlook on America, and even how the law was enforced and dealt with.

A serial killer could be dining, sitting, or even living next to you at this very moment. Most killers offer little to no obvious clues that will lead anyone to detect their often secretive, undercover actions. I ask myself, “How can we be so naive to these types of people?” Serial killers amongst us are often well educated, portray an All-American image, yet have a psychotic side to them.

go back as far as the fifteenth century, only a few were written about prior to

“The serial killer ‘is an entirely different criminal,’ ”The term serial killer is misleading on the ground that each murder is intended to be the last.” We see them as a figure of “the dark side of human potential,” but they believe they’re “on a heroic quest for the biggest score possible” They believe they are “the archetypal figure of impurity, the representative of a world which needs cleansing.” However, society knows that serial killers are not heroes, and they’re not cleansing the world. “The figure of the serial killer is violent impurity personified, and it is a construction that necessitates figures of violent purity to confront it.” While it can be argued whether having mental disorders should prevent a serial killer from being capitally punished, it is proven that many serial killers suffer from “paranoid schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, or psychopathology.” It’s even said that “this crime is actually a form of disease. Its carriers are serial killers who suffer from a variety of crippling and eventually fatal symptoms, and its immediate victims are the people struck down seemingly at random by the disease carriers.” Serial killers usually have a stressor in their life that makes them start killing, and when they do “homicidal mania becomes ‘a necessity… linked to the very existence of a psychiatry which had made itself autonomous but needed thereafter to secure a basis for its intervention by gaining recognition as a component of public

The TV commercial: To the sound of the song "Psycho Killer" by "Talking Heads" we see headshots of serial killers: Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz, Aileen Wuornos, David Parker Ray, Carl Panzram etc.