Serial Killers Essay

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

Serial murder is one of the most baffling crimes that occur in the U.S. and all over the world. Knight (2006) defines serial murder as the killing of three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period. The cooling off period may be weeks, months or even years long. Researchers have proposed various psychological, biological and sociological theories that offer a partial understanding of the nature of serial murder. Some propose that the basis for criminal behavior is a predisposition to violence as well as a mix between environment, personality traits and biological factors. Serial killers are predominantly male. Only 3 percent of serial murders are committed by women (U.S. News and World Report,

According to studies led by King’s College researchers, it has been confirmed that “psychopathy is a distinct subgroup of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)” (Gregory et. al n.p) and similarly to psychopathy, the more severe ASPD behavioral patterns are, the symptoms can be referred to as sociopathic or psychopathic. Furthermore, according to Nigel Blackwood, Ma, MD.MRCPsych, “MRI scans...found that psychopaths had structural brain abnormalities in key areas of their ‘social brains’” (Gregory et. al n.p). The areas of the brain, in which are deficient in psychopaths, are important when comprehending an individual emotions’, intentions, and moral

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

Several serial killers have a definitive and common personality profile. Almost every major social, biological, psychological behavioural influence that has been seriously suggested as playing a role in causing crime has been thoroughly thought as potentially

4. Serial killers also show signs of a psychopath though this is not always the case. Psychopaths lack empathy and guilt, are egocentric and impulsive and don’t conform to social, moral, or legal norms. Psychopaths have a distinct set of rules for themselves. They appear normal and are often very charming and charismatic.

Studies show that traits of a serial killer can be seen in a person at a very young age. Most warning signs go unnoticed which is why the growth of the killer continues. A thing such as animal cruelty is one of many clues inside the growth of a serial killers mind “They often start out their careers by maiming, harming, and torturing small animals.” “In extreme cases, they have been known to spend hours inflicting a slow death on animals...this is a form of control that allows them the power to crave” (Kocsis,2008) . Many future serial killers also show a major interest in setting fires. Even though it is common for most young children to show a slight interest in fire, those with serial killing in their future are somewhat pyromaniacs.

Creeping around the shadowy house, the predator found its prey waking to strange sounds. The victim lay facedown, with a sweating forehead pressed fearfully into the pillow, silently praying the noises would just go away. Suddenly the victim found himself straddled and pinned to the bed. He was unable to scream for help due to the pressure of the handle of a pick-axe against his throat, preventing any breath from escaping, much less any sound. The victim struggled beneath the weight of the assailant. The scant light from the sodium-arc street light outside cast a peculiar silhouette on the walls of the darkened room, projecting an image that looked oddly like that of a cowboy saddled upon

Due to its primary role in processing memory and emotional reactions, over the last decade and a half psychologists have been linking the amygdala to psychopathy. It is involved in aversive conditioning and instrumental learning and is thus involved in all the processes that, when impaired, produce the same functional impairments displayed by psychopaths. Two famous studies conducted by Tiihonen and Kiehl respectively have confirmed this. Tiihonen used a volumetric MRI to test and confirm the positive correlation between low amygdaloid volume and a high degree of psychopathy in violent criminals (measured by the Hare checklist-revised) while Kiehl used a functional MRI to prove reduced amygdala response during an emotional memory task in individuals who scored high on the Hare checklist-revised. However, both these studies along with numerous others were conducted using violent offenders as subjects rather than individuals with psychopathy. Although many psychopaths do exhibit violent tendencies, not all violent offenders are necessarily psychopaths. A study conducted by Raine is one of the few that did focus only on individuals exhibiting psychopathy. In his study Raine was able to show reduced prefrontal grey matter in his test subjects. Unfortunately though, he was unable to differentiate between grey matter in different regions of the prefrontal cortex. It is however clear that there is one region of the frontal cortex that could be

Also, individuals with autism have been shown to lack this ability, yet we do not attribute with a lack of moral judgement. The solution to understanding the differences between psychopaths, autistic individuals, and normally developed individuals, Nichols asserts, lies in finding a deficit present in psychopaths and not autistic individuals. Due to the non-rationalist explanation of lack of responsiveness to harm of others in psychopaths, the evidence points towards a Humean account. Thus, Nichols concludes that this deficiency is to be found in affective capacities.

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

But even if neurobiology is found to be the predominant factor in determining antisocial or even psychopathic behavior in a person,

(Hassabis et al., 2007), has recently been shown to be impaired in patients with vmPFC damage (Bertossi et al., 2016). A classic hallmark of vmPFC damage is altered moral decision making (Ciaramelli et al., 2007, 2012; Koenigs et al., 2007; Thomas et al., 2011).

For over a century, the case of Phineas Gage has intrigued everyone interested in the functioning and malfunctioning of the brain. Recently, Gage's brain has been thoroughly examined and the damaged area has been more exactly pinpointed. The solving of the Phineas Gage case, however, has served only to raise more questions, particularly those concerning morality, judgment, and the internal sense of self. If the mechanisms responsible for these markers of human sociability and temperament are simply functions of the nervous system, where, exactly, are they located? What do they do when they are functioning? What do they do when they are malfunctioning? Through the

Abnormalities within the Anterior Rostral Prefrontal cortex and Temporal Poles have been studied to see that the lack of grey matter that triggers empathy can cause some people to commit violent crimes. A psychopath is a person with a psychopathic personality, which is apparent as amoral and antisocial behavior (such as Adam Lanza). Usually they display a lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme self-interest, and failure to learn from experience. People who suffer from this, compared to violent offenders that are healthy, have structural differences in their brain that cause them to have less grey matter in certain areas. These areas of the brain are important for processing others people’s emotions, intentions, fear and social skills (Kate Kelland) so, when people are lacking in these areas they become dangerous.