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Created: 11:38am on 03-24-2005
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Entry #429322, added on 05-29-06 @ 3:53 pm EDT.
[Entry Access Restriction] None.
Title:
What Makes Someone A Serial Killer?
A few days ago in my entry "The "Myth" of the Serial Killer."  I touched upon the case of Ted Bundy, considered by many psychologists to be the most prolific and successful serial killer of all time. The documentary I watched caused me to do a bit of research in the reasoning behind a serial killer’s psyche, and the information I found is very interesting. Well, I feel it is – after all, what makes someone decide to follow such a dreadful path of destruction, violence and death?
I’ve always been interested in what it is that turns a person into someone who apparently enjoys taking another person’s life without any regret or remorse. Despite many years of research and study of different serial killers there doesn’t seem to be one specific cause; instead there are many. Bundy claimed his exposure to pornography when he was just 13 years old is what set him on his murderous path. He was fascinated by the images he saw and the way they made him feel, and as his interest in pornography grew he found himself wanting to see images of graphic violence and murder. The interest graduated from magazines to video footage, and when that no longer satisfied him his fantasies had to spill into reality.
Almost all serial killers have suffered some form of abuse in childhood – be it emotional, physical or sexual. Bundy is unique in that he was brought up in a stable, comfortable home with no sign of abuse. In the interview he gave before his execution he confirms this fact. However he never knew his natural father’s identity, and when he was a child to avoid the stigma of his illegitimacy he was led to believe his mother was really his sister. His mother eventually married the man who gave Bundy his surname when he adopted him, and even then there was never any evidence of abuse. In fact Bundy was a boy scout, a regular churchgoer and a well behaved teen.
Was it the lack of a father figure that blighted his thought processes? Or perhaps the fact he was not told the truth about his parents until he was a teen. Was it, as he claims, the exposure of a young mind to pornography? Or was it perhaps his rejection by his first girlfriend? A girl who has never, for obvious reasons, been named. A girl whose long dark hair with a centre parting was a feature in almost every single one of his victims. Anne Rule, who worked with Bundy on a suicide hotline when he first began stalking and killing his victims, told of how two years after the first breakup Bundy managed to sort out their relationship. They were once again a serious couple, and she accepted his proposal. Two days later he cut all ties with her, refusing to take any of her telephone calls and causing her to have a nervous breakdown. Shortly after he ended this relationship his killing spree began in earnest.
I considered putting some information about serial killers in one of the Horror newsletters, but that’s probably not the best place – I think there are a few young people who might hold subscriptions to this newsletter. Besides, the quote I used in last week’s issue seems to have shocked several readers  … so I thought I’d share some information about this macabre subject for those who may be interested in a relatively safe place – the blog.
As mentioned in the previous entry, the term “serial killer’ was first used in reference to Ted Bundy. It’s actually one of three different terms criminalogists use to different individual types of multiple killers – isn’t it dreadful that there are enough of these people to classify them into three different types?
A serial killer is someone who commits more than three murders during a specific time period, with lengthy periods between each murder. There is often a sexual element to the murders, although this is not standard. The periods that elapse between the murders are known as “cooling-off”, when the killer usually behaves in a rational, normal way. During the “cooling-off” periods psychologists say the killer wears a “mask of sanity”.
On the other hand criminologists have identified the spree killer, who commits multiple murders in different locations. As with the serial killer these murderers carry out their crimes over a specific time period, ranging from several hours to several days. The way they differ from the serial killer is that they do not don the “mask of sanity”, and there is no “cooling-off” period; in other words a spree killer does not lapse into normal behaviour.
The third type – who is perhaps the most common type of multiple killer – is the mass murderer. This individual will kill three or more people at one time and in one location. Some mass murderers will, when captured, claim to have no recollection of their crime; others often commit suicide after committing their murders. This makes it difficult to ascertain their mental state, and it’s almost impossible to understand what happened to cause the mass murderer to kill in this fashion?
I theorise that my fascination in this subject is because I’m interested in what makes people tick, and why they react to certain situations the way they do. I guess it’s an interest in psychology. Or perhaps it’s the realisation that it can take just one bad childhood event to turn a young, eager and trusting mind into something so dreadful and so brutal. Again I feel the line between sanity and insanity is very fine indeed.
Serial killers are everywhere! Well, perhaps not in our neighborhood, but on our television screens, at the movie theatres, and in rows and rows of books at our local Borders or Barnes and Noble Booksellers
Pat Brown, American Psychologist
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© Copyright 2006 Sarah (UN: zwisis at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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