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| This will be the second part of three based on serial killers. Since it has been over a month since my first editorial was published I've also included it in this issue. Thanks for reading. |
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In the last month I renewed one key element to writing a mystery novel, novella or a short story, and that is research. I also discovered that there are a large separation between the media coverage, Hollywood and fact about serial killers. Because of this month's research online and in several books I had to switch my topic from "Married men who commit serial murder" to “what the professionals say about serial killers as a whole with an entire section on “Women who like to kill”. This will be the first of a three part series and it will factoring in the common traits of both sexes who have killed multiple times (which as you’ll discover is not an accurate definition of serial killer).
The most straight forward definition I have found is from Belea T. Keeney and Kathleen M. Heide *: Serial murder is the premeditated murder of three or more victims committed over time, in separate incidents, in a civilian context, with the murder activity being chosen by the offender.
I also must add that most definitions include a minimum number of killings to classify them as serial murders. The number I found was three.
Before I can stray off to the point of this editorial I would like to name some gender-related traits shared between the male and female serial killer.
# Serial killers seem to blend in well with the community as they are exceptionally skillful in presenting themselves so that they appear beyond suspicion.
People, which include the Mystery Writer, often held the misconception that serial killers must look monstrous or evil, which causes them to overlook the pleasant, normal looking murder next door. Ever hear a killers next door neighbor say, "He was the nicest guy on the block. I can't believe he killed all of those people"?
# Serial killers tend to have impaired childhood attachments, formative traumatic experiences, and a private internal world of violent thoughts and fantasies.
This combination leaves the individual isolated, preoccupied, and lacking of socially accepted constraints on behavior.
# If nothing else, serial killers are opportunists, and they seek out conditions that will allow them to kill repeatedly without detection or apprehension.
E. Hickey, studied serial killers for a period of more than 100 years and was able to classify some data on gender, race and age of these repeat offenders.
-- median age of 30
-- 90% Caucasian
-- On average killed between 8 to 14 victims in a period of 4 to 8 yrs.
-- 12 to 17% were women offenders
The researcher was also able to determine that men are more mobile; meaning they are more willing to travel several hundred or thousands of miles to murder. Men are also more violent and more often sexually motivated in their killings. Women tended to commit murder over a longer period of time, had a smaller "Comfort Zone", more often killed for personal gain, and used poison as a weapon more often. Women were more likely to kill their husbands or relatives.
The comfort zone refers to the area in which the killer feels the most safe to commit their crimes.
Hopefully the first couple of paragraphs left you with enough background information for you do one of two things, delve deeper into your own fact finding or wait until next month for my second editorial on this multi-faceted subject.In last month’s editorial I explained the definition of a serial killer and gave some basic characteristics shared between the sexes when committing multiple murders. This month I would like to continue on with some of the differences between the male and female offenders.
Differences in Female Serial Killers:
# Female serial murderers do not generally stalk or torture their victims and usually use poison to kill.
# Most female serial murders kill close to their home or workplace rather than displaying the mobility found in many male serial killers.
# Female murders have shown more of a tendency to kill family members than have males, to be somewhat older than men who murder, and to have killed their victims in the home.
# Female murders have also used guns and knifes as their most common weapons of choice.
# Female homicide offenders have tended to be from the lower socio-economic classes with an attendant lack of education and employment skills.
In one article these differences where written slightly different and will now be included to heighten the information of the reader and to enhance your next mystery novel which may include a female serial killer.
# Some are impoverished individuals without status; others come from privileged classes or the nobility.
#They are single, married, living in common-law relationships, or divorced.
# Many are mothers.
# About a 1/3 are housewives
# 1/5 were employed in health-care positions.
# 15% were ‘career criminals’, deriving their primary source of income from criminal activities.
# Another 15% were housekeepers, waitresses and the like.
# 20% were transient or living with relatives and declared no occupation.
# There is, therefore, no one profile of the kind of woman who commits serial murder.
Despite recent sensational portrayals of women murderers in Hollywood cinema, they still do not figure regularly as killers in fact or fiction.
Women do kill Homicide rates, studied over time, in the US, women account for 12 to 15%, with the same proportion of serial murderers.
Here are some of the characteristics of female serial killers and their victims.
# Generally, the victims of women are conned or overtaken while naturally while in – or rendered into – a vulnerable state.
# Women tend not to kill by means that require overpowering physical force unless the physical strength of their victims- as children, or frail and elderly –makes this possible. A killer chooses his or her method according to what it takes to do their job and how familiar (and confident) he or she is with these means.
# Most female serial killers we know about as the ‘black widow’ and ‘angel of death’ motifs indicate, killed people by poisoning or asphyxiating them: both means which are likely closer to their life experience than, say, shooting. They do not usually use a weapon like a gun or knife in confrontation.
In next month’s editorial I plan on addressing why it is so hard for law enforcement to apprehend a serial killer.
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Mystery: November 22, 2006 Issue [#1391]
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