Analysis Of Serial Killers In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

What drives serial killers to kill their victims in the most brutal way possible? The answer to that question is still being researched today. The psychopathic mindset of serial killers tend to be influenced by abuse, insanity, and mental illness. In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, Capote shows great examples of mental illness and how being abused can affect their mind. An example of this is when Perry was abused by his parents, he had troubles wetting the bed and sucking on his thumb at ages “normal” people would consider troublesome. Serial killers are often portrayed as bloodthirsty monsters, when in reality, their psychological mindset needs to be considered.
Serial killers embody the worst flaws of our society. Serial killers, from Ted

Bundy to Gary Ridgway, are the most violent and brutal psychopaths that have existed. As defined in Britannica.com, serial killings are defined as “the unlawful homicide of at least two people, carried out in a series over a period of time.” Serial killers are the epitome of evil. Serial killers are killers who have weak motives or personal vendettas against the victims. Serial killers kill for pleasure. Serial killers are people who have zero empathy and their viewpoints are extremely off of society and experienced deep psychological traumas as children. Serial killers torture people and enjoy filming, or recording their pleas by taking pictures and filming videos of their torture.
There are lots of different views of serial killers. Either they are psychopaths that kill for no reason, challenged individuals, messed up people who were abused at a young age, or people with strong mental disabilities or strictly insane. People who may be killers but are excluded include: Nazi war criminals, Mafia killers, political terrorists, gang members, and frontier outlaws (Newton 18). While these people may be technically classified as serial killers in the definition, due to the nature of their crimes they kill with orders.Nazis aren't classified as “serial” killers because they were killing with orders from Hitler. Many people think that serial killers kill based on skin color, but in fact, “65 percent kill only victims of their own race, 10 percent kill victims of another race exclusively” (Newton 21). Since serial killers kill with mostly weak motives, they tend not to kill because of a factor such as skin color. Also members from gangs and cults are technically not classified as a serial killer because they take orders from leaders or people with high ranks and don’t act out of their own needs. Targets of serial killers are mainly people who serial killers know will not be noticed if they are missing. People who can easily be abducted, like hitchhikers or prostitutes, are common victims, due to them being easily attracted to anyone’s vehicle (Newton 20). Serial killers target these specific victims because it’s too easy to get them into the vehicle and if they are missing the police will realize their “job” and they won’t put the case on the “high priority” list. All serial killers are often placed in the same groups as different, vicious serial killers. Some serial killers are as vicious as a person can get, some are just trying to figure out their problems, whether they be mental or physical.
Many people view serial killers as adults who have had some traumatic experiences as a child or not knowing how to deal with their emotions. When a child is beaten or abused often by his or her parents or guardians, signs of psychopathic tendencies begin to form. Early signs include: torturing animals, setting fires, attacking other children, and attacking innocent adults (Newton 16). While there are definitely more warning signs, these are the main ones to keep a look out for. When kids torture animals, it demonstrates their psychopathic mindset with killing. If they are killing innocent animals to “experiment” this shows a potential psychopath in the future. Seventy-four percent of serial killers state they have experienced psychological or mental abuse from their parents or guardians (Newton 16). That is almost three fourths of all serial killer population. These serial killers are extremely confused with where they are at, and these traumatic experiences in their childhood or early teen years have a detrimental effect on their minds. When these terrible events happen to them they have a hard time determining reality from fantasy. In Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood, Perry, one of the killers, states, “I thought I should shoot Dick. [Dick] kept saying: No witnesses. And I thought, He is a witness” (Capote 245). Even though Dick didn’t generally experience abuse from their parents, like Perry, this shows a great example of how a traumatic childhood, such as Perry’s, can influence terrible behavior. Perry isn’t realizing what is reality and what is not, so he thinks about killing his partner. Even though he doesn’t follow through with his plan, he shows signs of a mental disability just like the ones abused serial killers experience. Even though most serial killers end up being abused by their parents, this doesn’t mean that all kids who are abused are going to be serial killers and not all serial killers got their ways from abusers. Some are just plain evil.
Most people view serial killers as just plain psychopaths or strictly insane.

The most obvious perspective is the perspective of a serial killer as a psychopath. Serial killers often kill due to things they themselves cannot acquire. Fourteen percent of serial killings are caused from greed. Most cases are for wants of life insurance or fortune from relatives and wealthy citizens (Newton 17). Killers will begin to first kill for money off relatives. When they receive the “rush” they obtain from taking a human life they intend to continue on. The first kill is out of greed and jealousy, but the rest of the killings are out of a rush. In Truman Capote’s novel In Cold Blood, he talks about the people on death row and their reasons. Two of those men were Ronnie York and James Latham. They went on a killing spree because of one opinion- “the world was hateful, and everybody in it would be better off dead” (Capote 322-323). Killers like these two men are great examples of psychopaths. They have a poor motive to kill and their brains clearly aren’t working properly. Most people experience depression and self-hatred at points in their life, but most don’t deal with their problems by killing innocent people on a pointless motive. Revenge is another motive that serial killers use to gain a rush. One percent of all serial killings are inspired by revenge. Most consist when losing jobs or relationships (Newton 17). Everyone will experience lows in their lives and deal with them in different ways. Serial killers are just psychopaths because they deal with these problems very poorly. When losing a partner or spouse, killing them is not the answer, but serial killers think this is the only way to even out. They harvest this feeling of taking a human life and begin to go on a rampage and continue this horrible addiction. While many think serial killers are just evil or insane psychopaths, people sometimes rarely believe they are adults with mental

disabilities.
Some people view serial killers as adults with strong mental disabilities or emotional issues. These mental disabilities range from schizophrenia to multiple personality syndrome to depression. Two percent of America’s serial killers have escaped their trial due to being convicted of having a mental illness (Newton 70). Serial killers obtain these disabilities from abuse, broken relationships, or being born with a mental illness. Serial killers are often described as evil monsters who always know what they have done and have complete awareness to their surroundings. Two percent is a very small number, and some people believe that due to the nature of their crimes, that they are not tried fairly and equal to what they have mental disability wise. Most serial killers murder because they don't understand how to deal with life’s problems. Sexual desires are the highest cause of killings by serial murderers. Sixty-nine of all cases are caused by sexual desires (Newton 17). Basically serial killers don't understand the concept of love and emotions towards others. Since they don’t understand what love is, they kill instead of going out with the person they find attractive. They see someone who is attractive to them and kill them because they want to “own” that person and never want to “share” them. Besides sexual desires, “strong emotions such as anger or jealousy often fuel crimes of violence” (Rosinsky 63). When serial murderers have an actual relationship with another person, they tend to hold that relationship more important than any other thing in their life. If that relationship were to end, they wouldn’t understand how to deal with this problem. They often kill their ex and that’s when the addiction of killing begins. Serial killers are often not given fair trials at court, but due to the nature of their crimes no one will ever speak up.

Serial killers likely carry some emotional baggage that society does not consider when they judge that individual. Instead society view serial killers as monsters who murder for nothing. Whether they have been abused, have a mental disability or are insane, their brains still would have processed the killings, not the same way as normal people, but they still know what they just have done.. These monsters have destroyed innocent people’s lives and their families and do not deserve to be incarcerated in prison in some occasions. Serial killers with mental disabilities should be placed in a high security mental hospital, while evil or insane killers with nothing wrong with the way they process things should face capital punishment. They kill for unjustified reasons and deal with problems so poorly, that they can’t realize what is fantasy and what is reality. Abuse and self hatred can lead people on a path to insanity.