Characteristics Of Serial Killers

Serial killers are possibly the most evil form of human life in existence. They find joy in inflicting pain in others and will find grotesque ways in manipulating and hurting people to gain satisfaction. The general profile for a serial killer is shown through a few common traits. Serial killers typically are power hungry, manipulators, egotistical, charming, and good at blending in. Serial killings are separated from mass murder by a cool-off period and the crimes being committed over several locations. Not all serial killers are the same, they all have different motives for their senseless killing. Thrill seekers, power/controllers, lust killers, visionaries, and mission-oriented killers are the main people who kill with these motives. Thrill

Power seekers are typically sadistic and they like to dominate and control people, they typically were abused as child which left them feeling powerless so they compensate by killing people. Lust killers are those with twisted sexual fantasies, these killers rape and kill their victims as a way to live out there fantasies. Visionary killers suffer from serious psychological problems in which they believe a spiritual being, as in God or some demon commands them to commit crimes of murder. Mission-oriented killers believe it is their duty to rid society of those they deem undesirable such as people of different races, homosexuals, prostitutes, drug-dealers or anyone else they see as parasitic in society. With each type of serial killer the profile changes, for example lust killers are typically charming as to lure in their victims. Power seekers are usually big manipulators who feed off of

Many serial killers were sexually abused as children and this left them with a twisted viewpoint on how sex is supposed to be so they end up committing rapes. Often children who were verbally abused or neglected as children commit crimes when they are older because of the brain chemistry that was warped when they were young. Sometimes serial killers before they commit their first crime seem like normal, healthy people but there are subtle clues that lead up to the killer they are about to become. For example, Ted Bundy who murdered at least 36 women was using pornography heavily where he became numb to it and needed to act out his fantasies to feel any excitement. Before that many people reported him being a relatively normal and friendly guy. Jeffrey Dahmer who grow up in a healthy household was a loner and had a strange interest in dissecting roadkill as a child, eventually he murdered 17 people and dissected them, storing organs in his freezer. Some people simply have serial killer tendencies and have always been aggressive in nature with an obsession with death. But something comes along that triggers them to act out these abnormal tendencies with the motives stated above. Criminologists use the nature of the crimes to develop a profile on the serial killer, they look