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Research studies on serial killers
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Have you ever wondered what makes a serial killer tick and sets them off? What makes them want to kill and what is their drive to continue this horrible, sickening journey through their life or what was the cause for them to change their nature in life and create them into these monsters that we see them as today. It takes tragic experiences to cause that like abuse whether it is verbal, physical, or even sexual to cause a sense of damage to a person’s mind and disrupt their ability to comprehend what is sane and not. Well, Edmund Emil Kemper III had all of the makings of becoming a serial killer due to his troubled childhood.
He was born in Burbank, California on December 18, 1948 and was the son of Edmund Emil Kemper, Jr. and Clarnell Stage. He was the middle child of the family and was the only son. At a young age he experienced the first tragic thing in a child’s life and that is divorce of the parents. When Kemper was 9, his parents divorced and it affected him very much because he had such a close relationship with his father. She verbally abused him, locked him down in the basement in fear of him molesting his sisters. He exhibited antisocial behavior at an early age. At age 13, he killed the family cat and decapitated it and put the head on a stick and buried the rest of the body. He also would take his sisters’ dolls and practice bizarre sexual rituals and dark fantasies. After his mother and father divorced, Edmund ran away from his mothers in the summer of 1963 to find his father. Young Kemper found his father living in Van Nuys, California. This is when he found his father remarried and also the father of another son. He was crushed but he stilled loved his father. Edmund was allowed to stay for a short period of ti...
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...und looked so much alike his father. Maybe these things are what truly influence someone to change their entire mind set and become an entirely different person.
Works Cited
"Edmund Kemper: The Co-Ed Butcher/Killer." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.
Stephens, Hugh. "I'll Show You Where I Buried the Pieces of Their Bodies." With Their Area Already Labeled “the Murder Capital,” Santa Cruz, Cal. Insider Detective, 7 Feb. 1998. Web. 27 Nov. 2013. .
Kemper - Santa Cruz Sentinel. April 25, 1973; Oct 15, 1973; Nov 9, 1973 and June 13, 1997. Encyclopedia of World Crime, Vol. III, pp. 1791-2. (R 364.9 N17).
Blanco, Juan I. "EDMUND KEMPER." Edmund Kemper. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Nov. 2013. .
Schechter, Harold. The serial killer files: the who, what, where, how, and why of the world's most terrifying murderers. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004. Print.
Buckman, Adam. “Following Footsteps of a Killer.” New York Post (Nov. 2002): 124: Proquest. Web. 28 Feb. 2014
Edmund Emil Kemper III was born on December 13, 1948 in Burbank, CA. He was born to the union of Edmund E. Kemper Jr. and Clarnell Strandberg. After his parents divorced, Clarnell took Kemper along with his two sisters to live by her very high standards and abusive ways. She berated Kemper mentally by having him sleep in a windowless basement because she feared of the harm he may cause to his sisters. In turn, this caused the hatred that he had for her to fester and turn into hatred against all women. On many occasions Kemper would break off the heads and hands of his sister’s dolls and also have them play the game he called “The gas chamber” in which he was the victim to be executed (Fisher, 2003a).
In many cases, serial killers began their lives as remotely normal human beings. Most, however, have detectable characteristics of murderers before they hit puberty. Otis O’toole, for example, started a neighbourhood fire when he was six. George Adorno was even younger when he first displayed his pyromaniac tendencies by setting fire to his own sister when he was four. Along with pyromaniac behavior, other often-cited warning signs are enuresis (bed-wetting) and cruelty toward animals. Often, serial murderers are abused physically, psychologically, and sexually as children, sometimes from a stranger, but in most cases from a trusted family member or friend. Typically, they come from broken families, usually...
...dent because he was known to hang out in a bar in Santa Cruz where off duty police officers could be found, asking questions about the murders he had committed. He had even applied to become a police officer (Martingale 222). Kemper, by calling the police and describing details of the murders to get them to believe he was the “coed killer,” was finally getting the notoriety and recognition he felt he deserved for the first time in his life. The label of antisocial personality disorder can be applied to Kemper. He paid no attention to the pain and suffering he caused others and completely ignored their individual rights. This behavior started early in his childhood and continued until he became incarcerated. Edmund Kemper III is a sociopath, a psychopath, the “coed killer,” a serial killer, one of the most horrifying and most serious offenders living in prison today.
Scott, S. L. “What Makes Serial Killers Tick?”. Crime Library. Retrieved April 3, 2014, http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial_killers/notorious/tick/victims_1.html
Common psychological disturbances in the stages of making a serial killer are seen in childhood and are usually based upon mental and psychological abuse endured by a child.
A serial killer is traditionally defined as the separate killings of three or more people by an individual over a certain period of time, usually with breaks between the murders. (Angela Pilson, p. 2, 2011) This definition has been accepted by both the police and academics and therefore provides a useful frame of reference (Kevin Haggerty, p.1, 2009). The paper will seek to provide the readers with an explanation of how serial killers came to be and how they are portrayed in the media. Several serial killers have a definitive and common personality profile.
As years go on so will the research on serial killers and hopefully we as a society will fully understand them and one day be able to cure whatever inside that makes them have the urge to kill. Works Cited The Electronic Journal of Sociology, published by the University of Guelph, Ontario. http://www.scribd.com/doc/167086215/How-Serial-Killers-Work. According to the article “10 Most Common Traits of Potential Serial Killers By Hestie Barnard Gerber. According to Comrade Chikatilo: The Psychopathology of Russia's Notorious Serial Killer.
Serial killers have many frightening facets. The most frightening thing about them is that experts still do not know what makes a human become a serial killer. Many experts believe serial killers become what they are because they have a genetic disposition or brain abnormality while other experts believe that a serial killer is created by childhood abuse; and some other experts believe that it is a combination of both brain abnormalities and abusive childhood experiences that creates a serial killer. A murderer is considered a serial killer when they “murder three or more persons in at least three separate events with a “cooling off period” between kills” (Mitchell and Aamodt 40). When defining a serial killer, their background, genes, and brain are not mentioned; perhaps one day those aspects of the serial killer can be included.
As is intended, Edmund 's psychological development stems not only from his nature as a human being
'Serial murder'; has long been a term used to describe those human beings that repeatedly commit heinous crimes. It is rare that the average person probes the mind of a serial killer without bias. However, what lies behind the eyes of a serial killer deserves more than the cold hard look that society so often gives (Aaronson, Inter...
There have been many serial killer cases that have attracted the attention of not only the media but of mental health experts as well. Many experts from a variety of different fields have come together to answer one question: Why did they do it? It is believed that most, if not all, serial killers have a mental illness, motives, and/or trauma during their lives that made them start killing. Serial killers are not only the effect of nurture but also nature. The environment of their country, the United States is our focus, can cause the number of serial killers to increase especially if the country itself is unstable.
So what makes a serial killer? Levin points out that contrary to popular belief, serial killers don't just 'snap'; or 'go crazy'; (Douglas, p. 137). Many of the serial killers have been the victims of childhood abuse. Jack Levin stated 'Research shows many serial killers suffered abuse, incest or neglect as children and develop poor self images'; (Douglas, p. 137). Serial killers often have a childhood marked by the absence of any nurturing relationship. 'They often come from families where the parents were absent or ineffective, where authority was not defined, and where they could engage in destructive behavior undeterred-violent play, cruelty to animals, and incidents of arson being some of the childhood behavior patterns noted among many serial killers'; (Clark, p. 206).
stigation, Uniform Crime Reports for the United States 1996, Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office ( 1997) Inciardi, James A. "The Wars on Drugs." Palo Alto: Mayfield, 1986 Kennedy, X.J., Dorthy M. Kennedy, and Jane E. Aaron, eds. The Bedford Reader.