A person who commits a series of murders, often with no apparent motive and typically following a certain characteristic, predictable behavior pattern, is known as a serial killer. No one grows up thinking that one day they're going to become a serial killer. Everyone has their reasons for doing what they do, most of the time it is based off of how you were brought up. Were they neglected? Were they sexually harassed or watched someone be harassed? There is clearly something that was brought out in them, that lead them into falling through with these actions. Gary Ridgway was born on February 18, 1949 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Gary, the middle child along with two other siblings, Gregory and Thomas. They all share the same parents, Thomas …show more content…
They married and not too long later he enlisted into the Navy and was sent to vietnam. “In the Navy, he started having sexual encounters while in ports with prostitutes regularly and contracted Gonorrhea. He blamed the prostitutes for infecting him, which began his life long late for prostitutes.” After he came home he found out his wife was having an ongoing affair which led to their divorce. In 1972, he was discharged from the Navy and found himself back in his hometown. He acquired a job painting designs on trucks. Gary had married quickly to a woman named Marcia Winslow. It is said that early in their marriage they would have sex in outdoor places in the Western Washington area, which happens to be where some of the bodies he murdered were found. Macia and Gary had a child together, who is named Matthew. After Matthew was born, Macia was not always available to Ridgway in a sexual sense anymore. “His demeanor towards her began to change and his idea of foreplay on some occasions was to choke her.” They later got divorced in 1981. Ridgway went on and got married one more time in 1988 to Judith …show more content…
When he first started he targeted mostly prostitutes and other young runaways. The women were usually between 15 and 40 years of age. He had no particular ethnicity he would go for, did not matter if they were black, white, hispanic, or asian. He did not care about their physical features either, but rather convenience. The one thing he typically chose was if they seemed to be “vulnerable”, or “east to get alone”. All these occurrences happened near his home in Seattle, Washington. He would pick the women up where the girls had been reported to have disappeared and he would often bring them home. He would show them pictures of his son, Matthew, in order to gain their trust. He would have sex with these women, but would tell them he would pay them after they were finished. When he first started, he would strangle the women after sex by hand, but as he later progressed he started using ropes and belts and other ligatures so it would not draw as much attention. He either killed his victims in his home or his truck. Later, would dispose of the bodies in what he called “clusters” along the banks of the Green River, where he would then go back and have sex with the
In 1982, police received a call about a body floating in the Green River in Salt Lake City, Utah (it was just one of many bodies that they were going to find). Police were stunned when they started receiving more calls about bodies found in parks, play grounds, and near highways. When police learned that all of the victims were prostitutes, they knew this was a key piece of evidence in their investigation. No one could have ever known that Gary Ridgway just started one of the largest killing sprees in American history. Ridgway grew up in a house where he was abused and harassed by his mother, Mary Ridgway. Ridgway soon began growing a strong hatred towards his abusive mother. Ridgway had begun thinking of some ways he could get back at her by hurting her, but he never did. According to American Murder, Ridgway went through numerous divorces and had a history of interacting with prostitutes (Mayo). ). Ridgway’s past with women soon made him develop a strong dislike for them and led to his killings.
Gary Ridgway was born in Salt Lake City on February 18, 1949. He was the second of three brothers. Ridgway’s parents were Thomas Newton Ridgway and Mary Rita Steinman. At the time, they rented a room near a local high school. Ridgway’s older brother, Gregory, was born in 1948. Ridgway’s younger brother, Thomas, was born in 1951. In 1960, Ridgway’s parents moved the family into a small three bedroom house in a neighborhood called McMicken Heights which is now the City of SeaTac. He was “Raised near Seattle’s Pacific Highway, a deprived neighborhood near SeaTac airport …” (Biography, 2013). They lived in a working class neighborhood where many other kids lived also. All the kids played together and walked to school together. Ridgway’s father was a metro bus driver whose route was the Pacific Highway South into Seattle. The route went through the infamous strip where Gary would later find so many of his victims. His father also enjoyed running garage sales. Ridgway’s mother was a ...
The marriage ended when Gacy was imprisoned for ten years at a correctional institute in Waterloo, Iowa for various sex and violent crimes against young men. In 1971 Gacy was arrested again for trying to rape a teenage boy.
In order to identify serial killers before they kill repeatedly, a person needs to study the characteristics that makes up this type of criminals. Most serial killers have been abandoned, by one or both parents, they are emotionally, physically, and even sexually abused by a family member, or relatives from unstable families who have criminal, psychiatric and alcoholic histories, or tend to have hate for their parents and people in general which makes them have antisocial personality disorder. They have conflicted pain or tortured animals at a young age and most are highly interested in gaining control over things. Even though not every serial killers posses these characteristics, but most share these characteristics the same way they share the psychological need to have complete control and power over people.
This paper is talking about “The Serial Killer,” but focus on Gary Ridgway- “The Green River Serial Killer.” He earned his nickname because the first five victims that he killed were found in the Green River. He was one of the most famous serial killers in the United States. Ridgway raped, chocked, killer and discarded 48 women, including many teenagers as young as 15 years old (Silja J, 2003). In Ridgway’s mind, he even believed that he was helping the police out, as he admitted in one interview with investigators (Silja J, 2003).
A serial killer is a person who has killed three or more people over a month apart. Their motivation for killing is usually based on psychological issue.(Sanmartín,2001) In the U.S, the most reported serial killers are lower middle class white males, usually in their late twenties to early thirties (Skrapec,2001). Serial killers, often, are liars. They have no sense of remorse or guilt. Most of the time they are not in serious relationship or have any emotional obsession to any one person, besides their victims. Most of the well-known serial killers are: Robert Pickton, Charles Manson, Anthony Sowell, Ted Bundy, The Zodiac Killer, The Green River Killer, and The BTK murderer. (Sanmartín,2001). Often, women were never seen as even a suspect
A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification. Most people do not understand what can make a person want to kill multiple people for no reason other than their own satisfaction gain. In actuality, serial killers have been studied for over hundreds of years, and the information that has been documented continues to grow. The research that I have gathered about serial killers focuses on their childhood development, the differences and similarities between male and female serial killers, and finally general information on how their brains operate and their motives for committing such harmful acts. There have been many theories over the years about how a person becomes a serial killer, and how having an unstable childhood affects a person.
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.
A serial killer is defined in Webster's Dictionary as someone who murders more than three victims one at a time in a relatively short period of time. There is no one generic profile to identify a serial killer. They usually are people seeking for a sensation, a lack of guilt or remorse, a need for control, impulsivity, and predatory behavior. These traits make up a psychopathic personality disorder. Psychopathy is a disorder manifested in people who use a mixture of charm, manipulation, manipulation, and occasional violence to control others, in order to satisfy their own wants and needs. There are four main types of serial killers; thrill seekers, mission-oriented, visionary serial killers, and power and control killers. There may be other
Who are these people? What makes them so different from the rest of us? Why do they commit these shocking crimes? There are theories but no answers. Serial killers are a disturbing piece of the puzzle that we must figure out to save numerous lives in the future.
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.
...who most likely have had some kind of childhood problem such as divorce or lack of a parent. They might be thinking that they are doing the world a favor, or in search of power of people, or just simply just find pleasure in killing. As to why serial killers have been increasing over the past thirty years, there is no certain answer to it, but hopefully it stops increasing soon and decreases instead.
Serial killers are usually young, white males who are quite intelligent and often come from broken homes. They may have been abused either physically or sexually during childhood and they have serious personality defects, such as low self-esteem and a lifelong sense of loneliness. Although no two serial killers are alike, they all fit this description somewhat. In the sixth edition of Crime and Criminality by Sue Titus Reid, a serial killer is defined as a person who commits more than one murder but at different times (Reid, p. 134).
In the sick minds of those who murder, pain and death are twisted into a passion to kill. Unlike a “normal” individual, serial killers rely on murdering to fulfill their craving of their gruesome thrills and addiction. Most of society incorrectly views serial killers because of how they are portrayed on television. For example, Dexter is a handsome serial killer who does lead a normal life but, he takes it upon himself to rid all of the “bad guys” in the world in order to accomplish his need to kill. Then there’s Freddy Krueger, he gets revenge and kills people in their dreams, causing their death in the real world as well. Michael Meyers and Dr. Hannibal Lecter are more examples of infamous serial killers. All of these exaggerated serial killers created are not only feared in movies and television shows, but in real life too.
Serial killers are defined as a person who kills multiple people over a long period of time. Everyone has experienced unique events throughout their life that shapes their personality and how they interact with people around them. In the case of Ronald Dominique, a serial killer who suffered a traumatic event while in jail, he was raped by an inmate. Although this event triggered his serial killings it does not justify his actions. Serial killers are justly punished for their actions with life sentences because they can no longer function as law-abiding citizens.