Abstract 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). Introduction A serial killer means, the person has killed at least three people or above in a short period. There are many different types of serial killers. Gary Ridgway was “The Organized Killer”; it …show more content…
This could be one of the reasons that made him became a serial killer. As a young child, Ridgway was tested with an I.Q. of 82, which means signifying low intelligence, and his academic performance in school was so poor that at one point in high school he had to repeat to a single school year twice in order to attain grades decent enough to pass (Blanco, 2011). When he was 16, he wanted to know how it feels to kill a person, so he stabbed to a six-year-old boy, but luckily, the boy did not …show more content…
Ridgway, an extreme incarnation of a brutal misogynist, considered killing female prostitutes a “career.” He felt proud of what he did, and thought he was good at it. However, in Ridgway’s mind, he even believed that he was helping the police out, as he admitted in one interview with investigator (Silja J, 2003). It took almost eight minutes for the names of 48 women to read aloud. Each time, Gary Leon Ridgway calmly said “guilty,” admitting to being the nation’s most prolific serial killer as part of a plea deal that keep him off the states’ death row (Vries, 2003). However, deeply in his mind, he never felt guilty of what he had done. To date, the killings have been the subject of one A&E television documentary, “The Riverman,” a well-regarded made for TV 2004 film and an obscure 2005 film, Green River Killer (Mayo, 2008). Most of the people that have met him before, would never know he could be one of the most serial killer in the United States, everyone thought he was a nice person; but sometimes his behavior is a little bit weird. Family could be one of the biggest reason to make what kind of person we are, or who we want to
Arndt, W., Hietpas, T., & Kim, J (2004). Critical characteristics of male serial murderers. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 29(1).
The serial killer that I have chosen to research is Mark goudeau, also known as the “Baseline Killer”. Mark was born on September 6th 1964, he was an american serial killer and rapist. He was involved in one of the two simultaneously occurring serial killer cases going on in South Phoenix, Arizona at that time. Mark’s was born in Phoenix, and was the second youngest of 13 siblings in which six were felons, and four have done prison time. Mark’s mother was a maid working at all different hours of the day, while his father Willie was a lot attendant for different car dealers. They were lower working class which didn’t help with thirteen children to take care of. His father had a drug and alcohol problem, which ran in the family. He later cheated
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.
What are the root causes of a person becoming a serial killer? There have been many different serial killers over the past years, but only one is the infamous “Green River Killer.” Gary Ridgway was dubbed the “Green River Killer” because many of his first victims were found near the Green River in Washington. There are many factors which contribute as to why a person turns and takes their anger out on other people. Some people have a normal childhood with a loving family, while some are not so lucky. A loving family is built around the parents, but if the parents choose violence over love, then that is what the child will grow up only knowing. Gary Ridgway is an American serial killer who killed over sixty women within a twenty year period.
To better understand the case of Gary Ridgway it is important to comprehend a bit more about serial killers in general. Serial murders are extremely heinous crimes that are known to draw in the attention of the public. Serial murder is “the killing of three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period” (Knight). There have been numerous studies done by researchers to try and determine what exactly makes up the mind of a serial killer to lead them to do such things. They have theorized that it may be linked to aspects that are biological, neurological, or sociological; however none of them can be pinpointed as the actual cause (Knight). What theorists have concluded is that it most likely is not just one of those aspects, but a combination of them all as well physiological, psychological, and environmental elements (Knight).
Murderers and Serial Killers in the Chicago Area. A notorious murderer or serial killer is the typical next door neighbor one would hardly associate with a serious crime: an educated psychopath with little regard for life. Most of them commit murder for some misplaced psychological benefit. Their actions border on insanity, as some commit theft by stealing their victims’ belongings and committing rapes, an indication of a need for financial gain or a craving for distorted sexual desires.
The United States is responsible for 67.41% of the entire world’s serial killers on record, approximately 2,743 killers. One man who is a part of this statistic, named John Wayne Gacy, was born on March 17th, 1942, in Chicago, Illinois. Over a period of six years, Gacy murdered over thirty young men. For the first few years, police were not suspicious of Gacy, and he was only investigated for a few months before his capture. Due to the severity and nature of his crimes John Wayne Gacy was categorized as an organized, power-oriented serial killer.
As if molded directly from the depths of nightmares, both fascinating and terrifying. Serial killers hide behind bland and normal existences. They are often able to escape being caught for years, decades and sometimes an eternity. These are America’s Serial Killers (America’s Serial Killers). “Even when some of them do get caught, we may not recognize what they are because they don’t [sic] match the distorted image we have of serial killers” (Brown). What is that distorted image? That killers live among everyday life, they are the ones who creep into someone’s life unknowingly to torture and kill them. The serial killers that are in the movies, Norman Bates, Michael Myers, and the evil master mind of SAW, these characters are just that characters. They have been made up as exaggerated fictional characters from the Hollywood imagination.
As a young child Ridgway was exposed to many arguments between his parents. He was belittled for wetting the bed by his mother whom he had opposing sexual and aggravated feelings for. This was a start to his sexual sadism. At the age of sixteen he stabbed a six year old boy in the woods. The victim and Ridgway said Ridgway walked away say “I always wondered what it would be like to kill someone.” This had begun his passion for harming others. Ridgway tested with an IQ of eighty-two when he was a child which led him to repeating two years of high school. He graduated at the age twenty-one. He later married his high school girlfriend. Ridgway joined the Navy where he would begin to solicit prostitutes while being married. He contracted gonorrhea for the second time in his life but still had intercourse with multiple prostitutes. When he came home to his wife he would ask very strange sexual favors such as sex in public places, which later his victims would be sometimes found. They divorced due to infidelities of both partners and later he remarried. After saying she was put into a choke hold by Ridgway, his second wife divorced him. His second wife gave birth to his first child, it was a boy. He still was having relations with the prostitutes. Ridgw...
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.
Another criminology theory that may apply to help explain the criminal behavior of Ted Bundy is the Psychodynamic theory. This theory is largely based on the findings of Sigmund Freud. The underpinnings of this of the approach are that the unconscious mind affects behavior and emotion. The theory advances the argument that no behavior is without cause and that childhood experiences affect emotions and behavior as adults. Serial killers like Ted Bundy therefore are particularly affected by their unconscious mind. Bundy did not receive proper care as a young boy and the negative impact of his sense of rejection and isolation negatively impacted his adulthood with aggressive tendencies. In short, Bundy’s adult actions under this theory can be viewed as manifesting his anger over his childhood oppression in the form of brutal rapes and
Gary Leon Ridgway may not be a household name, but the infamous Green River Killer is one of the most accomplished serial murderers in U.S. history. In 2003, Ridgway confessed 48 accounts of aggravated first degree murder (more confirmed murders than any other American serial killer) during a two-and-a-half-year period in the early 1980s near Seattle, although it is believed he slaughtered even more. The majority of his victims were runaway teenage girls and hookers whom he picked up on the interstate and strangled to death. But Ridgway was spared the death penalty as part of a plea bargain three years ago, in exchange for his assistance in leading investigators to his victim's remains and revealing other information to help "bring closure" to the grieving families ("Green River Killer Avoids Death in Plea Deal").
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
In Green River, Running Red, author Ann Rule describes a killer without remorse, who is the product of both personal and social influences, in effect forcing him to murder women and to continue to do so for over a decade as a fulfillment of his fantasies. When endeavoring to rationalize the causes of such a mind, theories of deviance, when separated into two distinct categories, positivist and constructionism. Positivist theories, such as the general theory of crime, allows for individual's to piece together events in the life of Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer which would undeniably lead him to a twisted sense of reality, combined with sexual fantasies and a tendency to justify perverted acts of murder. Constructionist theories, specifically conflict theory, are able to shed light on the lives and decisions made by the victims, who were all led to such lifestyles through outward sources. In determining the causes and motivations behind both the offender and the victims, theories of deviance leave little to be speculated on when placing blame on either psychological or social factors.
A serial killer is a person whom everybody knows as a friend, a lover or even a father but no one knows about his killer instinct until it's to late. Serial killers have plagued this country and others for many years. They are hard to find and virtually undetectable until they start murdering the innocent.