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“A serial killer is someone who murders 3 or more people over a period of over 30 days, this person's motivation has to do with his psychological state of mind.” Despise superstitions a good or bad childhood can lead someone to be a serial killer. Raised as a privileged kid, H.H.Holmes went to college and studied to be a doctor. Something that happened at that school might have influenced him, and led to the building of the murder castle in Chicago. (http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Serial_killer.html? H.H.Holmes born Herman Webster Mudgett, grew up in New Hampshire. He was a privileged child. He had always had an interest in medicine, and used to do plastic surgery on animals. He went to medical school where he met a janitor who was the head of a dead body trade. After college he continued the trade and sold the insides of the bodies to hospitals and schools, he would burn the remains he didn’t sell. It was not proven if he had a psychological disorder or not. What is a psychological disorder? “Psychological disorders, also referred to as mental disorders, are abnormalities of the mind that result in persistent behavior patterns that can seriously affect your day-to-day function and life.” There are many ways to help a mental illness, but there is no way to fully cure it. Most people go to a treatment center to try to help control unhealthy urges, or they might go to a therapist for several days a week. They have to be willing to try to stop these urges, if not they will continue to go on and can lead to greater things such as them physically harming someone. Most people who become serial killers have some type of psychological disorder. Other possibilities would be a bad childhood that raised an anger tow... ... middle of paper ... ...ne who is looking for control. It might not be the childhood that turns someone into a serial killer. It could be the teenage years, when it gets harder to fit in. A psychological order does not just appear when the person has been through something. It has been there since they were born. Making sure that the mental disorder is under control means going to get help early on when the brain is still developing. Like H.H.Holmes for example he had a very privileged childhood.He grew up normal and went to medical school, but had been influenced wrongly during college which led him to do what he did. Considering the times there might not have been enough knowledge on mental disorders that it was hard for them to see when someone had a mental disorder. Also not knowing how to help the disorder, they had not had the medications we have today to help control the disorders.
Most serial killers have a background of neglect and abuse. They may suffer from a mental illness. Also, brain injuries may contribute to their psychopathic tendencies.
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.
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.
Most serial murderers have been deprived of any control over their home, their body, and their entire life. “Psychokillers take their fantasies and make them a reality living their dreams” (Serial Killers: Nature vs. Nurture 2). Both physical and especially emotional abuse is the consistent, reoccurring factor among a majority of serial killers. Traumatic abuse in childhood has long been viewed as a primary cause of violent behavior in adulthood (Dolan 24). Abusive parents do not generally vent their anger equally on all their children. Such parents tend to unleash the anger and negative emotions on their more difficult children; this potential aggression and physical and emotional abuse of the child shapes the future criminal. “Most serial murders are not classified as psychotics, but rather as psychopaths- their perception of reality is clear except that they feel no social or moral obligations” () Killers are taking control of their own lives through their fantasies in the only way they know fit, through
The way a child is raised can affect their mental state as adults proven by Nannie Doss’s history. Since we never caught the Zodiac Killer we can’t compare their childhoods, but in the Zodiac Killer’s psychological profile he grew up in an abusive home. A person can also become a psychopath/ serial killer due to traumatic brain injury. As you can see, a serial killer can be born or raised a cold blooded
The brain scan of a killer often lacks this, meaning that the activity in the frontal lobe is minimal. Without the activity, people often have emotional problems, personality changes, and trouble with their social behavior. Just because a person has frontal lobe damage doesn’t mean that they will grow into a cold blooded killer, there is often other factors that play into it, “Research shows that serial killers have long histories of violence, beginning in childhood with the targeting of other children, siblings, and small animals. They maintain superficial relationships with others, have trouble relating to the opposite sex, and have guilt feelings about their interest in sex” (Siegel 295). Abuse as a child or neglect can also play a role in shaping a killer ("What Creates Serial Killers and Psychopaths: Genetics or Environment?"). With seeing the abuse so much as a child, the person may accept violence into their everyday life and may think that it is
There have been many theories over the years about how a person becomes a serial killer, and how does having an unstable childhood effect a person. It has been proven by psychologist and stated by serial killers that their childhood is one of the many problems they faced that led them to become a serial killer. The childhood of a typical young boy would consist of loving parents, a stable home and having friends. As for serial killers this is not typical at all. During the childhood of a serial killer it is not uncommon that he or she was abused, raped, or even attempted suicide along with many other harmful acts that a child should not be faced with. There have been many studies on the childhood of serial killers, and how they grew up compared to other young children. Some of the traits most male serial killers have as a child would include killing animals, auto-erotic activities, physical head injuries, and even bed wetting.
Serial killers are people who kill three or more people. They don’t have a close relationship with their victims. They are mostly white, younger males, but this might not always be the case. Many serial killers have specific childhood experiences that contribute to their urge to kill. Genetics can play a role, for example; specific patterns of genes found in serial killer’s brains. Many serial killers do at least one of these things as a child: wet their bed, set fires, and torture animals. Child who have problems; for example, being abused either physically or sexually, parent troubles, and school problems can lead to someone being more likely to be a 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.
Ever wondered if there is a serial killer in your community? The characteristics of a serial killer may shock you or be surprisingly familiar to some of you. It is important for society to get informed about the various types of serial killers that are out there. It is essential for families to educate their children about strangers, to be careful with everyone they encounter on the streets, store, and even in their neighborhoods. A serial killer is defined as a person who murders three or more people in at least three separate events, with a "cooling-off period" between the kills. The big question is, what makes a person do these atrocious killings? We will analyze personal histories, categorized serial killers,
By 1978, roughly thirty women were dead and mutilated by the same man with little explanation as to why. Ted Bundy, one of the most infamous serial killers in history brutally took the lives of numerous women for seemingly no reason at all. His justification for these murders was simply that he felt like committing them. A serial killer is defined as someone who has killed more than three people over a period of a month or more for seemingly no reason at all. Most serial killers have no real motive for killing; for them it is an urge that they must satisfy. Was Ted Bundy and others like him always a violent psychopath or did certain events cause him to behave this way? One common belief is that abusive childhoods and other environmental factors are the main reason serial killers develop the way they do. The other belief is that serial killers are born with an innate desire to kill. The answer to this question lies within both arguments and there is no secret serial killer formula. Serial Killers are neither born nor made; instead many factors, both biological and psychological, contribute to the making of these destructive monsters.
Killers have been roaming across the world for hundreds of thousands of years. Society outlaws murder, yet people keep on killing. Among these people who take somebody else’s life, there are serial killers. A serial killer is somebody who commits a series of murders, sometimes with no motive, but usually a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern left behind the crime scene. Serial killing is psychological, someone to be labeled as a serial killer is to have a psychological motive for taking life. Some of the greatest serial killers to have wandered America, searching for their prey are Ted Bundy, H.H. Holmes (Hermman Webster Mudgett), John Gacy, and perhaps the most notorious killer from Wisconsin, Jeffery Dahmer. Jeffery Dahmer,
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).
The biographies of most serial killers reveal significant psychological trauma at an early age, but that is no excuse due to similar biographies of successful people as well. Whenever the case of an infamous serial killer is examined, we invariably search for clues in the childhood that might explain his or her seemingly senseless murders.