Serial Killers
Serial Killers Revealed
Profiling Serial Killers (What Makes Them Tick?)
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The Psychological, Sociological, and Biological Element
• Predisposition to serial killing, much like other violent offenses, is biological, social, and psychological in nature, and it is not limited to any specific characteristic or trait.
• The development of a serial killer involves a combination of these factors, which exist together in a rare confluence in certain individuals. They have the appropriate biological predisposition, molded by their psychological makeup, which is present at a critical time in their social development.
• There are no specific combinations of traits or characteristics shown to differentiate serial
killers from other violent offenders.
• There is no generic template for a serial killer.
• Serial killers are driven by their own unique motives or reasons.
• Serial killers are not limited to any specific demographic group, such as their sex,
age, race, or religion.
• The majority of serial killers who are sexually motivated erotized violence during development. For them, violence and sexual gratification are inexplicably intertwined
in their psyche.
• More research is needed to identify specific pathways of development that produce serial killers.
The term serial killer was coined in the 1970s due to cases such as Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz.
According to an FBI Behavioral Unit study 85% of the world's serial killers are in America. At any given time 20 - 50 unidentified active serial killers are at work continually changing their targets and methods.
Prostitutes, runaways, and others who lead transient and anonymous lives are usually not reported missing promptly and receive little police or media attention, making them excellent targets. Experts speculate on what happens to unsolved cases of murderers. Some may commit suicide, die, be incarcerated, in mental institutions, relocate, or stopped killing; a few turn themselves in.
Experts don't agree on an exact definition of a serial killer but general definitions are based on numbers and patterns: two or more unrelated victims in distinctly separate incidents.
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"It was an urge. ... A strong urge, and the longer I let it go the stronger it got, to where I was taking risks to go out and kill people risks that normally, according to my little rules of operation, I wouldn't take because they could lead to arrest." —Edmund Kemper.
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Where does this urge come from, and why is so powerful? If we all experienced this urge, would we be able to resist? Is it genetic, hormonal, biological, or cultural conditioning? Do serial killers have any control over their desires?
We all experience rage and inappropriate sexual instincts, yet we have some sort of internal cage that keeps our inner monsters locked up. Call it morality or social programming, these internal blockades have long since been trampled down in the psychopathic killer. Not only have they let loose the monster within, they are virtual slaves to its beastly appetites. What sets them apart?
Motive
• Motive generally may be difficult to determine in a serial murder investigation.
• A serial murderer may have multiple motives for committing his crimes.
• A serial murderer’s motives may evolve both within a single murder as well throughout the murder series.
• The classification of motivations should be limited to observable behavior at the crime scene.
• Even if a motive can be identified, it may not be helpful in identifying a serial murderer.
• Utilizing investigative resources to discern the motive instead of identifying the offender may derail the investigation.
• Investigators should not necessarily equate a serial murderer’s motivation with the level of injury.
• Regardless of the motive, serial murderers commit their crimes because they want to. The exception to this would be those few killers suffering from a severe mental illness.
Prototype Killers
The Northwest has a notorious history of prototype killers -- among them are Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer. Lesser known serial killers have claimed scores of lives but are only charged and/or convicted of one or two murders, but suspected of more.
Suspected or convicted serial killers in Washington.
According to Mike Rustigan, professor of criminology at San Francisco State University:
"With all of them, their motives tend to be total, deep and personal. They feel no guilt, no remorse and have an attitude of total disdain towards their victims.
"There's a self-importance that runs in all of them. With the Unabomber, for example, he demanded that The Washington Post and The New York Times publish his manifesto. You get the feeling that if he had just laid low, he may have remained on the loose to this day. His own brother saw the manifesto in his home and he then contacted authorities. I feel he felt upstaged by the Oklahoma City bombing, which made everything he had done up to that point seem like nothing."
Tod W. Burke, professor of criminology at Radford University and a former police officer explains:
"Most profilers say serial killers don't learn from mistakes in their previous killings, but I believe they do. They try to improve on their previous effort. You know how the more you do something, the better you get at it? Well, there comes a point where you peak and you can only go down.
"With serial killers, a greed factor will set in where they'll believe the more they kill and get away with it, the easier it will be. And that's when they get sloppy and get caught."
Emanuel Tanay, forensic psychiatrist, points out that Ohio serial killer 'Angel of Death," Larry Ralston, quit killing for 6 years while he worked in a morgue. Because he had enough involvement with death when he worked in a morgue, he didn't kill anybody. 'He was satisfied.'
Retired FBI agent Gregg O. McCrary, private criminal profiler, says it's all about control.
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