Before we can discuss what serial killers do, we must first define what a serial killer
is. Some people might place serial killers into the same group as mass murderers. This
would be incorrect because they are two totally different types of killers. While both of
these individuals may kill many people, the difference lies in the reason they kill and
the period over which they kill their victims. An event or a build up of circumstance
triggers mass murderers and causes them to act. This may be the result of a stressful
situation or frustration either at work or in their private lives. For whatever reason,
they may choose to use a weapon and kill people that they feel are responsible for their
prob-lems. They may also kill total strangers in a bid to get even with whomever or
whatever they feel wronged them. Whatever their reason, they are usually cooperative and
quite often docile if they survive the episode. It seems that this one-time outburst of
violence, once enacted, puts an end to any future events of this type for that
individual. While the mass killer may kill many people in one attack, when the attack is
over, their mission is complete. The mass killer's victims may not be chosen for any
other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Serial killers are a totally different and more dangerous threat to society. They
may not kill many people at one time, but they may kill for many years without being
detected. They are able to kill again and again without being caught because they are
careful in their choices of victims. They typically pick victims who are vulnerable and
un-able to defend themselves such as children, the elderly or women. They also pick
victims who will not be missed by society, such as migrant workers, prostitutes,
hitchhikers or homosexuals. They may even pick victims based on specifics such as
physical build or hairstyle.
Because of the fact that many serial killers may be mobile, similarities in crime
scenes may go undetected by law enforcement agencies. The nation's police departments
often lack the modern equipment and technology needed to track and recognize connections
between cases. It is generally accepted that many cases of serial murder have not been
reported because of lack of evidence or the person murdered is never noticed to be
missing.
The U. S. has had more than 150 documented cases of serial killers since 1800.
Retired FBI analyst John Doug-las believes that at any one time, there may be from 30 to
50 serial killers active in the U. S. Good locations for serial killers include any city
or area large enough to support prostitution, drug cultures, runaway children or street
people. They can and do operate successfully in rural areas.
Serial killers were once considered a rarity. Even though reports in Europe go back
as far as the fifteenth century, only a few were written about prior to the mid twentieth
century. One of the most widely written about was Jack the Ripper, who claimed only 5
victims in a three-month period. This would put him in the bottom of the class by
to-day's standards. During the past twenty years, serial killings have become more
frequent. We have even seen up to a half dozen of their cases on the news simultaneously.
Cases such as San Francisco's Zodiac Killer; New York City's Son of Sam; Atlanta's child
murderer, Wayne Williams; Los Angeles's Hillside Strangler; and Milwaukee's own, Jeffrey
Dahmer. Many times, they fit into a pattern, but sometimes there is no pattern. The
phenomenon is world-wide, from England's Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe's killing of
13 women prior to 1981, to Russia's Rostov Cannibal, Anderei Chikatilo, who slaughtered
and partially consumed at least 53 men and women over a 12 year period prior to 1990.
It is hard to predict whether a person will become a serial killer. A set of
childhood characteristics believed by many to be symptoms of violent behavior has been
named the "McDonald Triad". Named after psychiatrist John M. McDonald, it speculates that
three factors in a person's childhood may determine violent behavior. These three
fac-tors presumably linked to homicidal behavior are bedwetting, firesetting, and torture
of small animals. There is evidence that many serial killers have some or all of these
factors in their past. The fact remains, there are many people with symptoms of the
McDonald Triad who do not become serial killers; unfortunately some do. One of the
Hillside Stranglers, Kenneth Bianci, had a bedwetting problem and had killed a cat before
as a prank. The Son of Sam, David Berkowitz, had set many fires, kept a diary and even
nicknamed himself the "Phantom Fireman". Alaska's Robert Hansen, murderer of at least 17
women, was convicted of arson as a youth. An important fact is the "McDonald Triad" is
not believed to be a cause of violence, but only a set of symptoms.
The typical serial killer is a white male in his late 20s or 30s and murders his
victims by beating or strangulation.
He may appear cold, show no remorse for his actions and might deny responsibility for his
crimes, but psychosis or severe mental illness is rarely present. Only an estimated 10 to
15 percent of serial killers are women. Males are much more likely to use extreme
violence such as bludgeoning, beating, strangling, or torture. Women on the other hand
favored poisoning or smothering their victims. Where men would normally stalk their
victims, the female se-rial killer would lure her victim to their death. Researchers
Anne Moir and David Jessel believe that serial killers lack the voice of conscience that
prevents most of us in doing things we should not. Their research made them to believe
that serial killers usually have a sexual motive and an inability to appreciate the
feelings of others. They only survive because they are able to conceal their identities
and appear to be normal. "Most unexpectedly, in back-ground, in personality, and even
in appearance, the mass murderer is extraordinarily ordinary. This may be the key to his
extraordinary "talent" for murder: After all, who would ever suspect him."
Dr. Donald Lunde, a psychiatrist who studied 42 murderers over a 5-year period,
determined that there are two types of mentalities involved with these types of crimes.
The first of these is paranoid schizophrenia which may be characterized by an aggressive,
suspicious demeanor, hallucinations (usually, hearing voices in their minds), or
de-lusions of grandeur or persecution. The second type is sexual sadism, which is
distinguished by killing, torturing, or mutilating victims for achieving their own sexual
arousal. These killers view their victims as objects or life-size dolls or enemies of
normal people.
A good example of the paranoid schizophrenic murderer is David Berkowitz, otherwise
known as the Son of Sam. He said he killed because a man named "Sam" told him to through
demonically possessed dogs. A look, growl, or bark from the dog would tell him who and
where to attack. During one instance, the signal was a sign of crossed dog feces on the
ground that set him off. He left notes for the police and even corresponded with a
newspaper, rav-ing that he was the "Duke of Death." Some believe Berkowitz is only making
excuses for his behavior and we may never know the whole truth. For whatever reason, he
held one of the most powerful cities in the world, New York City, in a state of fear.
Even the heads of several organized crime families were reported to have sent out their
sol-diers to find him. His rampage ended in August of 1977 and left six dead and nine
wounded.
The classic example of the sexual sadist type of killer is the six foot nine inch,
280 pound, Edmund Kemper. At the age of fifteen, he shot and killed both of his
grandparents resulting in his being committed to a maximum-security hospital for four
years. This was only the beginning for Kemper, and upon his release he shot, stabbed and
strangled to death six coeds as they hitchhiked from college. He also severed their heads
and limbs, attempted to have sex with the corpses, and devoured their flesh. He kept
their heads preserved so that he could use them for his sexual fulfillment. He later
murdered his own mother and her good friend. He then decapitated his mother, tore out her
larynx, and threw it down the garbage disposal. That way, in his opinion, she could never
gripe and yell at him again. From childhood, he had displayed signs of psychological
disorders. Kemper was fascinated by weapons and had cut the head and hands from one of
his sister's dolls. He also tortured and killed the families cat, which he
beheaded and cut into pieces. He often fantasized about killing girls and later
explained, "...if I killed them, you know, they couldn't reject me as a man."
It is highly likely that the rise in reported serial killings is due to the
increasing law enforcement ability to recog-nize the patterns. There has also been a real
increase in the rate of serial murders, and this may be due to a decline in law
enforcement's ability to capture the murderers. This makes solving the murders difficult
because often the mo-tive is missing or not obvious. It is accepted that many serial
killers were probably caught early in their careers, before their becoming experts. The
nationwide rate of cleared homicides before 1966 was 92 per cent. This rate hit 64 per
cent in 1992, meaning that unsolved homicides increased to about 8,400, which is almost
as many as the total number of murders in 1965. . This is further explained by the fact
that more and more murders are being committed by and against strangers. In the past most
violent crimes and murders were easy for police to solve. They usually involved or
resulted from greed, anger, jealously, profit, or revenge. The serial killer differs in
that he does not stop until he is caught. He gets better at his crime each time he
performs it and continually perfects his style.
Jeffrey Dahmer, killer of 17 young men over 13 years, would likely have been stopped
after his first killing had the police been able to pursue a search of his vehicle.
Dahmer was driving with body parts of his first victim in gar-bage bags, on the back seat
of his car in the early hours of the morning. Two officers who thought he might be
smuggling drugs or stolen goods stopped him. They asked what was in the bag and he
replied that it was just gar-bage he was taking to the dump. They did not pursue it any
further and Dahmer went on to kill for thirteen more years.
Then there is the case of Coral Eugene Watts, who outsmarted prosecutors and beat
the system in spite of his I.Q. of only 75. At the age of 21, he strangled two women, and
although he left them for dead, both survived. Five days later, he stabbed a 19-year-old
college student 33 times, killing her. Although identified as a suspect from the non-
fatal assaults, Watts heeded the Miranda warning and hired a lawyer. He then had himself
committed to a mental hospital. One year later, Watts bargained prosecutors to drop an
assault charge in return for a guilty plea on one charge. For this, he received a
one-year sentence.
Immediately following his release, Watts killed six people in Michigan and possibly
another in Ontario. When the police suspected him again and put him under surveillance,
he moved to Texas. The Michigan cops notified the Texas cops but it was too late. Within
a few days, Watts had killed a jogger. He knifed two women to death in one-night six
months later. In the spring of 1982, he killed six more in six weeks. Watts was finally
captured while flee-ing an attack on two women in their apartment, where another woman
was found strangled in her bathtub.
Declared legally sane by psychiatrists, Watts was diagnosed as a paranoid
schizophrenic with a pathological ha-tred of women. He supposedly struggled against the
evil he saw around him. He was not tried for homicide because he agreed to a guilty plea
on burglary and assault charges, receiving a 60-year sentence and parole eligibility in
20 years. For this he confessed to 14 Houston homicides and led police to three more
bodies. Investigators believe his actual body count is at least 22. Due to his plea
bargain, he does not have to serve 20 years before becoming eligible for parole. He had a
parole hearing in 1993 and another in 1996. Currently, his release date is set for 2007.
Psychiatrists, along with the FBI crime analysts have taken the lead in getting into
the minds of serial killers. Psychiatrist Shervert Frazier interviewed 42 murderers,
including seven serial killers that had killed 3 to 13 victims each.
They also interviewed families, teachers, friends, police, and probation authorities.
Most of the serial killers were cooperative. Frazier found that many of them had been
subjected to brutal treatment as children. Many were beaten repeatedly or sexually abused
as children. They became more confused as adolescents and adults, suffering from gender
confusion, cross-dressing, and abnormal sexual behavior. They suffered from hostile and
murderous emo-tions, but were also organized enough to plan and execute several murders.
Probably Chicago psychiatrist Helen L. Morrison conducted the most extensive
interviews with serial killers. She is the director of Chicago's Evaluation Center and
performed her first interview of a serial killer in 1975 out of pure curiosity. Dr.
Morrison interviewed Richard Macek, the Mad Biter, known for the bites he left on the
young women he tortured and killed throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. She was surprised
to find that instead of an intimidating person, Macek was a short, stocky man, who
discussed his activities with her openly. He had committed rapes and murders that
included stabbing, drowning, strangulation, mutilation, biting, and necrophilia.
Dr. Morrison studied 45 serial murderers around the world and interviewed their
wives and relatives. Most of these killers had murdered between 10 and 30 people each.
She found that they chose their victims carefully and that many of the victims of a
killer resembled each other. The killings also were similar. In her words, "They are
basi-cally cookie-cutter people, so much alike psychologically I could close my eyes and
be talking to any one of them. They are phenomenally alike in the way their psychology is
set, the way they function, and how they're misdiag-nosed."
She believes that the psychological development of serial killers stops at about six
months of age. Although she does not understand what stops the development, she believes
it is fixed in the first year of life. Dr. Morrison does not believe serial killers ever
reach individuation, where the infant realizes that he is separate from both his mother
and his surroundings. The serial killer can not distinguish himself from others, and
cannot distinguish a human being from an inanimate object. Dr. Morrison's goal is to work
towards early recognition and apprehension of serial kill-ers. She stresses that serial
killers are incurable, and when put into prison, they must never be released.
The FBI became interested in interviewing imprisoned serial killers after two
psychiatrists, James A. Brussel and David G. Hubbard, showed the crime-solving advantages
of understanding the behavior patterns of compulsive criminals. Brussel had amazed the
law enforcement world with his profile of Manhattan's Mad Bomber, George Metesky. He was
so specific that he even accurately predicted what the bomber would be wearing when
arrested, a double-breasted suit, neatly buttoned. Hubbard helped put a stop to a wave of
skyjacking during 1968-72 by inter-viewing every known skyjacker in captivity. He
designed techniques to psychologically take them apart and shut down their fantasies of
power and control. Hubbard then assisted the airlines with a training program that helped
the airlines by enabling pilots and flight attendants to abort 42 consecutive skyjackings
and put a stop to the fad. The skyjacking rate fell from 7 or 8 per month to zero. This
occurred six months before installation of metal detectors in the nation's airports.
Their successes led the FBI to create a Behavioral Sciences Unit at the FBI Academy
in Quantico, Virginia. This later evolved into the National Center for the Analysis of
Violent Crime (NCAVC). The FBI's agents began inter-viewing imprisoned assassins and
serial killers in 1978. It is noted that most of the killers were often very happy to
talk about themselves and what they had done. During a six year period, they interviewed
38 of the nation's most notorious murderers including, Charles Manson, Sirhan Sirhan,
David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), Ted Bundy, and Ed Gein, a murderer cannibal who was the
main inspiration for the movies "Psycho" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massa-cre."
To date the FBI has studied more that a hundred serial murderers, a multitude of
serial rapists, and dozens of se-rial arsonists. They found a connection between arson
and murder in a study of 36 murderers. They noticed that 58 per cent set fires as
children, 52 per cent set fires as adolescents, and only 8 per cent set fires as adults.
The FBI be-lieves that they made a choice to move from arson to murder because it gave
them more fulfillment. An example of this is David Berkowitz, who set 1,412 fires and
switched over to killing because it gave him more excitement and power and got him
newspaper and TV coverage.
A leader in the field of understanding and profiling serial killers has been FBI
Agent, retired, John Douglas. He has learned that serial killers all leave signs at their
crime scenes and that their behavior reflects their personality. The method chosen to
kill, the position of the body, the type of victim, and the entire scene all speak out to
the pro-filer, just as symptoms of a disease speak to a doctor. Douglas learned how to
pinpoint the personality and traits of a specific murderer by using and understanding
this information. He became incredibly accurate.
A superb profile of Alaska's Robert Hansen led to the end of 17 year long murder
spree. The Anchorage police contacted Douglas in 1983, when their state troopers had
Robert Hansen as a suspect. The bodies of several women were found on the Kenai Peninsula
and around the Anchorage area. Many strippers and prostitutes had also simply disappeared
over the years and no evidence had been found. Because of the transient nature of these
women, it was hard to prove anything had happened to them. The problem was that their
suspect did not appear to be the type of person who would have committed such crimes.
Hansen was a respectable man, married with a family, and a pillar of the community.
Hansen also had several bow hunting big game world records and was well known in the
sports-man communities. The police described the crimes over the phone to Douglas and
he described their suspect spe-cifically. He described a suspect in his 40's, a
well-respected member of the community, a stutterer, a former shop-lifter and arsonist,
and a person of above average intelligence. This profile alerted the police that
Hansen was most likely their man. They immediately put him under 24-hour surveillance and
used the profile as behavioral evi-dence to justify a search of Hansen's home. This
search gave them the evidence they needed to put Hansen away permanently. The evidence
found included the Mini 14 rifle used in many of the killings, personal belongings of
some of the victims, and an aviation map marked with Xs where some victims were found.
Hansen assisted the po-lice with finding the bodies of his missing victims and confessed
to the murder of 17 women and the rape of more than 30. The authorities believe he killed
many more. They also believe he flew his victims out into remote areas of Alaska, where
he raped them and turned them loose so that he could hunt them down and shoot them from
the air. In February 1884, Hansen was sentenced to 499 years plus life, without parole.
Profiling has definitely become a valuable tool in helping police departments capture
serial killers.
John Douglas does not believe that serial killers are born that way but instead are
created. His belief is that crime is a moral problem and that it can only be resolved on
a moral level. He further says that he has never seen one of these killers come from a
good background, with a supportive and functional family. In his opinion, the vast
major-ity of violent offenders is responsible for their behavior, makes their own
choices, and should face the conse-quences.
There still is no real explanation for serial killers. Many young men match the
family backgrounds and emotional patterns of some of our most infamous serial killers,
but they have not become killers themselves. Statistically, only a few make the
transition to murder. It is likely that serial killers have been around as long as man
has been here. It seems that the only way to stop them is for law enforcement to learn to
think like them. When they do catch them they should be put away.
Death penalty abolitionists propose three main points: that capital punishment is
legalized murder; that death sentences are unfairly dealt out to minorities; and that an
innocent person might be executed in error. In the case of serial killers, these
arguments do not stand up. Joel D. Roberts challenges these points by making the
distinction that executing murderers is no more the equal of murder than incarcerating
kidnapers is the equivalent of kidnapping. In the first case, both people die, while in
the second case, both lose their freedom. The second point of race can not be claimed a
factor because most serial killers are white. The question of executing an innocent
person is not a factor because normally the question is not if, but how many they
murdered. There is good sense in interviewing serial killers to understand why they do it
and to capture and prevent others from doing the same. I believe that once we interview
them and study them briefly, justice should be swift.
The death penalty may not necessarily be a deterrent, but it is a means of
administering justice. When John Wayne Gacy was executed for the murder of 33 men and
boys, his former prosecutor commented that the death pen-alty would deter Gacy from
killing again. I believe that Joel D. Roberts says it best when discussing Richard
Rami-rez, the Night Stalker (On Death Row for 19 murders); "Speaking of questions, I have
a few of my own... How many lives does a man have to take before we deem him undeserving
of life? How much of our money does he have to consume before we resolve he'll consume no
more? How God-awful does a human being have to be before the American Civil Liberties
Union will pronounce him beyond pale? How many death sentences must a murderer re-ceive
before the first is carried out? The answers to these questions are far from imminent.
They, like the Night Stalker, will linger at length. Meanwhile, the Satanist who gouged
out the eyes of one of his victims - was she alive or dead at the time? - watches TV,
piles up pentagrams and attends to his correspondence with fans. He's apparently happy,
his health is robust, and we're told he needs no medication to sleep."
BIBLIOGRAPHY
? Joel D. Roberts, Column Right/Joel D. Roberts; Why is the Night Stalker Still Alive?
Home Edition, Los An-geles Times, 11-06-1994
? John Douglas, Mind Hunter, Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit, Pocket Star Books,
1996
? Bernard Du Clos, Fair Game, 1993
? Eugene Methvin, The Face of Evil, Vol. 47, National Review, 01-23-1995, pp. 34
? Jack Levin and James Alan Fox, Mass Murder, America's Growing Menace, 1985, Plenum
Press
? Larry Siegal, Criminology, West Publishing Company, 1995
? Jill Serjeant, Mad or Simply Evil? Serial Killers test experts., Reuters, 11-27-1995
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