Serial Killers Programmed To Kill Essays - Murder, Misconduct

Serial Killers: Programmed To Kill? Serial killers are one of the most fascinating and morbid groups of people to study. A serial killer as defined by Brian and Wilfred Gregg in The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers is someone who kills 3 or more people with sufficient time intervals between each known as a cooling off period. The style and motivation of the killings can vary greatly. I choose serial killers for this project because the idea of someone killing another human being on numerous occasions seemed so out there, so fringe, it just had to be studied. Listen to this letter from one of this centuries most infamous serial killers David Berkowitz (1976-1977) AKA Son of Sam. I am deeply hurt by your calling me a weman-hater. I am not. But I am a monster. I am the son of Sam. I am a little brat. When father Sam gets drunk he gets mean. He beats our family. Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the house. Other times he locks me in the garage. Sam loves to drink blood. Go out and kills commands father Sam. Behind our house some rest. Mostly young - raped and slaughtered - their blood drained - just bones now. Pap Sam keeps me locked in the attic too. I can't get out but I look out the attick window and watch the world go by. I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength then everybody else - programmed to kill...... Mr. Borelli, sir, I don't want to kill any more. No sur, no more but I must, honour thy father. I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don't belong on earth. Return me to yahoos. To the people of Queens, I love you. And I want to wish all of you a happy Easter. May God bless you in this life and in the next. And for now I say goodbye and goodnight. Police: Let me haunt you with these words: I'll be back. I'll be back. To be interrpreted as - bang, bang, bang, bang - ugh. Yours in murder, Mr. Monster. This letter was found at the scene of one of his crimes. He went on to kill 5 more people, mostly in cars parked in lover's lanes. To view serial killers as a fringe group, you must first understand them as a group. To do this I will present some common traits of serial killers, followed by the classifications of male and female serial killers and specific examples of each. Once I have sufficiently grouped serial killers as a whole and then as smaller groups in that whole, I will explain what is being done to predict serial killers, who becomes a serial killer and why? There is no way to tell exactly how many serial killers there are active at any one time. Do to modern technology, particularly transportation, it is often hard to connect two seemingly separate murders. Most experts agree with Holmes and DeBurgers estimate of victims of serial murders at 3,500 to 5,000 per year. From this the estimated number of serial killers active today is 350, or 7 per state. This estimate is based on research that shows most serial killers murder between ten and twelve individuals, over several years. However, Peter Wortington, author of The Journalist and the Killer, states the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy could be responsible for as many as 100 murders. Who are they? Common Traits *Holmes and DeBurger, the author of Serial Murder, state that serial killers in general fit the description of a psychopath very well. The title, psychopath has been recently replaced by the phrase ASPD, anti-social personality disorder. *The inability to love, which is often considered to be the core of ASPD is especially evident in the serial killer. *The serial killer is unable to develop deep meaningful relationships and thus their care for people in general is greatly decreased. In short, the serial killer is lacking those traits which help us to get along with others. *Highly impulsive and aggressive behavior is another part of the serial killers psyche, and studies show that they require more thrills than normal people *Just like young children, they must constantly be in search of new entertainment. Comparing a serial killer to a young child, however, is not fair to the child. Young child may pull the legs off of