Early Indicators of Someone Becoming a Serial Killer

Introduction:
The term serial killer was created in the 1970’s by a man named Robert Ressler. He chose serial killer as the name to describe a killer that murders three or more victims over a period of time because the FBI were always studying a series of cases created by the killers (Freeman, 2007). Serial killers have been around for centuries, since ancient times. There have been many studies done to try and figure out how the minds of serial killers work, so the FBI can catch them and find a way to stop them. Not all serial killers are the same, this makes it hard to figure them out and provide a clear definition of how their minds work. Most serial killers have similar character traits and can be classified into different categories to make it easier to find patterns and reasons as to why they are killing.
Early Indicators of Someone Becoming a Serial Killer:
In 1963, J.M MacDonald put together a list of attributes/characteristics that are now considered early indicators for violence; this list was later referred to as MacDonald’s Triad. These characteristics include fire setting, animal cruelty and enuresis; these traits are often first noticed when they are children.
Fire setting often begins with the child being curious as to what happens when you make a fire, but then it becomes a way for the child to deal with stress and anger. It is an act of “speaking out” because the child feels as if no one is listening and wants attention. This characteristic/behaviour could become more dangerous if the child keeps feeling the need to relieve stress/anger through setting fires, because the child will start setting bigger fires and experimenting with fires more.
Animal cruelty is another major factor in MacDonald’s Triad; it is ...

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