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Psychology of the serial killer mind
Serial killers psychology case studies
Psychology of the serial killer mind
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To dive into the psyche of a killer is a daunting task, and to understand it is near impossible. A human desensitized to the point where the killing of another living being is easily justified; or worse, an act that brings them joy. In the novel They Would Never Hurt a fly, Slavenka Drakulić speculates how placing an ordinary person in the role of power and influence can create a recipe for moral disaster. Goran Jelisić was born into a working class Serbian family in the small town of Bijeljina, Bosnia. Generally liked by his community, Jelisić was calm fisherman described as “a nice and quiet man, somebody who for sure would never hurt a fly, let alone people”(Drakulić 72) by a fellow fisherman. In May of 1992, Jelisić was convicted of the
As typical human beings we all want to know why someone could randomly take the lives of several innocent people all at one time. It is frightening and scientists figure if they can figure out why, then it can be prevented in the future. The documentary, Mind of a Rampage Killer, tries to solve the mystery and really dive deep into the minds of people who could potentially create such a horrifying situation. Through the use of ethos, logos, and pathos, this documentary concludes that every killer had something in common; they all struggled with mental disorders, depression, or outbursts of violence, all stemming from early childhood or an internal battle throughout growing up, some could have even just been born with a violent rage.
A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. Unfortunately, such acts of rampage have become a prevalent factor in the Canadian culture. As a result of endless media coverage, Canadians now are constantly bombarded with numerous images of violence. Many of which often portray a victim avenging their opponent by means of force. Thus, indoctrinating a nation of individuals to believe that it is only through aggression that problems can be resolved. Rather than being punished for acts of violence, those who commit such offenses are often praised for their “heroism”. In addition, the success of films like The Godfather, Gladiator, and Troy further aid in reinstating the fact that we live in a society that praises violence. Furthermore, this ideology allows for individuals to partake in violent acts with little or no backlash from ones community. However, when an individual strays away from the “norm”, they are likely to then be viewed as a deviant. Such cases of rejection within a society, are often seen in the portrayal of serial killers. Although our society tends to condone violence when it is directed towards a specific individual(s), it does not allow the killing of innocent bystanders. Instead, crimes that are targeted against a number of people over a long period of time, entail the harshest forms punishments under the law. Sadly, in executing the law for said crimes, those in charge often face much public scrutiny. Such occurrences were apparent in the faulty murder investigations of Canada's most notorious serial killer Robert Pickton. This is due to the ...
Kuklinski’s lust for violence and blood started when he was ten years old. He was torturing and killing cats for pleasure. Kuklinski would put cats into a furnace and then proceed to watch them try to escape until the cats died (Dietz, 2001). At the age of eighteen, he unquestioningly
The media effects coupled with predisposers, precipitants and facilitators can have dire consequences on their own, but the last subject for mass murderer that demands attention is mental illness. In order to distinguish between the various kinds of mental illness and criminal culpability, this paper will analyze the criteria for ‘insanity’ developed by Cohen and Coffin. The victim is innocent and there is no reasonable way the perpetrator should consider them an enemy. The motive is unintelligible, delusional, unrealistic, and inappropriate for the nature of the murder. The method is ill-planned and often requires a situational weapon such as a blunt or sharp object. No attempt for secrecy, concealment, to avoid guilt, or to evade capture. And there should be queer behaviour illustrated before and after the fact such as depression, suicide attempts, etc. This point does not mean to convey that mass murderers and serial killers are insane by the same definition for they are usually calculating, patient, pursue the most prolific and in some cases sadistic methods, and realize their actions are wrong. However, it is important to recognize that they are clearly exploring sociological deviance and their mental instability is a contributing part. Teams of socio-scientists researching Jonesboro and Paducah cases found the shooters were: socially marginalized from bullying/teasing, had family problems, failed to attract attention from authority figures, had an availability of guns, and suffered from mental illnesses making them more vulnerable than other youths. Perhaps the media would not have such a far reaching and tight grip on people’s lives if it were not for the culture where children are reared. The weapons that are ...
These two men, both coming from different backgrounds, joined together and carried out a terrible choice that rendered consequences far worse than they imagined. Living under abuse, Perry Smith never obtained the necessary integrity to be able to pause and consider how his actions might affect other people. He matured into a man who acts before he thinks, all due to the suffering he endured as a child. Exposed to a violent father who did not instill basic teachings of life, Smith knew nothing but anger and misconduct as a means of responding to the world. He knew no other life. Without exposure to proper behavior or responsible conduct, he turned into a monster capable of killing an entire family without a blink of remorse. In the heat of the moment, Perry Smith slaughtered the Clutter family and barely stopped to take a breath. What could drive a man to do this in such cold blood? The answer lies within his upbringing, and how his childhood experiences shaped him to become the murderer of a small family in Holcomb, Kansas. ¨The hypothesis of unconscious motivation explains why the murderers perceived innocuous and relatively unknown victims as provocative and thereby suitable targets for aggression.¨ (Capote 191). ¨But it is Dr. Statten´s contention that only the first murder matters psychologically, and that when
Simon, Robert I. "Serial Killers, Evil, And Us." National Forum 80.4 (2000): 23. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
He concerns himself not with the process of murder, but with the impact murder leaves on the psychology of the criminal, suggesting that actual imprisonment counts, so little and much less terrible than the stress, doubt, fear, despair and anxiety of trying to avoid punishment. The working of Raskolnikov mind after the killing, the intense guilt and half-delirium state in which guilt throws him, enables the reader to understand this character as an embodiment of beliefs and characteristics that impels him to commit his crime, and provides a clear picture of the character within the context of the events that took place in the novel
Mass murderers are a danger to society. These killers are malevolent monsters with the desire to kill, and they are nothing new to the general public of today. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as the killing of 3 or more people on the same day or in a single event. Such killings are rare in the sense that 96% of murders have only one victim while less than 1% have 5 or more. One question that people may have is, “What goes on in their mind?” or “Why do they do this?”. What makes a murderer a murderer is their type, traits, motives, and methods.
Since violence had become part of every individual's life, they see it as a regular event, which reduces the hatred for violence. Nelson implies that when an individual get exposed to controversial violent acts such executions, those individuals are less likely to react and take action against this violent topic. Nelson argues that “Model of shaming-us into-action-by-unmasking-the-truth-of-our actions cannot hold a candle to our capacity to assimilate horrific images and to justify or shrug off horrific behavior” (Nelson 300). Desensitization to violence takes away the individual's senses of supporting “right” and “wrong” cause of violent acts. As a results, individuals either try to justify the violent acts or just ignore or deny. Likewise, instead of getting horrified by the news of the murder of Matt Shepard, some residents of Laramie became defensive, by attempting to deny the existence of intolerance in their town. Loffreda writes that‘“Hate is not a Wyoming value,’ residents kept telling each other, telling the visitor, telling the press. ‘We really take care of each other here,’ a woman told me one day in a coffee shop, echoing a dearly held ethos I’ve heard from many in Laramie ”(Loffreda 254). Media, through their twisting and manipulation of the murder was
In the short story “Killings,” by Andre Dubus, revenge, loss, and consequences are explored. Richard Strout, a man of little to no morality, committed a crime of passion, which I do not think is a justifiable crime, since he murdered a man who was in a relationship with his wife that he is separated from. Strout is an impatient and violent man with no boundaries. This is evident since he did kill Frank in front of his children and his estranged wife.
...ens should have more faith in the established institution’s ability to deliver justice over that of a vigilante serial killer, but for many, that is not the case. Second, Darkly Dreaming Dexter demonstrates that there is not as clear of a barrier between what is morally right and wrong as North American society sometimes believes, seeing as murder, which is usually regarded as undeniably wrong, can sometimes be justified and placed in the spectrum of acceptable behaviour. Blindly dividing actions up into right and wrong, then, is not only irresponsible, but also dangerous, as it can lead individuals to inappropriately oversimplify complex situations. Ultimately, then, a society that unwaveringly opposes all forms violence can be just as problematic as one that condones them.
In January 2002 James Waller released the first edition of the book “Becoming Evil – How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killings.” Dr. James Waller is a professor at Keene State College in New Hampshire and is home to one of the nation’s oldest Holocaust resource centers, the Cohen Center for Genocide and Holocaust Studies. Becoming Evil uncovers the historical and modern day reasons to why people do evil and attempts to debunk common explanations for genocide and mass killings. Some of Waller’s other notable works include “Prejudice across America” and “Face to Face: The Changing State of Racism Across America.” Waller takes and in depth look at the societal, psychopathological and cultural reasons that would make a good person commit such heinous acts of evil. “What culture, society, or nation, what ideology, historical prejudice, or ethnic hatred, what psychological profile or cluster of personality traits, what unusual situation or special circumstance is to be deemed the cause of such aberrant human behavior?” (Browning/Waller) Why do humans commit genocide and mass killings?
David Berkowitz, otherwise known as the “Son of Sam”, was notorious for his crimes committed between 1976 and 1977 that ended the lives of six innocent victims and wounded several others in New York (“David Berkowitz Biography”, n.d.). At first, police did not make a connection between the murders because there was nothing unusual about them; all the victims were shot with a 40 caliber gun, not fairly unusual during this time or place especially since the killings were over an extended period of time. Police finally made the connection when Berkowitz began to live behind notes that were meant to tantalize authorities since they had yet to catch him (“David Berkowitz| Son of Sam Killer,” 2015). Often times, the psychological structure of a human
`“Good people are rarely suspicious; they cannot imagine others doing the things they themselves are incapable of doing...Then, too, the normal are inclined to view the multiple killer as the as the one who’s as monstrous in appearance as he is in mind, which is about as far from the truth as one could well get...these monsters of real life usually looked and behaved in a more normal manner than their actually normal brothers and sisters: they presented a more convincing picture of virtue than virtue presented of itself—just as the wax rosebud or the plastic peach seemed more perfect to the eye, more what the mind thought a rosebud or a peach should be than the imperfect original from which it had been modeled.”
Daniel, Caroline. “Killing with kindness.” New Statesman. 126 (1997): 16(3). Infotrac. Online. 19 Nov. 1999