Serial Killers : Born or Made?

 

SERIAL KILLING

Serial murder, often known as serial killing, is the homicide of at least two people by the same person in distinct incidents that occur at different times. Serial murder is distinct from mass murder, which occurs when multiple victims are killed at the same time and in the same location.

The precise definition of serial murder has sparked heated debate among criminologists. Serial murder was previously described by the FBI as a series of at least four events that occur in various locations and are separated by a cooling-off period. The FBI's definition has been criticized since it eliminates those who commit two murders and are apprehended before committing a third, as well as people who commit the majority of their murders in a single location. As a result of these concerns, many researchers around the world have adopted the National Institute of Justice's definition of serial murder, which states that it entails at least two different murders that occur "over a period of time ranging from hours to years."

PSYCHOLOGY BEHIND SERIAL KILLERS

Serial killers are characterized by a lack of empathy for others and an apparent lack of remorse for their crimes. At the same time, many of them can appear to be lovely on the surface, luring potential victims into their web of destruction. They are individuals in whom two minds coexist—one a reasonable self capable of successfully navigating the subtleties of acceptable social behaviour and even charm and seduce, and the other a far more sinister self capable of the most horrific and brutal deeds.

This viewpoint has influenced literary depictions ranging from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and the more contemporary film Split. However, there is scant evidence that real-life serial killers suffer from dissociative identity disorder (DID), a condition in which a person's mind is split into two or more identities, each seemingly unconscious of the other.

Instead, DID is more commonly linked with victims of abuse, rather than offenders, who assume many personas to cope with the atrocities they have witnessed. Of course, a perpetrator of abuse can simultaneously be a victim, and many serial killers were molested as children, but they appear to be people who are aware of their actions rather than split personalities. Despite this, there is undoubtedly a dichotomy in the minds of such people, perhaps best exemplified by US serial killer Ted Bundy, who was "a charming, handsome, successful individual [yet also] a sadist, necrophile, rapist, and murderer with zero remorse who took pride in his ability to successfully kill and evade capture."

One perplexing characteristic of serial killers' minds is that they appear to lack — or can override — the emotional responses that allow us to recognize other people's agony and suffering as akin to our own, and empathise with it. A recent brain imaging research found a plausible cause for this deficiency. This revealed that criminal psychopaths had lower connectivity between the amygdala—a brain region that processes negative stimuli and those that cause scared responses—and the prefrontal cortex, which interprets the amygdala's responses.

Serial killers, also  appear to have an intensified emotional drive that leads to a desire to harm and kill other people.

But it’s not just about their brains or emotions, we must not overlook the role of societal forces in the formation of such contradicting drives. Serial killers may have learnt to consider their victims as nothing more than an object to be tortured, or even as a collection of disconnected components. This may explain why some criminals have sex with their victims after they've died, or even convert their remains into useful or decorative objects, but it doesn't explain why they seem so motivated to harm and kill their victims.

3 of History’s Most Notorious Serial Killers

The following list explores some of the most notorious serial killers the world has ever known. 

Jack The Ripper

We call him "Jack the Ripper," although we have no idea who was behind one of the most legendary murder sprees in history. In 1888, a serial killer came in London's Whitechapel district and murdered five women, all of whom were prostitutes, and mutilated their bodies. The killer has never been identified, despite numerous suspects being named throughout the years. The victim's throat was severed in each case, and the body was frequently mangled in a way that indicated the murderer knew something about human anatomy. Half of a human kidney, possibly removed from a murder victim, was mailed to the cops on one occasion. Authorities also received a series of taunting notes from a man claiming to be Jack the Ripper and claiming to be the killer. A great public uproar over the failure to arrest the murderer was raised against the home secretary and the London police commissioner, who resigned soon afterward.

Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer started killing in 1978, just 18 years old, and wasn’t arrested for murder until 1991, after a would-be victim escaped and led police back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is where Dahmer calls home. It was there that images of mutilated bodies and body parts strewn over the flat revealed some of the terrible aspects of his life of slaughter. He even had an acid vat in which he disposed of his victims. Dahmer killed 17 people in total, the most of whom were young black guys. He was murdered by a fellow inmate after serving time in prison twice, the first for molestation and the second for murder. Dahmer was ruled to be legally sane at his trial, despite having been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, and a psychotic disorder.

The majority of Dahmer's victims were strangled after being given sedatives, though his first victim was killed by a combination of bludgeoning and strangulation, and his second victim was battered to death, with one more victim, Ernest Miller, killed in 1990, dying of a combination of shock and blood loss after his carotid artery was severed. Dahmer poured hydrochloric acid or, later, boiling water into the frontal lobes of four of his victims slain in 1991, in an attempt to establish a permanent, submissive, unresistant state.

H.H. Holmes

H.H. Holmes, the pharmacist who turned a hotel into a torture castle, is arguably the most enigmatic of Chicago's serial killers. Prior to the 1893 World's Fair, Holmes relocated to Chicago and began constructing a three-story hotel with a variety of sinister devices, including gas lines, secret passages and trapdoors, dead ends, basement chutes, soundproofed padding, and torture devices sprinkled around a maze. The gas allowed Holmes to knock out his guests, frequently on his surgical tables, before the worst of what was to come. He then sold skeletons to medical schools and performed life insurance scams by burning the remains in the building's furnace. Before he was hung in 1896, he confessed to more than 30 killings, which were only discovered after a fellow con man reported him in for not keeping a financial deal.

Many of these victims – the exact number is unknown — were women who were deceived, defrauded, and ultimately murdered. Holmes had a pattern of getting engaged to a woman only to have her "disappear" unexpectedly. Other victims were enticed by the promise of work. After eluding capture for several weeks, Holmes was finally caught in November 1894. During his stay in detention, he told cops a number of lies, including one in which he admitted to killing 27 people. Holmes was convicted in 1895 and appealed his case, but he lost.

 

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THEM? WATCH MOVIES/ SERIES P RELATED TO ABOVE SERIAL KILLERS

1.   1. Jack The Rippers

Ripper Street (2012 – 2016) Ripper Street is a Netflix crime drama that is well worth binge-watching. The core storyline of the British drama was based on Jack the Ripper. The show, however, is set months after Jack the Ripper's last murder in 1888, when a supposedly tranquil London is once again confronted with a 

2. Jeffrey Dahmer

Marc Meyers wrote and directed Dear Friend Dahmer, a 2017 American biographical psychological drama film on American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The film is based on cartoonist John "Derf" Backderf's 2012 graphic novel of the same name. Backderf was friends with Dahmer in high school in the 1970s until he began his murdering rampage in 1978. Dahmer is played by Ross Lynch and It's available on AMAZON PRIME.

H.H Holmes

John Borowski directed the 2004 biographical documentary film H. H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer. The true storey of American serial killer H. H. Holmes is told in this film. The film, which was made over a four-year period, features places such as Holmes' childhood home in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, and the Philadelphia courtroom where the "trial of the century" took place. Dr. Holmes' entire life (1861–1896) is the subject of the film. There are reenactments, expert interviews, and historic imagery in this film. Tony Jay provides narration for the film. It's available on Amazon Prime.

*All the images are taken from India Tv and Wikipedia, we provide full credit to the sources and no credit is taken by this page.

-An article by Srishti Negi

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