Serial Killers Psychology

Since the times of Jack the Ripper, researchers and investigators have struggled to understand the mind of a serial killer. Researches have suggested abnormally high or low IQ’s, behind the making of a serial killer, but yes there is a lot more to it. Read more on serial killers psychology…

The serial killers psychology is far beyond the grasp of normal human understanding. Though they are mentally sick, they themselves are not totally responsible for what they are, there are various other contributing factors. And they are as…

A serial killer is a person who murders 3 or more people, in a particular fashion, in a gap of few days. What gives the serial killers their name is the symmetricity of their modus operandi. There is always something common in the murders like, the use of a particular weapon, the race of the people killed, their age, gender, their profession and sometimes even the graffiti on the body of the victim. The basis of the motives have mostly been some psychological disorder, which wasn’t identified until it was too late. More or less the motive has always consisted an element of hatred and fear, which have their roots in the killer’s childhood. It is hard to believe that a person can kill for sexual favors, and can have unbelievable intentions like necrophilia and cannibalism.

Power has always been the center of a serial killer’s thinking. These people are seriously obsessed with being in a position of power, be it sexually or in general life. They somehow like the feeling of being in charge and they will go to any extent, to make sure they are. This psychology branches from the background of child abuse, neglect and low self esteem. The children who grow up with a feeling of being unwanted and unloved, tend to become very violent and assertive in their adult life. And sometimes, this low self esteem and rejection finds a wrong vent in brutally murdering innocent people. These people being shy as kids have vivid imaginations, mostly violent and when in a position, they get obsessed with living their imaginations. It is really hard to imagine what goes on in a sick mind and is totally shocking when this sick mind goes ahead and makes it all come true, no matter what.

The victims of serial killers are physically weaker than them. The most favorite targets being children (both boys and girls) and women. There have been a few serial killers who targeted old people and a very few who targeted middle-aged men. Even infants have paid with their lives for being born to a poor family or sometimes just for being born. Women and children have paid with their lives for the satisfaction of a sick mind’s wild imagination. Most have been killed for sexual favors, and the worst is, many have been killed for their body parts, that were supposedly tasty. A few killers killed for financial gains also and lot many lives have been sacrificed in the name of God and Devil equally. Yes, there have been serial killers, who in their confession said that God/Devil guided them to kill a person and sometimes even to eat their particular organs or drink their blood, etc, etc. Oh God, I am sick of even writing this and I don’t know how some people did this. I mean can you imagine living in a house with a dead body. When we normal people cannot even imagine all this without getting goose bumps, think what goes in the mind of a serial killer who has done all this and actually finds pleasure in this. There have been cases where a person lived with dead bodies and treated them as his family. This case shows serious problem of low self esteem, caused due to rejection. That person was so scared of rejection that he thought of keeping dead people around him, who can be controlled easily or say, who need not be controlled at all, who didn’t have their opinions and took the killer as their master, without resistance.

So, I can safely say that a serial killer’s psyche is mostly based on a background of abuse; both mental and (physical) sexual and misplaced morals mixed with a high or very low IQ. Some of the serial killers have had an IQ of 152 and they have been always found to be standing on the borderline between sanity and insanity. They come from all walks of life, from a successful mathematician to a mechanic, they have all been there and done that.

Psychology of Serial Killers – Background

Are serial killers psychopaths? Yes most of them are. A psychopath is a person who doesn’t believe in social norms, and ethical principles and is generally antisocial. These people seem to have strange set of morals and logics in life. It has been ascertained that their characteristics are very shallow, are charming, very impulsive, have criminal ways of thinking, are violent and abusive and show all of these traits from a very early age. Serial killers are known to gain satisfaction through their behavior.

The records of hundreds of serial killers indicate child abuse. Most of the serial killers are known to have suffered both mental and physical (sexual) abuse in their childhood and many a times the culprits being their own parents (incest). Absence of family morals, sometimes, even the absence of a proper functioning family, has lead to severely low esteemed children, who grew up to be mentally sick. Of all the abuses that a serial killer at some point of time suffered himself, rejection tops the chart. A few of them were born to prostitutes or teen-aged unmarried mothers and had to face situations pathetic enough to make them hate whole of the human race.

All in all, serial killers have a background of abusive parents, ignored childhood on account of a dysfunctional family, totally displaced moral values, extremely low self esteem and a seriously wrong concept of life and the working of the society. Many psychologists have observed that a proper family would have saved these killers from becoming what they came to be. Most of them have had an IQ of a genius but lacked a direction, ending up in a mess and moreover history stands evidence to the fact, that people with extraordinary IQs have eventually lost their minds and ended up being total freak shows and a threat to the society.

Serial Killers Psychology – Adult Life

The adult life of a serial killer is mostly filled with failures. Failures at personal level are common because, who can cope up with a serial killer and if somebody does, he or she has always ended up being the first victim. A serial killer can never have a properly functioning family because most of them don’t know what it means. The history of all known serial killers is filled with failed marriages and love affairs. They even fail at pursuing a career. Their minds are just not made to work hard and make a career. They can’t work under someone because they want power, they are known to generally misbehave at their workplace, leading to being fired. Their short temper follows them everywhere, leading to general misbehavior and violence with coworkers. These people also get bored very easily. A monotonous 9-5 job can never satisfy them. They need thrill in their life, which they find in all the wrong places. There has been a mathematician who became a serial killer from being the head of the department of a well-known American University. This man suddenly wanted to save earth, using all means. He quit his normal life, started living in a cottage which had no running water and electricity. There he started making bombs which were used to injure and kill a few of his university colleagues for no apparent reason. And it is still not known why and how these people contradicted the project of saving earth. Read more on ‘

List of Famous Serial Killers

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A serial killer keeps showing the symptoms of being mentally sick, all his life. But most of the symptoms go unnoticed for some reason or the other. One major reason being, solitary isolation. And this reason is very logical because cohabitation with a serial killer is impossible. For normal people to agree with the ideologies of a serial killer is tough and a serial killer will never agree with the normal people, hence, ruling out the possibilities of having a friend or foe, who will be around to notice if something’s wrong.

Till the date, all the serial killers have had friends who were equally psycho’s and agreed with their way of life. All the accomplices of the serial killers had a serial killer psychology themselves and helped the serial killer directly or indirectly. There have been cases where all an accomplice did was find the victims, rest everything; torture, rape, murder, etc., was done by the killer, and they stood by, enjoying the process.

Though at a different level, these people can be considered equally sick and the laws have always punished them equally. In some cases, the accomplices have given verdicts against the killer and saved themselves from the death penalty, but the laws made sure that they never walked out of the prisons, alive. Till date all the accomplices have served at least one life imprisonment. There are many who have got multiple life sentences and will never step out of the prison, not at least for next 200 years.

Serial Killers Psychology – Angels of Mercy: Women Serial Killers

Women have achieved everything that a man can achieve socially, so why not the status of a serial killer. A female serial killer is termed as angel of mercy, because by far mercy is what they have done while killing, at least they themselves thought so. There have been cases of women working as nurses, housewives, cooks, etc., murdering people for their profits. With women, it has mostly been about financial gains and profits. Women have murdered their husbands and children, so as to acquire their insurance money. Women working as nurses have killed for unknown reasons as well as financial gains. Even women working as cooks have killed their masters after influencing them to change their wills. Poisoning is the most commonly used method of killing by the angels of mercy. Some women are known to have killed as many as 7 husbands and respective kids, just so, that they can get some money from the insurance policies, taken for the deceased.

Thinking of women, in this role is tough, but yes there have been cases. Women have also been accomplices to male serial killers. There are many well known cases where a woman, who is a girlfriend or wife of the killer has helped him with his gross chores. So people, even women can be inhuman, I know it’s hard to imagine but it’s logical that even they suffer from mental disorders. As compared to men, women or say a girl child is more prone to abuse and violence, leading to a disturbed personality with a lot of hatred hidden in some deep corners of the mind. Most of the times, all they need is a little provocation and they become monstrous themselves or an accomplice to a monster. So, now you have more reasons to be afraid. Apart from men, you have to be careful about some very beautiful and strangely affectionate women. For more information on serial killer psychology, you may always refer to Hollywood.

Serial Killers Psychology – Theories

The work and research of many psychologists, over many decades, gave way to a few theories, that suggest some common traits of the serial killers. One of the most famous one being the MacDonald Triad. The Macdonald Triad defines a combination of three symptoms, that are mostly found in all the serial killers. It consists of three behavioral characteristics that are straightaway associated with sociopathic behavior. These were coined by JM Macdonald, a forensic psychiatrist, in a 1963 paper in the American Journal of Psychiatry, called ‘The Threat to Kill’. The characteristics described by him are:

• Cruelty to animals.
• Obsession with fire.
• Bed wetting past the age of 5.

According to the statistics, the childhood history of these 3 characteristics has been found in most of the serial killers. These symptoms mentioned in the triad being the outcome of parental neglect and abuse, have in one on the other way lead to overly shy and reserved kids, who grew up to become violent adults with their own strange concepts of life. Read more on ‘

Sociopath Vs Psychopath

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A serial killer is often confirmed of suffering from at least one psychological disorder. But a person can always suffer from more than one, which is mostly the case. A few observed serial killer psychological disorders are:

• Schizophrenia
• Multiple personality disorder
• Antisocial personality disorder
• Anxiety disorder
• Bipolar disorder
• Borderline personality disorder
• Childhood antisocial disorder
• Delusional disorder
• Depression
• Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Obsessive compulsive personality disorder (OCPD)
• Physical abuse
• Panic attack
• Pedophilia
• Personality disorder
• Psychotic disorder
• Sexual sadism

and so on. Really, the list of disorders these people suffer from is endless. More or less all the symptoms are related to each other and in most cases, one condition leads to the other.

Serial Killer Psychology – Motives

The motives of serial killers have been many till date. If I compile a list of all the motives discovered till now, it will look something like this:

• Sexual favors
• Sexual sadism
• Pedophilia
• Financial gains
• Racism
• Fun
• Pleasure
• Thrill The last three motives are real, and they truly define the mental condition of a serial killer. For a normal person it is hard to even think of death and fun together but for a serial killer it is easy to accomplish. Motive or no motive, killing a person for any reason other than self defense, is a criminal offense and killing a number of people serially, is a serial crime and is most often punished serially, with a series of life terms or direct death penalty

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Jokes apart, hanging a serial killer is not a solution. Hanging one has never stopped the next one. The solution to this probably lies in providing a healthy childhood to every kid, no matter which family or society he is born in, because most of the problems of a serial killer have their roots in his childhood and some in his genetics. But providing a healthy childhood to everyone is easier said than done. All we can do is just hope that every grown up fulfills his responsibilities properly and brings up his children with a stable and healthy mind. So, can we say a serial killer is the result of a corrupt and immoral society and that to curb the making of a serial killer in the future, we have to start with cleaning and mending our own morals?

Detecting a serial killer and understanding a serial killer psychology in a crowd of millions, is impossible, but it is in our hands to build a society where people respect each other, irrespective of their colors, a society where parents provide their children with a childhood full of love and care and where every person is aware that life is precious. After all, a serial killer is a child, who didn’t understand what love is and how it feels to share it with others. And at some point or the other, it was and is the fault of the society.