You’d be hard pressed to find one in a crowd. The average serial killer generally blends in with everyone else (Directory Journal, 2010). In fact, most are soft-spoken and even polite. Their monstrous nature only comes through when you dig deeper into their personalities, actions, and habits. Most seem to have come from dysfunctional family settings and were emotionally, sexually, or even verbally abused as children (Directory Journal, 2010). It is almost as if this background activates some psychological trigger that increases their feelings of inadequacy or worthlessness that led them to seek out their own heinous form of release.
Often considered America’s first female serial killer, Aileen Wuornos was neither first nor the worst.
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By age 10, Wuornos and her brother began experimenting sexually with each other and by 14, she was pregnant and initially claimed her brother was the father but would later state that she had been raped by an older man from her neighborhood (Biography.com, 2010). She gave the baby up for adoption and then left home to hitchhike across America to work as a prostitute.
She would spend the next twenty years trying to find a place to call home as her life spiraled out of control even more (Biography.com, 2010). By 1976 she would find herself in and out of trouble with the law. Settling in Daytona Beach, Fl., she would find herself working the exit ramps up and down the Florida freeways taking customers wherever she could. She would eventually meet and fall in love with young waitress named Tyria Moore. They would stay together for a few years, barely getting by on Wuornos’ meager income from prostitution. Finding times tough, she and Moore would decide it would be necessary to rob her johns and then shot them to make ends meet (Biography.com, 2010).
In December1989, the body of Richard Mallory would be found near Daytona Beach(Biography.com, 2010). He had been shot three times. Six months later, another man was found sot six times with the same gun. Before this body could be identified, a third victim was found. By November 1990, four more men
What is a serial killer? Retired Special Agent Robert Ressler, a twenty-two year veteran of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia, is responsible for creating the term “serial killer.” He defines this person as “one who commits a series of murders, usually three or more, the victims most often being strangers, and usually with a cooling-off period in between each kill” (Kelleher & Kelleher, 1998; Pearson, 1998; Ressler and Shactman, 1997). This precise definition is necessary to distinguish this type of predator from the mass murderer (who kills many simultaneously), mercenaries, war criminals, or mafia hit men.
On December 13, 1989, the corpse of Richard Mallory was found in the woods near Daytona Beach. Mallory had been shot three times and robbed. Two young men that were out looking for junk they could sell discovered Mallory along a dirt road close to Interstate 95, in Volusia County, Florida. Richard Mallory’s body was wrapped in a rubber-backed carpet runner. Mallory was a white male, only 51 years old. It was determined that Mallory was murdered on December1, 1989. Fingerprints were taken from his badly
Serial killers is a person that kill three or more people in a short amount of time. He or she murder one after another in a similar way with an inactive period between each murder. The motivation for murdering an adult or child is based on psychological gratification. The serial killer is normally an adult white male in his late twenties, who has killed four or more individuals in separate incident with an inactive period between. It is impossible to tell just by looking at a person who will become a serial killer, the traits of some criminals or serial killers appear to be similar most of the time. The types of behaviors
Statistically, the average serial killer is a white male from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in his twenties or thirties. Many were physically or emotionally abused by parents. Some were adopted. As children, fledgling serial killers often set fires, torture animals, and wet their beds (these red-flag behaviors are known as the “triad” of symptoms.) Brain injuries are common. Some are very intelligent and have shown great promise as successful professionals. They are also fascinated with the police and authority in general (Scott).
With a little help from Wuornos’ ex girlfriend Tyria, Wuornos had confessed to the murders of all six men to police. She claimed that while she was working at a prostitute on the Florida Highways, when these men
There are many myths that describe, or stereotype a serial killer. You may have heard that serial killers are all dysfunctional loners or that all serial killers are white males. One might also hear that
When she was born, Pamela Lamb did not exist—legally speaking, anyways. Her mother was a prostitute from New Orleans who'd been knocked up by her pimp and barely had the money to sustain herself, let alone her daughter. It was a sheer miracle that her mother's pimp only found out about his daughter after she'd turned five. Casting her out of his care and blacklisting her among the city's seedy underbelly, Pamela's mother had no means to sustain herself and died from exposure, curled up outside a bus station—except her daughter wasn't with her. The woman had given her girl away two months beforehand to an old friend from Orleans who owed her a debt—Santo Marino. He'd capitulated, albeit grudgingly, taking the girl back with him to his hometown of Miami.
Their marriage annulled shortly after, and she returned to Florida. Because of the horrible history Wuornos had with men all her life, she tried her luck with women. At a biker bar in Daytona Beach, Florida, she met Tyria Moore, who later moved in with her and together they shared a romantic relationship. Wuornos supported them with her earnings as a prostitute, and she also stole to pawn the stolen items. The couple did not have many friends, but Wuornos claimed to be in love with Moore, so she was fine with not having any other companions. She wanted to be able to support Moore, so she did anything she had to do to be able to support them, even prostitute, which Moore disapproved of, but Wuornos never stopped. Moore was never involved in any of the murders, although she did claim to know about the murder of Richard Mallory, but she did not turn Wuornos into the police. If Moore would have known about all of the murders, she would have felt obligated to turn Wuornos in, so she decided not to ask, even if she became suspicious throughout their relationship.
4. Serial killers also show signs of a psychopath though this is not always the case. Psychopaths lack empathy and guilt, are egocentric and impulsive and don’t conform to social, moral, or legal norms. Psychopaths have a distinct set of rules for themselves. They appear normal and are often very charming and charismatic.
There are many theories as to why people become serial killers. Almost all of these concepts are associated with the Nature vs. Nurture theory. Are serial killers born with the need to kill, or is it something that they learn to long for as they grew up? Many believe that the nurture theory is the likely concept to believe; that serial killers are created from bad childhood experiences including being abused by their parents, or molested at an early age. Psychologist and sociologist have interviewed serial killers and picked apart their minds, to find out what it is that makes them feel the need to perform these heinous crimes. It is the nature theory that they are looking for when
His dead body was found in the woods near Daytona Beach, Florida, shot with a twenty two caliber rifle. “She ended up shooting six .22 caliber bullets into him” (McDuff 202). This is just one of the many catastrophes performed by a woman serial killer. Serial killers are a problem in the United States, murdering on average 2000 people each year (Indiana University np). “In fact, serial murder in the United States alone makes up more than three-quarters of the estimated world total” (Innes 5). Although women serial killers are not very common, they still have a huge impact on the death toll of innocent victims. In order to understand how woman serial killers operate, it is important to understand their motives, the different classifications
People who have been diagnosed with this cluster are sexually inappropriate, prone to a grandiose view of their own uniqueness and abilities, emotionally unstable, self-centered, lacking and sense of guilt, shame or empathy and are often superficially charming, manipulative and exploitative. Most serial killers exhibit a well known triad of behaviors in childhood: a fascination with fire, cruelty to animals and prolonged bed-wetting. Many become almost uncontrollably interested in pornography as teenagers and anti-social when they reach adulthood. Most were physically and/or sexually abused. However, they appear normal in surface appearance and behavior. Typically with this illness, comes overpowering waves of compulsion to kill that wax and wane over time but normally get worse with age. Serial killers are described by law enforcement as organized or unorganized. Organized killers often appear normal in their appearance and socially. They typically plan their killing, have a mode of transportation and bring some sort of murder “kit”, containing the tools they will need. Most serial killers don’t use guns. The victims usually fit into a certain profile (e.g. gender, race, hair color etc.) and they will hunt down their victims. The organized killer is more likely to have a crime scene picked out, take or discard the weapon, and move or transport the body to a hiding place. In contrast to the organized killer the
One of the most infamous serial killers and sex offenders in America and around the world is Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer is widely known for his killing, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism. He killed seventeen males between the ages of 14 and 33. He was so well known the was even mentioned in a Katy Perry song. Fortunately his brutally gruesome killings were put to an end in 1994 when he was convicted and sent to prison.
While most of the violent crimes that happens most are them are belongs to men, women have not been the wilting flowers promoted so heartily by Victorian adorers and (right or wrong) often evident in today's society. Before we get into detail about the fascinating phenomenon of the Black Widow, it is worth a brief overview of women's escalating role in the world of violent crime, particularly in the United States.
She continued her life in Castlereagh where she met John Simpson aged 42, a too convicted criminal. The couple lived together and over a course of 11 years gave birth to eight children out of wedlock. After both Mr and Mrs Simpson were granted their freedom they lived a normal life unaware of the gruesome fate that awaited them.