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Serial Killers : A Serial Killer

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To begin, one must understand a serial killers background to get an understanding of how childhood trauma could lead to their need to kill. Although there are no exact factors that would absolutely cause a child to grow up into a serial killer, research found by Laurence Miller in “Serial killers: II. Development, Dynamics, and Forensics,” suggest that there are several common factors found in multiple serial killers’ childhoods. For example, some of the leading childhood characteristics found among serial killers include being adopted, being the sons of a prostitute, and have underwent sever physical or sexual abuse (Miller, 2013, p.13). This demonstrates that such experiences, at a young age, can be very traumatic and create this need of comfort that most serial killers satisfy through the murdering of multiple innocent individuals. However, the most shocking yet prevalent form of abuse comes from the mothers. This can be noted as Miller states that an increasing amount of serial killers had, “…intensely ambivalent, smothering relationships with their mothers that were characterized by both maternal abuse and sexual attraction to the mother (Miller, 2013, p.13). Miller also noted that many of these individuals came from dysfunctional families that indeed had a history of either psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, or legal problems (Miller, 2013, p.13). With such information, one begins to understand where these individuals turned cold but even then, nothing justifies

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