Serial Killer Research Paper

A Critical Look at the World of Serial Killers

By: Daniel Wise

Serial killing is the rarest form of homicide, serial killing is when a person has killed three or more people in a span of time. There is usually a “cool off” period where the individual takes a break between his killings for usually a month or more there are times where this period could be shorter. Their main motivation for killing is typically based on psychological gratification that the killer gets because they have been hurt in the past or have some kind of psychical issues. Most often a sexual assault happens in the murders, other times the killer just want the media attention, are dealing with anger, or killing for the thrill of it because it gives them some sort of “high” feeling. Most of the time the serial killers have a pattern in their killings that can be associated with the types of victims or the methods for their killing. For example,
they may target women that have blonde hair, blue eyes and are a certain height. They will travel state to state to find the right victim that that fits the description there looking for. Some victims have personal relationship some do not, some are killed for pleasure some are just killed for their own finical gain, and some are killed because of a psychosis kill because they have a serious mental illness. Unlike serial killer’s mass murders kill a large number of people, usually at the same time and location. There is no rhyme or reason why the killer picks the people that they do. Most mass murders end up shooting their self or end up being shot by the police. Majority of mass murders are males and not very social and tend to be very paranoid person. They pick a specific location to perform their mass murders because something has either happened to them there or the know that there is a specific group of people there that they have a problem with. Similar to serial killers, mass murderers also display psychopathic behaviors. Childhood memories most of the time were never good for a serial killer. From there father beating their mother, parents had nothing to do with them, dad leaving a young age, dads bringing home and having sex with prostitutes, physical abuse to them. Some serial killers as kids had nothing to do with their parents. They run away and try not to get to attached to anyone. Most people will agree that it is very common for kids that end up being serial killers start out by torturing or killing animals. There is some kind of pleasure that they get from this that makes them progress to eventually killing humans. There are many myths that go along with the study of Serial killers.
Myth 1 is; Types of myths for serial killers are dysfunctional loaners who you think are stupid and don’t understand the concept of life. Many serial killers can live in everyday life. They can hide in plain sight. They have family’s and jobs live in a nice home. Serial killers like this, get over looked a lot by law enforcement and the public because they look like such harmless people and they seem like valuable members of society. Robert Yates is a good example of this. He was married and had five kids and was in the U.S. army. The Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway is another example who had confused to killing 48 women in over a twenty years. He was also married and had kids with a full time job he the same job for over thirty years, and went to church every Sunday. These men were able to convince people that they were 100% normal and that they would never be able to go through with even the thought of killing someone. But in the end they were caught and the truth came
out.

Myth 2. Serial killers are not all white there is white, black, Mexican, and Asian. African Americans are the biggest racial group of serial killers almost twenty percent. Movies seem to portray the role of a serial killer is a middle aged white male but this is not always the case. A serial killer does not have to be a certain age or race they just have some kind of mental illness that causes them to hurt the people that they do. Myth 3. All serial killers travel widely and kill interstate. Majority of serial killers stay within their comfort zone. It seems like most of them always go back to the place where they were hurt the most. They might not live there but they know the area really well or maybe live the before. Serial killers can go outside their comfort zone but only after having a lot of successful murders and build up the confidences. John Wayne Gracy buried most of his victims under his house. This is a perfect example of a serial killer that felt the need to remain close to home. Most of the serial killers realize that they are more likely to keep getting away with something if they stay in a familiar area where they have committed the crime before and got away with it. Myth 4. Serial killers are insane or evil geniuses. This myth is about is about if serial killers are really mentally unstable or really smart evil criminals. Really not that many serial killers have mental illness. Most are very intelligent and can blind in with society. These types of serial killers know what they are doing and understand what they are doing is wrong so they can’t be consider mentally insane. Jeffery Dahmer is a good example he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder but he was still able to understand what he was doing was wrong so he stood trial for his murders. Now Richard Chase was mentally insane! He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he later killed six people in California. There are many different cases for this myth. Some may know exactly what they are doing but think that it is justified because of the way that they were hurt as a child and others think that there are voices in their heads that telling them to kill people. Myth 5. Serial killers are motivated by sex. Not all murders are about sexual pleasure, more common ones are rage, thrill seeking, media attention, and financial gain. Some killer may find pleasure in having sex with their victims before they kill them but most serial killers are killing someone because they remind them of someone that has hurt them in the past.

Another myth would be if it is possible for serial killers to ever stop killing. I do not think that it is possible for serial killers to stop killing because there is always a chance that there is something that will set them off and cause them to start their old habits again. Even if a serial killer were to go to jail or prison there is always the possibility that when they are released, if they are released that they will go straight back to their old habits and start searching for their next victim. In conclusion there are many different myths that people have about serial killers but most are false. There are always exceptions to every rule and there are always special cases that may prove these myths to be true. Some serial killers are evil and others have some serious mental issues but all of them have one thing in common and that is that they all enjoy or get some kind of pleasure of fulfilment from killing people.