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Serial Killer Research Paper Topics: How to Pick One

Why should anyone write a research paper on serial killers? It is the very question you should keep in mind when assigned to perform a home task on this topic. Serial killers are not products of the long-gone times of Jack the Ripper, but a frightening reality. Moreover, despite all the achievements and efforts of forensic science, various fields related to psychology, psychiatry and different social services, people who have a pathological urge to satisfy their contorted needs through serial killings find new ways to escape both treatment and punishment, as well as to trap victims. The US is the world's serial killers leader with the share of 76 percent, while Europe ranks second with only 17 percent. And although the number of serial killers fell significantly in the noughties compared to the 1970-1990s, only from 2010 to 2015 more than 500 victims were killed and 54 serial killers were apprehended and identified in the United States.

That's why you need to understand that you are asked to write about serial killers for a reason - to contribute to preventing this type of crime in one way or another. And that's why you need to take the task seriously starting from the very choosing of a topic for your serial killers research paper. Some students make a mistake taking allegedly "entertaining" topics like "The US number one dangerous killer" or "The most terrible crimes committed by maniacs in the history." Such topics are suitable for thrilling readers rather than for conducting in-depth research aimed at some practical purpose. Those practical purposes may cover understanding how people become serial killers; what we can do to identify deviant behavior in people early on; what should be done to eliminate factors contributing to the development of violent behavior and so on.

To this end, serial killers are studied in several fields like psychology, sociology, forensics and some other sciences, which consider the phenomenon from various perspectives to better understand it. Obviously, students should choose serial killer research paper topics based on the subject they study and set the appropriate goals - to explore the psychology of criminals, to distinguish the most vulnerable social groups or to learn about ways that may help in catching a serial killer. Even if you are writing without focusing on a particular subject, you can make a real difference by dispelling myths about serial killers and presenting facts that can educate you and your readers.

Research Paper Topics on Serial Killers: Ideas and Examples

We have selected the most promising topic ideas on serial killers covering psychological, social, cultural, demographic and many other aspects of this phenomenon. Note that the list doesn't include topics on mass murders or school shooting since many forensic schools consider serial killers a separate group of criminals, who are different in their specificity from those mentioned. However, you should clarify through your tutor, which category of criminals you are assigned to research, and if necessary, you can transform the proposed topics accordingly.

• Where did the term "serial killer" come from?
• Family physical, psychological and sexual abuse and deviant behavior in serial killers.
• Mental disorders in serial killers.
• What lies behind a serial killer's signature?
• Is it possible to diagnose a would-be serial killer?
• What makes a serial killer tick?
• How do juvenile criminals become serial killers?
• Distinctive aspects of repeated murders committed by women.
• The social background of serial killing.
• How does a serial killer differ from a maniac?
• Victim profile: demographic characteristics and individual traits.
• A spree killer, a mass murderer, and a serial killer - terms and legislation.
• Serial killers in the United States: Ethnicity and demographics.
• Are there naturally born serial killers?
• Measures taken by the countries with the highest level of serial killing to reverse the trend.
• Angels of mercy: distinctive features.
• The impact of serial killings on pop culture.
• Are there death penalty alternatives for serial killers?
• Genetic predisposition to violence in serial killers: myth or fact?
• Is there a tendency to increase or decrease in serial killings in the US in the XXI century?
• Serial murders and paraphilia.
• Can modern therapies available for sociopathic and psychopathic disorder set serial killers to rights?
• Criticism of the Macdonald triad.
• Organized, disorganized and mixed killers - how do they differ?
• Multiple murders for money.

You can adjust the offered research paper topics on serial killers to your needs by broadening or, conversely, narrowing them down. Make sure to find and read information on the topic selected before making a final decision to avoid lack of evidence.

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104 Serial Killer Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Serial killers have long been a subject of fascination and terror for people around the world. The idea that someone could commit multiple murders without remorse or regret is both horrifying and intriguing. If you are studying criminology or psychology, writing an essay on serial killers can be a captivating and challenging task. To help you get started, here are 104 serial killer essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your research and writing:

• The psychology of serial killers: analyzing the motivations and behaviors of notorious serial killers.
• Nature vs. nurture: are serial killers born or made?
• The role of childhood trauma in the development of serial killers.
• How media coverage of serial killers influences public perception and fear.
• Serial killers and misogyny: exploring the connection between gender and violence.
• The impact of social isolation on the development of serial killers.
• The relationship between serial killers and psychopathy.
• The influence of popular culture on the mythos of serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of serial killers.
• The significance of victim selection in understanding serial killers.
• Serial killers and the criminal justice system: how are they caught and prosecuted?
• The impact of technology on the investigation and apprehension of serial killers.
• The evolution of serial killer profiling in law enforcement.
• The phenomenon of groupie culture surrounding serial killers.
• The role of trauma bonding in the relationships between serial killers and their followers.
• The ethics of studying and writing about serial killers.
• Serial killers and the death penalty: should they be executed or given life in prison?
• The portrayal of serial killers in literature and film.
• The influence of childhood abuse on the development of serial killers.
• The connection between animal cruelty and serial killers.
• The role of substance abuse in the actions of serial killers.
• The role of fantasy in the crimes of serial killers.
• The impact of childhood neglect on the development of serial killers.
• The role of social media in the glorification of serial killers.
• The impact of trauma on the victims of serial killers.
• The relationship between serial killers and organized crime.
• The role of pornography in the actions of serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and cults.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of serial killers.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of serial killers.
• The impact of technology on the prevention of serial killings.
• The role of forensic science in the investigation of serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and terrorism.
• The influence of cults on the actions of serial killers.
• The significance of ritualistic behaviors in the crimes of serial killers.
• The role of religion in the motivations of serial killers.
• The impact of childhood trauma on the development of female serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and organized religion.
• The role of race and ethnicity in the actions of serial killers.
• The significance of geographic profiling in the investigation of serial killers.
• The influence of social media on the actions of serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and the occult.
• The impact of celebrity status on the actions of serial killers.
• The role of gender identity in the motivations of serial killers.
• The significance of mental health treatment in preventing serial killings.
• The connection between serial killers and political extremism.
• The influence of trauma bonding in the relationships between serial killers and their victims.
• The impact of childhood abuse on the development of female serial killers.
• The connection between serial killers and organized crime.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of female serial killers.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of female serial killers.
• The relationship between childhood neglect and the development of female serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of female serial killers.
• The connection between female serial killers and cults.
• The impact of substance abuse on the actions of female serial killers.
• The significance of ritualistic behaviors in the crimes of female serial killers.
• The influence of gender identity on the motivations of female serial killers.
• The role of religion in the actions of female serial killers.
• The connection between female serial killers and terrorism.
• The impact of social isolation on the development of female serial killers.
• The significance of media coverage in the apprehension of female serial killers.
• The influence of social media in the glorification of female serial killers.
• The role of forensic science in the investigation of female serial killers.
• The connection between female serial killers and the occult.
• The impact of childhood trauma on the development of black serial killers.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of black serial killers.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of black serial killers.
• The relationship between childhood neglect and the development of black serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of black serial killers.
• The connection between black serial killers and cults.
• The impact of substance abuse on the actions of black serial killers.
• The significance of ritualistic behaviors in the crimes of black serial killers.
• The influence of gender identity on the motivations of black serial killers.
• The role of religion in the actions of black serial killers.
• The connection between black serial killers and terrorism.
• The impact of social isolation on the development of black serial killers.
• The significance of media coverage in the apprehension of black serial killers.
• The influence of social media in the glorification of black serial killers.
• The role of forensic science in the investigation of black serial killers.
• The connection between black serial killers and the occult.
• The impact of childhood trauma on the development of Hispanic serial killers.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of Hispanic serial killers.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of Hispanic serial killers.
• The relationship between childhood neglect and the development of Hispanic serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of Hispanic serial killers.
• The connection between Hispanic serial killers and cults.
• The impact of substance abuse on the actions of Hispanic serial killers.
• The significance of ritualistic behaviors in the crimes of Hispanic serial killers.
• The influence of gender identity on the motivations of Hispanic serial killers.
• The role of religion in the actions of Hispanic serial killers.
• The connection between Hispanic serial killers and terrorism.
• The impact of social isolation on the development of Hispanic serial killers.
• The significance of media coverage in the apprehension of Hispanic serial killers.
• The influence of social media in the glorification of Hispanic serial killers.
• The role of forensic science in the investigation of Hispanic serial killers.
• The connection between Hispanic serial killers and the occult.
• The impact of childhood trauma on the development of Asian serial killers.
• The significance of signature behaviors in the crimes of Asian serial killers.
• The influence of family dynamics on the development of Asian serial killers.
• The relationship between childhood neglect and the development of Asian serial killers.
• The role of mental illness in the actions of Asian serial killers.
• The connection between Asian serial killers and cults.
• The impact of substance abuse on the actions of Asian serial killers.

These essay topic ideas and examples provide a starting point for exploring the complex and disturbing world of serial killers. Whether you are interested in the psychology, sociology, or criminology of serial killers, there is no shortage of fascinating and challenging topics to explore. By delving into the minds and motivations of these notorious criminals, you can gain a deeper understanding of human behavior and the dark side of humanity.

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67 Serial Killer Essay Topics

🏆 best essay topics on serial killer, ✍️ serial killer essay topics for college, 🎓 most interesting serial killer research titles, 💡 simple serial killer essay ideas.

• Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy: Mental Disorder Analyzed
• Ted Bundy: A Notorious Serial Killer
• Serial Killers: Speech Analysis
• Andrei Chikatilo: Behavioral Analysis
• Gary Ridgway: The Green River Killer
• Serial Killer Ted Bundy: Background and Psychological Theories
• American Serial Killer John Wayne Gacy
• Serial Killers: Patient Groups Investigated by Psychology and Psychiatry Serial killers are characterized as people with psychosis and dissocial personality disorders. The murder of a stranger is not seen as motivated by prior interpersonal frictions.
• Social Construction of Serial Killers Serial killing is a homicide category occurring when an offender murders more than three victims unknown to the criminal.
• Why Are People Fascinated by Fictional Serial Killers? This paper dwells upon the factors that contribute to the popularity of serial killers in modern cinematography and the development of the audience’s views on these characters.
• Albert Fish, The Grey Man and Serial Killer With his record of kidnapping, murder, grand larceny, and overall deviant behavior, Albert Fish wrote himself into the history of the most infamous and criminally dangerous people.
• Ted Bundy: Social Behavior of the Serial Killer This paper is an in-depth investigation of the relationship between the early life, social behavior and criminal life of the serial killer, Ted Bundy.
• Serial Killers’ Motivation for Committing Crimes Most rapist murderers who have committed a series of crimes have psychological or psychophysical problems due to the stress experienced in childhood.
• Offender Profiling in Apprehending Serial Killers The current essay proves the significance of offender profiling in apprehending serial killers by demonstrating the effectiveness of investigative psychology and other methods.
• The American Serial Killer in New Orleans From May 1918 through October 1919, the unidentified American serial killer terrorized the city of New Orleans and its neighboring areas, particularly the town of Gretna.
• Pop Culture and Serial Killer in Darkly Dreaming Dexter The essay compares and contrasts how the literary study could explore “Darkly Dreaming Dexter” differently than a film analysis could of the TV series.
• Serial Killers and Mayhem: What Makes Them So Fascinating for Society Celebrity monsters have been playing an essential part in popular culture since the 1970s. Multiple TV programs describe horror in their fictional and nonfictional themes.
• Psychosocial Factors That Serial Killers Have in Common
• John Wayne Gacy: Becoming a Cold-Hearted Serial Killer
• Aileen Wuornos: The First Female Serial Killer
• Serial Killers: Society’s Strange Addiction
• Evaluating the Unique Characteristics of a Serial Killer
• Serial Killers and the Influences on Hollywood’s Pop Culture
• The Making of a Serial Killer: Nature or Nurture?
• Serial Killer: The Mechanism from Imagination to the Murder Phases
• Israel Keyes: Where Did Alaska Serial Killer Travel?
• The Mary Bell Story: The Eleven-Year-Old Serial Killer
• Hunting Serial Killers: Understanding and Apprehending America’s Most Dangerous Criminals
• Serial Killers and Abuse in Childhood
• The Main Identity Traits That Serial Killers Acquire
• Serial Killers: Born or Made Evil
• The Psychological Theories and Aspects That Make an Individual a Serial Killer
• The Problem of Serial Killers in the Philippines
• Analysis of the Mind of Serial Killers
• Frequencies Between Serial Killer Typology and Theorized Etiological Factors
• H.H. Holmes: One of America’s First Recorded Serial Killers
• Serial Killers: How Traumatic Childhood Events Are a Baseline for Criminal Behavior
• Differential Association Theory and Serial Killer Ted Bundy
• Erikson’s Theory-Based Analysis of the Behavior of Robert William Pickton, a Serial Killer
• Serial Killer Definition: History, Characteristics, and Motives
• Understanding What Drives Serial Killers
• Ed Gein, the Serial Killer Who Inspired Leatherface, and Norman Bates
• Serial Killer Couples: Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka
• Characteristics and Backgrounds of Serial Killers
• The Rise of Serial Killers: America’s Most Dangerous Criminals
• Serial Killers with Mental Illnesses
• The Reasons Behind the Rise of the Scary Phenomenon of Serial Killer Culture
• Zodiac: The Mysterious Serial Killer of 1960-1970s
• How Serial Killer Ted Bundy Shocked the United States
• How Juveniles Become Serial Killers
• Schizophrenic Serial Killer: David Richard Berkowitz
• Why the Glamorization of Serial Killers Is Dangerous
• The Mind and Motivation of a Serial Killer
• Treatment and Rehabilitation of Serial Killers after Crime
• The Jeffrey Dahmer Case: A Look into the Psychology and Criminal Typology of a Serial Killer
• Andrei Chikatilo: The True Story of the Rostov Serial Killer
• Serial Killers: Toxic Traits, Myths And Facts
• An Overview of the Famous Serial Killers and Their Crimes
• The Role of Childhood in Becoming a Serial Killer
• Psychological Problems of Serial Killers
• The Reasoning Behind Why Serial Killers Kill
• Understanding the Phases of Serial Killers
• Serial Killers as Heroes in Popular Culture
• The Rise of Serial Killers and the Role of Media in Society’s Perception
• Understanding Why Aileen Wuornos Became a Serial Killer
• Most Notorious Serial Killers in America
• The Main Motive Behind the Killings by Serial Killers

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StudyCorgi . "67 Serial Killer Essay Topics." July 18, 2023. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/serial-killer-essay-topics/.

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These essay examples and topics on Serial Killer were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on January 9, 2024 .

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Youth Serial Killers: Psychological and Criminological Profiles

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Serial murder is a specific type of violent crime that falls into the crime category of multicide. According to the nomenclature of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Violent Crime Classification Manual and Academic Researchers for the Classification of Violent Crimes, most serial killers are adults. However, serial murder is also committed by young people, although to a lesser extent. Young serial killers are a topic of relevance in areas such as psychology, criminology, and the justice system. Given that the study of the variables that could be the basis of such multicide criminality is not conclusive, the need for further research is evident. The homicides perpetrated by children and young people point to a social panorama that is alarming due to their young age. This issue is prevalent enough to conduct a review. The performed review concludes the importance of psychosocial factors to better understand the process by which children and young people commit crimes as serious as serial murders. The scope of the problem of serial murders perpetrated by minors is controversial because it often depends on how the number of real cases is counted. Although official statistics indicate the low prevalence of juvenile serial killers, childhood is a period in which antisocial behaviour can have its beginning. Some authors consider that it is not uncommon for the first murder of this type to occur in adolescence. It is important to consider psychopathy as an influential factor in the various forms of serial criminal conduct committed by children and young people. The research works consulted provide evidence of the special relevance of psychopathy in the generation of serious juvenile delinquency.

1. Introduction

The phenomenon of serial murders occupies a unique place in the field of Criminology and the criminal justice system, especially when the perpetrators of this and other kinds of violent crimes are underage. In this sense, we use the terms child, juvenile and youth without distinction, as in the Convention on the Rights of the Child [ 1 ], to refer to those under the age of 18 when which they committed homicide.

In addition to the difficulties that this supposes for criminal investigation by the police and judicial systems, serial murder cases attract excessive attention from the media, mental health experts, the academic world, and the general public. This social, media and professional impact is even worse when the serial murders are perpetrated by either young people or women, since reality is greatly softened in the case of these populations, the more unpleasant aspects of the crime tending to be mitigated [ 2 ].

Furthermore, much of the lack of understanding of the phenomenon of serial murders, especially in the case of underage perpetrators, is surrounded by a halo of media sensationalism that usually arises from a question about the mind of serial killers asked and debated across numerous articles and opinion columns: are serial killers born or made? Added to this is another question of a similar nature, which refers to the popular idea of serial killers as predators, monsters, or devils [ 3 ]. In this sense, if this sensationalist question had to be settled, the conclusion would be obvious: serial killers are predators only in the sense that their methods of attack are very similar to those of predatory animals—they stalk, attack, and kill [ 4 ]. On the other hand, labelling them as monsters or devils, however abominable and indescribable the acts of such individuals may be, is only part of the media circus surrounding such cases at both judicial and social levels [ 5 ], and contributes to the media-influenced collective mentality that spares no detail [ 6 ] and which even, inexplicably, makes celebrities of such people [ 7 ].

Nevertheless, the generally badly characterised film image of the typical murderer who creates a plan of action and chooses their victim is ostensibly false in the case of most juvenile homicides. Only in very few cases (mainly serial killers, mass murderers and itinerants) does it respond to reality [ 8 ].

Putting aside the speculations of the media world, only empirical works of research and academic books that deal rigorously with this delicate and singular subject were considered in this review on serial murders perpetrated by children and youths. In this review, the problem of children and youths who commit homicide or murder, but not serially, was first reviewed to differentiate them from those young people who are serial killers.

Secondly, the concept and characterization of serial murders were defined as a form of multicide and as a specific type of violent crime. According to the conceptualization given by both the FBI’s Violent Crime Classification Manual and various researchers, the great majority of serial killers are white males aged between 25 and 35. Nevertheless, serial murder is also committed by youths, although to a much lesser extent.

Thirdly, the analysis of the psychological and criminological profiles of children and youths who had committed serial murders allowed us to characterize them with a series of psychosocial aspects and criminal motivations. In addition, it is also important to stress the need to consider other types of serial criminal conduct in which some young people become involved, and which can be considered as forerunners to the later perpetration of serial murders. Fourthly, the importance and role played by child–juvenile psychopathy in violent, criminal conduct and the perpetration of serial murders was explored.

The acquisition and development of aggressive and violent behaviour patterns, which may increase the risk of minors committing murder, respond to the joint action of multiple etiological factors (psychological, social, biological, environmental, etc.). Given that the study of the variables which might comprise the basis of such multicide criminality is inconclusive, the need for further investigation is evident. This review aims to provide the necessary knowledge to outline the therapeutic needs of serial killer children, and to deal with them through specific interventions.

To achieve a better knowledge of the phenomenon of murder committed by youths, as well as to understand the extent and severity of this phenomenon, we carried out a scoping review of research articles written in various countries.

Similarly, we reviewed and compared research works related to the concept and characterisation of serial killers. In addition, we analysed the said manifestations in youths to be able to understand their psychological and criminological profiles.

The information was obtained from the following databases: ScienceDirect, Scopus and PsycoINFO. For this review, publications were selected using the following descriptors: (serial killers AND youths) AND (juvenile delinquency AND psychosocial OR psychopathy factors).

Concerning exclusion criteria, all those studies in which the said search descriptors were not present were discarded. Similarly, despite the inclusion of research papers related to other serial criminal behaviour patterns often carried out by young people, such as arson, cruelty to animals, or sexual crimes [ 9 ], those studies that referred to non-serial juvenile violence were excluded.

The year of publication of these research papers was not an exclusion criterion, given their scarcity.

3.1. Youth Homicides and Non-Serial Killers: Extent and Severity of the Problem

The extent and severity of the problem of serial murders committed by minors (children and youths) begins with homicide and murder of a non-serial nature, but equally violent. There are numerous cases of this type throughout the world, and they are widely documented.

Despite the terminology frequently used by the media, young delinquents are not monsters or beasts, and often have not committed previous acts of violence [ 10 ]. The analysis and investigation that this author carried out on 80 attempted or consummated homicides, perpetrated by youths, shows that a great number of these crimes occurred because they found it difficult to refuse to participate in something previously planned by a group of peers, so the criminal motivations were only partially due to the minor’s personality. An explanation can often be found in an accumulation of arbitrary circumstances, and in the way an extremely aggressive individual reacts to such circumstances [ 10 ].

In this sense, Lempp [ 10 ] studied the probable motives for homicides committed by young delinquents and situated them in psychic and environmental contexts for each case to contribute to the scientific study of the phenomenon, evaluating the psychological, legal, psychiatric, and social aspects of each case.

Nevertheless, as mentioned previously, if the reality of these cases seems to be twisted, then what is the real extent of the problem? In this sense, the controversy and debate concerning the extreme violence of minors is widespread, since there are a diverse range of opinions and data about criminality in general among minors and young people. Rechea and Fernández [ 11 ] consider that the percentage of young people who commit this type of act is low.

The analysis of the participation of juveniles in homicides is still a serious problem in the USA, since between the mid-1980s and the start of the 1990s, there was an unprecedented growth in homicides perpetrated by youths [ 12 ]. The available data suggest that juveniles currently participate in more homicides than in previous generations [ 13 ].

Independently of the figures, the cases of juvenile homicide and murder cannot be underestimated, since the psychosocial and criminological reality of these cases is as particular as it is fatal for the victims.

Braga, Kennedy, Waring, and Morrison [ 14 ] stress the significance of homicides carried out by youths who belong to street gangs. It must be said that this criminal phenomenon is very particular, as its situational variables are different and should be studied separately from the rest of juvenile crime [ 15 , 16 ].

Due to all of the above, the psychosocial and criminological profile of youths who commit homicide and murder is not comparable to that of the common delinquent. In this sense, Lempp [ 10 ] warns that greater importance is not given to cases of child–juvenile homicide due to the generalized belief that “no-one would have believed them capable of such acts, precisely because they did not fit in any way the general image we have of a murderer”.

3.2. Serial Murders: Conceptual Limits and Main Characteristics

There is much controversy about the operational definition of serial murder [ 17 ]. However, in general, it can be considered a kind of multicide that can be defined as the repeated homicide of two or more persons [ 18 ], and with a cooling-down period between one crime and another [ 4 ].

The term serial killer was first coined to identify individuals who methodically murder a number of people within a period of time, although the motives, the victims and the methods vary from one serial killer to another [ 19 ].

Although the minimum number of victims considered necessary to define murders as serial murders is arbitrary, authors such as Egger [ 20 ] place the said minimum number as at least three victims. Similarly, although there is no single, generally accepted definition, Ferguson, White, Cherry, Lorenz, and Bhimani [ 21 ] coincide in pointing out that the essential element for defining a serial killer is the execution of three or more murders during multiple discreet events. Therefore, traditionally, a serial killer is defined as an individual who has murdered three or more victims [ 18 ].

However, it is important to point out that there are other types of homicide (for instance, terrorists, mass murderers, etc.) in which the perpetrators can murder more than three victims in their first killing spree, but who can then still become serial killers with a cooling-down period between one crime and another [ 22 ].

In any case, the aspect of the number of victims would have to be reconsidered, as there are murderers who only kill one person and are quickly arrested and imprisoned. Then, after studying their criminal behaviour patterns, it can be seen that there is a high probability that they would have killed again if they had not been caught and imprisoned [ 4 ].

The need to have a precise, working definition of a serial killer takes on greater importance when considering the process of generating the psychological and criminological profile of this type of individual, since there are many subtypes of serial killer. This gives rise to a variety of behaviour patterns and criminal motivations that reflect heterogeneous characteristics [ 23 ]. It is thus important to establish the psycho-criminological profile of these multicides on a differential level [ 24 , 25 ].

3.3. The Phenomenon of Serial Murders Committed by Minors

3.3.1. the psycho-criminological profiles of child and youth serial killers: psychosocial aspects and criminal motivations.

Serial murder is a type of multicide predominantly perpetrated by male adults [ 22 ]. The cases of child and youth serial killers are, of course, much less frequent than adult cases [ 9 ]. From the academic and professional sphere of forensic psychiatry, Myers [ 26 ] studied six cases of serial killers who were under 18 years of age throughout the entire series of their crimes, identifying only six in the last 150 years, the majority from the USA. According to this author, at least two of the six serial killers began to commit murder in their adolescence, and most of their successive crimes occurred at somewhat older ages.

According to Myers [ 26 ], each of these six young serial delinquents committed sexually motivated homicides as an expression of their aberrant erotic interest, which they later openly displayed at the crime scenes. The signs of sexual sadism and criminal characteristics reflect the behavioural profile of a more predatory type of violence (proactive or instrumental) than affective or reactive violence. In this sense, Myers [ 26 ] points out that these subjects preferred to use their own hands in the diverse methods and ways used to kill their victims, that is, cutting, stabbing, strangling and/or dismembering. Three of these children had problematic upbringings, yet, according to the reports, only one was physically abused by his father. The great majority of these juvenile serial killers showed signs of sexual sadism, a characteristic generally found in adult sexual serial killers [ 26 ].

Furthermore, this author states that “humans are not physiologically ‘wired’ to have sexual pleasure during the experience of significant anger” [ 26 ]. However, children usually explore their sexuality and the spectrum of pleasure/pain at an early age. Thus, according to this author, the physiological trait that traces the line between pleasure and pain is absent in these young serial killers, and it is this fact that could have given rise to the generalized conclusion that a serial killer’s behaviour is caused by psychological, social, and biological problems [ 26 ].

Some of these serial killers come from broken homes where they could not acquire a stable personality. Thus, they continually look to satisfy their desires through fantasies of domination and control [ 27 ]. Similarly, some of them were physically, sexually, and emotionally abused in childhood, and often such abuses were simultaneous [ 28 ].

Research into the impact of child abuse on violent behaviour has demonstrated that abuse and exposure to violence, in any of its multiple forms, is a very important factor for predicting criminal conduct [ 29 ]. The research of Dutton and Hart [ 30 ], carried out on males condemned for various crimes, suggests that those minors who were physically, sexually, and/or emotionally abused were three times more likely to act violently when adults. Nevertheless, Mitchell and Aamodt [ 31 ] state that, in the serial killer population, neglect experienced in childhood does not have a significant prevalence.

Myers [ 26 ] does not mention the important fact that the phenomenon of sexual pleasure/pain can be a learnt characteristic. In this sense, it had already been pointed out that “the blurring of pain/pleasure lines can occur during abuse, exposure to violence, or as psychological training (more often seen in socially accepted sexual masochism and slave/master social circles)” [ 32 ].

In any case, Myers concludes that “the murderers’ impulses to kill did not in the least decrease as they grew up; serial killers also fit into the category of ‘predator’” [ 26 ]. Due to the limited number of child serial killers, Myers [ 26 ] was unable to extrapolate the results of his study, and the idea of biological traits being the principal influence of serial killers requires more research to either prove or disprove it. In a later study on the psychological motivations of 12 sexual serial killers, this author and his team could only conclude that this type of individual expresses their positive feelings of sexual pleasure, and even euphoria (instead of anger or other unpleasant states of mind), through their criminal acts [ 33 ].

Although serial killings would seem to be a rare event, some authors suggest that it is difficult to determine the incidence and prevalence of this phenomenon [ 34 ]. Given that this form of violence has a strong social impact, and that it can appear to be the result of interacting biological, psychological, and sociological factors, research into this phenomenon should start in infancy [ 28 ].

As the cases of child and youth serial killers are much less frequent than those committed by adults, it is necessary to approach the studies of cases in this area differently to be able to advance our knowledge of such youths. Thus, an initiative to be recommended in this sense consists of more detailed research into other criminal serial behaviour patterns used by these youths. Such behaviour patterns as are set out below.

3.3.2. The Role of Five Categories of Criminal Serial Behaviour Patterns Used by Children and Youths: Criminological History of Adult Serial Murders?

According to Myers and Borg [ 9 ], there are generally six categories of criminal serial behaviour patterns which are normally studied in the case of children and youths: (1) ‘generic’ juvenile delinquency (which provides an explicative framework for other violent or non-violent crimes); (2) crimes of firesetting; (3) crimes of cruelty to animals; (4) crimes of a sexual nature; (5) crimes of sadism; and (6) serial murders. According to these authors, “the first five categories do not represent all the possible forms of serial crimes committed by young people, and neither do they cover the more serious types or all the specific profiles” [ 9 ]. In this sense, they also point out that “a wider treatment of this area could include additional, less serious crimes which, are by nature serial, such as kleptomania” [ 9 ].

Based on a thorough review of the literature concerning the five categories of serial criminal behaviour patterns in children and youths, Myers and Borg [ 9 ] believe that many of them could be the precursors of later serial murders, by which they seem to be ‘testing things out’; for instance, how they feel upon setting fire to objects, houses, and forests, mistreating and killing animals, etc. Thus, the maximum expression of criminal behaviour would reside in the murder of one or more people. Some young people begin with other types of serial criminal behaviour patterns which serve as a ‘preparatory’ step. Does this mean that serial murder can be learned? Considering the application of the theory of social learning to acts of firesetting by children and youths, Singer and Hensley [ 35 ] found that the motivational patterns of the subjects suggested just that.

Although the research estimates that serial killers begin their criminal careers at 20 years of age, what is certain is that it is not uncommon for the first murder of this type of multicide to happen in adolescence. For example, Burgess, Hartman, Ressler, Douglas, and McCormack [ 36 ] found that 10 out of the 36 adult serial killers in their study, imprisoned for sexual homicide, had also previously committed murder when they were young. Similarly, it is important to mention that the behavioural indicators of sexual murder predict the presence of sadistic sexual fantasies in both delinquents and the general population [ 37 ].

Thus, the criminal conduct of serial sexual attacks is also an important factor to be considered when trying to better understand the criminological and psychosocial profile of serial killers [ 38 , 39 ]. This is because many of them perpetrate serial sexual homicides [ 40 ] with diverse patterns and motivations [ 41 , 42 ]. Similarly, crimes of firesetting committed by children and youths are also examples of criminal conduct that should be considered, as they appear in many cases of serial killers [ 43 ]. Juvenile sexual homicides seem, in many cases, to be correlates or criminological antecedents of adult serial killers [ 44 ].

3.4. Psychopathy, Violent Delinquency, and Serial Murder

3.4.1. the role of child–juvenile psychopathy in violence and delinquency.

It is certain that the first five categories of serial criminal conduct in children and youths studied by Myers and Borg [ 9 ] should be considered in research into both serial murders and attempts to understand the motivational psychology and criminal profiling of violent delinquents [ 45 , 46 ]. In addition to these types of serial criminal conduct, variable psychopathy is another relevant factor to be considered in these cases since these youths usually score high in psychopathy [ 47 ].

Psychopathy is a clinical–forensic construct that gives rise to serious problems in the affective, interpersonal, and behavioural domains, so much so that psychopaths can victimize and manipulate others apparently without their conscience being affected [ 48 ]. Psychopathy is characterized by a series of well-defined traits [ 49 ].

Psychopathy may appear in connection with two separate concepts: that which stresses the social factors or childhood experiences are the root of the disorder; and those who defend the view that the biological, psychological, and genetic elements are the biggest contributors to its appearance [ 50 ].

It is necessary to distinguish between subclinical psychopathy (or non-criminal psychopathy) and criminal psychopathy [ 2 ]. While subclinical psychopathy is studied in the general population [ 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 ], criminal psychopathy is studied in clinical–forensic contexts such as courts and prisons [ 8 , 50 ].

The study of psychopathy is useful for understanding seriously antisocial behaviour and violence among children and youths [ 57 ]. In this sense, juveniles who experience a variety of antisocial risk factors, such as mental health issues, upbringing problems, a history of substance abuse, or prolonged criminal participation, are characterised by a profound impulsiveness, emotional instability, and a total absence of guilt with respect to the execution of the crime [ 58 ]. The result is the appearance of psychopathic characteristics, which seem to be risk factors for persistent violence among minors [ 59 ].

Although there are numerous myths and unspecified associations surrounding psychopathy in relation to violence and criminality [ 60 , 61 , 62 ], what is certain is that research has found that criminal psychopathy is a risk factor as far as violence and recidivism are concerned [ 63 , 64 , 65 ]. Taking into account the marked antisocial behaviour of criminal psychopathy [ 66 ] and the characteristic of criminal versatility mentioned in the Psychopathy Checklist—revised (PCL-R) [ 50 ], the main difference between subclinical and criminal psychopathy lies in the concrete perpetration of a crime, of whatever kind, as the basic structure of personality and emotions is practically the same in both types of psychopaths, the criminal and subclinical [ 2 ].

Many traits of psychopathy begin to emerge in infancy [ 50 ] and are clearly identifiable and evaluable in childhood, adolescence, and youth [ 67 ]. However, the inclusion of the concept of psychopathy in the child–juvenile population is not without controversy. While Semel [ 68 ] stresses the limitations of the evaluation of juvenile psychopathy in clinical and forensic contexts, Forth, Bergstrøm, and Clark [ 69 ] clarify the necessity and implications of this evaluation of minors. Although professionals and doctors are still reticent about using the term ‘psychopath’ in the cases of children and youths [ 70 ], the scientific evidence in this respect cannot be denied due to its relation to criminal conduct in this population.

In light of the above, Dåderman [ 71 ] studied the personality traits present in adolescents diagnosed with severe behaviour disorders who showed psychopathy-related traits, e.g., searching for intense sensations, high impulsiveness, and low conformity, socialisation, and social desirability.

Glueck and Glueck [ 72 , 73 , 74 ] were the first to focus the subject of psychopathy on chronic and serious delinquents, some of whom were minors. These authors found that psychopathy was a useful variable for differentiating delinquents from non-delinquents. They described psychopathic delinquents as ostensibly destructive, antisocial, asocial, and less susceptible to therapeutic or educational efforts. Other characteristics include insensitivity towards social demands or towards others, a superficial emotionality, egocentrism, and a total lack of empathy [ 49 ], as well as, in many cases together with impulsive behaviour patterns, an absence of stress or anxiety concerning their lack of social adaptation, serious irresponsibility, and emotional poverty [ 48 ]. Young psychopaths seemed not to respond to any attempted treatment or rehabilitation, and they did not seem to be worried by their persistent criminal behaviour [ 72 , 73 ]. These authors observed that a psychopath was almost 20 times more common among their sample of delinquents than in the control group of non-delinquent subjects.

The relationship between child–juvenile psychopathy and chronic violent delinquency is currently still being studied. Salekin [ 75 ] studied a cohort of 130 children and youths to examine the effect of psychopathic personality on legal problems and life opportunities. This author found that psychopathy remained stable over the period the subjects were followed (four years), and the children with the highest scores of psychopathic traits in their early stages of life tended to maintain these scores later in adolescence. In addition, psychopathy is a significant predictor of both delinquency in general and various forms of violent delinquency.

Current theories concerning crime (such as the situational prevention of crime) are based on the study of the circumstances in which these youths commit their crimes, rather than discovering the reasons why they committed them. Some authors have shown that it is possible to reduce the extent of the violence if the probability of detection increases and there is an effective response from the courts to dissuade young delinquents from enacting their violent behaviour patterns [ 14 ].

The effects of psychopathy on serious juvenile delinquency are more stable and persistent than the effects of the other 14 correlates of delinquency, including demographic characteristics, intelligence, previous delinquency and problems at school, parental factors, drug use, and delinquent companions, among others [ 75 ].

3.4.2. The Role of Child–Juvenile Psychopathy in Serial Murder

The role played by psychopathy in the phenomenon of serial murders can be better understood if we look at its aetiology, which is not exempt from controversy. A great part of this controversy comes from the frequent generalization of the results of much research with common delinquents and non-serial but violent delinquents.

The problem concerning psychopathy lies in the fact that many of the results of research into the typical correlates of delinquency in general have been extrapolated to psychopathic delinquents, thus generating distorted images of psychopathy [ 62 ]. Similarly, the frequent and erroneous comparison of equating psychopathy with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) becomes an additional problem because, while ASPD describes the common delinquent in general [ 8 , 49 ], most delinquents are not psychopaths, while not all psychopaths are delinquents [ 48 , 49 ]. Thus, in this respect, it should be stressed that the terms ASPD and psychopathy are often incorrectly used as synonyms [ 76 ]. ASPD is a kind of mental disorder (a personality disorder) included in psychiatric classifications, while psychopathy requires, according to the diagnostic criteria of Cleckley [ 49 ], a complete absence of any manifestation of a psychopathological nature.

The typical correlates of delinquency in general have been widely studied, and the most frequently studied variables or factors are diverse: gender, age, race, temperament, personality, self-control/self-regulation, school records, and family/parental factors [ 77 ]. Many antisocial delinquent youths present these and many other factors that are usually related to criminality. Although there are numerous clinical–psychiatric diagnoses associated with antisocial young people with behavioural problems [ 78 , 79 ], the great majority of young delinquents do not present evident and complete psycho-pathological syndromes, but simply serious problems of aggressivity and violence that respond to other explanations, such as psychosocial and criminological, rather than psychopathological [ 80 , 81 ]. To avoid pathologizing any type of criminal conduct, psychopathology is an area of study that should not adhere exclusively to the sphere of delinquency, as otherwise we could fall into the temptation of wrongly conceptualizing delinquency as a clinical disorder when it is not. Moreover, some delinquents present mental problems of diverse natures.

As for the specific role of child–juvenile psychopathy in serial murder, it is much easier to understand if the psychopathological approach is disregarded and we focus, more adequately, on the personality and motivations of this type of individual. In this sense, it is important to stress that one of the central, defining characteristics of psychopathy is the absence of empathy, reflected in a lack of consideration for and cruelty towards others, as well as a complete absence of remorse and feelings of guilt. Thus, if we pay attention to psychopathic personality and motivations, it is even possible to distinguish between simple homicides and multiple homicides through the presence or absence of psychopathy.

Woodworth and Porter [ 82 ] found that the characteristics of so-called simple homicides carried out in cold blood (instrumental and premeditated aggressors) depend on the psychopathy that characterizes them, emotional insensitivity, and a complete lack of remorse. These authors found that simple psychopathic homicides present a type of aggression that is predominantly instrumental (that is, premeditated, planned, ‘in cold blood’, motivated by an external objective and not preceded by any possible affective reaction), while simple non-psychopathic homicides present a type of aggression that is emotional (that is, not premeditated, reactive, or on the spur of the moment, motivated by an internal objective and preceded by some personal, emotional reaction).

‘Instrumental aggression’ is also present in most serial murders, and psychopathy plays a very important role. Many serial killers, in childhood and adolescence, present the typical traits of psychopathy [ 76 ] included in the serial criminal conduct categories of children and youths studied by Myers and Borg [ 9 ].

According to Morton [ 83 ], there is no generic profile for serial killers, who differ in many aspects, including their motivations for murder and their behaviour at the crime scene. However, certain common traits can be identified for some serial killers, including the desire for thrills, a lack of remorse, impulsiveness, the need for control, and abusive practices. These traits and behaviour patterns are consistent with psychopathy. The relationship between psychopathy and serial murders is particularly interesting. Not all psychopaths become serial killers, though serial killers usually possess some or many of the traits consistent with psychopathy. Psychopaths who commit serial murders put no value on human life and are extremely cruel in their interactions with their victims. This is particularly evident in serial killers with sexual motivations who repeatedly stalk, attack, and kill without remorse [ 83 ].

Nevertheless, it is also important to stress the fact that psychopathy alone does not explain the motivations of all serial killers [ 83 ], and neither does it explain the motivations of simple homicides. So why murder people, with or without psychopathy? This question is answered by Botelho and Gonçalves [ 84 ], who carried out a critical review of the literature on factors associated with homicides. Starting from a constructivist social perspective and ensuring that the factors related to homicides could be organized into four main categories, these authors observed that the acquisition and development of aggressive and violent behaviour patterns, which could provoke such a crime as homicide, had multi-factorial origins and implied multiple interconnections.

However, in the case of serial killers, it is necessary to stress the aspects of criminal motivations since they are specific in this type of multicide. In this sense, the concept of Perpetrator-Motive Research Design (PMRD), proposed by Vecchi, Van Hasselt, and Angleman [ 85 ], is of special relevance, as it deals with an analysis strategy that helps us understand the motivations, values and tactics of such violent delinquents as serial killers, serial rapists, paedophiles, youth murderers, arsonists, and cyber delinquents. This criminal investigation methodology could also help our understanding of the specific roles played by psychopathic traits in the criminal motivations of diverse types of violent delinquent, especially in the case of serial killers.

Although the absence of remorse is a principal characteristic of psychopathy found in adolescent delinquents and which ought to be investigated, along with other variables relevant at a theoretical and forensic level [ 86 ], it is not a characteristic which, of itself, can account for the diverse criminal motivations of the different types of violent delinquent when considering serial killers, who also have many other psychopathic traits. We thus believe that applying the PMRD methodology could help to clarify such questions and evaluate to what extent child–juvenile psychopathy could be an extremely relevant correlate in serial murders.

In short, what we can say so far is that there is no specific profile for serial killers, as they are a heterogeneous group of violent delinquents presenting very varied psychosocial and criminological factors [ 87 ], some of which can be considered risk factors in this type of multicide [ 28 ].

Thus, the aetiology of the psychopathic serial killer is diverse, and its origins are usually evident from numerous serial behaviour patterns in childhood and adolescence [ 9 ]. Although the role of psychopathy in serial murders can help police investigations by create profiles [ 76 ], further research is needed to help clarify the frequency and degree with which psychopathy is present in serial killers. This would help in the creation of more refined criminal profiles aimed at identifying this type of multicide [ 83 ].

4. Conclusions

First of all, this review has tried to distinguish between two particularly controversial phenomena that reflect the current landscape of psychosocial and criminological reality: serial killer children and young people, and non-serial killer children and young people. We have tried to focus on the areas that deserve special attention, and we have focused on the extent and seriousness of the problem. The homicides perpetrated by children and young people point to a social panorama that is alarming due to the young age of these murderers. This problem is important enough to warrant study because it “raises exploratory questions about the social, psychological and biological factors that might explain such a tragic phenomenon” [ 88 ].

Secondly, the conceptualization of serial murders is still controversial in the sense that it depends on the number of victims that each author stipulates as necessary to be considered as such. In any case, the characterization of this phenomenon is clear, as it is reflected in the criminal profiles of this type of serial killer and what distinguishes them from other forms of multicide (such as mass murder or spree killing). An additional controversy is the enormous media attention surrounding serial murder [ 89 ], an effect that is even greater when the perpetrators of the serial murders are minors.

Thirdly, as for the phenomenon of serial murders perpetrated by minors, the extent of the problem is controversial because it often depends on how the number of real cases is counted, while, additionally, the official statistics are difficult to find [ 90 ].

It can be established that, despite the low prevalence of juvenile serial killers, childhood is a period in which antisocial behaviour begins to flourish. Similarly, the low incidence of serial killers who are minors may be due to the early imprisonment of minors and adolescents who commit a single murder, but who were quite likely to have turned into serial killers [ 4 ].

On the other hand, although there would seem to be a greater number of adult serial killers, some authors believe it not infrequent for the first murder of this kind to occur in adolescence [ 36 ].

In any case, the profiles of children and youths who commit murder are clearly established [ 91 ] and, however inconceivable their crimes may seem to us [ 92 ], the criminological reality of these minors as murderers is evident, with serious social and legal repercussions [ 93 ].

Fourthly, it is also important to consider the psychopathy variable as an influential factor in the diverse modalities of serial criminal conduct committed by children and youths which could be the first ‘steps’ in their criminal career as serial killers later on [ 9 ]. In addition to this reason, the importance of the psychopathy variable has also been stressed as a determinant in the process of psychological–criminal profiling of the diverse types of violent serial delinquents, in particular, those who commit sexually aggressive crimes and murder [ 94 ].

This current review article is not exempt from limitations. The low prevalence of juvenile serial killers, as well as the presence of juvenile murderers that are not serial killers, makes the generalization of the study more difficult, so the analysis should extend its scope to other serial criminal activities committed by juveniles. Likewise, with respect to the review carried out, it is necessary to comment that a systematic review would have been more valuable.

Despite these limitations, the present review underlines the importance of psychosocial factors for the better understanding of the process by which under-eighteens end up committing such serious crimes as serial murders. We have seen that, on numerous occasions, such crimes are accompanied by other equally serious criminal behaviour patterns (arson, sexual assault, animal abuse, etc.). The research works consulted provide evidence of the special relevance of psychopathy in the generation of serious juvenile delinquency [ 75 ].

In this sense, the need to design intervention plans focused on the above-described therapeutic needs is evident. This is because different serial criminal manifestations re-quire specific focuses [ 94 ], highlighting the need to deal with these problems with extreme caution in future research.

Funding Statement

Financed jointly by FEDER & Junta de Extremadura funds (Exp. GR21024).

Author Contributions

All authors conceived the paper and participated actively in the study. Conceptualization, J.M.M.-M., M.E.G.-B., E.G.-B. and M.B.-A.; data curation, J.M.M.-M., M.E.G.-B., M.B.-A. and M.G.-M.; formal analysis, J.M.M.-M., M.B.-A. and M.G.-M.; methodology, J.M.M.-M., M.E.G.-B., E.G.-B. and M.B.-A.; supervision, J.M.M.-M., M.E.G.-B. and E.G.-B.; writing—original draft, J.M.M.-M., M.E.G.-B. and M.B.-A.; writing—review and editing, J.M.M.-M., M.E.G.-B., E.G.-B., M.B.-A. and M.G.-M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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15 Interesting Serial Killer Research Paper Topics 

Serial Killer Research Paper Topics: Serial killers are not results of the distant memory seasons of Jack the Ripper, yet an alarming reality. Besides, in spite of the multitude of accomplishments and endeavors of legal science, different fields identified with brain research, psychiatry and distinctive social administrations, individuals who have an obsessive inclination to fulfill their distorted requirements through sequential killings discover better approaches to get away from both treatment and discipline, just as to trap casualties.

Serial killers are concentrated in a few fields like brain research, humanism, criminology and some different sciences, which think about the wonder according to different points of view to more readily get it. Clearly, understudies ought to pick Serial killer research paper points dependent regarding the matter they study and put forward the proper objectives – to investigate the brain science of Criminals, to recognize the weakest gatherings of people or to find out about ways that may help in getting a Serial killer. Regardless of whether you are composing without zeroing in on a specific subject, you can have a genuine effect by scattering fantasies about Serial killers and introducing realities that can instruct you and your readers.

You can read more  Essay Writing  about articles, events, people, sports, technology many more.

Topics on Serial Killers

A Serial killer is somebody who kills with at least four a long time with minimal mental solace to proceed with criminal activities. A psychopathic executioner is an individual having an absence of relational sympathy and neglects to feel thoughtfulness toward his casualties. A psychopathic executioner doesn’t esteem human existence and couldn’t care less about the discipline of his violations. Analyze the earnestness of their mental condition and how to get them all together shield the security of the local area from them. Serial killers are conceived and made relying upon the conditions they live in or it’s anything but a hereditary mishap they got from their folks.

Research Titles for Serial Killers

The topics related to Serial killers are:

• Who are Serial Killers?
• Are Serial Killers Born or Made?
• What is the Nature of Serial Killers?
• Serial Killer in the United States
• Serial Killer Psychology
• Treatment of Serials Killers
• What do the Serial Killers think?
• What is in the mind of Serial Killer?
• Analysis on Serial Killers
• Who made them Serial Killers?
• A well-planned Murder by Serial Killer
• What steps are taken by the country to control Serial Killers?
• How do juveniles become serial killers?
• Serial killing for Self Satisfaction
• Serial murders for Money
• How to Cure a Serial Killer?

You can change the offered research paper subjects on Serial killers to your necessities by expanding or, on the other hand, narrowing them down. Make a point to discover and read data on the theme chosen prior to settling on an ultimate choice to keep away from absence of proof.

Research Paper on Crime and Criminals

Criminals are made because of their general public. In any case, hoodlums are made on account of the conditions they were going through, regardless of whether by the savagery of guardians or by the local area. Crooks resort to brutality and utilize the danger as a method of living, and they don’t feel remorseful about their activities. Numerous Criminals feel outcast in view of the treatment they get from their networks, where the strikes they get are a result of their general public; not they were brought into the world with viciousness. Individuals with high testosterone levels are for all intents and purposes bound to submit to brutality more than the individuals who don’t have this level. Hence, hostile conduct is well known which gives a substitute recognizable proof to Criminals.

Criminals will have furious inclinations toward their folks when they get dismissed or all the more respectful companions. At the point when a criminal gets dismissed by his friends, the outcome will be negative because of incendiary or risky guardians or the absence of sufficient parental control. Hence, taking part in a pack or executioner gathering of people will make up for the heartfelt shortcoming, raising the individuals’ feeling of good individual connection. At last, kid sexual maltreatment is one of the principal factors that cause extraordinary injury to the hoodlums, prompting separation from their networks for a significant stretch of time.

Criminals assault kids and treat them as homeless canines, prompting questions and scorn of society. The youngster develops with dread and carries on with a troublesome life rather than others and that makes him the loathing of society, which keeps an eye on wrongdoing and viciousness to fulfill his savage longings. Nonetheless, when an individual feels distanced from society, he will end up being a criminal on account of the unforgiving conditions he encountered, like lewd behavior and harassment.

FAQ’s on Serial Killer Research Paper Topics

Question 1. How to start a good statement for Serial killer topics?

Answer: We can start with the statement as’ serial killers are not born or they are not killers by birth, instead, they are made by our society. These serial killers have one or another history of assault and abuse in their previous lives. Therefore, before we mark them for their cruelty, we should analyse what was the situation that made them serial killers.

Question 2. What are the main objectives of a serial killer?

Answer: As per the analysis and investigation have done on serial killers, their motives are anger, seeking attention, thrill, self-satisfaction, and money.

Question 3. What are the common types of serial killers?

Answer: A serial killer that has power and wants to control or dominate their victims are the most common type of them.

Question 4. Who was Jack the Ripper?

Answer: Jack the ripper was a serial killer in London. He was also called Whitechapel Murderer and Leather Apron.

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The Psychology of Serial Killers Research Paper

Introduction, demographics of serial killers in the us, lack of sympathy, a common background, what motivates a serial killer, serial killers and psychopathic personality disorder.

Multiple murderers can be grouped into three: mass killer, who murder three or more persons at one time, spree killers, who murder in three or more places with no time difference, and serial killers. However, for this paper, we will focus on serial killers.

A serial killer is generally defined as a person who has killed three or more people over a period usually more than one month, with a space in between the murder, and whose reason for killing can be pegged to psychological factors (Singer and Hensley, 2004).

Other scholars define it as “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone” (Morse, 2011). Frequently, a sexual aspect is linked to the murders, but the FBI asserts that reasons for multiple killings include anger, joy, financial motivation, and attention seeking.

Psychologists have for a long time researched the topic of multiple murders, or serial killers. The main questions that psychologists attempt to answer in these studies are: where does the drive to kill originate? Why is the urge to kill more powerful in some individuals than in others?

Can potential murderers be identified and halted before it happens? Do murderers have sympathy for their victims? These are just a fraction of questions that require answers in order to have a complete understanding of the psychology of serial killers. Unfortunately, no concrete answers have been found and research is ongoing (Castle & Hensley, 2002).

The demographics of serial killers have always been a subject of debate, and largely depend on the source of information. In the US, the largest number of reported serial killers are always white males from a lower to middle class homes, typically in their twenties.

However, the FBI reports that there have also been African American, Asian, and Latino serial killers as well. Criminology experts have asserted that the proportion of African American serial killers reflects their overall percentage in the general population. However, one area of agreement is that whites are more likely to be serial killers than individuals from other races.

Several studies have indicated that due to their psychopathic nature, serial killers do not know have sympathy for their victims, their immediate families, or the general population. Instead, they train themselves to imitate ordinary human conduct by observing other individuals. It is all a controlling act aimed at luring people to their trap before they strike (Morse, 2011). Serial killers have been described as actors with a natural desire to act.

Henry Lee Lucas (1936-2001), a known serial killer who killed 11 individuals, once described being a serial killer as “being like a movie-star … you’re just playing the part” (Singer and Hensley, 2004). Another serial killer, John Wayne Gacy (1942-1984) always dressed up as a clown, and in court, Ted Bundy (1946-1989) told the judge, “I’m disguised as an attorney today” (Arrigo and Griffin, 2004). Bundy had in the past pretended to be a kindhearted rape crisis center counselor.

Roaming serial killers like to hold a position of influence. Gacy was an energetic, friendly and even became a member of the Jaycees, a leadership training and leadership forum. A number of serial killers also joined the military and became active members, such as David Berkowitz. Playing the role of police is, however, their favorite disguise. Carrying police identification and moving on a bike resembling that of police not only makes serial killers feel important, but also allows to reach their unsuspecting victims with ease.

Yet, when serial killers are caught, they take on a “mask of insanity”- pretending to have multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, or are psychotic, anything that can exonerate them from their crimes. And when they finally reveal themselves, serial killers do not wholly drop the acting role. Bundy once said, “what’s one less person on the face of the earth anyway?” (Arrigo and Griffin, 2004), a statement that shows serial killer’ lack of sympathy for their victims, immediate families and the general population.

Serial killers have always held an attraction for many people regarding their actions. The thought that a person can become so twisted and psychotic, to the point of murdering not one, but three or more individuals, is a strange field of study. Many studies have investigated the factors that may make a person to become a serial killer, and many of these factors have been found to have a psychological aspect.

A majority of serial; killers have been found to have had a troubled childhood ranging from broken or abusive families, with little or no parental care and no positive social relations with the family members.

This unstable background makes them to develop anomalous ideas of what is normal for a person to do, for instance, sexually abusing other persons or exhibiting excessive violence, and in repeating the behaviors they underwent and lived through, they become more and more violent, eventually reaching the level of multiple murders. Other experiences such as neglect and abuse at childhood have been found to influence serial killers.

This troubled upbringing prevents these persons from developing a set of normal behaviors that judge how we should react in specific situations, and how we should socialize with others.

This makes them to be socially backward, however, outwardly, they seem to be normal, but secretly, they think that they are in some way above other people, and they are not fit to interact with normal people as they will be lowering their status. Therefore, they try as much as they can to avoid interacting with other people, but when they do, they act normally.

It has been observed although child abuse is only appears to be physical and mental, the act greatly affects the victims psychological make up (Castle & Hensley, 2002). It corrupts the thinking of such a person and can lead to the horror for which serial killers are known to exhibit. Abuse at childhood has been found to be common among renowned serial killers.

For instance, Charles Manson, was born to a negligent mother who placed him in a foster home and he lived on his own for a major part of his childhood. This background, coupled with the fact that he never knew who his biological father was, is likely to have affected him psychologically. Another serial killer, Ted Bundy, was born to a single mother, and later lived with stepfather.

Psychologists have for a long time researched into what makes a person become so violent that they kill several people with no indication of sympathy or remorse. Some serial killers view themselves as completing a task given to them by God, or some form of high authority.

The serial killers view their acts as a spiritual call to cleanse the society of a group the killer identifies as evil, a risk to the human race, or simply repugnant. Serial killers that fall in this category are especially dangerous, since they frequently view their actions a service to mankind, and compulsory.

Serial killers that had a troubled background usually kill in order to exercise power and authority over their victims. This often stems from feelings of helplessness and fright in their formative years. Serial killers who fall in this category are normally haunted by their experiences and in killing others, they aim to erase or revenge the horrifying abuse they encountered.

However, in attributing serial killing to upbringing, we must recognize that there are many people who had an abusive childhood, but did not grow up to become serial killers. Therefore, childhood abuse is not the sole reason for violent crime. Norris (1988) writes that parents that abuse their children infuse in them an almost instinctive reliance on violence as a solution to any challenge.

While some parents believe that by being strict disciplinarians, they would help prepare the child for the tough world, they are at times wrong. Having a close bond with the parents enables the child to trust others later in life, a lack of it can lead to isolation, and violence seems as the only way to achieve satisfaction (Castle & Hensley, 2002).

When the children become adults, all they know are their fantasies of wielding authority and power. They have not developed sympathy or love for other people, rather, they see human beings as objects of performing their violent fantasies.

Other serial killers murder others for the utter thrill or excitement of their acts. The main motive of such a killer is to rouse pain or create fear in their victims and this provides excitement to them. The thrill of the capture and the kill, and the thought of receiving wide attention through various media and police coverage are motivation enough to go on killing.

To them, killing provides the ‘high’ similar to that felt by persons that engage in high risk acts such as sky diving and motor bike stunts. Thrill serial killers mainly target strangers, although they may have followed them for quite some time (Norris, 1988).

For instance, Robert Hansen indicated in one his letters that, “[killing] gives me the most thrilling experience it is even better than getting your rocks off with a girl” (Perri and Lichtenwald, 2010). A surviving victim Coral Watts talked of him as “excited and hyper and clappin’ and just making noises like he was excited, that this was gonna be fun” (Perri and Lichtenwald, 2010) during a 1982 attack. Watts killed his victims by slashing, stabbing, hanging, drowning, suffocating, and strangulating.

Other motivations for serial killers include financial gains, anger, ideology (spread the beliefs of a certain group) and psychosis (Arrigo and Griffin, 2004). Even though these intentions are legitimate, it is very difficult to discover the actual incentive for a particular killer. This is because motive identification is always limited to the visible objects left behind by the killer, and by the correct identification of these objects. Additional information may be provided by the killer’s history and by the limited chance of a surviving victim.

Most serial killers, while differing in their modes of killing their victims, display a similarity in some aspects. They exhibit a lack of remorse or regret, being impetuous, the desire to have control or exercise their authority, are in search of attention, and display conduct that is predatory in nature.

Basically, these are the characteristics of a psychopath, described as a person who shows a personality disorder characterized by aggression, violence, antisocial behavior, and shows no remorse or kindness. A psychopath can commit unimaginable activities with coolness, while displaying rationality. The scariest part of a serial killer’s life is that they lead a completely normal life (Levin and Fox, 2008).

An example Jeffrey Dahmer (1960-1994) who, while leading a perfectly normal public life, killed and ate young men. He was also able to exhibit calmness in the middle of confusion. For instance, when one of his 14-year old victims escaped into the streets, the police were called in but he was able to convince the police that the boy was his 19-year-old boyfriend who had drunk too much alcohol, the boy was handed over to him. Jeffrey killed the boy that night (Perri and Lichtenwald, 2010).

The relation between serial killing and psychopathy is strong because while not all psychopaths will, of course, not become serial killers, almost all serial killers display traits related to psychopathy. These persons do not value human life. Even though psychopathy alone does not explain serial killers, it provides a fascinating perspective into their character.

The concept of psychosis has also been used to explain serial killers. Described as the loss of contact with reality, psychosis is characterized by hallucinations, delusions, and irrationality. Even though widely disregarded, the concept of psychosis can be used to explain the behavior of some serial killers.

Foe example, Herbert Mullin confessed that he killed to save California from a cataclysmic earthquake. However, some serial killers have been used to use this claim, along with those of schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder to explain their behavior in order to exonerate themselves. Research into the mind of serial killers is ongoing and in the future, perhaps we will be able to identify serial killers before they strike on the first or subsequent victims.

Arrigo, B. and Griffin, A. (2004). Serial Murder and the Case of Aileen Wuornos: Attachment Theory, Psychopathy, and Predatory Aggression. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 22 (3): 375–393.

Castle, T., & Hensley, C. (2002). Serial killers with military experience: Applying learning theory to serial murder . International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology , 46 (4), 453-465.

Levin, J., and Fox, A. (2008). Normalcy in Behavioral Characteristics of the Sadistic Serial Killer. Serial Murder and the Psychology of Violent Crimes , Part I, 3-14.

Morse, S. J. (2011). Psychopathy – What Is Psychopathy?. Law Library – American Law and Legal Information . Crime and Justice Vol 3.

Norris, J. (1988). Serial Killers . London: Doubleday.

Perri, F. S. and Lichtenwald, T. G. (2010). The Last Frontier: Myths & The Female Psychopathic Killer, Forensic Examiner , 19:2, 50-67.

Singer, S. D and Hensley, C (2004). Learning theory to childhood and adolescent firesetting: Can it lead to serial murder. International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, 48 (4): 48, 461–476.

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Exploring Serial Killers: Psychology, Motives, and Profiling Strategies

Serial killers have long captured the public’s imagination and terrorized society. These individuals who commit multiple murders over an extended period have been the subject of fascination, fear, and countless books, movies, and documentaries. But beyond the sensationalism and horror, a more profound understanding of serial killers is critical for law enforcement, criminologists, psychologists, and society as a whole. This research paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of serial killers, examining their psychology, motives, and the methods used to profile them.

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Psychological Profiles of Serial Killers

The psychological makeup of serial killers is an intricate and often perplexing subject. This section delves into the various personality traits and psychological factors that are commonly associated with serial offenders. The origins of their violent tendencies, as well as the emotional and mental processes that drive them to commit multiple murders, are thoroughly examined.

Personality Traits of Serial Killers

Serial killers often exhibit a range of personality traits that set them apart from the general population. While it is important to note that not all individuals with these traits become killers, they are characteristics commonly found among serial offenders.

• Narcissism : Many serial killers possess an inflated sense of self-importance and a lack of empathy for their victims. They view themselves as superior to others, which can drive them to exert control and dominance over their victims.
• Psychopathy : Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a lack of remorse, shallow emotions, and a propensity for manipulative behavior. Serial killers often exhibit psychopathic traits, making them more likely to harm others without guilt or remorse.
• Sadism : Sadistic tendencies involve deriving pleasure from inflicting pain or suffering on others. Serial killers with sadistic traits may escalate their violence and cruelty over time, finding gratification in their heinous acts.

Organized vs. Disorganized Serial Killers

One of the key elements in understanding the psychology of serial killers is distinguishing between organized and disorganized offenders. These distinctions help in creating accurate offender profiles and developing effective investigative strategies.

Organized Serial Killers: Organized serial killers are often characterized by a high degree of intelligence and meticulous planning. They carefully select their victims, maintain control over the crime scene, and often possess above-average intelligence. These killers are skilled at evading law enforcement and may maintain a normal social facade, making them challenging to apprehend.

Disorganized Serial Killers: Disorganized serial killers, on the other hand, tend to be impulsive and opportunistic. Their crimes often lack a well-defined plan, and they may leave behind chaotic crime scenes. These killers are more likely to be socially isolated and may exhibit signs of mental instability, making them easier to identify but still challenging to predict.

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Motivations and Triggers

The motivations that drive serial killers to commit their heinous acts are varied and complex. Understanding these motivations is critical for criminal profilers and investigators.

Power and Control: Many serial killers are motivated by a desire for power and control over their victims. They derive satisfaction from the domination and manipulation of others, often seeking to exert their authority through acts of violence.

Sexual Gratification: Sexual motivations are common among serial killers. Some offenders have deeply ingrained sexual fantasies that can only be satisfied through acts of violence, often involving torture and sadism.

Financial Gain: While less common, some serial killers commit their crimes for financial reasons. This may involve schemes such as insurance fraud or inheritance motives, with the ultimate goal of monetary gain.

Criminal Profiling: Unmasking the Offender

Criminal profiling is both an art and a science that plays a pivotal role in the investigation and capture of serial killers. This section explores the methods, techniques, and challenges associated with the creation of accurate offender profiles. Profilers, often working in collaboration with law enforcement agencies, examine a range of factors to construct a comprehensive image of the elusive criminal behind the heinous acts.

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Methods and Techniques of Profiling

Crime Scene Analysis: Profilers start by meticulously analyzing crime scenes. They look for patterns, modus operandi (MO), and signature behaviors to gain insights into the offender’s personality and motivations. The MO refers to the practical methods used by the killer, while signature behaviors are unique, ritualistic aspects of their crimes that are essential for differentiation.

Victimology: Understanding the victims is crucial in profiling. Profilers examine the relationship between the offender and their victims, including potential motives for victim selection. This can provide essential clues about the offender’s psychology.

Behavioral Patterns: Profilers look for consistent behavioral patterns exhibited by the offender. These patterns may extend beyond the crimes themselves and can include the killer’s everyday behaviors, routines, and social interactions.

Geographical Profiling: Geographical profiling involves the study of the location of the crimes and the movements of the offender. It aims to predict the offender’s base of operations and potential areas where they may strike next. Geographic profiling is instrumental in allocating resources effectively.

Real-Life Case Studies

The effectiveness of criminal profiling is perhaps best illustrated through real-life case studies. One such example is the case of the “Unabomber,” Theodore Kaczynski, who carried out a nationwide bombing campaign in the United States for nearly two decades. Profilers working on the case used linguistic analysis of his writings to create an accurate profile, eventually leading to his capture.

Another notable case is that of the “Green River Killer,” Gary Ridgway, who terrorized the Seattle area in the 1980s and 1990s. Profilers used a combination of crime scene analysis and victimology to narrow down potential suspects. DNA evidence later confirmed Ridgway’s identity, and he was convicted of multiple murders.

Advancements in Technology and Forensic Science

The field of criminal profiling has evolved significantly with advancements in technology and the integration of forensic science. DNA analysis, for instance, has revolutionized the process of identifying and capturing serial killers. It has not only led to the exoneration of wrongfully convicted individuals but has also played a crucial role in identifying perpetrators in cold cases.

Additionally, the use of genetic genealogy databases has provided a groundbreaking method for solving cases. By matching crime scene DNA with data from these databases, law enforcement has been able to identify previously unknown serial killers and put an end to their reign of terror.

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However, it is essential to balance the use of technology with ethical considerations, ensuring that individual privacy rights are respected while pursuing justice for victims and their families.

The 10 Best Serial Killer Movies

There are numerous movies that explore the dark and disturbing world of serial killers, offering a mix of horror, suspense, and psychological thriller elements. Here are some notable movies that delve into this genre:

• The Silence of the Lambs (1991): Directed by Jonathan Demme, this classic film follows FBI trainee Clarice Starling as she seeks the assistance of the brilliant but insane Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a notorious serial killer, to catch another killer known as Buffalo Bill. Anthony Hopkins delivers an iconic performance as Dr. Lecter.
• Se7en (1995): Directed by David Fincher, “Se7en” features detectives played by Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman as they hunt down a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi. The film is known for its dark and atmospheric tone.
• American Psycho (2000): Based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, this film stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a wealthy investment banker who moonlights as a sadistic serial killer. The movie delves into Bateman’s twisted psyche and obsession with status and materialism.
• Zodiac (2007): Directed by David Fincher, “Zodiac” is based on the real-life hunt for the elusive Zodiac Killer in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The film follows the investigations of journalists and detectives.
• Dexter (TV Series, 2006-2013): While not a movie, this long-running TV series focuses on Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a vigilante serial killer, targeting other criminals.
• Monster (2003): This film is based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a real-life female serial killer. Charlize Theron delivers an Oscar-winning performance as Wuornos, who killed seven men in Florida during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
• Mindhunter (TV Series, 2017-2019): Another TV series, “Mindhunter” follows FBI agents as they interview imprisoned serial killers to understand their psychology and apply their insights to solving ongoing cases. It offers a unique perspective on criminal profiling.
• Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986): This gritty and disturbing film follows the life of Henry Lee Lucas, a serial killer who travels through the American Midwest, committing a series of gruesome murders. It’s known for its raw and unsettling portrayal of a serial killer.
• The Bone Collector (1999): Starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie, this film follows Lincoln Rhyme, a quadriplegic detective, and his assistant as they work together to track down a serial killer in New York City. The movie combines elements of forensic science and crime-solving with a captivating storyline.
• Copycat (1995): In “Copycat,” Sigourney Weaver plays Dr. Helen Hudson, a criminal psychologist who becomes the target of a serial killer who emulates the methods of infamous serial killers throughout history. She teams up with a detective, played by Holly Hunter, to track down the copycat killer while dealing with her own trauma from a previous encounter with a serial offender.

These movies and TV series provide a glimpse into the twisted minds of serial killers, the dedicated individuals who pursue them, and the psychological and emotional toll that these cases can have on those involved in the investigations. Viewer discretion is advised, as many of these films contain graphic and disturbing content.

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In conclusion, the exploration of serial killers, their psychology, motives, and profiling techniques is essential in the quest to unmask these offenders and prevent further atrocities. While each serial killer is a unique individual with their own set of motivations and psychological characteristics, there are patterns and commonalities that emerge through the study of this chilling subject.

Criminal profiling has proved to be an invaluable tool in the pursuit of serial killers, helping law enforcement agencies narrow down suspects and allocate resources effectively. The integration of forensic science, modern technology, and the collaboration between various disciplines, such as psychology, criminology, and law enforcement, has led to significant progress in the field of serial killer investigations.

Despite the progress made in understanding serial killers, it is important to recognize that this subject remains complex and multifaceted. More research is required to delve deeper into the minds of serial offenders and to develop more accurate profiling techniques. The goal is not only to apprehend these dangerous individuals but also to prevent the emergence of new serial killers by identifying potential offenders at an early stage and providing intervention and support.

The study of serial killers is a solemn reminder of the darkest corners of human behavior and the need for continued efforts to protect society from their malevolent acts. Through understanding and vigilance, we can hope to mitigate the threat of serial killers and ensure a safer future for all.

Zodiac Killer Research Paper

Intelligence: The Zodiac killer is one of the most famous serial killers the world has ever seen. During the late 60s to early 70s, he gruesomely killed countless people, with no trace left behind. It is said that he is linked to about seven murders, but through his coded messages he claimed to have killed over thirty-seven. He gained notoriety for sending cryptic letters to the press, all of which taunting the authorities and claiming responsibility for his crimes. Despite extensive investigations, the Zodiac Killer’s true identity remains unknown. The Zodiac is your typical run-of-the-mill killer. He operated in northern California and often targeted young couples. Despite the fact that he claimed to have killed thirty-seven people in his recording, the authorities can only link him to …show more content…

What stumped the police is how his victims were mostly young adults with perfectly clean records, and were never known to be involved in anything, due to this there was never a clear motive. What made this case so intriguing is how involved the Zodiac was with his own investigation. He often phoned the police after his killings, describing the murder in excruciating detail, and on August 1st, 1969 the San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and Vallejo Times-Herald all received identical handwritten letters. The letters contained the details and descriptions of murders that had taken place the year before. What authorities found unusual is that the letters described the suspects in such great detail, that the only person they could imagine writing it was the person who committed it. The writer even went to the extent of threatening a killing spree if his statement was not published on the front page. He often threatened the police by saying how he would bomb tourist attractions if his message wasn't published on public websites or

More about Zodiac Killer Research Paper

Books | The most infamous serial killers all seem to…

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Books | the most infamous serial killers all seem to have something in common — they’re from the midwest.

What is it about the Midwest that breeds so many serial killers?

What is in the soil that grows the sort of grisly murderers who launch a million headlines? Adam Rapp has wondered for a long time. He was born in Chicago and raised in Joliet in the 1970s, when Joliet was not the best place to grow up. Gangs proliferated. There were rumors of white vans whose drivers offered neighborhood boys a peek at a Playboy. You couldn’t escape to Chicago — killer clown John Wayne Gacy and nurse killer Richard Speck came out of there. Rapp’s father lived in Wilmette, but then John Carpenter’s “Halloween” came out when he was 10 and was based in Haddonfield, a fictional Illinois town “that looked like Wilmette, oak trees, porch swings. And that drove home the immediacy of my worries — I mean, how was I going to use my keys to get into my house and escape from a killer if my hands were shaking that bad?”

Rapp was closer to his fears than he knew.

When he was 5, his family was leaving the Kankakee area when “a driver pulled up next to us on I-57 brandishing a rifle, traveling in the oncoming lane.” Rapp was asleep beside his sister, who locked eyes with the gunman. Their mother, sitting in the passenger’s seat, looked over and clutched their baby brother (Anthony Rapp, who later became an acclaimed theater actor).

The gunman drove on.

That night, the mystery driver, a Chicagoan named Henry Brisbon, later dubbed the “I-57 killer,” killed three people. He was sent to Stateville Correctional , where Rapp’s mother worked as a nurse. (She would also serve as a material witness in Brisbon’s trial.) Stateville, a stone’s throw from their apartment, was home to Speck; Rapp’s mother was friends with the nurses that Speck killed. Stateville also briefly housed Gacy, and near the end of her career, Rapp’s mother attended to Gacy on the day of his execution.

Adam Rapp went on to become a Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright and author whose themes tend to spring out of legacies of stray violence and social alienation. His new adaptation of S.E. Hinton’s “The Outsiders” — arguably the greatest young adult novel to address those topics — recently opened in previews on Broadway. But also nested in that career has been a question that Rapp hasn’t been able to shake since he was a child:

Why do so many famous murderers come out of the Midwest?

This story offers no answers. How could it? Murder is not a Midwest invention. But why then does the Midwest — and the Chicago area, in particular — appear to nurture such a grim, sensational history of unimaginable killings? Rapp can’t say. But lots of writers have tried. This spring alone, a pair of new novels chew over the question: There’s Rapp’s family epic, “Wolf at the Table,” and Cynthia Pelayo’s “Forgotten Sisters,” which tackles the persistent real-life rumor that a serial killer is targeting young men and dumping their bodies in the Chicago River. Spoiler: As compelling as both of these books read, neither get any closer to an understanding. Next month is the 100th anniversary of the killing of 14-year-old Bobby Franks by two University of Chicago students named Leopold and Loeb. At least morally, we are no closer to understanding that, either. Statistically, historically, New York and California generate more killers than the Midwest, but neither of those places wear them quite like the wheat fields and anonymous apartment complexes of the Midwest.

One reason, perhaps: Free-floating menace doesn’t slip into densely-populated areas as cleanly, or lazily, as it does in literature about the Midwest. I’ve been reading a lot of recent novels and histories about famous (and fictional) Midwest murders and often the covers match the barrenness of the land to a moral barrenness: Bleak horizons and cobalt skies, windmills watching in silence, rusting pitchforks, crumbling wells, dirt-cellar floors and miles of unmarked graves. Our ominous middle of the nowhere seems to be everywhere from Ohio to Nebraska.

As a native of the East Coast (the seat of publishing), I confess to plenty of regional biases: The terrific first line of Chicago novelist Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl” — “When I think of my wife, I always think of her head” — lands differently knowing it takes place in Missouri. I don’t think I’m being mean. Lori Rader-Day, another Chicago novelist with  knack for Midwest murder, explained: “Cornfields are creepy, man. The Midwest may be written off as a harmless nowhere, where community is everything, everyone cares for each other. But people do feel isolated. I think it’s one reason people turn towards evil.”

As she once wrote: There’s so much potential for darkness in the Midwest.

And that’s not even including Chicago, the nation’s haunted house. Pelayo was born in Puerto Rico and raised in the Northwest Side neighborhood of Hermosa, and still writes her books from there. She said whenever she tours for a new novel, she inevitably meets audiences that assume she pens her horror-tinged thrillers “from a bombed-out hellhole, so I tell them: I’m not scared of Chicago, I love it, I raised children here, I do dumb stuff at night.

“And yet, of course — we have this history of murder that’s hard to really understand.”

Her novels regard Chicago’s past and present as uneasy neighbors, sometimes fantastically, usually violently. We’re reminded in “Forgotten Sisters” of generations of “long-submerged bloated corpses” settled on the floor of the Chicago River. Characters hear echos from the old Union Stockyards — “a great cacophony” of butchering. As in her other books — which address the local history of gun violence and inequality — our contemporary ugliness gets pressed against the city’s paradoxical history with Walt Disney (born here) and “The Wizard of Oz” (written here). Without giving anything away, “Forgotten Sisters” offers a bit of “The Little Mermaid,” meets the real-life S.S. Eastland river disaster of 1915, meets recent whispers (denied by Chicago authorities) of a “Smiley Face” serial killer stalking the city, targeting predominantly young white males.

“We romanticize the death of millionaires on the Titanic,” she said, “and forget the 844 people who died on the Eastland (in the Chicago River) were largely immigrants who helped to build Chicago. And the way we’ve forgotten their loss, that’s a double tragedy.”

So, in her novel, there’s karmic, supernatural revenge for the wrongs of the past.

Pelayo has always wondered, she said, “if there’s something more”  to so much horrible spectacle in the Midwest. But then, she brakes just short of supernatural explanations.

His mother kept most of her professional connections to famous killers a secret. She rarely discussed her work at Stateville with her children. They knew she had lived in Manteno not far from the state psychiatric hospital, but not until after she died in 1997 and an aunt gave Rapp a shoebox of his mother’s possessions did he piece together her broader history with mental illness: “That started my weird fascination with this simple woman’s frequent proximity to extraordinary acts of male violence.” But of course, there’s nothing supernatural to that. His book, “Wolf at the Table,” is fiction: It tells the story of a family marked by mental illness. A father abandons his North Shore life after a voice tells him to kill. A brother spends years wandering, and killing, largely unrecognized. There’s also a main character who reads an awful lot like Rapp’s mother.

She’s a nurse who works with Gacy, and also knew Gloria Davy, one of the (real-life) nurses killed by Speck in 1966 on the Far South Side. The morning she learns Davy was murdered, Rapp’s character still puts on her nurses uniform and reports to work. “As her train clatters past Wrigley Field,” Rapp writes, she gets hyper-aware of her uniform, and this latest Chicago tragedy: “Do they think she’s playing some cruel joke?”

In the second season of the Hulu series “Fargo,” an unseen narrator (voiced by Martin Freeman) reads from a volume titled “The Big Book of True Crime in the Midwest.” It’s a fictional book conceived by series creator Noah Hawley (a New Yorker), and like many histories of Midwest murder, it looks light on Native American massacres and white supremacy. But it also appears ancient and dusty, and therefore, irrefutable.

After all, the image of Midwest as a cauldron of violence was shaped through writing, and predates the days of Al Capone. Journalists recycled the idea that the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 was divine retribution for a place so corrupt. As early as 1899, Henry Blake Fuller, among Chicago’s first full-time novelists, gave a talk at the Fine Arts Building in which he described the city as “a hideously makeshift horror.” He wasn’t even referring to H.H. Mudgett, executed three years earlier, and now considered among the United States‘ first serial killers. From his Englewood drugstore, Mudgett (better known as H.H. Holmes) preyed on visitors to the World’s Columbia Exposition; more than century later, he’s known as the subject of the best-selling “Devil in the White City.” Yet not long after the fair closed in 1893, there were already best-selling accounts — written by Chicago police officers — of crime at the event.

By the time Theodore Dreiser published “An American Tragedy” (1925) and Richard Wright wrote his own American tragedy “Native Son” (1940) — both centered on accidental, yet seemingly inevitable killings — the image of a fetid metropolis encircled by dark fields of scarecrows was indelible. It became less shocking to hear of a William Heirens, the Lipstick Killer of Lincolnwood, who wrote in lipstick at the scene of a 1946 murder: “Catch me before I kill more. I can not control myself.” Yet, as Sarah Weinman, among our finest contemporary crime writers, told me: “It’s important not to think of these things as happening because of something in the local water. There’s nothing in the water. People link horrible events, though the only thing connecting killers like this is the often-marginalized communities they prey on. And that’s not a Midwestern thing.”

Still, when Harry MacLean was growing up in Nebraska, if you wanted to know where the violent people were, he said, you looked east to Chicago. “Then Charlie Starkweather came along in 1958 and transformed our perception of ourselves,” MacLean said. As he wrote in last winter’s “Starkweather: The Untold Story of the Killing Spree that Changed America,” the landscape may be cold and lonely, populated by cows “huddled” against haystacks on bland afternoons, but if you “played by the rules,” took care of your family, remained decent and went to church, then “life will be good.”

It was a white Protestant worldview, and Starkweather, at 19, upset its math. He drove through Lincoln towards Wyoming with his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, killing indiscriminately. He killed in homes, fields and on highways. He had no history of behavioral issues. He had a stable home. “But I remember true fear on adult faces,” MacLean told me. “There was a sense Charlie Starkweather could be hiding in your barn, or step into your living room. I heard stories of people hiding out as far as Iowa. A sense of terror, across a region, was new.” Starkweather eventually killed 10 people.

A year later, four members of the Clutter family were murdered in Kanas, also seemingly at random, a crime immortalized by Truman Capote in his classic “In Cold Blood,” which painted a portrait of endless fields of wheat so isolating it was mainly called “out there.”

The land itself, see, was lethal.

As far back as the 19th century, when the homicidal Bender family trapped, robbed and murdered wayward travelers who happened to be passing by their home on the southwest Kansas plains — recounted by Susan Jonusas’s history, “Hell’s Half-Acre: The Untold Story of the Benders, a Serial Killer Family on the American Frontier” (2022) — visitors wrote home that the buildings here wanted to sink into the dirt. When husbands vanished en route to Illinois, wives were told that it was as if the prairie swallowed them.

Rapp, who is also writing an upcoming TV series about the Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, “can find the bleakness of this region at times especially isolating, opening brooding thoughts for certain men in need of vitamin D.” Gein’s crimes inspired the Maywood native Robert Bloch’s 1959 novel “Psycho,” subsequently inspiring the Alfred Hitchcock film, and decades later, the Buffalo Bill killer of Thomas Harris’ “Silence of the Lambs.” After Gein’s mother died, he started robbing graves and killing people, partly for taxidermy. He lived alone in a farm house without water, due north of Wisconsin Dells.

Indeed, isolation, physical and mental, plays an outsize role in these tales.

“Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls,” Kathleen Hale’s 2022 account of a stabbing outside Milwaukee, is driven by boredom, a suburban legend and the 12-year-olds who believe it. Yet, as Bloch wrote about Gein, Wisconsin was “hardly the proper setting for such characters.” The Slenderman incident was not unlike the killing of Bobby Franks by Leopold and Loeb in that both crimes came out of intense friendships between seeming innocent kids. Leopold and Loeb, college students, came from rich Chicago families. Leopold, wrote crime writer Miriam Allen deFord decades later, was taught as a young child that his family’s “great wealth gave him special privileges and immunities.”

Because of course it does.

But that doesn’t fit the archetypal Midwest character. Generosity, ordinariness, neighborliness — that’s who we are. It’s also those qualities, however, that led John Wayne Gacy — a party clown and REO Speedwagon fan in good standing with the Junior Chamber of Commerce — to go unsuspected. When women began vanishing around Gein’s farm, he would joke with locals that he was definitely responsible. As if in a parody of Midwest naiveté, Leopold and Loeb went to a hardware store on 43rd Street and bought a single rope, one chisel and a vat of hydrochloric acid, no questions asked.

Is this why the Midwest has so many notorious crimes?

Because Midwesterners are too nice? It’s as good an answer as any. But doubtful. Rapp believes: “This is an American narrative, a dream of a home, a garage, a car, four kids, and what comes with it are killing sprees. And we don’t know why, not really.” Evanston writer Nina Barrett, author of a 2018 history “The Leopold & Loeb Files,” said the relative newness of the University of Chicago in 1924 led some Chicagoans to ask if liberal art educations were breeding immorality. In Nebraska, after Starkweather’s capture, locals blamed the radicalness of Elvis, James Dean, greasers and the sudden popularity of rock music. Today, MacLean said, people still visit the open pastures where the killings occurred, as though some new clue might reveal itself in the soil.

But if I had to bet, Bruce Springsteen has come the closest to the truth.

His bone-dry 1982 acoustic masterwork “Nebraska” was written about Starkweather, and narrated by the killer. At the song’s end, Charlie is asked why he did it, and his reply is plaintive, honest and chilling: “Well, sir, I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.”

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Update: This story has been changed to correct information about the Slenderman crime.

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Sleuths who cracked Zodiac Killer's cipher thank the crowd

Fifty-one years of community contributions, software, and clever cryptanalysis contributed.

Three men received recognition in December 2020 for cracking the Zodiac Killer's 340-character cipher (Z340) – but they want to share credit with the community of sleuths who helped with the 51-year code breaking effort.

"The solution of this cipher was the result of a large, multi-decade group effort, and we ultimately stood on the shoulders of many others' excellent cryptanalytic contributions," wrote David Oranchak, a US-based software developer and cryptologist, Sam Blake, a mathematician based in Australia, and Jarl Van Eycke, a cipher expert based in Belgium, in a paper released last week that documents the history of the Z340 solution.

The Zodiac Killer is known to have murdered at least five people in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969 – although the perpetrator claimed to have killed 37. A suspect has still not been officially identified.

After attacking two couples separately in December 1968 and July 1969, resulting in the deaths of three of the four victims, the serial killer mailed his first cipher, Z408 – named for the number of characters in the ciphertext – in three parts to three local newspapers: the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Examiner, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Eight days later, it was solved by Donald and Bettye Harden – a couple living in Salinas, California, with an interest in ciphers. The code was, according to Oranchak, Blake, and Van Eycke, a homophonic substitution cipher, alternately described as a monoalphabetic substitution cipher with variants. This means the characters in the original message could be replaced with several possible cipher characters, in order to resist analysis based on the statistical frequency of characters in English words.

The Zodiac Killer sent his second cipher – Z340 – to The San Francisco Chronicle on November 8, 1969. It remained unsolved until Saturday, December 5, 2020, when Oranchak, Blake, and Van Eycke presented their solution to the FBI and had their work confirmed .

Z340's cipher alphabet consists of 63 different symbols – enough that several could represent the same English letter. That complexity, along with misspellings and transpositions in the actual message, made breaking the code rather complicated.

"Refined homophonic substitution key to decipher entire Z340 ciphertext" – Click to enlarge

The trio's solution – made possible in part by software created by Van Eycke called AZdecrypt – was the culmination of "hundreds, if not thousands," of purported solutions.

"Shortly after Zodiac mailed [Z340], many people raced to decipher it, and some asserted their decryptions were correct," the authors state in their paper. "But none were definitively endorsed by law enforcement, so these efforts continued for decades."

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Oranchak, Blake, and Van Eycke recount the history of these attempts in their paper. They note that the FBI tried and failed to break the code. And they cite reports that the NSA and Navy cryptographers also gave it a shot – with the caveat that lack of confirmation about these claims may be because the records are classified. Other attempts – notably by the American Cryptogram Association, Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith, and author Gareth Penn (pen name George Oakes) – also contributed.

Around 2012, Oranchak became involved, followed by Van Eycke, and Blake.

"The popularity of the case and noteworthy nature of Z340 led many amateur codebreakers to join the efforts to solve the cipher," the trio observe. "Many so-called solutions were developed that 'went viral' and received significant attention in the news media."

Various websites – starting with the Tom Voigt's zodiackiller.com in 1998 – helped gather information about the killings over the years.The authors note that, while the online community that coalesced around the Zodiac case had varying levels of experience and analytical ability, the various viewpoints represented were ultimately helpful.

"Taken as a whole, the combined efforts of the entire group of enthusiastic investigators led to crowdsourced knowledge about Z340, providing many useful details that made the discovery of its solution possible, as long as researchers could navigate around numerous unusable ideas and information," write Oranchak, Blake, and Van Eycke.

Part of what made the trio's breakthrough possible was an update to AZdecrypt that helped significantly. "A new feature that turned out to be instrumental was the software's ability to add whitespace characters automatically to candidate plaintexts," the authors explain.

"Both Z408 and Z340 lack word divisions, so decrypted plaintexts also lack them. But AZdecrypt's new feature could automatically insert them where they likely belonged, based on language n-gram statistics. This made partial solutions much more comprehensible."

Oranchak, Blake, and Van Eycke conclude by dedicating their work to the victims of the Zodiac Killer, their families, and descendants: "We hope that one day justice will prevail." ®

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