Quote: (10-29-2017 06:58 PM)Kurgan Wrote:
I have read books on various serial killers throughout the years and sometimes I wonder what actually drove them to do the things they did?
I can think of 3 examples off of the top of my head.
1) Ted Bundy- He seemed to have gone off the deep end after being rejected by his girlfriend, some books and films suggest some of his victims resembled that girlfriend. Ted also mentioned in his last days that getting into pornography at a young age wrecked him, but that might've been to throw off Dr. James Dobson in his interview.
2) Edmund Kemper- He picked up hitchhiking women, had a thing for beheading them and having oral sex with their heads. His mother abused him quite for a bit because she thought because of his height he might kill his sister. Edmund also shot his grandparents just because he wanted to. He's in an asylum now for the rest of his life
3) Jeffrey Dahmer- I know he's gay and posters here aren't fond of them, but what could ever drive him to kill people and put their parts in refrigerators?
4) The Columbine shooters- What point were they trying to make?
5) Adam Lanza: Obviously, his mother was weird to him so it makes sense why she would be his first victim.
What is it? Possible malfunctioning parts in their brain to kill people, traumatic events that shaped their outlook in life or they just plain crazy? Ostrcaization like Eliot Rodger? What goes on in their heads?
Criminology and, to a lesser extent, criminal psychology was a focus of mine in school for a few years. There are similarities between some serial killers and then there others who are totally different. Mass shooters are a whole other thing and they generally don't have much in common with serial killers.
A common denominator in all of them, obviously, is mental illness or personality disorders. There is a genetic component to this but genetics here aren't entirely deterministic, environment has a strong role in shaping how they express themselves. Early childhood abuse is often a key environmental factor with serial killers.
For example, it's easy to imagine an alternate reality version of Ted Bundy who grows up in a stable household with normal parents becoming a ruthless and skilled lawyer, not someone who delights in doing fucked up things to women and murdering them. But because of abuse (his grandfather was a tyrant who physically abused his entire family), identity issues (his mother and grandparents lied to him for quite a while when he was growing up, saying they were his parents and his mom was his sister) and other weird situations he turned out the way he did. I should note that in recent years extended family also think his grandfather might've been his father -- potentially making him a product of incest. They think that discovering this, plus being dumped by his girlfriend and all the other weird shit set him off.
So basically serial killers are often the result of a perfect shitstorm of bad circumstances plus nature. This combo can turn someone predisposed to psychopathy into a murderous criminal instead of a run-of-the-mill criminal or a ruthless businessman, lawyer, politician, etc.
Mass shooters are a mixed bag. Their motives need to be investigated more closely. Someone like Lanza was a mentally ill entitled sperg with weak parents, Loughner was a schizophrenic so far gone that it took years of forced medication in a hospital for the criminally insane for him to even be aware of what he did or what was going on, Holmes was another whacko, and Dylann Roof was a terrorist. The Las Vegas shooter's motive, of course, will never be known..for some reason.
Regarding the Columbine kids, they were a somewhat unique case in that they were motivated by a misanthropic nihilistic death drive. And if I recall correctly it was Harris who did most of the killing and talked Klebold into going along with it over a long period of time.
Anyway, it's all disturbing, depressing stuff and I'm glad my interest waned in criminology and aberrant criminal behaviors in my early twenties before I was out of school. Some of my criminology and CJ professors were miserable sad sacks.
