John Corrado - What hotel, what doctor? It sounds like something I’d have remembered had I ever read about it. There’s also the one that’s known as the vampire of Dusseldorf (sorry if I spelled that wrong).
Poysin, Dr. H.H. Holmes was a guy who appeared in late-1800’s Chicago, aroun d the time od the Owrld’s Fair there, built a large house, and then proceeded to turn it into a weird funhouse o’ murder. He would rent rooms to people attending the fair, and they would never been seen again. Stories about vats of acid and such were bandied about and, I believe, confirmed. I read a book about this once; I believe it was called “Depraved”. You can probably check it out at Your Favorite Literature Merchant.
BTW, from what I’ve read, I don’t believe that most serial killers are intelligent. I think it varies greatly depending on the type of offender (organized/disorganized/mixed), but that most tend to be of only middling intelligence.
John Douglas of the FBI serial crimes unit has written some really good books on this subject. “Mindhunter” and “Journey Into Darkness” present a good overview of serial criminals, and some of their motives.
One of the things he noted when starting out is that serial criminals almost never select victims from outside (what they view as) their own race. He also noted that as the society becomes more integrated (interracial marriages, dating, friendships, etc.), more serial crimes cross racial lines
I was going to spew some of my own brain dross on this question, but then I thought you might like some figures. This person says it far better than I can:
*Only 6% of the murders in 1966 were “motiveless”— i.e. the typical reasons for the act (vengeance, jealousy, theft, contract killing, other crimes ) were absent. By 1985, that number reached 20% (Holmes and DeBurger, 1985). A more recent analysis reveals that by the 1980’s, 25% of all murders were “stranger murders” (Ressler, 1992, p. 135). The evidence suggests that serial killing is on the rise. Egger (1984) maintains that in the years between 1977 and 1984, serial murders have increased by 270% while general murders have increased by only 12%. Caputi (1987, p.7) claims that true serial killing rose to “4,118 incidents in 1985 from 644 in 1966”. She believes (along with the Justice Department) that at any given time, there are 35 serial killers at large in the United States. Holmes and Holmes (1994) set this number at 200. Holmes and Holmes (1994) report on the findings of a 1991 US Senate Judiciary Committee, which claimed that each of us has a one in ten thousand chance of being a murder victim. These grisly odds would suggest a one in forty-thousand chance of being a victim of “stranger murder”— murder at the hands of someone to whom we have no ties.
Of 68 serial killers who operated between 1961 and 1984 (Norris, 1988) 64 were male. Of the 54 who preyed on lone victims, 31 chose women only (the rest took both male and female victims at different times). Strangulation was the chosen method of killing in about a sixth of these, with the remainder scattered evenly among all other methods. Sex assault and mutilation figured in an eighth. One fifteenth and one tenth of these killers practiced torture and dismemberment, respectively. According to a more thorough study of all documented “modern” serial killers (Newton, 1990), 82% are male, 17.5% are minorities, 87% are loners, 10% “hunt in packs or pairs” (of those, 59% murder in all-male groups, 10% in male-female groups). Localization of the crimes figured in 58%, 34% were highly nomadic killers and 8% killed in their place of residence. Egger (1984) points out that serial murder victims share common characteristics of being powerless, “lower class”, or otherwise prestigeless (i.e. vagrants, prostitutes, homosexuals, children, single women and elderly women).
Egger claims that “there are no known serial killers who are female” (p.348). This is clearly not accurate. Newton (1993) has compiled an exhaustive accounting of 183 female murderers, finding that 70% meet the definition of a serial killer. Victim-wise, these female serial killers showed a different profile than males: 45% killed family members, 26% murdered friends or acquaintances, 10% took the lives of those left in their care (wards, charges or patients), 19.5% were “mixed” predators, while only 11% murdered strangers. And while almost all male serial killers fall into the “motiveless” category, 35% of the females killed for profit, 28% due to mental illness (delusions or command hallucinations) and only 8% killed for “sadistic thrills”. (About 9% of the documented female serial killers were motivated by drug trafficking, jealousy, mercy or religion, combined.) Method of killing followed the pattern for males outlined above. *
Cecil on Dr. Henry Holmes
Ah, a chance to page once again through my copy of “The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers” (granted, the copy is from '92, but its still a bargain reference book for this sort of thing). Let me see here.
Yeah, the US pretty much has the market cornered on serial killers. The index in back has over three pages of just names under “United States”, while most other countries have only three or four tops (Interestingly, there’s also a sizeable list for Australia, England, France and Germany, though this may be because the book was published in England). The list goes way back, not just 20th century. I think the oldest listed is Gilles de Rais, and there is a few others. But most are from the 1800’s on to the present.
Yeah, most of the killers seem to be white males, mostly in their 30’s or so. But there’s quite a few minority and female serial killers. Most of the female killers aren’t the ‘classic’ serial killer. Most of these were poisoners, who killed for insurance money mostly. One of these was a woman who killed three of her stepchildren by swabbing their throats with hydrocloric acid.
There’s more info in here if you want me to post it. Probably old news to a lot of people, but…
The Russian city Rostov-on-don had Andrei Chikatilo.
In 12 years he killed, mutilated, and in some cases cannibalized fifty-two boys and girls.
He eluded capture for twelve years through a combination of police incompetance and state-sanctioned ignorance.
We americans do not have a monopoly on SK.
The demographics are most definitely changing in the serial killer field. This guy has some annoying ideas about website design, but the site is chock full of info about those frisky folk.
A great site for Serial Killers is Crimelibrary.com
I have no idea about how to use my computer to show a link or anything, sorry.
As has been said before, it is a mixture of the size of your population and also the social structure if you like.
But at the end of the day alot of SKs have got those tendencies anyway, yeah there mother/father may beat them or other events may help the process along but they were essentially born that way and even a perfect upbringing won’t help that much. People are different and we don’t all work to the same rules.
Naturally I am not an expert but I believe the definition of a serial killer is that he/she kills multiple victims over a given period of time. As opposed to a mass murderer who usually snaps and kills a bunch of folks all at once. Or a spree killer such as the couple depicted in Natural Born Killers who go off on a rampage. So there are psycho-sexual killers who murder for some type of sexual gratification, these guys are like Bundy and Dalhmer. Nobody knows for sure why they developed such unhealthy sexual appetites. Many of these guys have that serial killer “trinity” in common from childhood, bed wetting, pyromania, and torturing animals. Then there are the people who kill for profit. Such as the guy that stole old ladies money, killed them, and desolved them in acid. The women, the what I call “mommy killers” who kill their own kids do it for attention or profit, so do the killer nurses, male and female. Then there is this new woman the prostitute that killed her johns because she hated men.
I think the comment made about the white killer/black killer is very interesting. I’ve been interested, not necessarily in killers but in something that seems to go hand in hand with many killers, serial and non-serial, sociopathy. I believe most experts would agree that someone like old Ted Bundy was a sociopath and so is the guy who shoots his brother in the face because he owes him 7 bucks. What’s interesting is that it has still been studied very little except in prison populations. And most experts would agree that while Bundy had an anti-social personality the reason for his and it’s manifestations are different than the black guy in the projects who shoots his girlfriend over a rock of crack.
I have found very little on this subject on the internet and have not had time to visit the library to look for books on the subject. But it surely does appear that what I find to be something like “societal sociopathy” is on the rise, as well as “genetic sociopathy”. These are not clinical terms just something that I use to define the two. Does anyone out there have any suggestions for reading material on this subject? I would be intersted.
Needs2know
No one has corrected this yet? Off the top of my head, the US has roughly 280 million, China has around 1.3 billion.
I think one explanation (for America’s seemingly disproportionate SK’s) might be the penetration of the media into American culture. As soon as there are a number of linked murders, people in the local area are cautioned. When the guy is caught with 20 bodies in the basement, it goes nationwide in hours, and everybody knows about it. Crime documentaries about the most famous ones are replayed over and over again on cable. Now people who have the SK tendency see this popularity, compare it to their pitiful lives working at the 7-11 and think, “I want to be like him.” While I’m sure there are people who would be SK without such influences, I think the media does help spread the idea around.
I don’t know what Chinese TV is like, but somehow I doubt it is nearly as pervasive as American TV is. Moreover, I wouldn’t put it past the Chinese to simply not report such incidents, much as the Russians did, so they can argue Communist society is safer and therefore better.
mrblue92…My point exactly…serial killers tend to also prey on the disenfranchised so in other parts of the workd, South America, south east Asia, who cares? The few cases I have read of these guys the body count was high. They weren’t even arrested until they made a terrible slip up. Nobody was checking up on their victims in countries like Taiwan and India where there are teeming millions of poverty stricken people.
Needs2know
Their potential victims. They care a whole lot. Usually, in the countries that you’re referring to, they care so much that they often take matters into their own hands before the authorities get a chance.
Taiwan is NOT an example of a country with millions of poverty stricken people.
In Needs2know’s defense, I don’t think he meant no one cares, but rather that SK’s in foreign countries are not something Americans would generally hear about unless they were especially horrific. (Or the punishment seemed extreme–remember “cut him up, boil him in acid”?) Not that any SK isn’t horrific, mind you, but how much international news do most of us watch/read? Probably not much unless US troops are involved.
This is purely speculation, but does anyone think we might have a “self-destruct” gene that kicks in when the population density gets to a certain level? Are we programmed to thin the herd with wars and senseless killing? I have zero evidence for this, it just occurred to me when I was trying to make sense of this sort of thing.
EID: There’s a article in the most reasont sientific american that actually says people get along BETTER when in a higher populationl. i haven’t read the article yet, but i’ll do that tonight and report back.
back to the OP, i can see how any one can be a SK, but i still want to know why in the USA it tends to be single white, somewhat middle aged, somewhat intellengnt males? What are the social facters that drive this group to become SK?
Then don’t, there’s nothing sadder than pointing out a typo and making the stupid-ass conclusion that so-and-so is dumb or belittling their writings. Its crap like this and users like you that keep lots of self-consious people from posting what they really want in public forums.
I think the white-middle class effect can be explained away, feel free to disagree its mostly speculation. First off, if you watch the news in the US all you’re gonna get is local stuff, no american couch potato really cares about a serial killer in Uganda.
Second, serial killers and run of the mill one-time killers are seriously mentally ill people. Someone who’s inclined to kill and has had lots of schooling and has a steady job/income can get away with it for a while. Lots of white, middle-agers fit in that category. Now imagine the same psychopath but he’s a poor minority type. He’d probably end up in a gang and shoot his girlfriend or get caught robbing a 7-11 and end up in jail before he can ‘mastermind’ another crime.
In the end they’re both expressing the same homocidal tendancies but through different avenues. Getting drunk and shooting the first rival gang member who disses you will land you in prison as its too showy and violent. Now luring young men, especially homeless on the run bi-curious types, into your house, poisoning them and eating the corpses tends to make one much harder to catch.