That’s pretty much it. Are they any out there that experts agree don’t fit the standard profile? And if there are, is the guilt for these people questionable, or is it rock solid?
Well, Eileen Wuornos was female, which is hardly part of the standard profile.
This thread is not really Cafe Society material. Off to IMHO.
On the topic of the thread, I do not believe there is one “serial killer profile”. Compare Eileen Wuornos, the Zodiac killer, Jeffrey Dahmer and Angels of Death and they really aren’t that similar. Sure, some killers can fall into one category (I’d put Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer in one, Zodiac and BTK in another) but there are vast differences within the overall category of “serial killer”.
I guessing that all of the serial killers contribute to the profile, rather than the other way around.
I guess I should have phrased it different- in other words, are there serial killers who have none of the traits usually associated with serial killers (anti-social, abused as kids, abusive to animals, etc.)? And if so, is their guilt absolute?
I’ve always thought that profiling was a good example of bad statistics. Sure, you can gather stats about serial killers and data-mine them for similarities. But that doesn’t mean one characteristic has caused the behavior, nor are all the average characteristics necessary to make someone act that way.
I suspect many real killers have been overlooked since they didn’t fit the standard model. I imagine most that do fit the model are totally innocent, since it is usually pretty broad.
You’re thinking of Russian serial killers.
Maybe the OP is referring to people who get off on killing, not specifically the “serial killer” type. Henry Lee Lucas seemed to not only enjoy killing but was clever enough to vary his methods so it was harder to tie him to the crimes.
Although he met many of the typical criteria of a serial killer Ted Bundy was so intelligent and charming that, after he served as his own attorney, the judge actually expressed sorrow that such a bright young man could ruin his life in that way.
I think the answer is: all of them.
This is because ‘profiling’ is at worst just a rather pointless application of cold reading, and at best a sloppy statistical approach that doesn’t really help anyone to do anything, and often embraces the logical fallacy of ‘post hoc, ergo prompter hoc’.
Remember, it’s very possible that in a room full of people, none is the average height. Similarly, given a group of serial killers, it’s perfectly possible that none fits the ‘serial killer’ profile.
Baton Rouge’s own Derrick Todd Lee.
There are still cases going through the courts of men who “fit the profile” that gave DNA samples, voluntarily mind you, and cannot get them taken out of the system.
There is no one type of “serial killer.” There are generalities, but they do not fit every single serial killer.
Most of them are white males, but Wayne Williams was black and Eileen Wuormus was a female.
Profilers look at individual clues and try to determine which individual person would have done the individual crime(s). And they admit they can be wrong.
Actually, the Beltway Snipers, John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, are perfect examples of this. They could have been caught, SHOULD have been caught several times, but were ignored, because they didn’t fit the “angry, solitary, white male” profile that law enforcement was following.
Wayne Williams is a good example of what I am looking for- he does not fit the profile, and coincidentally (or not), his actual guilt is doubted by most of the people involved in the case. He could only be linked to one of those killed IIRC, and that person was not a child like most of the others. Here is a person who doesn’t fit the profile, and is probably innocent. Therefore, with that logic, can it be deduced if you don’t fit the profile, you cannot be guilty? Not any specific profile, but a general one. If a well-adjusted nice guy, no history of violence, kind to animals, not a molester, no temper, no bed-wetting, etc. gets arrested for being the Blue Swamp Killer, can one assume automatically he is not guilty?
If I understand the OP’s question correctly, you’re looking for serial killers who had happy, “normal” childhoods, and/or didn’t display the classic serial killer traits of animal abuse, fire-starting, and bed-wetting as a youngster.
All of the serial killers I know anything about had dysfunctional (usually violently abusive) childhoods. It seems to me that if there was an exception it would be well-publicized (in the way that Gacy is famous for being able to act like a frighteningly “normal” community leader during all the years he was raping and killing boys). I definitely would be interested if anyone can think of an exception (edited to add: oh, I didn’t see the Wayne Williams stuff before I had written this!)
What TV show was I watching the other day where the character scoffed at profiling, saying something like, “Yeah, they all the fit the profile until they find one that doesn’t.” Law & Order: CI?
Nice one. Very subtle.
There are standard sort of things you hear about serial killers – that they never stop killing, that they kill within their own ethnic group, that they only target one type of gender or appearance, that they were all abused/bedwetters/arsonists/animal torturers, that they do not change their signature – that have been shown to be inaccurate in many cases, but it’s not like there is one overriding profile used for all serial killers, and profiles are (or at least should be to anyone doing it right) based upon proven cases, so any one that doesn’t fit standard expectations just improves later profiles. And psychological profiles, gepgraphic profiles, victim profiles, signature analysis and so forth are done by a variety of individuals, many of whom disagree with each other anyway.
For stopping and/or long delays see Dennis Rader/BTK and, to some extent, Gary Ridgway/The Green River Killer. For outside of ethnic group so Kevin (I think it was Kevin) Bright (Peoria killer who was white and targeted black women). For targeting males and females and adults and children, see Andrei Chikatilo (who also had long delays that throws some profilers off). And so forth and so on.
The Law and Order quote about profiles only being good until someone doesn;t fit, well, duh. Same thing with all clues in general. You may as well throw out everything we know about criminal behavior – and, hell, most science in general, as there are exceptions to almost everything – if you think something has to be accurate 100% of the time before it is usable.
Speaking of the Green River Killer, a newsmagazine show I saw on him said that he defied most of the profile that had been set out (for him, at least): he was a local with strong roots in the area, held a steady job, and had a relatively strong marriage.
Of course, he had shown extremely violent proclivites as a youngster, but he’d hidden them fairly well.
Let’s not let the neonazis hear that one: they could use it as an excuse to “kick all 'em foreigners out”. It’s for their own protection, you see.
That “rule of thumb” certainly didn’t work for Landrú, or for a beggar in the Madrid subway who killed several others over a couple of months. The cops found out it was because they’d “taken his place” :smack:
Sometimes a serial killer is, like that beggar, not even on a power trip… “merely” off his rocker. IANAL, but from what I hear, there’s no such crime as “serial killing”, it’s multiple counts of murder.