why does it seem that they are always white? and men?
Because breaking little old ladies skulls for $88 Social Security checks was taken?
They’re usually between ages 25-45 too.
Hmmm…
While Males between 25-45…
Has there ever been a rash of unexplained disappearances that coresponded with a comic book convention?
Or Comdex. 
There was “Angel” Rameriez, the railroad track killer. He’s hispanic.
Why does it seem that they are always white and male? Well…they’re not. Charles Ng, Wayne Williams, Angel Resendez, Richard Ramirez, Pedro Lopez, and Yoshio Kodaira were/are black, hispanic or asian. South Africa is experiencing a boom in serial killing, and many of the killers are black. The majority of serial killers are to be found in America, where the majority of the population is white. (Next question- why us?)
While women, with the possible exceptions of Aileen Wuornos and Elizabeth Bathory, seldom meet the criteria for the classic sex-crime serial killers, there are many women who serve as a helper to their killer boyfriends/husbands, such as Rosemary West or Carol Bundy. There are also many cases of women poisoners, especially housekeepers and black widow brides, sicko nurses, and mothers who kill their own children, one after the other.
It seems as if gender stereotyping has affected the way people kill too. Male serial murderers are grotesque parodies of heroic male hunters; female murderers are grotesque parodies of traditional womanly helpmeet/nurterer roles.
For some insightful articles on the nature of serial killers, and stories on such individuals, check out: http://crimelibrary.com/
Race seems to have very little to do with serial killers–factors such as violent childhoods and/or lack of a father figure, chronic bedwetting, violence towards animals, and psychological makeups are far more important in determining what creates a serial killer.
There have been many instances of women going through husbands rather rapidly! There are probably many that were never found out.
Deb
There’s a book out now called “Why They Kill” by Richard Rhodes which you might want to read. It discusses the ife and work of Lonnie Athens, who I believe is now a Professor at Seton Hall. I recommend the book highly.
What do you mean by “Serial Killer”? Remeber it is a term of fairly recent origin, and the popular conception of what it means (as evidenced by the killers mentioned in this thread) seems heavily colored (no pun intended) by “The Silence of the Lambs”. Presumably, you all mean a Hannibal Lechter - Buffalo Bill type guy: A person who kills in serial (on separate occasions)for no apparent motive other than to enjoy killing. Note that in many cases, the courts say such serial killers are not legally insane, and many mental health professionals don’t qualify them as clinically insane, either.
Prof. Athens makes a good case for ALL intentional killings having a motive which —to the killer, anyway— are quite reasonable. He talks a lot about “violentization”, the process by which people are taught that violence is the preferable response to certian situations.
But as to what a Serial Killer is, let me ask if you think the following qualify:
- Al Capone
- Idi Amin
- Carlos the Jackal
- Alfred Packer
- Albert Anastasia
- Any of the leading “gangstas” of the more bloody street gangs
- A child molester or rapist who kills to eliminate witnesses
Why or why not?
Organised killing for profit does not seem to be included in the SK litany.
They appear to kill more or less randomly, that is, the targets might be carefully selected but could be any person who meets the SK’s parameters.
Certainly Al C, Carlos, and the gang-bangers would not fit into this model.These are killings of finance, territory and enforcement more than anything.
These would be described as multiple killers, but the differance is probably semantic
Many SK’s are indeed rapists, perhaps the majority and child killers are included.
We had an horrific case in the UK with one such who abducted and murdered children, his second name was Black but I can’t remember much more, he was described as a serial killer by much of our media.
The classic image of the SK is of an individual who works alone but then there have been exceptions.
First of all http://www.crimelibrary.com is a very good source of information on crime in general. You can no longer classify “sexual sadists” as only serial killers. Serial killers have traditionally been known to have their prime motivating factor rooted in some type of sexual dysfunction. But David Berkowitz is considered a serial killer and he never touched any of his victims. He just masterbated over the killings. Sexual sadists torture their victims. Serial killers are usually defined as killing more than one victim with a cooling off period in between. There’ve been a couple of black serial killers even in this country. Wayne Williams the Atlanta Child Murderer being one of them. There’s another black guy you can read about in the crime library that killed a few women in his hometown. (Pacific Northwest somewhere, quite of few of these guys from that area.) He posed them and left them with little “props” for the police to find. I can’t remember his name right now.
There’s a neat little article in the crime library about how serial killers have been around for practically ever. When you look at the legends of werewolves, vampires and ghouls then there you have your first serial killers.
Generally woman are not considered in this category because their crimes are not usually sexually motivated. Even Eileen Wourmos the most recent and most famous did not kill her victims for sexual satisfaction. She killed because she hated men, and she robbed them. This isn’t to say that hatred of their victims doesn’t coincide with the serial killers way of thinking. Some of them however don’t hate their victims at all they just don’t care to think of them in terms of being human. They are objects to be used. John Douglas the retired FBI profiler says that all serial killers are motivated by a need to dominate, manipulate and control. That is their prime motivation.
I think the world has always produced fiends, ghouls and monsters of this sort. There has been and always will be people who are willing to kill indiscrimately for whatever reason they deem necessary. Whether it be for profit, fun, or sexual satisfaction.
Needs2know
Actually, many serial killers are sexually motivated. Thus men, who have on average a stronger sex drive, would tend to be overrepresented among sexually motivated murderers. Testosterone affects aggression levels as well as sex drive; those with more of it will tend to be more sexually aggressive, including sexual aggression leading to murder.
This would also be affected by the strong correlation between homosexuality and serial murder. A disproportionate number of serial murderers are gay or bisexual (John Wayne Gacy, Juan Corona, Jeffrey Dahmer, Wayne Williams, etc.) Since there are more gay men than lesbians, gay males would be disproportionately found among serial murderers.
Not sure why they are usually white. A possible explanation is that serial murderers tend to attack members of their own race. Blacks may be serial murderers in proportion to their representation in the population, but their crimes would probably not be as well publicized as they would be if they attacked whites.
I imagine they are generally middle aged for several reasons.
[ul]
[li]The ones you hear about are the “successful” ones. Serial murderers who get caught on their first crime are, by definition, not serial murderers. Thus the “successful” ones are the ones who have gotten away with it more than once. By the time they get “good” enough at murder to come to the public attention, they are middle aged.[/li]
[li]The sex drive begins to weaken around forty. What was enough to get their motor running when they were twenty doesn’t work anymore when they are forty, thus they begin to explore their darker fantasies looking for greater stimulation.[/li][/ul]
My $.02 worth.
IMHO, “Serial Killer” is just a semantic thing; as above, we’ve had these guys forever. I have to stick with the eariler idea that we just notice them more now beacuse between the FBI Profilers and The Silence of the Lambs, we’ve given them a name and a face. The thing about them that gets the attention is apparent randomness (stress the “apparent”) and of course that besides whatever else they do, they kill on top of it.
As to why it seems it’s usually white guys:
- There are a lot of white people around. For whatever reason, people tend to do violence on their own community members. And as an earlier post said, we unfortunately notice crimes against whites more.
2.Males are more prone to violence because they’re generally larger than females, and so are successful when they first try violence as a means of getting done what they want to do. You’ll note there are very few weedy male killers (especially serial) around five feet tall —the weak and small just aren’t too effective at being violent actors.