# Why you couldn't be a serial killer **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2005, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766 "2005-08-19T17:04:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/21 "2005-08-19T18:39:29Z")
I’m just not much of a “people person.” Plus, it’s just too much _work_—seems like a round-the-clock job, what with the stalking, killing, police-taunting. ---
**Author:** ![CWN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bc79bd/32.png) [@CWN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CWN)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/22 "2005-08-19T18:41:48Z")
> [@Crab Rangoon](#): > > …I’m looking at you, pointy-haired boss. Dilbert is that you? If it means leaving the computer fuggetaboutit ---
**Author:** ![Sevastopol](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/23 "2005-08-19T18:48:37Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > …because I am very habit-driven; eat at the same restaurants, drive to the same movie theaters, everything in my life fits a predictable pattern. It is how I remember things- to make a ritual of it. The very qualities of every serial killer worth his badge. How do you think they name and catch’em? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/24 "2005-08-19T18:53:27Z")
> [@Sevastopol](#): > > The very qualities of every serial killer worth his badge. _Badges?_ We don’t need no _steenkin’ badges_! ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/25 "2005-08-19T18:56:59Z")
I don’t have the kind of sick mind that would allow me to think it was all right to kill people. And I don’t want to find out what going to prison for years and getting the chair or lethal injection is like. Besides which, I hate the sight of blood. Even my own. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/26 "2005-08-19T18:57:37Z")
Because no one would say “I never saw it coming… She was such a nice, normal person.” ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/27 "2005-08-19T19:00:21Z")
> [@fishbicycle](#): > > And I don’t want to find out what going to prison . . . Oh! I just remembered! In prison they make you wear an _orange jumpsuit!_ That’s the main thing that keeps me from a life of crime—orange is a _very_ trying color, and _no one_ looks good in a jumpsuit. I don’t think they even let you accessorize! ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/28 "2005-08-19T19:02:56Z")
Wellll, I did participate in a secret, twlight burial in an out-of-the-way spot in the woods recently. Oh wait, that was just a betta fish. ---
**Author:** ![Aangelica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Aangelica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aangelica)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/29 "2005-08-19T19:22:00Z")
Well, I’d probably have a hard time explaining to my fiance why I had to spend lots and lots of time away from him during odd hours. You know, for the stalking, killing and tidying up. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/30 "2005-08-19T19:25:09Z")
Because I don’t seem normal. My neighbors would have to say to the reporters “That Guy, Oh yeah, I believe it.” Plus, I’d probably blow the ‘give cryptic clues’ to someone and either nobody would get them at all or it would be so easily spotted and decoded that I wouldn’t get past more than 9 or 10 victims. Really though, I consider myself more the “Clock tower” type. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/31 "2005-08-19T19:36:10Z")
The first person I’d have to bump off is my wife, because she’d notice the smell. She has an _amazing_ sense of smell. How can I store mummified heads and genitalia in a crawlspace in my home when she can smell garlic breath in the next room? I mean, come on. So, of course, if the wife dies, who do they finger first? The husband. Just like every other frickin’ thing. Blame him for this, blame him for that, if the wife dies, well, he _must_ have done it, yada yada yada. So already, right there, my serial-killing career is off to a really shakey start, even in the most optimistic of eventualities They’re going to be watching me closely, you just know it. How am I supposed to terrorize a city with the cops breathing down my neck. It’s just non-starter. If I’d grown up to live in my grandma’s basement, then maybe I’d have a chance, but now, no way. ---
**Author:** ![TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tellmei_mnotcrazy/32/3419_2.png) [@TellMeI\_mNotCrazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TellMeI_mNotCrazy)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/32 "2005-08-19T19:36:50Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Because I don’t seem normal. My neighbors would have to say to the reporters “That Guy, Oh yeah, I believe it.” > > Plus, I’d probably blow the ‘give cryptic clues’ to someone and either nobody would get them at all or it would be so easily spotted and decoded that I wouldn’t get past more than 9 or 10 victims. > > Really though, I consider myself more the “Clock tower” type. And you’d probably be dubbed a copycat killer 😛 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/33 "2005-08-19T19:43:29Z")
While I do share many traits of some serial killers (a bright child who suffered horrible abuse, very manipulative, lack of empathy, good actor, a loner) I am female, don’t drive, and simply don’t like sex and violence. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/34 "2005-08-19T19:44:10Z")
I’m a bad cleaner. I try really, really hard, but I just simply don’t SEE the mess other people are talking about. So I’ll clean the kitchen, and it turns out there’s crumbs all over the counter and the refrigerator’s got hand smoodges all over it and the stove is encrusted with goop - I dunno, looked clean to me. So I’d leave way too much evidence behind. I would never get the chance to commit the second killing, 'cause after I cleaned and left, the cops would slip in the spilled blood and fall over onto my drivers license or something. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/35 "2005-08-19T19:48:50Z")
There are very few people in the world I want to see dead that badly. I can only think of three off the top of my head: My mother’s old boss, Kim Jong Ill and, okay…just two. And I don’t think a jury would convict me on either of those deaths. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/36 "2005-08-19T19:50:29Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Really though, I consider myself more the “Clock tower” type. I would be more the type for a planned rampage against everyone who ever hurt me or royally pissed me off. Aquiring information, weapons, explosives, etc to go out in the biggest blaze of glory possible. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/37 "2005-08-19T19:51:57Z")
> [@Crab Rangoon](#): > > I couldn’t do it because I’m not quiet, single and I don’t pretty much keep to myself. > . Damn. I’m pretty much the opposite. Maybe I should turn myself in right now. ---
**Author:** ![moonstarssun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@moonstarssun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moonstarssun)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/38 "2005-08-19T20:02:46Z")
We have a fairly small lot, so there’s no place close by for the remains. And we only have one car, which Mr. m kind of dotes on, so he’d notice if I got blood ‘n’ stuff in the trunk when I took the bodies somewhere to dispose of them. Also, our basement isn’t creepy enough. Serial killers have to have creepy basements. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/39 "2005-08-19T20:07:52Z")
> [@moonstarssun](#): > > Also, our basement isn’t creepy enough. Serial killers have to have creepy basements. Well, that lets me off right there… I don’t even have a basement. Dang, and this was looking like a really promising new career choice, too. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766/40 "2005-08-19T20:09:33Z")
I just realized that “Serial Killer Bo Snoarder” doesn’t have near the same nifty alliteration to it, either. Ah well, back to training for the slopes… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-couldnt-be-a-serial-killer/317766.md?page=3)