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Marzo /99
WHAT IS A SERIAL KILLER?
By : Luis Pinzón, student of 8th semester of Psychology
 
Serial killers are a type of criminals very well known in North America. At present, the country where you find more of this type of criminals, is the United States. In Europe one of the most famous last century was "Jack the Ripper", who terrified the whole city of London, where he killed five women.
 
The serial killers have been a type of criminals who have had a lot of publicity, and a s a result of this, movie like " The silence of the lambs", "Jennifer 8" and "Copycat" were filmed. Also , programs on television, like "Millennium" are still transmitted on national channels,, and "the profiler", which is transmitted in the Fox channel in the United States.
 
This type of crime have been increasing from the 80’s on, and for this reason the FBI and the police departments are concerned about the issue. According to statistics from 1986 to 1990 the number increased to twenty thousand, and five thousand of these cases are not solved yet.
 
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is a real authority on the subject. They call these criminals "serial killers" (this term was introduced by the ex-agent of the FBI Robert Ressler in the 70’s during the investigation of the serial killer David Berkowitz in New York). The FBI identifies them as individuals who kill a number of victims, in a very methodical way and in a short period of time; the motive, the victims and the methods vary depending on the murderer.
 
Due to the appearance of this type of crimes (they were known in the past as strange or multiple crimes, the FBI carried out an investigation between 1979 and 1983 to get acquainted with their behavior and capture them. The majority were Caucasians, average age 25 years old, had murdered three or more people, their victims were mainly women , who were mostly found naked, or with their private parts exposed; there was evidence of sexual abuse. They look for expressing their domination over their victims , besides satisfying their perverted desires in the intercourse.
 
As time has passed there have been different classifications of the serial killers, three of them are:
From influence zone of the criminal , Holmes and Holmes, 1996; Holmes and Deburzer , 1980)
  1. Serial killers travelers: they travel miles and miles away to commit their crimes.
  2. Local serial killers: they never leave the place where they commit the crime (e.g. A state such as California).
  3. 3. Serial killers of an specific place: they are criminals who never leave their homes or employment to commit homicides.
 
According to their personality and drives (Holmes and De Burger, 1988)
  1. Visionary serial killer: kills due to voices or a vision which make him kill people.
  2. Guided by a mission: has a goal, the elimination of a group or category of people, e.g. prostitutes, in order to clean up the city.
  3. Hedonist: kills because this excites him.
  4. Lustful: his pleasure is directly related to what he can do to torture his victims.
 
According to the scene of crime (B:S:U:, Unity of Science Behavior of the FBI, 1985:
  1. Disorganized: when there is evidence of an absent planning, excessive violence, mutilation, victim chosen at random and use of any instrument and use of any instrument to commit the crime.
  2. Organized: when there is evidence of planning, the victim is selected weeks before, they own their guns and seek for a special way to hide or leave the victim (does not mutilate as often as the disorganized).
  3. Combined: when there are characteristics of both previous types. He may insinuate that the murder is not one but two, or he may change plans because there was an incident during the series of murders.
 
These classifications have to do with some intentions to accomplish an organization on the investigation about this type of crimes.
 
The researchers have tried to find out the causes which operate on the origin of serial killers, and according to one of them, Robert K. Ressler, "I Have Lived in the Monster", 1997, here he mentions that they are the product of children who have been abused physically and mentally, and who were unable to have sexual relationships with normal feelings, while they were young adults (17 to 24 years old approximately)
 
The serial killers belong to any kind of social class, usually come from inadequate families. Virtually almost all report punishment during their childhood, an unfair discipline, hostile, corrupted and inconsistent ( some behavior may not mean anything
 
The researchers have tried to find out the causes which operate on the origin of serial killers, and according to one of them, Robert K. Ressler in his book "I Have Lived in the Monster", 1997. Here he mentions that they are the product of children who were abused physically and mentally, and who were unable to have sexual relationships with normal feelings, while they were young adults (17 to 24 years approximately ).
 
The serial killers belong to any kind of social class, usually come from inadequate families. Virtually almost all report punishment during their childhood, an unfair discipline, hostile, corrupted and inconsistent (some behavior may not mean anything one day , but the next may mean a strong beating). In general a high degree of instability in family life (FBI, 1985), quoted in "Genesis of a serial killer", Jeremy Anderson)
 
This type of people associate aggressive impulses with sexuality, they daydream and create fantasies where they can find shelters and be the ones to dominate and have control over the rest of the people, escaping from the abuse and aggression they get from the external world, (FBI, 1985). Late these fantasies about power and domination become better, at the same time his aggressive behavior isolates him from others. After some time his ability to differentiate fantasy from reality turns more difficult . The lack of family love and aggression make more difficult to see the degrees of control in a relationship, the isolation makes not to have any type of sexual relationship and they prefer auto-erotic ones . After some time the fantasies about aggressive sexuality become real in the crimes they commit , where they seek to have the complete control of the situation.
 
They justify their crimes and the number of them, saying that the fantasy they have gets better each time they commit a crime. In this way they fulfill their desires , and therefore they will never stop unless they get caught . As Ressler says in one of his conclusions after interviewing the famous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, "the problem with these killers is reality, the murder of the victim overcomes the fantasies. The fantasy is always better, because it is always refined and perfected, and therefore it overcomes the crime itself".
 
This has been a brief description of these dreadful criminals, considered mentally ill, and who are a challenge for the analytical mind of any psychologist specialized in the investigation of human behavior.
 
  • This article was written by Luis Hernando Pinzón Rodríguez. The information held here, has been gathered from sources given by the members of a group of criminology study with emphasis on the serial killers. It has been accomplished by Psychology students from 7th and 8th semesters.
 
Bibliography
RESSLER , Robert and SCHATMAN, Tom. I have lived in the monster . Inside the minds of the most notorious serial killers, United States. St. Martin’s press, 1997
 
ANDERSON, Jeremy. Genesis of a serial killer.
.www.evansville.net/-alienist/psychindex. Htm
 
AARONSON, Trevor. Staring into the Eyes of a Killer.
Other addresses on the subject:
 
www. easynet.co.uk/ray/serial-killers/ Serial killer home page.
Criminology, Robert Ressler
www. Ucsub.colorado.edu/-mcelroy/serial.html