Serial Killers

• Serial Killers – kill 3 or more people over a period of a month – Without a cooling off period

• Mass murderers – kill many (four or more) all at once; genocide

• Spree killer – kill many at 2 or more locations with no break in between

Who are serial killers?

• A person who kills several people one after the other, seemingly in a random fashion.

• Often times victims share a common trait such as physical appearances

• Usually they have activated some psychological trigger in the killer’s mind

Dysfunctional Lives

• Some of them kill compulsively due to power or sexual urges.

• Most of these serial killers have a rich imaginary life where they are superior and powerful, and they are successful people.

• Attempted suicide rates, abandoned fathers

• Physically abused and bullied as kids

Other Traits

• Pyromaniacs

• Alcoholics, criminals, liars, mental disorders

• Kill animals

• Lower middle class

• Trouble keeping jobs

Jeffrey Dahmer• Early life:

– Loner in school– Searched for road kill /

animals to do ‘surgery’– Kicked out of military– Heavy drinker at OSU– Public indecency– Eventually moved to

Milwaukee

The Crimes• Homosexual

• Antisocial personality disorder

• Registered sex offender

• 1979-1991 -17 young adult males

• Murderer, necrophiliac, cannibal

Trial & Imprisonment• Very compliant with lawyers and police

• Went to prison in Wisconsin – spent first year in isolation

• Known as JD by many inmates and was well-liked (mostly)

• November 28, 1994 – found dead in pool of blood after being heavily beaten by other inmate

Today

• Apartment complex torn down

• Parents still reside in Medina County, Ohio

• One of most notorious serial killers in American history

Jack the Ripper

• Responsible for the murders of (at least) 5 women in London in 1888

• AKA the White Chapel Murderer

• First killer in large metropolitan area with literate people– Media played large role

• Brutal murders with knife

• Internal organs were surgically removed, faces mutilated

• Identity still unknown

• Sent letters to media

Zodiac Killer

• Responsible for five known murders in Northern California in the 1960s

• Could be as many as 37

• Targeted people age16 - 29

• Left a crosshair like symbol in letters to the Police

• Identity remains unknown

Ed Gein• Early life:

– As a child: bullied, feminine behavior

– No father, mom was abusive

– Not allowed to make friends

• 15 bodies found – all women

• Dug up middle-aged women that resembled his mother

David Berkowitz

• “Son of Sam”

• Responsible for killing six women and wounding several others in shootings in the 1970s in New York City.

• Arrested by the Police on the 10th of August, 1977 outside his apartment in New York.

Ted Bundy

• Raped & murdered women between 1974-1978

• Used his charm & charisma

• On the 24th of January, 1989, Ted Bundy was sent to the electric chair.

BTK Killer

• Dennis Rader

• Strangled / stabbed / suffocated his victims from 1974-1991

• Bind – Torture – Kill

• Serving life in prison in Kansas

• 10 victims

John Wayne Gacy

• Father was abusive• Killed at least 33 young

men between 1972-1978• Pogo the Clown• Many buried in crawl

space• Lethally injected in 1994

Cult of followers devoted to me

Lived at Spahn Ranch in California

Searched for bottomless pit for coming race war

Manson claimed Helter Skelter

Reached over 100 individuals

6 people murdered at Sharon Tate’s House

Most stabbed, one shot

Leno and Rosemary LaBianca

Jonestown Massacre

• Jim Jones

• The People’s Temple

• Moved to Guyana to escape capitalism

• Agricultural commune

• Death of Congressman Ryan

• The murder-suicide – 918 died

The Branch Dividan

• David Koresh• Seventh Day Adventists

• Believed that apocalypse was coming and God was making his second appearance

• Compound in Waco, Texas

• February 28, 1993

• Federal forces seized compound in search of illegal firearms and explosives

• Gun fire erupts, 4 agents & 6 Davidians killed

• FBI launches siege that ends 50 days later

• 74 deaths

Heaven’s Gate

• UFO religious group from San Diego, CA

• Believed Earth was about to be recycled

• Were trying to reach alien space craft, which they believed was following a comet– Was shining at its brightest

in March ‘97