SerialKillers
Nathan Burley CJ-101
Jan, 29, 2014
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
It was a national holiday in London’s east end, around the end of August, late in the day... then someone found a body... and one of the most vicious and infamous killers made his first appearance. To this day the “Jack the Ripper” case has gone unsolved. It was from the vile depth of this killer’s darkness that the term “serial killer” was first used.
There have been many serial killers in history both before and since “Red Jack”. There are other things that are part of serial killers’ minds beside the need to kill. These parts are hidden deep in their subconscious. Many killers are from broken homes, abusive parents, or sexual abuse victims.
I have learned that some of the worst killers were also very good at leading very separate lives to cover their crimes. John Wayne Gacy was married, had 2 daughters and ran a very successful construction company, this was until police discovered over 30 bodies of young men who had been tortured and brutally murdered in the crawl space under Gacy’s house. Ted Bundy, whether it was before or during his terrible reign of terror, worked alongside Anne Rule at a suicide/crisis hotline. From this time to his execution Anne Rule remained his friend and then wrote a book called “The Stranger Beside Me” from this experience. The last killer that comes to mind when thinking about the ones that led successful double lives is Dennis Rader, the BTK killer that terrorized Wichita, KS. Rader had taken a position in the city as a compliance officer.
He was the president of his church council. He had 2 daughters and had been married 33 years by the time he was caught. When he was caught in 2004, he had tortured and killed 10 people over the course of 31 years. All his crimes committed without the authority or his family knowing for all those years.
There are also killers who have done things that are so horrific it’s sickening. The first one that comes to mind is Robert Berdella. Berdellawould kidnap and torture his victims, the whole time keeping a journal of how they reacted to his brutal torturing. Another is Robert Heidnick, abducted and kept 10 women in his basement in a hole all in the hopes of being a father and having a family. He would sexually abuse them repeatedly in trying to get them pregnant. When one of them went against his rules he hung her from the ceiling with handcuffs until she died. Albert Fish was a cannibal who abducted young children and murdered them. He would write letters to their parents after disposing of the bodies. Though Fish was only convicted for 2 murderers it is thought that he killed as many as 6.
Psychology is very detrimental in catching these wicked killers. If not for people like John Douglas, the man who started the behavior analysis unit in the FBI, Robert Ressler and Katherine Ramsland, all of whom are pioneers in the field of criminal psychology, the truth of these monsters and the reason they do what they do may not be where it is today. The way the psychological study of such vicious killers was when John Douglas decided to start interviewing the ones in prison already. Through the interviews John discovered patterns and started putting his finding to use in cases of other killers. He worked on cases and gave profiles on killers like Gary Ridgeway (The Green River Killer), Robert Hansen, who would take prostitutes out in the Alaskan woods and hunt them. He was also very closely involved in the Jon Benet Ramsey and the BTK cases.
One of the things that John found in the interviews were that most of the killers killed for sexual release and it was the only way that they were able to feel anything at all in their emotional state. Much like drug addicts who up their usage to reach the same high, so people who kill for sexual reasons continue to kill or kill in greater numbers to reach the same place emotionally. These types of killers always get better at what they do and how they do it, the more they do it. This way of reaching that point is very wrong and rather disgusting and it makes one wonder why it take such brutal acts to even get close to that “high”.
There was another very integral part of the mind of serial killers that was found in the pursuit of answers as to why these acts are committed by some people. This was that no matter what crime is committed every single killer had a definite singularity about how they killed. This singularity was noticed and called the killer’s signature. These signatures are what the offender feels necessary to add to their crimes. The Ripper’s signature was the way he would eviscerate, remove and wrap the victim’s neck in the parts removed. BTK’s was how he would bind his victims then put bags on their heads and watch them die. Many people get modus operandi and signature confused, MO is the way or action that is taken to commit the crime, signature is what the killer needs to do in the crime they commit. The Zodiac killer in San Francisco would take his victims by surprise in remote locations and shoot them before they could see him, this was his MO. As with the way BTK’s signature, his MO was the way he would psychologically torture his victims before watching them die.
Criminal profiling plays a very big part in the catching of these monsters. Profiling is how the killer’s actions at the crime are used to narrow down suspects. There are 5 characteristics to this process that are looked at by forensic psychologists at the scene. The first is the amount of planning, a killer like John Wayne Gacy put a great degree of planning into his crimes, this is seen in his ability to hide both the killer side of his personality and his victims, second is the degree of control, BTK had an extreme amount of control in his ability to psychologically torture his victims before killing them and in killing them watching his victims suffer, third, escalation of emotion at the scene, when Ted Bundy escaped from prison he went to a sorority went into one of the dorm rooms and out of his anger and need to feed his frenzy he randomly beat 3 students with a flashlight, 2 of them to death. The fourth is risk level of both killer and victim, the risk level of the killer is based on who the victim is and the risk level of the victim is based mostly on their place in society, meaning homeless and prostitutes are more of a risk to being victims of serious crime than people with steady jobs and houses, because most people won’t notice when someone from a lower place goes missing. The fifth characteristic looked at is the organization of the crime, signs of organization are seen in the tools used to commit the crime. Killers who plan to torture their victims tend to carry tools, like ropes and wires. In comparison someone like Ted Bundy though he had tools and disguises in his car when he broke out of prison he was very disorganized and killed mostly out of anger and emotion.
After the scene is looked at by the profiler the next steps in the process is first analysis of type and nature of crime, the analysis of the crime is done by looking at the methods used to commit the crime. The time and cause of death are analyzed. Next a more in depth look at the crime scene, this part of the process is when location of the crime are examined 3. The victims background is analyzed to look for motives or connection, when this part is investigated connections are very important and could even lead to motive. Motives are the factors that provoke the offender to commit the crime. Some of the motives that were thought to be The Ripper’s reason for killing his victims were, first some thought he may have felt he was doing society a favor by killing low life prostitutes. Another motive wasthat he was in a related to Mary Kelly, his last known victim, and was trying to pay her back for leaving him. The next part that is examined are possible factors for motivation for the crime. Some of these factors can include such things as anger towards someone or something somebody did to them. Edmund Kemper hated his mother he abducted, murdered then tore apart 6 hitchhikers in California. While killing these women he was slowly building the courage to exact what he thought was revenge on his cruel controlling mother. Edmund killed his mother then decapitated her and raped her severed head. As a final blow to her even though she was already dead he then cut out her voice box. There have been many mistakes in regards to motivation for murders. For many years and even still many people think that the reason Ed Gein was killing, exhuming and skinning women was because he wanted to be a women, some believe he wanted to be his mother. This was the inspiration for Norman Bates, the main character in the 1960 Hitchcock film, Psycho. The truth is that he was fascinated by females because his mother kept him very sheltered and did not let him have a lot of contact with other people. When Gein was asked if he wanted to be his mother or try to bring her back he said “No, I was upset when she died, who doesn’t get upset when their mother dies?”.The final part of this process is the description of the offender based on characteristics found in the previous analysis. When this part is done by the FBI they go to the local law enforcement and with their help they tell the press the profile. The profile consists of where the offender may live, his living habits, where he may work, and most times what he will be driving. Social skills are discussed in the profile as well as where he may spend his free time.
There are goals that the forensic psychologist strives to meet in the process of profiling a killer. The first is to provide law enforcement with social and psychological profile of the offender. This entails all of the previous parts of the analysis such as the way the crime looks, what provoked the crime, connections to the victim or the victim’s social status, and factor of motivation.
The next goal of profiling is to evaluate the offender’s belongings. A lot can be said about a person by what one owns or spends their time with. Someone who spends many hours, is not very social, and has anger towards someone or something someone did could turn into something very disturbing, Jared Lee Loughner for example. There has been a lot to show that people that have become killers have a past of bed wetting, burning things and most torture animals as children. David Berkowitz (Son of Sam) would light abandoned buildings on fire and then call the fire department and would watch them put it out. His release was watching it burn and seeing the firefighters fight to put out.
The last goal is to give the interrogators ways to break through the killers walls and get them to confess. The profilers will find ways to do this in the things they find in the analysis of the crimes. Some of this can be found in the way the offender reacts to things that are said about them. When Dennis Rader was caught and questioned he was very arrogant during it. He acted as if he was better than the police because it took them so long to catch him. He also felt a bond to the police because of his place in the community as the compliance officer. Lt.Landwehr said that during the interrogation turned confession Rader would not shut up. The BSU of the FBI helped put a plan into place to help the Wichita police in getting Rader to confess. This was to only have one person talk to him so they could gain his trust. In the end this plan worked after 32 hours of talking to Rader, Lt.Landwehr got him to confess.
There are also a number of unsolved murders that continue to haunt many people to this day. Some of these crimes were thought to have been stopped by the offender being arrested on a smaller charge or dying.
One of the most memorable unsolved killings is that of “Jack the Ripper”. He struck the year after the first Sherlock Holmes story was written, it was August of 1888. His crimes were vicious like he had no care for anyone but himself. It’s hard to believe it has been over 120 years since he struck, his crimes have been the speculation of many people. John Douglas even looked at The Ripper file and gave his opinion on the man he could have been. Another interesting part of the story is that even though no one was ever caught, his victims were all found literally minutes after he killed them. Many have thought that Jack had some kind of medical background or that he may have been a butcher because he seemed to know how extract body parts from his victims. When a local medical examiner looked at The Rippers victims and came to the conclusion that there was no knowledge of anything medical involved in these murders. After the police started the search for the offender of these crimes, he started a correspondence with them, he wrote letters to taunt the police. There are some who believe that the real Jack did not write any of the letters that the police received. There has been speculation that one of the officers was writing these letters. In the years that followed this reign of terror there have been over 100 possible suspects. The most shocking one was Prince Albert Victor, who was 3rd in line to the throne of England. This theory was based on Victor’s involvement with local prostitutes and that he had contracted syphilis and because medical needs were not met as they should be, he was driven mad by the disease. Upon being driven mad, the theory was that he went to take out his revenge on the prostitutes. Some others that have been thought as suspects were, Montague John Druitt, this is because, among other thing, when he committed suicide the murders stopped.
Another was Aaron Kosminski, a polish jew, this theory came about by the thought that he was a mental institute patient and had hallucinations. He was named as a suspect by another jew who refused to testify against a fellow jew, so no legal action was taken against him. John Douglas in his profile of Kosminski, said someone like him would have boasted about his crimes, there is no record of him doing so. Lewis Carroll author of “Alice in Wonderland”, was also on the suspect list, based on anagrams, most do not take this serious. During the investigation, Joseph Bell, a doctor with great skills of observation and one of the pioneers of forensic science, was called in to look at the letters that were sent by The Ripper. After examining the letters through studying the handwriting, Bell was sure he discovered who Jack was. He sent a letter to Scotland Yard with his statement, it never made it to Scotland Yard. The only person who may have known who Jack was is the same man that inspired the creation of Sherlock Holmes.
In her book “Portrait of a Killer”, Patricia Cornwell presents evidence that The Ripper was a man named Walter Sickert. She takes on a literary tour of White Chapel in 1888 and shows us what brought her to the conclusion that Sickert was The Ripper. One of the main parts of her theory is that Sickert was deformed and had many surgeries to fix his deformity but that it only caused him more problems. After the surgeries he was unable to perform sexually and was forced to sit to urinate. He felt like a woman, so he decided to take his anger out on the lower class of women. He would remove the various parts that made them women, like the uterus, he felt he was taking from them the part he was missing in his manhood. After showing this proof that Sickert was a very disturbed and angry person, Cornwell then proves this theory with mitochondrial DNA. She used the saliva sample on the envelopes that the letters were in and envelopes that were found in Sickert’s home. This DNA analysis is an exact match. Even after this analysis there are still people who don’t agree with Cornwell. This may be because of the draw of the mystery. Robert Bloch, author of the book Psycho, wrote a short story about the theory that The Zodiac was Jack The Ripper reincarnated.
Another well-known unsolved case is the Zodiac case that took place in San Francisco in 1969. The first time Zodiac struck he took the lives of 2 innocent lovers at a hidden place where they had gone to “park”. He drove up in his car got out walked to the window and shot them, the only evidence at the scene was the shell casings and some footprints. There were a few people who saw the car that many people believed he drove but no real witnesses to describe him well enough to match someone to it. This was on December 20th,1968.
On August 1st, 1969, the Vallejo Times received 3 letters from a man claiming to be the man who committed these crimes. The letter open with “This is the Zodiac speaking...” Along with the letters the writer sent a page with a code on it and said that when deciphered it would reveal his identity. The police decided to publish it in 3 local papers, within day an English teacher and her husband, with a knack for codes and puzzles, had solved the code. The code did not contain his name, instead it was his reason for killing people at random. The writer said that he was killing these people so they could be slaves for him in the afterlife, and to not try to stop him. An comic writer at the The Chronicle, named Robert Graysmith started looking deeper into the code Zodiac sent and tried to figure what he could about the man who called himself The Zodiac. Graysmith came to the conclusion, much like a profiler would by looking at all the pieces, that this man had military or some sort of background in code or signaling. This was based in the fact that most of the code was in a form of flag code.
There have been many people who fell on this suspect list, Ted Kaczynski, The Unabomber was one. Graysmith believe it was a man named Arthur Leigh Allen, based on circumstantial evidence. Allen owned the typewriter that one of the letters was written on and wore a zodiac brand watch. He also lived in close proximity to the first victim. As of 2004 the case was inactive. There have been many people who have come forward and claimed that they or someone they knew was the Zodiac. Many have been deemed inconclusive. In February 2014 a man claimed that in 2001 an ill friend confessed he was the Zodiac, though skeptical, police are investigating it.
There have been many killers and many people who have contributed to catching them. A lot of work has gone into learning patterns, so the law can be better equipped when these monsters strike.
References
Mindhunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
The Cases That Haunt Us by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
Portrait of a Killer: Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell
Zodiac by Robert Graysmith
Wikipedia
