Gender and Serial Killers Essay

In today’s world, murderers aren’t a surprising thing, as long as they are fictional. Plenty of TV shows and movies have plot lines around murder, but what about real life? As Scott Bonn states in his writing, of the approximate 15,000 murders in the United States, only 1 percent are serial killings, amounting to about 150 victims per year, with between 25 and 50 serial killers active at any given time. There are plenty of statistics on serial killers. 1 in 20 had the same three characteristics as a child: bedwetting, fire setting, and torturing animals. Animal torture is a common indicator that the child will be violent in the future. Also, over 30 percent of murderers use killing as a way for their sexual arousal (Stone). A murderer

Statistically, the average serial killer is a white male from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in his twenties or thirties. Many were physically or emotionally abused by parents. Some were adopted. As children, fledgling serial killers often set fires, torture animals, and wet their beds (these red-flag behaviors are known as the “triad” of symptoms.) Brain injuries are common. Some are very intelligent and have shown great promise as successful professionals. They are also fascinated with the police and authority in general (Scott).

His dead body was found in the woods near Daytona Beach, Florida, shot with a twenty two caliber rifle. “She ended up shooting six .22 caliber bullets into him” (McDuff 202). This is just one of the many catastrophes performed by a woman serial killer. Serial killers are a problem in the United States, murdering on average 2000 people each year (Indiana University np). “In fact, serial murder in the United States alone makes up more than three-quarters of the estimated world total” (Innes 5). Although women serial killers are not very common, they still have a huge impact on the death toll of innocent victims. In order to understand how woman serial killers operate, it is important to understand their motives, the different classifications

Serial killer is described as an example of a murderer who kills several individuals over a long period of time. While these people are usually male motivated by various psychological motives such as power, the number of female serial killers has increased significantly in the recent past. Unlike their male counterparts, female serial killers use less visible means of murder such as poisoning in order to keep under the radar and remain discrete (Gilbert et. al., 2003). Since the less visible methods account for 80 percent of deaths caused by female serial killers, these criminals can be considered as gentle killers.

Serial murder is one of the most baffling crimes that occur in the U.S. and all over the world. Knight (2006) defines serial murder as the killing of three or more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period. The cooling off period may be weeks, months or even years long. Researchers have proposed various psychological, biological and sociological theories that offer a partial understanding of the nature of serial murder. Some propose that the basis for criminal behavior is a predisposition to violence as well as a mix between environment, personality traits and biological factors. Serial killers are predominantly male. Only 3 percent of serial murders are committed by women (U.S. News and World Report,

People were shocked to hear everything the elderly lady, Dorothea Puente, was capable of. Investigators weren’t suspicious of her even after corpses were found on her property because she didn’t fit the typical serial killer profile. The average serial killer is a white male in his mid to late 20’s. More than 90% of serial killers are men according to research done by criminologists James A. Fox and Jack Levin, and among these 73% were white. Only 4% had graduated with a bachelor’s degree. Victims were 67% female, with children, prostitutes, and the elderly and other common victims while 20% were males who had been raped by their attackers.

There are 4 major typologies of serial murders. One type is referred to as visionary type. A visionary type serial killer murders due to pressure from delusions, hallucinations or visions. They exhibit extreme psychopathy and do not clean up their crime scene. They often report that they have committed the crime because voice in their head told them too. Another type is power and control serial killers, they tend to enjoy their victim’s suffering and torture. They often sexually abuse their victims, but they are not interested by feelings of desire. Mission orientated serial murders feel as through they are doing society a favor by murdering certain people such as prostitutes, drug dealers, or homosexuals, people they feel that society could do without. These murders are very seldom psychopathic. Last, but not least is known as trill-orientated motive type,

This journal is written 3 authors: Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Central Florida and received his doctorate from the University of Cincinnati, Steven T. Holmes. Dean of the California School of Forensic Studies at Alliant International University, Eric W. Hickey, Ph.D. and Emeritus Professor in the Department of Justice Administration at the University of Louisville, Ronald M. Holmes, M.A. They constructed different types of females who are serial killers and discussed homicidal behavioral traits. It begins with differentiating

6. Female serial killers are rare, they tend to kill for financial gain and need to have an emotional connection to their victim. On some occasions women have been involved with male serial killers to form a serial killing team.

Throughout history, serial killers and murderers have received a significant number of news articles dedicated to them and have attracted audiences all around the world; however, the question that nobody can seem to answer is, “Why?” What causes people to grow up with the desire to kill and what can we do to prevent others from becoming serial killers in the future? “All serial killers are murderers, but not all murderers are serial killers,” as stated on The Undergraduate Times. A serial murder is defined by Encyclopedia Britannica as “the unlawful homicide of at least two people, carried out in a series over a period of time,” while mass murder is the

Serial killers is a person that kill three or more people in a short amount of time. He or she murder one after another in a similar way with an inactive period between each murder. The motivation for murdering an adult or child is based on psychological gratification. The serial killer is normally an adult white male in his late twenties, who has killed four or more individuals in separate incident with an inactive period between. It is impossible to tell just by looking at a person who will become a serial killer, the traits of some criminals or serial killers appear to be similar most of the time. The types of behaviors

There are many people who choose to do bad things and break the law; however, there are people known as serial killers who take breaking the law and harming others to an unbelievable level. Murder is a very serious crime. Murders happen for many different reasons such as turf wars and drugs for gangs, by having an argument with another person and not being able to control your anger, or murdering because of a troubled past. Serial killers often come from a troubled past and seek some sort of revenge to what happened to them when they were younger. Serial killers are people who murder over and over again. There are many different types of serial killers. There are serial killers who choose to rape their victims, choose victims whom they know, choose victims because they are a different gender, choose their victims because of some fantasy that they have, or some even choose their victims to prevent them from going through what they had to go through as a young teen. There is no set description of what a serial killer looks like or if they are a woman or a man. Women serial killers tend to be more alluring with their crimes. Women tend to choose victims they may know but murder in a less heinous way. However, there are more male serial killers then women. The male serial killers tend to keep to the more violent and heinous murders. Although not all serial killers have something happen to them in order

The idea of serial killers and the role they play in our lives has fascinated people since the cases of Jack the Ripper and H.H. Holmes, although serial murderers existed before them. The infamous and mysterious complexities of these cases have puzzled and terrified people for over a century. Perhaps due to the deviant and taboo nature of serial killings, people in our society and others have tried to attribute many reasons for why they occur. In this search for answers, one major scope has been widely left out of the research: the sociological imagination. It is through this method of understanding that I will attempt to explain the development of serial killers and apply theories that explain the frequency of serial killings in our society.

What is a serial killer? Retired Special Agent Robert Ressler, a twenty-two year veteran of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit in Quantico, Virginia, is responsible for creating the term “serial killer.” He defines this person as “one who commits a series of murders, usually three or more, the victims most often being strangers, and usually with a cooling-off period in between each kill” (Kelleher & Kelleher, 1998; Pearson, 1998; Ressler and Shactman, 1997). This precise definition is necessary to distinguish this type of predator from the mass murderer (who kills many simultaneously), mercenaries, war criminals, or mafia hit men.

Black Widows are a category of female multiple murderers. Whether they should be called serial killers is open to debate. Generally, female multiple murderers do not kill for the same sexual motives associated that male serial killers do. If one accepts a frequently proposed definition that requires sexual motivation and a murderous quest for power over another individual as the definition of the term serial