Psychology of a killer: how do they become a killer?

Sometimes the most non-standard situations burst into the measured existence of human society, which unsettle him for a long time. Often, to shock modern people who have seen a lot in their lives, they need a victim who is deprived of life with particular cruelty. Specialists spend years to study the psychology of killers, and understand the reasons that push them to such actions. Some of them are successful, and a dangerous representative of human society will live out its days in prison, without posing a danger to others. Others are mistaken, and killers torture people for years, killing and tormenting miserable bodies according to their own sophisticated tastes.

Typical portrait of a maniac

Most serial criminals belong to European nations. If you believe the average, they begin their criminal activity after 25 years. Their education remains at the school level, in rare cases - a technical school or vocational school. Such people lack a working grasp, so they occupy those places that do not require special knowledge.

Books about the psychology of killers of serial proportions contain one curious point. In ordinary life, they try to choose specific places of work that can satisfy hidden desires in violence and blood (military, doctors, nurses).

Influence of childhood problems on the psychology of serial killers

Any modern killer is the result of pathological education of a child. If you study the psychology of killers and maniacs, you can identify many common features: an incomplete family, sexual harassment or violence by parents, resentment from the relations of relatives, which many carry throughout themselves throughout life, the influence of peer society, and so on. After such a lack of positive emotions, some children begin to shun society, invent imaginary friends, and create another, more desirable life in their heads.

Robert Rössler, a researcher specializing in sexual crimes, is firmly convinced that a child suffering from childhood will eventually become another serial criminal. As a confirmation of this theory, the psychology of terrorists and serial killers contains the so-called "MacDonald Triad": urinate in bed - set fire to - mock animals. The likelihood of such a turn of events increases in the presence of alcoholic parents or drug addicts. But, despite such a fate, their child is 100% likely to not inherit bad habits.

The general appearance of the offender

Modern cinema creates a deceptive picture. The viewer has the impression that he recognizes the criminal as soon as he meets him on the street. The criminal psychology of serial killers says something else.

Such people are no different from the surrounding society; for years they can hide their illegal actions, apparently remaining the most ordinary citizens. To find a serial killer, law enforcement agencies must literally grab him by the hand, catching a crime scene. And even after this, society cannot accept the obvious for a long time, because a person behaved impeccably in everyday life, but he thought through the commission of a crime to the smallest detail. The police noted a high level of intelligence of seasoned criminals, which allowed for years to avoid well-deserved punishment.

The serial criminal lives a double life. Using the appearance of an ordinary person, he kills, remaining beyond the attention of the police and surrounding people. Some maniacs possess psychology to such an extent that they can lead another person without much resistance from the latter. They instinctively listen to social needs, try not to stand out.

For example, you can recall Geri Schaefer. He lived in Vermont in a community of believers who respected family traditions. For greater persuasiveness, a man entered a sect leading a lifestyle, according to the canons of the fundamentalist version of the holy book. And no one could have thought that behind the back of society he was stealing, raping and killing the daughters of his neighbors.

No less famous person John Wayne Gacy is a serial homosexual criminal. No one noticed that he understood how they become killers. Psychologists are still solving the mystery of his personality.

Young John was a member of Chicago's political games, worked at a local polling station, and ran a school club. My father did not understand his hobbies, so he took every opportunity to make fun of him. The guy endured, tried not to back down from the chosen path. Thanks to his distinctive purposefulness, he was a significant support of the Democrats, earned respect as a city volunteer, and managed to be field marshal of the Purity Parade, which was regularly held in Chicago. In addition, on the list of his merits was the place of the general director of a construction company, where about 700 people worked.

But no one knew that at the same time he managed to kill 33 young men and bury them under his own house. Law enforcement authorities found that despite his wife, John was fond of secret meetings with the young men who worked under his leadership. Developing construction processes, under their cover he managed to speculate on wood prices, to rob more affluent fellow citizens and to sell drugs. Searching the criminal’s housing, authorities saw a photo of the owner of the house with then-mayor Richard Daly, as well as a handshake with Presidential wife Rosalynne Carter.

Richard counted on Gracie’s help during the election campaign. And we must pay tribute, he lived up to all his expectations. John regularly helped lonely old people, passed on their complaints and requests from their neighbors to the Democrats. He accompanied the president’s wife when she visited Chicago at the time of the 1976 election. Society literally carried him in his arms. And so it was so astounded when the truth about his murders came to light that anger and indignation reached neighboring countries.

But his example is more an exception than a rule. The psychology of a killer does not seek to reach any significant heights on the career ladder. Personal qualities, among which asociality is leading, contribute to the fact that they tend not to stand out in the surrounding society. But FBI agents have long proven that serial criminals are highly intelligent, creative, and particularly sophisticated when it comes to sex crimes.

Such people easily manage the surrounding society. They so naturally dispose of the future victim to themselves that without objection they will do everything that is asked of them. Another feature of the psychology of terrorists and serial killers that can astound the imagination is that they are all megalomaniac, who consider themselves exceptional and not like other people. They are impudent, a little self-confident, therefore sooner or later come to the attention of the police. When criminals find themselves under investigation, they are especially pleased to talk about their mission, sometimes ascribing to themselves those actions that have nothing to do with them. They believe that they were born to fulfill the divine mission of eliminating the “defective” representatives of humanity: prostitutes, representatives of national minorities, lesbians and gays, homosexuals and so on.

Psychiatrists created a classification according to which serial killers fall into the category of psychopaths (another name is sociopaths). Psychopaths are closed people, with a relatively healthy psyche, but having subtle anomalies in behavior and character. Many people of this type are under the special supervision of law enforcement agencies. The reason is quite simple - they are often the ones who join the ranks of multi-recidivists. The psychiatrist Hare RD has devoted 25 years of his life to the study of psychopaths who, under the influence of their nature, commit regular crimes. In his books on the psychology of maniacs and serial killers, he identified key features of this nature:

• tendency to deception and unpleasant behavior;
• superficiality in judgment and eloquence;
• feigned emotions, often not affecting the person himself;
• original behavior and egocentrism;
• complete inability to sympathize or be responsible for their actions;
• Do not suffer from bouts of conscience or guilt for bad actions;
• impulsive actions that are poorly controlled by the person himself;
• eschews a crowded society.

Likelihood of relapse

Ill-informed people see serial killers as gangsters as other criminals. But they are wrong. In the future, the bandits get tired, stop their activities. Each for his own reasons: someone is tired, and the other just plundered his own, and he has enough for life. Killers are criminals of a different type. They cannot, as easily as they become killers, rebuild psychology, start another life. Only a few of them are able to stop. In this regard, the predator principle applies: having felt the fear of the driven victim and the smell of blood, they repeat the murder in order to repeat these emotions. They can only be killed, arrested or taken under life supervision.

In places of deprivation of liberty, they are a model of exemplary behavior, in every possible way cooperating with police officers and other prison staff. But psychiatrists are categorical in their attitude - people with killer psychology are not able to take the path of correction.

Signs of serial killings

Serial killings have certain signs by which to distinguish them from ordinary crimes with many victims:

1. The psychology of the killer will not allow you to dwell on one episode of death. He periodically repeats the search for a new victim, and subsequently society learns of another crime.
2. Only one victim can be affected at a time. This feature often interferes with the investigation, since it makes the serial murder related to a common domestic crime.
3. An experienced serial killer works without assistants, avoiding unnecessary witnesses of his actions. In exceptional cases, works in tandem with a love partner.
4. The injured person is often not connected with the criminal. From the moment of acquaintance to the commission of the murder, it may take several minutes or a couple of hours engaged in a fleeting conversation with the victim. Lack of motives makes law enforcement difficult.
5. Serial killing is notable for its cruelty. Unlike attempted robbery, rape, revenge, and so on, when a person is deprived of his life in passing, the first thing that comes to hand is that the victim of a serial episode has traces of numerous tortures and signs of painful death on his body.
6. After the murder, criminals quickly leave the scene, trying to be as far away as possible in the shortest possible time. Investigators call them wanderers. Their crimes are difficult to combine in one series due to the lack of interconnections and sufficient remoteness from each other. There is another type of killer known as couch potatoes. This is a different type of criminals who, to perfection, hone his skill in concealing crimes. Often they kill for years, but, weakening their vigilance, they can fall into the hands of the investigation due to a ridiculous mistake.
7. An equally important feature of the serial crime is that in the interval between episodes the emotions of the killer cool down. This period can last as a couple of months or several years. At this time, he lives like an ordinary person, without attracting the close attention of society.
8. Any detail of the murder is carefully planned and processed. The criminal makes sure that he does not leave behind any visible traces that indicate the culprit of what happened. As a rule, there will be no potential witnesses nearby.
9. In the everyday life of an ordinary person, the criminal does not at all resemble the gloomy image of a scorched killer. He can fulfill the role of a public worker, be a respected and beloved neighbor or a respectable family man.
10. The specific nature of the serial criminal (the ability to manipulate, strong energy, outstanding intelligence, the ability to skillfully deceive, the accumulated experience in murders) helps to evade the close attention of law enforcement agencies, and often go unpunished for most of his life.

Psychology of the personality of serial killers

A killer can be an inveterate homebody or wander from one city to another, resemble an exemplary family man or an impulsive hysteria, fulfill a mission, or simply kill under the influence of a thirst for blood. Each of them represents a separate type of criminal.

Werewolves

Cinema loves them. In ordinary life, quiet and unremarkable people who respect the law and interact well with society. They may be single or caring for their family. They very much monitor their appearance, are attentive to their general well-being.

The society believes that criminals of this category are quite sane, without serious mental illness. But experts correct: along with psychiatric diagnoses, there are psychological ones. If in more detail, then externally a person may not show noticeable psychosis, but deep inside, in the "subconscious", have serious personality disorders. And this is understandable. Such murders as are committed by a serial criminal, under no circumstances can a normal person do.

The killer’s daily life is carefully planned. Having developed mental abilities, he often graduates from a university, but will not necessarily work in his specialty. He is interested in social issues, watches all programs about committed offenses and reads newspaper articles about his own crimes. Even sitting during interrogation, he has clear answers to all questions, speaks rationally and behaves prudently.

Serial killers are responsible for any planned crime, they carefully think through everything to the smallest detail. People who have the tendency of wanderers kill away from their usual habitats in order to avoid the risk of being recognized by random passers-by. Homebody, whose category includes the so-called "respectable neighbors", thoroughly hide the corpses, perfectly master the technique of domestic crimes. These killers are dangerous in that they can easily lure a future victim into their home, because the people around him have known him for several years, and, therefore, they trust him very much.

Psychopaths

Such killers do not have the illustrious intelligence of serial criminals; they commit their deeds under the influence of external factors or momentary desires. They are potential patients in psychiatric clinics, as they are carriers of mental retardation, schizophrenia and so on. They have a sloppy appearance, do not like to talk a lot, have contact with society and dress in a strange way. They can live alone or with any relative, periodically go to work, which does not require special knowledge. Daily life is not organized, subject to fleeting efforts.

They are absolutely not worried about social problems, and there is absolutely no desire to broaden their horizons. The complete lack of reflection, therefore, they do not realize the essence of the actions they perform, sometimes instantly forgetting about them. Such killers do not understand the need for organization, so they can kill the first passerby, and then leave the corpse at the scene with a lot of evidence against themselves.

A typical representative is a serial criminal, Richard Case, who operated in California. Thanks to his favorite habit of drinking blood, and eating the remains of his victims left a mark in history as the "vampire from Sacramento." At 10 years old, he was diagnosed with the MacDonald’s triad, typical of most serial killers — three not very personal characteristics of behavior: mockery of animals, games with fire, and urinary incontinence. Such a disease is characterized by the fact that it is 100% proof of parental violence and abuse of the child.

Based on

Serial criminals can be:

• “power-hungry people” - an attempt to assert oneself through torturing an unfortunate victim, the ability to forget about one’s own shortcomings at least for a while (David Berkovits);
• "voluptuous" - those who want to receive sexual satisfaction in the process of killing a female victim (Andrey Chikatilo);
• "visionaries" - killers with a mentally ill who kill under the influence of delirium and bouts of hallucinations (Herbert Mullin);
• “missionaries” - has an overestimated conceit that inspires him about a divine mission to cleanse social society from strangers - prostitutes, lesbians, and so on (Jack the Ripper);
• "cannibals" - they kill to eat their victim (Nikolai Dzhumagaliev).

In addition to them, there are wanderers (traveling from one place to another to commit murders) and couch potatoes (killing nearby, or in their own home). The psychology of killers and maniacs of serial scale is not focused on a certain type of crime. As a rule, each of the criminals combines several characteristics.

Seven main signs of a maniac

These include:

1. Unusual behavior - such people successfully get used to the role of an ordinary person, but under the influence of random factors they can reveal the presence of killer instinct in psychology: laugh at fallen children, catch up with an animal passing by, hit it, and so on.
2. Energy vampirism - most criminals have powerful energy. Thanks to their usual appearance, they do not stand out from the crowd, but a random interlocutor instantly falls under their charm.
3. Two lives of one person - despite such hobbies, killers have many relatives, their own families and children. Therefore, when the whole truth about their actions comes to light, society for a long time does not believe what is happening.
4. Skillful manipulators - many criminals become such as a result of grievances and complexes earned during childhood. Having matured, they take revenge on an indifferent society by manipulating surrounding people.
5. Quiet conversations - quietly talking people are extremely closed, they hardly come into contact. But, wanting to attract an interlocutor, they easily have him to themselves. At the same time, they manage not to leave in his memory any vivid memories of their presence.
6. Deceptive courtesy - the appearance and behavior of this person leaves an impression of a sweet and courteous personality. When they get acquainted with the future victim, they gain her trust in light and easy conversations. Diluting the conversation with funny jokes, they relax the interlocutor, involuntarily forcing him to show the same frankness.
7. Normal appearance - society expects crimes and simply not the best actions from alcoholics, homeless people and violent neighbors, who a priori must have the psychology of a terrorist, a murderer.

But the statistics contain other data. According to them, the majority of criminals from 25 to 30 years old are provided with medium income. Not infrequently among them are rich people.