Serial Killers
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- Date Submitted: 04/04/2010 09:23 PM
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Serial Killers
What is a serial killer? “A serial killer is a person who usually murders 3 or more people over a period of more than 30 days with a "cooling off" period between each murder, whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.” (Wikipedia, 2009) The serial killer and the mass murderer are very different. Some would confuse the two. The definition of a mass murderer according to Wikipedia is “Mass murder (in military contexts, sometimes interchangeable with mass destruction) is the act of murdering a large number of people, typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time.”(2009) An example of a mass murderer would be to think of the recent school shootings in the past few years. This is an example of a onetime incident when a person killed many people at once. No one truly knows how many active serial killers there are today. There are many cases that go unsolved because they are extremely hard to capture. “Historical criminologists have suggested that there may have been serial murderers throughout history, but specific cases were not adequately recorded. “ (Absolute Astronomy, 2009) Serial killers are appearing more in numbers today. We as a society are making them famous. We allow them to have books written on them, TV shows about them, and even do in-prison interviews of them. Making the serial killer feel famous and proud of what they did to innocent lives and families. Many cases of serial murder will go undetected or unreported because of the lack of evidence, or the person missing is one that is simply not noticed as missing. Education of the general public with regards to serial killers could possibly save many lives.
Serial killers have common traits about them. Most of them are white males between 20-30 years of age. Many of them are “normal” looking, and fit into their roles in society well. One cannot tell a serial killer by simply looking at them! “The motives of serial...
What is a serial killer? “A serial killer is a person who usually murders 3 or more people over a period of more than 30 days with a "cooling off" period between each murder, whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.” (Wikipedia, 2009) The serial killer and the mass murderer are very different. Some would confuse the two. The definition of a mass murderer according to Wikipedia is “Mass murder (in military contexts, sometimes interchangeable with mass destruction) is the act of murdering a large number of people, typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time.”(2009) An example of a mass murderer would be to think of the recent school shootings in the past few years. This is an example of a onetime incident when a person killed many people at once. No one truly knows how many active serial killers there are today. There are many cases that go unsolved because they are extremely hard to capture. “Historical criminologists have suggested that there may have been serial murderers throughout history, but specific cases were not adequately recorded. “ (Absolute Astronomy, 2009) Serial killers are appearing more in numbers today. We as a society are making them famous. We allow them to have books written on them, TV shows about them, and even do in-prison interviews of them. Making the serial killer feel famous and proud of what they did to innocent lives and families. Many cases of serial murder will go undetected or unreported because of the lack of evidence, or the person missing is one that is simply not noticed as missing. Education of the general public with regards to serial killers could possibly save many lives.
Serial killers have common traits about them. Most of them are white males between 20-30 years of age. Many of them are “normal” looking, and fit into their roles in society well. One cannot tell a serial killer by simply looking at them! “The motives of serial...