Serial Killers

[AB]

There was a show on cable about serial killers and I wondered who you think
were some of the worst ones? I didn't get to see the entire show but the part I did see was informative.

[LooksLikeCRicci]

Oh, man. Good question. I'm gonna throw out some of the names you'd expect to hear:

Richard Ramiriez, aka "The Night Stalker"
Zodiac
Jack the Ripper
Ted Bundy
Aileen Wournos
John Wayne Gacy
Jeffrey Dahmer
Ed Gein

Those are just a few. I'm willing to bet that you'll get some great answers from others on the boards.

[AB]

Ted Bundy & Jack the Ripper seemed to be the two most famous.

[nohwheregirl]

In terms of raw numbers, the Green River Killer was one of the worst.

[Rieder]

Robert Hansen and Ed Kemper are two sadistic psychopaths who enjoyed murdering their victims. Hansen owned a bakery in Alaska in the early 1980s and decided to hunt prostitutes rather than wild game. His conviction and compulsion to murder was so intense he flew his final victims from Anchorage to his hut on the Kenai Peninsula. He released the blindfolded victims and hunted them down. Kemper decapitated his victims. Most of them were college students in northen California. The last two victims were his mother and her best friend.

[AB]

Originally Posted by Rieder

Robert Hansen and Ed Kemper are two sadistic psychopaths who enjoyed murdering their victims. Hansen owned a bakery in Alaska in the early 1980s and decided to hunt prostitutes rather than wild game. His conviction and compulsion to murder was so intense he flew his final victims from Anchorage to his hut on the Kenai Peninsula. He released the blindfolded victims and hunted them down. Kemper decapitated his victims. Most of them were college students in northen California. The last two victims were his mother and her best friend.

Man those are two crazy guys. Are they in prison now?

[Rieder]

In February 1984, Robert Hansen pled guilty to four counts of first degree murder and received a sentence of 499 years. Investigators found an aviation map of Alaska in Hansen's attic. The map contained 17 crosses representing murder victims. John Douglas, a former FBI agent from the Behavioral Science Unit believes Hansen murdered approximately 50 prostitutes in Alaska and other states.

Ed Kemper was found guilty of eight counts of first degree murder and in November 1973. He received a life sentence. Kemper claimed the death penalty would be appropriate. He was convicted when the Supreme Court imposed a moratorium on the death penalty.

[Number 9 Dream]

Honestly, I think Ted Bundy was one of the worst serial killers of all time (and he's the one I read about the most). Not only did he not LOOK like a serial killer, but he used his charisma and intelligence to lure dozens of victims to their deaths (a lot of experts speculated there are more victims that we don't even know about...could be up to a 100!) He also straddled two different types of serial killer--the sexual deviant and the necrophiliac, which is rare.

He even said it himself, "I'm the most cold-blooded sonofabitch you'll ever meet".

[AB]

^ Bundy looked like an average normal guy, but like you said he turned out to be one of the worst serial killers. It makes you wonder how they end up doing all those things. I guess there's something missing or wrong in their minds.

[Ireneparalegal]

I agree with all the above and let me add the following:

Saddam Hussein
Osama Bin Laden
Hitler
Wayne Williams aka Atlanta Child Murderer
Son of Sam aka David Berkowitz
Boston Strangler
BTK Killer
Juan Corona
Charles Cullen
Albert Fish
John Wayne Gacy
Charles Manson and the Manson Family
Timothy McVeigh
Charles Ng and Leonard Lake

He is not considered a serial murderer, but he did kill two people: OJ SIMPSON

[Number 9 Dream]

Absolutely...plus, Bundy wasn't abused or mistreated in any way. However, growing up, the woman he believed to be his sister was actually his mother (and the parents were actually his grandparents). He was born out of wedlock and back then that was a taboo of sorts.

He also loathed the man who would become his step-father because he didn't have a high social standing in life (Bundy had a pre-occupation with money and social status). All his life he felt inadequate. In high school he was known as being painfully shy and never had any contact with girls (although he was excellent with academics, like political science). Still, for the most part he couldn't hold down a job or get serious with anything.

Later on, he met a girl in college named Stephanie--she was pretty much everything he'd dreamed of (smart, worldly, beautiful, intelligent). And most of all, wealthy. They dated for a while and she also became Bundy's first lover. Ann Rule (who actually worked with Bundy during the late 60's/early 70's in a crisis center...she'd later go on to write a really excellent true crime book about her friendship with Bundy called 'The Stranger Beside Me') claims that Stephanie was his first (and probably only) true love.

When she dumped him for being too immature (she claimed he had no real ambition in life), he was sent over the edge. He spent many years reeling over it. He also used this time to cultivate an image--he tried even harder in school and created the mask of self-assuredness and sophistication. He met up with Stephanie some time later (I can't recall why she agreed to it), and she fell in love with the new Ted. She was so smitten with this charismatic, ambitious Ted that she agreed to reconcile and pick up with the relationship. However, just as she'd done to him many years earlier, he coldly dumped her and left her flat (seeking the revenge over being rejected that'd he so desperately wanted).


This is said to be the main reason why Bundy targeted women--he'd been betrayed by them his whole life (although I hardly see that as an excuse). The women he killed also had long, dark hair that was parted in the middle (just like Stephanie had). Anyway...

Sorry for babbling I'm just really interested in true crime, as you can see. It is fascinating to trace back the past and see how it effects someone's state of mind (although, like I said, I hardly consider that a reason to kill people. There is no good reason). But I guess this helps us understand it better.

Originally Posted by annball1957

^ Bundy looked like an average normal guy, but like you said he turned out to be one of the worst serial killers. It makes you wonder how they end up doing all those things. I guess there's something missing or wrong in their minds.

[Rieder]

Most serial murderers are psychopaths. They enjoy dominating and controlling their victims. The compulsion to dominate and control stems from feelings of inadequacy. Bundy, Ross, Hansen and others expose a facade of respectability to conceal their violent sexual desires of domination and control. Appearing 'normal' or 'average' is essential. If they appeared abnormal the victim would flee.

[Drakken]

IMHO, it is a pretty pointless task to rank serial killers. They will all end up in the list anyway and we would end up "classifying" them according to the amount of infamy they acquired and the number of corpses they left behind. While there are a wide range of types of killers, the underlying needs and the sheer absence of conscience, empathy and morality involved with ruthless predator instinct are the same in all serial killers. They are unidimensional even in their inner workings.

However, if I had to emit an opinion, I would be less scared of "criminal" serial killers (Bundy and the like), which are usually the most extreme blips at the end of a "ASPD" scale, than when people end up becoming serial killers inside a criminal, political or bureaucratic framework, in which anyone could be targeted for "rational" ends at a stroke of a paper, like to induce terror, to eliminate opponents, or plainly commit massacres. Milgram has quite eloquently demonstrated that in these conditions anyone could become a serial killer, without the need to require beforehand a lack of empathy, dulled sensitivities, and a rageful, sadistic need to fill needs by killing or torturing people. While some serial killers may end up in the system anyway (think of Josef Mengele, Roy DeMeo, Amon Goeth, etc.), most people who kill in these systems are perfectly normal individuals, with perfectly normal lives outside their working places.

After all, what is the scariest situation: to end before a guy like Ted Bundy, before an authoritarian or totaliarian guard in a camp, or before a paramilitary during a modern civil war?

[Rutter]

Richard Ramiriez, aka "The Night Stalker"

I remember watching a fbi files or one of them programs about him late at night totally freaked me out.

[AB]

^ I read a book about Ramiriez, "The Night Stalker" and that was one scary book.