As you already guessed, this is something super exciting but sort of creepy topic to discuss. It is nature versus nurture that makes somebody a serial killer. If you are interested in criminal psychology, you may already know this. Anyhow, let’s dig a bit deeper into the subject.
The Stranger Beside Me
So to start, I am going to tell you a story. In the 1970s, the famous writer; Ann Rule was a crime writer, and also she worked for a suicide hotline in her free time. There, she met a person named Ted Bundy. They worked together (generally a night shift) for some time. Later, she spent time exchanging letters and phone calls, and eventually, they became close friends.
Ted was excellent at his job, and a lot of people loved Ted around in the suicide hotline. He was peaceful, and he was good at making other people feel calm too. Ted was expressly known for being very good at coaxing women away from suicide.
One day, Ann was driving home from work, and she heard on the radio that 36 women had been killed by a serial killer. So as a crime writer, she started an investigation about this with a contact she had in law enforcement. After some time, they found out that the mentioned serial killer was Ted. First, she did not believe it and defended him for years before finally realizing that he was a serial killer. Later she discovered that Ted killed between 8 (that police have accounted for) and 11 (what Ted claimed) women in WA. Also, he remains suspected of killing between 30–36 women in total covering, primarily WA, OR, UT, FL, and CO.
So one of Ann’s closest friends was convicted of killing two women and a 12 years old child, but she had no idea that he was a serial killer. Ann Rule mentioned this matter and her relationship with Ted in her book, The Stranger Beside Me.
Nature Versus Nurture
So think, how do you not know that somebody’s a serial killer?. How do you not know at all even if they’re your best friend? And the real question, why is somebody a serial killer? So the argument in science has long been between nature versus nurture. Nature being your psychology and your brain makeup. And then nurture being the way that you grew up and what life experience has affected yours later on in life.
There are three significant facts that we should look into when talking about a serial killer, and the topic, “what makes a serial killer?”. They are Genetics, Family, and Psychology. Let’s talk about all three of them a little more in-depth.
Genetics
Do you know how many female serial killers there are? In the USA, there are three famous ones, and nine reported female serial killers. So, compared to the male serial killers, it is a little number. So why could this be?
According to the American neurologist, James H. Fallon, the reason for this is the MAO-A gene. He experimented about the serial killer’s mind. For that, random brain scan samples of not only ordinary people but also serial killers had been given to him. They were not labeled. So, he did not know whose PET scan was checking. He was looking for a chemical brain change in PET scans.
He found the same patterns in every mass murderer. Also, What he found was that serial killers have this MAO-A gene defect. The MAO-A gene is the gene that causes violence and aggression. It is more active in men, which is why men are inherently more violent. And what happens when there’s a defect in that gene. That is when people get overly abusive and aggressive.
It is found on the x chromosome. If you remember your ordinary level biology lessons, you know that we inherit the X chromosome from our mother. Also, if you are a woman, you have two X chromosomes. And the effects of them will cancel out on each other. But for the men, you will have only one X chromosome. Therefore, it’s not going to get canceled out. So, if there is any defect, the person is going to be way more aggressive. That is a big reason why women aren’t serial killers more often.
Jim Fallon found in his PET scans that every single serial killer had this gene defect. So they’re inherently more violent and more aggressive. But, he also found something interesting from his mother, which is his great-great-great-aunt was Lizzie Borden. She was one of the three famous women’s serial killers. Also, She was one of the first serial killers in general. Jim had no idea about this when he started the experiment.
So, he did get PET Scans of every relative known to him. Jim found out that some of them had this gene defect. But none of his other relatives, since that woman had been serial killers. If you read this carefully so far, you may have the same question Jim had at that moment. All the serial killers that he researched had that defect, so did his family. But none of them are serial killers. So that brings us to the second point, “Family.”
Family
A person’s behavior is depending on his family and its background. If a child had to face a traumatic event in their childhood, it is going to affect him somehow in the future. To get a clear idea on this matter, let’s talk about three famous serial killers, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy.
Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy’s traumatic event was discovering that his whole life, he had been told his mother was his sister and his grandmother was his mother. During Ted’s college years, he investigated his birth records. Then he discovered that indeed his mother was the woman he had always told was his sister. Around the same time, his first love, his college girlfriend broke up with him. So, those events triggered Ted to start killing women.
Jeffrey Dahmer
Dahmer was one of the notorious serial killers in history. He only killed men and little boys. According to the records, he had killed 17 people. His thing was to kill the person and masturbate over his dead body or to have sex with it. And the disgusting thing is after he had sex, he would chop the body into pieces and slice the flesh from the bone. He had a skull collection of victims. Also, according to the reports, he had eaten human meat too.
However, Dhamer had a good, although emotionally empty, relationship with his nerdy father. Dhamer’s mother, on the other hand, was tense, greedy for attention, and argumentative with everyone. She also abandoned JD when she left with his younger sibling.
His childhood did not fill with any great tragedies, but he had a liking for dissecting dogs and cats. He acted on his fantasies, and that’s where everything went wrong.
John Wayne Gacy
As a habit, Gacy’s father drank brandy every night before supper. His mother and children waited at the dinner table in fear and silence until he came to the table drunk. If the children misbehaved, he would spank them with a razor strap. But according to his sister, they eventually learned how to toughen up against it.
Gacy not only felt alienated at home. He longed to be accepted by others at school, but he had a general heart condition, and that prevented him from playing with others. Gacy’s father did not show any sympathy for his son and also his heart condition. With time, those traumatic events lead Gacy to become a mass murderer. According to records, he killed 33 people, and all of them are men and little boys.
Family Background is important
So as you can see from the lives of Ted, Dahmer, and Gacy, both Ted and Gacy had traumatic events in their lives. But for the Dahmer, it was not the case. But all of them had a general fact. That is the ignorance of the parents. They did not pay enough attention to their children, and they did not show their love.
Almost all serial killers had a sad childhood. They were alone. Any kid with these kinds of circumstances isn’t going to have a great life. But obviously, every person that has a traumatic event in their childhood is not going to be a serial killer. It depends on the gene defect, family background, and our third point, psychology.
Psychology
Let’s talk about psychology. Do you know, what is the difference between Psychopaths and psychotics? A lot of people don’t know the difference. Psychopathy is a personality disorder like a narcissistic personality disorder, schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, etc. It’s almost a hundred percent of the time more permanent, and it’s a chemical and genetic defect in your brain.
Psychosis is a complete loss of someone’s sense of reality. And it’s not as permanent because it’s not affecting the same parts of your brain. Psychopathy comes with a complete lack of empathy, which is high in serial killers. And it’s the reason why they can kill 30 to 40 people without any hesitation. There are many videos of serial killer interviews on YouTube. You can see that they are smiling and laughing about their murders in those videos.
Conclusion
So, nature versus nurture, which one is it? Scientists have been studying this for a long time, and Jim Fallon’s discovery with the MAO-A gene was a huge breakthrough. Jim’s discovery helped to identify the direct impact of brain makeup and psychology on a killer’s mind. So definitely, nature has something to do with a person being a serial killer.
Also, from the same experiment, Jim found out that all the people who have this gene disorder are not serial killers. But all serial killers he experimented had this gene disorder. Not only that, but they also had a sad, alone and terrible childhood. So, according to him, nurture is also responsible for a person being a serial killer. Scientists are working to find more things in this area. And probably they will. But right now, we know that both nature and nurture are responsible for making a serial killer.
How to Identify a Serial Killer?
So this question is for you. Do you know the three main facts to identify a serial killer? If you know the answer, comment below. I will reply to you.
So thank you, guys. Let’s see you in another interesting article.
