The Psychology of Serial Murderers
Research Paper
The Psychology of Serial Killers
CJUS 620
Casey Curtis
Liberty University
The Psychology of Serial Murderers
Abstract
The most heinous crime a person can commit is the offense of homicide. There
of course are varying degrees of the type of murder they can commit, such as negligent
homicide, involuntary manslaughter, manslaughter, and murder. These types of deaths
are usually incidental, such as a person driving a car who isn’t paying attention and
strikes another driver with their vehicle resulting in death. Conversely, when a person
hunts another person for the purpose of killing them to fulfill some kind of need is
certainly the most egregious of the offenses of homicide. When a person commits the
offense of homicide on at least two separate occasions they are referred to as a serial
murderer or serial killer. The public has become intrigued by the acts of serial
murderers which has resulted in movies, television series and various books being
written on the topic. The purpose of this research paper is to delve into the mind of the
serial killer and learn what creates these troubled individuals and if there was any way
to stop them before they develop a need to kill. This paper will delve into the how and
why serial killers commit the offenses and what compels a person to want to kill another
person. Were they subjected to abuse, neglect or were they born this way, or both?
How do people become heartless killers of people and what personality traits can
expose them?
The Psychology of Serial Murderers
To establish the broad types of mental illnesses that are in common serial
murders, the most notable personality type attributed to them is some type of
psychopathy; however, many serial murderer’s have been diagnosed with other mental
disorders such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Schizophrenia, (Leary, T.,
et. al. 2017). By now everyone has heard of a psychopath, whether their knowledge of
the term came from their own education, the media or Television shows. They have
likely heard or seen something about psychopaths and are aware they can be normal
members of society but there are those who are extremely disturbed people.
Psychopathy is defined as “a personality disorder associated with aggressiveness,
impulsivity, manipulation, selfishness, callousness, remorselessness, and a severe lack
of empathy (pg. 2 Culhane, S. et. al. E., 2019).” There are an estimated 1% of the total
population who meet the criteria of psychopathy according to the psychology
community. There are numerous tests administered by psychologist to determine what
disorders they may have. A test for determining if a person is a psychopath is the
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI). The other thing to consider is
psychopath is not a diagnosable mental illness and only recently was it included in the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health (DSM). The DSM diagnosable
disorder is antisocial personality disorder.
Psychopaths only make up a very small percentage of the general population of
people in the United States, roughly 1%; however, they fill quite a few more prison cells.
Psychopaths make up about 16% of the male prison population (Kiehl, K. A., &
Hoffman, M. B. 2011). With a total ratio of male to females who are considered
psychopaths is roughly 4:1 (Culhane, S. et. al. E., 2019).
The Psychology of Serial Murderers
Another mental disorder that is familiar of serial killers is schizophrenia. People
diagnosed with schizophrenia typically hallucinate, are delusional, have extreme
thought disorders and numerous other ailments (NIMH 2016). Some of the more
familiar serial murderers include the Son of Sam killer, David Borowics, who believed
his neighbor’s dog was the devil and telling him to kill people (Harmening, W. & Gamez,
A. (2016). Also the infamous Ed Gein who killed women who resembled his mother.
He also dug up graves and collected the skin of deceased to wear as a mask. He was
a necrophiliac as well (Jenkins, P. 2018).
Female serial murderers are rare when compared to male serial murderers.
They are also likely to have mental disorders other than psychopathy. A mental
disorder that has been diagnosed more commonly with female serial murders is
Borderline Personality Disorder (Kiehl, K. A., & Hoffman, M. B. 2011). That’s not to say
that male serial murderers can’t also be BPD, Jeffrey Dahmer is a male example of a
serial murderer with BPD. A few of the more well-known female serial murderers that
come to mind are Aileen Wuoros and Kristen H. Gilbert. Wuoros committed about 7
murders in Florida by shooting her victims. Kristen Gilbert was a nurse who killed 4
patients at the hospital she worked at a VA hospital in New York (Jenkins, P. 2018).
The MMPI-2 is a multi-question test that evaluates 10 dimensions of personality
traits such as, Hypochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate,
Masculinity/Femininity, Paranoia, Psychasthenia, Schizophrenia, Hypomania and Social
Introversion. Hypochondriasis measures the perception a person has of ailments with
their body whether real or imagined. Depression measures the persons over all
happiness or joy and fulfillment in doing things. Hysteria measures a person’s over all
The Psychology of Serial Murderers
neuroticism. Psychopathic Deviate measures the individuals “social maladjustment and
the absence of strongly pleasant experiences. The items on this scale tap into
complaints about family and authority figures in general, self-alienation, social alienation
and boredom (Framingham, J. 2018).” Masculinity/Femininity measures the degree of
how the person identifies as either male or female. Paranoia measures the persons
overall suspiciousness. Psychasthenia measures the persons level of obsessive-
compulsive disorder. Schizophrenia measures the persons strange thinking and
perceptions of their relationships. Hypomania and Social Introversion scale measures
the person’s degree of social interaction within their comfort zone either extroversion,
meaning they need more social interaction or introverted and prefer to be alone or with
a small group of friends (Framingham, J. 2018). The MMPI is often used by law
enforcement, corrections and other fields of psychology to determine a person’s
personality and determine therapy methods to help them. Law enforcement uses the
MMPI to screen potential officers to determine if they are suitable to be police officers
and weed out possible psychopaths who are often attracted the law enforcement
profession (Harmening, W. & Gamez, A. 2016).
According to the FBI, the typical physical description of a serial murderer is a
single white male between the ages of 25 and 55 who lives alone. The term Serial
Murderer was named by Special Agent Robert Ressler of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) during the 1970s (Leary, T., et. al. 2017). The question is how did
they become a psychopath or were they born this way? One model that has been very
controversial is the MacDonald triad. The MacDonald Triad discusses three
phenomenon with regards to serial killers, two parts of the triad have criminal
The Psychology of Serial Murderers
tendencies and one does not. The MacDonald Triad are features that serial killers have
in common. The features serial killers have in common are cruelty to animals, bed
wetting past age 5 and setting fires (Leary, T., et. al. 2017).
Many infamous serial murderers, Ted Bundy, Bind Torture Kill (BTK), The Green
River Killer, John Wayne Gacy were motivated to commit crimes for sexual gratification.
Such as Ted Bundy, who went on a college coed killing spree where in he performed
sex acts on the post mortem remains of many of his victims. Or John Wayne Gacy who
had sex with and killed over 33 young boys (Harmening, W. & Gamez, A. 2016).
Unfortunately most serial murderer’s are not caught until they have already
committed horrendous acts of violence. There is some evidence that some sought
psychiatric help either court ordered for a different offense prior to their incarceration
and murders. One such example is Richard Chase, he was diagnosed as paranoid
schizophrenic before any of his murders occurred. Richard Chase was a serial
murderer who killed 7 people in California. He was known as the “Vampire of
Sacramento” because he would drink the blood of his victims.
The article titled “Sexual Murderers in Every Day Life,” discusses numerous
topics of psychological theories with a specific concentration on Sexual Murderers and
their everyday lives. A recent study conducted with serial killers from the French Prison
system took a pool of over two thousand sex based murderers. The study was an
attempt to take a closer look at sexual murderers and their individual nuances. Some
murderers were single offenders while others were serial, serial was described as
having committed a murder at least twice on two separate occasions with a cooling off
period. There were precisely 176 serial murderers and 1660 non serial murderers
The Psychology of Serial Murderers
involved in the study (James, J. et. Al. 2019). The offender’s in this study had to fit into
one of six criteria to be considered for the study. The criteria for consideration in the
study involved the post mortem remains of the victims. One consideration was the
victims clothing or attire, two was the exposure of the sexual parts of the victim, three
was the sexual position the victim was placed in, four was if the victim had any foreign
objects inserted in their body, five was evidence of sexual intercourse, and sixth was
any substitute of sexual intercourse or other sadistic behavior. The murder’s
interviewed indicated they were isolated, social misfits, who didn’t fit in with society.
The offenders felt discriminated against and had desires for status or delusions of
grandeur. They wished to achieve great success but were unable to in their current
situation. This article describes many aspects of the murder’s personality profile and
discusses the offender more than concentrating on the victims. The victim’s typology
was studied also and mentioned as a listing of the manner in which the subject
committed the murder (i.e. strangulation, stabbing, etc.) (James, J. et. Al. 2019). The
study established a few things in common with most sexual murderers when it comes to
personality traits. As people, they seemed to lack any real identity and are were not
happy with their lives. In some cases, their criminal activity was triggered by an
extremely stressful event which set them on their path; with regards to other offenders
the offender indicated their stress built up and then they acted out impulsively. In pretty
much all of the offenders they had a “rocky childhood.” The article classifies two
different types of sexual murders as either Sadistic Sexual Murderer (SSM) or Non-
Sadistic Murderer (NSM). There were many more NSM than SSM types identified in
this study. When it came to other types of crimes committed by the offenders. SSMs
The Psychology of Serial Murderers
had a higher likely hood of committing violent crimes, not just sexual in nature ones,
while the NSM had less likely hood of violent crimes but still had criminal activity in their
past. They noticed that SSM types were less likely to be caught by police than NSM
and thus more likely to carry out more murders before being caught. The reason NSMs
were probably caught quicker is likely because they were minority, were usually
alcoholics, unemployed and older, thus making police profiling easier or neighbors
reporting them for an unrelated offense. The NSM’s were considered more
dysfunctional and average or below average intelligence than the SSM counterparts.
SSMs were generally younger, (20s), still unemployed, living with a partner or family
member and typically are white males with above average intelligence. When
comparing the FBI criteria or organized or disorganized serial murderers An argument
could be made that NSMs are like disorganized serial killers and SSMs are organized.
If anything can be concluded about a definitive “psychology” of serial murderer’s,
it is that their most common attribute was psychopathy; however, many of the more
egregious killer’s had other mental diseases working against them as well (Morana, H.
et al. 2006). The likely cause of their mental ailment’s was abuse endured during
childhood, whether it was psychological, or physical abuse the result was the same for
many of them. The question still remaining was, could anything been done to prevent
them from being overwhelmed by their insatiable need to gratify their need, wether it
was to satiate a sexual desire or a desire for control or power.
The Psychology of Serial Murderers
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The Psychology of Serial Murderers
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