serial killers

Question 1

serial murderers definition

Answer 1

2 or more killings, most are geographically stable, cooling off period, usually solitary and targets strangers

Question 2

mass murderers

Answer 2

kills 4 or more people in a single location, tend to kill their family then move into a location, more likely to suffer from mental disorders

Question 3

Reid(2017) compulsive criminal behaviour

Answer 3

• the goal based and ritualized murder or attempted murder where:
  1. the total achieved murders number 3+/total achieved murders number 2
  2. psychological motivations of personal gratification
  3. the murder is not carried out on behest of another or in response to a personal attack on oneself
  4. offender exercises independent conscious deliberation, control, planned forethought, intentional action
  5. murder is interrupted by a break or a dormant period between homicides

Question 4

Visionary

Answer 4

• doing this because of their mental disorder, very rare because mostly serial killers don’t have mental illnesses
• Motive: psychotic
• victim: random

Question 5

Mission-oriented

Answer 5

motive: eliminate specific group
victim: non-random
e. g. gary Ridgeway who targeted prostitutes

Question 6

Power/control

Answer 6

• want dominance over other people murder is seen as the ultimate act of control, these killers would describe the joy of taking people’s lives
  e. g. ted bundy and Dahmer
• Motive: absolute dominance, victim: nonrandom

Question 7

hedonistic lust

Answer 7

motive: sexual gratification
victim: random

Question 8

Hedonistic thrill

Answer 8

Motive: excitement
Victim: random

Question 9

Hedonistic comfort-oriented

Answer 9

• mostly women, specific external financial motives, black widows who kill their husband for insurance money
  motive: financial gain
  victim: nonrandom

Question 10

The “MacDonald Triad”

Answer 10

serial killers who demonstrated these 3 risk factors also experiences severe parental abuse
3 factors are: fire setting, enuresis (bed wetting), and torturing animals
-most serial killers had extreme childhood abuse, being displaced, no stability prior to the age of 10

Question 11

Keaatley et al., 2018) life histories

Answer 11

collected data on 25 serial killers
strongest relationships: abusive childhood, father left, injured or sickly as a child and received medical attention,
medium relationship: being poor, strict/religious household, normal childhood

Question 12

Reid et al., 2019

mapping life course trajectories

Answer 12

Early childhood: 63% abuse, 34% exposed to domestic violence, 56% abandoned by at least one parent
Middle: 71%loner/rejected by peers which lead to maladjusted coping, 64% violent fantasizing
Adulthood:hypersensitive to stress, morally immature, lacking healthy coping skills, 46% never married, 87% at least one criminal conviction