Posted: September 7th, 2024

Serial Killers: Ways of Detection

Serial Killers: Ways of Detection
A serial killer is a human being that murders up to a minimum of three people. He or she is usually in service of abnormal psychological gratification. These murders happen in more than a month and have a significant period in between each. There are four types of serial killers which include, those that have power and control. They are psychopaths that experience sexual gratification from humiliation and domination of the victim. The visionary who experience visions or voices that compel them to kill. The ones in a mission feel the need to kill a certain group of people like religious groups. The hedonistic makes a strong connection between sexual gratification and personal violence.
Serial killers seem very straight or rather normal. They could be the last people you and your neighbors or friends/family could ever think of. There is no set of characteristics that can be used to describe their victims (Abumere, Flourish 1). Their victims’ ages could vary due to their particular interests. The serial killers’ intellect varies from below average to above average. The serial killer could not know their victim or particularly hate them personally but can be symbolic to them. Serial killers come from different social classes. They have always been known to come from skid row to Park Avenue and so does the array of victims. Serial killers do things normal people do to fit in. They get jobs, get married and have a kid like just a normal family.
Serial killers are much different from other killers. They can be responsible for as many as five thousand victims a year. Serial killers usually sport a single perfect victim that matches what they are looking for and will spend plenty of time stalking that perfect victim. They look for someone that can disappear without detection, which is a success of how serial killers hunt and how they pick their victims. In that case, profiling is so important and such a benefit to law enforcement. To depersonalize the attack, serial killers use slapping, weapons for torture and most importantly, to move their victim and ritual further apart from being human.
A serial killer is extremely close to the victim on the social yardstick once the victim is abducted. So, the serial killer develops dormancy at that point. The serial killer will then go back into his distorted thinking since he has to destroy and later on dispose of their victim once they complete their work. In the crime scene, the investigator needs to look out for a duct tape. This will suggest that the body was strategically positioned, bondage was used, the killer took a trophy or the crime scene had been staged. An example of a serial killer is the story of John Wayne Gacy.
Gacy was a member of the Jaycees (Junior Chamber of Commerce). He had his own construction business and was a likable person as the manager of KFC. Gacy was also a likable person in his community. He used to be the Pogo the clown who visited hospitals for sick children. The smile on the clown’s face had darkened and was hiding a lot of secrets beneath. When the whispers of Gacy’s sexual pleasures and advances towards women came out, he was thinking of running for mayor. His first murder was committed on January 3, 1972. Just at random, he would flash something that resembled the police badge, handcuffs, and a gun.
Gacy used to drive a late model sedan that resembled the undercover police cars used at that time. He used to asphyxiate and strangle his victims until they were dead and place their bodies under his house in the crawlspace. The neighbors started complaining when these bodies started smelling. Gacy got divorced in 1976 when his murderous activities increased. One time, a fifteen-year-old boy called Robert Piest wanted to talk to a man about a construction job. Unfortunately, the boy was murdered and the police were able to identify the construction man as Gacy. After investigations, the police only found nine of Gacy’s victims and the rest were just body parts.
The best way to detect a serial killer is by profiling. The term “criminal profiling is the development of an investigation employing obtainable information regarding an offense and crime scene to compile a psychosomatic representation of the known architect of the crime.” (Douglas, Olshaker 3). The media has been portraying the science of profiling into a more precognitive psychic capability which is not close to the truth. Criminal profiling is dug from using the characteristics of an offender’s crime scene and the behavioral patterns they demonstrate. It is assumed that profiling is a perfect skill but it is still miss-understood by law enforcers.
Forensic and behavioral science is used in criminal profiling in most cases. The scientific merit of profiling has not yet been demonstrated systematically. Serial killer profiling is the process of looking at and examining the behavioral patterns of the violent offenders so the investigators can learn and have a deeper understanding of them. There are several manifestations that an offender demonstrates during their crimes. These manifestations can be used during criminal behavior in the profile. Examples of the manifestations are such as Modus Operandi, Signature or Personation. Each of these behaviors is made alongside serial killers committing their crimes.
The profiler’s job is to reconstruct these behaviors from the physical evidence obtained to help in looking for patterns in these behaviors (Bass, Christopher 2). The process points out the behaviors within a specific crime or a series of crimes to a specific serial offender. The extremely violent crimes are the ones that require criminal profiling compared to other cases. Profiling helps in identifying the serial killer faster and into specific details, hence reducing the number of victims. Profiling also has its disadvantages such as giving misleading results. Experts have given out too much information on what they do giving access to serial killers to learn and avoid traces. Profiles make serial killers wait for years before attacking another victim while in undercover.
A serial killer is a human being that murders up to a minimum of three people. He or she is usually in service of abnormal psychological gratification. The serial killer could not know their victim or particularly hate them personally but can be symbolic to them. Serial killers usually sport a single perfect victim that matches what they are looking for and will spend plenty of time stalking that perfect victim. The best way to detect a serial killer is by profiling. Criminal profiling is dug from using the characteristics of an offender’s crime scene and the behavioral patterns they demonstrate. The profiler’s job is to reconstruct these behaviors from the physical evidence obtained to help in looking for patterns in these behaviors.

References
Abumere, Flourish I. “Criminal Profiling.”
Bass, Christopher. “Profiling Serial Killers Whitney Polen December 21, 2015, Walden University MS Psychology Capstone (FPSY-6393-3).”
Douglas, J. E., Mark Olshaker, and Mind Hunter. “Inside the FBI’s elite serial crime unit.” (1995).

Order | Check Discount

Tags: PSY Papers, Psych Research Paper Sample, Psychology Assignment, Psychology Dissertation Writing, Psychology research paper