The serial killer is your neighbor; he kills one by one while living a seemingly normal life in between murders (Cahill 6). To be classified as a serial killer, the killer has to kill at least three people in separate murders with a cooling off period between each murder. Usually there is a sexual component to their murders; they want attention and love to see themselves in the media's eye (DeWitt 1B). They follow a "ritualistic pattern" by choosing a certain type of victim and they kill them in a fashion which becomes all too familiar for investigators and reporters. Serial killers kill only for the "psychological release" they receive; the victim's terror is the addictive quality (1B). The majority of serial killers are white males in their late 20s or early 30s and they usually go on murderous uproars when their lives are at a low point (1B). With access to interstates, subways and other means of quick transportation, serial killers can move to and from the crime scene with ease, which makes capture and detection very difficult (Methvin 36). Serial killers can't psychologically tell the difference between an inanimate object and a human being because they usually don't go through the infant psychological growth stage called "individuation," in which they realize they're independent from their environment (42). "When he is finally put in prison, he must never be released," Chicago criminal psychologist, Dr. Helen L. Morrison said about serial killers (42). To date, the FBI has studied more than one hundred serial killers and their uncanny psychological resemblance is extraordinary, which makes previous serial killers a good reference point for catching present ones. Because of that fact, the FBI created the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes (NCAVC) for the behavioral science division to examine serial killers, mass murderers and other violent criminals for use in future criminal investigations (42).
While the FBI and the American public are now fully aware of the serial killer phenomenon, London's Jack the Ripper is credited for starting the growing trend. Five murdered prostitutes in 1888 are credited to the infamous Jack the Ripper; he'd cut their throat and heavily mutilate their abdominal area (Methvin 38). The terror and infamy that surrounds the name Jack the Ripper has largely to do with the fact that he was never captured. There were two suspects, but neither of them have ever been proven to be the killer and one committed suicide shortly after the murders (38). By today's standards, Jack the Ripper didn't murder that many people, but since he's one of the first serial killers to be highly publicized in mass media, he's considered to have been the person to start the trend of high profile murderers (36).
Though Jack the Ripper only killed five people, he did father a new criminal breed that has never died, however, Chicago's John Wayne Gacy fell to greater depths since he's credited with 33 murdered boys. Gacy's Norwood Park neighbors described Gacy as being "gregarious, community-minded...generous" (Cahill 7). When the snow piled up, he'd jump on a plow and clear everyone's driveway and on weekends he'd entertain sick children at hospitals by dressing up as Pogo the Clown (7). Gacy carried a lot of political weight in his hometown of Chicago. He's responsible for getting street lights installed in his unincorporated neighborhood and he had pictures in his office of him shaking hands with the Mayor of Chicago and the First Lady (7). On December 11, 1978, a fifteen-year-old honor student, who was close to his family, was reported missing (2). The missing boy, Rob Piest, was last seen on his way to see John Wayne Gacy, who was a contractor hiring for summer employment (2). After intensive investigation into the missing boy, Gacy was arrested. Police investigating Gacy's house found 29 decaying bodies in the crawl space, but out of the 29, not one was Rob Piest. Author, Tim Cahill described the "putrid odor" from the dead bodies:
Several of the bodies had lain for years in the crawl space and had partially converted to adipocere. The lardlike product of decomposition has a stench so all- pervading that clothes, once exposed to it, must be destroyed; it was a stench that floated, faintly, over the lawns of Norwood Park and lacerated minds like the sounds of screams in the night. (9)
In an effort to smother the stench of the decaying bodies, Gacy would cover the bodies in lime, which forms an erosive mixture when combined with water and to speed the decomposition process, he'd also cover them in muriatic acid (11). Gacy, like most serial killers, had a trademark to his murders. He would gag his victims with their own underwear and the victim would choke to death on his own vomit (233). Gacy preyed upon young, homosexual boys, who he'd have sex with before and after their death (197). "He knew what they felt, because he'd suffered in the same way at their age: the shameless desires, the loneliness, the sense of being different" (197). He justified their deaths as being "compassionate" for their suffrage. After Gacy's name was released to the press for killing 29 young boys, his neighbors were completely shocked and that is best described in Cahill's words:
The killer, in his frenzy, had destroyed something soul deep in those who lived around him. The viewer sensed it in the troubled glance off camera; the facial tic; the odd, inappropriate gesture: these were innocent people destined to live with a sickly sad, unearned guilt for the rest of their lives. (7)
A couple months after Gacy's arrest, police found four more of his victims floating down the Des Plaines River and Rob Piest was one of them. "John Gacy was now accused of committing more murders than anyone in American history..." (13). In Illinois, on May 9, 1994, Gacy was executed by lethal injection and on the same day, an art exhibit was held for his "in-prison paintings" and prices were as high as $50,000 ("Gacy, killer of 33, is executed"). This attests to the popularity of serial killers generated by the mass media.
Like John Wayne Gacy, David Berkowitz murdered because of his sexual frustration, but he wasn't homosexual; he murdered because of his discontent with women. From July 29, 1976 to August 10, 1977, New York City was held in a "reign of terror" because of the .44 caliber murders by a man who called himself the Son of Sam. Berkowitz trolled the streets of New York City, in search of a victim, with his infamous .44 caliber revolver, which is the same type of gun that was used by Jesse James and Buffalo Bill in the old west (Carpozi 36). Eight different .44 caliber shootings, spanned out over a year, ended the lives of six people and seven others were injured and left with horrible memories that they'll never forget. Berkowitz was a seemingly normal guy, but he had a troubled childhood that scarred him for life (Abrahamsen 31).
While Berkowitz's actions may have made him seem insane, he was intelligent. In 1960, he scored a "superior level" of 118 on an IQ test, but he also admitted, "as a child, I had tremendous fascination with death. When I thought about dying, I thought about being transported into a world of bliss and happiness" (31). As a man, Berkowitz was sexually immature; he'd usually masturbate about three times per day (167). Occasional masturbation is healthy, but when a man prefers it to sexual intercourse, as Berkowitz did, it's a sign of sexual immaturity (167). In 1971, Berkowitz joined the army and claimed, "I joined the army in order to lose my virginity" (61). Ironically, the United States of America gave Berkowitz the skills needed to carry out the Son of Sam murders. Just like Gacy and other serial killers, Berkowitz had a certain type of victim; he hunted young, pretty girls with shoulder-length brown hair who were usually with their boyfriends at the time of the killings (Carpozi 90).
Though the main reason Berkowitz murdered was because of his sexual frustration, there is also speculation that he was involved in Satanic cults and was a member of the Process Church of the Final Judgment. The Process Church of the Final Judgment is a Satanic cult, which is an offspring of the Church of Scientology (Terry 173). Charles Manson and his loyal followers were also affiliated with the Process Church of the Final Judgment in the late '60s and early '70s (Rubin 66). On October 22, 1976, Carl Denaro was shot by David Berkowitz while sitting in the passenger seat of his girlfriend's car because Berkowitz mistook him for being a woman because he had long brown hair and his girlfriend, who was driving, had short hair (Carpozi 72). Fortunately, Carl Denaro survived the shooting since the bullet fragmented before entering his skull. After Berkowitz's arrest, investigators searched his apartment and found a poem that was dated the day of the Denaro shooting:
Old Mother Hubbard/ Sitting near the cubbard [sic]/ with a hand grenade under the oatmeal./ Who will you kill now/ Daughter of Satan?/ In the image of the/ Virgin Mary-- pure and innocent/ The Great Impersonator--/ Is that you? "Yes."/ How many have you decieved-- [sic]/ lured to slaughter like a/ fat cow? (Abrahamsen 87)
Though that poem wasn't discovered until after his arrest, Berkowitz did send a letter to Jimmy Breslin, a journalist working for the New York Daily News who was covering the murders, congratulating him for his "quite informative" columns (Terry 48). The letter was about a page long and was signed, "'Sam's Creation' .44." In the letter, Berkowitz also displayed further links to Satanism by using the names "The Duke of Death," "The Wicked King Wicker" and "The Twenty Two Disciples of Hell." The most significant was "The Wicked King Wicker" because police believed it was a reference to the movie The Wicker Man, which is a Scotish film about druid sacrifices in flaming wicker baskets (51). Finally, on August 10, 1977, after a year of terror, David Berkowitz was arrested (Abrahamsen 1). "Well you got me..." Berkowitz said to police officers as they were arresting him in front of his apartment at 36 Pine Street; police also found a submachine gun, rifle, ammunition and the now infamous .44 caliber revolver under the seat of his yellow Ford Galaxie (Carpozi 232). The original psychological hypothesis of why he killed is best described by Abrahamsen:
Why had he killed? Berkowitz told police he had killed on command: Sam, a 6,000-year-old man, had passed on instructions to kill through his dog. This "confession," along with the letters the police had received from Son of Sam...conjured up a bizarre and grotesque portrait of a man obsessed with dogs, demons, and hatred--a sadist who apparently long ago had lost touch with the real world. (12)
Though, in his mind, Berkowitz was sexually involved with his victims, he never had sex with any of them. "I'm no rapist--I'm not capable of that," Berkowitz told police detectives (179). Later investigation by reporter, Maury Terry, author of "The Ultimate Evil," further proved Berkowitz's Satanic influences by comparing the murder dates to witchcraft holidays:
Son of Sam: Witchcraft Holiday:
July 29, July 31 August 1 (Lammas Day)
October 23 October 31 (All Hollows Eve)
November 27 November 30 (St. Andrew's Day)
January 30 February 2 (Candlemas Day)
April 17 April 24 (St. Mark's Eve) and
April 30 (Walpurgis Night)
June 26 June 23 (Midsummer's Eve or St. John's Eve) (170)
After several mental competency hearings, Berkowitz was found fit to stand trial and was sentenced to several hundred years in prison (Abrahamsen 223). While his Satanic influences are still circumstantial, David Berkowitz did commit the murders and is a serial killer with or without Satan. He's also an important case to study when looking for present serial killers because of his notoriety and similarities with other ones.
Just like John Wayne Gacy and David Berkowitz, Jeffrey Dahmer had a sexual element involved in his murders and like Berkowitz, he'd masturbate two or three times a day because of his sexual frustration; Dahmer was also, like Gacy, homosexual. Jeffrey Dahmer, like most serial killers and all of the ones discussed in this paper, had a certain type of victim. They were mostly homosexual, black men (Askenasy 204). Dahmer would go to "gay bars" and other public places in search of his victims ("Serial killer, Dahmer, beaten to death"). In all, Dahmer killed 17 people in various ways. In sexual acts, he preferred necrophilia, but he'd also have sex with his victims before their death and he'd then dismember their bodies, sometimes eating them, and stored their skulls and hearts in his refrigerator (Askenasy 205). "At one point they were human beings, then they were reduced to four or five garbage bags," Dahmer said about his victims (Askenasy 205). Dahmer admitted to FBI psychiatrist, Dr. Park Elliot Dietz that he killed out of vengeance because he was never able to have a healthy sexual relationship with another man (204). "Killing was not the objective. I just wanted to have the person under my complete control to do as I wanted," Dahmer also admitted (207). He stood trial, as a competent man, and was sentenced to 957 years behind bars (207). On November 28, 1994, Dahmer was beaten and killed by fellow inmates in the prison bathroom while cleaning toilets ("Serial killer, Dahmer, beaten to death"). "It's not as brutal as what he did to our children," said a mother of one of the victims ("Serial killer, Dahmer, beaten to death"). Was Dahmer's death related to his highly publicized murders or was he just another victim of prison violence?
Though it seems sexual frustrations cause many serial killers to kill, FBI psychiatrists feel the media's glorification of serial killers has much to do with the rising number of them. The idea of serial killers being entertaining is "big business" nowadays and the rising numbers of films and literature about them is evident of that (Rubin 153). For instance, in Oliver Stone's highly successful film, "Natural Born Killers," we follow a murderous couple, played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, on a rampage down Highway 666 as they kill anyone they feel like while always leaving one person behind tell the story of Mickey and Malorie Knox. "I'm not, you know, saying I believe in mass murder or that shit. Don't get us wrong, we respect human life and all, but if I was a mass murderer, I'd be like Mickey and Malorie," a couple of guys said to sensational reporter, Wayne Gayle about their admiration of the Knox couple and serial killers in the film "Natural Born Killers." This trend isn't only in film and literature; it's also present in music and that's best displayed by the band "Marilyn Manson." The band members go by aliases which take the first name of a famous woman and then combine it with the last name of a famous serial killer or mass murderer; some examples are Daisy Berkowitz, Twiggy Ramirez and Madonna Wayne Gacy (Deggans). One of their songs, "My Monkey," borrows lyrics from Charles Manson's song, "Mechanical Man" (Rubin 66), which furthermore displays our cultural fascination of violent killers. Many people fantasize about killing, but never do it because they control themselves through "bypass techniques," but sometimes highly publicized murderers can push them out of control. FBI psychiatrist, Shervert Frazier says, "that means there are a lot of people abroad in the land with the same ideas who generally keep control; but the person who has inhibitions about acting out his urges finds it easier to break through his controls when he sees somebody has gotten away with 27 murders" (Methvin 40).
Though there isn't a perfect solution for stopping serial killers, studying cases of previous ones does aid in the cause since their behavior is so similar. Because of this, the United States has more than 150 documented cases of serial killers, but the growing rise in the number of them stalking the streets is a dangerous epidemic for us all. They kill for reasons unknown to themselves and the thrill they receive from the killing keeps them coming back for more. "These are basically cookie- cutter people, so much alike psychologically I could close my eyes and be talking to any one of them," psychiatrist Helen L. Morrison said; they are "beasts in human in form" (Methvin 42). The FBI, under the NCAVC, has created a computer network to identify and locate serial criminals called the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (VICAP) (Methvin 44). Though FBI psychiatrists can't fully explain why serial killers kill, the right questioning can sometimes "crack the case wide open." Polygraph examinations aren't effective on serial killers since they seem to bury their memories so deep they fool themselves (44). Once we fully understand the psyche of past and present killers, capture and prevention of future ones will be much easier. When understanding and preventing them becomes possible, maybe the horror that Robert Violante underwent will never have to be experienced by anyone else again.
Works Cited: Abrahamsen, David. "Confessions of Son of Sam." New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.
Askenasy, Hans. "Cannibalism: From Sacrifice to Survival." New York: Prometheus, 1994.
Cahill, Tim. "Buried Dreams: Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer." New York: Bantam, 1986.
Carpozi, George. "Son of Sam: The .44 Caliber Killer." New York: Manor, 1977.
Deggans, Eric. "Counterpoint to conventionality." "St. Petersburg Times" 8 Dec. 1995: 30W.
DeWitt, Dan. "Serial killers feed on fear and thrills." "St. Petersburg Times" 3 Jan. 1995: 1B; 3B.
"Gacy, killer of 33, is executed." "St. Petersburg Times" 10 May 1994: 1A.
Methvin, Eugene H. "The face of evil." "National Review." 23 Jan. 1995: 34-44.
"Natural Born Killers." Dir. Oliver Stone. Warner Bros., 1994.
Rubin, Mike. "Summer of '69." "Spin." Sep. 1994: 63-66; 152-153.
"Serial killer, Dahmer, beaten to death." "St. Petersburg Times" 29 Nov. 1994: 1A.
Terry, Maury. "The Ultimate Evil: An Investigation of America's Most Dangerous Satanic Cult." New York: Doubleday, 1987.
Questions or comments? E-Mail me at sfh3hz@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us
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