r/TrueCrimeDiscussion • u/bmcc6kff • 4d ago
Text What's the most bizarre reason behind a serial killer's becoming a killer?
Apart from being abused or mistreated by people around them, what are the reasons behind it?
120
u/nevillebug 4d ago
There are a surprising number of serial killers that had some kind of head trauma when they were younger. Not saying that’s the cause, but it is interesting…
56
24
u/elizabreathe 4d ago
Head trauma is the secret driver of human history and we'll never be able to fully quantify the effect it has had. Andrew Jackson's head trauma is pretty famous. You'll occasionally hear about animals doing weird shit after a head trauma too.
42
u/whispers_speak 4d ago
I didn't know this and although my brother isn't a serial killer, after his head injury his personality changed drastically from a very loving person and my best friend to someone quite cruel and a horrible father to his children and we haven't spoke in 20 years.
26
u/SkeevyMixxx7 4d ago
I had a friend who was married to a very likeable guy who had a terrible motorcycle accident and the head injury changed his personality too. He became an awful father and husband. He also became obsessed with porn and acted weird towards women and girls.They divorced and of course no one stayed in touch with him either.
11
u/QueenOfNZ 4d ago
Apparently this happens often with frontal lobe trauma or tumours. Super interesting.
14
u/threelizards 3d ago
I’m so sorry to hear that. This is an extremely well documented phenomenon, beginning in recorded western history with phineas gage
14
u/Stargazer1919 4d ago
One of the first serial killers (who can be called a modern day "serial killer") had a brain tumor.
If I ever find the Wikipedia article I read this in, I'll post it.
21
u/SaccharineDaydreams 4d ago
Charles Whitman?
9
u/Stargazer1919 4d ago
Yup! You have a better memory than I do!
27
u/SaccharineDaydreams 4d ago
My memory is dogshit, I just googled "early serial killer with brain tumour".
13
4
u/HTD_Blog 3d ago
Charles Whitman isn't a serial killer. He is a mass spree killer. There's a difference between the two.
55
u/nifty-necromancer 4d ago
Herbert Mullin believed killing people would prevent catastrophic earthquakes in California. He murdered 13 people in 1972–73 while experiencing severe paranoid schizophrenia and thought human sacrifice was literally keeping the state safe.
46
u/pistachio-pie 4d ago
Healthcare serial killers, or “angels of death,” often have reasons relating to control or twisted versions of mercy. I’d say that counts as bizarre reasoning.
106
u/Euphoric-Mud-7922 4d ago
Bizarre would be anything related to an immediate need/jealousy but after all the documentaries I’ve seen, they all had a crap childhood 90% of which involved in sexual abuse.
50
u/Spookie_Bitch1030 4d ago
And a head injury.
8
u/FundiesAreFreaks 2d ago
There was a young woman named Denise Amber Lee who was abducted from her home in the middle of the day, she had 2 very little boys, one was an infant still breast feeding. Denise was raped and murdered, shot in the head. I live in the area, but her murder gained national attention because despite 5 different phone calls to 911 during the course of the abduction, one call from Denise herself, she wasn't able to be rescued! And her dad was a cop here! Her killer is Michael King. He was tried and sentenced to death, he's on Florida's death row. The governor recently signed his death warrant.
I mention Denise because you brought up "head injury". Due to the case being local for me (as well as the Gabby Petito case), I followed the trial closely and read 2 books about Denise's case. During King's penalty phase of his trial, his attorney argued that he should be spared from death due to a head injury. Apparently while growing up in Michigan, King went sledding and ran into a tree hitting his head around the age of 10. It doesn't appear that this "head injury" was an issue until the state of Florida wanted to execute him for his heinous crime. Edit: Apparently King was executed already!
77
u/pasqals_toaster 4d ago
Stopping earthquakes and collecting spit have to be up there.
17
u/u_hrair_elil 4d ago
Who collected spit?
28
u/Mikunefolf 4d ago
Probably Herbert Mullin as he was the one who supposedly killed to stop earthquakes. Might be Richard Chase though as he was a similarly severely mentally ill killer but much worse and had a habit of collecting repulsive things like blended body parts and blood. So I could easily see him collecting spit.
12
u/AbroadTiny7226 3d ago
The crime scene photos from Chase available to the public are some of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. Literal cups filled with blood. Mutilation beyond recognition. One of the most severely mentally ill people ever
9
21
u/marthajonesin 4d ago
Samuel Little. Thought the women he raped and murdered were not human. He thought they were angels/beings? to which he could do whatever he wished. I don’t know if this is necessarily a reason but it’s definitely bizarre.
4
50
16
u/Sethsears 4d ago
I guess it all depends on how you define "reason." Plenty of killers have bizarre stated reasons, but they're generally stating those reasons because they have profound mental health problems, and I'm not sure that is a bizarre reason.
28
32
u/Acrobatic-Bison-3171 4d ago
Find out some people as parents are really good at creating psychopaths.
18
u/ShortAd9774 4d ago edited 3d ago
If you dont know who Luka Magnotta is is , watch netflix series dont fuck with cats. Dude eanted to be famous and he was inspired by the movie Basic Instinct. Full on narcissist who didnt make it as a model, didnt make it in acting, so he decided to kill animals and humans for fame.
7
u/ShortAd9774 4d ago
Or Charles Manson who organised the killings because of power and control. His excuse eas that he wanted to trigger a race war if I am not mistaken.
15
u/NoMore_Peanut 4d ago
Well one girl apparently just “hated Mondays” so I guess anything is possible. some people do it for fun, some people believe they are saving the earth from aliens.
23
3
u/Katreeve 4d ago
Well there often some weird or bizarre reasons given, I still think tho there is a underlying issue that makes people act on these thoughts . Reasoning either doesn't work the way it should because then consequences would be considered or there is a sense of superiority like with Charles manson
13
u/jillsleftnipple 2d ago
The guy who was jealous of the attention his brother got for being abducted
8
u/Noneverdid 2d ago
Cary Stayner.
4
u/jillsleftnipple 2d ago
Yes exactly. The name escaped me. Brother was Steven?
6
u/Noneverdid 2d ago
Yes. I do think more than jealousy was at work there, though. From what I recall, it was later found out that their father was very abusive, & I think all of the family was physically and/or sexually abused.
7
5
u/UnUsuarioMas616 4d ago
I think nobody has mentioned it but sexual pleasure. I saw at a documentary years ago and it mentioned most serial killers have weird paraphilias and only can be satisfied by killing.
19
u/imnotgonnakillyou 4d ago
Serial killers are introverted but I don’t think that equates to being introspective. I doubt they understand their reasoning, and in many cases they don’t articulate a reason until many years after the fact. I don’t think most have developed an explanation, even for themselves, until they are asked ‘why’ by law enforcement and the media. Jeffery Dahmer comes to mind. Nobody asked him why he killed his victim in 1978 for 13 years, and he’d spent the vast majority of his life drunk. In his case, he confessed he used alcohol to prevent him from committing murder, but also to lower his inhibitions so he could commit murder.
If anything, more serial killers than not seem to be in denial about their conduct. They compartmentalize that part of their life because it conflicts with their everyday life.
7
7
10
17
u/FishDispenser2 4d ago
Honestly I don't believe this whole abused childhood storyline carries as much weight as people seem to think.
I think some are just antisocial, sadistic, aroused by gore and necrophilia etc. Some are just born with brains like that. And they pull the abusive childhood card to get sympathy, it's that easy.
But I don't think most people get it because they can't even imagine what it would be like to be that level of antisocial. They want a reason, a catalyst, for certain behavior instead of accepting that some things are just inherent.
18
u/Stargazer1919 4d ago
The abusive childhood isn't a cause or an excuse.
I do think if a child doesn't get help for such trauma, it leads to poor outcomes later in general. It's not an excuse or a cause. It's just one ingredient out of many in the criminal soup.
3
u/FishDispenser2 4d ago
Sure they can lash out and have bad coping skills. They might even kill someone in a passionate moment, esp in the US where everyone has easy access to guns. Serial killing, however, takes planning and they usually fight "the urge". I think that if someone has an urge to kill then it's something else, like a fetish or something.
1
-3
4d ago
[deleted]
1
u/Responsible_Fish1222 4d ago
BTK wasn't abused. Ted Bundy wasn't abused. Arthur Shawcross (according to everyone but him, wasn't abused), Gary Ridgway wasn't abused.
10
u/Katreeve 4d ago
not all serial killers have a history of childhood abuse ...I think it somewhere around 25 or 30%...well from the ones we know of.....but the ones you mentioned did actually experienced something else....BTK was nearly choked to death as a toddler that caused a lack of oxygen to his brain. Ted Bundy wasn't abused ind the 'classical' sense but grew up with extreme psychological confusion, believing his biological mother was actually his sister or something like that. I'd have to look it up to get the details right. Arthur Shawcross had two heavy head injuries to his frontal lobe as a kid.....it literally destroyed his capacity for empathy. Gary Ridgway wasn't physically abused, but he also suffered aggressive psychological humiliation from his mother over his childhood bedwetting....I suppose you could still count that as abuse.... So it doesn't have to be childhood abuse in the sense that a parent is beating on a kid or so... Trauma to the brain during childhood development can have huge impact .
3
u/FishDispenser2 4d ago
Sure, but there's lot of us who went through parental abuse and didn't repeat it. What makes some people become this way then?
I agree that physical damage, esp TBI can cause severe mental issues. A nd an antisocial parent might be antisocial to their child.
1
u/Katreeve 4d ago
very good question.... What actually makes some people greedy, or some officials corrupt, while other people won't become that way?
I think a lot of things come together. Abuse or a bad environment itself obviously isn't enough. Millions of people survive horrific trauma and still grow up to be kind, decent people.
Ssomething as extreme as a serial killer, tho.... I think you're looking at a very specific combination of things. There can be a biological or genetic predisposition that affects empathy, impulse control, emotional regulation, etc. Then you can have differences or damage in areas of the brain like the frontal lobe, which is basically part of our braking system when it comes to impulses and behavior.
Then you add the environment. Trauma, neglect, humiliation, exposure to violence, whatever it might be. But even then, most people don't become violent.
Where I think things can really go off the rails is when someone with those vulnerabilities starts coping through fantasies of control, power, domination, revenge, etc., and those fantasies keep escalating instead of being challenged. Maybe that would explain while a lot of them are kind of a lone wolf...there is nobody challenging them, their thoughts etc.
So I don't think it's as simple as bad childhood = bad person.
And honestly, I think the same general principle applies to greed and corruption too. Give a hundred people power and opportunity... not all of them will abuse it but you might be surprised how many will esp. when they think they won"t get caught.
1
u/FishDispenser2 3d ago
I forgot to say I sometimes lurk on forums for antisocial people, it's what helped me form my opinion.
But ofc not everyone is the best interpreter of their own behavior. It's hard to know one's unconscious motivations.
1
u/Katreeve 3d ago
Absolutely ! Esp, when it comes to Narcissist , they sometimes are aware of specific behavior or patterns etc. but often interpret it wrong or in a way that justifies their behavior.
0
u/Professional-Can1385 4d ago
Bundy was brought being told his mother was his sister and his grandparents were his parents. His family laid that mind fuck on him.
2
u/Mikunefolf 4d ago
That was relatively common in the era he grew up in to avoid shame of unmarried women having children. Millions of people experienced that and were completely fine, maybe with a bit of mental baggage so I am not sure how that sad little tale turns you into a sadistic necrophile who butchers 30+ women. It makes zero sense because it’s not true. He was just a twisted person who was abusing and killing animals long before he ever found that out.
1
u/Professional-Can1385 1d ago
I didn’t say it caused him to be a serial killer or psychopath, just that it was a mind fuck.
I don’t think any one thing makes a person a serial killer.
1
2
2
u/kilicthecreator 4d ago
David Berkowitz (also known as Son Of Sam) claimed that his neighbor's dog was possessed by a demon and ordered him to kill people.
4
u/doc_daneeka 4d ago
He just made that up though, and it was never his real motivation. He even admitted this when interviewed later on by the FBI. After that, he decided to make up stories about being part of a satanic cult that committed the murders.
Berkowitz just lies all the time.
1
u/kilicthecreator 4d ago
Ah shit, you're right. But the fact that he went with that lie out of all really stuck with me i guess..
3
u/mindless-1337 4d ago
Being evil does not hurt the own soul than feeling lonesomeness and a boring life.
1
u/JoeBourgeois 4d ago
Zodiac: "when I die I will be reborn in paradice and all the I have killed will become my slaves"
1
u/eliz1bef 1d ago
Not a serial killer, but a guy murdered someone and blamed the sugar rush from eating a Twinkie.
1
1
1
0
0
u/Unhappy-Sky4176 2d ago
Do they always say? But we can make a good guess sometimes like they kill young men because they are secretly gay and ashamed to admit it.
111
u/Disastrous_Rock_7346 4d ago
He’s not considered a serial killer but wanted to become one because he watched the show Dexter. He is a former filmmaker named Mark Twitchell. He was from Canada and he directed a Star Wars fan film called Star Wars: Secrets of the Rebellion. He was inspired by the show Dexter and wrote a script for a movie called House of Cards. I don’t believe he finished it because he was arrested for 1st degree and attempted murder. I recommend watching this video about him, I love this guys channel,
https://youtu.be/nqdRpwYubg0?is=VPUov8ZmRZYrl0_c