They generally lead a very normal life and visibly, they may not be different from the common general. But inside their world, is a dark place, a twisted psyche where beastly instincts reign supreme over reason.In fact, they may be totally rational individuals who go about methodically planning and executing murders, dismembering and decapitating victims they have lured and trapped with careful precision.
In these people, there is some degree of mental instability. 30-38% show abnormal brain wave patterns. Environmental factors create psychopaths, or sociopaths, as can biological factors that lead to psychological malfunctioning. Psychopaths were considered to be "morally insane". But experts now believe that psychopaths are an "unfortunate fusion of inter-personal, biological and sociological disasters".
Serial killers have certain common traits. Research says, they are loners, clever, hedonistically sadistic, and cunning. They spot the target, follow him, study him, lure him, and then trap him. This reflects their calculating behaviour. They know how to manage their impulses, so that they can avoid detection.
Psychopaths are also incapable of having meaningful relationships, viewing others as a fodder for manipulation and exploitation. Victims are dehumanised into worthless objects in the murderer's mind.Most serial-killers lead a dual life. One macabre and gruesome, and the other very charming, to cover it up, and avoid identification. Nithari accused Mohinder, for instance, lead a very normal life, by marrying and even having kids.
In the '70s, the Calcutta Slasher stalked crowded city buses, slitting women's arms with a blade. It just felt like a sting, and most would find out only after a while when blood oozed out. Experts, who interrogated him after he was caught, found that as a child he had watched his father regularly beat his mother, until she bleed. He admitted that he would watch his victims from a distance, and sexually aroused.
This sexual thrill of seeing blood, and victims screaming for mercy, is something that spurs on most serial-killers. Most serial killings are sexual crimes, where and sex merge. Usually there is a paedophilia angle to it. But in all cases, this is not so. For example, there was no sexual angle to the killings of Charles Sobhraj, one of India's most infamous killers.These killers always have a perfect excuse in their minds, for their deeds. Henry Lee Lucas, who along with psychopath Otis Toole, travelled the US raping, robbing, killing and mutilating people, blamed his upbringing. Jeffrey Dahmer, a young man from a good family, who deviated into necrophilia and cannibalism, luring boys to his apartment to be murdered, said he was born with a "part" of him missing. Santa Cruz killer Herbert Mullin blamed his head. John Wayne Gacy, who hired men to work in his contracting company, then raped and murdered them, said that the "worthless little queers and punks deserved to die. "Yorkshire Ripper" Peter Sutcliffe declared that he was "cleaning up the streets" of human trash.
An extensive research on serial-killers says: 42% have gone through physical abuse, 74% are psychologically abused, 35% have witnessed several sexual violence, and 43% have been sexually abused. Many had been abandoned by their parents.
Psychologically, if you've been hurt, you want to take revenge. But it's a little more complex. Study says, the growth of the mind, the process whereby a person establishes a sense of identity, separating self from others, is a complicated process. Usually, such people do not have a stable enough internal representation of themselves, so they do it externally: somewhere, a bizarre adaptation is taking place, where a person tries to achieve wholeness, maturation, by having sex with children, killing them, cannibalising them. By these acts, they reach an inner equilibrium.
A survey says, biological children of criminal parents are four times more likely to commit violence, even if put in different environments. But genes do not tell us the whole story. Environment too, can make or break the psychopathic personality.
Generally there is a pattern in the killings. A distinct method, which often reveals the motive. There is a minimum of 3 or 4 victims, with a "cooling off" period in between. The killer is usually a stranger to the victim. The murders are rarely "for profit" – the motive is psychological, not material.Killers often choose victims who are vulnerable, and operate in areas where they are most likely to find victims. The Nithari house, for instance, was conveniently located next to an illegal migrant colony, from where going missing, would hardly be taken seriously. Most paedophiles in India, start in small towns, and villages, where missing children are too easily forgotten. They gradually move to larger cities.
Setting fires, torturing animals, bed-wetting are some "symptoms" these psychopaths show as children. There's also a lot of violent bloody fantasy: many develop revulsion after testing them out, but in some, it also reinforces fantasies. Edmund Kemper – who at 15 killed his grand-parents, then went to kill hitchhikers and end up decapitating his mother. He also wished everyone else in the world would die, and fantasized about killing them.
Maniacs and Murderers:
Aileen WournosShe killed seven men in Florida, who she claimed tried to rape her, and confessed her crimes at the behest of her lesbian ex-lover. Daughter of a convicted psychopathic child molester, Aileen remained belligerent to the last. She often said she wanted "it all to be over" and began fighting to be executed saying, "I killed those men and I'd do it again too. There's no chance in keeping me alive or anything, because I'd kill again." She was executed in 2002. Charlize Theron won an Oscar for portraying her in Monster.
David Richard Berkowitz
Better known by his nick name "Son of Sam", Berkowitz confessed to killing six people, mostly women and wounding several others in New York City in 1970s. He remained at large for a long time and baffled police and media by leaving letters at the crime scene, claiming he wasn't a woman hater. He was finally arrested in 1977 and his first words to the police were reported to be: "What took you so long?"
Charles Manson
Founder of a religious cult, the Manson family, he was the brain behind a spate of murders in 1960s, including that of movie actress Sharon Tate, wife of director Roman Polanski. Manson's popularity took a leap after his arrest. He became part of American pop culture as a symbol of evil and his fans followed his every move. During his trial he carved out an X with a knife on his forehead and his fans copied it the next day. Manson is currently undergoing a life term.
Maheshwar Padhi
This 26-year old struck terror in the hearts of pavement dwellers in Orissa in 2000. Over a period of three months he allegedly killed seven people and injured several others. He would smash his victims' heads with a heavy stone while they were asleep, and then vanish into the dead of the night. Padhi is currently locked up in Berhampur jail.
Raman Raghav
This psychopathic serial killer operated in Mumbai in the mid-1960s. His victims were usually hutment dwellers whom he would bludgeon to death while they slept. All the murders took place at night and were committed using a hard and blunt object. After his arrest Raghav was diagnosed to be schizophrenic and on account of his illness, his death sentence was commuted to life.
Auto Shankar
He was behind the kidnapping, rape and murder of nine teenaged girls in Chennai in 1988. After the crime, he would cremate his victims and dispose of their ashes in the Bay of Bengal. Shankar was hanged to death in 1995. During the trial, he blamed movies for making a devil out of him.
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