Serial Killers

[p4pking]

I think you need born psychopaths who are abused badly themselves to produce most of these freaks. "Worst" doesn't really have much context once you're talking about people who have raped, tortured and killed at random numerous times, probably just a matter of how much they got away with.
There are a few in South America who preyed on children and have a disturbing amount of victims, kind of hard to get worse than that. I think Ted Bundy and the Green river killer are up there for North American cases.

[Beanz]

I don't get it. I am very interested in psychological and anthropological behaviour in general but I have no curiosity that needs satiating when it comes to psychopaths and serial killers. I once had a book on the subject given to me by a friend as a birthday present, and I was mortified that he would think it would be something that interested me.

As a fictional plot device in something like Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs I can see how such characters can be useful but as subjects to study in the real world ? Not for me. I think my step father was borderline psychopathic and I spent a few years as legal case worker where I had to examine witness statements, testimonies, videos and photographs etc of victims of violence, include murders, and maybe the violence is a bit too real to want to read up on it. Don't get me wrong,when I was a bit younger I have had a few tear ups but generally even when you come out "on top" it kind of makes you feel a bit sick. To actually take pleasure in killing people is not a head space I want to examine, even in a book.

[Andre]

Form the mouth of a 'practicing at the time' Psychopath killer and torturer, Chopper :Mark Brandon Read "There are only four things you can pass onto a child Love,hate, sadness and baldness. If you pass love on, the child will embrace all the gifts and richies life has to offer.If hate is passed on he will grasp all the venom the snake of life spits out. But if sadness is passed on a strange creature walks the land."

A mix of the last two would probably create quiet a nice piece of heartless machinery.

[El Kabong]

Beanz, I guess this specific area intrigues me because it is one of the areas where you might be able to find a root cause in the nature vs nurture debate. That debate is vital in many different fields of psychology.

[Master]

I can see the intrigue, during my teens when I was catching flies and pulling their wings off and keeping them in a jar, I was fascinated by Bundy, Yorkshire Ripper, and Jack the Ripper.

[goti71]

Psychos lack emotions like empathy, embarrassment or pity. They simply learn to mimick what people do and say since early childhood.
It's actually been proven that they often have less grey matter in the parts of the brain that normally light up when thinking of morality and guilt and instead they "read" these emotions through their language part.

I've met a few, though not the ones who chop you up and keep your kidneys in the fridge.

It's chilling to think that someone is only reading your emotions in a conversation while you are actually tied to those emotions yourself.

[El Kabong]

Carl Panzram 1920-1929, killings 5-22. At the age of 12 he was sent to the Minnesota State Training School by his parents where he was beaten numerous times. He was released from the school in 1905 to go back home where he saw no purpose for staying so he left via the railroad. This would be the start of a nightmare for Panzram which he then turned on his fellow travelers. Once he began to hop train cars and stay in hobo camps as a teenager (and already an alcoholic) he was gang raped by a group of hobos. This event was perhaps the proverbial "straw that broke the camel's back", before he was just a petty thief and transient, but afterwards he became a serial rapist and serial killer. It is rumored that Panzram raped over 1,000 males...not because he was a homosexual but because he considered that act a form of domination. He would lure drunken sailors away from bars, sodomize them and then shoot them, he also did this to several young hobos. His autobiography was obtained by a prison guard who was not so much friendly or empathetic but just curious. Pages were written front and back and smuggled out. Panzram was caught for attempted burglary in 1928 at which time he voluntarily confessed to the murder of 2 boys. He was held at Leavenworth Prison where he told the Warden "I'll kill the first man that bothers me". June 20th, 1929 Panzram bludgeoned laundry foreman Robert Warnke to death with an iron bar. This action lead to an increase of his sentence from 25 years to death. Panzram was hanged from the neck until dead September 5th, 1930. Before his death he spat at his executioner and declared "I wish the entire human race had one neck, and I had my hands around it!". His final words (when asked) were "Yes, hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard! I could hang a dozen men while you're screwing around!"

[Andre]

Psychos lack emotions like empathy, embarrassment or pity. They simply learn to mimick what people do and say since early childhood.
It's actually been proven that they often have less grey matter in the parts of the brain that normally light up when thinking of morality and guilt and instead they "read" these emotions through their language part.

I've met a few, though not the ones who chop you up and keep your kidneys in the fridge.

It's chilling to think that someone is only reading your emotions in a conversation while you are actually tied to those emotions yourself.

Probably gives them more room in the brain to read people better than most, as some are quiet ruthless and seem to know a victim or dreamer type at a glance and also if the truths known they know one of their own at a glance too.Like a shark knows a dolphin isnt another shark and visa versa ,its down to a frequency.