Serialkillers

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Serialkillers

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I have like 100+ serial killer books and behavioral science/FBI profilerbooks.
It is an interest/hobby i have to
study this phenomen.

We think that Serial killers must be insane, but the fact is, they are, for the most part, rational, intelligent, and calculating. They are far from insane.

Edmund Kemper states, "It was an urge. . . . . A strong urge, and the longer I let it go the stronger it got, to where I was taking risks to go out and kill people--risks that normally, according to my little rules of operation, I wouldn't take because they could lead to arrest."

We all experience rage and hatred, yet most people keep these emotions under control. In the serial killers these emotions become all powerful and any real morality or consideration for others is non-existent. The monster within has arisen and they are virtual slaves to it's beastly appetites. Something seems to be lacking in these people. Though they know the difference between right and wrong, they don't seem to care. They are unable to empathize with the suffering of another. Jeffery Dahmer said that he felt that he was born with a part missing.

Serial killers choose victims that are weaker than themselves. Often the victim fits a stereotype which has a symbolic meaning to the killer. Usually the killer objectifies and humiliates his victims. Ted Bundy said that he kept his conversations with his victims brief, for if he got to know the person and began to see her as a real person, it would destroy the fantasy.

We avoid the disheveled street person, mumbling to himself on the street. What we need to avoid is the charming, polite, impeccably dressed stranger. Serial killers blend in, they lurk in churches, malls, on the highways, they hide behind a carefully constructed facade. Because of their psychopathic nature, they do not know how to feel sympathy for others, or even how to have a real relationship. They learn a manipulative act by observing others.

As soon as they are caught, the serial killers will assume a mask of insanity, pretending to be a multiple personality, schizophrenic, prone to blackouts or some such excuse. Even as they pretend to give details about themselves, they are still playing their role. Often they play a role of becoming a "born again" Christian, claiming that God forgives them, why can't the people.

There are as many opinions as there are experts on what makes a serial killer. The more traditional explanations include genetics, chemical imbalances, traumatic events, childhood abuse and perceived social injustices. Yet all of us have one or more of these excuses. What, then, turns the evil loose? Serial killers are undeniably sick and, it would appear, this sickness is growing.

The US produces more serial killers than any other country. Up to 85% of the world's serial killers are in America. According to an FBI Behavioral Unit study serial killing has climbed to an almost 'epidemic proportion'. At any given time there are an estimated 20 - 50 active serial killers. Those who change their targets, methods, are often never identified. Experts speculate on what happens to unsolved cases of murderers. Some may commit suicide, die, be incarcerated, in mental institutions, relocate, or stopped killing, a few turn themselves in.

Prostitutes or people who lead transient anonymous lives are usually not reported missing in a timely manner and receive little police or media attention.

Those who study serial murder -- including some who wrote books about it -- say their definitions have changed as they have learned more about the little-understood phenomenon.

Robert Ressler, a pioneering homicide investigator often credited with coining the term "serial murder," said he and others in the FBI's fabled Behavioral Science Unit created the definition in the 1970s "to get over the bureaucracy that was limiting the scope of what criminal offenses were."

"It was mostly a way for us to communicate with ourselves and with law enforcement outside the FBI," Ressler said. "We had to come up with new definitions to change the FBI's way of thinking."

At the time, the FBI's Uniform Crime Report allowed just five categories to describe murder.

"That was totally inadequate," Ressler said. "So we put our heads together and came up with 43 different classifications."

Among them, mass murder -- killing three or more people in one incident -- and spree killings, several murders one after another.

Ressler's group defined serial murder as "three or more murders (with) a cooling-off period between the crimes. That's serial homicide. It's very much based on a fantasy that builds and builds during this cooling-off period that leads to premeditation and planning for the next murder."

The FBI has since tinkered with that definition, reducing the number of homicides to two, said Larry Ankrom, Unit Chief of the bureau's Behavioral Science Unit-West Region.

But even that definition isn't steadfast.

"Even one murder can distinguish someone as a serial killer," said Robert Keppel, a former King County detective who worked the Bundy and Green River cases and is now one of the foremost experts on multiple murders. "The characteristics in a single-victim homicide can help you predict if the killer is going to do it again."

And even crimes short of murder, including rape or assault, can lead authorities to conclude the attacker may also be a serial killer.

Even while trying to define the phenomenon, criminologists warn that trying to be too precise can have deadly consequences.

Steve Egger, an internationally known authority on serial homicide and pattern crimes, said too much is made of defining spree, mass and serial killers. He figures a serial can happen with two murders.

"It's frustrating," said Egger, a former homicide detective who now teaches at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. "There are a whole range of theories, some good, but they don't match all the killers out there."

Spree or serial?

Two former Tacomans, John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo, got convicted in Virginia in relation to the monthlong string of Washington, D.C., sniper slayings last fall. They're also suspects in a Tacoma slaying that occurred months earlier, making a total of 13 deaths they have been linked to.

Yet, the D.C. sniper is widely classified as a spree killer -- a cousin of the serial killer whose actions are often triggered by some rage-inducing event stemming from a perceived failure or rejection, killing anyone they encounter over a shorter period.

Egger, however, considers the snipers to be serial killers.

"It is about domination and control," he said. "I think it was about power over life and death (because the snipers) appeared to be choosing victims and playing games with police."

Other strings of slayings more comfortably fit the general definition of serial killings.

But not all killers follow such an obvious plan in selecting victims. And not all fit the Hollywood profile of loners, cannibals and misfits.

I reasently read a book : The creation of a serialkiller,which is about a chilling man.

"The happy smilyface killer"Keith Hunter Jesperson

Jesperson was a methodic killer. A long-haul trucker, Jesperson often chose women he met on the road -- truck-stop hookers and hitchhikers, women he derided as "lot lizards."
"I had a transient lifestyle," he says. "They were victimized because they were in my lifestyle."

In 1990, the Canadian-born Jesperson was a divorced, 35-year-old father of three leading a trucker's life out of the Northwest when he claimed his first known victim.

He met Taunja Bennett, 23 years old and mildly retarded, at a Portland bar. Later he beat, raped and strangled her, then drove east, up the Columbia River Gorge. On a dark, wooded stretch of highway he tossed his victim down an embankment.

He drove miles away to discard Bennett's purse and Walkman in bushes along a river, before getting coffee at a truck stop.

"When you're throwing away bodies, the real adversary out there is not the police, it's the public," Jesperson says. "You're trying to avoid being seen by them. You can't be placed at a dumpsite."

Jesperson never was. He not only avoided detection in the Bennett murder, he remained free to kill again as two innocent people were sent to prison.

After Bennett's body was found, a middle-age homemaker named Laverne Pavlinac told police that her boyfriend, John Sosnovske, forced her to help him kill Bennett and conceal the crime. Pavlinac learned details about the case from news accounts, and later produced a cut-out section of denim that seemed to match one missing from the fly of Bennett's jeans. Pavlinac also led investigators to the approximate area of the dumpsite.

The story was convincing enough to convict Pavlinac and Sosnovske of murder. Her recantation and explanation that she hoped to escape an abusive relationship by putting Sosnovske in prison came too late.

All the while Jesperson was picking up women along his truck route, dumping their bodies in ditches and along roads, sometimes miles away from where he met them. No one even knew a serial killer was at large -- until he decided to brag.

Two and a half years after Bennett's murder, anonymous letters were sent to an Oregon court and a newspaper, detailing slayings of women in California and Oregon. A "happy face" doodle was the only signature, and the unknown confessor was soon dubbed "The Happy Face Killer."

At the time, nothing linked the dead women to one another or Jesperson.

But after years of careful planning, Jesperson slipped up. Julie Ann Winningham's friends and family in Camas knew she was dating him. She even told them he was her fiancé.

When her body was found along a highway in Clark County in March 1995, friends told police about Jesperson. He was questioned and released -- there was no hard evidence to link him to the murder.

By then, Jesperson was ready to quit. A few days later, he wrote a letter to his brother admitting to eight killings over five years. He soon called a Clark County detective and confessed, but only to Winningham's murder.

"They didn't even know I was a serial killer until I told them," Jesperson says. "They had me down for one murder and that's it."

While awaiting trial, Jesperson began writing to the press about other murders, trying to trade information to avoid a death sentence. He confessed to killing Bennett, an admission authorities initially declined to accept. But Jesperson was able to prove his own guilt. For a reporter, he sketched a diagram of where he discarded Bennett's purse, and searchers later found it. He also passed a lie detector test and eventually, Pavlinac and Sosnovske were freed.

His admissions, along with handwriting analysis and DNA tests, were used to link Jesperson to killings described in the Happy Face letters.

At times, Jesperson has boasted of killing more than 160 women, but pleaded guilty to only four murders -- one each in Washington and Wyoming and two in Oregon. He's taken credit for three killings in California and one in Florida, but those cases haven't been prosecuted. Although he drew maps of where bodies were dumped and remains have been found, some victims haven't been identified or their causes of deaths not substantiated.

"Is there more? Yeah. But do I want to expose them? No. Why should I?" Jesperson says. "There's no benefit in it for me."

Time and distance, Keith Hunter Jesperson says, is all it takes. Separate yourself from the body and don't be seen. Meet a victim one place, dump her someplace else -- in another town, another county, another state -- somewhere no one is looking for the missing.

"The longer it takes to find a body, the better," Jesperson says. "But you don't have to take it 20 miles away to dump it. You can put a body in the Dumpster next door if you feel comfortable that no one can pin it on you."

That's why it's best to take strangers, he says, victims who can't be linked to you.

Keith Hunter Jesperson, the infamous Happy Face Killer, has boasted of murdering as many as 160 women. His confessions tie him to eight murders in five states, including one in Washington. He might still be on the road had he not failed to heed his own advice.

Here is a link to his crimes and story

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial7/jesperson/

Here is a chilling story from Keith Hunter jesperson him self:

In 1995, I put together the "Self Start Serial Killer Kit" and in 1996, it was posted on the world wide web by a fanatic groupie that follows killers like me and becomes emotionally involved with them. Since its release on the open market to millions of viewers, I have been contacted from time to time and asked to school them into the world of serial murder.

Now I know there are those people who just want my inner thoughts so they can write their own book or paper on the subject. And then there are those people who are "dead serious" on becoming multiple murderers, and have no idea how to go about it. So they ask me for directions. I have heard all of the excuses and stories on why they want to do what I have done. By going through certain guidelines and paying for my advice, I have guided them along to become serial killers themselves. One recently arrested serial killer, that was trained, schooled, and guided by me, is the "Internet Killer," John Robinson in Kansas. When the whole story comes out, the ties in his cases will be linked to me - with the proper documentation.

Another person ordered my "killer kit" and in the last four years I've helped to turn him into one of America's worst serial murderers. If only the authorities can pin any evidence on him. The perfect schooling has made him do every murder perfectly. And I'm confident enough to point the police in his direction, so they can check him out to just see if my schooling, and his listening to detail was perfect. If it has worked to produce the perfect murders, then the police will not find a single thing to link him to those murders, and will even go as far as to blame the murders on someone else.

Dave wrote me in early 1996, and requested information on how to kill someone, and how to get away with it. I told him money talks and bullshit walks. So to prove his interest in the truth, he sent me two hundred and fifty dollars to get from me the much needed information. He even wanted to visit me here in Oregon. So he sent me his Social Security number and his address in Albion, Pennsylvania.

Someone very close to him needed to die. But because she was so close(his wife Barbara), he would become the prime suspect. I explained to him that in order to get away with one murder so close, he would have to make her murder appear to be just one in a long line of serial murders, where a common denominator was something other than him.

First of all, Dave was a coward and a whimp. He had no great strengths, but thought that he was some great white hunter, and bragged about his killings of deer and other animals with his gun. But few people go to prison for shooting a defenseless deer or ground squirrels. Killing animals does help to desensitize ones mind to the feelings of others, and can be used to being a sort of stepping stone to killing people. Especially if one tends to torture and make the deaths of these animals last longer and longer and causes them to cry out in pain. So I told Dave to shoot his deer in the shoulder blade area and let them scream like a rabbit cries.

To build up Dave's confidence, he needed to seek out a victim and simply attack them and leave them in enough pain that they do turn to telling the police about the attacks. But the attacks had to be perfect! Strangers in dark alleys. In and out, and no evidence to follow so it will show Dave that he will not get caught. And it would show Dave the power of fear. The fear of being found out, and the power of being so paranoid of everyone that it kept him from sleep. Only to finally realize it was all for nothing. No one knew anything. No one except himself.

To get over the self guilt, paranoia, and feelings that the police knew he was guilty without evidence is the first big step. Dave attacked a drunk, nearly killed him, and sweated it out for two months before he assaulted two more on the same night. He wrote back to explain the power he felt as he beat them into oblivion, and I felt it too! He was developing into a person in contol of the area he wanted to be in. He isn't an overwhelming type that demanded respect at first glance. But with all of the confidence he now had, he was more boldly presenting himself as someone to be reckoned with. His presence was now known. Maybe too cocky!

There came a time to graduate into murder. To go the extra mile, to start taking it the full distance, in making sure his victims were dead. But, I explained to him, you don't shit in your own nest! You kill people outside of your own home area. So the police will not look for you in your home. I don't think Dave heard me. Dave made a trip down to see a friend of his in Columbus, Mississippi in late June 1996. While he visited him, he checked out the residents of the area, and on July 8th he decided to kill an old retired farmer named Fowler. The following day he left town, so he wouldn't be around town to be investigated, and so he wouldn't be tempted into showing his face around the crime scene and see the devastation of his actions. He killed the 78 year old farmer by stabbing him to death with a knife. The blood was everywhere, and he had to lose his blood soaked clothes.

The noise from a gun shot draws attention. Burning your victims brings the fire department. Using a knife is a bloody mess. Blood gives up too many clues. A real killer should only use his bare hands to murder someone. A broken neck or by strangulation is the best. Beating someone to death, leaves marks that can be indentified later. Killing a person close to where a friend lives is the same as doing it in your backyard.

Back in Albion, Pennsylvania, he wrote me and told me of the crime, his visit, and even sent me newspaper clippings that his friend had sent to him at his request. I became angry at Dave for involving a friend. Friends turn into snitches real easy. He needed to learn to act completely on his own. Not to involve anyone else. What I told Dave frightened him, and he decided to lay low, at my advice.

The following year, Dave went back to Columbus, Mississippi in October and November. The lateness of the year was to offset the time schedule of not having the murders fall in the same time periods, to keep the investigators guessing. On November 2nd, 1997, he murdered Mr. Wilbanks. Another older man in the community, just like Fowler. Strangulation was the way. How he felt the life slip out of his fingertips. No robbery to point a finger at. No keepsakes to have to remember the death by. Just the memories of how easy it really was. And this time, he sat and read the paper with his friend and later bought his own paper to get the news clippings, when he got home to Albion. He had done it! Murder was easy! Murder was safe. He had now killed two men and nobody suspected him. Even his letters to me were not telling me he had done them. Dave only used the articles to hint on what it would be like.

I dreamed of murdering people as I looked out of my cell bars.

Now the thoughts of killing his wife were forever on his mind. I told him that women die harder than men. Men simply give up or cry for their lives. They want to live one more day, to be able to fuck one more time. But women try to play us for fools. They get into our minds, and run their sexuality down our throats. They really believe they can control us, even if it kills them. Using their sexual charms to enchant us into believing they can be trusted to say nothing if we let them go. So before he kills Barbara, he needs to experiment on torture and pain on strangers that are women. Women who he has felt nothing for. So to build up his tolerances against a woman that can control his heart.

So in November 1998, he returned to the killing fields in Columbus, Mississippi and his killing frenzy catapulted into high gear. On November 13th, he murdered xxx and on the 20th he attacked 80 year old Mrs. Randall with his tormenting games of death. First hogtying her with electric cords, and then played with her till she died. "Women were fun," he wrote me. "There was more to be done to them and they made murder enjoyable." So he decided to kill one more before he left town. On the 27th, he hogtied Betty Everett, and the 68 year old suffered the type of death he was hoping to play out on his wife, Barbara. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/06/26/48hours/main209570.shtml

Arriving at home, he sent me the news articles and asked me questions of who could do such a thing - knowing full well he was the person responsible for doing it. He had now murdered five people. He had one glitch in 1996 just after his first murder. He started drinking, and was busted for driving while intoxicated on October 5th in Edinburg, Pennsylvania. He was losing it, but being busted for drunk driving in his Ford Bronco proved that the police had no idea that Dave had murdered anyone. It was great that he had this confrontation. It was a great confidence builder knowing the police had no clue, and that he had gotten away with it scott-free.

He quit killing old people in Mississippi and has moved on. He has traveled across this country and has copy-catted several other cases in the news. Just to keep his feelings of power in doing murder alive. So far, his skills at murdering others has stayed off any attempts on his own wife's life. In fact, his sexual desires are now being met by the prostitutes he picks up and murders in New York, Seattle, and Tacoma. He even wrote me about being somehow involved in the serial murders in Spokane, Washington. But I find that hard to believe. The murderer has been caught, and all of the evidence pointed to that murderer. He acts like he now craves attention, as he hopes to draw attention to himself, just to prove they cannot link him to any murder.

Murder is a strange game. What good is the act of pulling off the perfect crime, if you cannot share the adventure with someone else? Who then will believe you even did it, if you have made it so they cannot prove you did? But if you could convince someone that you did it, then you'd have to kill that person to keep your secret a secret. There are times that he wants the news people to look into him to see that he has gotten away with the perfect crime. Once, he wrote WCBR-Television, just to tell their reporter that he was still active and doing it someplace else. Dave even told the reporter to ask me the details of how he could get away with it.

And yes, I have been contacted by the reporter and asked if I knew who killed those people. I told him wild stories and didn't point at Dave in Pennsylvania. I will never point to those who can be prosecuted for murder.

Scary Guy. He could be your neighbour.