Hello! Welcome back to the first 2024 episode of Diagnosing a Killer. I'm Kenna and I'm Koel.
Happy New Year everyone!
Happy New Year!
I love it. Everyone's here for, this is going to be our third year showing up and giving you guys content.
It's crazy.
Which is really exciting. And as you know, if you've been listening, we are going back to two cases a week.
Mental breakdown and case every week instead of one case every other week.
Yeah.
So you're going to get a lot of content, which we're really excited for.
Yeah. You guys have done so much brilliant work over the last few months while we have kind of taken a break to focus on ourselves, our schooling, the holidays, and for you guys to focus on all of those great things too.
So thanks for being so supportive. We have so many people that have bought shirts so far.
Yeah.
Quite a few.
And quite a few cozy grabbers, which is great. So I'm really excited to see what this next new year will bring.
Yeah.
New year, new us.
Yes.
We've definitely been preparing a lot for the beginning of this year. We're going to bring you guys all the content and we're really excited to share it with you guys.
Yes.
Do you want to give everyone our handles before I get into this minty breakie?
We haven't done a minty breakie in so long.
So excited.
You can check us out on any social media platform at Diagnosing a Killer other than X, which is at Killer Diagnosis.
We also have Patreon, PayPal, Cash App now.
Venmo.
At Diagnosing a Killer. Check us out there.
Yeah.
Email is also at Diagnosing a Killer at gmail.com.
Yep.
And then check out our website because it's nice and we pay for it.
Oh my gosh.
We pay for you guys to check it out.
All right.
Are you ready for this?
Yes.
Okay.
I'm really excited.
I was researching this and I was like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe we've not done a mental breakdown on this.
Yeah.
It makes so much sense.
It aligns with everything and why the fuck haven't we thought about it?
I'm scared though because my, oh gosh.
Because my content coming up is similar to that.
Sounds like.
Okay.
Well, I'm just going to tell you my mental breakdown is on the history of serial killers.
Okay.
This is not that.
Oh gosh.
Okay.
I'm relieved.
Content warning.
This episode contains depictions of sexual assault, enslavement, negative depictions of certain groups of people, assault and murder of children, incest, torture, necrophilia, cannibalism, and gruesome details of particular cases.
If this episode is not for you, we encourage you to find another one of our episodes.
Remember, your mental health is very important and we love you.
We love you.
Bye.
So it's a doozy of a content warning just because we talk about a bunch of different cases in the episode.
I know.
I was going to say, wow, that's like literally a giant blanket.
Yeah.
It's a lot.
But if you've listened to most of our episodes up till now, it's not going to be anything like extremely new, you know, than that.
Okay.
So starting off, what is a serial killer?
A serial killer, also called a serial murderer, is a person who typically murders three or more people with the murders taking place over more than a month's time and including a significant period of time between the murders.
Okay.
So something like, it'll have to be within a month.
So with a few days, that would be considered a spree killing, correct?
Yeah.
Well, I'll get into that as well.
Okay.
So it's a person who's been at a threshold of three murders in order to consider someone a serial killer, but some law enforcement will either lessen it to just two or extend it to four.
So it's just kind of like in the between.
Is that because of an MO?
I don't know, actually.
It's the one they don't know.
Psychological gratification is usually the motive for serial killing, and many serial murders will also involve sexual contact with the victim.
The FBI states that the motives of serial killers can include financial gain, attention seeking, thrill seeking, and anger, and their killings may be executed differently according to each motive.
And we'll get into motives and stuff, or MOs.
In serial killings, the victims also usually have something in common, such as demographic profile, race, gender, or appearance.
When the FBI is investigating a potential serial killer, they will usually follow the patterns of the types of victims, and this will give them clues into the type of people that they're looking for, a.k.a., like, criminal profiling.
Profiling, yeah.
Yeah.
Serial killers are not to be confused with mass murderers, spree killers, or contract killers.
A mass murder is the act of killing a number of people, typically simultaneously or over a relatively short period of time and proximity.
A mass murder typically occurs at a single location where one or more persons kill several others.
So the best example that we've covered of this would be Dillon Klebold and Eric Harris and the Columbine Massacre.
Another one that comes to mind when I think of mass murder is the Vegas murders of the hotel.
Yeah, I was at the mirage, I think.
That would be an interesting case.
Yeah.
Also, technically, I guess, oh no, I guess it wouldn't be a mass.
I was going to say Elliot Roger, but that's not him.
No, that's not him.
I think that's more of a spree.
Yeah.
A spree killer is someone who commits a criminal act that involves two or more murders in a short period of time, often in multiple locations.
The United States Bureau of Justice Statistics state that there is, quote,
almost no time break between murders, end quote, although some may consider that a killing spree can last weeks or months.
The general definition of a spree killer is one who kills two or more people with no cooling off period, essentially.
So it can last weeks or months, but the person is, like, ready.
At the ready, on the whole time.
On a rampage the whole time.
Yeah, exactly.
So the best example of this that we've covered would be George Amiel Banks.
Remember, he killed his family, the women living with him, and then the people across the street, and then he went elsewhere.
Right.
Yes.
A contract killer is a form of murder of assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or people.
We actually did a whole mental breakdown on this topic.
We did.
So listen to that one for more info, but contract killer is kind of, you know, what exactly what it sounds like.
That was really interesting that there was varying levels of contract killers.
Yeah, it's like what?
It's like a master.
It's like a scale?
It's crazy.
The master assassin.
So the English term and concept of the word serial killer are commonly attributed to former FBI Special Agent Robert Wessler, who used the term serial homicide in 1974 in a lecture.
Serial homicide?
Okay, that's interesting.
If that name sounds familiar, it's because he worked on cases that we've covered such as Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Richard Trenton Chase, and even John Wayne Gacy.
Gosh, this is like all over again.
I know, this is like everywhere.
This is like everywhere.
However, author Ann Rule states in a 2004 book of hers that LA Police Department Detective Pierce Brooks coined the term.
If the name Ann Rule sounds familiar, it's because she worked with Ted Bundy way back before he was caught and she actually wrote a book on the relationship entitled The Stranger Beside Me.
We did an episode on Ted Bundy as well.
That's true.
Are you getting the theme here?
New us, new updates.
Yeah.
The FBI defines serial killing as quote, a series of two or more murders committed as separate events, usually but not always by one offender acting alone, end quote.
In 2005, the FBI hosted a multi-disciplinary symposium in San Antonio, Texas, which brought together 135 experts on serial murder from a variety of different files and specialties.
Their goal was to identify the commonalities of knowledge regarding serial murder to get to like the best and most concise definition.
Yeah.
This group would settle on a definition of serial murder, which the FBI widely accepts as their standard quote,
the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender in separate events.
Historical criminologists suggest that there have been serial killers throughout history, with some sources suggesting that werewolves and vampires were actually inspired by medieval serial killers.
That would make sense, you know, like you don't, especially if it came down to something that was not maybe strangulation, but maybe somebody being cut or something.
And then they're like, oh my gosh, like that's so much blood.
Like there's no way a person could have done that.
You must be looking for the blood, you know.
Yeah.
I'm probably going to butcher this name, but I think it's Liu Pingli of China.
His nephew of the Han Emperor Jing was made prince of Zhidong in the sixth year of the middle period of Jing's reign, which was 144 BC.
Wow.
According to Chinese historian Xi Mequan, Liu would, quote,
go out on marauding expeditions with 20 or 30 slaves or with young men who were hiding from the law, murdering people and seizing their belongings for sheer sport.
Oh my god.
Just like a group of people?
Yeah, and 144 BC.
Like this is a long time ago.
Although many of his men knew about the murders, it was not until the 29th year of his reign that the son of one of his victims finally sent a report to the emperor.
Eventually it was discovered that Liu murdered at least 100 people and the officials of the court suggested that he be executed.
Wow.
However, the emperor could not have his own nephew put to death, so he made Liu a commoner and banished him instead.
What?
Yeah.
He's like, oh, you get none of my money.
Yeah, exactly.
Get out of here.
What do you think he did after that?
He went back to Lu Ding.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, but he just wouldn't have the protection of the emperor, which is interesting.
Exactly.
In the 9th century, it was reported that, quote, a strangler from Baghdad was apprehended.
He had murdered a number of women and buried them in the house where he was living, end quote.
Ew.
In the 9th century.
That's crazy.
And it's just funny that we're sitting here being like, oh my god, people back then couldn't murder.
It's so weird.
What a concept.
And multiple people?
How weird.
That never happens now.
It was only ever like a crime of passion before Bundy.
In the 15th century, one of the wealthiest men in Europe and former companion in arms with
Joan of Arc, Gilles Durene, was alleged to have sexually assaulted and killed peasant
children, mainly boys whom he had abducted from the surrounding villages and had taken
to his castle.
That's fucked up.
That's a hell of a sentence.
That is a hell of a sentence.
Yeah.
That sounds like you just summarized a nightmare that you had.
It's terrible.
It was estimated that his number of victims was between 140 and 800.
Somewhere in there.
I mean, this is before birth and death records.
Oh yeah, for sure.
You just don't know.
You just went around silly willy nilly, just snatching up children.
Yeah, it's awful.
Between 1564 and 1589, German farmer Peter Stump killed 14 children, including his own
son.
He also murdered two pregnant women and had an incestuous relationship with his own daughter.
Peter claimed to have been granted the ability to turn into a werewolf by the devil.
As lunacy?
Yes.
As punishment for his crimes, Peter was put on a torture wheel and executed.
His head was actually later severed and put on a pole next to the figure of a wolf to
scare other people away from claiming that they were werewolves as well.
Oh my god.
This is what happens when you claim that you're a werewolf.
We're not werewolf friendly over here.
Yeah, no seriously.
If you're a werewolf, you need to vacate the president.
President?
Vacate the president.
Premises.
What is that president in a...
Presence.
What movie is that from?
Oh, it's from Dexter.
When Dexter goes to the halfway house to find Jeremy Downs and then he asks like another
kid, it's like a juvenile halfway house or whatever and he goes to find a kid and then
he asks another kid up front that's like playing with like drumsticks and he's here.
Is that his season with Mostev?
I love Mostev.
I don't know who that is.
He's the one that played the shepherd.
Oh yeah, no, not the same season.
But this kid's like playing with drumsticks and Dexter's like, where's Jeremy?
And he's like, he vacated the president.
To be like drums with it.
So good.
That's so funny.
All right, back to the story.
Werewolves bad.
Bad.
Werewolves bad.
Feel bad for the other kid.
Yeah.
A Hungarian aristocrat by the name of Elizabeth Bathory was born into one of the wealthiest
families in Transylvania and allegedly tortured and killed as many as 650 girls and young
women before she was arrested in 1610.
She sounds like a jealous woman.
I'll be honest, I don't, I didn't think that Transylvania was a real place.
Really?
Swear.
Where are you from?
I don't know why that was funny.
But seriously, like I don't, I didn't think that was a real place.
Yeah.
Like I really just thought it was made up for Transylvania.
That's where that accent comes from.
The Dracula accent.
Duh.
Well, no, I know that, but okay, I just didn't know it was real place.
I thought it was made up for fiction.
Yeah, no worries.
Okay.
It is thought that the members of the Tuggy cult in India may have murdered a million
people between 1740 and 1840.
That sounds like genocide.
With one member, Tug Bram allegedly murdering as many as 931 people.
What?
Yeah.
That does sound like genocide for sure.
Right?
Yeah.
Fuck.
We know the story of Jack the Ripper who has been called the first modern serial killer.
He, while not being identified, killed at least five women and possibly more in London
in 1888.
If you want to hear more about this, Quill did a great episode on him.
Well, kind of.
Another person who Quill did a great episode on is H.H. Holmes.
Maybe they may not be the same person.
A serial killer in the US that was responsible for the death of at least nine victims in
the early 1890s.
Fun fact, those people are both talked about on the same episode.
Yes.
So if you want to listen to an episode about H.H. Holmes and Jack the Ripper, tune in because
that one's a good one.
That one was fun.
It was good.
Looking at the diagrams, because the diagrams of the house are out there and it's pretty
interesting.
Like floor plans.
We know way more about the 19th, 20th, and 21st century killers than the old ones, but
they have been around for as long as humans have, which is, I mean, that's only a couple
of instances that I could find.
So some common characteristics of serial killers are as follows.
They may exhibit varying degrees of mental illness or a psychopathy, which may contribute
to their behavior.
A huge number of them exhibit one, two, or all three of the McDonald triad.
We've talked about this in some of our episodes, but those three things are arson at a young
age, torturing animals and bedwetting past the age of 12, which I thought it was 10.
They are often abused or were when they were younger emotionally, physically, or sexually
by a family member.
They are frequently bullied or socially isolated as children.
They are more likely to engage in fetishism or have a number of paraphilic disorders or
symptoms of.
They have trouble finding or keeping a job and tend to work in mental jobs.
They are usually involved in petty crimes at first, such as theft or vandalism.
And although some of them are found out to have really high IQs, it's actually more
common for their IQs to be lower than average.
Really?
I didn't know that.
Yeah, the average IQ of serial killers caught is actually only 94.7.
Of course, there's expectations to this criteria.
Yeah, I wonder if that's why you hear a lot more about, I mean, not only did certain people
like Kemper or Bundy or Dahmer, these guys with pretty high IQs.
Not only is it that they killed a lot of people, but that they're incredibly intelligent people.
Which I think goes hand in hand with that narcissism potentially, is that it adds to
that feeling of being smarter or holier than them now.
Superior.
Yeah.
So there's actually also been studies that look into the possibility of an abnormality
with one's chromosomal makeup leading to the increased risk for becoming a killer.
Two well-known serial killers, Bobby Joe Long and Richard Speck, both had chromosomal abnormalities.
Bobby had an extra X chromosome, often known as Klinefilter syndrome.
This comes with abnormally small testicles that are poorly functioning.
And Richard was reported to have an extra Y chromosome, also known as Jacob's syndrome,
which can come with an increased risk for learning disabilities and above average growth,
like physically.
So I think in both of those cases, there's probably a sense of, well, self-consciousness.
Of course.
And what did you say, Bobby Joe Long?
Bobby Joe Long.
But maybe in his case, it might have come along with a paraphilic disorder as well.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, I think so too.
Although they have made attempts to link the chromosomal abnormalities, it's nothing solid.
I just thought it was interesting.
Yeah, that is interesting.
The FBI's crime classification manual places serial killers into three categories, organized,
disorganized, and mixed.
Just mixed peppered in there.
And some killers will go from organized to disorganized as their crimes continue, especially
if they're experiencing psychological decompensation or overconfidence due to having invaded capture.
On the other hand, some killers will go from disorganized to organized in the case that
they identify one or more aspect of killings as their source of gratification and establish
an modus operandi or MO, as we call it.
And so yeah, usually when they hone in on their specific MO, they get more organized.
Isn't that interesting?
That makes sense.
You perpetrate your first crime, it's a little messy because you don't really know what you're
doing or what you're after, but then you find certain aspects of it gratify and that's
what you stick with.
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So organized killers are just what they sound like.
They often plan their crimes methodically, usually abducting victims, killing them in
one place and disposing of them in another.
Others specifically target certain populations who are likely to go with a stranger such
as sex workers.
These types of killers usually maintain a high degree of control over the crime scene
and have a lot of knowledge of forensic science that enables them to cover their tracks.
But what about what's his face?
Party boy.
What was his name?
Party boy.
Yeah, the guy in the field.
The colonel?
No, not the colonel.
You just, you did it in December.
It was like three episodes, two episodes back.
What?
What was his name?
The guy on the farm.
Willie Picton?
Yeah, Picton.
He was not organized at all.
He wasn't.
But, oh, so he's a mix.
Yeah.
Yeah, because he, okay.
Yeah, that's right.
I actually didn't even think about him because it's a terrible episode.
I mean, the episode was good.
The story's terrible.
I thought it was interesting.
It was super leather face.
It was weird.
Yeah, it definitely was.
So whether it's burying the body or putting it in a river or body of water, these killers,
the organized ones are usually steps ahead of police at first, even going as far as to
watch the news carefully for coverage of their killings to make sure they know what the police
know.
It's their whole life.
These types of killers often take great pride in their killings, but also have social and
other interpersonal skills that help them develop personal and even romantic relationships.
Bundy.
More rarely, these killers will even get married and have children.
BTK.
Organized serial killers are also the type to be unknown by friends and family, and in
the event of their capture would most likely be described by acquaintances as kind and
unlikely to hurt anyone.
Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are perfect examples of organized killers.
I don't even want to put fucking BTK because he's not organized.
Sparky Big Bumpling.
He is bumbling.
He's a mix.
In general, the average IQ of an organized killer is 98.7.
Okay.
Disorganized serial killers are usually extremely impulsive, often committing their crimes with
a random weapon that's readily available.
They usually do not make any attempt to hide the body and are likely to be unemployed,
a loner, or both.
Richard Ramirez, those are the sounds like to me.
These types of killers often turn out to have a history of mental illness, and their
MO, or lack thereof, is usually marked by excessive violence and sometimes necrophilia
or sexual violence.
Disorganized serial killers have an average IQ of about 89.4.
Richard Chase and Alexander Lewis-Ranwell are examples of disorganized killers.
Mixed serial killers have both organized and disorganized traits with an average IQ of
100.9.
Although sample sizes for these types of killers are much lower, because usually they fall
into one or the other.
I would suggest that Chris Watts and BTK are both mixed killers.
Yeah, I think I would agree with that.
Chris Watts is definitely- there was no real follow through.
He was not organized in that thinking whatsoever.
Exactly.
He was trying to be methodical as he was trying to cover it up, but yeah.
Didn't work.
Very messy.
Female serial killers are extremely rare compared to male serial killers.
Sources state that female serial killers represent less than one in every six known
serial murders in the US between 1800 and 2004.
Or that around 15% of US serial killers have been women.
Well that's interesting, yeah.
Because remember when we covered Eileen Morneau's?
What do you think that Eileen Morneau's would be?
You're so funny, could you keep saying the names I'm about to say?
Oh really?
Yeah.
And I'll talk a little bit more about that.
Michael D. Kelleher and C.L. Kelleher created several categories to describe female serial
killers.
These include Black Widow, Angel of Death, Sexual Predator, Revenge, Profit or Crime,
Team Killer, Question of Sanity, Unexplained and Unsolved.
Oh my gosh, that's a lot of categories.
Yes.
It's only 15% out of that 15%.
Yeah.
It's not that many categories.
It's like every single woman was something different.
Exactly.
So in naming these categories, they suggested that most women fell into the categories of
either Black Widow or Team Killer.
Interesting, yeah.
I can see that.
Can in Barbie or something.
Mm-hmm.
The term Black Widow can refer to a woman who kills someone she loves or kills on behalf
of someone she loves, such as a spouse or child.
Yeah.
Even like a love triangle maybe too, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
Team Killer refers to a woman who kills with a companion, such as a partner or friend.
Although most MOs of female serial killers can include attention seeking, addiction,
or the result of psychopathological behavioral factors, female serial killers are commonly
known to kill men for material gain, usually being emotionally close to their victims and
generally needing to have a relationship with their victim.
The methods of female serial killers are frequently covert or low profile, such as
poison, shootings, suffocation, stabbing, and drowning, with the percentages decreased
for each of the mentioned methods, so poison's most common, drowning is least common.
Mm-hmm.
And yes, Eileen Warnows.
Yeah.
So, Eileen Warnows, but I feel like she would be a little bit of the revenge category at
first.
And then I wonder what the statistics are or what the research might say about women.
In particular, I'm sure men can too, right?
Switch MOs.
Or not, I guess maybe not modus operandi, but their...
Motive.
Motive, yeah.
Because then it seemed, for me at least, Eileen Warnows kind of morphed into...
There was always that revenge aspect in the background, but some of it was monetary, some
of it was probably because she kind of liked it.
You know, and that she could get away with it, she was getting away with it, you know,
she felt like she was cleansing the earth at a certain point.
Yeah, she might have fit into multiple of those categories that they said.
Yeah, that's interesting.
That's a good episode too, y'all should go listen.
I love that episode.
It's a good one.
I might re-listen to it.
There's so many things that I forgot about her case, and then I re-listen to it just
a few months back, probably like six or seven months back, and I was like, oh, this is a
pretty good episode.
I did really well.
So juvenile serial killers are even more rare than female serial killers.
They are classified in three main categories, such as primary, maturing, and secondary
killers.
Although many juvenile serial killers turn into adults before they're captured, the youngest
felon currently on death row is Harvey Miguel Robinson, who was 17 at the time of his crimes
and 18 at the time of his capture.
He was the youngest?
He's the youngest currently on death row.
Oh, and on death row?
Yeah, yeah.
The motives of serial killers are generally placed into four categories, visionary, mission
oriented, hedonistic, and power or control.
However, the motives of many serial killers can overlap in these categories and fit into
multiple of them.
The visionary killers suffer from psychotic breaks from reality, sometimes believing they
are another person or are compelled to murder by entities such as the devil or God, with
the two most common subgroups are demon mandated and God mandated.
So that sounds like Mark David Chapman.
Yep, and David Birkowitz or son of Sam is an example as well.
And they had signs of schizophrenia spectrum at a younger age.
Mission oriented killers usually justify their acts of ridding the world of certain types
of people perceived as undesirable, such as the homeless, ex-cons, homosexuals, drug
users, prostitutes, or people of a different ethnicity or religion.
That's a direct quote.
The difference between these types of killers and visionary is that mission oriented killers
are typically not psychotic.
An example of a mission oriented killer would be Elliot Roger, because he wanted to rid
the world of the popular women.
The popular crew and women.
Yeah, he hated women.
Yeah, I would also, there was another one that you said towards the end though that
he might be, I think, slightly, which was the power and control.
Power and control.
Yeah, for sure.
See, they could overlap as well.
Well, same thing with Eric Harris and Dylan Cleeble too.
Heed and mystic killers seek thrills and derive pleasure and satisfaction from killing, as
well as seeing people as expendable means to this goal.
Psychotic psychologists have identified three subtypes of hedonistic killers as lust, thrill,
and comfort.
Sex is the primary motive for lust killers, whether or not the victims are dead, and fantasy
plays a large role in their killings.
This type of sexual serial killer has a psychological need to have absolute control, dominance and
power over their victims, and the inflection of torture, pain, and ultimately death is
an attempt to fulfill their need.
Paul Bernardo?
Robert Berdella is who I put it as.
Oh, Robert Berdella.
Yeah.
The primary motive of a thrill killer is to induce pain and terror on their victims, providing
excitement for the killer.
Usually their victims are strangers, although the killer may have followed them for a period
of time.
Many of these killers attempt to commit the perfect crime and believe that they will not
be caught.
Do you think you know who I put for that?
Well, I just can't stop thinking about Paul Bernardo.
He used to follow those girls from the bus stop.
And he was like, yeah, I'm this Garzboro rapist.
Like, what are you going to do about it?
Catch me if you can.
I put Laurence Bittaker and Roy Norris, aka the Toolbox Killers, they were all about,
like they recorded because they wanted to replay the sounds of terror.
Yeah, that's true.
It's awful.
Comfort killers seek material gain and a comfortable lifestyle as their motive.
Usually the victims are close acquaintances and family members, or and or family members.
After a murder, this type of killer will wait a little while to ensure they got away with
it before killing again.
They most often use poison to kill their victims.
So I put Dorothea Puente and Diane Souty as examples of this type of killer.
Diane Souty.
Because she waited on purpose.
She did.
A power or control killer's motive for killing is to gain and exert power over their victims.
These killers are typically abused as children, leaving them with feelings of inadequacy and
powerlessness as adults.
Many power control killers sexually abuse their victims, but they differ from hedonistic
killers in that sexual assault is not motivated by lust, but simply another form of dominating
the victim.
I believe that Jeffrey Dahmer would fall into this category.
Yeah, he definitely wanted to have power and control over people.
Yeah, and it wasn't solely sexual.
He wanted a puppet almost.
He did, yeah.
And that's what gave him the gratification, was the power and control first.
Yes, for sure.
So there are a few theories that people believe may be the biological and sociological reasons
behind people becoming serial killers.
The first one is called Fractured Identity Syndrome, or FIS.
This is a combination of Charles Cooley's Looking Glass Self and Irving Goffman's virtual
and actual social identity theories.
So the Fraction Identity Syndrome suggests that a social event or series of events during
one's childhood results in a fracturing of the personality of the person.
The term fracture is defined as a small breakage of the personality, which is not often visible
to the outside world and is only felt by the killer.
I think that's honestly kind of scary because it seems like there's literally no one has
control over that.
It can kind of happen if the kid takes something the wrong way over and over.
However, it may also explain why some people don't have any specific known hardships in
childhood and it seems like they just snap sometimes.
That's true, you know.
We have seen a lot of cases like that too.
Yes.
The social process theory, or SPT, has also been suggested as an explanation for serial
killings.
SPT states that offenders may turn to crime due to exposed peer pressure, family and
friends.
SPT also states that criminal behavior is a process of interaction with social institutions
in which everyone has the potential for criminal behavior.
A lack of family structure and identity could also be a cause leading to serial murder traits.
As a child used as a scapegoat will inevitably be deprived of their capacity to feel guilt.
That's interesting.
This displaced anger can result in animal torture and then a further base lack of basic
identity.
Yeah.
Lay on the animal torture absolutely could be another part of that control.
It's like, it's helpless.
It's harmless.
It can't do anything really to me.
It is.
Lastly, the military theory has been proposed as an explanation for why serial killers
kill, as some serial murderers have served in the military or related fields.
There are two theories that can be used to study the correlation between serial killing
and military training.
Applied learning theory and social learning theory.
Applied learning theory states that serial killing can be learned as the military is
training for higher kill rates from a serviceman while simultaneously training the soldiers
to be desensitized to taking human life.
Social learning theory is applied when a soldier gets praised and ultimately accommodated
for killing.
That's Timothy McVeigh.
Yeah.
Due to this they learn or believe that they learn that it's acceptable to kill because
they were once praised for it.
These theories obviously don't imply that military institutions make a deliberate effort
to produce serial killers.
Yeah.
Even the cards unfortunately line up terribly.
It can happen.
I think even Timothy McVeigh did say that it bothered him.
That he said, remember he talked about there was a man there and then there was just red
mist and that he was praised for it and he got a medal for it or something and that he
was disturbed by that.
That's part of the reason that he left.
Maybe not necessarily in this case.
For sure.
That's the whole sole reason that a lot of these guys go into the military is because
they want to know what it feels like.
Yeah.
They want to know what it feels like legally.
In 2008, the FBI produced a handbook entitled Serial Murder, which was the product of that
symposium in San Antonio in 2005.
According to the FBI, identifying one or multiple murders as being the work of a serial killer
is the first challenge they face when beginning an investigation.
The FBI also suggests utilizing databases and increasing departments working together
in order to get the best chance at catching serial killers sooner rather than later.
Unfortunately, on a smaller scale, we've seen many cases when law enforcement from different
counties, cities, states, and especially countries are unwilling to work with each other in the
initial stages of an investigation.
That's true.
I feel like sometimes maybe they don't know, but once they...
I mean, I would just think that if there was something happening like that, I was like,
this can't be the only area that this person is operating for sure.
So I have some gruesome facts about serial killers.
Now that I've covered the history, that's all I have for the history.
But I have some gruesome facts if anyone's interested.
I'm interested.
Okay, cool.
I figured you would.
I'll talk for everyone.
Okay.
Number one, in the Zhongliang Casey case, there were so many bodies crammed underneath
the house that the bodies melted together and the bones had to be sorted for more than
two years to complete the skeletons.
What?
I know.
And most of these, I was like, what?
Well, wait, didn't he put lye on top of them?
Yeah.
That might be why.
Oh, yeah.
Because it's sort of decomposing or whatever and melting into each other.
Right.
Okay, number two.
Number two.
You're doing it.
That was great.
Peewee Gaskins, the most prolific serial killer in South Carolina, drove around in a hearse
with a bumper sticker that stated, quote, I haul dead people, end quote.
He told others that he needed to take the bodies of people he killed to his private
cemetery.
Okay.
He bought a fucking hearse.
That sounds like a case we should tackle.
Yeah, it is.
Definitely should.
I would have put it on my list.
That sounds ridiculous.
Yeah.
Number three.
Hey.
Jeffrey Dahmer gave the people in his apartment building sandwiches that could have possibly
been made from his victim's flesh.
No.
Yeah.
No.
Yep.
And at one point, he had so many bodies in his apartment that he ran out of room and
had to store one in the bathtub.
He would proceed to shower over the corpse every day for a month.
I didn't see that in my research.
I saw it in mine.
Isn't that terrifying?
Terrifying.
Gross.
That shows how out of touch with reality he was.
That's like, do you ever go to somebody's house and it really smells like a dog and
like they don't know?
Yeah.
And it just smells.
It's like you go smell blind.
But for him, it's body blind.
Blind blind.
Okay.
Number four.
Number five.
I think we might have said this once before on the podcast, but if not, I wanted a pepper
in here.
The hillside stranglers once picked up a young woman to murder, but after finding out that
her father was Peter Lor, they let her go because they feared that killing a celebrity's
daughter would draw too much attention to them.
I don't know who that is.
He's like an actor.
I don't know who he is.
Peter Lor.
Yeah.
Googling.
L-O-R-R-E.
So Peter Lor is an actor.
He's an older actor.
He was born in 1904.
Get this though.
You said that they didn't kill his daughter.
That's the only child he has.
Could you imagine?
Oh gosh, it's awful.
Yeah.
He's only ever had one child.
Dang.
That's nuts.
That's crazy.
All right.
Number five.
You're going to hate this.
Oh, great.
I can't wait.
Apparently still to this day, BTK makes people fill out an application if they want to write
him in prison.
Fill it out.
Fill this out.
Fill it out.
Put your shoes size.
Yeah.
Fill it out.
Hold it right there.
Similarly.
Hold it right there.
Similarly, number six is if you wrote John Wayne Gacy while he was in prison, he would
send you back a questionnaire to see if you were good enough to be friends with him.
Aw, but remember I did that one mental breakdown with it.
It was the couple.
Yeah.
The Dickensons.
Dickens-Dickens-Dickensons.
Yeah, they were friends with Gacy.
Remember?
Yeah.
I think his name was Frank.
I don't want to be friends with Gacy.
Barbara is not alive.
Yeah.
All right.
The final tidbit interesting grotesque fact.
Are you ready?
Jeffrey Nommer did not eat people with tattoos because he said that the ink on their skin
made it taste weird.
Love you, bye.
Yeah.
That's awful.
Made it taste weird.
I need to get more tattoos.
No, honestly.
I'm like, can I finish?
Straight up.
I should finish my arm.
I think I have a tattoo on each limb, so I'm good.
I'm good.
Yes, but that's my case.
That was good.
I like that.
Thanks.
Very informative.
I appreciate it.
Yeah.
That's some good detail.
We are glad to have you guys back with us for our third year in a row and we cannot
wait to see what this year has in store for us.
We're super, super excited about the podcast festival in July.
That's going to be so much fun and we cannot wait to see you guys out there in Denver.
It's going to be so fun.
In the meantime, we're going to continue to release our handmade merch items.
We have different details and designs that we're working up that we're going to submit
onto the Instagram so that you guys can see it.
And then if you have any suggestions for cases, please keep letting us know because my list
is just getting longer and I love it.
I'm so excited.
We are just so excited to be back doing like this all the time.
Yeah.
It's going to be so fun.
It's going to be fun.
We will see you guys on Thursday with our first case of the year.
So excited.
Love you.
Bye.
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