Serial Killers, why do they do it?

[Judge]

I do too.... but I'm interested in the psychology of anyone who strays from the norm of whatever society they are part of.

I've always been interested in the psychology of entire societies who stray from the norms....

 

[nowwhat]

I can understand why people sometimes want to kill someone else. I just don't understand why they can't find a good enough reason to restrain their homocidal urges.

 

[Tom]

Compensating for being total losers usually.

 

[Mary Terry]

I think many of the male killers of female victims and child victims get a sexual kick out of their crimes.

I attended the University of Utah in the early 1970s during the time that Ted Bundy was enrolled in law school there. Several female students went missing and were found mutilated and dead at his dumping ground in the mountains. He subsequently admitted to the FBI that he returned to the dead bodies to have sex with them.

While I was there as a student, a friend and I went skiing one day at Snowbird ski resort. Our car got stuck in heavy snow in the parking lot and we were unable to get it out. A young man approached us and offered us a ride down the mountain to Salt Lake City in his VW beetle which we accepted. He looked okay, appeared normal, but his car reeked of formaldahyde (which I knew the smell of from biology classes) but he claimed it was film processing chemicals (which I also knew the smell of and knew it was not film developer). After we reached SLC, we told him where to turn to take us to my friend Liz's house. Instead of turning, he sped up and kept going in the wrong direction. I was in the front seat and Liz was in the back seat. Liz suddenly screamed at him to stop the car; it startled him, he slowed down enough for me to jump out of the car, flip the car seat back and grab Liz's hand to pull her out of the backseat. We took off running as fast as we could through the dark along the highway and made it safely to her house. He just took off in his car at a high rate of speed.

To this day, Liz and I believe we were in Ted Bundy's car and escaped from him by following our instincts. If it had been only one of us rather than two, then I believe that one would have been murdered. And he killed a waitress who worked at Snowbird so it was one of his hunting grounds, even more evidence that it was Bundy. I regret that we did not call the police about what happened. If we had, maybe some women would have been saved. And the smell of formaldahyde has long intrigued me - I wonder if he kept body parts as souvenirs. Creepy and gave me nightmares for a long time.

When the state of Florida executed him, Liz and I celebrated and cheered the death of a horrific predator. Years later I read a book about him and learned that he lived about 2 blocks from my apartment in SLC.

 

[Fino]

I've seen children and asked children about why they kill bugs and what they like about it. They revel in the power of crushing a fly.

I think it's the same thing. How it gets to the point of killing another person is when it gets to the point of viewing another human with importance similar to that of a fly.

So how that takes place would be a more direct question, if my initial statements were true.

 

[Judge]

I think many of the male killers of female victims and child victims get a sexual kick out of their crimes.

I attended the University of Utah in the early 1970s during the time that Ted Bundy was enrolled in law school there. Several female students went missing and were found mutilated and dead at his dumping ground in the mountains. He subsequently admitted to the FBI that he returned to the dead bodies to have sex with them.

While I was there as a student, a friend and I went skiing one day at Snowbird ski resort. Our car got stuck in heavy snow in the parking lot and we were unable to get it out. A young man approached us and offered us a ride down the mountain to Salt Lake City in his VW beetle which we accepted. He looked okay, appeared normal, but his car reeked of formaldahyde (which I knew the smell of from biology classes) but he claimed it was film processing chemicals (which I also knew the smell of and knew it was not film developer). After we reached SLC, we told him where to turn to take us to my friend Liz's house. Instead of turning, he sped up and kept going in the wrong direction. I was in the front seat and Liz was in the back seat. Liz suddenly screamed at him to stop the car; it startled him, he slowed down enough for me to jump out of the car, flip the car seat back and grab Liz's hand to pull her out of the backseat. We took off running as fast as we could through the dark along the highway and made it safely to her house. He just took off in his car at a high rate of speed.

To this day, Liz and I believe we were in Ted Bundy's car and escaped from him by following our instincts. If it had been only one of us rather than two, then I believe that one would have been murdered. And he killed a waitress who worked at Snowbird so it was one of his hunting grounds, even more evidence that it was Bundy. I regret that we did not call the police about what happened. If we had, maybe some women would have been saved. And the smell of formaldahyde has long intrigued me - I wonder if he kept body parts as souvenirs. Creepy and gave me nightmares for a long time.

When the state of Florida executed him, Liz and I celebrated and cheered the death of a horrific predator. Years later I read a book about him and learned that he lived about 2 blocks from my apartment in SLC.

Wow. You evaded "the deliberate stranger". Well done.

Yeah. Serial killer Ted Bundy chillingly portrayed by a young Mark Harmon.

 

[Mia]

When the state of Florida executed him, Liz and I celebrated and cheered the death of a horrific predator. Years later I read a book about him and learned that he lived about 2 blocks from my apartment in SLC.

That is horrific Mary Terry. Learning that you were so close to someone who might have been a serial killer.

Hitch-hiked with a girlfriend in the early eighties and I had a plan if something happened. We were picked up by someone, and we opened the doors of his buick as he turned onto a small dirt road. And rolled out and ran. There were six deaths of young women who hitchhiked in that area in those years. That we didn't know about at the time. The description of the man is the same one who picked us up. He was never found, never arrested. But both of us knew that there was something frightening about him. Both myself and Gina may have also escaped a serial killer. Probably why I'm interested in them. May have been in a car with one.

 

[Judge]

The scary thing about Ted Bundy was that his good looks and demeanor would disarm his victims before they realized they were victims. But clearly not everyone was susceptible to his charm. Thank God for those whose "inner voice" could detect when something might be terribly wrong.

But then I though of the "Golden State Killer", or the guy we referred to as the "East Side Rapist" back in the 70s. The police officer who was a serial rapist and murderer in California for decades. Where authority and trust may have been his primary method of operation in approaching his victims. Grim...

 

[Mia]

Thank God for those whose "inner voice" could detect when something might be terribly wrong.

Wish I knew what that actually was, intuition, or an extra sense for something not quite right? People walk away from situations that make them nervous at times. I've encountered perhaps two people in my entire life who were strangers, who didn't seem quite right. They made me nervous or anxious and I fled.

My dog once seemed to be rattled as well, and sensed something before I did which I paid attention to. The hair on his spine stood up and he began walking with a stiff gait, readying himself for a fight with this person. I pulled his leash and we ran.

 

[Judge]

Wish I knew what that actually was, intuition, or an extra sense for something not quite right? People walk away from situations that make them nervous at times. I've encountered perhaps two people in my entire life who were strangers, who didn't seem quite right. They made me nervous or anxious and I fled.

Yep. Intuition without conscious reasoning.

An amazing thing done in real time that potentially can save one's life.

Or maybe even the intervention of a higher power. Where one evades their own "exit point".

No way to really know what's going on in such instances...

 

[Mary Terry]

I don't know what constitutes instinct but it is that little inner voice that tells you something is wrong. Survival intuition?

After I posted about Bundy, I googled some info about him. He did keep severed heads and other body parts of his victims. He even washed the hair and applied makeup to the heads. He drove VW Beetles, and sometimes removed the passenger side seat, probably to put bodies on the floor beside him.

I wonder if there is anything to be served now by reporting my incident from over 40 years ago to the FBI. At the time it happened, about 1974, no one knew there was a serial killer in the area, and the police were just starting to piece together the various cases scattered around Washington, Utah and Colorado. Had we known at that time that there was a serial killer in the area, we definitely would have reported it to the police. But all we knew was that an apparently nice clean-cut young man offered us a ride, failed to turn where we told him to, that we jumped out of his car and ran because he frightened us, and that his car smelled strongly of formaldehyde. It wasn't until years later that we put two and two together and realized that it must have been Bundy. Everything matches up with his MO, his physical appearance, his VW Beetle, his location in Utah, and the fact that we both had long hair parted in the middle which was his preferred type of victim.

Judge, I've read that many serial killers are profoundly narcissist and use charm and charisma to put their victims at ease. There is a thin line, if any at all, between narcissism and sociopathy and both are devoid of empathy.

Mia, I did a little hitchhiking back in the 1970s, too, when I was late for class and didn't have time to walk. The creepiest person who gave me a ride was a middle aged woman driving a truck who kept touching my leg and staring at me. After that experience, I stopped hitching and waited for the bus to take me to school.

These days, I would never hitchhike or offer someone a ride. I don't even roll down my car window when panhandlers approach me at intersections.

 

[GrownupGirl]

Some serial killers are "mission-oriented", meaning they target people they deem unworthy of life or just plain hate, such as homosexual people or prostitutes or people of a certain race. I even once heard on TV about a killer who was targeting people who worked at abortion clinics. The guy was killing people who had a job he believed was murder, and they had children and families themselves. Yeah that make sense.

 

[Mia]

Interesting perspective by the writer Peter Vronsky, who's books I'm in the process of reading. He maintains there are serial killers who people think of as 'good', and others who are considered bad. He uses the example of two serial killers in the movie; Silence of the Lambs. Where Hannibal Lecter is the doctor, artist, intellectual, and Buffalo Bill is poverty stricken, rural, sexually confused serial killer. Lecter essentially becomes the star of the movie.

Serial killers often go after and execute society's lost; runaway teens, substance users, prostitutes, the homeless. Marginalized people that communities seem to pay little attention to. Probably why they are not caught or found out about, for long periods of time. As some in 'society' would like it's 'throwaways', to disappear. Rather than face and consider the causes of why those marginalized people came to be in the first place.

 

[Mr Allen]

Some people wake up as serial killers, they wake up hungry and would kill for a bowl of cereal! Er, yeah *gets coat*

 

[Mia]

Interesting numbers from Peter Vronsky's books; History of serial killers:

It is estimated that one in every 83 Americans and one 166 Britons is a diagnosable psychopath. That gives us some 3.8 million psychopaths in the the current United States population alone. ....Most of us have at least once either dated a psychopath or worked with one, ...but only a rare few psychopaths become serial killers.

 

[Mia]

Hitch-hiked with a girlfriend in the early eighties and I had a plan if something happened. We were picked up by someone, and we opened the doors of his buick as he turned onto a small dirt road. And rolled out and ran. There were six deaths of young women who hitchhiked in that area in those years. That we didn't know about at the time. The description of the man is the same one who picked us up. He was never found, never arrested. But both of us knew that there was something frightening about him. Both myself and Gina may have also escaped a serial killer. Probably why I'm interested in them. May have been in a car with one.

"There were other murders in the area in Quebec that we felt were connected, Pearson said. "And that led us to a suspect ... who was in prison for a 1993 really, really brutal murder in Calgary of a young woman named Lailanie Silva," she said.


That suspect was Luc Gregoire. "My feeling is, had he been interrupted, arrested early in his offending career in Quebec, what happened in Calgary might never have happened to those young women. So I feel as much as anybody can feel confident in these things, that he is the killer."

Gregoire died in 2015 in a Quebec prison...

This is him, and I'm pretty close to certain that this was the man who gave my girlfriend and I a ride. And who we escaped from. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calg...te-calgary-cold-case-theresa-allore-1.5761324

 

[Kit]

Ted Bundy has been one of my favorite serial killers. Not that I like him, I just found it fascinating how someone can enjoy killing random women. How clever he was and charming and how he managed to get away with tons of murders. He only got caught a couple of times. The last one put him in the Florida state electric chair. I think he only confessed to many of murders he did to put off the execution date. Yeah he was going to die anyway so I don't think the state governor cared. Everyone was getting justice. I was 3 when he died. He would be 73 now of he were alive.

Ted Bundy had anti social personality disorder and NPD and what is interesting is, he had a normal childhood but he claims his problems came from when he found out at he 5 his mom was actually his grandmother and his sister was his mother. He was born out of wedlock and his "sister" was only 19 when he was born. Obviously she took over mothership and moved him out to Washington state and met a man named Bundy and married and changed her and Ted's name to his and they all had kids together.

While it may be true that a child can get traumatized when they find out their parent is not their actual parent, they do not turn into sociopaths and kill people.

He was just a sick person who got sexual pleasure out of killing women and he had a corpse fetish because he would have sex with their body after they were dead.

I do not believe serial killers are "normal" because normal people don't go out and kill people and those that do tend to get PTSD. I am referring to war veterans and those who worked as executioners. Sure when someone has ASPD, they do have some advantages to their disorder like they can join the army and won't get PTSD when they kill people. James Bond is speculated to have ASPD which would explain why he can kill without a problem and how he uses women to his sexual advantage. But he isn't a real character.

Also Ted Bundy caused the term "serial killer" to be coined in the 1980s. I had no idea it was a new term in my childhood, I only learned this in high school. Also another crazy thing, he looked a lot like my therapist I used to see in my late teens, especially when he was dead.