My Serial Killer Theory :)

[Ausgirl]

Another thing worth mentioning, is that in these cases, where siblings are present in the parental home, it is only the killer alone who is the target of the majority of 'domineering' parental behaviour.

Why weren't ALL the kids subject to this apparently causative emotional and physical abuse? Because, I believe, the killer's siblings were not scaring and/or embarrassing the crap out of their parents.

It seems likely to me, after looking extensively into the available information on their early home lives, that the relatively better treatment of siblings goes toward proving my theory.

Also to be taken into account is that the majority of these men are highly sociopathic and are habitual liars, who'll say anything to minimise responsibility for their crimes. Most comment bitterly on the cruelty they suffered at the hands of their parents, or at least talk about an oppressive environment, to the point where the vast majority of research is suggestive of parental domination as a cause.

I call shenanigans. Of course they'd complain bitterly - their parents *were* restrictive and hostile. But I think these parents were so because they didn't know how to, or just didn't want to, deal with a killer-in-the-making.

Ed Kemper, whose mother famously locked her HUGE teenaged son in the basement at night because she thought he'd rape his sisters, is often viewed as the 'natural' product of a single-parent, abusive home.

His mother is cited as a shrewish, abusive drunk. So of course she's partly to blame, right? Problem is, most of that information comes from Kemper himself.

Peter Dupas was "coddled" by his mother, say the police over and again. She was "overprotective", it's said, with the clear implication this is again somehow causitive.

Dennis Ferguson, like Dupas, was NOT from the "classic" single-parent-abuse-and-deprivation background. He had two parents, very middle class Aussie folk. He too was an 'early developer' for sick behaviours. Like Kemper's mother, like Dupas' parents, the Fergusons are said to be "domineering" and "controlling". Like Kemper's mother, they didn't treat all their kids the same way - just the one who was mutilating neighbourhood cats and the like.

Dahmer is a slightly different case, I'll discuss him later in detail.. but again, he breaks the single-parent-abuse-and-deprivation mold.

All of these men committed unspeakably violent acts in their mid-teens -- and had been exhibiting disturbingly violent and sexually aberrant behaviors for years before they did so.

So why isn't it assumed that the parents were ineffectively attempting to control their already imbalanced sons (while by and large also approaching the issue from a perspective of denial)?

Research into sociopathy and psychopathy, serial killers and their minds, has come a long way since these men were killing. But almost every text on these four men STILL states, or hints, that the parents made their kid into a killer.

What if they didn't?

[Rosella]

Dear Ausgirl. What is the criteria here for severe emotional abuse? I do think Kemper's mother, perhaps because of her own mental condition, was abusive to her son, contemptuous towards him, even as an adult, and belittled him. He was obviously a deeply troubled child, exhibiting various behaviours which would be red flags to any parent today, and I aren't saying that she was the reason behind his childhood behaviour. Nevertheless, her attitude towards Kemper may well have exacerbated some of it.

[Ausgirl]

Hi, I wasn't sure where to post this, I hope here's okay. It kinda-sorta pertains to JtR, in that its focus is specifically on mutilators.

I have this here theory.. pertaining to a specific set of serial killers who share a certain set of similarities. Here's the criteria:

-- Mutilated victims, entirely or mostly postmortem
-- No severe abuse or deprivation in parental home
-- Aberrant sexual behaviours/violent crimes in youth
-- Severely bullied by peers in youth
-- Lived outwardly normal lives during murder period
-- Had at least one "domineering" parent, posited as a contributing factor to behaviour.

Here's my list of subjects (please feel free to suggest others, if they fit):

-- Edmund Kemper
-- Dennis Ferguson
-- Peter Dupas
-- Jeffrey Dahmer

and, as a comparison for home environments with verified abuse/deprivation

-- Ed Gein

My theory is this:

The "domineering parent" appears over and again in cases of serial killings, where the killer also mutilates his victims. In several of these cases, parental "domineering' is pretty much universally cited or suggested to be causative of the killer's compulsion to kill and mutilate.

I believe that this ain't necessarily so.

In the cases of all of the main 4 killers I've found who fit all of the criteria, the "domineering" or "overbearing" parent/s could have been reacting to the aberrant behaviours of their child, rather than their "domination" of the child being a primary cause of the aberrant behaviour.

This is not to say that the "domineering" behaviour did not exacerbate the fledgling killer's desire to kill and mutilate. Just that it may not be a primary cause, but rather the parents' (ineffective) method of dealing with a child who is already exhibiting violent and disturbing tendencies.

I also suggest that peer bullying is more likely to have contributed to later violence than the actions of the parents.

If you're interested in reading an exceedingly rambly precursor to this thread, here's a link: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sho...ken-or-the-egg

Otherwise, I'll here try to at once elaborate and ramble a good deal less.

Next post: particulars.