Causes of Serial Killers

Henry Lee Lucas was told by his mother at a very young age that he was evil and would probably spend the rest of his life in prison. Lucas was suspected, along with his partner Otis Toole, to have committed hundreds of vicious murders. His mother would torture him as a child. She would dress him as a girl, putting ribbons in his hair. He was malnourished, dirty, and smelly; he was an outcast to his peers. His mother would severely abuse him. In fact, she once beat him unconscious with a two-by-four. She forced him to drink urine, and burned him with cigarettes. It came to no surprise that his favorite sexual fantasies as a child were torturing his mother to death. He developed an inability to love. At an early age he would kill animals and have sex with their remains. He would even skin animals alive. At the age of fifteen Lucas had committed his first murder. His second murder was that of his mother. When Lucas killed, he became sexually aroused (Meadows, Kuehnel).
Lucas is a prime example of the stereotypical serial killer. Murders of serial killers account for nearly 10 percent of all murders in the United States. The United States alone accounts for nearly 75 percent of the world 's serial killers (Ramsland). "Serial killers differ from mass murders and spree killers in that the killings are separate, usually with a cooling-off period between kills, but escalating over a period of time, sometimes years" ( Meadows). They kill compulsively and they do not stop; instead they die, get hospitalized or get caught (Ramsland). However, what is it that causes serial killers, like Lucas, to become the way they are? What is it that drives these people to commit so many brutal murders? Is it a tough life at their homes? Do environmental factors play roles? Or are these people just born this way? This paper will discuss the some of the reasons why serial killers commit the crimes they do, briefly mention the different typologies of serial killers, as well as mention

Bibliography: 1) Keppel, Robert D., and William J. Birnes. Signature Killers. New York: First Pocket Books, 1997. 291-325. 2) Meadows, Robert J., and Julie Kuehnel. Evil Minds. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005. 63-76. 3) Ramsland, Katherine. The Forensic Science of C.S.I. New York: Berkley Group, 2001. 163-186.