Ms. Muesing
UWRT 1104
Today in the Tulsa World newspaper, here in Oklahoma, I, Caila Anzalone, am going to
discuss my opinion on the psychological standpoint of serial killers. It is believed to be true that
all serial killers are horrible, demonic, and the lowest life of a human. To do that to a human is
awful, and we all universally believe that. But what if there is more to this person?
I know we do not believe that once you murder someone, or three people to be
considered an actual serial killer, you are still a person. There is so much more to the heinous
crimes than what we actually consider. There is always much more to their story. Before I go into
details pertaining to the psychological dilemmas of serial killers, do not go out and get yourself
or children or spouse tested on these psychological issues. This is a general consensus on what
has happened to people, and now they are serial killers. There is study called Macdonald triad,
where someone who becomes a serial killer expresses these three things in their early childhood.
The first is extensive bed wetting, which is okay to wet the bed when you are very young. You
cannot help it. But after a certain age, which is around five, you should stop wetting the bed.
Serial killers who were studied had extended bed wetting years. The second in the triad is animal
killing. Through their studies, scientists figured out that a lot of young children killed animals for
enjoyment and later moved it people, for enjoyment. The last in the triad is pyromania. That is
psychological disorder of setting things on fire and enjoying burning things. Scientists found that
serial killers found their destructive tendencies stem from this particular disorder.
When you have a psychological disorder, like pyromania and kleptomania, you cannot
control your actions. It is similar to having anxiety or depression, you cannot just tell someone to
stop being sad or having panic attacks. You can give them help of course so they do not spiral out
Another fact that scientists have found was majority of serial killers had extensive head
injuries as children. You again, cannot blame them for that. What little kid really wants to slam
their head on something? Another fact is a majority of serial killers have had been molested, rape
or abused as young children, therefore they project their aggression onto others by killing. No
little kid wants to be abused, they want love and affection and when a parent displaces that love
onto their child and rapes or molests them, the child becomes confused. They do not know that
parental love is suppose to be intimate to an extent and that their mother or father have crossed
the line far too many times, to them that special time is normal. When they grow up, they
begin to counteract those feelings and that is why you hear of men killing women. That man was
more than likely molested by his mother and that projects his anger at women after.
Another debate is nature versus nurture. The nature part comes in when you look at how
their psychological build is made. When they have disorders which most comes from personality
disorders, they cannot help that at all because it has been passed down in their genes. With the
nature part of the problem, you have to look at the chemical portion and know that they do not
have the control over it, and they do not seek help for it. Abnormal, psychological disorders are
carried throughout genes and hits a lot of family members, there is never telling who will get
The other side of the debate is nurture. That is when outside factors reflect what you
become. When a child is seeing abuse, neglect, and brutality, they become those roles. You
cannot show a young kid a violent video and not expect them to become violent. There was a
study done by Albert Bandura called the Bobo Experiment. Within this experiment he had thirty-
six boys and thirty-six girls come into the lab and were there so the scientists could investigate
social behaviors. They were then shown aggressive or non-aggressive role models, or adults.
There was a bobo doll that the adults would either hit or comfort, when the adult was mean to the
doll, the children then become mean to the doll too. They were easily influenced by the adults
and imitated what they see. Serial killers are no different, they learn the same, they are
influenced the same, they imitate the same. Therefore, why do we view them as a different
species? They are humans just like us. I understand that they have murdered people, they have
committed a crime, they should go to jail but they should not be viewed as demonic creatures.
They should be viewed as humans who did something wrong out of instinct.
This article was not intended for you to consider serial killers moral, good people. This
was to show to that a serial killer could walk by you on the street and they are no different from
you or I. They just did something wrong. When serial killers or any killer is released from prison,
they get shunned from society and they furthermore, get neglected. They wanted love as
children, they wanted love throughout their lives and they even want love now but we still block
them out. Do not think you should go and let a serial killer live inside your home but do not go
and egg their house and draw attention to their stress. Just let them live out the rest of their lives
in peace, you know they have plenty of demons from the government, neighbors, and their own
heads. Why add more stress to them? Treat others how you want to be treated, no matter what