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Throughout history, there has been a big discussion on what the definition of a serial killer is. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines serial killing as “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone” (United States, Congress, et., al). The FBI has also stated that the motives can include, but are not specifically subject to, anger, thrill-seeking, financial gain, attention seeking, and sexual contact, which is most often the case. In 2005, the FBI hosted a multi-disciplinary symposium with 135 experts on serial murders from a variety of fields and specialties. The group settled on the definition as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s) in separate events” (United States, Congress, et., al) though this definition does not mention the motivation for killing or the “cooling off” period between each murder; which can be described as when “the killer returns to their regular life functions, goes home to the spouse and kids, resumes their job… they cool off before planning and executing their next crime” (“WITH SERIAL KILLERS, IT’S CALLED A COOLING OFF PERIOD”). Though there are different variations of serial killers, child predator serial killers follow the same definite interpretations and characterizations.
Today, serial killers have been less and less prominent, and mass shootings are being more and more notable and well-known to the public. Though this has not stopped serial killings to be a lifelong agenda, “serial killing is a universal, a practice that is ‘at least old as the human species’”(Haggerty, 169).The history of serial killings comes with major themes, the first of which serial killers are routinely presented as unknowable, with actions beyond comprehension. No matter how many studies are conducted or how many case studies are analyzed, serial killers will always be a mystery to the public eye. The second theme is about the definition, as mentioned in this essay earlier, that serial killers must have killed three or more people who were unknown to them and must be subject to a ‘cooling-off’ period. Finally, serial killers throughout history focuses on the overall causes of their behavior. “Almost every major social, biological, psychological or behavioral factor that has been seriously suggested as playing a role in causing crime has been advanced as potentially contributing to the behavior of serial killers”(Haggerty, 169). There is a direct response to neglect of vague social and cultural factors, specifically to understand serial killing. Overall, throughout history, there has not been a big shift of what the typical serial killer consists of, but there is a consistent theme of their actions and operations.
One major child predator serial killer is Pedro Lopez, who is known as the “Monster of the Andes” and has an estimate of three hundred victims (Greig). From a young age, Lopez was exposed to a life of crime and horrible street life, as his mother was a prostitute and there was a brutal lawlessness in Colombia. Though street life is just what Lopez was exposed to, especially at such a young age,“when Pedro was eight years old… his mother found him making sexual advances to a younger sister and threw him out” (Greig). Eventually, Lopez resorted to petty theft and begging to make a life of himself, and was eventually arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. After two days he was gang-raped. After his release, “he started to take a perverse form of revenge and embarked on a two-year killing rampage. His targets were invariably young girls, mostly from Indian tribes, as he knew the authorities would be particularly uninterested in their fate”(Greig). Lopez was eventually caught and confessed to at least a hundred murdered girls in Colombia, and at least a hundred and ten in Ecuador and even more in Peru. Lopez stated “a preference for murdering by daylight so he could see the life leave his victims’ eyes as he strangled them” (Greig). Lopez was later sentenced to life imprisonment and in the unlikely event that he is ever released, he would be required to stand trial in Colombia, where he would face the death penalty, and he does not appear to be in any way remorseful, but proud and content of his crimes.
Marybeth Tinning is known solely off the basis that she murdered her kids, and only got away with being charged with one homicide. Her third child, Jennifer, died of meningitis, and never came home after her birth. Many believe the successive death of her father, who died three months prior, and her baby may have irritated Marybeth’s fragile mental condition. One after another, all three of her children died within eight weeks of Jennifer’s death. Marybeth then gave birth to her fourth child and three weeks later, claimed she found him lifeless in his crib. Eventually Marybeth had her fifth child and at five months old, he died. Marybeth and her husband decided to adopt a child, when Marybeth got pregnant. She again lost the baby, and this went on for two more times, for a grand total of seven of her biological kids. Once her adoptive child suddenly died, the nurses began to question Marybeth’s odd behavior. During court she claimed “‘I did not do anything to Jennifer, Joseph, Barbara, Michael, Mary Frances, Jonathan…Just these three, Timothy, Nathan and Tami. I smothered them each with a pillow because I’m not a good mother’” (Gado). Eventually, Tinning was only charged for the murder of her youngest child, Tami Lynne. After her trial, Tinning received a sentence of 20 years to life, five years shorter than the maximum penalty for the crime. In 2018, she was released on parole, serving more than 31 years, and will remain on parole supervision for the rest of her life.
Peter Woodcock, also known as David Michael Krueger, was a Canadian serial killer, child rapist and diagnosed psychopath. He was put up for adoption, and had bonding issues with his foster parents and was beat by one foster parent. When Woodcock was 17 years old, he met seven year old Wayne Mallette and strangled him to death, there were no signs of rape but there were two bite marks on Mallette, one on his calf and the other on his butt. One month later, Woodcock strangled and beat nine year old Gary Morris to death, where a bite mark was found on his throat. Then in January of 1957, Woodcock offered four year old Carole Voyce a ride on his bike and eventually murdered her. It appeared she had been choked into unconsciousness and sexually molested and her death was caused by a tree branch being inserted into her vagina forcibly. While Woodcock was imprisoned, he was diagnosed as a psychopath. Eventually in 1991, Bruce Hamill signed Woodcock, now Krueger, out of the hospital for the first unsupervised weekend in 34 years. Krueger had arranged to meet Dennis Kerr in the woods , because he owed Kerr money, and Hamill and Krueger mutilated Kerr’s body, nearly severing his head. Krueger then turned himself in. Krueger spent the next 34 years in a mental health centre and died of natural causes on his birthday (Vronsky, 249-258).
Dean Corll, also known as “The Candy Man”, is an American serial killer who raped, abducted, tortured and murdered at least twenty eight teenage boys from 1970 and 1973. Corll had a rough childhood, as his father was strict and his mother was very protective, and both were in unstable relationships with each other. With Corll’s murders, all his victims were aged 13 to 20 and most were abducted from Houston Heights, a low income neighborhood. He was an accomplice with David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley Jr. Eventually, Henley shot Corll after having two teenage boys on a torture board. Therefore, Corll never got a legal and social consequence for his deviant activity (Keppel and Birnes).
Robert Black is the final child predator serial killer discussed in this essay, as he was convicted of the kidnap, rape, sexual assault and murder of four girls aged between five and eleven. Black had sexually assaulted and murdered Jennifer Cardy in 1981, a nine year old, who had ultimately drowned by ligature strangulation. Nearly a year later, after his cooling off period, Black had abducted Susan Maxwell, where she was held captive for half a month, then her body was found covered with undergrowth, with her underwear folded beneath her head, suggesting she had been sexually assaulted. Black’s youngest victim, Caroline Hogg was taken for at least 24 hours, and was later found with an absence of clothing, again suggesting a sexual motive. In 1994, Black pleaded not guilty to each of the overall ten charges of kidnap, murder, attempted kidnap and preventing the lawful burial of a body. Black was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 35 years (Swinne).
Today, there are numerous media outlets portraying serial killers, such as the Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes or Abducted in Plain Sight. Both of these Netflix series discuss serial killers and the perspective of hearing a killer analyze their own lives and their motives. Though, it is very hard to find scholarly pieces of literature because many newscasters and reporters are afraid to interview and dig deep into what makes a serial killer. But recently, there has been a large uproar in the media’s portrayal of serial killers. Specifically, because many people believe the Hollywood Film Industry is romanticizing serial killers, but that’s exactly what serial killers do; they romanticize killing to get what they want out of people. Besides the media, there is a big lack of scholarly pieces of literature, especially recently.
The best theory from class that can be applied to serial killers, specifically child predators is conflict theory. Conflict theory can be defined as a state of perpetual conflict, specifically for rivalry for limited and restricted materials. Conflict theory also has the perspective of social and economic institutions as ways of struggle between their classes, mainly used to preserve inequality and authority in the ruling class, who has the highest power (Quinney). Serial killers can be applied to Marx’s view on conflict theory, specifically the former definition, because when serial killers are in a society, there is a constant state of panic, especially because people do not want to lose their limited resources of family or their own lives.
Studies believe since the beginning of time, there has been serial killers continuously ruining lives and families. Since the early 2000s, there has been a decline in serial killers and a steady rise of a new type of killing, mass murders, such as school or church shootings. There is a big difference in these two forms of murder, as serial killings must have a cooling off period, where the killer goes back to their lives and must kill at least three people, but mass murders must kill in one function. There are numerous child predator serial killers, as mentioned previously, such as Lopez, the Monster of the Andes, Tinning, who killed her children, Woodcock, who was psychologically insane, and many others. Though all can be related back to Marx’s conflict theory; where people in society are constantly in a form of panic and there is inequality in the social classes, something serial killers must deal with, inequality, because when getting their sentence, they have no way of knowing what they did was incorrect. Especially since they way they were brought up was to think their killing was correct.
Works Cited
- Gado, Mark. “Baby Killer.” Crime Library, Crime Library, www.crimelibrary.com/notorious_murders/women/marybeth_tinning/index.html.
- Greig, Charlotte. Evil Serial Killers: In the Minds of Monsters. Arcturus Publishing, 2012, Google Books, books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=sRMEAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT23&dq=pedrolopezserialkiller&ots=Fy962lzQOP&sig=0HETM-VD96Amnasp9Fe12Ewj9Qo#v=onepage&q=pedro lopez &f=false.
- Haggerty , Kevin D. “Modern Serial Killers.” Crime Media Culture: SAGE Journals , 13 Aug. 2009, pp. 169–169., doi:10.1177/1741659009335714.
- “Peter Woodcock (David Michael Krueger)- Thirty-Five Years of Therapy.” Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, by Peter Vronsky, pp. 249–258.
- “Recognition and Acknowledgment of Serial Murder.” The Psychology of Serial Killer Investigations: The Grisly Business Unit, by Robert D Keppel and William J Birnes, pp. 8–11.
- Swinney, Chris (2015). Robert Black: the True Story of a Child Rapist and Serial Killer. R. J. Parker. ISBN 978-1-517-62415-6.
- United States, Congress, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and RJ Morton. “Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators.” Serial Murder: Multi-Disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators
- Quinney, Richard. “Social Power: Conflict Theory of Crime.” Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction, by Patricia A Adler and Peter Adler, pp. 51–59.
- “WITH SERIAL KILLERS, IT’S CALLED A COOLING OFF PERIOD.” Terrance Zdunich, www.terrancezdunich.com/control/with-serial-killers-its-called-a-cooling-off-period/
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