Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy and much more infamous serial killers including female serial killers (because yes they do exist) didn't grow in the same circumstances yet they ended up following the same path. So how did that happen?

Watching documentaries and interviews with these serial killers will make you question your own neighbors being the serial killers and that's not even a joke. Because these monsters, regardless of what they were able to do, they look normal they talk in a very human way; not only that they actually have a certain charisma that makes you want to deny that they did such things. Also that's just normal because we want to believe that we can avoid them just by being careful or paying more attention which is not the case.

Ted Bundy's victims were mostly young women and when they disappeared the investigators asked their friends and colleagues. Most of these victims were careful enough and would never leave without telling people or trust strangers, etc.

Yet he could kill more than 30 young females even though he looked normal and had a psychology degree and was studying law in that exact time.

Even in the court people stood by his side and thought he was innocent because he just didn't look like a serial killer. But do we even know how do serial killers look like ?

The answer to this question is no and a million no, you can never tell. They  might be professors, doctors, politicians etc. and not a hidden monster that we could avoid. Serial killers have a double life where they can have a loving family and be a good father but do these horrible things too and you wouldn't even notice because they have a very high IQ level. They can trick people easily and the hardest thing is to catch them because they are meticulous about their 'killing hobby' so they know how to keep it hidden very well.

Let's get back to the first question "are they born that way or the circumstances and the way they were raised was the catalyst that led them to become like that ?".

This is a rough question, scientists, psychologists tried to answer it throughout the years and what they found is absolutely fascinating.

Again every serial killer is different which made it harder to find an answer and generalize it. Some of them really suffered as children from abuse which led to a defect in their personality yet some had a very normal childhood with loving parents but they turned out to be serial killers. Which led the scientists to think maybe it's something genetic, related to the brain and so one, so they ran doing researches trying to find what can cause this huge problem so at least maybe we can avoid it later.

Before scientists linked three factors in the human childhood that may be the first remarks that this person is going to grow to be a serial killer first one is bed-wetting, second one is killing animals, and third one is setting fires.

But with time this wasn't valid anymore so they had to search more and they found that serial killers can actually have two types of brain defects: first is in the area specialized in the compartment and these are the violent type who are easily found because if someone made them mad they may hurt them even if it's a family member. The second defect is in the amygdala which is the place that controls emotions, including regret and empathy and this type won't be found easily and their crimes involve other people that they don't really know and they would kill and feel nothing no empathy for that person, no regret after doing that, and they would do it over and over again because if they start they would never stop, bloodthirstiness got them, and they never get satisfied so they will try  to improve maybe that will satisfy them or may even try some weird things such as raping the victim or sex with the corpses (necrophilia which is a sexual attraction towards or a sexual act involving corpses. It is classified as a paraphilia by the World Health Organization), or even Cannibalism (the practice of eating the flesh of one's own species) like in Jeffery Dahmer's case, he ate his victims flesh.

Also they tend to want to keep things from their victims so they remember the experience, maybe a necklace, underwears and so on, in Jeffery Dahmer he said that he took the head of one of his victims to his work's place just because he felt the urge to do so. Also one of the most important factors is pornography addiction especially on some weird kinds which motivates the rape and the violence against the victims, in ted bundy's case he said even though he had a normal childhood with loving parents he could get to watch porn which mostly affected him and pushed him to try that.

So to summarize, serial killers are not insane because they know what they are doing is wrong but still do it anyways. they can be born that way due to a brain defect or maybe they have been raised in some circumstances that forced that on them but mostly the combination of both.

Nowadays we have more access to the prints data, technology has evolved and we can fight against this kind of evil in a faster way.

stay safe and don't trust strangers no matter how good looking they are.

resources:

▪️ inside the criminal mind documentary : https://www.netflix.com/title/80185065?s=a&trkid=13747225&t=cp

▪️ the ted bundy tapes documentary :

https://www.netflix.com/title/80226612?s=a&trkid=13747225&t=cp

▪️jeffery dahmer's interview : https://youtu.be/iWjYsxaBjBI.

Editor's Note: This author studies Psychology and made her own analysis based on watching Netflix documentaries. Regardless, mostly a interesting perspective but I disagree with the summarization:

"So to summarize, serial killers are not insane because they know what they are doing is wrong but still do it anyways. " - Douaa

I believe they are insane because of this human behavior, doing wrong things because they know what they are doing is wrong, but do it anyways. That is as close at it comes to insanity. - John