My lovely serial killer thread :)

[coral]

I'm going to start this off by copying wholesale some posts I've been making in a serial killers group at another forum and pasting them in here. I have an unquenchable appetite for this horrible topic, and would be really pleased if anyone else here has stuff to add, as I am always eager to gain fresh knowledge and vewpoints.
I've read a great deal n the subject, but would like recommendations for reading material for maximum cross referrencing.
I'll make additions as they occur to me!

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Serial Killers-1-Albert Fish


Albert is one of my personal favourites. I usually find the German serial killers more interesting than the British or American, but this guy's a real oddball amongst oddballs! Some facts about Albert that I found fascinating: He had children of his own and he got them to beat him up for masochistic pleasure. It took him nine days to completely consume the body of Grace Budd. When he was x-rayed, he was found to have a variety of metal objects (pins, nails etc) sunk in to the groin region of his body. I don't know if they went in too far and got "lost", or whether he embedded them fully on purpose. The mind boggles!
Posted by Coral King - Editor TTMC at 16:13 0 comments Links to this post


Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Serial Killers-2-Nature V Nurture?
I think you're right there, if the soul could be translated as "conscience", or the ability to empathise with other people. The true psycopath does not have this ability, even non-psycopathic pattern offenders have less empathy and are able more easily to reason away the bit they do have to square things up with themselves.
I've been looking at the nurture verses nature issue lately, and whether psycopathy that leads to violent physical or sexual offenses has any real biological basis. I've not quite assimilated all the information yet, but there definitely seems to be more of a "nature" problem than a "nurture" one. Serial killers brains do usually have faults from birth, or lesions from other later traumas on the frontal lobes, the "conscience" area that helps people modify their natural instincts.
Obviously an abusive upbringing can bring out the worst in a child, or maybe surface later on in life, but the predisposition seems to already be there for these types, after all not all abused people go on to become abusive to others, physically or sexually, or even verbally.
One "nurture" factor that does seem to have a bearing is whether the person in question was properly bonded as an infant. Serial killers have a much higher incidence of maternal non-bonding than other types of offenders. Perhaps the infant had to spend a great deal of time in a hospital or other institution, or was seriously neglected company-wise in the home. Infants that don't make a specific bond with their main carers have a much more difficult time connecting on an every day levelwith others.
I'm not sure there can be one standard simple explanation for why a particular person becomes a serial killer, but there does appear to be a core of basic factors, the majority of which are biological, one or more of which are present in virtually every case of psycopathic pattern offense, particularly of a sexual type.
Does anyone have more information on the study of the damaged frontal lobes, I'd be really interested to hear it
Posted by Coral King - Editor TTMC at 16:21 0 comments Links to this post

[coral]

It boggles the brain doesn't it? But these types are often extremely plausible, they have the gift of the gab, but even so I don't think I'd let my daughter go off with somebody I'd only just met!
My personal theory is that offenders like that have to be really good at twisted reasoning and clever words in order to convince THEMSELVES that what they do is acceptable, as lacking guilt is a totally different matter from knowing the difference between right and wrong. This ability to convince is then really useful in other respects, and can keep them from being discovered for a long time.
Take Jeff Dahmer for instance. When the boy he had drugged and was attempting to harm escaped into the street, he managed to to be so believable that he convinced the POLICE to bring the boy back home for him, saying they were just having a domestic dispute. That's a grand irony if ever there was one


I think the film "Falling Down" is somewhat similar. There's been this debate for quite a while now, whether people are encouraged to commit crime because of reading or viewing material of a violent nature. The Greer book is illuminating, it would definitely encourage a misogynist to want revenge on modern, "liberated" females. I was once married to a man who refused to let me read a book on female equality as he didn't believe that I wouldn't be influenced by it, and that I was incapable of making my own mind up on the issue. And that from a "normal" person! So a person unbalanced enough to commit these killings would definitely have been thrown into a "rage" after reading it. (Needless to say I didn't remain married to somebody so restrictive for long!!!)

[coral]

Did you know that mediaeval murderess Elizabeth Bathory was first recognised and encouraged as a sadist by her husband?? He liked her to be firm with staff and get good results from them, and as he was away so much, he thought it would do her good to have a little hobby, having also recognised her lesbian tendencies. By all accounts it was a good marriage, although Elizabeth outlived him.
To a certain degree I think she DID believe that bathing in blood was a good anti-ageing remedy, but it was also rather convenient given her tastes!
She had a specialised room for torturing girls that her two servants "in the know" helped her to operate, and a male servant to procure said girls. She liked to tie them helpless and flay, beat, bite and generally hurt them until they died of exhaustion and blood loss, allegedly gaining a great deal of sexual pleasure from doing so. Sometimes she had more than one tied up to torture at once, I think seven at one sitting was the record, but don't quote me on that.
The parish priest knew for some time what was happening up at the castle, but continued to bury the bodies while wondering what to do about it. The servants disposed of a great many of the bodies too, apparently they had to be put in the woods after the moat became too congested to hold any more.
The crunch only came for Elizabeth when she discovered that torturing the innocent, gently reared daughters of the nobility and other emminent citizens added a certain piquancy to the proceedings. Parents began to wonder why so many girls died off when taken into service at castle Bathory. Unlike the peasants who had too many mouths to feed, were unlettered and in the habit of putting their children out anywhere to work, or even selling them, the upper classes wanted to know what was happening to their valuable marriage tokens, and enquiries were made.
Under pressure the servants gave up their information and they were executed for their parts. However Elizabeth was too important to be executed so she was "walled up" in her own castle. A room slightly larger than an oubliette with no opening other than a small hatch for food and water to be passed in was her home for the last four years of her life.
The anti-ageing remedies must have been very good for her, she was obviously quite robust to last that long under those circumstances.

[corpsecandle]

Oh wiw maybe you can help me Carol I am trying to get some info on a rather sick serial killer who I think came from Arazona.
He kidnapp girls with two other people where they would place them in an underground dungeon in the dessert and from there they would sexual torture the captured girls.

Apprently the guy was caught when one girl escaped and was found wandering the desert with a manicle around her neck.

Any idea who the hell that is?

[coral]

Yup, I know the story you mean, I'll have to look up the actual names of the people involved as I can't remember them off the top of my head, back soon with info.

[coral]

Sorry to take so long, this is the first opprtunity to get on the computer I've had today. Duff has been designing gardens at the BBC!!!!

The chap you're thinking of goes by the name of Harvey Glatman. he used to pretend to be taking girls off to the desert for the privacy to take glamour shots of them, but when they arrived he would tie them up first then abuse them, taking pictures at each stage of abuse. Then when he was done he'd leave them to die or kill them himself. He didn't kill very many girls, indeed he often took them out and didn't do anything at all, and as you pointed out one of them got away, so he wasn't an awfully effective serial killer.
Glatman was committing crimes in the fifties when a car and a camera and a spot of cash in the pocket would have been an indication of a good character and he was an intelligent chap, so probably had no problem seeming sincere. By all accounts he was very unattractive physically and didn't have a good time at school, which left him with a great deal of resentment. He found his victims by advertising in a lonely hearts column.
He was finally stopped in his tracks by one of his victims who managed to gain control of his gun, despite already being wounded!
He ended up in San Quentin's gas chamber in August 1959.

[Calenture]

I remembered a book I had (now given away) about an American couple who kept a girl in a hole under their caravan. They used her as a sex slave, and eventually even allowed her to do the shopping for them at the local supermarket. She kept coming back to them.

Eventually she did escape, and the couple don't really belong on this 'killers' thread.

But while I was Googling them I found this item, which really 'does' belong here (unless you've covered Armin Meiwes already):

Reading this stuff, you realise what a lamb that Mr Lector was...

Armin Meiwes

Willing victim was eaten while still alive

Self-confessed cannibal advertised online for a victim and a man showed up, ready to be mutilated and eaten before death

BERLIN - The advertisement on the Internet read: 'Seeking well-built man, 18-30 years old for slaughter.'

The man who answered it was killed and eaten by German computer expert Armin Meiwes, 42, described by his lawyer as a 'gentleman of the old school'.

Yesterday, Meiwes went on trial in a case of sexually inspired cannibalism so perplexing it could make legal history. He has confessed to the gruesome episode, and is charged with 'murder for sexual satisfaction'.

It is the first case of its kind in Germany. The problem is whether such consensual killing is really murder, as cannibalism is not a crime there. The trial began with the court hearing how horror films had fuelled his childhood fantasies of eating school friends, the BBC said.

Meiwes, a former soldier, actually received several replies to the Internet advertisement he placed two years ago. Some were hoaxes.

Another man broke off contact after Meiwes sent him photos of the specially-built killing room in his 44-room home, said a report in the Independent on Sunday.

Eventually, a well-paid Siemens microchip engineer, Bernd-Juergen Brandes, wrote back: 'I offer myself to you and will let you dine from my live body. Not butchery, dining!! Whoever REALLY wants to do it will need a REAL VICTIM!!'

He then took one day off from his job, bought a one-way train ticket and met Meiwes in his home town of Rotenburg in March 2001.

Meiwes claims that Brandes demanded to be mutilated and killed the same day, and even fasted so that his intestines were clear, according to an interview he gave to the German news magazine, Stern. Brandes took drugs to desensitise himself to the pain, and Meiwes got a kitchen knife, and turned on his video camera. Parts of the two-hour video are expected to be shown at the trial.

Meiwes first sliced off Brandes' penis, fried it, seasoned it with salt, pepper and garlic. Then he shared it with its former owner. Stern reported Meiwes saying the dish was 'tough and unpalatable'.

Meiwes' lawyer Harald Ermel said it took the victim nearly 10 hours to bleed to death and that he had urged Meiwes repeatedly to keep on cutting him. Meiwes cut up the body and stored parts in his freezer. 'He believes he ate about 20kg and there was about 10kg left over,' said Mr Ermel. 'He defrosted it little by little and ate it.'

Afterwards, Meiwes searched the Internet for more victims. The Independent said four more men answered. Meiwes wrapped each one in cellophane, and labelled each of their body parts like cold cuts.

But they were only interested in role-playing, not really being killed, so Meiwes let them go. He was arrested last December, after a tip-off from someone who had spotted another of his online ads. The prosecution will push for a life sentence on the grounds that Meiwes is too dangerous to ever be released. -- Reuters, AFP

[coral]

WOW!!!
That is totally amazing.
I do remember hearing something about this case, but hadn't actually got the details, so it makes absolutely fascinating reading.
I can only begin to imagine what must go in in these people's heads, both the perpetrator and the victim. I must look in to it more thoroughly to get a better grasp of it before I can really comment, but I think it's possible already to say that the internet can be quite a dangerous thing....

[corpsecandle]

Mar 5, 2009 23:06:34 GMT @coral said:

Sorry to take so long, this is the first opprtunity to get on the computer I've had today. Duff has been designing gardens at the BBC!!!!

The chap you're thinking of goes by the name of Harvey Glatman. he used to pretend to be taking girls off to the desert for the privacy to take glamour shots of them, but when they arrived he would tie them up first then abuse them, taking pictures at each stage of abuse. Then when he was done he'd leave them to die or kill them himself. He didn't kill very many girls, indeed he often took them out and didn't do anything at all, and as you pointed out one of them got away, so he wasn't an awfully effective serial killer.
Glatman was committing crimes in the fifties when a car and a camera and a spot of cash in the pocket would have been an indication of a good character and he was an intelligent chap, so probably had no problem seeming sincere. By all accounts he was very unattractive physically and didn't have a good time at school, which left him with a great deal of resentment. He found his victims by advertising in a lonely hearts column.
He was finally stopped in his tracks by one of his victims who managed to gain control of his gun, despite already being wounded!
He ended up in San Quentin's gas chamber in August 1959.

Thank you for the help...but.

The guy I mean was arrested in the mid-ninties and is regarded as one of Americas most sadistic killer due to the sexual/pshycoloigcal torture he administerd to his victims.

I don't really know any names which really isn't going to help you but I really don't have much more information on him.

Thank you however with giving it a go

[corpsecandle]

I shant hijack your thread any longer as I have FINALY found the person(s) namely David Parker RAY and Cindy HENDY.

This has been haunting me for a couple of years now as I first became aware of these two seriel killers on a crime programme on Channel Five the whole case shocked me and I think my brain locked the names out of my mind for safety.

Problem is I have a habit of having to know about stuff that shock,disturbs and worrys me...I guess that's the lot for us people.

[coral]

Oh poo, did I tell you about the wrong person? I'll look up the right one shortly.
You're not hijacking my thread dear, I'm enjoying the input

[coral]

Peter Kurten.



Peter Kurten - The Dusseldorf Vampire.

Peter stands out among the German serial killers and has a particular fascination for me. Unlike Fritz Harmann, there was no element of gain concurrent with the pleasure of his murderings. Nor was he extremely psycopathic like Grossman. In fact Peter killed purely for the thrill of it, in "cold blood", as it were, and in pretty much complete control of his faculties. He chose to kill. I think he justified his actions to himself as revenge on a society that had let him down, not showed him the proper respect. And indeed had punished him with prison sentences for his "lesser" crimes.
Germany between the wars was a fairly disorganised place, and was in a state of political and social flux, so it is partially possible to see why he got away with so many killings without being caught. Also he appeared on the surface to be quite normal. He married a lady with a resentful attitude similar to his own, possibly the one person in his life that he ever treated a a human being rather than an object to be subjugated to his will. He attended church regularly.
As the soubriquet suggests, there was a cannibalistic element to his murders. That usually suggests a killer who has tried everything and has reached the ultimate degredation. When the sexual appetite has become jaded enough to break this final and deep rooted taboo, it's generally a culmination of a lifetime's experimentation with all things "perverse", and after that, apart from becoming more abandoned in his actions, there was really nowhere left for Peter to go.
That, subconsciously, is when he became careless; the desire to be released from being driven by insatiable appetites making him vulnerable to errors of judgement that simply wouldn't have happened earlier on in his serial killings. Killers of this type have often to be "opportunist"" and grab their victims where they can, but to take one into his home, then allow her to leave unharmed, was definitely a sign that his reign of terror was becoming wearying to him. After all, being born in to a dysfunctional and abusive family, he had been practising sexual perversions since early childhood, starting with attempted rape and bestiality, and culminating in the first of his serial killings, the sexually motivated mutilation and murder of an eight year old girl.
His final intended victim kept her word not to say anything verbally, but a letter she wrote to a friend describing her experience was misdirected to a lady who was so shocked by the contents that she immediately reported it to the police. Thus the victim was contacted and asked by the police to show them where this person lived. She was able to remember his apartment in the Mettermanstrasse and took them straight there. That was the end of Peter Kurten's serial killings, based loosely in fantasy on the "Jack The Ripper" murders, for whom he had a great admiration.
Kurten was guillotined for his crimes in July 1931. His final wish was that he would hear his blood gushing out of his neck when his head was severed. Well, they do say that the sense of hearing is the last thing to go. That was his idea of the ultimate thrill.

[benedictjjones]

there was a more recent case of a bloke who kidnapped and drugged women. raping and torturing them in his weird sex room (a soundproofed trailer). he would play a tape to them talling them what they were in for... he killed a few but let most go as the drugs he used destroyed their memories - one managed to get loose and summon help then others came forward. there was a documentary about him on channel 4 or More 4 or some such.

[corpsecandle]

Yep this was the case I was thinking of and by Googling the right words I found the story I was looking for.

[benedictjjones]

the documentary was quite good and the tapes were down right scary