The Mind of a Serial Killer

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The Mind of a Serial Killer

Introduction

Throughout the history, we have seen many serial killers surfacing from time to time. Once they are caught by law for their crimes, we often learn about their versions of the heinous crimes they committed. One such case was of Dennis Rader, more commonly known as the BTK Killer. The term BTK derives from the way Rader used to kill his victims, which was to blind, torture and kill his victims. In total, he committed 10 murders from time to time. His killings began in 1970's and the last one is reported to be in 1991. Throughout this time he was successful in escaping from the authorities and it was only in 2005 that the police finally gathered enough evidence against him to detain him. We will here discuss the reasons behind what made him going on a killing spree and how the authorities finally managed to caught such a notorious serial killer after years of failure.

Discussion

According to Welch (2011), serial killing can be defined as killing at least three people separately. Studies show there are various factors playing a role behind a killer's motivation to kill his victims. These factors may include his physiological state, surrounding environment or some other external influences. One another important factor is that of the sexual fantasy which a murderer possess (Levin, 2007). Very often murderers are motivated to get aggressive and violent due to sexual frustrations they have. Though it can be not ascertained with utmost surety that BTK killer also had any sexual motivations behind his killings, but there are few evidences of that to be the case. Few of his victims were found semi-naked and out of the ten people he killed, eight of them were females. BTK killer started his killings in 1974 when he went on to kill four members of a same family. BTK killer strangled all of them. He took souvenirs from the crime scene, which later became his signatory way of killing. For almost all the other murders he committed later on, he almost always took some souvenirs with him from the crime scene. Researches show that serial killers often consider these souvenirs as accomplishments and seek pleasure from their presence (Hansen, 2006). From the evidence we have of BTK's actions, we can conclude BTK also wanted his murders to be recognized. His desire for fame was present for what he did. After his first murders in 1974, he sent a note to a public library in which he described his way of killings and his motivations behind them. This was before he murdered again in 1977. After his murders in 1977, he went on to describe his crime to the police himself via a phone call. He also wrote a poem after his 1977 murders and sent it to a local newspaper. These actions tell us that he did not just want to kill, but he also wanted to make ...