Clifford Olson was arguably Canada’s first and most notorious serial killer. During his reign, he committed many different crimes, including rape, theft, and murder. He was responsible for the murder of eleven young individuals, which caused pain and grief to their friends and families. Psychopathy is a mental condition found in many serial killers and was the reason that Clifford Olson committed his many heinous murders. A look into Olson’s background and his conduct after committing the murders will provide more than enough evidence to show the clear signs of psychopathy that he displayed. Olson grew up in a relatively normal household, with two parents who had regular, middle-class lives (Mulgrew, 2011). There was no sign of abuse from …show more content…
Looking back at Olson from his youth, he had clear signs of psychopathy throughout his life. Ever since his youth, Olson was a thief and a bully, who loved to torment individuals (Mulgrew, 2011). He would often lie and try to manipulate others for his gain (Mulgrew, 2011). This behaviour of constant aggression, and lying to others for no reason, from an early age are the symptoms that Ceckley decided were a good fit to describe a psychopath in their early life (Harris et al., 2001). Oftentimes, juvenile psychopaths will act the same as themselves when they become adults (Lynam & Gudonis, 2004). Clifford Olson would already be tormenting individuals and animals at such a young age, and that progressed to be even more violent during adulthood (Martin, 2011). Another characteristic of a psychopath would someone who is very narcissistic and sees themselves as being above everyone else (DeLisi, 2009). When Olson was in jail, he would often give information to police in exchange for things like media appearances, because he wanted his name to be plastered everywhere and for everyone to know who he was (Martin, 2011). He also suggested that they make university courses that study him, just because he wanted to constantly be the centre of attention, which shows just how truly narcissistic he was (Martin, 2011). As previously mentioned, Olson often committed heinous acts against the individual before he murdered them (Mulgrew, 2011). In some cases, he would sexually assault the individuals, including necrophilia, and in others, he would perform certain experiments on their bodies that ended up killing them (Mulgrew, 2011). He had a clear lack of regard for human life and showed no empathy for any of the victims or their families after murdering them in such a brutal manner (Mulgrew, 2011). Even in how he selected his targets, he was a very charming but also a manipulative individual who
Doctors have determined that Eric and Dylan are psychopaths. Cullen describes what a psychopath is the words of professionals. He does this by proving, “’Psychopaths are capable of behavior that normal people find not only horrific but baffling ‘wrote Dr. Robert Hare, the leading authority on psychopaths. ‘They can torture and mutilate their victims with about the same sense of concern that we feel when we carve a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner” (Cullen 239).
In the 1980’s a victim was linked to a string of murderers in the 1980’s. Lonnie Franklin is mostly known for being a serial killer, the Grim Sleeper. Throughout this documentary deviance is shown, one afternoon a man who worked for Lonnie who thought he was an insurance man received a car from Lonnie and he found splattered blood in the seats. Lonnie told his insurance man to set the car on fire and the man did so because nobody expected Lonnie to do anything that would cause harm and they never told him no. The environment Lonnie lived in influenced him, he lived in a very poor section of town, not many jobs, and bad schools.
but also there were many cases where he was emotionally abused. Although he barely interacted with his classmates at school, he had made one best friend who later died when Hanssen was in sixth grade. Despite his anti-social behavior, Hanssen was also considered a risk taker, as he was impulsive and unpredictable (Sanford & Arrigo, 2007). Unlike the stereotypical deviant, Hanssen was a higher than average student and attended college and university. Many of Hanssen’s actions were based on father whether it was to please him by achieving high grades in school or to outrank him in law enforcement.
“Psychopaths appear charming, likable, but it’s an act. They are coldhearted manipulators who will do anything for their gain” (Cullen 200). Eric was incredibly smart when it came to reading people. He used this to get away with whatever he wanted. “Psychopaths attempt to, and often succeed, in manipulating mental health professionals” (Cullen 275).
He was very much into pornography showing women being tortured. It was documented that for years with the help of his daughter and another friend he had been kidnapping and torturing victims. He would torture women for days while sexually assaulting them, buring them with cattle prods and using homemade sexual torture devices. The way he calculated what he was doing, taking his time to hurt his victims over a period of a few days clearly showed that Ray was psychopathic. He was a man who desperately needed to act on his violent sexual fantasises that he recruited people he knew could help him get victims and had his recruits help him with his acts.
Saying Drew Peterson was a disturbed man is a understatement, Drew was an abusive man, he abused every woman in his life. Either verbal or physical abuse, Peterson was never diagnosed with any psychiatric disorders. It was believed throughout his childhood and the environment he was raised in brought him to be the person he is today. When Peterson was a young boy he watched his father abuse his mother time after time, Peterson seems to be just like his father, his father Donald Peterson was known to have O.C.D, if the slightest thing was different or out of place Donald would lose control and take it out on Betty. After years of abuse Peterson's mother had finally left leaving Peterson to hate every woman in his life.
He sexually assaulted, tortured, and killed his young victims. Before diving deeper into why this killer clown committed such horrific crimes, it's important to discuss his upbringing.
Psychopathy meant an individual was socially a predator who used his charm to manipulate people and live life according to their desires, harming others and never feeling remorse. Since these traits best describe Bundy, who lacked conscience and violated all laws and regulations of the community without regret, he was a psychopath. Notably, Ted Bundy's actions were coercive and unwanted, constituting sexual violence. As an individual with antisocial personality disorder, Bundy got satisfaction each time he raped and killed his victims. With Cleckley's analysis, Widiger considers Bundy to have sadism, which best describes his sexual violence behaviour.
Earle Nelson was one of the less well known serial killers in comparison to Jeffrey Dahmer or Jack the Ripper. Yet his crimes were still horrific. Earle Nelson wasn't always insane though, His killing spree was due to the traumatic brain injury he sustained as a child. After the accident which featured him being hit by a car while biking, he was never the same. His mind was forever altered leading to an unfortunate change of character.
A lack of empathy for others, routine lying or deceit, and disdain for other people's rights are characteristics of antisocial personality disorder. It is crucial to understand that receiving a diagnosis in no way excuses or justifies engaging in dangerous or illegal activity. Based on his life history and behaviors, it is believed that Charles Manson satisfied the diagnostic criteria for Antisocial Personality
He called himself the BTK killer because he bound, tortured, and killed his victims. A person might think, what could this man have gone through that could have made him so aggressive and evil? Nothing. He had no childhood trauma or mental conditions, nothing was physically wrong with
Robbing grave, stealing body parts and murdering women. His ten year crime spree and heinous acts earned him the title of prolific. So much so that many horror movie villains were based on
Bundy is believed to have killed his first victim at age twenty-two which is over the age of eighteen. When Bundy was three years old, he snuck into his teenaged aunt’s room and put butcher knives under the covers and remained standing there, grinning (The Biography of Ted Bundy by A&E 2007). In the book “The Need to Kill” written by Dr. Steven Egger, Dr. Van Austin discussed the final report on Ted Bundy in which he found Bundy not to be suffering from schizophrenia or psychotic (2003). Bundy underwent several psychological tests and he was found to be intact psychologically.
I would not consider him a psychopath though. He clearly has emotion throughout the interview we saw. He would laugh from time to time when telling his stories and he also has a wife and kids. I would view him as a sociopath. Kuklinski stated that he killed over 100 people and he didn’t seem to care one bit.
He was considered a serial killer because he murder his victim one after another in a short amount of time. He targeted mostly college campuses across Washington, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, Florida, Idaho states in America. College Campus was his main target because it is where he would use his cunning trait to lure the majority of his victims. He would lured his prey by pretending to be disabled, wearing a fake cast on his arm, and pretending to need help with carrying his books to his car or pretending to be an authority figure looking out for their well-beings. Once, he handcuffs them in the car, he would go to an isolated surrounding where he would either rape ,torture, and kills his victims for his own self-gratification( Ted Bundy, n.d).