Becoming Evil: Serial Killers

Prior to the true crime explosion, psychologists, and criminal investigators thought they had the serial killer figured out. But it turns out the answers are much more complex and troubling. Even the profile of the typical serial killer has changed dramatically. It is a change in the profile of who serial killers are and why they kill. It is a change that will send chills up your spine.

American culture and its urban settings, streets of prostitution, homeless and lost people, will continue providing the victim pool for serial killers.

At the turn of the 20th century America was on the move. It was changing from a country of farmers and small towns into a nation of growing urban centers. First railroads, then cars made it possible for people to crisscross the nation. Immigrants poured in from across Europe. Many argue that this transformation turned the country into an industrial powerhouse and later enabled it to become the global leader it is today. But it also created the perfect killing fields for serial murderers. Killing fields because nobody knew who their neighbors were any more. Killing fields because pockets of poverty exploded with people who were lost to mainstream America. And killing fields because serial killers could move from one law enforcement jurisdiction to another and nobody would realize they had a heinous murderer in their midst.

After surviving the Great Depression and World War II, America entered an idyllic age, The Atomic Age, where wholesome values and classic Americana were king. Dads could work in a factory and afford to send his kids to college. Moms could stay at home. And families could afford homes in newly emerging suburbia. Life was home baked chocolate chip cookies. Simple and good. However, 50s America was also a time of heinous crimes. The emerging media of television shined its light on all sorts of cruel and inhuman acts - warfare, riots, segregation, and a new awareness psychopathic, serial killers.

There was a golden age of female serial killers in the U.S. and Europe. Female serial killers that targeted their children, husbands, and other family members. This was a time when women were becoming educated but had very little control over their lives. As a result they had very little recourse or legal remedies if they found themselves in a bad marriage or untenable domestic situation, a solution was to 'free themselves' by poisoning their husbands, or anyone controlling their lives and even killing their children.

There's been a long-held belief in the public that serial killing is largely an American phenomenon. That America, with its large faceless urban centers, street prostitution, poor and neglected inner cities, drug problems, and homelessness, is not only a unique breeding ground for murdering psychopaths but has created a ready-made victim pool for serial killers. Now we know serial killing has no boundaries.

21st-century America is a technological wonder: cell phones, internet, 24 hour news media, DNA breakthroughs, people on the move, amd expanding urban centers. But many of the old problems remain: drug addiction, homelessness, prostitution, poverty, gangs, murder, and serial killing. Starting in the 1990s serial killing in America has transitioned and adapted to the changing world, while at the same time in many ways staying the same. What has changed: There is new forensic technology particularly DNA analysis, better cooperation between law-enforcement jurisdictions, increasing awareness and fascination in the media and on the Internet with the serial killer. Most importantly there are new psychological understandings of the serial killer.