Countless factors can influence individuals to commit acts of crime such as murder. According to Morton and cook social factors hold the most influence especially when it comes to youthful offenders. Social factors include substance and alcohol abuse, disorganized and abusive families, minority background, poverty and violent communities with lack of support, and poor educational achievements. Many famous serial killers had bad childhoods and showed signs of psychopathic behaviors. Also, the McDonald triad also explains that children who wet their beds, committed acts of arson, and animal abuse was psychopathic and they would be more likely to kill (Simon,2015). Jeffery Dahmer, Son of Sam, BTK, and Ted Bundy in their youths tortured and killed animals and had vivid fantasies of murder. For this post, the factors that caused Edmund Kemper to kill will be examined. …show more content…
At a young age, he displayed sociopathic behaviors. He would play games called gas chamber and electric chair in which he would pretend to die. Furthermore, he would act out bizarre sexual rituals on his sisters’ dolls and had fantasies of murder. like many other serial killers, Edmund tortured and killed animals in a sick and sadistic way. For example, the second cat he killed he decapitated and held it upside down so he could bath in its blood. In addition, his mother suffered multiple personality disorder and let her rage out on Ed. She would humiliate and degraded Ed and force him to sleep in the basement because she was afraid that he would harm one of his sisters. In addition, he had no male figure in his life because his father abandoned him. Also, when he moved in with his grandparents he would be abused by his