Sociopaths In Serial Killers

We all have, in one point in our life, heard about serial killers and their violent crimes. One might have referred to them as “psychos” or sick human beings, however, that is not usually the case. Most serial killers, depending on the nature, severity, and motive of the crime, are either psychopaths or sociopaths. But first, one must know what a sociopath and a psychopath is, to understand the behavior of serial killers and the nature of their crimes.

Antisocial Personality Disorder is “a personality disorder in which a person (usually a man) exhibits a lack of conscience for wrongdoing, even toward friends and family members;” of which defines sociopathy and psychopathy (Fineburg, etc. 699). Sociopathy and psychopathy fall under Antisocial

In other words, sociopaths are capable, at least a small amount, of feelings; like guilt, concern about others, and, because they have a sense of morality and a sense of right and wrong, sociopaths “have beliefs about the social world” (Pemment 2). Meaning that sociopaths are not cold blooded killers, on the contrary they have, in their eyes, justifiable motives for killing. For example; a Norwegian gunman, Anders Breivik, killed 77 people in a summer camp on the island of Utoeya in 2011, as an effort to reform national socialism in to his very own version of it, of which he wrote an 1,801-page book about. And, according to Dr. J. Pemment, “[Breivik] saw his place in the world as a crusader and a martyr for his cause, and consequently his act were necessary” (Pemment 3). Ultimately, sociopathic killers do not kill others for the simple pleasure of doing so, instead they do it for a “righteous cause”, just like Anders Breivik did, making him a sociopath. Considering that sociopaths kill with a cause, their crimes have the tendency to be planned, less violent and/or morbid, compared to those of

The core traits for psychopathy are “callousness, lack of empathy, and lack of guilt,” (De Brito and Hodgins 4). Unlike sociopaths, psychopaths have no sense of morality, and appear “affectively blind and do not have an in depth understanding of emotions…[suggesting] that psychopaths are genuinely unable to appreciate their own body sensations” (Pemment 2). This emotional impairment that psychopaths have are what makes the most dangerous and violent of the two; as most psychopaths, do not suffer from guilt and concern about the feeling and safety of others, and due to this lack of concern for others, psychopaths will not hesitate to harm or manipulate others. A psychopath’s emotional range amounts up to be very little, being mainly impulsive rage towards others. An example of such a horrifying person is Henry Lee Lucas. Henry Lee Lucas was an American serial killer during 1950-1980s amounting up to the murders 360 women, men, and children, of which he had brutally beaten, suffocated, stabbed and tortured. Lucas claims that he killed his first victim at the young age of 13, of which he never felt remorse of doing so (Fineburg, etc. 699). Lucas had no real motive as to why he killed, for he experienced brief joy in the action alone, and most of his victims were picked at random, making Lucas a