Serial Killers: Nurture Vs. Nature

Serial Killers: Nurture vs. Nature

Family members are clueless about a possibility that one of their loved ones could be a serial killer. A young girl in Wisconsin had no idea about her father being a serial killer until she put the puzzle together years later. The family moved every six months with no reason and with a limited time to pack. There was a murder at every place they moved from. After the young girl was around the age of forty she told the police that she believes her father was a serial killer. A serial killer can change their environment and continue their actions they have chosen. Serial killers are born to cause violence and are not created by society.

Most people hear the words ‘serial killer’ and think of someone who kills

Serial killers have different characteristics describing their way of murder. A power junkie, manipulator, egotistical bragger, superficial charmer, and an average joe are characteristics of a serial killer. A power junkie wants to take control over their victims (Woollaston 1). The victims are easily hypnotized by their killer and can not understand what they might be doing. Another serial killer is the manipulator who makes their victims do what they want them to do (Wollaston 2). The people taken by these serial killers can not find a way out of the killers demands. As important as the others, the egotistical bragger likes to brag about the actions they have done (Woollaston 2). The bragger can get arrested easily due to their constant bragging. The bragger is the type of serial killer that wants to be caught, which is why they constantly brag about their crimes. Another type of serial killer is the superficial charmer who love to use their looks and soft words to obtain the victim’s empathy and make them fall in love (Woollaston 3). The last characteristic of a serial killer is the hardest one to spot. The average joe is a normal, everyday citizen (Woollaston 4). Many people do not realize that a serial killer could be living right next to them. A serial killer does not have to stand out in the crowd. These

The connection loss can cause many problems for the serial killer’s thought process. A person’s negative emotions are censored by the prefrontal cortex which is then controlled by the amygdala. The amygdala responds to the emotion that is needed after the impulse reaches the prefrontal cortex. When the connection of the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex is low, the body has trouble processing negative emotions (Brogaard 2). The lack of negative emotions can make the serial killer lose the recognition of when they or someone around them needs empathy, is embarrassed or is hurt by others’ actions. Most brains have strong connections between one nerve to the next. The connection of a serial killer’s brain is poor. In spite of all the research completed at the University of Wisconsin, other brain studies were done by different organizations. BBC News reports that Professor Adrian Raine found a decreased amount of activity in the prefrontal cortex and too much activity from the amygdala (BBC 1). Positron-emission Tomography (PET scans) were done to compare serial killers and normal, controlled subjects. Studies showed that there are many different things that happen after the prefrontal cortex is damaged at different conceptual levels (Raine 67). Due to the reduced prefrontal functioning, results show a lack of control