May 25, 2010 • 44 mins
Serial killers are notorious for their grisly crimes and disturbing behavior, but what makes a serial killer a serial killer? Josh and Chuck discuss the history, psychology and methodology of serial killing and serial killers in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. Actually I should probably try Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. This is about serial killers, right, Yeah.
(00:24):
I actually I'm glad you brought that up because I
wanted to mention that we have a lot of fun
in the show and we joke around, and we will
probably do that in the serial Killer podcast. Will and
I find them fascinating, but we always remember that there
are real victims here and we don't want them to
fly to that or anything. Yeah. No, but the serial
killers are so grizzly and their acts are so monstrous
(00:46):
that it almost is easy to just detach and be like, hey,
what's your favorite serial killer? They actually have serial killer
training cards. Huh. Yeah, but we don't play that game. No,
we don't. We play Old Maid. So I'm Josh Clark.
The guy you just heard talking, uh is Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. If this is your first time to Stuff
(01:06):
you Should Know, Um, there is a goodie bag that
we have for you, if you'll check under your seat
should be taped under there. Send us an email and
we'll try to see what we can come up with
as a replacement. Probably just a response saying sorry. You
know what they get. They get two hundred and fifteen
free podcasts. Oh that's a good deal automatically, that is nice,
(01:29):
chuck Um. So what are we talking about today? Serial killers? Oh? Yeah,
that's right, Chuck. Here's the intro. Yeah. If you can't tell,
I'm a little twitchy, a little jumpy. You may even
hear a little bit of gum in my mouth that
I probably should take out being a professional podcast vehemently,
(01:51):
he just spit out his gum. Okay, so my gum
is out. But the reason I'm doing this and acting
all twitchy is because I have quit smoking for the
first time in twenty years. I'm actually doing it. I've
tried a couple of times, but we all know that
it was half hearted at best. But I'm actually quitting smoking.
(02:11):
Very proud of you, buddy. Thank you. Like I told
you in the email you didn't reply to if that's
very brave and terrifying thing you're doing. You have all
my support, Thank you very much. I want to keep
you around, and by proxy, I imagine I have Jerry's
support too. Yeah she can't said, yeah, So if I
do seem a little weird, it is because of that
(02:31):
today and I apologize. What's you're flying in japandam Mar,
So it's just all you're all weird right now, dah,
I am perfect time to do serial killers? Okay, so
let's talk serial killers, Chuck, Chuck, Where in the name
of God did the term serial killers come from? And
the middle of what decade did it come from? Coming
It was coin Josh in the mid seventies by Robert Wrestler,
(02:54):
and he was a former FBI director of the Violent
Criminal Apprehensions Program, which imagine as a pretty fun laugh
a minute job. And uh he apparently he chose cereal
because the English police called those kinds of crimes crimes
in a series, right and we uh we find in
the article written by Shanna Freeman pretty good one too,
(03:17):
like um that he was also a fan of serials
that like you would watch like at the movies, like
The Lone Ranger or something like that. So I thought
it was a little weird, Like I love The Lone Ranger.
So I'm gonna give a little shout out to him
by coining this term. Yeah, they used to call them
mass murders before that, or my favorite, it sounds like
a personal's ad stranger on stranger crime. I like that,
(03:39):
but it is true. I mean it is stranger crime
and kind of uh underlines one of the I guess
the riveting and and um most characteristic aspects of serial
killers is that they they lack what would appear to
any of the rest of us a motive. They're not
killing for money. Um, they're not killing for um, you know,
(04:02):
to get rid of a problem or because they're they've
been they're a jilted lover. The the key hallmark of
the serial killers that they kill for the pleasure of killing,
for the sake of killing, and their subcategories will get
into within that. But yeah, totally right on the money there.
And there's a couple of other kinds of murderers that
um people often confuse serial killers with. So let's just
(04:23):
clear the air right now. Let's start with mass murderers, right,
what do you have to do to become a mass murderer? Uh,
you have to kill four or more people at the
same time or roughly the same time in the same place.
So like a school shooter would be a mass murderer,
right right, right, And then of course you've got these
(04:44):
free killers. Uh. Those are like office shooters who go
from an from their house, say, after killing their family,
and then they're like, I got one more problem place
I want to take care of. They go to the office,
shoot that place up, kill some more people, and then
drive off to a gas station and blow their heads
off in in the in the van. Yeah. Yes. And
a serial killer, officially defined by the FBI, means you
(05:08):
it has to be three or more victims. And like
you said, the hallmark is there's got to be a
cooling off period in between. So like I killed somebody
and then like in Jeffrey Dahmer's case, I think he
waited years and years before he killed his second victim,
and then another long period because he was like eighteen
and when he started and yeah, yeah, something like that,
(05:28):
and then he waited and I think, and this is
all from memories, not in the article, and then um,
I think he waited a long time between second and
third and then they you know, as usual, it starts
picking up in succession, that kind of off the cliff
they go the further off the cliff they go, and
boy did he go off the cliff. We're gonna talk
about some famous serial killers later, right, Okay, we gotta
we gotta mention him. Um. As a matter of fact,
I think we would be professionally irresponsible if we didn't
(05:51):
mention Jeffrey Dahmer in depth. I think you're right, Um, Chuck.
There's uh. I think been approximately four hundred serial killer
in the US in the past century by estimates, right, Um.
And strangely, there's been a I think it an increase
of some vast percentage, but eighty percent of those have
(06:15):
come about since nineteen and they actually think the earliest
when the most widely cited first serial killer in the
US was a guy named H. H. Holmes. Yeah, he
had the Holmes Murder Castle in Chicago at the World's Fair.
He built this hotel basically and it was literally like
you check in, but you don't check out type of situation. Yeah.
(06:36):
And remember on the Urban Planning podcast we talked about
the the the guy who came up with the the
City Beautiful movement, and that's where he debuted. It was
at that at that World's Fair, right while people were
getting off at a at a hotel nearby, so he's
the first one. They say, I think, uh, twenty seven confessions.
(06:57):
But they as always almost with all these grogler killers,
they say, well they tagged this many, but there may
have been hundreds, right. And then sometimes most of the
time it's that they can get him for like two
or three, which is really all you need, um, and
then they'll confess to about you know, X number more
(07:19):
and then people will suspect that yeah, there's they actually
you know, kill the hundred or so people. But um,
in other cases it's actually they'll confess to more than
they actually did kill. Like Henry Lee Lucas has um
come into question over the over the years as to
how many people he actually killed. Like they know he
killed his mother, and they were pretty sure he kill
at least one other person. But if he only killed two,
(07:40):
he's technically not a serial killer. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well,
and then the also the other thing in like the
case of Wayne Williams, the Atlanta child strangler, he uh
or I don't think he's strangled child killer? He uh.
They kind of tacked on a bunch of murders onto
his wrap that they wanted to close the cases on. Yeah,
did you ever hear about pretty Kinky case? Yeah, yeah,
(08:02):
I remember it kind of came back around in like
two thousand five or something. He was up for parole
or something, and the case was it sounds like he's
innocent if you if you start investigating the case, it's
really circumstantial. Um, that's our opinion. Uh so, Chuck, Josh,
(08:24):
how do you classify a serial killer? Well, there's a
couple of ways. You can classify them based on motive,
or you can classify them based on uh social patterns,
organizational patterns. So if you're talking motive, Um, you're talking
about Holmes typology named for Ronald and Stephen Holmes, right,
not h H. Holmes, you become a serial killer, you're
(08:47):
not allowed to actually classify any of your ilk extremely enough,
that's true. And they are authors of textbooks on violent crimes,
and they came up with this from anecdotal data. So
a lot of people poopo it. But when you're talking
serial killers, a lot of times all you can do
is interview these people and compile it and try and
draw you know, conclusions based on that. Right. So what
(09:09):
they came up with was, um, there's two kinds of Um,
I guess motive based. Sure. Uh, there's act focus and
process focus focus. So act focus means like you're you're
you're killing quickly, and you're usually killing for a reason.
There's a larger reason and the killing is kind of
(09:29):
means to the end of achieving that reason. Process focused
is kind of the um that's the serial killer who
enjoys killing, enjoys taking someone's life, will likely torture the
person over a period of time, will kill them kind
of brutally. Uh. There's it's not quick and it's messy. Yeah,
and there's there's subcategories within each of those. The act
(09:52):
focused killers are visionary or missionary. Visionary means they hear
voices and have like a vision saying like go kill
I think on Sam was one of those. Yeah, he
didn't his neighbor's dog talent quite a vision. And Uh,
missionary murders um believe they're on like a mission to
get rid of like prostitutes, like the Green River killer. Right. Um.
(10:15):
And you could also um make the case that um
uh John Wayne Gacy was a mission focused or missionary
act focused serial killer because he had said after he
got caught like they're gonna give me an award for
getting rid of these you know, clousy, bad kids that
I killed. Um. But there's also a distinction among serial
(10:38):
killers that they often rationalize what they're doing by justifying
it to a larger authority, like they were providing society
a service. So depending on exactly how he was saying that,
it could go either way. Did you here see what
the Green River killer said in his police statement to
the jury, I just hate prostitute, hate prostitites. It's like,
all right, yeah, I remember Van Nostrin was reading a
(11:01):
book about that. Oh that's right, remember, Yeah. So the
subcategories for the processed focus slow killers are fall into
three groups. Um, lust killers, that's pretty self explanatory. Um,
but not check the ripper, right yeah, dah, yeah, we'll
get into him. Uh, I'm sorry. Thrill and gain killers,
(11:23):
and that means they either get a kick out of
killing or they think they're going to profit in some way.
And then the power seeking killers, who those are the
guys who like to play god. And we say guys
a lot because it's mostly white men. I think. Yeah,
it's very infrequent that you have a serial killer who
kills outside of his ethnic group, meaning that it's white
(11:47):
on white crime. Very rarely do you have a female
serial killer, right, although there's a pretty prominent one UM
named Charlie's Thearren you heard, yeah, where they ugly at
her up for that movie. Way they did a good
There's a picture of um Eileen Warnos in this article,
and by god, she doesn't look just like Charlie's Thearren
(12:08):
and monster. But she killed Uh she was convicted of
killing seven men and probably killed more. Yeah, but she
was one of the very few real female serial killers. Yeah,
there's a couple. We have a list that you know
how Josh loves this list, so we have a list
later on. We would like to get the ladies there
due because we called a task for not naming female
geniuses and Chuck. There's another way to classify serial killers,
(12:31):
and that's by their level of organization, right yeah, organized
or disorganized? Right? So organized e g. Dexter. You've got
somebody who, like um, drives a flashy car. Smart uh
smart Um? Actually there, he would be considered non social,
which we can't quite wrap our heads around that. But
(12:52):
it's um. I think it's being excluded from society. But
still being capable of existing or appearing to exist in society,
right sure, Okay, so they may also taunt the police.
They're probably educated, um and uh, they follow the news right,
keep up with modern events. They have daytime habits. They
(13:15):
is interesting. They may show up um as a like
a somebody who can help the police as a witness
crime or something like that, just to kind of get
a thrill out of that as well. Um, and then
of course you've got disorganized, right, this is like ed
Gan or Robert Picton just basically like the like you
(13:36):
can look at and be like, you're a serial killer,
aren't you. Yeah, And that's pretty they're pretty much the
opposite like everything we said. And there's a list of
things here for for organized and disorganized, and they're all
pretty much opposite. So disorganized means you live alone, you
don't date, you have no interest in the news, you
have nighttime habits, you aren't interested in the cops and
(13:56):
police work. You're kind of dumb. You you really don't dismember,
whereas organized person dismembers, Which is weird because again Robert
picked in um hung his victims on uh meat hooks
in his barn and disembowel them. Yeah, it was bad. Um,
but he had nighttime habits and was disorganized killer, So
(14:21):
it's kind of weird. I don't think anything's exactly cut
and dry when it comes to serial killers. Yeah. Well
they said the majority of them are organized and non social,
but they're like you know, we said, plenty of the
others as well. Um. And the other thing I thought
was interesting was the McDonald triad. Had you ever heard
of this? I had, but I've never heard of it.
I've never heard it called that. Yeah, they said that
serial killers often exhibit, uh, these three behaviors in childhood,
(14:45):
and it's known as the McDonald triad um formerly the
ray Croc triad um, bed wedding, arson and cruelty to animals.
And I surprised Josh with the fact that I was
nearly on the path myself. I because famously I was
a late bedweater, as I have admitted famously, and well
(15:05):
whoever listens to us, and um, I was kind of
into like fires. I wasn't an arsonist, but I love
playing with fire, but I love animals like crazy. So
you have the McDonald die ede not crazy crazy, but
I love hannibals. That's funny that you bring that up, Chuckers,
because a lot of people assume that serial killers are
(15:27):
in fact crazy. That's really far off base, at least
legally speaking. Right. So, there's a lot of debate now
actually more than ever, um, between psychology and sociology. And
we'll get into that a little further, but let's let's
talk about, um, you know, the kind of psychological motives.
(15:47):
But there's a little bit of foreshadowing. Take it with
grain salt, because there's a whole school thought out there
that thinks psychology has totally dropped the ball on explaining
criminal behavior, specifically serial killing. Right. So standard stuff that's
been around for decades is um that serial killers are
the result of combination of neglect and abuse. Right. Yes,
(16:11):
they've done studies. FBI has done studies and interviewed dozens
and dozens of killers, serial killers, all kinds of killers,
and they found a similar pattern, and most of them
of childhood abuse and neglect. And it makes sense because
when you're a kid, you're growing up, you're developing as
a normal, normal child. There are very important periods when
you learn about things like empathy and trust and love
(16:34):
and being nice with your fellow man, just very basic
rules of humanity, and if you don't have those, then
it's not imprinted on your little kid brain and you
may not be able to learn it later on in life. Right,
makes it a little tougher, Yeah, which is really sad.
It it is sad, and actually again, um, like, I
think it's appropriate that Jeffrey Dahmer is off to the
(16:55):
side in that little section because it's really weird. Because
I was thinking about it today, I've realized that I've
always kind of felt bad for that guy because of
the life that he had, Like he was abandoned by
his family. Is not just like his parents, like one
parent left, Like I think his dad left and then
(17:16):
his mom was like, I'm gonna go look for a
boyfriend and take the younger ones with me. You stay here,
And he was like seventeen and just left to live
the rest of his life on his own. I think
that played a huge factor in I imagine the neglect, right,
and then you have UM abuse. So usually they're finding
when they study serial killers that there is that combination
(17:39):
of UH neglect from the parents and UM abuse, either
direct abuse, whether it's a physical, emotional, sexual um or
witnessing the abuse of others, a sibling or both. I
imagine it's probably worse. And um they've actually seen in
rats with the neglect, not with the abuse part, but
(18:02):
with neglect. Rats that um are not that that are
basically neglected or rejected by their parents by their mother
actually show um symptoms of rats sociopathy as they get older.
I feel so bad for the rats. I know, it's
like the did someone actually abuse the rats to see
how they react? Kind of you like flick them and stuff.
(18:24):
If you put on a white lab coat, you can
pretty much do whatever you want to a rat and
the rats. Oh. The other thing that you know you
mentioned Amer it was so disturbing and just like oddly
fascinating was when he was a teenager. I think one
of the first really odd acts he did was he
like saw a dead deer in the woods. Did you
ever hear about that? And he like laid down with
(18:45):
a deer and like, you know, cuddled with it. It's
like Johnny Depp and dead Man in the forest. Oh, yeah,
you're right. And uh, then before he killed, I know,
he knocked a jogger out cold in the woods and
like laid down with his unconscious body to try and
stave off this desire to kill. Yeah, and well, I
don't even know if it was to stave off the
desire to kill as much as if he was tired
(19:07):
of people leaving him alone. He wanted to be with people.
One of the things that he was famous for was
an attempt to make a zombie who would stay with him,
so he would he would lure like young prostitute boys
back to his house or his apartment and then attack him.
There was one kid that he drilled a hole in
the guy's head and was able to pour drain oh
(19:29):
into it, and the guy stayed alive like that for
a few days, and Dahmer, a guest, said, you know,
I just didn't want him to leave. Yeah, he wanted companionship. Yeah.
So he was trying to make a zombie using drain though,
and I think that probably also accounts for the cannibalism
as well. Is he trying to ingest something to keep
(19:49):
it as a part of himself. This is all just
armchair psychology, but it's we could pretty much charge for
this with the level that psychologists contributed so far. You know,
I wonder if match dot com would have been around,
if he could have found like a mate, if that
never would have happened, maybe so, or maybe he would
have killed the mate and then use match dot com
(20:10):
to find his victims. Oh yeah, So, Chuck, we are
talking about whether or not serial killers are insane. And
if you look at the US Code for the insanity defense,
they don't fit the bill almost Ever, when you read
the definition, at the time of the commission of the
acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of
a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate
(20:31):
the nature and quality of the wrongfulness of his acts.
Mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute defense. Right,
So you don't understand what you're doing. You don't is
right and wrong? Is right and wrong? And you also
aren't You're not You're not taking a life like that's
not your goal. You're not thinking about that. This flies
in the face of serial killing. Well, that's only two
(20:53):
have only gotten off with that plea of insanity, right,
and one of them was a game and he wore
people's skin. Yeah, he was the inspiration for Buffalo Bill
and leather Face. Yeah, and Texas changeaw Masacar do the
dance for me? Baby was Texas Changsaw Mascar summer school
reference when they were watching Texas. That was a reference
(21:14):
in a reference. I thought you were gonna do the like, uh, well,
you help me with this couch good. You do a
way better Buffalo Bill than me. I don't know, you,
big fat gruel. That's so disturbing. It is a great movie, though, Yeah,
and we like that one picture. Yeah. Sure. Did I
(21:35):
ever tell you my Silence of the Lamb story? I
went to uh An Athens in college. I went to
see Dances with Wolves and they said, and if you
want to stay after for a free screening of Silence
of the Lambs of Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. And
I was like, I'll stay. And I heard Silence of
the Lambs Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins. I thought it was
gonna be like Our Merchant everything. I cut to thirty
minutes into the movie when I have my you know,
(21:57):
hair glued to the ceiling of the theater. I was like,
holy crap. Yeah that was a good movie. It still
is too, but when it came out it was like groundbreaking. Definitely,
it's good stuff. Um, but yeah, Buffalo Bob and Buffalo Bill.
You know that one and Leatherface were both based on Ageen,
who is one of I think two serial killers in
the US to ever get off on an insanity played. Yea,
(22:20):
he was rough, he was, and he looks like it too.
He's wearing like flannel and he's just staying in on
his sports like I'll kill you, I'll kill you. And
I think psycho Um Anthony Hopkins character is based on
a Geene as well. Yeah, he made a big splash
when he came up because again I think he was
in the forties or early fifty and this was way
(22:40):
before people before the term serial killer was ever around. So, um,
what serial killers have as far as psychology can come
up with as far as the d s M four
soon to be the d s M five right, which
coincidentally not Quinn itdentally comes out in two thousand twelve
(23:01):
because it's going to be the end of the world.
And um, but they've come up with is that serial
killer stuffer from a personality disorder antisocial personality disorder, Um
a k A psychopath, right, And I have a buddy
who's a sociologist, A University of Alberta that I first
ran across when I was writing an article on sociology
(23:24):
and serial killing. And he says, of course they have
a personality disorder. It's like they're serial killers. Is that
really the best you can come up with? After literally
decades of intense research, people have have been their entire
careers onto the study of serial killers from a psychological standpoint,
(23:47):
the best you can come up with is a personality disorder.
And that's sad but true. When I when I when
I UH interviewed this guy first, I imagine him he
was going to be like, well, you know, we think
we can kind of help psychology out, like maybe to
understand or hash it out. He's like, no, psychology is
utterly and completely failed at this, and it's time to
(24:09):
take another look at it. Interesting. Yeah, um, while you
were talking about the ap D though, that um anti
social personality of order disorder. There's seven factors that determine
that and if you have three of them, if you're
diagnosed with three of them, then I think you are
considered technically as having a p D. Okay, let's I'm
(24:29):
a little nervous right now. You're playing at home, see
which applies to you. Number one a failure to a
bide by the law or to conform to social norms um.
Number two deceitfulness that is often found in the form
of habitual lying or multiple aliases. Number three, you're aliases.
(24:49):
A failure to plan ahead or acting on impulse. Yeah.
Number four repeated physical fights or assaults that indicate irritability
or aggressiveness. You're not a fighter. Number five a reckless
disregard for safety of others or self. I do love
bumper cars, so we'll call that a thing. Okay. Number
(25:11):
six a repeated failure to sustain a job or an
ability to honor financial obligations. Now you've got a good gig.
I would give that maybe a third of a ding
previous life Josh, but current Josh is very responsible, that
is true. And number seven, uh, they are indifferent to
suffering from uh suffering of another. So basically you don't
(25:32):
have the mirrorner on that gives you empathy like we
were talking about with synesthesia. Okay, So how many did
you have to have to have a p D UM
three out of seven? Okay, I had five. Everybody, I
have UH, anti social personality disorder, just thank you for that.
The good news is, Josh, you are not insane. No,
I know. I know it because I know right from
(25:54):
wrong right. And uh, if I were a serial killer,
I just really really like to kill. Like Gary Ridgeway,
I just really really hate prostitutes. You know, you turned
out to be a serial podcaster, thankfully for all of us,
because they occur in a series. Um, Chuck, can you
tell a little bit of disdain here in my voice? Yes?
(26:16):
So I thought it was a smoking thing. No, it's
it's part of it for sure. Um. But it's so
back to sociology, okay, because this really makes sense to me. Um,
But it's such a radical departure from how we've always
viewed serial killers. You view them as crazy. There's some
sort of psychological problem with them, right, Um. Sociologists say, yeah,
(26:40):
they have any social personality disorder, But it doesn't mean
that that's a problem psychology has to tackle. It's not
a mental flaw, it's a character flaw. And yeah, I'm
sure that the neglect by parents didn't help. I'm sure
the abuse really made it worse. But people can go
through that and never become a serial killer. And it's
(27:03):
it's actually the movement of this organism we call society,
and it's current mood that can produce serial killers. Right
And basically since nineteen fifty there's a lot of people
who point to this post era as a time when
there's just been such social change that you could conceivably
(27:23):
call it a societal breakdown, like degradation of morals, violent films,
video games where you kill people in the first person
point of view. Right. And I didn't know this, but
Kevin Higgerdy told me this. Um. Apparently in the late
early modern era, so say, like the nineteenth century, prostitutes
(27:44):
were actually much more a part of the community than
they are now. Right, So we're actually more puritanical towards
prostitution than we were like a hundred or so years ago. Uh.
And he's saying that as a result of prostitutes becoming
more and more and more outcast in society, Um, they
have become more and more of a target favorite target
(28:06):
of serial killers who love the act of killing. They
don't hate the person that they're killing, unless you're Gary Ridgeway.
But you're just looking for somebody you can kill and
get away with, because you're not crazy, you know what.
You're doing is wrong, right. Um. And then that, combined
with society turning its back on prostitutes, making them basically
live out these very dangerous lives, has allowed the rise
(28:29):
of serial killing to come up because of these changes
like that, And that's just one of many changes. The
really disturbing part of all this is that in sociologies
few we're all serial killers. There's just society hasn't changed
quite enough to to trigger that behavior in us. Well,
(28:51):
let's hope that never happens. Yeah, let's hope indeed. Yeah,
that's really interesting and it's like a totally different way
to look at it, and it makes a lot more
sense to me. Well, you know, another way to look
at it. A lot of people think that, uh, you know,
these serial killers are so far gone and that something
is up with their brain. They can't help it. They've
got a brain malfunction going on. And they've done a
(29:12):
lot of studies on brain damage, and Um, one I
came across found that thirty confessed killers not necessarily still
serial killers on death row are mentally ill, and six
of that twenty had frontal lobe abnormalities. No accident, I
don't think, and of all confessed serial killers have no
(29:34):
brain damage so due. So that's I mean, that's almost
down the middle. So I think there's a variety of factors,
one of which definitely could be brain injury. What was
that one? Guy? Um? Oh? What was Bobby Joe Long?
He has the best quote in this whole article. You
want to read it, but it's okay, okay. Bobby Joe Long,
(29:57):
he was convicted of nine murders and he stated in
his quote, Uh, after I'm dead, they're going to open
up my head and find that, just like we've been saying,
a part of my brain is black and dry and dead.
So yeah, I mean that's that hits it on the
head man. That's creepy. It is creepy. And that's basically
him saying, you know, something is wrong with my brain, dudes,
(30:17):
and after I died, you're gonna check it out and
you're gonna see that I'm right. And what's interesting is
any time you say a quote like that, you automatically
attract people who are waiting for you to die now
because they're like, well, you just threw it out in
the gauntlet. I want to see if part of your
brain is black and dry and dead, I personally want
to know. Yeah, so, Chuck, we've got not insane, possibly
(30:39):
brain damaged in my opinion, definitely a product of society,
anti social personality disorder, people abused and neglected. So how
do you how do you catch such a person? Especially
if there's four hundred of them over the last century
in the United States? This is like a needle in
a haystack, right, Yeah, except the murder to a needle. Yeah. Basically,
(31:01):
what you do if you're a fed or a copper
working the beat, searching out the serial killer. Do you
want to get a do you want to get a signature?
You want to get a modus operandi and m O,
and you want to combine those to come up with
a profile and a signature is like, UM, if you
pose your victims in a certain pose, or if you
(31:23):
always dumped them in a certain spot, that's a signature
that you can look at to help profile or even
the UM The way you dispatch your victims, Yeah, well
that's part of the m O. The way you kill them.
Certainly the ritual of it, that's a big time giveaway.
But what what I found interesting was that the m
O changes and involves and actually grows more mature over time. Um, basically,
(31:48):
it's the killer learning from past mistakes. So your MO
is going to So if like your early m O was,
you know, learning somebody into a van and like a
crowded area, R right, and you almost caught a couple
of times, then you may lure somebody into your vans still,
but it's not going to be in a crowded area anymore,
or something like that. So that's that's an example of
the m O changing over to lured them into your
(32:10):
el camino in a crowded area. Yeah, I think you
can generally trust people who drive el caminos, but the
van the abduction man, if you've got a tiny round
window on the back of rear side of your vand
and that's it, then you're in big trouble. You do
not get in a van like that effect to stay
out of vans entirely. It almost always ends up badly
for the person who was lured in there. Yeah, that's
(32:31):
why they invented the minivan. Actually, that's why they invented
the minivan because it just looks more family friendly and
not like you're a serial killer. Yeah, that's that's what
I heard. It makes sense. So profiling Josh started in
the seventies with Ted Bunny was one of the first ones. Actually, yeah,
and I guess they nailed him then down. Yeah, they
said that his profile was almost perfect, right down to
(32:54):
the point where they predicted that he would have a
step brother. That's like pretty serious profiling if you're getting
that detailed. Yeah, and they were right. Yeah, what all
they missed though? Yeah, they got a stepbrother wrong, but
they are the right. But they got his address wrong
right off by like a number right, and we thought
he was Chinese, but he's not. He's dead. Bundy really
(33:16):
don't know what the whole sky diving thing was. Just yeah, Bundy,
like he unraveled. Man, He he killed people for years.
He's known for the University of Florida deal in the
sorority house. But that was like at the very end.
He had killed people for years and years and years,
and then all of a sudden just flipped and walked
into sorority house and started killing people. And then he
(33:36):
got pulled over for a traffic ticket. That's how they
called him. Yeah, how did they catch him? Like they
knew who they were looking for, you know, not exactly
like a sorority girl in the back or I don't know.
I think they had already had a profile or leads
or something at that point. They tripped him up and Berkowitz,
son of Sam, they caught like they actually apprehended him
and then let him go and he was gonna be
(33:57):
like a witness to one of the murders that he
committed with the cops. And then they were like, wait
a minute, you said that you were just talking to
your neighbor's dog exactly, and he was like, well yeah,
and they're like, okay, well he didn't talk back, man,
That's what I would have said, right, But he said,
oh yeah, and he talked back, and he told me
to kill people, right or b t K. We talked
(34:17):
about the blind blind uh tap dance killer. Right. This
guy is the saddest serial killer ever. He is terrible.
He was terrible at he killed like three people over
the span of like twenty six years. And do you
know how he got caught? Right? I saw? Um, I'm
sure it was on Discovery, our fine, fine parent corporation, right. Um.
(34:38):
They were they were interviewing like one of the investigators
who was working the b t K case and cracked it,
and he was taunting the police. But he wasn't a
really smart guy. So he sent a floppy disk um
to the cops, taunting them with a Microsoft word document
and didn't understand that there's this thing called metadata which
(34:59):
has all sorts of very um specific information about the
computer that you used that on. And he used it
at the church that he was a deacon at, and
um they got him like a couple of days later.
But I remember one of the detectives going like, we
actually thought it was like somebody trying to frame somebody else,
Like I couldn't believe that somebody would be that sloppy
or that dumb. And sure enough he was, Yeah, and
(35:24):
he he wanted a position of authority do anything for us.
It was like dog Catcher for a while. Anything that
had a uniform, he would, Yeah, I should go ahead
and point out before we get assaulted with listener mail.
I know he wasn't called the bind tap dance kill.
That's an inside joke between us and a super fan
to figure that out. Bind, torture and kill. Um. The
(35:44):
one I was fascinated with was Peter Woodcock, Canadian serial killer.
You wouldn't think there's a lot of Canadian serial killers
because Pickton was I think, in my opinion, the worst
serial killer ever. Robert Pickton was Canadian, he was from Vancouver.
Was he angry that he was an American? Feed his
victims to his pigs? Oh, that's right. He was angry
(36:08):
that I'm not America. I'm gonna kill everybody that's American.
We're just kidding, Canadians, we love you. But Peter Woodcock
was a Canadian and he spent thirty five years in
a psych hospital in Canada after he had killed three people.
He was what they thought was rehabilitated, which is the
(36:28):
point of this is that you can't rehabilitate a serial killer.
Pretty much, they thought he was rehabilitated. They said, you
know what, We're gonna give you some leeway. We're gonna
let you out on like some weekend passes. Now he
got his first weekend pass, uh and his supervisor for
the weekend pass was a former patient who was also
a former murderer. And within the first hour that they
(36:49):
let him off on as wee can pass, he and
that his his guy that was watching him killed a
dude with a hatchet and a knife. Within the first
hour of his first weekend pass, he and his chaperone
killed another patient. So that's a that's a bad guy
that did not work out too well. So checking on
anybody else? Yeah, we're like, uh, coming up against it.
(37:10):
I have a big list, and to keep Josh from
eating it, I'll just go ahead and skip to the
front of it. To um. Harold Frederick fred Shipman is
supposedly the most prolific serial killer and known history, and
he is positively linked to two d and fifty murders.
He was doctor Death. Do you ever hear that guy
(37:31):
Dr Death? Yeah, he was a general practitioner and he
targeted his female patients. And this was like you know,
two thousand four was when he hung himself in jail.
So he's supposedly the most prolific of all time. What
about the Columbian guy, uh, Louis Alfredo Garbarrito Kubilos, otherwise
known as the Beast or Labista. He raped and murdered
(37:53):
a hundred and forty boys, but they suspect as many
as three hundred and in Columbia you can only go
to jail for thirty years, but they reduced that to
twenty two years. So he is out. He is out
in his whereabouts I believe are unknown if I'm not mistaken,
so he is out. Yeah. And as Chuck said, I
can't care a serial killer, no, because they're not insane. Right. So,
(38:16):
if you want to know more about serial killers, is
a pretty awesome article on the site called how serial
Killers Work. You can type that into the handy search
part how stuff works dot com, which of course leads
us to listener mail hold on partner. We have a
little bit of admin work to get out of the
way about our New York trips. Some announcements. Okay, let
(38:38):
me shiftle some papers here. Uh, well, T shirts first,
let's go T shirts. The T shirt contest is on
in in for real son and and it's uh the
end of May is um at midnight is the deadline,
So get your submissions in. If you submitted, re submit
within the window. If you're not American, I'm really sorry.
(38:59):
But are we excluding Yeah? You have to really yeah?
So wait, Canadians can't know. Man, it stinks. But like
I told everyone that wrote in, I can't win a
contest in England either. Every country has their own rules
and you gotta be a citizen of this country. Wow, yeah,
(39:20):
I had no idea. That's just the way it's gotta
be here, to go back and read the fine print,
I know. Huh okay, well, yes, sorry to everybody who
lives outside the US. I know it's a bummer, but
that's just another reason it sucks to be you. It's
not our rules, yes, no, no, we would never come
up with something the rules of the world. It's the
planet rules of the United States apparently. Yes. So New York, Josh, Yeah,
(39:41):
we are coming to New York and we have two
events pending, one for sure and one tbd uh Monday night,
June seven, we will be at the Knitting Factory and
Scenic Brooklyn, New York, super hipster Central Brooklyn. I don't
know that I'm going to be able to cut skinny
(40:02):
jeans for both of us. Um. Yes, skinny jeans and
the eyot Oxford don't really go unless it's like three
sizes too small, and it kind of is. Yeah. So uh,
we're gonna be doing a little happy hour get together
from five thirty to seven thirty. There will be a
concert to follow that actually costs money if you want
to get into that. It's like twelve bucks. I think
(40:24):
and The Onion is sponsoring that, and there will be
folks from The Onion hanging out with us too, so
you can meet them, yeah, which will be super cool.
Looking forward to meeting them in person. Yeah, So be there,
be square. And then Wednesday night, June night, we are
gonna do an all star trivia challenge and we're rounding
out our all star trivia team that Josh and are
(40:44):
on and it's pretty exciting special mystery guests. Yes, well,
I'll tell you what. Let's confirm one person, Um, the
editor in chief of the Onion newspaper is on our team.
Joan Does is one of our buddies now and um
the other well, we don't want to announce just yet
because I hate to say that. You know Mr t
is gonna be there. If he's not gonna be there,
(41:05):
I can't believe he just gave it away. So that
is gonna be you come you challenge us for bragging
rights at trivia. Uh, and it's gonna be a lot
of fun at Bar Trivia and Location tv D. But
that'll be Wednesday ju Night and co Ed Yes the
beans Josh okay. So um, if you have heard our
(41:25):
two part Guatemala series you're familiar with co ed if
not UM, they are a great organization that creates um
self sustaining textbook and computer centers, right, um. And you
can actually support these guys with a five dollar donation
by texting the words stuff as to U F F
(41:47):
two two zero to two two. You'll get a text
back saying you sure you're sure about this? And all
you do is text yes, and it'll charge you five bucks.
And what'd you say? Off? Mike? Some what applies? Text
and data rates may apply and uh if it's actually
all these this is another thing only for Americans because
(42:10):
it's different cell companies in different countries. So if you
want to give and you live outside the Union United States,
you can go to UH co ed you see dot
org then may have a place where you can donate
there wherever you live, even if you live on Mars Mars. Well,
all right, it's listener male Ton. Huh. Indeed, Josh, we're
(42:34):
short on time. I'm gonna call this top ten reasons
to hate stuff. You should know that's good, um. Number
one reason to hate us Josh and Chuck frequently but
your names and words during the podcast and misuse I
and me in a gross perversion of the English language.
Check Number two. We cause ordinary people to become inebriated
while listening by saying a few key words. Number three.
(42:56):
It is not released frequently enough and causes addicted listeners
to moan in pain between Tuesday and Thursday. Number four
catchy theme music easily gets stuck in listeners heads. Number
five Chuck and Josh swear in the podcast, and the
beats can cause hearing damage. Number six. Jerry is seldom mentioned,
not true, and has never been heard live on the air,
and some fans postulate the Chuck and Josh keeper locked
(43:16):
in a closet between podcasts. Number seven uh, Stuff you
Should Know instructs on a wide variety of illegal topics,
including nuclear weapons, money laung ring, and the pompst the schemes.
Number eight Chuck and Josh use horrible plug similes. True.
Number nine the disillusion listeners by stating that they record
to every Friday when it's common knowledge that they record
(43:37):
every Tuesday and Thursday instead. Uh not true. And number ten.
In addition to possibly keeping Jerry locked in the closet,
we also torture her by going off on long winded introductions.
True it's a bad one to put on the d
and at times getting completely off topic. Way way true.
Always a huge fan. Noah, Thanks Noah, We appreciate that.
(43:58):
Top ten. Let's let's an be awesome listener mail I agreed. Yeah,
if you have awesome listener mail force, we want to
read it. And if you have any crazy serial killer
stories grizzly or otherwise, how about those? Want those? Yeah,
if you've got some firsthand experience obviously not if you're
not a serial killer, but if you know of someone
(44:19):
who was, or like any cool link. If you have
something to say about serial killers, put it in an email,
send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
(44:39):
stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
works dot com home page. Brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. Actually I should probably try Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. This is about serial killers, right, Yeah.
(00:24):
I actually I'm glad you brought that up because I
wanted to mention that we have a lot of fun
in the show and we joke around, and we will
probably do that in the serial Killer podcast. Will and
I find them fascinating, but we always remember that there
are real victims here and we don't want them to
fly to that or anything. Yeah. No, but the serial
killers are so grizzly and their acts are so monstrous
(00:46):
that it almost is easy to just detach and be like, hey,
what's your favorite serial killer? They actually have serial killer
training cards. Huh. Yeah, but we don't play that game. No,
we don't. We play Old Maid. So I'm Josh Clark.
The guy you just heard talking, uh is Charles W.
Chuck Bryant. If this is your first time to Stuff
(01:06):
you Should Know, Um, there is a goodie bag that
we have for you, if you'll check under your seat
should be taped under there. Send us an email and
we'll try to see what we can come up with
as a replacement. Probably just a response saying sorry. You
know what they get. They get two hundred and fifteen
free podcasts. Oh that's a good deal automatically, that is nice,
(01:29):
chuck Um. So what are we talking about today? Serial killers? Oh? Yeah,
that's right, Chuck. Here's the intro. Yeah. If you can't tell,
I'm a little twitchy, a little jumpy. You may even
hear a little bit of gum in my mouth that
I probably should take out being a professional podcast vehemently,
(01:51):
he just spit out his gum. Okay, so my gum
is out. But the reason I'm doing this and acting
all twitchy is because I have quit smoking for the
first time in twenty years. I'm actually doing it. I've
tried a couple of times, but we all know that
it was half hearted at best. But I'm actually quitting smoking.
(02:11):
Very proud of you, buddy. Thank you. Like I told
you in the email you didn't reply to if that's
very brave and terrifying thing you're doing. You have all
my support, Thank you very much. I want to keep
you around, and by proxy, I imagine I have Jerry's
support too. Yeah she can't said, yeah, So if I
do seem a little weird, it is because of that
(02:31):
today and I apologize. What's you're flying in japandam Mar,
So it's just all you're all weird right now, dah,
I am perfect time to do serial killers? Okay, so
let's talk serial killers, Chuck, Chuck, Where in the name
of God did the term serial killers come from? And
the middle of what decade did it come from? Coming
It was coin Josh in the mid seventies by Robert Wrestler,
(02:54):
and he was a former FBI director of the Violent
Criminal Apprehensions Program, which imagine as a pretty fun laugh
a minute job. And uh he apparently he chose cereal
because the English police called those kinds of crimes crimes
in a series, right and we uh we find in
the article written by Shanna Freeman pretty good one too,
(03:17):
like um that he was also a fan of serials
that like you would watch like at the movies, like
The Lone Ranger or something like that. So I thought
it was a little weird, Like I love The Lone Ranger.
So I'm gonna give a little shout out to him
by coining this term. Yeah, they used to call them
mass murders before that, or my favorite, it sounds like
a personal's ad stranger on stranger crime. I like that,
(03:39):
but it is true. I mean it is stranger crime
and kind of uh underlines one of the I guess
the riveting and and um most characteristic aspects of serial
killers is that they they lack what would appear to
any of the rest of us a motive. They're not
killing for money. Um, they're not killing for um, you know,
(04:02):
to get rid of a problem or because they're they've
been they're a jilted lover. The the key hallmark of
the serial killers that they kill for the pleasure of killing,
for the sake of killing, and their subcategories will get
into within that. But yeah, totally right on the money there.
And there's a couple of other kinds of murderers that
um people often confuse serial killers with. So let's just
(04:23):
clear the air right now. Let's start with mass murderers, right,
what do you have to do to become a mass murderer? Uh,
you have to kill four or more people at the
same time or roughly the same time in the same place.
So like a school shooter would be a mass murderer,
right right, right, And then of course you've got these
(04:44):
free killers. Uh. Those are like office shooters who go
from an from their house, say, after killing their family,
and then they're like, I got one more problem place
I want to take care of. They go to the office,
shoot that place up, kill some more people, and then
drive off to a gas station and blow their heads
off in in the in the van. Yeah. Yes. And
a serial killer, officially defined by the FBI, means you
(05:08):
it has to be three or more victims. And like
you said, the hallmark is there's got to be a
cooling off period in between. So like I killed somebody
and then like in Jeffrey Dahmer's case, I think he
waited years and years before he killed his second victim,
and then another long period because he was like eighteen
and when he started and yeah, yeah, something like that,
(05:28):
and then he waited and I think, and this is
all from memories, not in the article, and then um,
I think he waited a long time between second and
third and then they you know, as usual, it starts
picking up in succession, that kind of off the cliff
they go the further off the cliff they go, and
boy did he go off the cliff. We're gonna talk
about some famous serial killers later, right, Okay, we gotta
we gotta mention him. Um. As a matter of fact,
I think we would be professionally irresponsible if we didn't
(05:51):
mention Jeffrey Dahmer in depth. I think you're right, Um, Chuck.
There's uh. I think been approximately four hundred serial killer
in the US in the past century by estimates, right, Um.
And strangely, there's been a I think it an increase
of some vast percentage, but eighty percent of those have
(06:15):
come about since nineteen and they actually think the earliest
when the most widely cited first serial killer in the
US was a guy named H. H. Holmes. Yeah, he
had the Holmes Murder Castle in Chicago at the World's Fair.
He built this hotel basically and it was literally like
you check in, but you don't check out type of situation. Yeah.
(06:36):
And remember on the Urban Planning podcast we talked about
the the the guy who came up with the the
City Beautiful movement, and that's where he debuted. It was
at that at that World's Fair, right while people were
getting off at a at a hotel nearby, so he's
the first one. They say, I think, uh, twenty seven confessions.
(06:57):
But they as always almost with all these grogler killers,
they say, well they tagged this many, but there may
have been hundreds, right. And then sometimes most of the
time it's that they can get him for like two
or three, which is really all you need, um, and
then they'll confess to about you know, X number more
(07:19):
and then people will suspect that yeah, there's they actually
you know, kill the hundred or so people. But um,
in other cases it's actually they'll confess to more than
they actually did kill. Like Henry Lee Lucas has um
come into question over the over the years as to
how many people he actually killed. Like they know he
killed his mother, and they were pretty sure he kill
at least one other person. But if he only killed two,
(07:40):
he's technically not a serial killer. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well,
and then the also the other thing in like the
case of Wayne Williams, the Atlanta child strangler, he uh
or I don't think he's strangled child killer? He uh.
They kind of tacked on a bunch of murders onto
his wrap that they wanted to close the cases on. Yeah,
did you ever hear about pretty Kinky case? Yeah, yeah,
(08:02):
I remember it kind of came back around in like
two thousand five or something. He was up for parole
or something, and the case was it sounds like he's
innocent if you if you start investigating the case, it's
really circumstantial. Um, that's our opinion. Uh so, Chuck, Josh,
(08:24):
how do you classify a serial killer? Well, there's a
couple of ways. You can classify them based on motive,
or you can classify them based on uh social patterns,
organizational patterns. So if you're talking motive, Um, you're talking
about Holmes typology named for Ronald and Stephen Holmes, right,
not h H. Holmes, you become a serial killer, you're
(08:47):
not allowed to actually classify any of your ilk extremely enough,
that's true. And they are authors of textbooks on violent crimes,
and they came up with this from anecdotal data. So
a lot of people poopo it. But when you're talking
serial killers, a lot of times all you can do
is interview these people and compile it and try and
draw you know, conclusions based on that. Right. So what
(09:09):
they came up with was, um, there's two kinds of Um,
I guess motive based. Sure. Uh, there's act focus and
process focus focus. So act focus means like you're you're
you're killing quickly, and you're usually killing for a reason.
There's a larger reason and the killing is kind of
(09:29):
means to the end of achieving that reason. Process focused
is kind of the um that's the serial killer who
enjoys killing, enjoys taking someone's life, will likely torture the
person over a period of time, will kill them kind
of brutally. Uh. There's it's not quick and it's messy. Yeah,
and there's there's subcategories within each of those. The act
(09:52):
focused killers are visionary or missionary. Visionary means they hear
voices and have like a vision saying like go kill
I think on Sam was one of those. Yeah, he
didn't his neighbor's dog talent quite a vision. And Uh,
missionary murders um believe they're on like a mission to
get rid of like prostitutes, like the Green River killer. Right. Um.
(10:15):
And you could also um make the case that um
uh John Wayne Gacy was a mission focused or missionary
act focused serial killer because he had said after he
got caught like they're gonna give me an award for
getting rid of these you know, clousy, bad kids that
I killed. Um. But there's also a distinction among serial
(10:38):
killers that they often rationalize what they're doing by justifying
it to a larger authority, like they were providing society
a service. So depending on exactly how he was saying that,
it could go either way. Did you here see what
the Green River killer said in his police statement to
the jury, I just hate prostitute, hate prostitites. It's like,
all right, yeah, I remember Van Nostrin was reading a
(11:01):
book about that. Oh that's right, remember, Yeah. So the
subcategories for the processed focus slow killers are fall into
three groups. Um, lust killers, that's pretty self explanatory. Um,
but not check the ripper, right yeah, dah, yeah, we'll
get into him. Uh, I'm sorry. Thrill and gain killers,
(11:23):
and that means they either get a kick out of
killing or they think they're going to profit in some way.
And then the power seeking killers, who those are the
guys who like to play god. And we say guys
a lot because it's mostly white men. I think. Yeah,
it's very infrequent that you have a serial killer who
kills outside of his ethnic group, meaning that it's white
(11:47):
on white crime. Very rarely do you have a female
serial killer, right, although there's a pretty prominent one UM
named Charlie's Thearren you heard, yeah, where they ugly at
her up for that movie. Way they did a good
There's a picture of um Eileen Warnos in this article,
and by god, she doesn't look just like Charlie's Thearren
(12:08):
and monster. But she killed Uh she was convicted of
killing seven men and probably killed more. Yeah, but she
was one of the very few real female serial killers. Yeah,
there's a couple. We have a list that you know
how Josh loves this list, so we have a list
later on. We would like to get the ladies there
due because we called a task for not naming female
geniuses and Chuck. There's another way to classify serial killers,
(12:31):
and that's by their level of organization, right yeah, organized
or disorganized? Right? So organized e g. Dexter. You've got
somebody who, like um, drives a flashy car. Smart uh
smart Um? Actually there, he would be considered non social,
which we can't quite wrap our heads around that. But
(12:52):
it's um. I think it's being excluded from society. But
still being capable of existing or appearing to exist in society,
right sure, Okay, so they may also taunt the police.
They're probably educated, um and uh, they follow the news right,
keep up with modern events. They have daytime habits. They
(13:15):
is interesting. They may show up um as a like
a somebody who can help the police as a witness
crime or something like that, just to kind of get
a thrill out of that as well. Um, and then
of course you've got disorganized, right, this is like ed
Gan or Robert Picton just basically like the like you
(13:36):
can look at and be like, you're a serial killer,
aren't you. Yeah, And that's pretty they're pretty much the
opposite like everything we said. And there's a list of
things here for for organized and disorganized, and they're all
pretty much opposite. So disorganized means you live alone, you
don't date, you have no interest in the news, you
have nighttime habits, you aren't interested in the cops and
(13:56):
police work. You're kind of dumb. You you really don't dismember,
whereas organized person dismembers, Which is weird because again Robert
picked in um hung his victims on uh meat hooks
in his barn and disembowel them. Yeah, it was bad. Um,
but he had nighttime habits and was disorganized killer, So
(14:21):
it's kind of weird. I don't think anything's exactly cut
and dry when it comes to serial killers. Yeah. Well
they said the majority of them are organized and non social,
but they're like you know, we said, plenty of the
others as well. Um. And the other thing I thought
was interesting was the McDonald triad. Had you ever heard
of this? I had, but I've never heard of it.
I've never heard it called that. Yeah, they said that
serial killers often exhibit, uh, these three behaviors in childhood,
(14:45):
and it's known as the McDonald triad um formerly the
ray Croc triad um, bed wedding, arson and cruelty to animals.
And I surprised Josh with the fact that I was
nearly on the path myself. I because famously I was
a late bedweater, as I have admitted famously, and well
(15:05):
whoever listens to us, and um, I was kind of
into like fires. I wasn't an arsonist, but I love
playing with fire, but I love animals like crazy. So
you have the McDonald die ede not crazy crazy, but
I love hannibals. That's funny that you bring that up, Chuckers,
because a lot of people assume that serial killers are
(15:27):
in fact crazy. That's really far off base, at least
legally speaking. Right. So, there's a lot of debate now
actually more than ever, um, between psychology and sociology. And
we'll get into that a little further, but let's let's
talk about, um, you know, the kind of psychological motives.
(15:47):
But there's a little bit of foreshadowing. Take it with
grain salt, because there's a whole school thought out there
that thinks psychology has totally dropped the ball on explaining
criminal behavior, specifically serial killing. Right. So standard stuff that's
been around for decades is um that serial killers are
the result of combination of neglect and abuse. Right. Yes,
(16:11):
they've done studies. FBI has done studies and interviewed dozens
and dozens of killers, serial killers, all kinds of killers,
and they found a similar pattern, and most of them
of childhood abuse and neglect. And it makes sense because
when you're a kid, you're growing up, you're developing as
a normal, normal child. There are very important periods when
you learn about things like empathy and trust and love
(16:34):
and being nice with your fellow man, just very basic
rules of humanity, and if you don't have those, then
it's not imprinted on your little kid brain and you
may not be able to learn it later on in life. Right,
makes it a little tougher, Yeah, which is really sad.
It it is sad, and actually again, um, like, I
think it's appropriate that Jeffrey Dahmer is off to the
(16:55):
side in that little section because it's really weird. Because
I was thinking about it today, I've realized that I've
always kind of felt bad for that guy because of
the life that he had, Like he was abandoned by
his family. Is not just like his parents, like one
parent left, Like I think his dad left and then
(17:16):
his mom was like, I'm gonna go look for a
boyfriend and take the younger ones with me. You stay here,
And he was like seventeen and just left to live
the rest of his life on his own. I think
that played a huge factor in I imagine the neglect, right,
and then you have UM abuse. So usually they're finding
when they study serial killers that there is that combination
(17:39):
of UH neglect from the parents and UM abuse, either
direct abuse, whether it's a physical, emotional, sexual um or
witnessing the abuse of others, a sibling or both. I
imagine it's probably worse. And um they've actually seen in
rats with the neglect, not with the abuse part, but
(18:02):
with neglect. Rats that um are not that that are
basically neglected or rejected by their parents by their mother
actually show um symptoms of rats sociopathy as they get older.
I feel so bad for the rats. I know, it's
like the did someone actually abuse the rats to see
how they react? Kind of you like flick them and stuff.
(18:24):
If you put on a white lab coat, you can
pretty much do whatever you want to a rat and
the rats. Oh. The other thing that you know you
mentioned Amer it was so disturbing and just like oddly
fascinating was when he was a teenager. I think one
of the first really odd acts he did was he
like saw a dead deer in the woods. Did you
ever hear about that? And he like laid down with
(18:45):
a deer and like, you know, cuddled with it. It's
like Johnny Depp and dead Man in the forest. Oh, yeah,
you're right. And uh, then before he killed, I know,
he knocked a jogger out cold in the woods and
like laid down with his unconscious body to try and
stave off this desire to kill. Yeah, and well, I
don't even know if it was to stave off the
desire to kill as much as if he was tired
(19:07):
of people leaving him alone. He wanted to be with people.
One of the things that he was famous for was
an attempt to make a zombie who would stay with him,
so he would he would lure like young prostitute boys
back to his house or his apartment and then attack him.
There was one kid that he drilled a hole in
the guy's head and was able to pour drain oh
(19:29):
into it, and the guy stayed alive like that for
a few days, and Dahmer, a guest, said, you know,
I just didn't want him to leave. Yeah, he wanted companionship. Yeah.
So he was trying to make a zombie using drain though,
and I think that probably also accounts for the cannibalism
as well. Is he trying to ingest something to keep
(19:49):
it as a part of himself. This is all just
armchair psychology, but it's we could pretty much charge for
this with the level that psychologists contributed so far. You know,
I wonder if match dot com would have been around,
if he could have found like a mate, if that
never would have happened, maybe so, or maybe he would
have killed the mate and then use match dot com
(20:10):
to find his victims. Oh yeah, So, Chuck, we are
talking about whether or not serial killers are insane. And
if you look at the US Code for the insanity defense,
they don't fit the bill almost Ever, when you read
the definition, at the time of the commission of the
acts constituting the offense, the defendant, as a result of
a severe mental disease or defect, was unable to appreciate
(20:31):
the nature and quality of the wrongfulness of his acts.
Mental disease or defect does not otherwise constitute defense. Right,
So you don't understand what you're doing. You don't is
right and wrong? Is right and wrong? And you also
aren't You're not You're not taking a life like that's
not your goal. You're not thinking about that. This flies
in the face of serial killing. Well, that's only two
(20:53):
have only gotten off with that plea of insanity, right,
and one of them was a game and he wore
people's skin. Yeah, he was the inspiration for Buffalo Bill
and leather Face. Yeah, and Texas changeaw Masacar do the
dance for me? Baby was Texas Changsaw Mascar summer school
reference when they were watching Texas. That was a reference
(21:14):
in a reference. I thought you were gonna do the like, uh, well,
you help me with this couch good. You do a
way better Buffalo Bill than me. I don't know, you,
big fat gruel. That's so disturbing. It is a great movie, though, Yeah,
and we like that one picture. Yeah. Sure. Did I
(21:35):
ever tell you my Silence of the Lamb story? I
went to uh An Athens in college. I went to
see Dances with Wolves and they said, and if you
want to stay after for a free screening of Silence
of the Lambs of Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. And
I was like, I'll stay. And I heard Silence of
the Lambs Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins. I thought it was
gonna be like Our Merchant everything. I cut to thirty
minutes into the movie when I have my you know,
(21:57):
hair glued to the ceiling of the theater. I was like,
holy crap. Yeah that was a good movie. It still
is too, but when it came out it was like groundbreaking. Definitely,
it's good stuff. Um, but yeah, Buffalo Bob and Buffalo Bill.
You know that one and Leatherface were both based on Ageen,
who is one of I think two serial killers in
the US to ever get off on an insanity played. Yea,
(22:20):
he was rough, he was, and he looks like it too.
He's wearing like flannel and he's just staying in on
his sports like I'll kill you, I'll kill you. And
I think psycho Um Anthony Hopkins character is based on
a Geene as well. Yeah, he made a big splash
when he came up because again I think he was
in the forties or early fifty and this was way
(22:40):
before people before the term serial killer was ever around. So, um,
what serial killers have as far as psychology can come
up with as far as the d s M four
soon to be the d s M five right, which
coincidentally not Quinn itdentally comes out in two thousand twelve
(23:01):
because it's going to be the end of the world.
And um, but they've come up with is that serial
killer stuffer from a personality disorder antisocial personality disorder, Um
a k A psychopath, right, And I have a buddy
who's a sociologist, A University of Alberta that I first
ran across when I was writing an article on sociology
(23:24):
and serial killing. And he says, of course they have
a personality disorder. It's like they're serial killers. Is that
really the best you can come up with? After literally
decades of intense research, people have have been their entire
careers onto the study of serial killers from a psychological standpoint,
(23:47):
the best you can come up with is a personality disorder.
And that's sad but true. When I when I when
I UH interviewed this guy first, I imagine him he
was going to be like, well, you know, we think
we can kind of help psychology out, like maybe to
understand or hash it out. He's like, no, psychology is
utterly and completely failed at this, and it's time to
(24:09):
take another look at it. Interesting. Yeah, um, while you
were talking about the ap D though, that um anti
social personality of order disorder. There's seven factors that determine
that and if you have three of them, if you're
diagnosed with three of them, then I think you are
considered technically as having a p D. Okay, let's I'm
(24:29):
a little nervous right now. You're playing at home, see
which applies to you. Number one a failure to a
bide by the law or to conform to social norms um.
Number two deceitfulness that is often found in the form
of habitual lying or multiple aliases. Number three, you're aliases.
(24:49):
A failure to plan ahead or acting on impulse. Yeah.
Number four repeated physical fights or assaults that indicate irritability
or aggressiveness. You're not a fighter. Number five a reckless
disregard for safety of others or self. I do love
bumper cars, so we'll call that a thing. Okay. Number
(25:11):
six a repeated failure to sustain a job or an
ability to honor financial obligations. Now you've got a good gig.
I would give that maybe a third of a ding
previous life Josh, but current Josh is very responsible, that
is true. And number seven, uh, they are indifferent to
suffering from uh suffering of another. So basically you don't
(25:32):
have the mirrorner on that gives you empathy like we
were talking about with synesthesia. Okay, So how many did
you have to have to have a p D UM
three out of seven? Okay, I had five. Everybody, I
have UH, anti social personality disorder, just thank you for that.
The good news is, Josh, you are not insane. No,
I know. I know it because I know right from
(25:54):
wrong right. And uh, if I were a serial killer,
I just really really like to kill. Like Gary Ridgeway,
I just really really hate prostitutes. You know, you turned
out to be a serial podcaster, thankfully for all of us,
because they occur in a series. Um, Chuck, can you
tell a little bit of disdain here in my voice? Yes?
(26:16):
So I thought it was a smoking thing. No, it's
it's part of it for sure. Um. But it's so
back to sociology, okay, because this really makes sense to me. Um,
But it's such a radical departure from how we've always
viewed serial killers. You view them as crazy. There's some
sort of psychological problem with them, right, Um. Sociologists say, yeah,
(26:40):
they have any social personality disorder, But it doesn't mean
that that's a problem psychology has to tackle. It's not
a mental flaw, it's a character flaw. And yeah, I'm
sure that the neglect by parents didn't help. I'm sure
the abuse really made it worse. But people can go
through that and never become a serial killer. And it's
(27:03):
it's actually the movement of this organism we call society,
and it's current mood that can produce serial killers. Right
And basically since nineteen fifty there's a lot of people
who point to this post era as a time when
there's just been such social change that you could conceivably
(27:23):
call it a societal breakdown, like degradation of morals, violent films,
video games where you kill people in the first person
point of view. Right. And I didn't know this, but
Kevin Higgerdy told me this. Um. Apparently in the late
early modern era, so say, like the nineteenth century, prostitutes
(27:44):
were actually much more a part of the community than
they are now. Right, So we're actually more puritanical towards
prostitution than we were like a hundred or so years ago. Uh.
And he's saying that as a result of prostitutes becoming
more and more and more outcast in society, Um, they
have become more and more of a target favorite target
(28:06):
of serial killers who love the act of killing. They
don't hate the person that they're killing, unless you're Gary Ridgeway.
But you're just looking for somebody you can kill and
get away with, because you're not crazy, you know what.
You're doing is wrong, right. Um. And then that, combined
with society turning its back on prostitutes, making them basically
live out these very dangerous lives, has allowed the rise
(28:29):
of serial killing to come up because of these changes
like that, And that's just one of many changes. The
really disturbing part of all this is that in sociologies
few we're all serial killers. There's just society hasn't changed
quite enough to to trigger that behavior in us. Well,
(28:51):
let's hope that never happens. Yeah, let's hope indeed. Yeah,
that's really interesting and it's like a totally different way
to look at it, and it makes a lot more
sense to me. Well, you know, another way to look
at it. A lot of people think that, uh, you know,
these serial killers are so far gone and that something
is up with their brain. They can't help it. They've
got a brain malfunction going on. And they've done a
(29:12):
lot of studies on brain damage, and Um, one I
came across found that thirty confessed killers not necessarily still
serial killers on death row are mentally ill, and six
of that twenty had frontal lobe abnormalities. No accident, I
don't think, and of all confessed serial killers have no
(29:34):
brain damage so due. So that's I mean, that's almost
down the middle. So I think there's a variety of factors,
one of which definitely could be brain injury. What was
that one? Guy? Um? Oh? What was Bobby Joe Long?
He has the best quote in this whole article. You
want to read it, but it's okay, okay. Bobby Joe Long,
(29:57):
he was convicted of nine murders and he stated in
his quote, Uh, after I'm dead, they're going to open
up my head and find that, just like we've been saying,
a part of my brain is black and dry and dead.
So yeah, I mean that's that hits it on the
head man. That's creepy. It is creepy. And that's basically
him saying, you know, something is wrong with my brain, dudes,
(30:17):
and after I died, you're gonna check it out and
you're gonna see that I'm right. And what's interesting is
any time you say a quote like that, you automatically
attract people who are waiting for you to die now
because they're like, well, you just threw it out in
the gauntlet. I want to see if part of your
brain is black and dry and dead, I personally want
to know. Yeah, so, Chuck, we've got not insane, possibly
(30:39):
brain damaged in my opinion, definitely a product of society,
anti social personality disorder, people abused and neglected. So how
do you how do you catch such a person? Especially
if there's four hundred of them over the last century
in the United States? This is like a needle in
a haystack, right, Yeah, except the murder to a needle. Yeah. Basically,
(31:01):
what you do if you're a fed or a copper
working the beat, searching out the serial killer. Do you
want to get a do you want to get a signature?
You want to get a modus operandi and m O,
and you want to combine those to come up with
a profile and a signature is like, UM, if you
pose your victims in a certain pose, or if you
(31:23):
always dumped them in a certain spot, that's a signature
that you can look at to help profile or even
the UM The way you dispatch your victims, Yeah, well
that's part of the m O. The way you kill them.
Certainly the ritual of it, that's a big time giveaway.
But what what I found interesting was that the m
O changes and involves and actually grows more mature over time. Um, basically,
(31:48):
it's the killer learning from past mistakes. So your MO
is going to So if like your early m O was,
you know, learning somebody into a van and like a
crowded area, R right, and you almost caught a couple
of times, then you may lure somebody into your vans still,
but it's not going to be in a crowded area anymore,
or something like that. So that's that's an example of
the m O changing over to lured them into your
(32:10):
el camino in a crowded area. Yeah, I think you
can generally trust people who drive el caminos, but the
van the abduction man, if you've got a tiny round
window on the back of rear side of your vand
and that's it, then you're in big trouble. You do
not get in a van like that effect to stay
out of vans entirely. It almost always ends up badly
for the person who was lured in there. Yeah, that's
(32:31):
why they invented the minivan. Actually, that's why they invented
the minivan because it just looks more family friendly and
not like you're a serial killer. Yeah, that's that's what
I heard. It makes sense. So profiling Josh started in
the seventies with Ted Bunny was one of the first ones. Actually, yeah,
and I guess they nailed him then down. Yeah, they
said that his profile was almost perfect, right down to
(32:54):
the point where they predicted that he would have a
step brother. That's like pretty serious profiling if you're getting
that detailed. Yeah, and they were right. Yeah, what all
they missed though? Yeah, they got a stepbrother wrong, but
they are the right. But they got his address wrong
right off by like a number right, and we thought
he was Chinese, but he's not. He's dead. Bundy really
(33:16):
don't know what the whole sky diving thing was. Just yeah, Bundy,
like he unraveled. Man, He he killed people for years.
He's known for the University of Florida deal in the
sorority house. But that was like at the very end.
He had killed people for years and years and years,
and then all of a sudden just flipped and walked
into sorority house and started killing people. And then he
(33:36):
got pulled over for a traffic ticket. That's how they
called him. Yeah, how did they catch him? Like they
knew who they were looking for, you know, not exactly
like a sorority girl in the back or I don't know.
I think they had already had a profile or leads
or something at that point. They tripped him up and Berkowitz,
son of Sam, they caught like they actually apprehended him
and then let him go and he was gonna be
(33:57):
like a witness to one of the murders that he
committed with the cops. And then they were like, wait
a minute, you said that you were just talking to
your neighbor's dog exactly, and he was like, well yeah,
and they're like, okay, well he didn't talk back, man,
That's what I would have said, right, But he said,
oh yeah, and he talked back, and he told me
to kill people, right or b t K. We talked
(34:17):
about the blind blind uh tap dance killer. Right. This
guy is the saddest serial killer ever. He is terrible.
He was terrible at he killed like three people over
the span of like twenty six years. And do you
know how he got caught? Right? I saw? Um, I'm
sure it was on Discovery, our fine, fine parent corporation, right. Um.
(34:38):
They were they were interviewing like one of the investigators
who was working the b t K case and cracked it,
and he was taunting the police. But he wasn't a
really smart guy. So he sent a floppy disk um
to the cops, taunting them with a Microsoft word document
and didn't understand that there's this thing called metadata which
(34:59):
has all sorts of very um specific information about the
computer that you used that on. And he used it
at the church that he was a deacon at, and
um they got him like a couple of days later.
But I remember one of the detectives going like, we
actually thought it was like somebody trying to frame somebody else,
Like I couldn't believe that somebody would be that sloppy
or that dumb. And sure enough he was, Yeah, and
(35:24):
he he wanted a position of authority do anything for us.
It was like dog Catcher for a while. Anything that
had a uniform, he would, Yeah, I should go ahead
and point out before we get assaulted with listener mail.
I know he wasn't called the bind tap dance kill.
That's an inside joke between us and a super fan
to figure that out. Bind, torture and kill. Um. The
(35:44):
one I was fascinated with was Peter Woodcock, Canadian serial killer.
You wouldn't think there's a lot of Canadian serial killers
because Pickton was I think, in my opinion, the worst
serial killer ever. Robert Pickton was Canadian, he was from Vancouver.
Was he angry that he was an American? Feed his
victims to his pigs? Oh, that's right. He was angry
(36:08):
that I'm not America. I'm gonna kill everybody that's American.
We're just kidding, Canadians, we love you. But Peter Woodcock
was a Canadian and he spent thirty five years in
a psych hospital in Canada after he had killed three people.
He was what they thought was rehabilitated, which is the
(36:28):
point of this is that you can't rehabilitate a serial killer.
Pretty much, they thought he was rehabilitated. They said, you
know what, We're gonna give you some leeway. We're gonna
let you out on like some weekend passes. Now he
got his first weekend pass, uh and his supervisor for
the weekend pass was a former patient who was also
a former murderer. And within the first hour that they
(36:49):
let him off on as wee can pass, he and
that his his guy that was watching him killed a
dude with a hatchet and a knife. Within the first
hour of his first weekend pass, he and his chaperone
killed another patient. So that's a that's a bad guy
that did not work out too well. So checking on
anybody else? Yeah, we're like, uh, coming up against it.
(37:10):
I have a big list, and to keep Josh from
eating it, I'll just go ahead and skip to the
front of it. To um. Harold Frederick fred Shipman is
supposedly the most prolific serial killer and known history, and
he is positively linked to two d and fifty murders.
He was doctor Death. Do you ever hear that guy
(37:31):
Dr Death? Yeah, he was a general practitioner and he
targeted his female patients. And this was like you know,
two thousand four was when he hung himself in jail.
So he's supposedly the most prolific of all time. What
about the Columbian guy, uh, Louis Alfredo Garbarrito Kubilos, otherwise
known as the Beast or Labista. He raped and murdered
(37:53):
a hundred and forty boys, but they suspect as many
as three hundred and in Columbia you can only go
to jail for thirty years, but they reduced that to
twenty two years. So he is out. He is out
in his whereabouts I believe are unknown if I'm not mistaken,
so he is out. Yeah. And as Chuck said, I
can't care a serial killer, no, because they're not insane. Right. So,
(38:16):
if you want to know more about serial killers, is
a pretty awesome article on the site called how serial
Killers Work. You can type that into the handy search
part how stuff works dot com, which of course leads
us to listener mail hold on partner. We have a
little bit of admin work to get out of the
way about our New York trips. Some announcements. Okay, let
(38:38):
me shiftle some papers here. Uh, well, T shirts first,
let's go T shirts. The T shirt contest is on
in in for real son and and it's uh the
end of May is um at midnight is the deadline,
So get your submissions in. If you submitted, re submit
within the window. If you're not American, I'm really sorry.
(38:59):
But are we excluding Yeah? You have to really yeah?
So wait, Canadians can't know. Man, it stinks. But like
I told everyone that wrote in, I can't win a
contest in England either. Every country has their own rules
and you gotta be a citizen of this country. Wow, yeah,
(39:20):
I had no idea. That's just the way it's gotta
be here, to go back and read the fine print,
I know. Huh okay, well, yes, sorry to everybody who
lives outside the US. I know it's a bummer, but
that's just another reason it sucks to be you. It's
not our rules, yes, no, no, we would never come
up with something the rules of the world. It's the
planet rules of the United States apparently. Yes. So New York, Josh, Yeah,
(39:41):
we are coming to New York and we have two
events pending, one for sure and one tbd uh Monday night,
June seven, we will be at the Knitting Factory and
Scenic Brooklyn, New York, super hipster Central Brooklyn. I don't
know that I'm going to be able to cut skinny
(40:02):
jeans for both of us. Um. Yes, skinny jeans and
the eyot Oxford don't really go unless it's like three
sizes too small, and it kind of is. Yeah. So uh,
we're gonna be doing a little happy hour get together
from five thirty to seven thirty. There will be a
concert to follow that actually costs money if you want
to get into that. It's like twelve bucks. I think
(40:24):
and The Onion is sponsoring that, and there will be
folks from The Onion hanging out with us too, so
you can meet them, yeah, which will be super cool.
Looking forward to meeting them in person. Yeah, So be there,
be square. And then Wednesday night, June night, we are
gonna do an all star trivia challenge and we're rounding
out our all star trivia team that Josh and are
(40:44):
on and it's pretty exciting special mystery guests. Yes, well,
I'll tell you what. Let's confirm one person, Um, the
editor in chief of the Onion newspaper is on our team.
Joan Does is one of our buddies now and um
the other well, we don't want to announce just yet
because I hate to say that. You know Mr t
is gonna be there. If he's not gonna be there,
(41:05):
I can't believe he just gave it away. So that
is gonna be you come you challenge us for bragging
rights at trivia. Uh, and it's gonna be a lot
of fun at Bar Trivia and Location tv D. But
that'll be Wednesday ju Night and co Ed Yes the
beans Josh okay. So um, if you have heard our
(41:25):
two part Guatemala series you're familiar with co ed if
not UM, they are a great organization that creates um
self sustaining textbook and computer centers, right, um. And you
can actually support these guys with a five dollar donation
by texting the words stuff as to U F F
(41:47):
two two zero to two two. You'll get a text
back saying you sure you're sure about this? And all
you do is text yes, and it'll charge you five bucks.
And what'd you say? Off? Mike? Some what applies? Text
and data rates may apply and uh if it's actually
all these this is another thing only for Americans because
(42:10):
it's different cell companies in different countries. So if you
want to give and you live outside the Union United States,
you can go to UH co ed you see dot
org then may have a place where you can donate
there wherever you live, even if you live on Mars Mars. Well,
all right, it's listener male Ton. Huh. Indeed, Josh, we're
(42:34):
short on time. I'm gonna call this top ten reasons
to hate stuff. You should know that's good, um. Number
one reason to hate us Josh and Chuck frequently but
your names and words during the podcast and misuse I
and me in a gross perversion of the English language.
Check Number two. We cause ordinary people to become inebriated
while listening by saying a few key words. Number three.
(42:56):
It is not released frequently enough and causes addicted listeners
to moan in pain between Tuesday and Thursday. Number four
catchy theme music easily gets stuck in listeners heads. Number
five Chuck and Josh swear in the podcast, and the
beats can cause hearing damage. Number six. Jerry is seldom mentioned,
not true, and has never been heard live on the air,
and some fans postulate the Chuck and Josh keeper locked
(43:16):
in a closet between podcasts. Number seven uh, Stuff you
Should Know instructs on a wide variety of illegal topics,
including nuclear weapons, money laung ring, and the pompst the schemes.
Number eight Chuck and Josh use horrible plug similes. True.
Number nine the disillusion listeners by stating that they record
to every Friday when it's common knowledge that they record
(43:37):
every Tuesday and Thursday instead. Uh not true. And number ten.
In addition to possibly keeping Jerry locked in the closet,
we also torture her by going off on long winded introductions.
True it's a bad one to put on the d
and at times getting completely off topic. Way way true.
Always a huge fan. Noah, Thanks Noah, We appreciate that.
(43:58):
Top ten. Let's let's an be awesome listener mail I agreed. Yeah,
if you have awesome listener mail force, we want to
read it. And if you have any crazy serial killer
stories grizzly or otherwise, how about those? Want those? Yeah,
if you've got some firsthand experience obviously not if you're
not a serial killer, but if you know of someone
(44:19):
who was, or like any cool link. If you have
something to say about serial killers, put it in an email,
send it to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot
com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
(44:39):
stuff works, check out our blogs on the house. Stuff
works dot com home page. Brought to you by the
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
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Josh Clark
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