Criminal psychology: what is a serial killer like?

What is a serial killer like? We explain the characteristics of the psychokiller.

Perhaps because of the alarm it generates, because of its crudeness or the intellectual challenge that its study demands, serial murders have been since the emergence of Forensic Psychiatry one of the main foundations of the study of the criminal.

To this day, it has not been possible to establish definitively what is the psycho-clinical profile that delimits the psycho-clinical profile that delimits a serial killer from a normal a serial killer from a normal citizen.

Psychology of the serial killer, criminal psychology

It is known that the psychological background of the profile of a serial killer is that of a humiliated, abused and violated child. In half of the cases, he has suffered from paternal absence and considers his mother as a danger to be protected from.

Research

However, in a recent finding presented in the New England Journal of Medicine the anatomical differences between serial killers and ordinary people are noted. The serial killer has a larger and therefore more functional frontal lobe, This characteristic makes them more aggressive and less empathetic than the average serial killer..

Behavior, strategy, working memory and planning capacity reside in the frontal lobe. It could be said to be the most "human" part of our brain. Its hypertrophy indicates a high aggressiveness and, in turn, an increased capacity for strategy as well as a low capacity for empathy that can lead to a certain risk of sadism.

The neurochemistry of the serial killer

According to Dr. Reid Meloy, another differential characteristic between serial killers and the rest of the population is an abnormally high level of manganese, iron and copper, such that it has a direct impact on the depletion of dopamine and serotonin.which are relaxing substances that decrease testosterone levels (a hormone that causes not only excessive aggressiveness but also the need for dominance), so that the individual suffers a behavioral alteration that pushes him to the criminal act in a desperate attempt to impose his superiority over his peers.

Unfortunately, even with the progress of this discovery, which allows us to get a little closer to the mind of the referential serial killer, these clinical findings do not yet allow us to predict or prevent the sadistic drive of these subjects.

It is necessary to The exact combination of factors that lead to this criminal behavior must be deciphered.Does science have an answer to this challenge? Without a doubt, the answer may be found within a few years.

Discovering the lives and minds of some serial killers

For detailed analyses of the criminal psychology of some famous killers, we recommend the following monographs:

• Ed Gein, 'the Butcher of Plainfeld'.

Jack 'the Ripper