“What can we learn about ourselves? People are drawn to understanding the dark side, and the dark side is part of the human condition.” “It’s not really about the victims. “My question is: What can we learn from these individuals?” he says. Scott Bonn attempts to solve some of these mysteries. In his new book, Why We Love Serial Killers (out October 28), criminologist Dr. The question is, why? What draws people to their dark, disturbing stories? Why do some killers become celebrities while others are forgotten? Juicy J can drop that tasteless reference and know it will be understood because serial killers are “still very much a part of our culture,” Penman says. For example, in Katy Perry’s recent song “Dark Horse,” Juicy J raps, “She’ll eat your heart out/like Jeffrey Dahmer.” Dahmer, who was known for cannibalizing his victims, committed his crimes between 19, and was killed in prison in 1994, nearly 20 years before “Dark Horse” was released. Meanwhile, Gacy’s story, along with those of other serial killers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and David Berkowitz, are remembered even decades later: They’re so well-known that we continue to hear casual references to them in pop culture. Sadly, tales of domestic violence zoom in and out of the news so frequently that they rarely capture the public’s attention, and when they do, they don’t hold it for long. Less than one percent of murders in any given year are committed by serial killers, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s report on serial murder in 2012, 12.5 percent of murders were committed by victims’ family members. If you were to carefully calibrate your fear of being murdered according to statistics, you should be 12 times as afraid of your family members as of serial killers. John Wayne Gacy’s black leather jacket and clown costume represent two distinct parts of his identity. Because when it comes to serial killers, the myth is what matters. As heinous as his crimes were, this one offbeat detail from his life propelled him to infamy. “When he was good, he was the best of good,” wrote Gacy’s defense attorney, Sam Amirante, in an email, “but when he was bad he was the worst of evil.”īut even if Gacy never killed as Pogo, people still associate his murders with white makeup, a painted, pointed red mouth, and a frilly collar. An exhibit at the museum displays the clown costumes alongside Gacy’s plain black leather jacket, juxtaposing the two sides of Gacy’s divided nature.
“When he was creepy and going to kill you was when he was dressed normally,” says Rachael Penman, exhibits and events manager at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. Gacy dressed up as his alter egos, Pogo and Patches, for parties, or sometimes to entertain children at nearby hospitals. was both a killer and a clown, there’s no evidence that he murdered any of his 33 victims while wearing a clown costume. A research focus on murder in the extreme may also help us understand more commonplace forms of interpersonal violence.People call him the Killer Clown. Future studies should make greater use of comparison groups and seek life-cycle explanations-beyond early childhood-which recognize the unique patterns and characteristics of multiple murderers. The research literature, still in its infancy, is more speculative than definitive, based primarily on anecdotal evidence rather than hard data. Both can be understood within the same motivational typology-power, revenge, loyalty, profit, and terror. Importantly, the difference of timing that distinguishes serial from mass murder may also obscure strong similarities in their motivation. He executes his victims in the most expedient way-with a firearm. Demographically similar to the serial killer, the mass murderer generally kills people he knows well, acting deliberately and methodically. These killers tend to be sociopaths who satisfy personal needs by killing with physical force. The serial killer is typically a white male in his late twenties or thirties who targets strangers encountered near his work or home. Though far from the epidemic suggested in media reports, it is alarming nonetheless that a small number of offenders account for so much human destruction and widespread fear. Over the past decade the topic of multiple homicide-serial and mass murder-has attracted increased attention in the field of criminology.
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