SYMPATHETIC SERIAL KILLERS

I was watching Criminal Minds (Zoe’s Reprise, 2009) a while back, and the episode was about a serial killer who was trying to figure himself out. The basic plot of the story involved the guy copying different killers throughout time until he found the one method that appealed to him and was sexually gratifying. The FBI knows that he has killed a specific amount of women, but there are some unsolved murders that they are trying to link to him. The FBI eventually figure out that he is the killer because his girlfriend tells them that he likes to have sex outdoors and they link the places with photos they find hanging on the wall in his apartment. Once the killer knows that he is caught, he asks David Rossi to please tell him why he does it. He goes into a speech about how he walks down the street, looking at people and wondering how to kill them, knowing that no one else does that. He knows that what he’s done is wrong, but he can’t help himself. I scoffed and rolled my eyes as the credits rolled. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the show, but the ending struck me as kind of hokey. It also made me think about the show Dexter and various other films.

Serial killers have been a subject of pop culture for years. Hitchcock used Gein as the template for Norman Bates in Psycho, and Thomas Harris wrote an entire series about Hannibal Lecter. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was billed as true events, and was also based on the crimes of Ed Gein. There are also the countless straight-to-DVD and made-for-TV movies that portray the life and crimes of Gacy, Dahmer, BTK, etc. Serial killers are fascinating to us because we don’t know what drives them to do what they do. We think we know, and it might apply to one individual, but it does not apply to all serial killers. We watch shows such as A&E and Biography to hopefully get some insight into their minds. We read books such as “Helter Skelter” to understand what drove them to commit murder. But we also read and watch these things because it re-affirms the differences between “us” and “them.” The only thing we forget is that serial killers are only “them” after they are caught; before then, they are “us.”

Gacy is a perfect example of this. He lived in Waterloo, Iowa; had a wife, a son, and a daughter; and dressed up as a clown to entertain children. He ran a KFC franchise that belonged to his parents, and was a member of the Waterloo Jaycees. Gacy was arrested on March 1968 after two boys, age 15 and 16, accused him of sexually assaulting them. Of course, he claimed he was innocent, and he would have gotten away with it, but he hired another teenager to beat up one of his accusers. That young man was caught and confessed, so Gacy was arrested, convicted of sodomy, and sentenced to 10 years in the Iowa State Penitentiary. Shortly after his incarceration, his wife filed for divorce. He was paroled after serving 18 months, and headed back to Chicago to live with his mother. In 1972, he remarried (only to be divorced by 1976), in 1975, he started his own contracting business, and he became active in the local Democratic Party. It wasn’t until after his second divorce that he began his killing sprees in earnest. On several different occasions, the victim’s parents told the cops to question Gacy, but nothing ever came of it. Mainly because he was able to keep his conviction in Iowa a secret. He was finally arrested in December of 1978.

Even though Gacy had some run-ins with the law (which is not uncommon with serial killers), he was never a main suspect in the deaths. The reason the families wanted him questioned was because he was the last person to see the victims alive. His standing in the community and the facade of his normal life kept him from being a suspect for a long time. It wasn’t until police found out about his prior conviction (along with other evidence) that he became the main suspect.

Kemper is also another good example. Growing up in California, his dream was to become a Highway Patrolman. Unfortunately, at 6’ 9”, he was too tall and didn’t make the force. But that didn’t stop him from becoming friends with individuals on the police force. He made it a point to hang out at coffee shops and diners that were frequented by law enforcement, and when he started his killings, he had inside information about the case. Even when he called to turn himself in, it took three different phone calls to convince the police that he was actually the killer. Despite the fact that he spent time in an institution as a child, he was able to function in society and appear normal.

There is also the BTK killer. He committed 10 murders between the years of 1974 and 1991. He sent letters to the police and the local news station describing his crimes, then went on hiatus in the 1990s. In 2004, he started sending letters again, and was captured in 2005. In 2004, the trail of the BTK Killer had gone cold. For some reason, Rader sent a letter to the police and claimed responsibility for a murder that had not been previously attributed to him. The police continued to correspond with BTK, hoping to gain his confidence. They finally caught him after he sent in a floppy disk with metadata that was used to trace him. Rader was arrested on February 25, 2005.

Dennis Rader was married for 33 years and had one son and one daughter. He was involved with the Christ Lutheran Church, elected as the president of the Congregation Council, and was a Cub Scout leader. He had an associates degree in Electronics from Butler County Community College, and a bachelor’s from Wichita State University in Administration of Justice. He served on the Sedgwick County’s Board of Zoning Appeals and the Animal Control Advisory Board. If he had decided not to send that letter and disk to the police, he would probably still be free, and no one would know he was a killer.

The list goes on. It seems like the first reaction from friends and family when a serial killer is caught is: “But they seemed so normal.” And what about all those killers who didn’t get caught? The Zodiac Killer, the Black Doodler, Jack the Ripper? Most professionals speculate that the murders stop because the killers are incarcerated for another crime, put in an institution, or die. But what if they don’t? What if they just stop killing because they’re tired of it? (In the case of the Black Doodler, he has actually started killing again after a 20-year break. He is now referred to as the Grim Sleeper.) In that case, they have totally become “us.”

When you think of Gein or Bundy or Dahmer, the first thing that comes to mind is “monster,” and, for the most part, it is a fitting nomenclature; their crimes were deplorable. But we seem to forget that they are humans, too. When psychiatrists, behavioral specialists, and FBI profilers go into a case, they can give a pretty good description of what they are looking for in a suspect. For serial killers, they are more than likely going to be white, middle class, fairly intelligent, and probably have had a hard time holding down a job. What the profile doesn’t tell us is WHY they are doing it. In some cases, it might be because they were abused as children, or it might stem from a head injury. There are numerous theories out there that explain why serial killers kill, but none of them can be applied to serial killers as a whole. Like “us,” “they” are complex creatures who think and feel.

The distinction between “us” and “them” comes into play when the killers are caught. They seem to have no remorse for what they’ve done, and if given the chance, they will most certainly kill again. They might spend the vast majority of their time seeking out victims, but the populace never knows it. That is why they are such good fodder for popular culture. They are the ultimate villain.

The reason serial killers work so well in films and literature is because there is a lot of material to pull from. They are the perfect example of truth being stranger than fiction. Serial killers work great for horror films because it doesn’t take much for them to scare the public. But there has been a trend lately; one that made me roll my eyes after watching Criminal Minds and made me think about Dexter and various other films. This trend is the author’s/director’s intention of making serial killers sympathetic.

As I mentioned before, serial killers are humans, just like us. The only difference is they murder numerous individuals for pleasure. While we all have our dark side, and we might even contemplate murdering someone, the vast majority of us will never actually do it. But that doesn’t stop our fascination with those that do actually do it, and, naturally, we want to know why. Authors and directors have the ability to delve into a character’s mind; to show the audience what they are thinking and give them motives for their actions. Unlike serial killers in real life, we might not ever know why they did what they did, which is why I think shows like Dexter and Criminal Minds are so appealing. They give us answers. They make the bad guy the hero. Sure, Dexter is a serial killer who has killed hundreds of people, but he only targets bad guys, criminals who didn’t get the justice they deserved, so he can’t be all bad.

Some serial killers target prostitutes and drug addicts because they believe it is their mission to clean up the streets. Several other killers, including Gary Ridgway, also targeted prostitutes because he believed they wouldn’t be missed. In his plea-bargain statement, Ridgway said, “I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex. I also picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” Dean Corll targeted boys from lower income homes who were perceived to be runaways. In their minds, there were serving justice to those who deserved it. Like Dexter, they believed they were targeting “bad guys.”

Dexter is the complete embodiment of serial killers: he is smart, middle class, white, and leads a totally normal life when he’s not killing. Like most serial killers, he even interjects himself into the police investigation, but Dexter takes it one step further because he actually works for the cops. He can always stay one step ahead because he has access to evidence and knows what the police are planning. Dexter is a popular program because it gives the audience access to what the killer is thinking. Unlike real life where the motives can be obtuse or unexpected, Dexter gives us something concrete to grasp, and makes us sympathize with the trials and tribulations of the character.

One of the most common influences in a serial killer’s path to becoming a murderer is child abuse. As I pointed out in an earlier article, mothers play an extremely important role in forming their child’s psychosis. Psycho is a great example of how filmmakers have used this knowledge to make the killer sympathetic. Based on the life of Ed Gein, Psycho follows Norman Bates as he murders people who are staying in his hotel. The audience is led to believe that it is his mother that is actually committing the murders, but they learn by the end of the film that she is dead, a mummified skeleton in a rocking chair in the attic. As a domineering and overbearing woman, Norman has adopted her into his psyche and takes on her personality when he kills. By the end of the film, it is hard for the audience to not feel a little bit sorry for Norman. He was thrust into a situation that he had no control over, and he did what he had to do to survive. Even his victims deserved to die. After all, Marion Crane was an adulterer and thief, and she was fleeing to elude capture. Justice had to be served.

This approach is also used in the Thomas Harris novels and the subsequent films that introduce us to Hannibal Lecter (I will be referring to the films in the following, unless otherwise indicated). Dr. Lecter is a killer who generally cannibalizes his victims. Throughout most of the movies, Lecter is already in jail, having been caught by a tenacious FBI agent. Since Lecter is such an incredibly smart individual, they go to him for advice about other serial killers and how to catch them. Lecter, for the most part, is portrayed as an admirable character (after all, he’s helping get the real demons off the street), but in Silence of the Lambs, there are scenes that remind us just how horrible Lecter really is. This is most evident when he is being transferred and has to wear a mask and straight jacket, and then in the scene where he kills and removes the cop’s face. But this all changes when we get to Hannibal Rising. The audience is thrust into his past and sees what turned him into a serial killer. Again, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him as he loses his younger sister to cannibals and witnesses the atrocities of the Nazi party. We want him to get revenge, and we cheer him on as he kills and consumes his victims.

It seems odd that we can sympathize with the characters on the screen, but we don’t translate that sympathy over to real serial killers. After all, the characters in these books and movies are usually based on real-life killers who have suffered horrible abuse at the hands of their families or friends. Kemper was abused by his mother, and transferred that abuse onto his co-ed victims, but then eventually killed the person who tortured him in the first place. He was exacting revenge, but he didn’t become a sympathetic figure. Gacy was in a constant mental battle with himself that stemmed from abuse from his father and Gacy’s own homosexual tendencies. His victims were probably murdered because of the intense guilt and hatred he felt after indulging his fantasies. Yet, no one felt sorry for him.

This is where fact versus fiction comes into play. The audience is able to feel sympathy for the serial killers on screen because we know they are fake. Real serial killers, on the other hand, really hurt people, those who are innocent and don’t deserve to die in horrific events. Another reason we are able to sympathize with killers on screen and not in real life is due to remorse. Most real-life serial killers know that what they are doing is wrong, yet they can’t/won’t stop. They have to commit murder to fulfill some deep desire within them. They are smart enough to elude the police, and when they are caught, they generally don’t exhibit any signs that they are sorry for what they did. Bundy is quoted as saying, “So what’s one less? What’s one less person on the face of the planet?” Supposedly, right before Gacy was to be executed, he commented that his death would not bring any of his victims back, and it is reported that his last words to a correctional officer were “Kiss my ass.”

Dexter is always fighting within himself as to whether or not he should continue his work. He still continues to kill, but at least the audience sees his torment while he is doing it. William Heirens felt the same type of torment, and left a message on the mirror of one of his victims, pleading with the police to stop him. It was obvious that he knew his crimes were wrong, but he couldn’t stop himself. Like Dexter, he continued to kill.

As long as there are traits in characters that bring the killing machine back to humanity, the audience will feel sorry for them. Unfortunately (or fortunately, it depends on your stand point), it doesn’t work for real serial killers. I’m sure there are people out there who sympathize with serial killers. After all, both serial killers and their sympathizers are human. Just like “us,” “they” will have to atone for their sins.