Research Paper

Dawn Ubando

Mr. Sharp

English 155 (MW 12:30)

16 September 2013

In the Mind of a Serial Killer

Surprisingly serial killers are not necessarily insane; they are often sane. What is a serial killer? Many will say they are insane people and some will call them psychos. There are two ways to classify a serial killer, by their motive and their organizational and social skills. They can either be organized, disorganized, nonsocial or asocial. For some the only way to define a serial killer is to say they are “insane.” After doing some research, only a few were ever found insane. The signature and modus operandi (MO) are both aspects of profiling a serial killer. The FBI uses this type of profiling to help find the perpetrator. Let’s start from the beginning and find out what is a serial killer.

A serial killer is one who murders three or more victims, with “cooling off” periods between each murder (Freeman). Serial killers were known as far back as 69 AD. It increased dramatically in the 1900’s. The earliest documented case was Locusta, a Roman woman who poisoned several members of the imperial family. Serial murders were also documented in Germany, England, Hungary and Italy (“Serial Murder”). Robert Ressler coined the term “serial killer” in the 1970’s while he was working for the FBI as an investigator with the Behavioral Science unit. He came up with term after interviewing a number of convicted offenders. He also went to England and there they called it “crime in a series”. He wanted to keep it somewhere along the line, but did not want to use the same term (Freeman). The first known documented serial killer in America is Herman Webster Mudgett also known under the alias Dr. Henry H. Holmes.

Henry Holmes had many aliases but was well known as H. H. Holmes. He was born on May 16, 1861 in Gilmanton, New Hampshire. He had an interest in medicine which leads him to attend the University of Michigan. While attending there he stole corpses to file false...