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