Richard Benjamin Speck Personality Traits

Statistically, the average serial killer is a white male from a lower-to-middle-class background, usually in his twenties or thirties. Many were physically or emotionally abused by parents. Some were adopted. As children, fledgling serial killers often set fires, torture animals, and wet their beds (these red-flag behaviors are known as the “triad” of symptoms.) Brain injuries are common. Some are very intelligent and have shown great promise as successful professionals. They are also fascinated with the police and authority in general (Scott).

Although serial killers come in all shapes and sizes, there is a general profile that criminologists go by when trying to profile a criminal. The typical serial killer is a white male in his late 20s to early 30s, kills within his own race, his targeted victims share specific characteristics, and his method of murder is “hands on” in means of strangulation. The types of serial killers include visionaries, missionaries, lust killers, thrill killers, gain killers, and power seekers. Depending on the type of serial killer, their profile may change; for example, certain clues from missionary-type killers can help decide their religious affiliation. Also, certain types of serial killers may generally have different age groups. Most serial

Serial killers are the byproduct of many different things: trauma, death of loved ones, abuse, neglect, adoption, and even witnessing abuse (Are Serial). Serial killers have had to endure a massive amount of something such as trauma or abuse to an unimaginable extent to become what they are; the extent of the abuse, the trauma, the psychological damage they endure is incomprehensible to many. The destruction of one’s innocence can occur at any given time in his or her life, but he or she is more impressionable in his or her youth by the negativism of someone else’s actions (Scott, Shirley L. What Makes Serial Killers Tick ~ Childhood Event). People are susceptible to what they endure in their adolescence, and cruel upbringings, such as

As a teenager he started to develop a sexuality toward men. He became the class clown and was outwardly a model student, very nice to adults and very polite to teachers. However, his sexual fantasies continued to traumatized him and drove him to drinking. Taking a psychoanalytic perspective his life began to mirror one of the three basic situations that result in crime. He was efficiently repressing his guilt and Id for his sexuality towards men, until it led to an “explosion” of acting out behavior. Right after he graduated from high school, the repression lead to his first kill. His desires which were held down for so long became so overwhelming that they overtook his superego and ego and ran wild. After killing his first victim soon after high school his killing spree that took the lives of seventeen people began and didn’t end until he was caught thirteen years later.

Several serial killers have a definitive and common personality profile. Almost every major social, biological, psychological behavioural influence that has been seriously suggested as playing a role in causing crime has been thoroughly thought as potentially

In 1935, Richard Kuklinski was born New Jersey and had a rough childhood. He was a contract killer for the mafia back in 1949-1986. He showed no sympathy for the ones he killed and had no feelings for them one way or another. His life all started when his parents had him and that was beginning of one of the worst killers in america.

The stereotype that exists for individuals who commit serial murder is one that mainly includes males of a specific race. However, it is now known that white males are not the only individuals who commit serial murder. Men and women from all racial and ethnic backgrounds and socio-economic statuses have been found to be serial murderers. Although this information has been presented to society, the cultural schema of the white male serial killer is still prevalent. The assumptions that involve serial murderers often include two aspects, the serial murderer is male and the serial murder is a type of “lust murder”, often involving sexual crimes by a sadist (Keeney and Heide, 1995). Keeney and Heide (1994) define serial murder to be the

Edmund Emil Kemper III grew up in a setting similar to that of many serial killers we hear about in the mainstream media. Although Kemper displayed signs of high intelligence as a child, he also showed other, troubling signs that are typical of many serial killers. For example, in his early years Kemper played games in which he forced his sisters to sit and watch him pretend to suffer and die and even killed his pet cat when he observed that the animal had imprinted on his two sisters. After his parents' divorce, Kemper moved with his mother and sisters to Montana, where he suffered psychological abuse from his alcoholic mother. Eventually, Kemper’s mother sent him to live with his father and shortly after, with his grandparents on their farm in North Fork, California.

In today’s society there has been many different types of serial killers since the 1880’s that have different characteristic traits, behavioral traits, motives and environmental factors that have led the person to kill people. The general profile of a serial killer is a person that has had a very troubled childhood. They are usually arsonists, like to kill animals and have had bed wetting problems growing up past the normal age. Some serial killers have been in mental hospitals before committing the murders. All serial killers have different motives and are arranged in certain categories due to their types of crimes, if they have a signature or take a souvenir.

The book The Night Stalker is based on the life and crimes that Richard Ramirez has committed. Ramirez died at the age of 53 from an illness that had to do with lymphoma, while he was on death row. He was a serial killer who tortured, raped, and murdered several people in just over two years. Richard had more than 28 victims, but only 13 of them he has been convicted of actually murdering. His victims ranged from 9 to 83 years old, most of them were female, the only time he killed males was when they were in his way. The reason his main targets were either really young or elderly was because they are the weakest ones, and aren’t capable to fight back. Richard started to gain popularity because he had admitted to being a Satanist, which then

For instance, the case of the “Green River Killer” (Hickey, 2010:24) may offer another possible explanation for what caused Jack the Ripper to become a serial killer. Gary Ridgway is America’s most notorious serial killer (Hickey, 2010), he “holds the record for the most serial murder convictions in the history of the United States” (Hickey, 2010:24). Ridgway is responsible for the deaths of 48 women (Hickey, 2010). Like Jack the Ripper, Ridgway selected prostitutes as his intended victims (Paley, 1995).

Richard Trenton Chase carried the nickname The Vampire of Sacramento because of his obsession of drinking the blood of his victims as well as eating their internal organs. He did this due to his thoughts of needing to prevent the Nazis from turning his blood into poison. Born on May 23, 1950 into a strict household, he was often beaten by his father. When he reached his teen years he became an alcoholic and developed a liking for killing animals and fire starting. In high school, he had multiple girlfriends due to the fact that he couldn’t get aroused. He consulted a psychiatrist and was told that he had rage or mental illness and did not seek further treatment after the diagnosis. It wasn’t until later that he figured that he could only get an arousal by violent or disturbed acts such as killing animals. Before long, Richard’s father purchased him an apartment forcing him to move out after he began to accuse his mother that she wanted to poison him. In his new apartment he would capture kill and disembowel various animals which he would than devour raw. He would also put animals into a blender in order to make into a smoothie. He had in his mind, that these smoothies would be preventing his heart from shirking.

Though serial killer may have a fairly specific definition, there is no single precise profile for the serial killer. Each has a unique identity, set of motives and methods, and a unique psychopathology that would attempt to explain the mens rea, that is, the purpose or intent of the murder. “Psychological profiling is an investigative tool used strictly to answer the how of the crime, not the why” (Severence et al, 1992; Lanier and Henry, 1998). By examining the psychological make-up of the serial killer, it is often possible to explain the behavior, which might make it a useful tool in solving crimes.

Richard Speck, infamous for the brutal murders of eight student nurses, was born on December 6th, 1941 in a small Illinois town called Kirkwood. Speck was number seven out of eight children, so his family was rather large. Margaret Carbaugh Speck, his mom, raised the family under a strict religious regime. The religious ideals that Margaret used to raise the Speck family came from her strict Presbyterian upbringing and her own family’s experience of helping to found a church. A major component of religious ideology that she brought into her household when raising Speck and his siblings was the banishment of alcohol. In fact, she even disallowed her husband, Benjamin Speck, from consuming alcohol. Though

On December 6th, 1941 the world welcomed Richard Benjamin Speck, who would become a well-known mass murderer. Speck, having a rather rough childhood, had an extensive criminal background before committing the unspeakable murders that made him famous. After being found guilty, Speck spent his remaining days in Chicago’s Stateville Penitentiary. One can look at Richard’s personal history, crime and criminal history to try and pin him to one criminological theory, when in reality, none will really fit him to a “T”. He was a psychopath who was in great need of psychological help, among other things.