In to the mind of a serial killer - what ticks and whats amiss

Prince wins Kurukshetra battle after 50-hour ordeal butdid not search kidnapped children. Serial killersGang was arrested in Gurgaon. A serial killer is different to a mass murderer and spree killer

Auto Shankar Behram Raman Raghav Bikini killer Stoneman Osama elephant John Smith Baldev Singh Maheshwar Padhi  Bhashkar, Gurgaon gutters and children skeletons in Noida are few deshi serial killers.

Grenade-throwing at Srinagar for Rs.1, 000, threat to kidnap the kids of PMsand encouragement to terrorists and naxalites for gaining votes indicates the future flooding of serial killers in India . They come under the other two types different to the Noida’s and Gurgaon gutters’ serial killers. We may call them under the category of mass murderer and spree killer

Every serial killer commits a first murder.  This chapter explores the various factors that might compel the frequently youthful offender to cross the line for the first time from homicidal fantasy to action.

A murderer becomes a serial killer only after their second and third murders: An exploration of the cyclical psychopathology behind how and why serial killers kill again and again.

'Accountability' of serial killer Satish of Noida may be determined by brain-scans

Satish alias Surinder, who was working as a domestic help in the house of a businessman here, had "acted alone" in the killings and skeletons and clothes were found from gunny bags in Nithari area in Sector 31 of Noida, adjoining Delhi , they said. He "confessed" to having killed five children and a grown-up girl after "sexually abusing" them and some skeletons and clothes belonging to the victims have been recovered, police said.

It was suggested that perhaps the 'accountability' of serial killers may be able to be determined by brain-scans once the differences were catalogued. If these differences are detectable, than perhaps we can know who is a serial killer and who is not. However, would this indicate whether the serial killer was born this way rather than having willfully trained himself to enjoy the 'feelings' that his crimes elicit?

Serial Killers generally say it's not my fault

"One must feel sorry for those who have strange tastes, but never insult them. Their wrong is Nature's too; they are no more responsible for having come into the world with tendencies unlike ours than are we for being born bandy-legged or well-proportioned". Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), "Dialogue the Fifth" (1795).

Serial killer Carl Panzram himself wrote: "All of my family are as the average human beings are. They are honest and hard working people. All, except myself. I have been a human-animile ever since I was born. When I was very young at 5 or 6 years of age I was a thief and a lier and a mean despisable one at that. The older I got the meaner I got."

Most serial killers have dysfunctional backgrounds. Frequently they were physically, sexually, or psychologically abused as children and there is often a correlation between their childhood abuse and their crimes.

Some serial killers display one or more of what are known as the 'Mac Donald triad' of warning signs in childhood. These are: ‘Fire starting’, invariably just for the thrill of destroying things. ‘Cruelty to animals’ (relate to 'zoosadism'). Many children may be cruel to animals, such as pulling the legs off spiders, but future serial killers often kill larger animals, like  and cats, and frequently for their solitary enjoyment rather than to impress peers. ‘Bed-wetting’ beyond the age when children normally grow out of such behavior

A serial killer is different to a mass murderer and spree killer.

A serial killer is someone who commits three or more murders over an extended period of time with cooling-off periods in between. In between their crimes, they appear to be quite normal, a state which Hervey Cleckley and Robert Hare call the "mask of sanity." There is often — but not always — a sexual element to the murders. All the murders must be completed/attempted in a similar fashion or the victims must have something in common, ex. occupation, race, sex, etc.

Serial killers frequently have extreme sadistic urges. Those who lack the ability to empathize with the suffering of others are frequently called psychopathic or sociopathic, terms which have been renamed among professional psychiatrists as antisocial personality disorder. Some serial killers engage in lust and torture murder, loosely defined terms involving, respectively, mutilation for sexual pleasure and killing victims slowly over a prolonged period of time.

Death penalty to biologically malformed

When serial killers caught and tried in a court of law in the United States, some serial killers will plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

Biology implies that these individuals suffer from something as simple as a birth defect, or something strange that has happened to or been transcribed in their brains. The 'insanity defense' clearly states that we can not punish a person who does not understand what they have done as being wrong. However, changes or abnormalities in the brain, as exposed above, indicate that serial killers do not understand the world as you or I. As science begins to unravel personality, accountability unravels with it. "The person becomes his parts - some working, some defective through no fault of his own."

Could serial killers simply begin as individuals looking for activities that will allow them to enjoy and take pleasure in life like you or I? Perhaps they've learned that for their 'pursuit of happiness' they must trade in what society imposes upon them as 'morality'. A concept they may not even be capable of understanding.

Auto Shankar

In late 1988, over a period of approximately six months, nine teenage girls from the Thiruvanmiyur section of Chennai disappeared without a trace. In the beginning, investigators believed that the girls had been sold into prostitution by families unable to afford wedding dowries, but the consistent denial of kin forced them to seek another explanation.

During his trial Auto Shankar blamed cinema for "making a devil of him", but a month before his execution, he revealed to reporters a more sinister force. According to his account, he had kidnapped the girls for powerful state politicians, subsequently disposing of them after his patrons had raped them. Auto Shankar was convicted and hanged until death in Salem Central Prison on April 27, 1995

Thug Behram, of the Indian Thuggee cult, has frequently been said to be the world's most prolific serial killer. According to numerous sources, he was believed to have murdered 931 victims by strangulation by means of a ceremonial handkerchief,  used by his cult between 1790-1830. it would be unwise to attribute any specific total of killings to this one murderer.

Raman Raghav (1929 - 1995) was a psychopathic serial killer who operated in the city of Mumbai (then Bombay), India in the mid-1960s. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia after his arrest. Very little is known about Raghav's early life or circumstances that led him to commit the crimes.

Charles Sobhraj (born April 6, 1944 in Saigon, then adopted as French) is a serial killer who preyed on Western tourists throughout Southeast Asia during the 1970s. Nicknamed "the Serpent" and "the Bikini killer" for his skills at deception and evasion, he allegedly committed at least 12 murders and was jailed in India from 1976 to 1997, but managed to live a life of leisure in prison. He retired as a celebrity in Paris, then unexpectedly returned to Nepal, where he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment on August 12, 2004.

While Sobhraj is widely believed to be a psychopath — he has a manipulative personality and is incapable of remorse — his motives for killing differed from those of most serial killers.

The Stoneman was a name given by the popular English language print media of Calcutta to an alleged serial-killer who menaced the streets of that city in 1989. It was never established whether the thirteen murders that occurred over the space of six months, beginning with the first death in June 1989, were the handiwork of one person or a group of individuals. The Calcutta police also failed to resolve whether any of the crimes was committed as a copycat murder. To date, no one has been sentenced for these crimes, making this one of the greatest unsolved mysteries plaguing modern metropolitan Indian police forces.

Osama Elephant: On Dec 17, 2006 , GUWAHATI, India - An elephant named “Osama bin Laden” that has killed 27 people in northeast India , has been shot dead, triggering protests by conservationists who say forestry officials had probably shot the wrong animal.

Deadlys pine-chilling killing sprees with an Indian connection: The extent to which Indian criminals have spread their tentacles is given a shocking twist by a World Centre of Crime Investigation-compiled rogues' gallery, which lists five Indians/NRIs among the 'top 10 serial killers in history'. 

Following are reported by TOI in 2004:

John Smith: An Indian, terrorised Seattle by killing men and kidnapping children.

Maheswar Padhi: He is 26-year-old, the youngest psychopathic serial killer in the country. He is known as the 'stoneman' and uses rocks to smash the skulls of persons sleeping on pavements," says Berhampur DSP Rakesh Thakuria. 

Baldev Singh , alias Harbhajan Singh, and Baljinder Singh are alleged to have committed atleast 105 murders each, killing their victims by strangulation.

Bhaskar of Tamil Nadu has murdered around 230 persons.

"The worst part about these five Indian serial killers is that there is hardly any clue about their whereabouts," informs WCCI director Nigel Peter.

Can Biology make us Murderers?

Recent reports in science have found discrete locations in the brain that are used in intricate systems that serve as the human moral compass.

Changes in the brain have long been known to change the behaviors of a man. Serial killers have 'animal propensities'.

By finding places in the brain where behavioral traits lie we can understand that there may exist people with neuropathological disorders that can show 'rational-analytic behavior' that is dysfunctional in that it lacks the social emotions that guide normal human behavior. Ted Bundy 'knew' what he was doing when he brutally murdered his victims, but he may not have been able to 'feel' the moral emotions that such brutality elicits from normal human beings.

Current research indicates that the serial killer has difficulty in actually processing, understanding and using emotional material in general.

Neurobiological disorders are alarmingly common among criminals.

Biological psychological theories in humans are often strengthened by similar findings in animal research. Ted Bundy made the diagnosis of manic-depressive psychosis and attributed his murders to "uncontrollable manic rage."

There is also interest in the diencephalic structures of the thalamus and hypothalamus, which have been suggested as having a direct role in aggressive behavior, as well as a role in associating positive or negative emotions with incoming stimuli. Abnormalities in the thalamus might explain a serial killer's inability to maintain personal relationships or display empathy for his victims

Another interesting finding shows that psychopaths have a greater fear threshold, and are less likely to respond to fear-inducing stimuli.

Similarly, the hypothalamus plays a role in the reticular activating system, which may block otherwise stimulating activity from reaching the judgement-related cerebral cortex.

There are several other brain related theories that may explain some of the complex behavior characteristics of a serial killer. Hormonal factors may also play a role.