Psychology of Serial Killers

"We serial killers are your sons, we are your husbands we are everywhere. And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow."

Theodore Robert Bundy

In the past decade, Americans and researchers have given more and more of their attention to serial killers. The United States alone has contributed about 85% of the world's serial killers. It has been said that they come in many different forms. Society has many words for serial killers. Holmes and DeBurger define serial murders as "consisting of repetitive killings which are one-on-one with rare exception, where the relationship between victims and the offender is that of a stranger or slight acquaintance, and the motivation to kill and apparent motives are lacking." (Serial Murder; Studies in Crime, Law and Justice, Vol 2, p.138)

Some say that this type of criminal behavior goes as far back to a serial killer's past. Others argue that serial killers sometimes do not have a motive for killing people. Many of them have been faced with sexual abuse, physical abuse, drug abuse, or alcoholism. Some parents see the red flags but often ignore these signs. Some of these signs include torturing animals, setting fires, and often wetting the bed. One of America's first serial rapist/killer was Ted Bundy. Alvin Lewis, a Pima County Community College professor who has conducted clinical studies on rapists, gave a general description on the attitude of a rapist. He said they are normally between 20 and 35 years old, insecure, possibly abused as a child and possibly using alcohol or drugs. "Normally they get sexually abused and then go on to do it themselves," Lewis said. He also said rapists are normally not intelligent, ("Students, officials discuss how to prevent rape on campus"). This paper will look at Bundy from Sigmund Freud's ideas.

Before the analysis of Ted Bundy from Sigmund Freud's point of view, here is an overview of Ted Bundy and his past. Ted Bundy was not your average serial rapist / killer. He was attractive, self-assured, politically ambitious and successful. Kathy Devine was his first victim in November 1973 and, 28 victims later, Kimberley Leach was his last in September 1978. Police in Pensacola spotted Bundy's stolen license plates in February 1979, and had to run him down when he tried to escape on foot. Once Bundy was identified, impressions of his teeth were taken to compare with bite marks on another victim, his fate was sealed. He was convicted on two counts of murder in July 1979; he was sentenced to the electric chair in Florida. After ten years of appeals, he was finally executed in February 1989. In his last interview he confessed to 28 murders. This type of criminal activity would make Freud's day.

Sigmund Freud would take Ted Bundy's behavior and relate it back to one of his five stages of psychosexual development. These stages are the oral stage, the anal stage, the phallic stage, the latency period, and the genital stage. Freud said "each stage was the default, or fallback of the next one," (Stevenson, 96). If one stage is not fully completed then it regresses to the previous stage. If this pattern of regression persists, a "narcissistic neurosis" is formed. He then stimulates himself habitually in order to derive pleasure and gratification. He is emotionally lazy because he takes the easy route of resorting to himself and self satisfying his sexual desires rather than finding a partner to release his libido energy with. The narcissist prefers fantasyland to reality. An example of this would be masturbation and sexual fantasies other than mature adult sex, or daydreaming of things like law school instead of actually going, which Bundy did for at least a little while. This obsession with sex could be a reason, according to Freud, that Bundy raped and killed 28 women.

Another of Freud's ideas to look at would be defense Mechanisms. Bundy's actions could be looked at as a defense mechanism. Possibly as displacement; when a natural urge is repressed, it is often displaced to another outlet. Bundy could have had built up sexual urges, or even fantasies in Bundy's case, that he couldn't deal with in a normal manner, normal meaning a healthy sexual relationship with a consenting woman. Bundy did have a long term relationship with a woman, but their sexual life was not normal. Bundy often demanded bizarre sexual actions. He displaced his sexual anger to his victims. The unacceptable urge is vented in a manner which is acceptable to his ego and superego. The ego acts as a go-between in the id's relations with reality, often suppressing the id's urges until an appropriate situation arises, (Gleitman, p. 119), and the superego which is the third part of the unconscious that is formed through the learned moral standards of parents and society. It censors and restrains the ego. Now where did Bundy get such a twisted idea of what was acceptable to his superego? It is not completed until about seven years of age. In some people, it never is completed. This could be an explanation for Bundy's behavior.

Bundy's adult behavior begs the question, where did he get these ideas? Freud takes adult behaviors and personalities