People can no longer survive in this world without being cautious and alert of one’s surroundings 24/7. You’ve more than likely been told by your parents to not stay out too late or to be careful every time you leave the house. Some are guilty of brushing these parental comments to the side, but these words are a clear warning that most people usually take for granted.
There’s always that fearful thought that lingers in that back of peoples’ minds, that anything could happen to anyone at any time. The element of surprise is 100% effective on any unsuspecting person. Dangerous criminals are known to be the most active during the night, preying on clueless individuals. Most with only one goal in mind: to feed their drive. These criminals start off small with robberies and petty thefts, but with enough experience they soon scale up their crimes and evolve into someone who’s capable of murder. How does one get to a point where they are willing to end another person’s life? And how can we prevent killers who are too far gone from killing again?
There is no simple answer, murder is a difficult subject for most human beings. It’s embedded deeply in Americas roots. Murder in its simplest terms is the slaying of one human being by the hands of another. No one wants to imagine their family or friend bloody and dead by the hands of someone else. Homicide places a halt in any community it occurs in. Murder is unjust, unlawful, and morally wrong. Most people wouldn’t even attempt to cause enough harm on one to end their life. So why do people kill? There are many motives that might drive a person to killing someone. An article by Peter Morrall, a professor of health sociology, lists potential motives as: lust, love, and loot. Morrall goes on to say that motives alone don’t do much in the effort to explain murder. Determining why one commits such an evil act can be the key to preventing more murders in the future. Reasoning for murder at its core, is an answer that can only be found in the individual who is willing to commit such a crime.
Once the right person gets a taste of murder, they’ll be itching to do it again. Serial killers have been around as early as the 1800s. One of the world’s first recognized serial killers was a man named Herman Webster Mudgett, otherwise known as H.H Holmes. Holmes was born on 1861 in New Hampshire. At a young age, Holmes used to “allegedly trapped animals and performed surgery on them” (Britanica) displayed early signs of what was to come. Before committing his heinous crimes and murder spree, Holmes was a con artist and fraudster who stole people’s life insurance. He started off in Chicago, where he obtained a job as a pharmacist. Soon enough, Holmes began to kill to feed his drive: money and property.
Holmes opened a hotel in 1891 now known as the “Murder Castle”. This hotel was found to contain rooms with exposed gas lines, soundproof rooms, trapdoors, and chutes that led to the basement for him to dispose of bodies. Holmes’s first “Murder Castle” victims were his employees. He required all his employees to have life insurance and have him listed as their beneficiaries. Holmes’s scheme involved committing multiple counts of life insurance fraud on his employees and future victims by killing them and claiming their life insurance money. Holmes had a dedicated lab room in the basement where he “dissect[ed] them, strip them of the flesh and sell them as human skeleton models to medical schools” (Crime Museum).
Holmes continued his fraud scheme and murder rampage with his accomplice, Benjamin Pitezel who shared similar behaviors with him. The two continued their practices around the world in places like New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and more. After being arrested for fraud in St. Louis, Holmes decided to take out his partner and targeted his family in fear that they might contact authorities. (Britanica). The story of H.H Holmes ends with him being sentenced to death by hanging in Philadelphia for the murder of his accomplice, Benjamin Pitezel.
H.H Holmes was clearly an insane person who could not stop killing. Even with new relationships – his wife and accomplice – Holmes was never able to shake his satisfaction and taste for murder. To him, murder was the means to success. His original goal was greed of money and property, but eventually he couldn’t help himself. He planned out these elaborate insurance fraud schemes and constructed a building dedicated to torture and murder only to drive his taste of killing. Although he was sentenced for only one murder, Holmes first confessed to killing 27 people. It is believed that Holmes killed up to 200 people (CITE CM). It’s hard to believe that one person could murder this many people. As Seltzer described, “If murder is where bodies and history cross, “senseless” murder is where our most basic senses of the body and society, identity and desire, violence and intimacy, are secured, or brought to crisis.” [Serial Killers, 1998]. One murder alone is enough to cause a shift in people’s behavior: fear, anxiety, and alertness. Serial murder, although rare, is an event that causes both local and nationwide chaos. Its sole reason can’t be determined easily. Just like its meaning, serial murder invokes unimaginable fear in the community where it’s occurring.
Nationwide chaos is what took place on the morning of April 20, 1990 in Littleton, Colorado. Columbine High School students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, placed bombs in their school and opened fire at 11:19 AM. The massacre ended when the two committed suicide at12:08 PM. The duo killed 13 people including themselves making it a total of 15 deaths at Columbine High School. This massacre is noted as one of the most shocking mass shootings of its time. These two students planned and carried out this mass shooting on their fellow classmates. This school shooting sent a shockwave of fear to schools and families around the globe. A survey done by Insider revealed that after the massacre 55% of parents feared for their child’s life. Families were pulling out their children from school in fear that their school would be targeted next. This tragedy was a wake-up call for America. Not only in terms of gun control, but also how mental health can affect one’s wellbeing and drive them to do horrible acts of violence.
These two were young serial killers who showed signs that they could carry out this horrific event. Eric Harris was described as a nice student, but his hidden fascination of killing was not shown to the public eye. He kept notes and website entries that revealed his true thoughts of murder. Joel Harris notes that “the mass majority of serial killers cannot verbalize this sensation” and cannot “reemerge until after the crime has been committed. [Serial Killers]. When someone is determined on something and compulsively obsess over it, it can be hard to bring that person to reality.
Sometimes the murderer is too far gone. There is only so much you can do to help someone out an obsessive spell. The mental health for someone who can kill another person is severely messed up. It’s almost impossible to cure someone’s sensation for something such as killing.
How do people get away with killing another one and not get caught? According to Project Cold Case, in 2019 6544 murders went unsolved. An article by murderdata, shows that the clearance rate of homicides is decreasing. Cold cases aren’t anything new. For years serial killers have managed to slip from the hands of law enforcement with no trace. This was very common in older years where law enforcement did not have the advance technology that we have today. The main ways they identified any suspects were using the local community and asking where everyone was at the time of the murder. Serial killers get their social image from the idea that they can’t be caught. Serial killers are referred to as killers who target anyone who walks their way.
Although this is a popular idea, serial killers actually target a group of victims associated with their motive. This idea isn’t clear at first glance, but serial killers have an ideal victim. These murders help boost the killer morale and gives them a sense of superiority over the victims’ group. The serial killer profile is usually “near but far” [Seltzer]. A serial killer can conceal themselves without standing out in a group of people. It can be your friend, lover, or neighbor, or the odd one out. Samuel Little, one of the world’s deadliest serial killers was able to go undetected for more than 30 years before being convicted for the murders of over 93 people. Another famous example is famous serial killer still unknown to this day, Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper started his killing spree in London in the year 1888. He was known to kill women and mutilate them while slipping out of the crime scene unnoticed. The bodies he mutilated showed that he was an expert in human anatomy.
Preventing a mass killing is very complicated. Its impossible to catch every lead that might hand itself to the murderer. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in. We must constantly be on our toes at a moment’s notice. Although Homicides happen every day and there is nothing, we can do to completely stop it. There are still many active serial killers around the globe who have still not been identified. We can try to prevent ourselves from being victims. However, we are never 100% safe when these murderers are at large. What we can do is try to catch on early by following tracks that might lend itself useful. All homicides have some sort of motive to them, whether it be greed, fascination, or lust. Although some might not be clear, these motives serve as a base to further understand and analyze the complex framework that is one’s mind.
