An old tree growing over a crypt in a Kalaupapa cemetery, Hawaii
The body farm: studying the science of decay - The Forensic Anthropology Center, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, conducts research into the postmortem decomposition of the human body. At the Center scientists study how variations in temperature, exposure, humidity and other environmental conditions affect cadavers and body parts. Their research has helped improve investigators’ ability to estimate time of death and to identify individuals from skeletal remains. The Center also maintains a collection of documented human skeletons and has developed software that uses data from thousands of skeletons. Statistics from the database give investigators baselines that help them estimate the race, sex, and stature of unidentified bodies.
(via ramirezdahmerbundy)
Fritz Haarmann was executed in Hanover in 1925 after confessing to the killing of up to 50 youths, 28 of whom were named on his trial indictment, Born in 1879, Haarmann served several jail sentences for child molesting, burglary and theft. On his release in 1918, he became active in the black market, selling smuggled meat and acting as a police informer. He and another homosexual, Hans Grans, would pick up refugees and other youths and take them back to Haarmann’s room. There Haarman killed them, apparently by biting out their throats, and he and Grans dismembered the bodies, selling some as meat and dumping what was inedible in the River Leine. Altought Haarman was suspected for some time, his roles as a police informer, self-styled detective and meat merchant acted as a cover fir his activities until late in 1924. Then he was arrested on an indecency charge, and police discovered several articles of clothing from missing boys in his flat. Haarmann’s acomplice, Grans, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Myths and facts about Serial Killers.
Psychological Stages of Serial Killing
Joel Norris, a renowned psychologist who interviewed and studied over 500 serial killers identified and expounded on the various psychological phases that the serial killer experiences. They include:
- The Aura Phase: Though he hasn’t actually killed anyone yet, he withdraws from any real social contact other than obligatory interactions. Alcohol or drugs may be used to heighten his fantasy life that intensifies for weeks or even years.
- Trolling Phase: Having made a decision to act on his fantasies, he begins to look for an easy victim usually in his comfort zone area. He plans the method of attack and peruses potential dump sites.
- Wooing Phase: Usually reserved for the organized killer who is adept at social skills, he uses them to gain a potential victim’s trust in order to lure them to their fate with him.
- Capture Phase: This is the killer’s most treasured moment where he is in total control. The once charming veneer unravels, a door is sealed shut, and the victim is helpless.
- Murder Phase: An organized killer will savor the time with the victim to act out his fantasy almost in slow motion. He usually rapes and tortures her while she’s still alive and will keep her alive to extend his enjoyment of it as long as he can safely do so. A disorganized killer kills the person in haste, raping and disfiguring them after the murder.
- Totem Phase: The excitement of the kill wanes and an invasion of a sense of disappointment may lead to the stealing of body parts, etc. as trophies to help him rekindle the thrill.
- Depression Phase: The realization sets in that the actual killing didn’t live up to the imagined fantasy leading him to feel unfulfilled. With each new kill he tries to re-enact the perfect replica of the fantasy which can never be as powerful as he had imagined. This pattern leads to an addiction to kill.
These phases explain the progression from fantasy to the compulsive need for re-enactment. Because there is never a satisfactory conclusion for him, he will continue to kill and the cycle usually doesn’t end until he is caught or dies.
When Jeffrey Dahmer invited men back to his apartment, the ritual was the same. He would usually watch pornographic videos or get his victim to pose for photos. He would keep drinks flowing which were spiked with strong sedatives. Once they had been drugged, the victim was strangled, with maybe a leather strap or his bare hands. He often engaged in the act of necrophilia and frequently masturbated over the bodies.
Then came the clean up process. He would capture the disposal of the bodies on camera, he started by cutting open the torso of the dead man, becoming sexually aroused by the heat that came from the cadaver. He would then experiment with acids to reduce the flesh and bone. It usually turned to a grim, black sludge. Which was poured down the drain.
After this, Jeffrey would sometimes keep the heads or genitals of who he killed, as trophies. He also kept the skulls, boiled them and painted them grey so that they looked like plastic.
(via serialkillerobsessed)
Motives of Serial Killers:
- Visionaries - Acts in response to voices and is instructed by these voices to perform the act of murder. These killers are usually schizophrenic and psychotic.
- Missionaries - They think it is their responsibility to rid society of unwanted elements.
- Hedonists - Kill because murder causes them pleasure.
- Lust Killers - Kill for sexual gratification with acts that are usually sadistic.
- Thrill Killers - Kill because of a desire for a thrill or experience.
- Gain Killers - Kill for personal gain. The killer premeditates the act to require financial gain or materialistic goods. While gain is not the main motive in a murder some serial killers have took the opportunity to steal from their victims for their own personal gain.
- Power Seekers - Kill for the desire to have control over the life and death of others.
(via serialkillerobsessed)
“The look in his eyes was absolutely demonic. Never before had I seen eyes like his on a human being.”
-Carol Kyle, a surviving victim of Richard Ramirez.
(via serialkillerobsessed)
A typical case of poor oral hygiene associated with methamphetamine use (“meth mouth”).
“I never allowed mself to get close to anyone… maybe I wasn’t able… I recall I used to run away as a kid. I hid out in a junk yard. There was a dog there: Queenie… tough… bit everyone. Maybe I was looking for affection, but I slept with that dog night after night, and it never bit me.”
-Albert DeSalvo, “The Boston Strangler”
Dennis Rader - Childhood
Dennis Rader was born in a quiet corner of Kansas, close to where Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri all meet, on March 9, 1945. He was the first of four sons born to William and Dorothea Rader. He was baptized at Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsburg, Kansas. His father was a member of the US Marine Corps, who later worked for the electric utility KG&E starting in 1948. The family moved to the largest city in Kansas, Wichita, when Dennis was a young boy. The Raders settled into a modest but pleasant home on N. Seneca Street, which remained continually as a Rader household until sold in 2005.
As a child, Dennis Rader appeared outwardly normal and unremarkable. He joined the Boy Scouts as a youth and participated in church youth group activities. He attended Riverview Elementary School, where he was an average to mediocre student with withdrawn tendencies.
By his own admission, he says he developed fantasies about bondage, control and torture from an early age, while still in grade school. As he became sexual he dreamed of tying girls up and having his way with them. The Mouseketeer Annette Funicello was one of his favorite targets for imaginary bondage. He admits to having killed cats and dogs such as by hanging them as a youth. He learned he had to keep his developing inner world of bondage, torture and death a secret from everyone, and he did a good job of doing so.
Those who knew him personally describe a quiet and polite young man who preferred to keep to himself. Dennis Rader was not a joiner or known to be very socially active in high school. The young Dennis showed no interest in the music of the times. One friend described him as utterly lacking a sense of humor, but tending to be studious and focused. He was described as a person who chose his words before speaking, and who would give you his full attention as he spoke.
“Our primary interest is what you’ve got between your legs. You’ll be raped thoroughly and repeatedly in every hole you’ve got, because basically, you’ve been snatched and brought here for us to train and use as a sex slave.”
Vernon Geberth, America’s top homicide cop - he has been involved in over eight thousand wrongful death investigations - believes that David Parker Ray was the most vicious serial killer he has ever encountered. “Clinically, I would describe him as the ultimate psychopathic sadist. Investigatively, I would define him as a human predator. Spiritually, I would describe him as the Devil-on-Earth.” Ray, his wife, Hendy, their daughter, Glenda Jesse, and a friend named Roy Yacy, participated in the abduction of women, usually prostitutes or runaways, from the streets of New Mexico towns. They would then take them to Ray’s compound and inside the windowless trailer called the “Toy Box,” where Ray and the others would strip them nude, tie them in obscene positions in a gynecologist’s chair, and then torture them by administering electric current, inserting an assortment of large and odd-shaped dildos into their bodies, slicing them with razors and knives, and sexually assaulting them with homemade torture devices. The pain the women endured and their cries and screams provided David Parker Ray sexual stimulation. When the women were all used up, as it were, Ray would kill them, often by strangulation, and dump their bodies (he likely killed thirty or more) in a twenty-five-mile lake he had access to. To make sure they bodies wouldn’t surface, he would first gut them and pack stones inside. Ray also suffered from logorrhoea, meaning he wrote about his experiences extensively. At one point, Ray began reading his captives the riot act on what was going to happen to them. The speech was part of the torture he administered and was used to break them down emotionally so that they would obey his every wish and command. Following is excerpts from the tape which the FBI found and transcribed:
“Hello there, bitch. You’re chained, handcuffed, scared, and disoriented. Listen to this tape. It was created July 23, 1993, as an advisory for female captives based on my several years of experience. You are here against your will. You probably think you are going to be raped. You’re right about that - you will be raped thoroughly and repeatedly… My female companion and I are very selective. We’ll snatch up anything clean, young, and well built. We’re basically like predators. We’re always looking. I don’t want to kill unless it’s absolutely necessary. If I killed every victim I ever kidnapped, there’d be bodies all over the country”
