Are more serial killers men than women?

[Amelia G]

More male serial killers have been caught than female ones. The general psych profile for a serial killer, sexually-motivated or otherwise, is of a male. But are there more male serial killers than female ones? Or does society just catch more of the male serial killers because law enforcement has good psych profiles to discover them and does not have good profiles for female serial killers.

[Bikerpunk]

Most people believe women are incapable of cruelty and murder.

But that being said, the whole stalk-hunt-kill aspect of serial killing (usually tied up with frustrated sexuality) is an almost exclusively male thing.

Women can get obsessed with a man and set fire to his house, but they rarely kill for that reason.

[Amelia G]

Most people believe women are incapable of cruelty and murder.

But that being said, the whole stalk-hunt-kill aspect of serial killing (usually tied up with frustrated sexuality) is an almost exclusively male thing.

Women can get obsessed with a man and set fire to his house, but they rarely kill for that reason.

It might just be the company I keep, but I know a lot of sexually predatory women. Not sure how frustrated they are generally, but I know folks, male and female, who can testify to some cruelty. You are right that people tend to think women are just mothers and nurses or something.

[Bikerpunk]

Most people, when they think of a physically abusive parent, think of the rampaging drunk father.

But women more often than not kill their children.

Food for thought.

Reminds me of the time I got back to where my parents lived to find a "police artist rendition" of a wanted prostitute serial killer that looked EXACTLY like me.

Luckily they caught the dude within 24 hours of that coming out.

[Amelia G]

Most people, when they think of a physically abusive parent, think of the rampaging drunk father.

But women more often than not kill their children.

Food for thought.

Reminds me of the time I got back to where my parents lived to find a "police artist rendition" of a wanted prostitute serial killer that looked EXACTLY like me.

Luckily they caught the dude within 24 hours of that coming out.

Whew, you dodged a bullet there. No one get a good look yet where you live now

[Bikerpunk]

Oh, I actually bought the newspaper with the pic on it, and the person who sold it to me called the cops.

I had an ironclad alibi - I had just arrived in the city, having been away at college.

[P I L O T]

I believe it would be alot easier for a male to drift away into a realm of killing or to just find the time to let their mind drift away that far,.. grow stail, cruel and even justify their actions.

Women are always being chased after etc. I don't know of many women who have a hard time finding a date(unless their picking but that entirely different).

The market thrives on SEX FOR SALE,.. strip clubs, porn shops, internet porn,.. given women tend to enjoy of these things too,.. but as far as I know they are catered to the male gender. It like Pay for love.
and what if your an ugly dude? with no good qualities?! and your 56 and live with your mom?! (if any serial killer are out there reading this,.. please don't kill me LOL)

OMG I think I'm starting to realize I have potential to become a future serial killer.
I swear I don't want to be,.. please help.

I wonder what serial killer get out of killing?

You know I heard of one guy who has killed about 100 women and they have tried and tried to kill him but he doesn't die,.. he has survived the electric chair, gas chamber and the needle,.. and laughed at all of them.

[Amelia G]

I believe it would be alot easier for a male to drift away into a realm of killing or to just find the time to let their mind drift away that far,.. grow stail, cruel and even justify their actions.

Women are always being chased after etc. I don't know of many women who have a hard time finding a date(unless their picking but that entirely different).

The market thrives on SEX FOR SALE,.. strip clubs, porn shops, internet porn,.. given women tend to enjoy of these things too,.. but as far as I know they are catered to the male gender. It like Pay for love.
and what if your an ugly dude? with no good qualities?! and your 56 and live with your mom?! (if any serial killer are out there reading this,.. please don't kill me LOL)

OMG I think I'm starting to realize I have potential to become a future serial killer.
I swear I don't want to be,.. please help.

I wonder what serial killer get out of killing?

You know I heard of one guy who has killed about 100 women and they have tried and tried to kill him but he doesn't die,.. he has survived the electric chair, gas chamber and the needle,.. and laughed at all of them.

I get why people murder sex workers, but I don't think that is necessarily a serial killer thing. I mean, different serial killers have different profiles for victims. Some like soccer moms.

I think women are just an underserved market when it comes to sexual satisfaction. An unsatisfied woman just has a lot fewer options than an unsatisfied man.

(Not that I'm taunting the law to catch me with this thread or anything.)

[Mr Karl]

haven't got a clue what the sexual frustration thing is, but I can see women enjoying making a persons last moments on earth as pure a hell as can be imagined as much as any man could

[Mr Karl]

I do think that men are generally more repetitive though......

[Bikerpunk]

Serial killings are usually done by powerless men who want to feel control. Most were horribly abused in childhood, and many suffered one memorable childhood head injury.

I studied deviance in university. I am NOT a serial killer.

[Bikerpunk]

I get why people murder sex workers, but I don't think that is necessarily a serial killer thing. I mean, different serial killers have different profiles for victims. Some like soccer moms.

I think women are just an underserved market when it comes to sexual satisfaction. An unsatisfied woman just has a lot fewer options than an unsatisfied man.

(Not that I'm taunting the law to catch me with this thread or anything.)

Oh I wholeheartedly disagree.

Women have an infinite variety of sex toys, and almost all women can find SOMEONE who will happily fuck them.

Men have - er, some variant on the fleshlight, and that's it, and as for finding someone to sleep with - check out the "CAS" section on any Cragislist - it's all men going "are there any real women here????"

[Amelia G]

Serial killings are usually done by powerless men who want to feel control. Most were horribly abused in childhood, and many suffered one memorable childhood head injury.

I studied deviance in university. I am NOT a serial killer.

That is the existing profile is of what a man who would be a serial killer is like. I submit for your consideration, though, that the reason we catch fewer female serial killers is that we don't having good profiling for them.

[Bikerpunk]

That is the existing profile is of what a man who would be a serial killer is like. I submit for your consideration, though, that the reason we catch fewer female serial killers is that we don't having good profiling for them.

Well, don't forget, Lizzie Borden was basically let off scot free because no jury could POSSIBLY believe that a sweet innocent GIRL could nail someone in the head with an axe.

And then there was Karla "boo hoo hoo I was ABUSED" Homolka, and if they hadn't found the videotape of her asking her husband to fuck her in her dead sister's panties, we wouldn't have realised how fucked up she was, delved a little further into her story and realised that we let a multiple murderess free.....

A buddy of mine who lived on a commune for a while said that he lived with a female serial killer. They weren't worried about dying at her hands - she left the commune to pick up and kill a guy - the cops asked around once or twice but couldn't prove anything. The same commune had an 11 year old who really liked to be fucked by older men. Creepy bunch.

[Ace]

Karla Homolka got off so light because they needed her to testify against Paul Bernardo, it wasn't until after everything was said and done that the tapes of her being a willfull participant in the murders were discovered, and by then it was too late.

I agree that it is up there on the list of fuck-ups. What is really sick is that she's out now, married, and somehow is has been left alive long enough to have a child, which proves there really is no justice in the world.

[Bikerpunk]

Karla Homolka got off so light because they needed her to testify against Paul Bernardo, it wasn't until after everything was said and done that the tapes of her being a willfull participant in the murders were discovered, and by then it was too late.

Well, I found out about this case because the judge actually wanted to ban the Internet in Canada because they realised they'd fucked it completely up and didn't want the Canadian people to get info about his trial until he was THOROUGHLY railroaded for HER murders.

It was a case of

COPS: "Freeze. Put your hands where we can see them."
KARLA: "Boo hoo. I'm innocent! Duress! He beat me! I'll testify!"
COPS: "There there eh. There there. Dry your little eyes. You might have to spend a year in jail or so, but women's prison is kinda nice. You get a cabin in the woods, make up, birthday cakes and all the pussy you can eat."
KARLA: "NO JAIL TIME"
COPS: "Well, we'll see what we can do."

ONE LENIENT CHARGE LATER

PAUL TO LAWYER: "Did they find the videos?"
GUARD: "Say what?"
COPS: "Search the house again."
PAUL: "Oh fuck."
COPS: "Oh fuck."
JUDGE: "Oh fuck."

[Ace]

Lol, well put,

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

I think part of the reason you do not see a lot of girl serial killers is related to the reason you do not see a lot of black serial killers. Women comparatively do not have the same opportunity for the types of serial killings we see from men.

To use the green river killer as an example, a woman going out and picking up prostitutes (male or female) regularly is going to get noticed. Think about how most serial killers get to there victims and imagine a woman engaging in that sort of behavior. There are exceptions, but women serial killers, like men, seem to go after targets of opportunity, they just have more limited opportunity.

At least that is my take.

[Mindgames]

To put it bluntly, the 'profile' of a serial killer so loved by the media and novelists is dated but still quite accurate on a numerical level. It was developed 40-odd years ago but you have to remember it's a statistical thing - nobody says that all serial killers fit the profile, or that everyone fitting the profile is a serial killer. We're saying that the majority of serial killers fit the profile to a greater extent than random chance would expect.

Setting fire to kittens is not a pre-requisite for anything (apart from a reduction of kitten ownership), but is a pretty strong indicator of psychological disturbance. These days there are other factors in a complex profile as there are behavior patterns not present or analyzed in the 70s (Website visits, online chats, credit card histories, etc.) but the core elements of "single white male with isolated lifestyle and history of violence in childhood" are a damn good place to start.

There are as many types of 'serial killer' as there are members of BlueBlood - while the majority are psychosexually motivated that's far from the only option, and we see individuals basing their actions on almost anything that you can have an opinion about - they're taking their opinion to an extreme level, but it could be religion, politics, the inequality of society, race, or simply the need for attention. The notion of 'celebrity through crime' is far more common now than it ever was.

For the majority of these individuals the "trigger insult" is external but they still need to be suffering a psychological condition, as otherwise they'd control their thoughts like everyone else does. The classic two (narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy) are known to be clinically far more common in males due to hormonal and developmental differences but it's perfectly possible to find female cases of both - just not as many. It's not simply case of "girls don't get caught", as otherwise there'd be piles of unsolved cases (Amelia's argument would mean around 50% of killers wouldn't be found) and while of course there's a few, you couldn't hide that pattern from the law enforcement agencies of the world.

I know the emancipated upstanding voters out there don't like being reminded, but in terms of your basic brain chemistry and how it can go wrong, we're still running on a simple script:-

Man. Go Out. Take Big Rock. Kill. Get Meat.
Woman. Feed baby. Dust Cave. Prepare Side Salad.

[P I L O T]

Oh I wholeheartedly disagree.

Women have an infinite variety of sex toys, and almost all women can find SOMEONE who will happily fuck them.

Men have - er, some variant on the fleshlight, and that's it, and as for finding someone to sleep with - check out the "CAS" section on any Cragislist - it's all men going "are there any real women here????"

I was thinking the same thing

I get why people murder sex workers, but I don't think that is necessarily a serial killer thing. I mean, different serial killers have different profiles for victims. Some like soccer moms.

I think women are just an underserved market when it comes to sexual satisfaction. An unsatisfied woman just has a lot fewer options than an unsatisfied man.

(Not that I'm taunting the law to catch me with this thread or anything.)

Oh you know now that you mention I think I remember you from that reinactment now,.. usually they'll watch you for five years before they fall on you. so if your feeling watched or like pheboa's your not going crazy. If it is just your conciounious(sp?) then,.. eherrr,. you might want to try drugs,.. HARD DRUGS!! ;D no seriously I really couldn't help,.. block it out or something,.. if thats even possible.

Here's a question I wonder now,.. do you think serious killers that run around out there on the loose because they do exist,.. Do you think they think relive the moments over and over, time and time again in their minds every day?

[Mr Karl]

of course they relive it.

[inox]

"But now your love merely washes away
all the violence from within me.
You're the most perfect woman
this side of Myra Hindley." --David E. Williams, 'Pumpernickel Crust'

There are certainly some females who have the serial killer mindset, and men certainly have no monopoly on cruelty, but much as Mindgames has already stated, the male mind is more suited becoming aberrant in this way.

On a side note, I knew this guy.

[Pull~My~Hair]

has anyone watched the movie about her? I think it's just called Karla...I saw the trailer for it but never found the movie.

[Amelia G]

"But now your love merely washes away
all the violence from within me.
You're the most perfect woman
this side of Myra Hindley." --David E. Williams, 'Pumpernickel Crust'

There are certainly some females who have the serial killer mindset, and men certainly have no monopoly on cruelty, but much as Mindgames has already stated, the male mind is more suited becoming aberrant in this way.

On a side note, I knew this guy.

Eep! What context did you know him in?

[inox]

Eep! What context did you know him in?

He was the mechanic where we always took our cars and was sort of a friend of the family. I'd been to his house, used to play with his kids, etc. No one had any idea what he was up to, although my mother did always think he was creepy.

[Amelia G]

He was the mechanic where we always took our cars and was sort of a friend of the family. I'd been to his house, used to play with his kids, etc. No one had any idea what he was up to, although my mother did always think he was creepy.

I guess you should always listen to your mother.

Did he have kinda normal kids and a normal family? I mean, aside from the sexually-motivated serial killing and burning.

[inox]

I guess you should always listen to your mother.

Did he have kinda normal kids and a normal family? I mean, aside from the sexually-motivated serial killing and burning.

Well, he was kinda rough around the edges. His family seemed pretty typical.

This was Scranton in the 1970's...kinda run down and in some places, rather dangerous. I'd hang out with his kids, Gino & Frankie, and we'd do stuff like wander through abandoned buildings downtown with metal poles and baseball bats, smashing stuff and causing trouble.

So, we were basically hanging out doing the sort of shit kids do in such an environment.

[Pull~My~Hair]

jeffry Dahmer stayed with my Grandma one summer, she said he was a "nice young man" wtf grandma..wtf

[Delilah_Moran]

I, personally, have the sort of personality that could've gone pyscho serial killer, but I decided against it some time ago.

For me, it is a very bloody primal predator instinct, and has squat all to do with much else going on with external conditions. It really precedes sexual energy or intent, so much so that my sex is more slave to my predatory side, rather than my predatory side being informed by my sex.

I thought about what it would take to manage to get away with such acts, and it occurred to me that the best way to hide a life of crime is often a pretty femme female face, and a "harmless" female appearance.

I think that the most effective lady serial killer would follow the fatal seductress model. Lure them in, slit the throat, make sure there are no prints. The mystery of predator disguised as prey.

No one suspects the little ladies. Even the freaky looking ones. I have a strong feeling that there are more out there that just don't get caught.

In the mid nineties, I heard Lydia Lunch say something to the extent that women were still performing less than 10% of violent crime in the US. I agree with her that there should be more violence from women in the world. Ladies! Pick up the slack!

As a final thought, I have to disagree with the assumption that men are violent, and women are not. The format of female violence is totally different than the male format (culturally.) Women hurt themselves. Are suicides murder? Women hurt each other and other persons on psychic and mental levels. People can be driven into sickness and suicide this way.

Honestly, I think women commit passive violence and even murder, constantly. Social ostracism (being cast out of a group) is a method of passive violence that can cut individuals off from work, money, sex, love, touch, safety, family, food, opportunity, information. In many situations, women can drive others toward death by subtly cutting them off from life (as represented by a community.)

In many situations, the cause of death may be listed as the more immediate response, but women in groups (especially,) can cut others off from life effectively, leading to less fortunate circumstances.

This sort of info is really hard to study, as cops, statistic collectors and academics rarely define acts of ostracism or psychic violence (cutting remarks, cold attitudes, ambient hate,) as violence, hence, cultural female violence falls under the radar.

Which I like.

Ladies, more direct violence please! (hit me if you like. ;} )