Serial Killers in Modern America

In today’s society, America is a dangerous place for people to walk alone. We have definitely had our share of serial killers over the years. We have had the Harpes brothers in the 1800’s to the more modern day Jeffrey Dahmer. A serial killer in the United States is defined by Congress as “someone who murders a minimum of three or more people. ” (Harris) Three-quarters of the world’s total serial killers have done their killing in the United States. True crime writers often claim that America’s first serial killer was H. H.

Homes, but there were actually several before him. The first documented serial killers were two brothers named Micajah and Wiley Harpe. These two killed people for two reasons and they were for fun and profit. These two were notorious for their cut-throat ways, and the other outlaws were scared of them. (Ramsland) They terrorized the Natchez Trace which is known today as the Natchez Trace Parkway. Not much is known about the early history of the Harpes’, but they terrified everyone they came across. The Harpes even slaughtered two of their own children each. Ramsland) For a brief period of time the Harpes traveled with a group of river pirates who were merely concerned with enriching themselves. As you can imagine they did quite well at that. However, these pirates never intended for any physical harm to come to their victims, but the Harpes had other intentions. The incident that caused the Harpes to be kicked out of the group was when they tied a naked flatboat passenger to a blindfolded horse and sent it over a cliff. (Ramsland) From this point on that group of pirates referred to the two as “men turned into wolves. ”

Micajah Harpe admitted to a number of murders, but he said that there was only one that he was remorseful for, and that was the murder of his own child. His reason behind killing his own child was because the baby’s crying annoyed him. (Ramsland) Micajah would end up being killed by a pack of wolves, and Wiley was hung on February 8, 1804. The first documented serial killer was H. H. Holmes which made his mark on the 19th century by committing over 27 murders. (Kade)He was born, Herman Webster Mudgett in 1861. He started off as a very unruly child who enjoyed being cruel to animals. He would do most of his killing his hotel that was icknamed Murder Castle. The actual name of this hotel was never recorded. He used an advertisement to lure people that were going to attend Chicago’s World Columbian Exposition in 1893. Back in those day lodging was a hard thing to come by, so this allowed Holmes all the victims he wanted. His preference was blond females that he put through torture rituals. He would brutalize them and then incinerate them. He even sold some of the skeletons of his victims. No one ever suspected anything from him, because he had charm and good looks. It was until after Holmes’ execution that investigators would learn more about what he had done.

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Some of the victims were locked up in soundproof rooms that had gas lines that would allow him to asphyxiate any victim at any time. (Kade) There were also some locked in a large soundproof bank vault and suffocated to death. Holmes was even quoted saying, “I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing. I was born with the “Evil One” standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since. ” Now we fast forward to 1974 when women were vanishing from college campuses around the Washington and Oregon area.

There was a 21 year old radio announcer named Lynda Ann Healy that was among the ones that went missing. Then in July of 1974 two women were seen wondering off with Ted towards his sailboat and were never seen again. Around this same time there was a grave yard of bones discovered in a Washington forest that would later be identified as some of the women that had went missing in the Washington and Utah areas. It was then that investigators from both areas were able to come up with a profile and a sketch of the man named Ted. (Montaldo)

In August of 1975, Bundy was stopped for a driving violation, and when the officers searched his car they found a number of items such as, handcuffs, crowbar, and pantyhose with eye holes cut in them. He was then arrested on suspicion of burglary. Upon further examination of the things found in Bundy’s car the police realized that they matched items that one of the girls he attacked described seeing. This same girl identified the handcuffs as the ones that were fastened around one of her wrists and she picked him out of a line-up. Bundy then went to trial for the attempted kidnapping of Carol DaRonch in February of 1976 and was found guilty.

For this case he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and in October of 1976 he was charged with the murder of Carolyn Campbell. Bundy was extradited from Utah to Colorado for the trial. He would then be his own lawyer, which gave him a little freedom to move around the courtroom and the law library that was inside of the courthouse. In June of 1977 during his pre-trial hearing Bundy escaped by jumping out a window in the law library, only to be captured a week later. This would not be the end of Bundy’s escapes either. He did it again on December 30 and made it to Tallahassee, Florida.

He got himself and apartment near the university using the name Chris Hagen. (Montaldo) He paid his way at a local college bars with stolen credit cards and when he got bored he would sneak into the lecture halls just to listen. On January 14 Ted Bundy would break into a Chi Omega sorority house and kill two women, and brutally raped one of them. He even beat two other women that managed to survive. The reason that they survived was because their fellow roommate came home. At around 3 a. m. Nita Neary came home and saw that the door was open, and as she entered the house she heard footsteps upstairs. Montaldo) She then went upstairs to find two of her roommates dead and the other two were severely beaten. Later that night another woman would be attacked, but the police would find a mask on her floor that would match the one found in Bundy’s car later. In February of 1978, Bundy kidnapped and mutilated a 12 year old girl named Kimberly Leach. Bundy was arrested again within a week of her disappearance for driving a stolen vehicle. Witnesses were able to place him at the dorm and at Leach’s school. There was also physical evidence that would link him with the murders.

Among this evidence was a mold that was made from the bite marks found on one of the victims. Bundy went on trial in 1979 for the murders that happened at the sorority house and was found guilty. He received two sentences for death by electric chair. Then in January of 1980 he would go to trial for the murder of Kimberly Leach. He actually had lawyers for this case and they tried going for an insanity plea. Bundy called Carol Boone as a character witness and even married her while she was on the witness stand. He called her as a witness because she believed in his innocence, and would later give birth to a little girl that Bundy adored.

They were later divorced after she realized that he had actually done all the crimes he was accused of. Ted Bundy died on January 24, 1989 at 7:13 a. m. So why did all these people do what they did? Obviously that all had some reason for doing it and Ted Bundy said that his reason for doing it was because of all the pornography that he was subject to at such a young age. Other serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer blamed it on being born with a part of him missing. John Wayne Gacy claimed that his victims deserved to die.

One would have to think that they were insane for doing what they did, but most of them are rational and calculating predators. (Scott)I think that Denis Nilsen, the British version of Jeffrey Dhamer, put it best when he said, “a mind can be evil without being abnormal. ” References Bibliography Harris, William R. Serial Killer Psychology. 2011. Web. 26 October 2012. <http://investigation. discovery. com/criminals/serial-killers/serial-killers-psychology. html>. Intentional Homicide, number and rate per 100,000 population. 2012. Web. 26 October 2012. Kade, Asher. Murder Castle: The Maze-Like Lair of the World's First Serial Killer. 011. Web. 26 October 2012. ;http://www. environmentalgraffiti. com/bizarre/news-hh-holmes-inside-castle-first-true-serial-killer? image=1;. Montaldo, Charles. Serial Killer Ted Bundy. n. d. Web. 26 October 2012. ;http://crime. about. com/od/serial/p/tedbundy2. htm;. Ramsland, Kahterine. America's First Serial Killers. 2011. Web. 26 October 2012. <http://www. trutv. com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/harpe_brothers/2. html>. Scott, Shirley Lynn. What Makes Serial Killers Tick. n. d. Web. 26 October 2012. <http://www. trutv. com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/tick/victims_1. html>.

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