None of us are saints.

dichotomization:

Born Peter George Dinsdale in 1960, Britain’s most prolific serial killer of modern times was the son of a prostitute and afflicted from birth with epilepsy, partial paralysis, and a deformed right arm. Until the age of three, he lived with his maternal grandmother, afterward joining his mother and her common-law husband until their relationship disintegrated. Until the age of 16, Dinsdale attended a school for the physically handicapped and was there introduced to homosexual practices that, in the words of his prosecutors, “eventually led to his downfall and discovery.” At age 19, Dinsdale legally changed his name to Bruce Lee, in emulation of the kung fu movie star he idolized. A classic pyromaniac, Lee would explain in his confessions that a tingling in his fingers signaled him that it was time to light a fire. His first act of arson, at age nine, caused more than $30,000 damage to a shopping center. Lee’s normal technique involved dumping paraffin through a mail slot, followed by a match to light the fuel. Lee scored his first fatality in June of 1973. On January 5, 1977, 11 elderly men were killed and six rescuers injured when he torched a nursing home. Slapped by an old man in an altercation over Lee’s disturbing some pigeons, Bruce threatened to kill his assailant. Later, the birds were all found with their necks wrung, and the man was burned to death in his armchair at home. The death was ruled an accident until, years later, Lee confessed that he had found the man asleep and set his clothes afire with paraffin. In 1980, a house fire on Selby Street in Hull killed Edith Hastie and her three sons. Police found paper soaked in paraffin near the front door, but the Hasties were so unpopular with their neighbors that everyone in the vicinity was suspected. Some 18,000 persons were questioned before police discovered that Charles Hastie, one of the victims, was acquainted with various homosexuals who patronized public restrooms near his home. A group of suspects was rounded up, including Lee, who confessed to a series of fires spanning the past 11 years. In all, 26 persons had died by his hand, and multiple manslaughter charges were filed. Pleading guilty on all counts, Lee was sentenced to an indefinite term in a mental hospital. As his prosecutor remarked, “The sad fact is that this is his only real accomplishment in life, and something he had expressed himself as being proud of.” Lee described his motive more compellingly. “I am devoted to fire,” he said. “Fire is my master, and that is why I cause these fires.”

criminalprofiler:

There are four common typologies of serial killers:

1. Visionary Killer: This killer feels compelled to kill because of ‘voices’ in their heads or visions that tell them to do so. For example, Herbert Williams Mullin claimed to hear voices that told him a disastrous earthquake was imminent, but he could save California through murder. Mullin killed thirteen people in an effort to ‘save California’. It was later determined that Mullin suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.

2. Mission Oriented Killer: These individuals feel that it is their duty or mission to kill certain kinds of people. For example, Ted Kaczynski, commonly refered to as the Unabomber, started a bombing campaign in an effort to save the environment, which he felt was being destroyed around him. He targeted places that were creating ‘high technology’ such as universities and airlines. Kaczynski’s bombs killed three people and injured twenty-three.

3. Power-Control Killers: These killers seek complete control over their victims. Seuxal activity is almost always involved in these cases. John Wayne Gacy,“The Clown Killer”, would fall into this category. Gacy murdered and raped 33 teenage boys, burying 26 of them in the crawl space of his home.

4. Hedonistic Serial Killers: This is the most common type of serial killer. These individuals kill for the thrill and enjoyment they get from the act of killing. There are three subtypes of hedonistic killers:

• Hedonistic comfort killers: Killing victims provides the killer with some sort of comfort; usually money. Dorthea Puente ran a boarding house in California where she killed her elderly tenants and buried them in the backyard so she could claim their social insurance checks.
• Hedonistic lust killers: The serial sexual predator; fantasy plays a large role and their satisfaction depends on the amount of torture and mutilation they inflict on their victims. Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the best-known hedonistic lust killers. He searched for a beautiful, submissive, and eternal lover. Dahmer killed 17 men and boys in this search for his perfect lover; his murders involved rape, torture, dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism (so that a part of his victims would stay with him forever).
• Hedonistic thrill killers: Their primary thrill is to create fear and death. The act is usually not sexual and is not drawn out over period of time, they are solely interested in the kill. Hedonistic thrill killers often work in teams. The notorious “Zodiac Killer” claimed to be responsible for 37 murders but investigators have only been able to pinpoint 7 victims, two of which survived. The Zodiac killer sent taunting letters to the police, and was never caught or identified.

Andrei Chikatilo

For twelve years, this older man preyed on children in Russia, and while he confessed to as many as 52 murder-mutilations, it’s believed that he committed many more. Because the Communist government wanted to believe that serial murder was a capitalist crime, law enforcement was hindered in their efforts to stop “the Rostov Ripper.”   

To some extent, what he did to dead children might have been influenced by tales his mother told about how his older brother had been cannibalized by Russian peasants driven insane by hunger, because he certainly devoured parts of his victims in that kind of savage manner. After luring them away from train or bus stations into the woods, he would stab them (often in the face), rip at them with his bare hands and chew off their genitals. He also gouged out their eyes or bit off their tongues and ripped open their torsos even as he grew ever more sexually excited. He raped them when he could achieve a full erection and often carried their organs away with him. In 1984, there were eight bodies in one month alone.  

By the time Chikatilo was arrested in 1990, he was a grandfather. At his trial he was placed in a steel cage for his own protection. He feigned insanity but the judge didn’t buy it and sentenced him to death. He was executed in 1994.

(via true-crime-101)

Jan O.

A man identified only as Jan O. was sentenced to life in a psychiatric institution by a German court in June 2011 for the 2010 murders of two children. 

Jan O. confessed to killing a 14-year-old girl, who he dragged into the woods, intending to rape her. He then stabbed her in the neck with a piece of broken bottle, bit off pieces of the would and drank her blood. Five days later, according to his admission, he kidnapped a 13-year-old boy who he thought was a girl because of his long hair. Upon discovering the child was a boy, Jan O. stabbed him to death. In his confession, Jan O. wrote, “I did not want sex anymore, only flesh and blood…I am addicted to the taste.”

(via true-crime-101)

dichotomization:

German-born Johann Schmidt adopted the name Johann Hoch around 1895, the name being the maiden name of his first wife and his first victim. Hoch travelled around the United States, meeting women through lonely hearts advertisements, after which he bigamously married them. He is believed to have murdered at least 15 of them. Hoch’s chosen method of murder was arsenic poisoning; the poison was found in his fountain pen when he was finally arrested. He was hanged on 23 February 1906. In 1955 a pile of bones found hidden in the walls of a Chicago house were linked to Hoch. It is believed that he married at least 55 women and that such was his desire to obtain money from them that on one occasion he even removed gold false teeth from a glass of water beside his wife’s bed

dichotomization:

The symbol of Baphomet was used by the Knights Templar to represent Satan. Through the ages this symbol has been called by many different names. Among these are: The Goat of Mendes, The Goat of a Thousand Young, The Black Goat, The Judas Goat, and perhaps most appropriately, The Scape-goat. Baphomet represents the Powers of Darkness combined with the generative fertility of the goat. In it’s “pure” form the pentagram is shown encompassing the figure of a man in the five points of the star - three points up, two pointing down - symbolising man’s spiritual nature. In Satanism the pentagram is also used, but since Satanism represents the carnal instincts of man, or the opposite of the spiritual nature, the pentagram is inverted to perfectly accommodate the head of the goat - it’s horns, representing duality, thrust upwards in defiance; the other three points inverted, or the trinity denied. The Hebraic figures around the outer circle of the symbol which stem from the magical teachings of the Kabala, spell out “Leviathan,” the serpent of the watery abyss, and identified with Satan. These figures correspond to the five points of the inverted star.

“In 1979, another inmate-I guess to make a name for himself-tried to take my life. And he stuck me when I wasn’t looking with a razor and opened up the whole side of my neck. And it was a miracle that I survived. When I went down to the prison infirmary, I walked down there on my own and I didn’t really lose much blood. So I could just walk down there. And they sewed me up.”

-David Berkowitz talking about the man who almost killed him in prison.

(via true-crime-101)