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Brandi Kiker English 1103 Prof. Presnell 7 November 2012 Female Serial Murderers v. Male Serial Murderers As many people know, poor neighborhoods and high crime rates are directly related. Growing up in a poor neighborhood myself, I grew up around crime and always seemed to be in the middle of it somehow. There had actually been many murders in my neighborhood; some were five streets over where one of them was only three houses down. Now that I no longer live in that neighborhood and do not have to deal with the everyday crime that came along with it, I want to have a career to ensure that little kids are not exposed to such a horrendous crime, as I was. Since I wanted a career that would help catch murderers, I felt as if the best route to go would be to become a crime scene investigator so that I would be able to help collect the evidence and hopefully catch the murderer based off the evidence I had collected. Knowing that I wanted to get into this field since middle school I was very excited to find out that the high school that I would be going to was giving a forensic science class. Once I got to high school, I found out that I couldnt take the forensic science class until my junior year, which was fine with me because my interest would just continue to grow. Finally, my junior year of high school came and I got to take the forensic science course! The first major project for the class was to pick a serial killer and make some kind of presentation about him. As everyone else was sitting in their seats, nervously awaiting their turn to present their project I was overly anxious to present mine. That was until the girl who sat in front of me asked to present her presentation first. At first I was somewhat angry because I had already asked the day before if I could go first

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but all of my anger went away as she began to present her project on her serial murderer, it was a woman! All that was running through my mind then was that I had no idea that there was ever such a thing as a woman serial killer, I didnt even know of a woman who had killed one person let alone multiple people. I was fascinated from that point forward that the female serial murderer population seems to be a kind of secretive thing. In my research, I have set out to find why it is that the female serial killer population is such a hidden and rare topic in the media. I first thought that female serial killers were not talked about a lot just simply because there are not a lot of them. The research I have found has definitely proved me wrong! Recent studies show that the female serial killer population is definitely an unseen of, unheard of population and it has heightened many researchers interest in the differences and similarities between male and female serial killers, as it did mine. This research has surfaced the importance of female serial killers by comparing them to the male serial killers. Comparing male and female serial killers is not only done by comparing the weapons used, motives, and number of female serial killers compared to male serial killers but also the best comparison is the social and psychological aspects of the serial killer. The social aspects of a serial killer includes the offenders background; whereas the psychological aspects of a serial killer includes their motives and modus operandi (way of killing). The past of a serial killer seems to shape the serial killer, no matter male or female and the pasts of the male and female serial killers are usually quite similar to one another, except when it comes to drug or alcohol abuse. The majority of male serial killers were either physically abused or neglected as children and the majority of female serial killers were sexually abused, physically abused, and neglected. More than half of the serial killer population had been physical or sexually abused, or neglected at least once in their childhood. There is usually no

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direct pattern to male serial murderers and drug or alcohol abuse; whereas when eight female serial killers were observed, all eight had at some point illegally used drugs or were alcoholics but only one of the female serial killers had actually murdered while under the influence. One of the biggest ways to compare a male and female serial killer would have to be through the psychological differences of a male and female serial killer. The main psychological difference between male and female serial killers would have to be the motives of the serial killer. The motives of the serial killer are strongly related to the method that is used by the serial killer, which also usually determines the kind of weapon that is used by the serial killer. A male serial killers motives are usually the most wicked and cruel things that you will ever hear about. The male serial killer usually likes to kill their victim to gain some kind of sexual pleasure or to fulfill some kind of fantasy that they have. Some male serial killers will start their fantasy and method of killing with stalking their victim, whether they stalk their victim for a short time or a long time, it doesnt matter; once he spots his victim, he doesnt leave them alone and keeps on hunting that one victim until he is able to get them. The reason that the male serial killer will stalk their victim until they finally get them is because when a male serial killer has a fantasy they usually have a certain kind of victim in mind, such as black hair and pasty skin, and stick to the same kind of victim throughout their killing spree. Male serial killers will more than likely rape their victim before or after they kill them so the killing will involve torture to the victim. Since the male serial killer uses rape as a part of his modus operandi he usually kills his victim with some physical force whether it be a gun, a knife, or even his hands (choking) the weapon used by a male serial killer is usually very physical and can do serious damage to the victim. However stabbing could also be a part of the male serial killers fantasy, to see his victim suffer, this is evident because in some cases a male serial killer had stabbed all of his victims the

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same number of times and usually stabbed the same region of his victims body. The fantasies of male serial killers could be very unusual and unpleasant which leads to some gory and uneasy feelings. At some point after the male serial killer kills his victim he will more than likely visit the victims gravesite and maybe even attend the victims funeral in order to fulfill his fantasy. On the other hand, female serial killers usually do not kill to fulfill some type of fantasy or to gain sexual pleasure, instead their motives are much more sensible. A female serial killer usually kills their victim for an insurance policy or an emotional distress. A female serial killers victim will more than likely include a spouse for the gain of the insurance policy or the woman that her husband cheated on her with for her emotional distress. The female serial killer knows exactly who she wants as her victim without having to stalk them however, she may have to lurk around her victims home for a day or so to see when the right time to strike would be. Since the majority of the time the female serial killer wants monetary gain out of her killings, she has to keep her killings more on the low down and try to cover up the murder. She will usually do this by killing silently which includes poisoning her victim or smothering her victim. Since the female serial killers method of killing is by poisoning or smothering her weapons usually include poison or something to smother her victim with such as a pillow. A female serial killers approach to killing her victim is very simple so therefore there is not very much evidence that is left behind at the crime scene. A male serial killer is not necessarily messier than a female serial killer is but they make more of a mess during their killing due to victim damage and torture to the victim; this leads to more evidence being left behind at the crime scene by the male serial killer than that of a female serial killer. Since it is likely that a male serial killer will leave behind an exceptional amount of evidence at the crime scene it is more than likely that he will be caught easier than a female

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serial killer who kills very carefully and barely leaves behind any evidence at her crime scene. In correlation to evidence left at the crime scene a male serial killer is easier to catch and figure out their killing sprees last only about four years before they are caught whereas a female serial killers killing spree may last anywhere from eight to eleven years before they are caught. Before I did my research, I thought that female serial killers were not seen or talked of very much because there were more male serial killers female serial killers and I was not the only one. There have been FBI Agents who do not want to admit to there being such thing as a female serial killer and many people see the term female serial killer as an oxymoron just as I did before I took my high school forensic science class. Now that I have finished all of my research and pieced everything together I have discovered that female serial killers are not heard of as much as male serial killers because they are not caught as easily because their methods of killing is more silent and harder to catch. In conclusion, there are not fewer female serial killers than male serial killers however; they do have longer killing sprees than the male serial killers do. Therefore, female serial killers are smarter and more organized than male serial killers are.