The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers QUOTES

1 " It makes perfect sense that if human beings are raised in warm, loving households; if they are brought up to believe that the world is a secure and decent place, then they will grow up with a healthy relationship toward themselves and other people. - able to give love freely and receive it in return. Conversely, if a person is severely mistreated from his earliest years, subjected to constant psychological and physical abuse, he or she will grow up with a malignant view of life. To such a person, the world is a hateful place where all human relationships are based, not on love and respect, but on power, suffering, and humiliation. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

2 " publicly raped by a specially trained giraffe, after which she was torn apart by wild animals. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

3 " Largely because of its emphasis on gore, the Illustrated Police News had the highest circulation of any publication in Victorian England. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

4 " Only the technology has changed. The public’s appetite for sensational true-crime stories has remained exactly the same. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

5 " There are two very different types of “psychos”: psychopaths and psychotics. Most serial killers fall into the first category, though some belong to the latter. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

6 " Technically, psychopaths aren’t legally insane. They know the difference between right and wrong. They are rational, often highly intelligent people. Some are capable of great charm. Indeed, the scariest thing about them is that they seem so normal. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

7 " The most striking feature of the psychopathic personality is his utter lack of empathy. He is incapable of love, incapable of caring, incapable of feeling sorry for anyone but himself. Other people are simply objects to be exploited and manipulated for his own profit and pleasure. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

8 " Psychosis is defined as a severe mental disorder characterized by some degree of personality disintegration. Psychotics live in a nightmarish world of their own. They suffer from hallucinations and delusions—hear voices, see visions, are possessed by bizarre beliefs. They have lost touch with reality. Unlike psychopaths—who appear to be normal, rational people even while leading grotesque secret lives—psychotics match the common conception of insanity. The main forms of psychosis are schizophrenia and paranoia. For the most part, serial killers aren’t psychotic. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

9 " According to psychiatrists, the loathing such killers feel for their mothers becomes projected onto all females, resulting in what crime writer Stephen Michaud calls “malignant misogyny.” Women come to be seen as noxious, disgusting creatures that deserve whatever horrors are inflicted on them—a sentiment chillingly expressed by “Hillside Strangler” Kenneth Bianchi, who steadfastly defended his atrocities. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

10 " There’s little doubt that America is the world’s leading producer of serial killers, though any true measurement has to take into account the sheer size of our population. The FBI estimates that there are between thirty and fifty serial killers at large in our country at any given time. That might seem like a shockingly high number, but in a nation of more than 280,000,000 people, it’s a minuscule percentage. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

11 " In attempting to create a psychological profile of an unknown serial killer, investigators try to distinguish between the perpetrator’s “signature”—the seemingly gratuitous acts of excessive violence or sadistic cruelty he commits for his own depraved pleasure—and his MO or modus operandi. Technically speaking, the latter term refers to the killer’s preferred method of committing his crimes without getting caught: how he selects, snares, subdues, and dispatches his victims, then makes his getaway. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

12 " The best estimate of experts like James Alan Fox of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University is that, at any given time, there are two to three dozen serial killers at large in the country, responsible for the deaths of between one and two hundred victims. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

13 " Another problem is that it’s not always easy to distinguish between a killer’s MO and his signature. Supposedly, a signature act is something the killer needs to do to satisfy his sickest urges—“whatever he gets his rocks off on,” as Ted Bundy so bluntly put it—whereas the MO relates to the purely practical aspects of pulling off and getting away with the crime. But it’s often hard to make such hard-and-fast distinctions. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

14 " In attempting to get a handle on the complex phenomenon of serial homicide, experts have come up with various ways of classifying these killers. Crime historian Philip Jenkins, for example, proposes two major categories: the predictable type (criminals with a long history of brutal fantasy and behavior whose progression to serial murder seems unsurprising) versus the respectable type (petty felons with no prior history of violent crime whose sudden turn to serial murder is unexpected). Forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz identifies three major kinds of serial murderers: psychopaths who kill for sadistic sexual pleasure, psychotics who act under the influence of hallucinations, and custodial killers like doctors, nurses, and other caretakers who usually poison or smother their victims. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

15 " When you consider that most of these guys are angry, ineffectual losers who feel they've been given the shaft by life, and that most of them have experienced some sort of physical or emotional abuse... it isn't surprising that one of their main fantasy occupations is police officer. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

16 " For the most part, serial murder is a sex crime, a fact that accounts for its distinctive features. The classic pattern of serial murder is a grotesque travesty of normal sexual functioning. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

17 " R. M. Holmes and J. DeBurger divide serial killers into four varieties, based on their underlying motivations: visionary types (psychotics who hear voices or see visions commanding them to kill); mission-oriented types (generally prostitute killers who believe they are on a crusade to rid the world of scum); hedonistic types (lust-killers who murder for perverted pleasure); and control-oriented types (who derive their sick gratification less from sex than from the assertion of power and dominance over the victim). "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

18 " Scrawled in lipstick on the living room wall was a cry for help that would become the single most famous serial killer message of the century: "For heavens sake catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

19 " Prostitutes (especially when they come from the underclass)—along with street hustlers, teenage runaways, vagrants, junkies, and other social outcasts—are what criminologists call “targets of opportunity”: people who are especially vulnerable to serial homicide because they are easy to snare and overpower and are so marginalized that no one, including members of the police and the press, pays much attention when they go missing. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers

20 " In short, their unspeakable acts are a source of supreme pleasure to serial killers, who achieve the highest pitch of arousal—even to the point of orgasm—by inflicting savage harm on other human beings. Because doing terrible things feels so good to them, serial killers try not to get caught, so they can keep on enjoying their atrocities for as long as possible. "

― Harold Schechter , The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers