Serial Killers

Why Do We Get Pleasure From Reading About Them?

Millions of people around the world read books about serial killers, whether publicly on a bus or a train or privately at home. What makes us want to read about serial murders and cold-blooded killers? We nearly always seem to place all our focus on the serial killer instead of the victims even though we feel much empathy towards them and their families. As most notorious serial killers are males we are using ‘He’ when describing the killer. There are generally and, very loosely, four types of serial killer. There are more types but the majority fall into one of these categories.

The first is the Hedonistic type who like to kill for either the sexual pleasure where the killer cannot control their lustful urges. The thrill of just killing or for financial reward.
The second type of serial killer is the Mission Orientated type where he may feel that he is doing the world a favour by going on his killing spree such as killing only prostitutes to rid society of them like Jack The Ripper.
The Visionary serial killer will kill because he things he is following orders from higher powers due to psychosis.
Power and Control is the fourth type whereby a serial killer wants to kill just to show his power and exertion over a weaker person.

As reader of serial killers, we don’t tend to have a preference as to which type we want to read about. This is due to the fact that serial killers are few and far between if you look at populations in a country where the serial killer was killing. Although numbers have steadily increased over the decade’s most eventually get caught when they ‘trip up’ by leaving a vital piece of forensic evidence.

We are interested in the serial killer for many reasons. Here are a few of those reasons:

We are eager to know the mind of the serial killer. What makes him do such bad things. Is it power, lust, psychosis or for financial reasons like robbery that results in murder so the killer can escape justice for longer so does not want to be recognised, or a serial killer like an assassin. What was his modus operandi, his methods used that determines that it is the same killer with each victim. This could be how he selected each victim, 18-25 with red hair for example. The way he lured them to him, stalking or pretending to be on crutches and dropping shopping near his car so the victim will naturally come to help before he shoves her in the car. What weapon he used and how he used it and how he got rid of the body or where he left it. We as readers all want answers to these questions and many feel they need to know in order that they can make sense of what happened. The pleasure of your own mind being satisfied that you now have the knowledge of what went on during the killing spree means that you now have answers whether you understand the reasons behind them. You can put it to rest.
Many people want to know the background of the serial killer such as was he abused as a child? was he a loner? did he kill animals when he was younger? was he mentally ill? what was his family like and his surroundings? Most of all they want to know all the gory details as we need to know exactly what he did. Like when you hear that a person has died naturally you want to know what they died of. Strange but many of us need to know so we can process the information better.
Many people have wished bad things on another person sometime during their life if they have ever felt aggrieved. Children have often said things like ‘I wish you were dead’ in the spur of the moment, many adults have too but they don’t really mean it and of course never go through with it. So, the eagerness to know why a killer not only does it once but several times is of immense interest to many people.
By knowing who the victims were and how they fell into the trap of the serial killer intrigues us as we like to know these details so we don’t fall into a similar trap ourselves albeit the chances being very slim.
The fact that serial killers can evade justice for so long and continue their killing spree makes people eager to find out exactly why. We know that organised serial killers will evade justice for longer as they may plan in advance who they are going to kill and how they are going to avoid detection by not leaving fingerprints or any DNA. If we are curious about something we have a need to find the answer. Was the serial killer very clever, was there such a lack of evidence. Did the police or forensics miss anything.
We are all armchair detectives when it comes to fiction when watching TV and saying who we think the killer is. With real-life serial killers we build up a picture in our minds when we hear snippets of the latest killing and make presumptions on the evidence that we have been given so far which is usually little by the police for various reasons such as copycat killings, unbalanced people saying they did when they didn’t and so not to jeopardise any future trial and such. We like to read all about the forensic side of the killings. what was left at the scene, how the bodies were disposed and how they identified the killer and victims and so on.
We are inquisitive to know how the serial killer was eventually caught, how he reacted to being caught and what he said in police interviews and in court upon being tried. We want to hear his version of events to establish his sanity and or evilness in our minds.

When the final chapter is read your mind know that the case is resolved and justice has been done. After finishing the book many readers feel that they have ‘enjoyed’ reading the it. It may seem wrong that we actually got some ‘pleasure’ from the reading about the real-life serial killer and his gruesome crimes. The ‘pleasure’ is all driven by dopamine which is transmitted through a complex network in our brains. Our satisfaction that the story has been told and justice has been done brings closure to the story which gives us pleasure. We know that the serial killer is locked up or dead and we feel a sense of safety in that we or loved ones won’t ever become his victim and that he got his ‘just deserts’ even though no sentence can ever compensate for the loss of life and the destroyed lives of their family and friends.

We may have heard about the case but were only ever drip-feed small bits of information that we got from the police and the press, when the serial killer was at large. Then when you have read the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of the case then your brain is satisfied that it has all the information and so the ‘pleasure’ chemical ‘dopamine’ is released.

Because we got pleasure from reading about the serial killer case and have learnt more about crime, policing, forensics and the courts this whets our appetite to look at other serial killer books to read to see if there were similarities of what makes a serial killer. We feel our knowledge has increased and want to learn more about the workings of the mind of a serial killer. We never tend to leave it at just one book about these savage serial killers. This is because our brain is telling us to go and get more pleasure by reading similar books. There are generally four different killer-victim types as described earlier. Here is a list of top five serial killer books with a different killer victim-types that you may get ‘pleasure’ from reading!

Here are some serial killer book titles:

Wicked Beyond Belief: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper by Michael Bilton. Sutcliffe killed thirteen women, mainly prostitutes and attempted to kill another seven between 1975-1980. The book examines the police failings during the manhunt and led to Sutcliffe staying ‘at large’ for many years and remain free to continue his killing spree.
Killing for Company by Brian Masters. Serial killer Denis Nilsen slain and slept with his deceased victims between 1978-1983. With his full co-operation he told the writer that he killed at least a dozen young men and boys during that period.
Hunting The Beast: The Story of a Columbian Serial Killer – Luis Garavito by Frances J. Armstrong. Garavito killed 142 children, mostly aged between 8-16. He tied them up, sexually assaulted and tortured them before slashing their throats or decapitating them.
Harold Shipman – Prescription For Murder by Brian Whittle & Jean Ritchie. This well-respected GP killed around 250 of his patients, mostly elderly women over a 30-year period by injecting them with lethal doses of diamorphine. He forged the prescriptions and signed the death certificates himself often putting the cause of death as something other than the overdose that he gave them.
The Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer by Philip Carlo. Richard Ramirez known as The Night Stalker used fear, violence, rape and torture on his thirteen female victims in his one year killing rampage. The self-confessed Satanist broke into the homes of his victims who varied in age and were shot or stabbed or strangled to death.