Given the introduction of a serial killer in my last blog post regarding the Chi Omega murders. You may be asking yourself, what even is a serial killer? There’s some parameters set in place by police that officially classifies an individual as a serial killer, but there’s still so much unknown on why these individuals do what they do.

In the United States, police can classify a person a “serial killer” when they have murdered three or more people. However, these murders have to take place over a period of time, and not occur all at once.

Serial Killers are a fascination for many people that enjoy true crime, because a lot of us just really want to know why. Is there a reason that these people grow up to be the way they are? Are serial killers a product of nature or nuture? To be quite honest with you, we don’t really have a solid answer for this.

The only thing we can look at to determine factors that can make someone a serial killer is by looking at some throughout history.

Typically most serial killers tend to have either a traumatic childhood, or a specific point of trauma that may explain a change in their overall outlook on life and death. They also tend to be emotionless and cold towards others, that’s why most are diagnosed at psychopaths later on in their lives.

However, there’s still some serial killers that can come across very normal to other people, even overly charming at times. For some there has been no indication that they could ever be capable of committing multiple murders, that’s why determining and predicting serial killers can be so difficult.

Mental health professionals have been trying for decades now to understand serial killers and why they are the way that they are. And although we may not have an exact reasoning as of right now, it can still be interesting if you’re a true crime junkie to learn more about them and try to find any correlations between their lives and the crimes they go on to commit.

If you want to read more about serial killers from another perspective, the Guardian has a great article that goes into a lot of different details that psychologists have put forward over the years regarding serial killers. Click here to read!