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Three Serial Killers: Understanding Serial Killers

What causes an individual to become not merely a killer, but a serial killer? Criminal justice researchers suggest that the personalities of those individuals for whom multiple killings are recorded are in some substantial ways different from the personalities of the more typical murderer - an individual who kills in the heat of passion, from greed, or as a consequence of some exceptional situation that leads him or her to abandon social norms and inhibitions (Schmid, 2005). At issue herein is a discussion of several well-known serial killers with the goal of identifying what specific elements in their lives or personalities may haven been responsible for or conducive to multiple murders.

One such killer is Lee Boyd Malvo (also known as John Lee Malvo or Malik Malvo), who was 21 years-old when convicted in the series of sniper shootings taking place in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002. He was born in Jamaica but left in his early teens, moving to another Caribbean island before arriving in the United States. At age 17, he was arrested with an Army veteran named John Allen Muhammad - the man with whom he was first accused and later convicted of undertaking a three-week-long series of random sniper shootings that resulted in the deaths of 10 people (Fox News.com, 2006).

The portrait that emerges of this youth, who was found guilty of ten counts of murder along with Muhammad, is of a quiet, polite, respectful, yet hostile person who desperately needed the positive guidance of a more nurturing adult male role model (Jackman, 2003). There is apparently little in his external demeanor that would indicate a propensity to such violence; his former court-appointed guardian, Todd G. Petit, told Tom Jackman (2003) that it was his considered opinion that Malvo was an adolescent in search of a father figure and that it was due to Muhammad's influence that he acted as he did in search of "parental" approval.

Two different ...

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Three Serial Killers: Understanding Serial Killers. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 12:38, July 05, 2025, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/2001398.html