The mind of the serial killer seems such a mystery, explanation of their crimes are beyond the realm of an easy answer. However, it is rather interesting all these people or most at least “Serial killers” had one thing in common, TERRIBLE CHILDHOODS. The natural question anyone would ask is: what is it about horrendous upbringing that later affects us so much in our adult life.
In order to make sure you and I are both on the same path, let’s make a short study on some names who will have history remember them by virtue of their crimes against humanity.
Friitz Haarman
I’m starting with a man who murdered 24 boys & young men and also believed to have killed over 50 in total. Friitz Haarman was born on 25th October,1879 in Hanover. He was a man who preyed on runaways, male prostitutes and he came to be known by the name “VAMPIRE OF HANOVER”. Whilst still a child, he had a father who disliked him and a mother who coddled him.
Also, as a young man, his brother was arrested and sentenced for sexual assault.It is indeed not far fetched to say Haarman was a man with a very troubled upbringing .
Peter Kurten
Another very interesting figure who makes the list is Peter Kurten. Born on 25th May 1883 at mulheim in Germany and the third of thirteen (13) children.
Raised in poverty, as a child Kurten witnessed his alcoholic father continually sexually abuse his mother and he himself suffered through years of vicious beating from the same alcoholic father. Although horrific, it is of little wonder that his first victim to have suffered the cruelty of this man is a ten(10) years old girl named Khristine Klein who was strangled and sexually assaulted as would subsequent victims be made to suffer . An obvious impact his father’s actions had on him.
Carl Panzram
Surely, Carl Panzram is a man who wouldn’t escape my ink . Indeed ,I’ve read about a lot of serial killers but Carl has always been that personality who strikes fear in my heart whenever thought of him comes up.
Ladies & Gentlemen, Carl Panzram was born to a Prussian immigrant couple on the 28th of June 1891 on a Minnesota farm near the Canadian border. He and his six siblings were raised in poverty , a situation made worse when his father deserted the family whilst he was just a seven year old kid.
As a 14 years old, he was gang raped by four men and for the rest of his 39 years, he was consumed by the pain and humiliation he had suffered through the incident. In an act of paying the world back in it’s own coin for what had been done to him, he went to forcibly sodomize more than a thousand boys and men. Again, here we see a man whose young life was marred by events which subsequently influenced his adult life, such a shame.
Herman Webster Mudgett
The last on my list is the man who was known by the name H.H Holmes. He was born in Herman Webster Mudgett, New Hampshire on May 16th 1860. Holmes grew up in an impoverished family with an abusive alcoholic father as it’s head.
School provided the only escape and he was said to be an intelligent student as well as handsome but he was constantly bullied by his peers in school.This incident seemingly haunted him for the rest of his life as it found expression in his killings.
Now that we know these people who have in their ways terrorised the world , let’s attempt understanding how the social milieu goes a long way in influencing our individual world-view.
To start off, It is a very sane statement to make when i tell you that most of our value systems we later use in our adult life are things we unconsciously imbibe into our inner man as children. So chances are , a child from an orderly home growing into adult would have an orderly life but of course as in and every case , there are exceptions. So, it should be of little wonder to the society when we see a child from a distraught home grows up into a societal hoodlum. As is seen from the examples ,these “serial killers” were people from bad homes with an improper upbringing with little or no love at all.
Again,could lack of love from acquaintances and people we hold in high regard affect our world-view? Well, this is certainly no rhetorical question as it’s no difficult to answer, the answer is simply YES.
Evidence of this can be seen in the case of H.H Holmes , lack of love certainly is a catalyst for loss of any sort of compassion towards fellow humans.
Today in the world, there are many children through no fault of theirs have been left homeless and taken to the streets through such problems such as conflicts and predominantly lack of parental love from parents and guardians alike. These are children who need nothing but love and care thus becoming street beggars.
These children are able to survive but the repercussion is, the world-view of such a child is damaged and he/she would no longer see the world as a place of of joy and love with an endless possibility of achieving whatever goals one envisages. So if we want to avoid the evil act of unconsciously bringing up the next generation of “serial killers”then, we have to ensure the establishment and effectiveness of social structures for protecting and caring for the “Lost children” is a course the entire human race is committed to.
