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Paulina Ortiz

Judith R McCann

ENGL 1302-213

5 April 2023

Childhood Trauma in Serial Killers

Millions of kids around the world are abused. Out of those million at least one of them

will want to become a killer. Whether it be death, abuse, or bullying, their experiences will stick

with them for the rest of their life and cause a change as to who they are as a person. Trauma is

described as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. Most times it stays in their mind,

memories for the rest of their lives, and others are lucky enough to block out everything that

happened because of the degree of trauma it was. It destroys the trust that kids should have in

adults, creates fear in them, and all of it sticks with them for the rest of their life. Most times it

goes untreated too. Childhood trauma proves to be instrumental in shaping serial killers because

it alters kids' emotional development which affects them later on in their adult life. And most of

the time, it is not positive.

Childhood trauma comes in many forms. Not everyone has the same experiences, but

they all leave an impact on the victim. In the article, “An Insight into Female Serial

Killers…Trauma?”, Salman discovered that “childhood plays a large role in determining how

serial killers choose and kill their victims” (11). The author later went on to state that “since the

brain is still developing during childhood, a child’s early years play a substantial role in

determining the rest of his/her life” (11). In the article, the author went into detail about how the

killers would commit the murders and how their own traumatic experiences affected how they

went about things. For example, a serial killer by the name of Richard Ramirez “observed
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physical abuse by his father to his older brothers, he also witnessed the murder of his cousin’s

wife, at the hands of his cousin” (Meher 35). Witnessing those experiences messes people up

mentally. It skews their sense of morality and that is why they grow up thinking that there is a

gray area where people will not know what to do after, or if, they get caught.

Traumatic childhoods are common in killers. In a study conducted by Morono et al., they

noted that out of the forty-two killers, a part of the study twenty-six were abused

psychologically, physically, sexually, and biologically. Twelve out of the forty-two killers were

orphaned before, and, thankfully, none had ever been abandoned by a parent before (7).

Childhood trauma has proved to be one of the many reasons as to why people kill time after

time, again and again. The most surprising part of it though, is that most of the time, it goes

unnoticed and untreated.

Sometimes, people grow up with a bad childhood thinking it was normal. They get

tricked into thinking that they are being crybabies and need to toughen up because the real world

will not baby them. While it is true, to an extent, constant bruises, tears, and berating is not how

one toughens up, it is how one becomes a punching bag. People who have been abused do not

realize it until later on when they notice how other parents treat their kids and it hits them that it

was just them who thought it was normal to constantly get hit and yelled at. In the article, “Serial

Killers Profiling and Target Victims: Is there a connection?”, the author paraphrased another

author that also found in their conclusion that being “untreated from those abuses will most

likely lead to serial killers” (Mustafa 2). Murray studied a serial killer by the name of Jared Lee

Loughner who was angry at women, in general, because of the rejection that he experienced

from them. During the time that he was actively killing, six people were murdered. Once he was

caught, the police deduced that one of the reasons why he committed the crimes was because of
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women and untreated mental illness. Girotra further cemented this theory by researching how

animal abuse can lead to killing people. But animal abuse does not happen just because it stems

from traumatic childhoods (1). When the author discusses the causes of animal cruelty, they state

that the untreated mental health problems is recognized as a major cause (31). Going through

these experiences leaves you with a world of problems, but once people realize what they went

through and are not or do not want to treat it, may look for other ways to self-treat.

When people are confused and are feeling so many different emotions, sometimes they

do not know how to handle a situation. A lot of the time, they turn toward anger. It is the easiest

emotion to give in to. They can be angry at themselves, at the people who hurt them, and even

the people who had a better life than them. This leads the conflicted person to become aggressive

and may create a hostile character (Mustafa 2). After spending their life afraid and unable to

stand up for themselves, they will acquire a sense of survival to the point where they see

everything as a threat. They will become what people call the “lone wolf” because they are

always on the lookout making sure that harm does not come to them again.

In addition, Dunkelberger states that “ it is not difficult to understand why one may have

trouble trusting others when those meant to protect them hurt them” (6). That statement holds so

much truth because your parents or guardians are supposed to protect you from other people, not

hurt you themselves. They are supposed to make you feel loved, not instill fear in you. And when

that is not accomplished, then the victim is the one who has to do everything on their own

because they can not trust other people to do it for them.

Childhood abuse is a problem that needs to be solved. It is affecting many kids

worldwide and creating serial killers. It has been seen in many studies that the most common

factor among serial killers is the experiences that they have from their childhoods. And they are
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not good ones. Going through what they did and not having it treated through therapy or other

form of help opens up pathways to those dark thoughts because they do not know how to deal

with it and it comes out in aggressive ways. Maybe it is not that common, even though the

articles prove otherwise, but it is impossible to tell if the kid next door, a student, or any kid

experiencing abuse will be a part of that two percent.

Works Cited

Salman, Ayesha. “An Insight into Female Serial Killers: A Product of Childhood Abuse and

Trauma?” 2020, https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/8mdvh.

Sharma, Meher. “The Development of Serial Killers: A Grounded Theory Study.” The Keep,

2018, https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/3720/.

Mroczkowski, Sarah Mroczkowski. “Nature and Nurture.” Google Slides, Google,

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ppr5HJpqqMQ3jF3u_0UIi1nB0ckcanfwGO1iiyt

_iAE/edit#slide=id.g1b09d27a447_5_127.

Understanding the Inter-Relation between Animal - Proquest.

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2633447840.

Murray, Jennifer L. “The Role of Sexual, Sadistic, and Misogynistic Fantasy in Mass and Serial

Killing.” Deviant Behavior, vol. 38, no. 7, 2016, pp. 735–743.,

https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2016.1197669.

Marono, Abbie, and David A. Keatley. “An Investigation into the Association between

Cannibalism and Serial Killers.” Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 2022, pp. 1–12.,

https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2022.2040397.

Mustafa, Mohammad B. “Serial Killers Profiling and Target Victims: Is There a Connection?”

2018, https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints201801.0010.v1.

Dunkelberger, Haley L. “The Wicked Problem of Child Abuse.” Research Commons at Kutztown

University, https://research.library.kutztown.edu/wickedproblems/40/.