1. Arnold, Sam H. “The Tragic Story of a Boy who was Abused and Became a Monster ” Medium. Medium, 21 December 2022

Background: This website gives insight about Carl Panzram, his childhood, and his murders. It describes in detail a lot of darker sides of his childhood that let him to become who he was today, and how different experiences ruined any hopes for him of becoming a decent human being.

How I used it: I used this murderer and his childhood and proof of no drug use to respectfully, take out my opponents’ knees when it comes to proving that in order for childhood abuse to have an effect on a serial killer, there does not have to be neurological damage done by drugs or lead exposure. But mainly I also used this article to expand on the kind of childhood Carl Panzram had.

2. “Carl Panzram” – Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 April 2023.

Background: This website gives insight about Carl Panzram, his childhood, and his murders.

How I used it: I used this murderer and his childhood and proof of no drug use to respectfully, take out my opponents’ knees when it comes to proving that in order for childhood abuse to have an effect on a serial killer, there does not have to be neurological damage done by drugs or lead exposure.

3. Ferrarin, Elena. “Did an Abusive Childhood Turn Albert DeSalvo Into the ‘Boston Strangler’ Serial Killer?” AETV. AETV, 02 June 2021  

Background: This article discusses murderer Albert DeSalvo and his story as a murderer and about his childhood. It discusses if an abusive childhood turned him into the person who is known to be the Boston Strangler.

How I used it: In the article it says that child abuse cannot be the only thing that drives one to become a serial killer, the article states there has to be neurological damage done by injury or drugs to lead allow a murderer to stem from an abusive childhood, which I believe I can prove wrong in my rebuttal.

4.   Mitra, Shraman. “Did Jeffrey Dahmer Have Seizures? Did Jeffrey Dahmer Have AIDS?” The Cinemaholic. The Cinemaholic, 24 September. 2022

Background: I am focusing mainly on one paragraph in this article that focuses on his behavior in school and why he acted the way he did. It also focus’s a little bit on his experiences with being bullied.

How I used it: I used this to elaborate on the trouble in Dahmer’s childhood to expand on the topic that I discussed in this part of my research paper, that dove more deeply into the backgrounds of some famous serial killers.

5. Hagan, Ekua. “Serial Homicide for Power and Control.” Psychology Today. Psychology Today, 9 April 2018.

Background: This type of killer, murders for a sense of control over their victim or greed/thrill seeking needs. This is the most common type of serial killer, and an example of this would be John Wayne Gacy, one of the other murderers (who will be mentioned in the essay) also committed murders because it made him feel like a “God.”

How I used it: I intend used this article to describe in simple yet detailed terms kind of murderer this is and to give examples of how they fall under that category, what childhood circumstances caused them to end up there and an example of a murderer as well as their actions.

6. Hagan, Ekua. “Visionary Serial Killers Are Driven by Inner Demons.” Psychology Today. Psychology Today, 26 January 2015.

Background: This article goes a little bit more into depth about what goes on in the mind of a visionary serial killer, and what drove them mentally to become this kind of serial killer. One sentence caught my attention when first skimming the article over: Such individuals are often suffering from either psychoses or some other form of mental illness.” and it reminded me to make sure to include to research what kind of mental illness can lead one to become a visionary murderer.

How I used it: One sentence caught my attention when first skimming the article over: Such individuals are often suffering from either psychoses or some other form of mental illness.” and it reminded me to make sure to include to research what kind of mental illness can lead one to become a visionary murderer. I used this for one of my paragraphs that goes more in depth about visionary murderers and their past. I also found another example of a visionary killer to compare it to, just to show the readers an example.

7. Hagan, Ekua. “Understanding Pragmatic Mission Killers.”   Psychology Today. Psychology Today, 17 September 2018.

Background: Again, this article delves deeper into pragmatic killers, also known as murderers with a mission. These murderers often believe that when they murder a specific group of people, they will make the world a better place.

How I used it: I used this article to help describe 1 out of the 4 different types of murderers. Among these four paragraphs I include how these specific murderers were raised and to see if different murderers that fall under the same category have the same underlying mental illnesses, often caused by an abusive childhood.

8. Holden, Luke. “These Are The 4 Types Of Serial Killers.” Grunge. Grunge, 10 February 2022  

Background: This article describes the basics of the four different types of serial killers, and what drives them to murder other human beings. This article also gives examples of murderers and what drove them to commit the murders they did. This article is short but it is a good jump start to the base of what I want my definition argument to be about, I intent to find more articles that go into more depth about the different types.

How I used it: I will use this when re-writing my definition argument to describe “the perfect childhood on raising a serial killer.”I will start off with describing the different types of serial killers with examples, then follow up with what could have caused them to fall into one of the four categories of murderer.

9. Hagan, Ekua. “Hedonist Lust Killers Must Feed Their Insatiable Hunger.”  Psychology Today. Psychology Today, 1 December 2014.

Background: This article is the same author as the one above discussing visionary serial killers, I like this website because it gets to the point and tells me the perfect amount of information I need to know to give the audience of my paper a good idea of what to know about the four different types of murders. This article again goes more in depth about the hedonist type of murderer and tells us what drives the murderers to do what they do when they fall under the category of the hedonist lust murderer.

How I used it: This article discusses a lot about fantasy kills and how a lot of the murders were driven by the want for sexual impulse or desire for the perfect lover. They give a lot of detail about how the murderer Jeffery Dahmer was strongly known for this type of murder, and they also give background about specific actions Dahmer and other murders did that got them addicted to this type of murder. This type of murderer is very disturbing. I used it to describe one of the four killers and relate it specifically to Jeffery Dahmer.

10. “David Berkowitz.”  Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 April 2023

Background: This article talks a lot about Berkowitz and his family life, how he was adopted and how he found out the reasoning of why he was put up for adoption and what it did to him mentally that causes people to think that is the start of why he started to commit murders.
How I used it: I used this just to add on to the examples used in other articles for more backup information and to add in some more facts and details about Berkowitz and his history as a child.

11. Guy, Fiona. “Serial Killers And Childhood Abuse: Is There A Link?” Crime Traveller. Crime Traveller, 11 April 2023.

Background: This article discusses how serial killers and childhood abuse correlate heavily with one another. In most cases, they go hand in hand. This article discusses different types of trauma, statistics with trauma and murders, and even some information about books written and how the authors got the information needed to write the books through interviews with murderers or heavy research.

How I used it: I used this article to back up my hypothesis and how that a lot of serial killers become serial killers because of their childhood trauma. Although this is not always the only reason or a reason at all, a lot of the time it is a factor that does heavily influence their actions. I used the statistics to help show the audience that there is a difference between the general population and the serial killer population when it comes to psychological abuse. The normal population shows 2% and the serial killer population shows 50%.

12. Howell-Relojo, Dennis. “The Dark Psychology of Serial Killers: Unpacking the Factors Behind their Brutal Behaviour.” Psychreg. Psychreg, 05 February 2023.

Background: This article touches on child abuse but also the other things that go hand in hand with child abuse that are other influences for murderers to do what they do. This can include something psychologically wrong with them like stated above, social and environmental factors, and also some health studies.

How I used it: I used this article to help break up all of the child abuse talk and also include some other factors that can enhance the PTSD from the child abuse, so I am steering off track just enough to talk about something else, but it still all ties back to abuse in the home. Reading further into the article I discovered that it also contains mental disorders that can be caused by abuse encountered at a young age, I went into detail about the different mental disorders, how they affect an individual and how it will higher the probability of one becoming a serial killer.

13. Davies, Nicola. “From Abused Child to Serial Killer: Investigating Nature vs Nurture in Methods of Murder.” Psychiatry Advisor. Psychiatry Advisor, 26 June 2018.

Background: This article shows that not all abused children become serial killers, and not all serial killers are victims of childhood abuse. However, the connection between the two cannot be dismissed as just coincidence. It also decodes the criminal mind and gives little statistics.

How I used it: I used this article to describe how nature vs nurture can influence how a child grows up, even if they become a murderer or not. I used it to to help me explain how nature and nurture can influence a child to commit this horrible crime, but I also show that not ALL children of abuse grow up to be murderers.

14. Mitchell, Heather & Aamodt, Michael G. “The incidence of child abuse in serial killers.” Springer Link. Springer Link, March 2005

Background: This article talks a little but about a murderer named Albert DeSalvo and how his past proves that child abuse cannot be the only factor that goes into creating a murderer, there has to be some sort of body or drug complication.

How I used it: There are a few quotes in this article that go against what my hypothesis is stating, so I used this in my rebuttal argument and prove their statements wrong with evidence.