Emily Dickinson

Psychologically similarities

A serial killer is someone who kills more than three people with a cooling off period. There are many reasons a serial killer is lead to kill. There are visionary, missionary, lust, thrill and power killers. After reading about three serial killers, I have learned that although they killed under different circumstances they all did so to please or self fulfill some sort of desire. Jack the Ripper, Albert Fish, and Andrei Chikatilo are three famous serial killers who had people scared and locking their doors. Although the three had very different reasons to kill, there was also some similarity in the psychological aspect of the three men.

Jack the Ripper is a known serial killer who murdered five known women in the early mornings between the months of August and November. Jack the Ripper targeted prostitutes with no physical similarities between them, this indicated that Jack murdered on impulse. Jack the Ripper would slash the throats of his victims, stab them and brutally mutilate their bodies. Researchers state that he was someone that could be trusted and had a “poker face,” and that at one point or another, like Andrei Chikatilo, was questioned by the police but was released because he either did not fit the profile of the killer or was someone who was trusted enough. Jack the Rippers reasons behind his murders was to gain power and control that he lacked from women because it was only women that Jack the Ripper killed.

Albert Fish was a known sado-masochism serial killer. Fish was a cannibal who loved to eat children. Fish would pick his victims and lure them to a secluded house, decapitate them, and take their buttocks, nose, and ears. He would make stew out of these parts and stated that the buttocks was the sweetest part for him. Fish was arrested many times before but was never thought or fit that of a serial murderer. Fish was also proven to be legally insane and have religious psychosis. Fish had been a mental hospital at one point but released because the doctor believed Fish was sane. I believe that Fish may have been a visionary killer because he said that he killed for God and heard voices. He believed that if what he was doing was wrong, then an angel would come down and stop him.

Another gruesome serial killer was Andrei Chikatilo. Chikatilo was a weird serial killer. Chikatilo was hard to catch because he was one of the few killers who would change their motives. Chikatilo was known for brutally murdering women and children, both girls and boys. Chikatilo had sexual inadequacies and would cut the sexual organs of his victims. He too would stab his victims viciously to gain satisfaction because this was his manifestation of power over women. The inserting of the knife resembled that of entering them sexually. He would gouge out their eyes because he believed that the image of a killer would stay with their victims. With all the differences in each of these serial killers, there are however, some similarities psychologically.

I think that Jack the Ripper does not have as many similarities to Fish as he does to Chikatilo. First of all, Fish was a sado-masochism who stuck needles inside himself. There was no indication that Jack liked pain and that he liked to inflict it. Although neither Fish nor Jack the Ripper had sex with the bodies, Fish was more of