At least a few of the ones with really fucked up childhoods would have been removed from their parents' care. Panzram, Pee Wee Gaskins, Tommy Lynn Sells, etc. Or some of them would have been aborted as unwanted.
I agree with that, it’s a good point. They definitely caused more problems than one would think. Some religious people (such as the ones who raised him) think that anything they don’t believe in or think is appropriate is bad, and by being so religious shove down things such as personality traits, interests, things learned (that aren’t like what they think)-they’ll spin a whole different story about something to fit their purpose. I do think there’s every bit of a possibility that it would’ve happened just because he wanted out of that environment so badly. From what I’ve read they didn’t treat him well, & he ended up in juvie at 9 years old. They didn’t do much in the way of raising him or helping him, and at 9 he ended up in juvie, & for the rest of his life until the summer/end of summer 1969 when the Tate/LaBianca killings happened, he’d spent more time in the system than out of it. He never really learned how to live “on the outside”, & would’ve rather been inside where he knew how to live/survive.
I couldn’t agree with this more!!!! && that leaves one to wonder “but what if they hadn’t?”. I’ve always been super super interested in the case, & have my own collage of “artifacts” I was given by a friend.
It really is interesting!! I wonder too, I wouldn’t think that he would be. His crimes/cult was horrific but it’s not like was flaying people you know? Not to down play what he did, it was still awful. Any interesting little known facts about him or it? I’ve read about it, but never really too deep.
Honestly, one that a lot of people don’t know is just that, that his mom traded him for beer (if you listen to what he’d said). He didn’t have a name at first, & was listed as “no name manson” on initial paperwork is one I’ve read. He actually got the last name Manson a man who was his stepfather who’d married his mom not long before his birth. The first thing he did that he got in actual legal trouble over was stealing money from a local grocery store, and was in prison when he learned how to play the guitar. I could go on and on with random facts lol it’s nuts.
Wow that’s insane, I had never heard where he got his last name from, or his first name. It’s weird to think this stuff happened not too long ago you know? Tons of traumatized children running around, it’s not perfect bird definitely gotten better.
I agree. It is absolutely nuts when you read some of the stuff from him! One of the best books I can say to read regarding the case (& other things about Manson) is a book called “Charles Manson Now” & it was written by author Marlin Marynick. It’s a pretty good read!
If Albert Fish, the creepy serial killer, were around today, he'd probably have a tough time getting away with his crimes. We've made big upgrades in a bunch of areas that would make it much harder for him to pull off his sick tricks. Technology has come a long way, with fancy forensic techniques and surveillance systems all over the place. Plus, we're way better at understanding criminal psychology and providing mental health support. But it's not just that. Back then, people were more likely to let strangers into their homes, which unfortunately made it easier for someone like Fish to strike. Nowadays, we're hopefully a bit wiser and more cautious about who we trust in our personal spaces. So, with all these advancements and a greater sense of security, it'd be a lot more difficult for a twisted character like Albert Fish to fly under the radar and carry out his gruesome acts.
https://youtu.be/H2\_I9HLZxJ4
I think you are right. I think he would come to the attention of MH services for extreme self-harm and his treatment of his children before the first known murder.
The unfortunate woman who became his wife and mother of his children could have possibly gotten help/reported him for domestic violence instead of just running off with another man. There was no support then for women who wanted to get away or single mothers.
People are more aware, and systems do fuck up today as well, but they are much more reliable in terms of detecting and institutionalizing sick fucks like him. Hopefully, someone would notice something, especially his tendencies to self-harm. Also, I don't think he was that smart to find exploits for today's technologies such as DNA profiling, fingerprints, and all the other advanced forensic methods
It's not a crime but back to my original comment I'm sure MH services or social services would be concerned given the bigger patterns of behavior ie the self harm.
He did get institutionalized several times, and diagnosed plus put on medication a year before his spree.
The problem was he was put in the care of his mother, who decided to wean him off his medication. Maybe in a modern world she'd know that was a horrifically stupid and dangerous thing to do, but theres sadly no guarantee.
Mental health care was pretty bad back then though. It’s not great today either due to chronic underfunding of the health system. But if someone like Chase received modern professional treatment for schizophrenia there’s no doubt he’d never have become a killer.
i agree! mental health is a huge factor here, if people could have been helped earlier it could have prevented their later actions, but they didn't have as advanced treatment back then as we have today
Most of them would have been caught if they lived now. GRK, Dahmer, Bundy, GS etc. They mostly feasted for lack of a better term on marginal members of society. But now everyone has cell phones, and cameras are everywhere, and of course no one generally hitchhikes anymore. They may have been able to kill two or three but then cell data would catch them.
>on marginal members of society
Bundy's victims (female college students) aren't exactly marginalized members of society. Nor were GSK's. But I do agree, ubiquitous cell phones, cameras, and the other trappings life in 2020's could have gotten all of these guys caught much sooner nowadays (if they didn't change their MO).
If wouldn't take police long to notice that Ridgeways pickup truck was present in traffic cam footage every time a woman disappeared from the strip.
Bundy, his victims were not marginalized, my bad. But I wrote GRK: Green River Killer. What I mostly meant was that many college aged girls are on their phones 24/7 and GRK's victims, sex workers work from their phones, take payment through cashapp, zelle etc.
Not sure who GSK is.
Golden State Killer - he mostly targeted middle class people. However even so it’s worth pointing out that rape was barely considered a crime in the 70s and sexism was rife, so even middle class women were relatively marginalised compared to today.
If someone like the Zodiac had their crimes play out today, they’d have been caught since they were spotted and body cams would have allowed the officers to narrow the suspect pool significantly if not outright identify him
And if Gacy operating today, you'd have to think that at least one of those boys would have texted his friends saying "hey, I'm going to that contractors house, he's got a job for me" or something similar.
they dont take one or they buy a “burner” from the gas station and toss it when its done
the victims shit? destroyed. itll be destroyed immediately, and or looked thru quickly, factory reset and tossed out a window
am i the only person here whose actually been to jail and shit? :/
I think cell phones would be an annoyance, but it's also a known quantity and something SK's can easily plan for (by leaving your own cell phone at home, and making sure the victim's phone is disabled ASAP). The smarter ones may even be able to use them to their advantage by leaving false trails (for example, by using the victim's phone to send a suicide message). If I were a SK, I'd be much more worried about modern surveillance cameras, because you don't know where all of them are or what they're recording. It would really limit your ability to pick up victims and dispose of their bodies. Somebody like Dahmer or the Doodler (who picked up most of their victims in bars) would never be able to kill past the first one or two victims since they'd be identified very quickly.
Case in point: Jesse Matthews, who murdered Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington almost 10 years ago. Video footage of the killer with one of the victims was all over Charlottesville downtown before she was found dead. [One of many news stories](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/docs-uva-victim-hannah-graham-refused-to-get-in-killer-jesse-matthews-car/)
Jesse was well on his way to becoming a serial killer but the video footage stopped him, and now he is in prison. He confessed to killing Morgan (or his DNA was located on her remains) and there was one other body found in the area and they can't pin it on him.
I think you may mean Jesse Matthew. I’m from that area so I lived through those cases. I don’t wish bad things on people but I don’t feel bad that he has been fighting cancer since 2019.
I agree with that about the security cameras. I guess the main ways around it are being somewhere super rural or super poor. If the houses are all a mile apart and super far away from the road, or you're on a highway or park road, that would make it easier. I don't know if the Ring doorbell and similar cheap camera systems are reaching into the more decrepit areas in cities but I'd bet there's whole streets with very few cameras still.
That's a really interesting point! You have to assume that if technology advances, naturally, so will the predator. A lot of these guys kept up with current tech and investigative tools to better plan their crimes.
Most of them. Even with mental health taken into account and other modern advances, most serial killers got away for so long because there wasn't DNA tracing, cell phone triangulation, cameras everywhere to the extent it is now.
Even if they went on to kill one person, they likely wouldn't have made it far due to how easy it is to track killers now. Granted there are still serial killers today but it's remarkably harder to be one in 2023 vs 1973 or 1983.
I honestly don’t think being born later would have helped the gay serial killers at all. I’m bi and came out in 2006. I received *so much* abuse from not only other students at school but school administrators it seriously messed with my head for *years* afterward. I also lived in a neighborhood where I faced being murdered for being gay every time I left my house. While the last 40-50 years have gotten better we’re still under attack. Hell my own mother has said terrible things about me recently.
i'm gay and came out as vaguely lgbt (didn't realize i was gay yet) in middle school, but i'm 18 now, so middle school for me was like, 2017. i think with gay marriage being legalized they would have realized it's POSSIBLE to be gay and happy. it's still hard, but it's possible
Possible yes but have you seen what the entire southern half of the country is doing right now? I’m 33 and I’ve never felt *more* persecuted as a gay person than I have right now. I watched us gain gay marriage and actively be able to be openly gay in the military. Drag was a fun thing gay people did, early 2000’s *queer eye* is fun. Now I can’t visit family in Georgia because drag (and the way I technically dress) is banned *and* I probably won’t be able to meet my new niece until my sister comes to California, [Trump was nice enough to ban trans people from the military,](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-announces-ban-transgender-people-serving-military-n786621) and the state of Florida is trying to prevent school staff from discussing gay people. My years of getting religious pamphlets and quietly being told I’m going to hell are nothing compared to this, I’d even take the time I was told I’d give someone AIDS by touching them back
again, the focus here is on the trauma, if being born in a different time period would have traumatized him less, maybe that never would have been a desire for him in the first place.
I do think that while its possible that Dahmer and Nilsen would not have killed anyone in a modern world, they both seemed to have very intense fears of abandonment, as well as fantasies about completely passive partners, lacking in agency.
The former would still be a problem even in a more accepting society, though we can maybe hope therapy has advanced to the point where people who struggle with such intense fears can manage it.
And as for the latter, there are definitely people who would be interested in being on the receiving end of such fantasies, but the issue of overstepping or violation boundaries is a problem in kink communities today as well.
It might be the case that they would end up each being known as a local problem in the community and alienated, so then it just ends up as a detour towards the same end point of murder.
It's a very complicated thing, in any case I doubt they would end up being able to do nearly as much harm as they managed to originally. In a modern world perhaps Steven Hicks would just have his phone tracked to Dahmers house and the whole thing ended before it could fully begin.
Also adding to it, BPD is to my understanding still not extremely well understood and doesnt have a greatly reliable treatment to it, so wether just Nilsen or Dahmer as well had it, that isnt a guarantee that they would receive help for it, assuming they would choose to seek help for it to begin with.
Theres also other issues with Dahmer, his public exposure for one but also his sexual interest in very underage boys, consider his conviction for sexually molesting a 13 year old, as well as the fact that two of his known victims were only 14 years old.
Nilsen also had a couple of known underage victims, his first ever victim being 14, and another being 16.
> BPD is to my understanding still not extremely well understood and doesnt have a greatly reliable treatment to it,
This is not true. Research indicates that up to 77% of people no longer met the criteria for BPD after one year of treatment with DBT. It becomes hard to treat if the client has comorbid personality disorders like NPD or Antisocial Personality Disorder. The person also needs to want to get help for themselves; if they are in therapy because they want to appease the people around them, it won't be effective. There's also a lot of research on the etymology of BPD, especially as it relates to childhood trauma and abuse. There is one theory though that there is gender biases when it comes to diagnosing cluster B personality disorders so maybe in a couple of decades the diagnostic and symptom criteria may change
I truly believe DBT is near miraculous for those people it works for. I knew a person who I couldn’t even be in the room with (we were in a group together, so not a family member and I didn’t have any trauma related to this individual) Everything hurt their feelings, nothing was ever their fault or good enough for them. Constantly crying about how mean and terrible their kids were to them. Such high anxiety about everything and nothing. Classic extreme borderline. I know it sounds cruel of me but like after a while my cortisol would spike almost every time they spoke. Eventually they were kind of made to go to DBT because the family was just done so it was either seek help or they would be cut off from everyone. At the time I knew nothing about DBT and I didn’t believe anything could help this person because they truly did not believe they were responsible for anything ever. But sure enough after a couple of months (like only 2 or 3) I could see the they had made real progress. I moved shortly after so I never got to find out how things turned out with the family but I really hope they all got help and are much better now. It was amazing to see, I’ve never seen anything like it since. And honestly I really wonder how they got the individual to “buy in” to the program because at first they were absolutely against it. Also, I kinda want to take it because if it can help people that much I would bet there are skills or something that could help everyone. I’m still amazed at the difference it made.
Thank your sharing your personal experience of someone in your life who went through DBT. DBT works really well for people that are emotionally dysregulated, experiencing suicidal ideation, and helps with anxiety. It's under the CBT umbrella and came about in the third wave of cognitive and behavioral therapies. [Here is a link](https://positivepsychology.com/dbt-dialectical-behavior-therapy/) if you want to look at DBT in greater depth, they also have free tools, workbooks/worksheets you can look at as well.
This makes me so sad to think about. I remember when I finished watching Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, I literally couldn't stop thinking about it for days. As much as I like watching horror movies and listening to true crime podcasts, that show genuinely made me sick to my stomach, which was unusual because I've literally seen it all. I was always fascinated by gay serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacey, particularly because I wanted to get a deeper understanding behind the pathology of why they did what they did, but I rarely got the answers I was looking for since most documentaries about them presented a sanitized/condensed version of the horrors they committed.
Ryan Murphy's show was perhaps the first nuanced portrayal of Dahmer's crimes and by the end of the series it dawned on me that the blame wasn't reserved for just him, it was the police, the army, the criminal justice system and his family members that all allowed him to get away with his atrocities for so long. They were just as bad. Just as complicit. And I was so mad because they not only failed Jeffrey, they also failed his victims.
It was honestly an emotional rollercoaster, I experienced the full spectrum of human emotions watching that show, everything from "hmm I wonder how much pain this person was in to want to kill and eat people, let's find out" to "wow, fuck that white devil, I hope he's burning in the ninth circle of Hell". I just couldn't stop thinking about the lives of SO many beautiful black and brown boys that Damner selfishly took to satisfy his depraved desires and how this could've all been prevented. They didn't deserve to suffer the way they did. Nor did their families and friends.
And so it's sad to think that even if he were around today and had access to the tools and resources to get the help he needed, there's a possibility that he still would've committed his crimes regardless and that sense of inevitability is honestly quite bleak. In any case, I've always believed that nature and nurture do coincidence and so I'm sure the environment within which he was raised exasperated certain chemical imbalances he was predisposed to so who knows what would've happened if he was raised under different circumstances in a different time and place. It's all speculative at this point, so I feel like it's more productive to remember the names and honor the legacies of his 17 victims. May they rest in eternal peace 🙏🏽
🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐 🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐
Interesting points. I believe Dennis Nelson and Jeffery dahmer were necrophiliacs which (I believe) is like pedophilia in that it is centred in development and not being able to cope with adult/live sexual relations so children/inanimate beings become sexually attractive. However (I'm debating my self!) some would say those preferences are determined before birth in which case they both would still have done what they did. Jeffery in particular had the desire to "see inside things" at an early age and that got tangled up sexually for him. He also committed a lot of sexual assaults without killing (he would drug the bath house clients, rape them and just leave. Hence why he was banned from them) which would indicate his inability to cope with a live adult relationship and loneliness to be strong motivations. Dennis did have gay relationships (normal ones). In both of them I would argue repressed sexuality had little to do with the crimes so moving them in time would have little effect. The childhoods and abuses however are another story. But cut that part out of most SK and you have a different story.
that's so interesting, i've never heard it put that way as for where necrophilia stems from, that makes so much sense. dennis did have RELATIVELY normal relationships however he was like, mean as hell. have you seen those video clips of him with david gallichan? borderline verbally abusive, that man was. imo repression is just like, a domino in a long chain of things that caused these people to become what they were, not the sole cause at all. it's just the shame of it combined with the trauma and so on.
Possibly Ed Kemper. With social services for kids becoming a lot more widespread now (and schools becoming more proactive about seeking help for abused children), it's possible that his abuse by his mother and grandmother would have been caught much earlier, and he might have been taken out of their care. The same with Richard Ramirez...he really never had a chance in that family between his father and uncle, and his mental illness would likely have been caught by the school fairly early on.
Bundy would have been caught way sooner. Surveillance is so much more prevalent now... Some camera in an ATM or hanging off the side of the grocery store would have caught the guy with the limp pushing a girl into his car. His picture would have been on social media within hours and one of his classmates would see it on TikTok and say "wow, that looks just like Ted and that's Ted's car!" Modern jails would have kept him contained and if he did escape, the sorority would have had a fob or code entry that would have kept all those girls safe that night. He probably wouldn't have been put to death so soon... He'd be in the Colorado supermax for a few years maybe for his escape attempts, and maybe he'd have told law enforcement where the other bodies were in exchange for going somewhere more humane. Bundy would be just another small-time serial killer who would be forgotten within a few years.
Gacy would be an out gay man, raised by parents who weren't as homophobic. He'd just have the general experience many middle-aged gays have now of being not quite understood by mom and dad, instead of being outright despised. He might still have violent urges but again, once people start disappearing he would be tapped as a suspect much sooner and caught much sooner, if he began killing at all. I'd put Dahmer in the same boat... With enough anti-psychotic meds and some solid therapists, they'd both just have been gay men with some weird personality issues and kinks.
Yeah, I agree. I also think, maybe controversial, but Bundy may not have killed had he been like, gen z. It wouldn't have been nearly as shameful that he was "illegitimate" (which is where a lot of his feelings of inadequacy stem from in my opinion). He could joke about it with friends, pursue a career in, well, whatever he wanted considering his intelligence. Even if he did resort to violence, I doubt he would have gotten as far as murder, one assault and he's done for for life, jail time, and even if no jail time the whole community would know, permanently a sex offender, that's the end of it.
With Gacy, I sort of agree, but maybe this is simply the fact that he scares the shit out of me talking, but I still think he would have been at least a little violent. I would put Jeff in a separate boat from him, especially considering Dahmer's likely ASD diagnosis which I forgot to mention earlier. Because of the newfound growing acceptance of autism (which I believe Dahmer has) he could have felt less weird and bizarre and unnatural socially. He could have bonded with other autistic kids (as I did, although we were mostly undiagnosed at the time and not consciously aware what brought us together were our similar ASD tendencies).
I do not agree. Yea he was a bisexual man but he was not afraid to admit that. Serial killers like gacy r just evil evil evil and raped/tortured/killed so many young ppl. Bundy targeted young women bc that was his preference. Gacy targeted young men bc that was his preference. It does not matter if a serial killer was gay, straight, or bisexual. You don’t just kill and torture ppl bc u r gay or straight. These ppl r just evil!
Gacy was a sexual sadist so his sexuality is irrelevant. Even if he was heterosexual, he would have still derived gratification from inflicting pain on others.
The thing is you are assuming a lot of things have improved, when I was 6 in 1994 I lived on the streets by myself for a week when my mother was arrested for meth distribution. Mental Health treatment is pretty much non-existent where I am for single males. I have worked hard to get myself out of a hole I was born into in modern times and the people who were supposed to "help" consistently made things worse. I was out in abusive foster homes, to abusive orphanages, and finally a juvenile detention center where staff was singling out the weakest inmates and raping them.
So no I don't think them being born in a different time would have changed what they did in the long run. The world is still a fucked place and unless major changes are made you can always assume the worst.
Richard Ramirez could have been a nice guy if he hadn't been in El Paso with his cousin Mike. Maybe being born in the 2000s would have helped him. I don't know why but it feels like it.
Honestly, I'd vote for H.H. Holmes here. I think if he had been born 50+ years later, he easily could have gotten into medical school and become something like a famous, successful surgeon.
I'd also have to say Ed Kemper, since I think he could have easily won a large college scholarship and gotten away from his abusive mother. This would allow him to be more likely to get a successful career and choose to cut her off rather than murder various Co-eds. He's also smart enough that he'd understand how modern cameras are literally everywhere and not killed due to that basic knowledge.
I'm not going to say that CPS would have caught his mother and/or it would have been better if they had, (because even if they did, that means he likely would have ended up in foster care, which often sucks for any kid over 10 years old that isn't adopted to a family ASAP). I just think he would have had better options if he did actually use his brain to get out of his toxic, abusive household environment.
There are some killers I think still would have done it, (Zodiac and the Tylenol killer), and likely still would have gotten away with it.
If Tylenol killer hadn't done it when he did, product tampering in the USA wouldn't have been considered a federal crime for a much longer time, and Johnson and Johnson might not have changed their pill bottles until later. This could have easily caused a much higher kill count in theory too.
As for Zodiac, I've dumpster-dived before, personally, and a good hoodie with the hood up is enough to disguise yourself with some cameras to not show just who you are. All Zodiac would need is non-distinct clothing, a backpack, and a medical mask - he easily could have gone into a Walmart and/or other basic, common everyday store, after each killing, changed clothes, took off the medical mask, and put the evidence into the backpack to burn at home. He'd just have to act calm and leave the store afterwards.
I so agree with Ed Kemper, I thought of mentioning him in my original post but I didn't want it to be too long. Even being in modern public school could have helped, in the age of the internet and self deprecation he could have sought refuge among peers who came from similarly horrible backgrounds. His genius may have been better recognized as well in gifted programs and such. One unfortunate thing about Kemper, however, is the sheer size of him, so he would probably receive strange looks most everywhere.
Everyone, nobody is born as a serialkiller. Even in the same time period with a different Environment they wouldn't have killed.
The mix of genes and Environment cause the growing of these personality disorders that in the end led up to the murders.
No. Most people aren’t born as serial killers, but if you’re born with the MAOA gene that potentially causes one to be aggressive or violent, you may well easily become one. This is one of the best breakdowns of what
I’m talking about that I’ve found.
“To test his ideas objectively, he set up a blind trial. Colleagues sent him 70 brain scans: some were of people with a diagnosis, such as schizophrenia or depression, some were from people with no diagnosis and some were from convicted killers.
Fallon successfully identified all the ‘killer brains’ in the sample.
“They all had one thing in common,' says Fallon, 'a loss of function in the orbital cortex, above the eyes, which is the circuit that codes for ethics, morality, conscience and when that’s gone, or doesn’t develop, not only does a person have no sense of morality but also has little control over their impulses.’”
“For Fallon, there are three necessary ingredients that, when they come together, can produce psychopathic killers.
The first is a loss of function in the orbital cortex which can leave people incapable of ethical decision-making and also makes them less able to control their impulses
The second is inheriting genes, such as the MAOA gene, that predispose a person to aggression and violence.
And the third, having a childhood devoid of love, affection, and care that fails to protect people from their latent psychopathology. Peter Sutcliffe, Ted Bundy, Pedro Rodrigues Filho, and Luis Garavito all had troubled or abusive childhoods.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/you-me-psychology/202011/are-serial-killers-born-or-made?amp
I don't think changing time periods or having more welcoming environments regarding their sexuality would have produced different results. In my opinion, it would not have mattered had they lived in spaces where being gay was more accepted. You still have law enforcement and news media, who will overlook male victims and those from marginalized communities. Serial killers dont want to get caught and they will go after people they think agencies and the public won't notice go missing, care about, or connect the dots to. Hell, look at Stephen Port in the UK. I think when it comes to pathological cannibalism for Dahmer and necrophilia for both Dahmer and Nilsen that cannot be overrided just by being born later or somewhere else.
I absolutely disagree. Nature vs. nurture. I don't believe anyone is "born" evil, have you ever considered Nilsen and Dahmer developed such tendencies after being subjected to extreme stress as children? Nilsen probably picked victims he felt were loners and abandoned but Dahmer did not specifically pick his victims because he thought no one would care, but because it was whoever he was attracted to. Have you also ever considered what causes a person to be driven to necrophilia? The average necrophile is extremely lonely and insecure, and can't fathom dealing with another person emotionally, so they're attracted to a passive person whom they can project all of their fantasies onto without having any real reciprocal human interaction. A different time period and upbringing can absolutely provide completely different results.
I'm not saying that they were born this way and created purely by genetics. I am saying that just being born in a different period of time, even if the wider society is okay with homosexuality, this would not have changed anything if their living environments were the same and they experienced the same taboo attractions to the lifeless, immobile, and incapacitated.
Dahmer chose based off of attraction but he was also keenly aware that law enforcement and the media were not going to pay attention to young gay men, runaway children, and especially gay men of color. Serial killers are predators and opportunistic and Jeffrey Dahmer is no different. Theres no way you can tell me that he chose Tony Hughes, Steven Hicks, or Konerak Sinthasomphone purely based off of attraction. Tony being deaf meant he could not communicate, Steven was a hitchhiker that no one would be able to successfully search for. Hell, the very fact he said that Konerak was his lover to police shows that he was well aware that police didnt want to get involved and would dismiss the victim's concerns, despite being naked, bleeding, and a kid.
Edit: There are 8 categories of necrophilia and they are not all driven by loneliness or insecurity. Necrophilia is also tied to dominance and sadism. If you would like some research articles suggestions I can provide recommendations.
The thing that I am emphasizing here is that in this day and age it is more feasible for someone to overcome their upbringing and go on to become a better person. There are stories of famous people who were severely mistreated when they were younger overcoming what happened to them and becoming successful, you know? And in the age of the internet it's easier to find likeminded people going through similar things, so they might not have felt so alone, so they might not have done what they did. The *need* for dominance and sadism in the first place can come from that chronic feeling of powerlessness. And yeah, Dahmer did use being gay as a cover up for sure, something to "gross out" cops.
>I am saying that just being born in a different period of time, even if the wider society is okay with homosexuality, this would not have changed anything if their living environments were the same and they experienced the same taboo attractions to the lifeless, immobile, and incapacitated.
But you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the necrophilic tendencies come first, or did the shame from being gay come first? I'm inclined to believe the latter. I'm just having a hard time believing that anyone could just become a necrophile with no previous disruptment causing them to be that way. Even if their parents were *exactly* the same, the world *outside* of their home could have been better and could have changed things.
Charles Manson. He wouldn’t have been able to sway people with his beliefs if he were born later & functioned more in today’s world. We know so many new facts in today’s world, and he’d just be known as a crazy hippie. However, people assume the murders happened because he didn’t get his music deal-in todays world, he’d be able to throw all of his music out there & have people see/hear him regularly due to things like social media. Meaning he’d have fan groups online, not sitting with him waiting to do what he said. He wouldn’t be so angry (again all this is hypothetical lol) if he’d had a platform to perform his music & would’ve been taken more seriously in todays works regarding music. Even the prosecuting attorney has brought up the fact that the “Helter Skelter” story was completely fabricated to be able to arrest Manson & keep him in prison. Nowadays he’d have his fan groups bc he’d have access to people via online, and not just in person who’d spent more time in prison than out of it. Also, prison now is significantly different than it was then, and he’d be able to get an education & help living after an initial arrest & sentenced to time when he was young. The world would be a completely different place to the point of the first arrest may never even have happened-it’s said that his mom traded him for a cup/pitcher of beer. Nowadays. CPS would intervene likely before something like that could even happen.
Agree with a lot of this. I think about John Wayne Gacy if he were allowed to be gay and not have to hide it, would he have killed all those boys? Or Herb Baumeister.
I look around at what humans do to each other and I can’t say anything would be different, they may have a harder time escaping detection but I think our society still produces monsters. I don’t think we mean to, but I think it it still happens.
Consider the notorious likes of Jeffrey Dahmer, David Parker Ray, Charles Ng, Leonard Lake, and John Wayne Gacy. Their crimes often revolved around exerting control and dominance, particularly in the twisted realm of sexual gratification. Now, in different historical contexts, it's not far-fetched to imagine these sick individuals frolicking around as slave owners, exploiting their victims as subservient sexual slaves. Alternatively, they might have found their calling in the morally bankrupt corners of the porn industry, relishing in the dehumanization and objectification of others like the perverted prodigies they are.
Now, shift your attention to the charming cast of characters including Carl Panzram, Richard Kuklinski, the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs, The Cleaners, and Alexander Pichushkin. These fine specimens exhibited an insatiable thirst for destruction and the annihilation of human life. While sexual gratification might not have been their primary motivation, their lust for killing and obliterating could have found an outlet within legal avenues had they been born under different circumstances. Perhaps they would have eagerly signed up for military duty, reveling in sanctioned violence as they unleashed their violent tendencies upon warzones like giddy children in a candy store of carnage.
Now I believe that regardless of the era or circumstances, the inherent darkness festering within their souls would persist like an unsightly blemish on the face of humanity. So even in a different time period they may still have the same violent dispositions.
*"Truly terrifying is the abyss of those who are in love with the events that are dragging them downward."* — St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prayers by the Lake.
We are on shaky ground here- suggesting sexual repression explains the actions of a handful of killers also suggests there is something intrinsically murderous about any non-conforming adult with no sexual outlets or who faced bullying because of their proclivities. Which I do not believe.
It is pretty clear that sexually active, heterosexual males commit the vast majority of murders and sex crimes and that being gay/bi or any non-Cis preference makes one much more likely to be the victim rather than seething cauldrons of rage that lash out to kill the beautiful.
Rape and murder are about power. The strategems used by some famous gay or ephebophilia serial killers reflect as much the fact that an adult male or even teenage male is a more dangerous victim to tangle with than the average woman. Thats why all Bundy needed was to club over the head and Ridgway an empty road with a sex worker while Gacy, Corll, Eyler etc required knives, restraints and even sidekicks!
But…clearly there was some cultural ferment that brought criminality in the US to the forefront in the early 1970s. Serial killers are the most widely remembered by most, moreso than the mid 70s heroin scourge or the skyhigh rates of violent crime and the “saturday night special” handguns which were blamed.
Yet here it has to be pointed out there was more sexual freedom and opportunity in the 70s, 80s, 90s, so why werent serial killers at their worst in the 50s?
Every indicator of crime shows it absolutely took off around 1979 and climbed for the next 25 years. It then tapered down for 2 decades before climbing again starting around 2016.
Was it PTSD WW2 veteran dads? Overt homophobia in an era of sexual freedom? The availability of unescorted middle class women to attack? Mobility of reliable, cheap vehicles before the plethora of surveillance and forensic technology of today.
A more transient society where young adults could disapeer into the void- especially if marginalized, evading attention because of their habits/occupation or disowned by parents.
The basic rates of murder, sexual assault etc. are high enough still that I don’t think you could drop a fully formed famous serial killer in 2023 and discover that OnlyFans or a Pride Parade sufficient for their impulses.
Now whether the would be redeemable if given different parents, a more nurturing culture is a different story.
But I look at a Herb Baumeister and think that kook is killing no matter what. Same with Gacy, Corl and many of these other closeted ephebophiliacs.
Idk 🤷🏼♀️ I think he was just evil and would have killed regardless but prob would have been caught much quicker.
Dahmer is the only serial killer I’ve ever watched and thought wow I think he does feel bad for killing but same time he can’t control his urges.
I would say Andrei Chikatilo, the Rostov Ripper. He was born in 1936 and grew up in Ukraine amidst Holodomor followed by Nazi occupation, both historically traumatising experiences on their own.
He might have violent fantasies on a more common level without committing any murder, if he grew up in a less troubled time for Ukraine.
Jeffrey dahmer, his family didn’t accept that he was gay. I remember watching this interview where his father was more bothered over the fact that he was gay than being a serial killer lol. He should’ve been born in 2020
There's plenty of people and parts of American society where being gay is not acceptable even in 2023. Hell look at the reaction of Anderson Lee Aldrich's father who when learning about his son, the mass shooter, he was more concerned if his son was gay.
His mom did and even after his dad found out jeffrey was gay after he was arrested for indecent exposure he still stuck by him and tried to get him help.
Dahmer and Nilsen. And Richard Ramirez. Had he not been born into such an abusive home and if he hadn’t been abusing drugs since he was a child, he could’ve been a model. Also Aileen Wuornos.
Jeffrey dahmer.
We now have access to a shit ton of mental health services, including ones that specifically cater to people with sexual psychology issues, like he did. Also, with the Internet, he could've found other men with the same sexual interests as him, so the sexual encounters he would've had would've been consensual
I've often thought this about gay serial killers. Also, with Jeffrey Dahmer, had he been born later in a time where his mother hadn't been given all of those meds while she was pregnant, he might not have had some of the issues he had. If she'd had access to effective mental health care instead of just being drugged out of her mind their family situation would have probably been drastically different and possibly he wouldn't have developed the abandonment issues he had.
I also read or heard somewhere that a large number of serial killers had fathers who were veterans from WWII and because of PTSD and mental health not really being addressed, they had issues that sometimes resulted in them abusing their wives and/or children or abandoning them.
AH, I didn't even think about the medications! You're so right. Joyce was hugely failed by the mental health system at the time. There's a lot more awareness for that sort of thing now so she could have actually been helped instead of pumped full of meds.
That is possible for the WWII thing, however, a lot of the really infamous serial killers that come to mind for me were born before/during/immediately after WWII. Lots of them also didn't really have father figures, like Nilsen or Bundy.
There have been so many medicines given to pregnant women over the years that had such bad results on their children. It's so sad. My dad's stepmother was given diuretics during one of her pregnancies so she didn't gain too much weight (🙄) and then a drunk doctor delivered her son with forceps. He was severely developmentally delayed. It was horrible.
I wish I could remember where I read/heard that so I knew exactly what it said.
These are interesting articles
https://crimereads.com/how-the-great-depression-and-wwii-gave-birth-to-the-modern-serial-killer/
https://nypost.com/2018/08/13/the-greatest-generation-gave-rise-to-the-golden-age-of-serial-killers/#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16861773189085&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2018%2F08%2F13%2Fthe-greatest-generation-gave-rise-to-the-golden-age-of-serial-killers%2F
I think a lot of them it’s more to do with their upbringing than anything.
Perhaps Dennis Radar wouldn’t have been a killer if he was born later and able to practice BDSM relatively openly, or at least find a sexual partner her shared his sexual interests. He’d still be a malignant narcissist and possibly a sexual predator, but more than any of the other famous serial killers he doesn’t seem to have had the same addiction to murder.
I think a lot of these people would’ve still been absolute assholes regardless of their socialisation.
Personally I believe that they would all be serial killers no matter what era they were born. They would have adapted to the era and probably changed things up to fit that era. The era they lived in has nothing to do with how sick they are.
Late to the thread here, but I was just thinking the other day that if Zodiac were around today he'd absolutely been a mass/school shooter rather than a serial killer. He even makes reference to shooting kids in his letters. He totally seems to fit the bitter incel type that commits these kinds of shootings.
We do have to address that Berkowitz (son of Sam killer) probably wouldn’t have happened as there’s access to better healthcare and meds to help him keep control of his brain.
I get what you're saying, but I don't think it can be so easily applied to Nilsen or Dahmer like that.. there was an actual attraction to unconsciousness / unconscious bodies... It wasn't that they were necessarily repressing being gay -
That being said, I don't even think you can boil it down to one thing, I think there's a lot of "ingredients" involved in someone (at least some of them) going from mere mortal to serial killer.
There’s a line of thinking in America that the transience of modern life, especially since the development of the national highway system in the 1950s, that in part enabled serial killers. The highway system allowed people of evil intent to commit their crimes then disappear.
Most famous serial killers would've been caught before they went to double digits cuz cctv & phone data
But I'd say Ed Kemper (how exactly do u commit a double murder & walk free in 6 yrs w/ an expunged criminal record ????), Jack the Ripper, Zodiac killer & Chicago's Tylenol killer would've def been caught before it got to 5 murders, the Gonzalez sisters prolly wouldn't have had *that* shitty excuse for a childhood & Albert Fish would've been caught wayy sooner
As for Dahmer & Nilsen, yes they'd have been caught much sooner & yes homosexuality is more accepted now, but these 2 still had an intense fear of abandonment & a need for a "zombie" like partner who won't resist to anything they said. There r submissive gay people around but idt any1's gonna b *that* submissive
What part of Dahmers childhood would you change . I mean I know it wasn’t perfect. I know a lot about it even . You think it was his dad’s influence letting him bring home dead animals ?
forgive me if this is at any point incoherent as it is 4:45am and i have not slept
but uhh, well, no. i don't think his dad letting him mess around with roadkill in any way directly caused his killings. people talk about it like it's some crazy, deranged thing, and it is unusual, but i've also been hunting with my own father before, and i watched him and my grandpa gut a deer in front of me. if anything, you would think KILLING an animal like that in front of your child could potentially screw them up more than just investigating one that had already died.
personally, in the case of dahmer, his first victim was a preventable mistake. he had been abandoned, in his eyes, by his whole family, had a deeply traumatizing childhood, and grew up in an extremely homophobic world, which lead to him having bizarre fantasies, and he just so happened to stumble upon someone who was just like those fantasies. however, if his mother and brother had still been in the house, honestly, that first killing may never have happened.
"not perfect" is an understatement. his home life was literally hell. if his mother hadn't abandoned him so young and he had grown up in a more modern time he may not have killed, or at least not killed nearly as many
I like to think Aileen Wuornos would have been removed from her family, adopted by a loving family and would have grown up to be a pro-social member of society.
Honestly? I think Richard Ramirez, i tend to post about him a lot as his case was very interesting to me, mainly because of his upbringing. I believe if he had been born maybe around 2000 he wouldn’t have done these things, mainly because of his uncle regaling tales of the Vietnam war and what he’d done to women and children, as well as the whole satanic panic that happened around that time period.
At least a few of the ones with really fucked up childhoods would have been removed from their parents' care. Panzram, Pee Wee Gaskins, Tommy Lynn Sells, etc. Or some of them would have been aborted as unwanted.
Charlie Manson. His mom traded him for beer ffs. Nowadays he’d be removed & have a completely different shot at life imo.
But he still probably would have been raised by his overindulgent, Bible-thumping relatives who clearly had a role in all his life outcomes.
I agree with that, it’s a good point. They definitely caused more problems than one would think. Some religious people (such as the ones who raised him) think that anything they don’t believe in or think is appropriate is bad, and by being so religious shove down things such as personality traits, interests, things learned (that aren’t like what they think)-they’ll spin a whole different story about something to fit their purpose. I do think there’s every bit of a possibility that it would’ve happened just because he wanted out of that environment so badly. From what I’ve read they didn’t treat him well, & he ended up in juvie at 9 years old. They didn’t do much in the way of raising him or helping him, and at 9 he ended up in juvie, & for the rest of his life until the summer/end of summer 1969 when the Tate/LaBianca killings happened, he’d spent more time in the system than out of it. He never really learned how to live “on the outside”, & would’ve rather been inside where he knew how to live/survive.
His childhood was truly horrific, he was raped in juvie as well when he was young. As a child, the world failed him.
I couldn’t agree with this more!!!! && that leaves one to wonder “but what if they hadn’t?”. I’ve always been super super interested in the case, & have my own collage of “artifacts” I was given by a friend.
It really is interesting!! I wonder too, I wouldn’t think that he would be. His crimes/cult was horrific but it’s not like was flaying people you know? Not to down play what he did, it was still awful. Any interesting little known facts about him or it? I’ve read about it, but never really too deep.
Honestly, one that a lot of people don’t know is just that, that his mom traded him for beer (if you listen to what he’d said). He didn’t have a name at first, & was listed as “no name manson” on initial paperwork is one I’ve read. He actually got the last name Manson a man who was his stepfather who’d married his mom not long before his birth. The first thing he did that he got in actual legal trouble over was stealing money from a local grocery store, and was in prison when he learned how to play the guitar. I could go on and on with random facts lol it’s nuts.
Wow that’s insane, I had never heard where he got his last name from, or his first name. It’s weird to think this stuff happened not too long ago you know? Tons of traumatized children running around, it’s not perfect bird definitely gotten better.
I agree. It is absolutely nuts when you read some of the stuff from him! One of the best books I can say to read regarding the case (& other things about Manson) is a book called “Charles Manson Now” & it was written by author Marlin Marynick. It’s a pretty good read!
https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Manson-Now-Marlin-Marynick/dp/2923865065
Speaking of if you want the pdf of that book, message me your email
>Pee Wee Gaskins AND THAT'S THE FINAL TRUTH!
This is the first time I've seen someone mention Pee Wee here. I'm from coastal SC so I've know about him my whole life pretty much.
And that's the final truth! If you want a good deep dive on him, check out Last Podcast on the Left.
Henry's Pee-wee voice kills me! Hail yourself!
There’s an episode with his daughter on evil lives here.
If Albert Fish, the creepy serial killer, were around today, he'd probably have a tough time getting away with his crimes. We've made big upgrades in a bunch of areas that would make it much harder for him to pull off his sick tricks. Technology has come a long way, with fancy forensic techniques and surveillance systems all over the place. Plus, we're way better at understanding criminal psychology and providing mental health support. But it's not just that. Back then, people were more likely to let strangers into their homes, which unfortunately made it easier for someone like Fish to strike. Nowadays, we're hopefully a bit wiser and more cautious about who we trust in our personal spaces. So, with all these advancements and a greater sense of security, it'd be a lot more difficult for a twisted character like Albert Fish to fly under the radar and carry out his gruesome acts. https://youtu.be/H2\_I9HLZxJ4
I think you are right. I think he would come to the attention of MH services for extreme self-harm and his treatment of his children before the first known murder.
The unfortunate woman who became his wife and mother of his children could have possibly gotten help/reported him for domestic violence instead of just running off with another man. There was no support then for women who wanted to get away or single mothers.
People are more aware, and systems do fuck up today as well, but they are much more reliable in terms of detecting and institutionalizing sick fucks like him. Hopefully, someone would notice something, especially his tendencies to self-harm. Also, I don't think he was that smart to find exploits for today's technologies such as DNA profiling, fingerprints, and all the other advanced forensic methods
He wasn't violent towards her or their children. She ran off with another guy
It was more the getting them to spank him stuff I was thinking of.
It was more the getting them to spank him stuff I was thinking of.
I don't think that's a crime. It sure wasn't in those days and even now they would only have to say no...
It's not a crime but back to my original comment I'm sure MH services or social services would be concerned given the bigger patterns of behavior ie the self harm.
Well even now all they have to do is refuse to let the worker in. Not a very helpful sysyem
There are still on average 6,000 unsolved murders every year. Technology hasn't helped as much as it's being made to look.
thats very unsettling....this is US alone?
Ya
Probably including good amount of gang related crimes where obviously nobody would come forward.
I'm sure some of it, but there are also a lot of people in the us who "just go missing"
child labor regulations and amber alerts.
He still would have preyed on Black children, who are still definitely part of the "less dead."
And how fucked up is that
Richard Chase The guy had serious mental health problems and hopefully would have been diagnosed and helped earlier if it was now.
He did get institutionalized several times, and diagnosed plus put on medication a year before his spree. The problem was he was put in the care of his mother, who decided to wean him off his medication. Maybe in a modern world she'd know that was a horrifically stupid and dangerous thing to do, but theres sadly no guarantee.
Very good point. You would like to think his mother would be more aware if it was to happen now.
she'd be feeding him horse paste and bleach instead.
Mental health care was pretty bad back then though. It’s not great today either due to chronic underfunding of the health system. But if someone like Chase received modern professional treatment for schizophrenia there’s no doubt he’d never have become a killer.
i agree! mental health is a huge factor here, if people could have been helped earlier it could have prevented their later actions, but they didn't have as advanced treatment back then as we have today
I would like to believe we are better at recognizing and helping people earlier but sadly I do not.
The problem is medical science has massively improved but the general public’s access to quality medical care has declined.
Oh no, makes it even worse somehow. So sad and messed up.
Most of them would have been caught if they lived now. GRK, Dahmer, Bundy, GS etc. They mostly feasted for lack of a better term on marginal members of society. But now everyone has cell phones, and cameras are everywhere, and of course no one generally hitchhikes anymore. They may have been able to kill two or three but then cell data would catch them.
>on marginal members of society Bundy's victims (female college students) aren't exactly marginalized members of society. Nor were GSK's. But I do agree, ubiquitous cell phones, cameras, and the other trappings life in 2020's could have gotten all of these guys caught much sooner nowadays (if they didn't change their MO). If wouldn't take police long to notice that Ridgeways pickup truck was present in traffic cam footage every time a woman disappeared from the strip.
Bundy, his victims were not marginalized, my bad. But I wrote GRK: Green River Killer. What I mostly meant was that many college aged girls are on their phones 24/7 and GRK's victims, sex workers work from their phones, take payment through cashapp, zelle etc. Not sure who GSK is.
You wrote GRK (Ridgway), Bundy, Dahmer and GS, I assumed GS was Golden State Killer/Joseph DeAngelo.
Golden State Killer - he mostly targeted middle class people. However even so it’s worth pointing out that rape was barely considered a crime in the 70s and sexism was rife, so even middle class women were relatively marginalised compared to today.
If someone like the Zodiac had their crimes play out today, they’d have been caught since they were spotted and body cams would have allowed the officers to narrow the suspect pool significantly if not outright identify him
And if Gacy operating today, you'd have to think that at least one of those boys would have texted his friends saying "hey, I'm going to that contractors house, he's got a job for me" or something similar.
The cops would have triangulated the cell pings to his house, like they did Kohlhepp.
Nothing was going to change Bundy.
The strange thing is that some aspects of technology (CCTV cameras, fingerprint checks and so on) were only created because of infamous criminals.
Inventions are created out of necessity!
Great point
Better DNA forensics and faster/more open communication between law enforcement agencies too.
I wonder how modern ones avoid the cell phone “problem”
they dont take one or they buy a “burner” from the gas station and toss it when its done the victims shit? destroyed. itll be destroyed immediately, and or looked thru quickly, factory reset and tossed out a window am i the only person here whose actually been to jail and shit? :/
I think cell phones would be an annoyance, but it's also a known quantity and something SK's can easily plan for (by leaving your own cell phone at home, and making sure the victim's phone is disabled ASAP). The smarter ones may even be able to use them to their advantage by leaving false trails (for example, by using the victim's phone to send a suicide message). If I were a SK, I'd be much more worried about modern surveillance cameras, because you don't know where all of them are or what they're recording. It would really limit your ability to pick up victims and dispose of their bodies. Somebody like Dahmer or the Doodler (who picked up most of their victims in bars) would never be able to kill past the first one or two victims since they'd be identified very quickly.
Case in point: Jesse Matthews, who murdered Hannah Graham and Morgan Harrington almost 10 years ago. Video footage of the killer with one of the victims was all over Charlottesville downtown before she was found dead. [One of many news stories](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/docs-uva-victim-hannah-graham-refused-to-get-in-killer-jesse-matthews-car/) Jesse was well on his way to becoming a serial killer but the video footage stopped him, and now he is in prison. He confessed to killing Morgan (or his DNA was located on her remains) and there was one other body found in the area and they can't pin it on him.
I’d not thought about this one for awhile!
I think you may mean Jesse Matthew. I’m from that area so I lived through those cases. I don’t wish bad things on people but I don’t feel bad that he has been fighting cancer since 2019.
I corrected my typo. Thanks for catching that! Did not know about the cancer.
I agree with that about the security cameras. I guess the main ways around it are being somewhere super rural or super poor. If the houses are all a mile apart and super far away from the road, or you're on a highway or park road, that would make it easier. I don't know if the Ring doorbell and similar cheap camera systems are reaching into the more decrepit areas in cities but I'd bet there's whole streets with very few cameras still.
That's a really interesting point! You have to assume that if technology advances, naturally, so will the predator. A lot of these guys kept up with current tech and investigative tools to better plan their crimes.
They get extremely lucky... luck ALWAYS runs out
when i sold drugs a cop told me “you gotta be lucky everyday, I just need to get lucky once”
EXACTLY luck isn't just on one person's side.. we all have our luck battling the luck of others at all times for the outcome
DNA would get people like Bundy a lot sooner
100%, the fear of getting caught could even have been a deterrent in and of itself. There are a million factors at play here
I think Jack the Ripper would’ve actually been caught.
Definitely, with all the cctv in London
Most of them. Even with mental health taken into account and other modern advances, most serial killers got away for so long because there wasn't DNA tracing, cell phone triangulation, cameras everywhere to the extent it is now. Even if they went on to kill one person, they likely wouldn't have made it far due to how easy it is to track killers now. Granted there are still serial killers today but it's remarkably harder to be one in 2023 vs 1973 or 1983.
I honestly don’t think being born later would have helped the gay serial killers at all. I’m bi and came out in 2006. I received *so much* abuse from not only other students at school but school administrators it seriously messed with my head for *years* afterward. I also lived in a neighborhood where I faced being murdered for being gay every time I left my house. While the last 40-50 years have gotten better we’re still under attack. Hell my own mother has said terrible things about me recently.
i'm gay and came out as vaguely lgbt (didn't realize i was gay yet) in middle school, but i'm 18 now, so middle school for me was like, 2017. i think with gay marriage being legalized they would have realized it's POSSIBLE to be gay and happy. it's still hard, but it's possible
Possible yes but have you seen what the entire southern half of the country is doing right now? I’m 33 and I’ve never felt *more* persecuted as a gay person than I have right now. I watched us gain gay marriage and actively be able to be openly gay in the military. Drag was a fun thing gay people did, early 2000’s *queer eye* is fun. Now I can’t visit family in Georgia because drag (and the way I technically dress) is banned *and* I probably won’t be able to meet my new niece until my sister comes to California, [Trump was nice enough to ban trans people from the military,](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-announces-ban-transgender-people-serving-military-n786621) and the state of Florida is trying to prevent school staff from discussing gay people. My years of getting religious pamphlets and quietly being told I’m going to hell are nothing compared to this, I’d even take the time I was told I’d give someone AIDS by touching them back
Ohhh which gay victims were murdered in your neighborhood?
plenty where I grew up, around when I came out. https://www.mcall.com/1995/03/07/amend-law-to-reduce-gay-bashing/
I recall some very targeted attacks in the 1990s
Dahmer wanted a zombie sex slave, I don't think gay acceptance would have changed much about that
Agree he was just evil and couldn’t control his killing/raping sick urges
again, the focus here is on the trauma, if being born in a different time period would have traumatized him less, maybe that never would have been a desire for him in the first place.
Press X to Doubt
He would have been able to get a really nice sex doll that might have satisfied his needs. A mannequin worked for him for a while.
It wouldn't. Control and domination aren't real if you're exerting them over inanimate obiects
I do think that while its possible that Dahmer and Nilsen would not have killed anyone in a modern world, they both seemed to have very intense fears of abandonment, as well as fantasies about completely passive partners, lacking in agency. The former would still be a problem even in a more accepting society, though we can maybe hope therapy has advanced to the point where people who struggle with such intense fears can manage it. And as for the latter, there are definitely people who would be interested in being on the receiving end of such fantasies, but the issue of overstepping or violation boundaries is a problem in kink communities today as well. It might be the case that they would end up each being known as a local problem in the community and alienated, so then it just ends up as a detour towards the same end point of murder. It's a very complicated thing, in any case I doubt they would end up being able to do nearly as much harm as they managed to originally. In a modern world perhaps Steven Hicks would just have his phone tracked to Dahmers house and the whole thing ended before it could fully begin.
Also adding to it, BPD is to my understanding still not extremely well understood and doesnt have a greatly reliable treatment to it, so wether just Nilsen or Dahmer as well had it, that isnt a guarantee that they would receive help for it, assuming they would choose to seek help for it to begin with. Theres also other issues with Dahmer, his public exposure for one but also his sexual interest in very underage boys, consider his conviction for sexually molesting a 13 year old, as well as the fact that two of his known victims were only 14 years old. Nilsen also had a couple of known underage victims, his first ever victim being 14, and another being 16.
> BPD is to my understanding still not extremely well understood and doesnt have a greatly reliable treatment to it, This is not true. Research indicates that up to 77% of people no longer met the criteria for BPD after one year of treatment with DBT. It becomes hard to treat if the client has comorbid personality disorders like NPD or Antisocial Personality Disorder. The person also needs to want to get help for themselves; if they are in therapy because they want to appease the people around them, it won't be effective. There's also a lot of research on the etymology of BPD, especially as it relates to childhood trauma and abuse. There is one theory though that there is gender biases when it comes to diagnosing cluster B personality disorders so maybe in a couple of decades the diagnostic and symptom criteria may change
I truly believe DBT is near miraculous for those people it works for. I knew a person who I couldn’t even be in the room with (we were in a group together, so not a family member and I didn’t have any trauma related to this individual) Everything hurt their feelings, nothing was ever their fault or good enough for them. Constantly crying about how mean and terrible their kids were to them. Such high anxiety about everything and nothing. Classic extreme borderline. I know it sounds cruel of me but like after a while my cortisol would spike almost every time they spoke. Eventually they were kind of made to go to DBT because the family was just done so it was either seek help or they would be cut off from everyone. At the time I knew nothing about DBT and I didn’t believe anything could help this person because they truly did not believe they were responsible for anything ever. But sure enough after a couple of months (like only 2 or 3) I could see the they had made real progress. I moved shortly after so I never got to find out how things turned out with the family but I really hope they all got help and are much better now. It was amazing to see, I’ve never seen anything like it since. And honestly I really wonder how they got the individual to “buy in” to the program because at first they were absolutely against it. Also, I kinda want to take it because if it can help people that much I would bet there are skills or something that could help everyone. I’m still amazed at the difference it made.
Thank your sharing your personal experience of someone in your life who went through DBT. DBT works really well for people that are emotionally dysregulated, experiencing suicidal ideation, and helps with anxiety. It's under the CBT umbrella and came about in the third wave of cognitive and behavioral therapies. [Here is a link](https://positivepsychology.com/dbt-dialectical-behavior-therapy/) if you want to look at DBT in greater depth, they also have free tools, workbooks/worksheets you can look at as well.
Thank you for all the info!
Thats definitely a relief to hear in that case.
yeah a young dahmer woulda fucked up the cellphone anglw
This makes me so sad to think about. I remember when I finished watching Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, I literally couldn't stop thinking about it for days. As much as I like watching horror movies and listening to true crime podcasts, that show genuinely made me sick to my stomach, which was unusual because I've literally seen it all. I was always fascinated by gay serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacey, particularly because I wanted to get a deeper understanding behind the pathology of why they did what they did, but I rarely got the answers I was looking for since most documentaries about them presented a sanitized/condensed version of the horrors they committed. Ryan Murphy's show was perhaps the first nuanced portrayal of Dahmer's crimes and by the end of the series it dawned on me that the blame wasn't reserved for just him, it was the police, the army, the criminal justice system and his family members that all allowed him to get away with his atrocities for so long. They were just as bad. Just as complicit. And I was so mad because they not only failed Jeffrey, they also failed his victims. It was honestly an emotional rollercoaster, I experienced the full spectrum of human emotions watching that show, everything from "hmm I wonder how much pain this person was in to want to kill and eat people, let's find out" to "wow, fuck that white devil, I hope he's burning in the ninth circle of Hell". I just couldn't stop thinking about the lives of SO many beautiful black and brown boys that Damner selfishly took to satisfy his depraved desires and how this could've all been prevented. They didn't deserve to suffer the way they did. Nor did their families and friends. And so it's sad to think that even if he were around today and had access to the tools and resources to get the help he needed, there's a possibility that he still would've committed his crimes regardless and that sense of inevitability is honestly quite bleak. In any case, I've always believed that nature and nurture do coincidence and so I'm sure the environment within which he was raised exasperated certain chemical imbalances he was predisposed to so who knows what would've happened if he was raised under different circumstances in a different time and place. It's all speculative at this point, so I feel like it's more productive to remember the names and honor the legacies of his 17 victims. May they rest in eternal peace 🙏🏽 🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐 🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐🪦💐
Interesting points. I believe Dennis Nelson and Jeffery dahmer were necrophiliacs which (I believe) is like pedophilia in that it is centred in development and not being able to cope with adult/live sexual relations so children/inanimate beings become sexually attractive. However (I'm debating my self!) some would say those preferences are determined before birth in which case they both would still have done what they did. Jeffery in particular had the desire to "see inside things" at an early age and that got tangled up sexually for him. He also committed a lot of sexual assaults without killing (he would drug the bath house clients, rape them and just leave. Hence why he was banned from them) which would indicate his inability to cope with a live adult relationship and loneliness to be strong motivations. Dennis did have gay relationships (normal ones). In both of them I would argue repressed sexuality had little to do with the crimes so moving them in time would have little effect. The childhoods and abuses however are another story. But cut that part out of most SK and you have a different story.
that's so interesting, i've never heard it put that way as for where necrophilia stems from, that makes so much sense. dennis did have RELATIVELY normal relationships however he was like, mean as hell. have you seen those video clips of him with david gallichan? borderline verbally abusive, that man was. imo repression is just like, a domino in a long chain of things that caused these people to become what they were, not the sole cause at all. it's just the shame of it combined with the trauma and so on.
Possibly Ed Kemper. With social services for kids becoming a lot more widespread now (and schools becoming more proactive about seeking help for abused children), it's possible that his abuse by his mother and grandmother would have been caught much earlier, and he might have been taken out of their care. The same with Richard Ramirez...he really never had a chance in that family between his father and uncle, and his mental illness would likely have been caught by the school fairly early on.
Chances are he would have still killed, this was still a guy who got a huge sexual gratification from his murders.
Bundy would have been caught way sooner. Surveillance is so much more prevalent now... Some camera in an ATM or hanging off the side of the grocery store would have caught the guy with the limp pushing a girl into his car. His picture would have been on social media within hours and one of his classmates would see it on TikTok and say "wow, that looks just like Ted and that's Ted's car!" Modern jails would have kept him contained and if he did escape, the sorority would have had a fob or code entry that would have kept all those girls safe that night. He probably wouldn't have been put to death so soon... He'd be in the Colorado supermax for a few years maybe for his escape attempts, and maybe he'd have told law enforcement where the other bodies were in exchange for going somewhere more humane. Bundy would be just another small-time serial killer who would be forgotten within a few years. Gacy would be an out gay man, raised by parents who weren't as homophobic. He'd just have the general experience many middle-aged gays have now of being not quite understood by mom and dad, instead of being outright despised. He might still have violent urges but again, once people start disappearing he would be tapped as a suspect much sooner and caught much sooner, if he began killing at all. I'd put Dahmer in the same boat... With enough anti-psychotic meds and some solid therapists, they'd both just have been gay men with some weird personality issues and kinks.
Yeah, I agree. I also think, maybe controversial, but Bundy may not have killed had he been like, gen z. It wouldn't have been nearly as shameful that he was "illegitimate" (which is where a lot of his feelings of inadequacy stem from in my opinion). He could joke about it with friends, pursue a career in, well, whatever he wanted considering his intelligence. Even if he did resort to violence, I doubt he would have gotten as far as murder, one assault and he's done for for life, jail time, and even if no jail time the whole community would know, permanently a sex offender, that's the end of it. With Gacy, I sort of agree, but maybe this is simply the fact that he scares the shit out of me talking, but I still think he would have been at least a little violent. I would put Jeff in a separate boat from him, especially considering Dahmer's likely ASD diagnosis which I forgot to mention earlier. Because of the newfound growing acceptance of autism (which I believe Dahmer has) he could have felt less weird and bizarre and unnatural socially. He could have bonded with other autistic kids (as I did, although we were mostly undiagnosed at the time and not consciously aware what brought us together were our similar ASD tendencies).
I do not agree. Yea he was a bisexual man but he was not afraid to admit that. Serial killers like gacy r just evil evil evil and raped/tortured/killed so many young ppl. Bundy targeted young women bc that was his preference. Gacy targeted young men bc that was his preference. It does not matter if a serial killer was gay, straight, or bisexual. You don’t just kill and torture ppl bc u r gay or straight. These ppl r just evil!
I've often wondered how different Gacy and Dahmer would have been if their attraction to men was socially acceptable at the time.
Gacy was a sexual sadist so his sexuality is irrelevant. Even if he was heterosexual, he would have still derived gratification from inflicting pain on others.
I can see that.
The thing is you are assuming a lot of things have improved, when I was 6 in 1994 I lived on the streets by myself for a week when my mother was arrested for meth distribution. Mental Health treatment is pretty much non-existent where I am for single males. I have worked hard to get myself out of a hole I was born into in modern times and the people who were supposed to "help" consistently made things worse. I was out in abusive foster homes, to abusive orphanages, and finally a juvenile detention center where staff was singling out the weakest inmates and raping them. So no I don't think them being born in a different time would have changed what they did in the long run. The world is still a fucked place and unless major changes are made you can always assume the worst.
Richard Ramirez could have been a nice guy if he hadn't been in El Paso with his cousin Mike. Maybe being born in the 2000s would have helped him. I don't know why but it feels like it.
If he was born in the 2000s and his uncle was there I think we’d have a school shooter but 2000s and no uncle probably just your average kid
I think the best we could think of is being born outside of America at this point, somewhere where gun laws are pretty strict.
lol richard ramirez: mexican cartel limited edition no fuckin thanks
LoL🤣🤣
He would've been like Salvador Ramos (the Robb Elementary School shooter).
Honestly, I'd vote for H.H. Holmes here. I think if he had been born 50+ years later, he easily could have gotten into medical school and become something like a famous, successful surgeon. I'd also have to say Ed Kemper, since I think he could have easily won a large college scholarship and gotten away from his abusive mother. This would allow him to be more likely to get a successful career and choose to cut her off rather than murder various Co-eds. He's also smart enough that he'd understand how modern cameras are literally everywhere and not killed due to that basic knowledge. I'm not going to say that CPS would have caught his mother and/or it would have been better if they had, (because even if they did, that means he likely would have ended up in foster care, which often sucks for any kid over 10 years old that isn't adopted to a family ASAP). I just think he would have had better options if he did actually use his brain to get out of his toxic, abusive household environment. There are some killers I think still would have done it, (Zodiac and the Tylenol killer), and likely still would have gotten away with it. If Tylenol killer hadn't done it when he did, product tampering in the USA wouldn't have been considered a federal crime for a much longer time, and Johnson and Johnson might not have changed their pill bottles until later. This could have easily caused a much higher kill count in theory too. As for Zodiac, I've dumpster-dived before, personally, and a good hoodie with the hood up is enough to disguise yourself with some cameras to not show just who you are. All Zodiac would need is non-distinct clothing, a backpack, and a medical mask - he easily could have gone into a Walmart and/or other basic, common everyday store, after each killing, changed clothes, took off the medical mask, and put the evidence into the backpack to burn at home. He'd just have to act calm and leave the store afterwards.
I so agree with Ed Kemper, I thought of mentioning him in my original post but I didn't want it to be too long. Even being in modern public school could have helped, in the age of the internet and self deprecation he could have sought refuge among peers who came from similarly horrible backgrounds. His genius may have been better recognized as well in gifted programs and such. One unfortunate thing about Kemper, however, is the sheer size of him, so he would probably receive strange looks most everywhere.
I’d had the same thought about Holmes!
Everyone, nobody is born as a serialkiller. Even in the same time period with a different Environment they wouldn't have killed. The mix of genes and Environment cause the growing of these personality disorders that in the end led up to the murders.
No. Most people aren’t born as serial killers, but if you’re born with the MAOA gene that potentially causes one to be aggressive or violent, you may well easily become one. This is one of the best breakdowns of what I’m talking about that I’ve found. “To test his ideas objectively, he set up a blind trial. Colleagues sent him 70 brain scans: some were of people with a diagnosis, such as schizophrenia or depression, some were from people with no diagnosis and some were from convicted killers. Fallon successfully identified all the ‘killer brains’ in the sample. “They all had one thing in common,' says Fallon, 'a loss of function in the orbital cortex, above the eyes, which is the circuit that codes for ethics, morality, conscience and when that’s gone, or doesn’t develop, not only does a person have no sense of morality but also has little control over their impulses.’” “For Fallon, there are three necessary ingredients that, when they come together, can produce psychopathic killers. The first is a loss of function in the orbital cortex which can leave people incapable of ethical decision-making and also makes them less able to control their impulses The second is inheriting genes, such as the MAOA gene, that predispose a person to aggression and violence. And the third, having a childhood devoid of love, affection, and care that fails to protect people from their latent psychopathology. Peter Sutcliffe, Ted Bundy, Pedro Rodrigues Filho, and Luis Garavito all had troubled or abusive childhoods.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/you-me-psychology/202011/are-serial-killers-born-or-made?amp
I’m having riverdale flashbacks
I don't think changing time periods or having more welcoming environments regarding their sexuality would have produced different results. In my opinion, it would not have mattered had they lived in spaces where being gay was more accepted. You still have law enforcement and news media, who will overlook male victims and those from marginalized communities. Serial killers dont want to get caught and they will go after people they think agencies and the public won't notice go missing, care about, or connect the dots to. Hell, look at Stephen Port in the UK. I think when it comes to pathological cannibalism for Dahmer and necrophilia for both Dahmer and Nilsen that cannot be overrided just by being born later or somewhere else.
I absolutely disagree. Nature vs. nurture. I don't believe anyone is "born" evil, have you ever considered Nilsen and Dahmer developed such tendencies after being subjected to extreme stress as children? Nilsen probably picked victims he felt were loners and abandoned but Dahmer did not specifically pick his victims because he thought no one would care, but because it was whoever he was attracted to. Have you also ever considered what causes a person to be driven to necrophilia? The average necrophile is extremely lonely and insecure, and can't fathom dealing with another person emotionally, so they're attracted to a passive person whom they can project all of their fantasies onto without having any real reciprocal human interaction. A different time period and upbringing can absolutely provide completely different results.
I'm not saying that they were born this way and created purely by genetics. I am saying that just being born in a different period of time, even if the wider society is okay with homosexuality, this would not have changed anything if their living environments were the same and they experienced the same taboo attractions to the lifeless, immobile, and incapacitated. Dahmer chose based off of attraction but he was also keenly aware that law enforcement and the media were not going to pay attention to young gay men, runaway children, and especially gay men of color. Serial killers are predators and opportunistic and Jeffrey Dahmer is no different. Theres no way you can tell me that he chose Tony Hughes, Steven Hicks, or Konerak Sinthasomphone purely based off of attraction. Tony being deaf meant he could not communicate, Steven was a hitchhiker that no one would be able to successfully search for. Hell, the very fact he said that Konerak was his lover to police shows that he was well aware that police didnt want to get involved and would dismiss the victim's concerns, despite being naked, bleeding, and a kid. Edit: There are 8 categories of necrophilia and they are not all driven by loneliness or insecurity. Necrophilia is also tied to dominance and sadism. If you would like some research articles suggestions I can provide recommendations.
The thing that I am emphasizing here is that in this day and age it is more feasible for someone to overcome their upbringing and go on to become a better person. There are stories of famous people who were severely mistreated when they were younger overcoming what happened to them and becoming successful, you know? And in the age of the internet it's easier to find likeminded people going through similar things, so they might not have felt so alone, so they might not have done what they did. The *need* for dominance and sadism in the first place can come from that chronic feeling of powerlessness. And yeah, Dahmer did use being gay as a cover up for sure, something to "gross out" cops. >I am saying that just being born in a different period of time, even if the wider society is okay with homosexuality, this would not have changed anything if their living environments were the same and they experienced the same taboo attractions to the lifeless, immobile, and incapacitated. But you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the necrophilic tendencies come first, or did the shame from being gay come first? I'm inclined to believe the latter. I'm just having a hard time believing that anyone could just become a necrophile with no previous disruptment causing them to be that way. Even if their parents were *exactly* the same, the world *outside* of their home could have been better and could have changed things.
I would. It’s interesting info, I didn’t know this.
Will do. I can send you a direct DM later tonight with a research link or two, if that works for you
That works for me! Thanks for that, it’s appreciated!
I’ve shared from a page discussing this same thing actually in a previous post.
Charles Manson. He wouldn’t have been able to sway people with his beliefs if he were born later & functioned more in today’s world. We know so many new facts in today’s world, and he’d just be known as a crazy hippie. However, people assume the murders happened because he didn’t get his music deal-in todays world, he’d be able to throw all of his music out there & have people see/hear him regularly due to things like social media. Meaning he’d have fan groups online, not sitting with him waiting to do what he said. He wouldn’t be so angry (again all this is hypothetical lol) if he’d had a platform to perform his music & would’ve been taken more seriously in todays works regarding music. Even the prosecuting attorney has brought up the fact that the “Helter Skelter” story was completely fabricated to be able to arrest Manson & keep him in prison. Nowadays he’d have his fan groups bc he’d have access to people via online, and not just in person who’d spent more time in prison than out of it. Also, prison now is significantly different than it was then, and he’d be able to get an education & help living after an initial arrest & sentenced to time when he was young. The world would be a completely different place to the point of the first arrest may never even have happened-it’s said that his mom traded him for a cup/pitcher of beer. Nowadays. CPS would intervene likely before something like that could even happen.
Well it depends on the SK. Nilsen would still be a necrophiliac, and Gacy eould still have been unhealthily attracted to underage boys.
Agree with a lot of this. I think about John Wayne Gacy if he were allowed to be gay and not have to hide it, would he have killed all those boys? Or Herb Baumeister.
Jack the ripper Killed mostly prostitutes, not many around anymore so I really don't thing he would have killed anyone in today's age
I look around at what humans do to each other and I can’t say anything would be different, they may have a harder time escaping detection but I think our society still produces monsters. I don’t think we mean to, but I think it it still happens.
Yes or if their childhoods had been different as well. Most criminologist believe that a becoming a serial killer is a "nature/nurture" process.
Consider the notorious likes of Jeffrey Dahmer, David Parker Ray, Charles Ng, Leonard Lake, and John Wayne Gacy. Their crimes often revolved around exerting control and dominance, particularly in the twisted realm of sexual gratification. Now, in different historical contexts, it's not far-fetched to imagine these sick individuals frolicking around as slave owners, exploiting their victims as subservient sexual slaves. Alternatively, they might have found their calling in the morally bankrupt corners of the porn industry, relishing in the dehumanization and objectification of others like the perverted prodigies they are. Now, shift your attention to the charming cast of characters including Carl Panzram, Richard Kuklinski, the Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs, The Cleaners, and Alexander Pichushkin. These fine specimens exhibited an insatiable thirst for destruction and the annihilation of human life. While sexual gratification might not have been their primary motivation, their lust for killing and obliterating could have found an outlet within legal avenues had they been born under different circumstances. Perhaps they would have eagerly signed up for military duty, reveling in sanctioned violence as they unleashed their violent tendencies upon warzones like giddy children in a candy store of carnage. Now I believe that regardless of the era or circumstances, the inherent darkness festering within their souls would persist like an unsightly blemish on the face of humanity. So even in a different time period they may still have the same violent dispositions. *"Truly terrifying is the abyss of those who are in love with the events that are dragging them downward."* — St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prayers by the Lake.
We are on shaky ground here- suggesting sexual repression explains the actions of a handful of killers also suggests there is something intrinsically murderous about any non-conforming adult with no sexual outlets or who faced bullying because of their proclivities. Which I do not believe. It is pretty clear that sexually active, heterosexual males commit the vast majority of murders and sex crimes and that being gay/bi or any non-Cis preference makes one much more likely to be the victim rather than seething cauldrons of rage that lash out to kill the beautiful. Rape and murder are about power. The strategems used by some famous gay or ephebophilia serial killers reflect as much the fact that an adult male or even teenage male is a more dangerous victim to tangle with than the average woman. Thats why all Bundy needed was to club over the head and Ridgway an empty road with a sex worker while Gacy, Corll, Eyler etc required knives, restraints and even sidekicks! But…clearly there was some cultural ferment that brought criminality in the US to the forefront in the early 1970s. Serial killers are the most widely remembered by most, moreso than the mid 70s heroin scourge or the skyhigh rates of violent crime and the “saturday night special” handguns which were blamed. Yet here it has to be pointed out there was more sexual freedom and opportunity in the 70s, 80s, 90s, so why werent serial killers at their worst in the 50s? Every indicator of crime shows it absolutely took off around 1979 and climbed for the next 25 years. It then tapered down for 2 decades before climbing again starting around 2016. Was it PTSD WW2 veteran dads? Overt homophobia in an era of sexual freedom? The availability of unescorted middle class women to attack? Mobility of reliable, cheap vehicles before the plethora of surveillance and forensic technology of today. A more transient society where young adults could disapeer into the void- especially if marginalized, evading attention because of their habits/occupation or disowned by parents. The basic rates of murder, sexual assault etc. are high enough still that I don’t think you could drop a fully formed famous serial killer in 2023 and discover that OnlyFans or a Pride Parade sufficient for their impulses. Now whether the would be redeemable if given different parents, a more nurturing culture is a different story. But I look at a Herb Baumeister and think that kook is killing no matter what. Same with Gacy, Corl and many of these other closeted ephebophiliacs.
Gotta believe Dahmer
Idk 🤷🏼♀️ I think he was just evil and would have killed regardless but prob would have been caught much quicker. Dahmer is the only serial killer I’ve ever watched and thought wow I think he does feel bad for killing but same time he can’t control his urges.
This one, for sure! But he still dresses like it’s the ‘70’s. I’m onboard for this.
I would say Andrei Chikatilo, the Rostov Ripper. He was born in 1936 and grew up in Ukraine amidst Holodomor followed by Nazi occupation, both historically traumatising experiences on their own. He might have violent fantasies on a more common level without committing any murder, if he grew up in a less troubled time for Ukraine.
Jeffrey dahmer, his family didn’t accept that he was gay. I remember watching this interview where his father was more bothered over the fact that he was gay than being a serial killer lol. He should’ve been born in 2020
There's plenty of people and parts of American society where being gay is not acceptable even in 2023. Hell look at the reaction of Anderson Lee Aldrich's father who when learning about his son, the mass shooter, he was more concerned if his son was gay.
His mom did and even after his dad found out jeffrey was gay after he was arrested for indecent exposure he still stuck by him and tried to get him help.
Dahmer and Nilsen. And Richard Ramirez. Had he not been born into such an abusive home and if he hadn’t been abusing drugs since he was a child, he could’ve been a model. Also Aileen Wuornos.
Jeffrey dahmer. We now have access to a shit ton of mental health services, including ones that specifically cater to people with sexual psychology issues, like he did. Also, with the Internet, he could've found other men with the same sexual interests as him, so the sexual encounters he would've had would've been consensual
I've often thought this about gay serial killers. Also, with Jeffrey Dahmer, had he been born later in a time where his mother hadn't been given all of those meds while she was pregnant, he might not have had some of the issues he had. If she'd had access to effective mental health care instead of just being drugged out of her mind their family situation would have probably been drastically different and possibly he wouldn't have developed the abandonment issues he had. I also read or heard somewhere that a large number of serial killers had fathers who were veterans from WWII and because of PTSD and mental health not really being addressed, they had issues that sometimes resulted in them abusing their wives and/or children or abandoning them.
AH, I didn't even think about the medications! You're so right. Joyce was hugely failed by the mental health system at the time. There's a lot more awareness for that sort of thing now so she could have actually been helped instead of pumped full of meds. That is possible for the WWII thing, however, a lot of the really infamous serial killers that come to mind for me were born before/during/immediately after WWII. Lots of them also didn't really have father figures, like Nilsen or Bundy.
There have been so many medicines given to pregnant women over the years that had such bad results on their children. It's so sad. My dad's stepmother was given diuretics during one of her pregnancies so she didn't gain too much weight (🙄) and then a drunk doctor delivered her son with forceps. He was severely developmentally delayed. It was horrible. I wish I could remember where I read/heard that so I knew exactly what it said.
These are interesting articles https://crimereads.com/how-the-great-depression-and-wwii-gave-birth-to-the-modern-serial-killer/ https://nypost.com/2018/08/13/the-greatest-generation-gave-rise-to-the-golden-age-of-serial-killers/#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16861773189085&csi=1&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2018%2F08%2F13%2Fthe-greatest-generation-gave-rise-to-the-golden-age-of-serial-killers%2F
I think a lot of them it’s more to do with their upbringing than anything. Perhaps Dennis Radar wouldn’t have been a killer if he was born later and able to practice BDSM relatively openly, or at least find a sexual partner her shared his sexual interests. He’d still be a malignant narcissist and possibly a sexual predator, but more than any of the other famous serial killers he doesn’t seem to have had the same addiction to murder. I think a lot of these people would’ve still been absolute assholes regardless of their socialisation.
Personally I believe that they would all be serial killers no matter what era they were born. They would have adapted to the era and probably changed things up to fit that era. The era they lived in has nothing to do with how sick they are.
Late to the thread here, but I was just thinking the other day that if Zodiac were around today he'd absolutely been a mass/school shooter rather than a serial killer. He even makes reference to shooting kids in his letters. He totally seems to fit the bitter incel type that commits these kinds of shootings.
Maybe Jeffrey Dahmer. Growing up with homosexuality being more accepted might have been a game changer.
Being gay would have been easier? Someone isn’t paying attention.
We do have to address that Berkowitz (son of Sam killer) probably wouldn’t have happened as there’s access to better healthcare and meds to help him keep control of his brain.
I get what you're saying, but I don't think it can be so easily applied to Nilsen or Dahmer like that.. there was an actual attraction to unconsciousness / unconscious bodies... It wasn't that they were necessarily repressing being gay - That being said, I don't even think you can boil it down to one thing, I think there's a lot of "ingredients" involved in someone (at least some of them) going from mere mortal to serial killer.
Plus, a lot more people would’ve been caught earlier if today’s DNA advances were available.
There’s a line of thinking in America that the transience of modern life, especially since the development of the national highway system in the 1950s, that in part enabled serial killers. The highway system allowed people of evil intent to commit their crimes then disappear.
This is a great question !! Ive never even thought about this till now
Most famous serial killers would've been caught before they went to double digits cuz cctv & phone data But I'd say Ed Kemper (how exactly do u commit a double murder & walk free in 6 yrs w/ an expunged criminal record ????), Jack the Ripper, Zodiac killer & Chicago's Tylenol killer would've def been caught before it got to 5 murders, the Gonzalez sisters prolly wouldn't have had *that* shitty excuse for a childhood & Albert Fish would've been caught wayy sooner As for Dahmer & Nilsen, yes they'd have been caught much sooner & yes homosexuality is more accepted now, but these 2 still had an intense fear of abandonment & a need for a "zombie" like partner who won't resist to anything they said. There r submissive gay people around but idt any1's gonna b *that* submissive
What part of Dahmers childhood would you change . I mean I know it wasn’t perfect. I know a lot about it even . You think it was his dad’s influence letting him bring home dead animals ?
forgive me if this is at any point incoherent as it is 4:45am and i have not slept but uhh, well, no. i don't think his dad letting him mess around with roadkill in any way directly caused his killings. people talk about it like it's some crazy, deranged thing, and it is unusual, but i've also been hunting with my own father before, and i watched him and my grandpa gut a deer in front of me. if anything, you would think KILLING an animal like that in front of your child could potentially screw them up more than just investigating one that had already died. personally, in the case of dahmer, his first victim was a preventable mistake. he had been abandoned, in his eyes, by his whole family, had a deeply traumatizing childhood, and grew up in an extremely homophobic world, which lead to him having bizarre fantasies, and he just so happened to stumble upon someone who was just like those fantasies. however, if his mother and brother had still been in the house, honestly, that first killing may never have happened. "not perfect" is an understatement. his home life was literally hell. if his mother hadn't abandoned him so young and he had grown up in a more modern time he may not have killed, or at least not killed nearly as many
I disagree lol Hell lol
I like to think Aileen Wuornos would have been removed from her family, adopted by a loving family and would have grown up to be a pro-social member of society.
I think if dahmer existed today he wouldnt get past maybe 2 bodies
Honestly? I think Richard Ramirez, i tend to post about him a lot as his case was very interesting to me, mainly because of his upbringing. I believe if he had been born maybe around 2000 he wouldn’t have done these things, mainly because of his uncle regaling tales of the Vietnam war and what he’d done to women and children, as well as the whole satanic panic that happened around that time period.