The disorganised killer is often socially immature who may know his victims and kills spontaneously. The disorganised killer is often sexually inhibited, harsh childhood discipline, lives alone, knows victim, sloppy crime scene, evidence present but shows no interest in the media and does not change their lifestyle as a result of the killing.
As an additional categorisation of serial killers, mobility can be a significant factor as to the nature of their crimes. Travelling serial killers, who move around to find their victims; local killers, who kill in their region and the home killer may need to be considered.(Hickey, E (1991) 'Serial murders and their victims', Belmont: Wadsworth). Travelling serial killers are often difficult to track due to the separation of police jurisdictions and the lack of pattern recognition.
Most serial killers will fall into a pattern, either of modus operandi, location, victim type, motive, etc. it is often the patterns of their activities that allows the police to track and apprehend the killer.
Where do they come from and what outward signs are there? Serial killers come from everywhere and there are, very often, no signs of the activities that an individual undertakes. Killers are often described as ‘normal’, ‘very chatty’ and ‘a good neighbour’. Indeed, the serial killer Ted Bundy, said
" we are your sons, and we are your husbands, and we grew up in regular families”
Now using MRI and other brain scanning techniques, scientists now believe that treatment is now theoretically possible. The imaging by scientists (Prof. Robert Hare) indicates that psychopaths (including serial killers) have difficulty in processing emotional stimuli. Why this happens is not clear or confirmed. Prof. James Blair (UCL) believes that the amygdala in the brain is the root of the problem as this is where emotional processing and generation is located. Defects in functionality within this structure, i.e. pathology, could lead to psychopathy.
However, any treatments may be years in the future and in the meantime, serial killers will continue to be imprisoned for public safety. In cases in prison, counselling and therapy in Canada has in fact had an adverse effect and that re-offence rates increase.
As a final point, it is worth noting that serial killer are predominantly male, white, within their twenties or thirties, kill within their ethnic group and are middle class.
