Do serial killers have the same motive for killing? In “What Makes a Serial Killer” by La Donna Beaty, she composes an informative argument providing characteristics of a serial killer. She bases her argument on what makes a serial killer according to information gathered from eight different sources. According to the theories that she has provided, society, family atmosphere, mental illness, and excessive use of alcohol are the characteristics that make up a serial killer. Can these characteristics mask all serial killers?
Beaty provides evidence that suggests what might make a serial killer, but, she doesn’t state what she thinks defines one, which makes this essay more of an essay to inform. In order to make her point, the author quotes many theories from various books and researches. Each time she mentioned a new theory, she would provide a quote from one of the eight sources to prove her statement. When Beaty stated that “one of the most common traits that all researchers have noted among serial killers is heavy use of alcohol” (4), she followed it with evidence from research done by Donald Lunde.
Throughout the paper, she provides a substantial amount of evidence pertaining to what could possibly make a serial killer but, the evidence is from another person’s point of view; not her own. She backs up each topic sentence with an amazing amount of evidence that could make the reader believe that she knows what defines a serial killer. In her fourth paragraph, she mentions that “. . . many murderers are the product of our violent society” (Beaty 2).
She backs that up with five quotes from two different researches: Our culture tends to approve of violence and find it acceptable, even preferable, in many circumstances (Holmes and DeBurger 27). According to research done in 1970, one out of every four men and one out of every six women believed that it was appropriate for a husband and to hit his wife under certain conditions (33). . . . It is estimated that by the age of eighteen, the average child will have viewed more than 16,000 television murders (34).
Some experts feel that children demonstrate increasingly aggressive behavior with each violent act they view (Lunde 15) and become so accustomed to violence that these acts seem normal (35). (Beaty 2) Although each topic sentence has evidence that backs it up, she fails to answer her own question: “what makes a serial killer? ” The major claim in this essay is that there are different theories that can explain why a serial killer goes around excising “his revenge on an unsuspecting society” (Beaty 5).
Every paragraph after the third points out a different theory about why “ambitious human beings” (2) turns into a serial killer. She points out that “murderers are a product of our society [because] our culture tends to approve of violence and find it acceptable, even preferable, in many circumstances” (2). Also, Beaty states that “the family atmosphere into which the serial killer is born” (2) could be another reason why serial killers kill because they “never established a good relationship with the male figures in their lives (Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas 19)” (qtd. 2).
Besides the two mentioned theories above, Beaty states that mental illness and excessive use of alcohol can be the leading factor to why serial killers kill. The weak point in this essay is that her conclusion contradicts with her introduction. Her thesis statement is “what makes a serial killer? ” (Beaty 1) but she concludes her essay with “we may never know what causes a serial killer to [kill]” (5). Instead of answering her thesis, she contradicts it with her conclusion. What really stood out was the fact that Beaty was successful at incorporating many different sources into her essay.
Following each theory are at least three quotes from the sources that she used. When she mentioned that “one of the most common traits that all researchers have noted among serial killers is heavy use of alcohol” (4), she followed it with four different documented sources: Lunde found that the majority of those who commit murder had been drinking beforehand and commonly had a urine alcohol level of between . 20 and . 29, nearly twice the legal level of intoxication (31-32). Additionally, 70 percent of the families that reared serial killers had verifiable records of alcohol abuse (Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas 17).
Jeffrey Dahmer had been arrested in 1981 on charges of drunkenness and, before his release from prison on sexual assault charges, his father had written a heartbreaking letter which pleaded that Jeffrey be forced to undergo treatment for alcoholism, a plea that, if heeded, might have changed the course of future events (Davis 70,103). . . . A 1979 report issued by Harvard Medical School stated that "[a]lcoholism in the biological parent appears to be a more reliable predictor of alcoholism in the children than any other environmental factor examined" (qtd. in Taylor 117).
While alcohol was once thought to alleviate anxiety and depression, we now know that it can aggravate and intensify such moods (Taylor 110). (Beaty 5) The fact that she used so much evidence to back up each topic sentence was the strong point of her essay. Uncertainty of how Beaty would define a serial killer lurks throughout the essay. Beaty ended her introduction with “what makes a serial killer? ” (1), but leaves the question unanswered. This leaves the reader puzzled because upon reading this essay, the reader is looking for the author’s view of what really defines a serial killer.
When coming across the conclusion, does the reader know how the author would define a serial killer? No, because she concludes that “we may never know what causes a serial killer to [kill]” (Beaty 5). The last sentence of this essay states that Ted Bundy said “most serial killers are people who kill for the pure pleasure of killing . . . ” (Beaty 5). This leaves the reader with the impression that this essay was written mainly to inform readers of the results from researches done about serial killers rather than answering “what makes a serial killer? ” (1).
