ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The purpose of this article is to examine some of the case studies and the professional research available on the serial murderer in an effort to ascertain whether there are some dynamic links between them. Several researchers, especially Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas (1988), Norris (1988), Levin and Fox (1985), and Wilson and Seaman (1990), offer empirical data that link these people behaviorally. However, most have only hinted at the possibility that certain factors in the childhood environment act as an “incubator” to enhance and exaggerate childhood behaviors and basic personality tendencies so that when adulthood is reached, in the presence of specific disinhibitors, these already exaggerated tendencies run amok.
