Have there always been Serial Killers?

[Stravo]

When you hear about Jack the Ripper one of the themes is that he is the "first" serial killer. A harbinger of a new breed of killers coming with the 20th century and so on.

You have to wonder though if Serial killers have always existed and it is only the notoriety of the killings that made Jack so special. With the lack of record keeping up until recent times and the crudity of police work up until the last century isn't it more likely than not that serial killers have stalked us throughout our history?

Was there a John Wayne Gacy in Ancient Mesopotamia hacking up young boys and dumping them in the fields? Was there a Jeffrey Dalmer marching with Alexander's armies, did Ancient Romans quake in terror of some dark stranger killing pretty young women? Maybe the Maya had their own version of Ted Bundy?

What do you think? Is serial killing truly a sign of something rotten in modern culture or is it simply being brought to the light because of the advances of modern society?

[Pablo Sanchez]

I'm about as certain as its possible to be that it is just a case of more mass media to let us know, better record keeping, more consistent police enforcement, and better understanding of psychology. History is fairly replete with examples of serial killers who escaped that classification because it didn't exist yet--Gilles de Rais, Elizabeth Bathory, the thuggee cult, and so on. Logically there would have been many more who simply weren't noticed or recorded.

[Enforcer Talen]

Well, consider the Countess of Bathory. Or Vlad the Impaler.

I dont really think serial killers are new.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Well, consider the Countess of Bathory. Or Vlad the Impaler.

It's hard to place Vlad III Dracula as a serial killer for a few reasons. First, he was a head of state in a region not exact famed for its civilization, so a certain level of brutality went with the territory. Second, most the accounts that accuse him of being exceptionally evil come directly from his enemies, being the Turks and the German merchants who operated in Wallachia. It's worth pointing out that he's revered in Romania today as a national hero.

[Enforcer Talen]

Well, I mention him cause he seemed a little eccentric about it. IIRC, he dipped bread in the blood of the fallen.

I mean, yes, you could say he was being a just king, but he was so darn enthusiastic about it.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Well, I mention him cause he seemed a little eccentric about it. IIRC, he dipped bread in the blood of the fallen.

Again, most of the stories of this type come directly from the German merchants who operated in Wallachia, who were among his primary internal enemies. It's very likely that they lied about him extensively.

[Adrian Laguna]

Seneca the Younger noted that Caligula killed for amusement. Though apparently illness made him go stark raving mad, so maybe he doesn't count.

[Darth Servo]

It's hard to place Vlad III Dracula as a serial killer for a few reasons. First, he was a head of state in a region not exact famed for its civilization, so a certain level of brutality went with the territory.

Wouldn't said brutality only further prove the answer to the OP is "yes, and lots of them"? That vast killing was simply accepted as common practice anciently?

[DPDarkPrimus]

Serial killers could join the military and sate their bloodlust while being paid back in the Middle Ages, is what you're positing.

[Zor]

Forensics plays a big part in this, save for basic things like knowing that hacked to bits by a axe, head smashed with a stick, stabbed, shot and such, people would be unable to reconstruct a murder that they did not see. murders done by a serial murderer might have just been passed off as isolated occurences done by several people, rather than a single serial killer. As well, crime rates were damn high before police forces were created, so it would just be another late night mugging for a few coins.

Zor

[Pablo Sanchez]

Wouldn't said brutality only further prove the answer to the OP is "yes, and lots of them"? That vast killing was simply accepted as common practice anciently?

There's a very real and very large difference between somebody who kills as part of military or social duty, and a serial killer. For example, Simo Häyhä, a Finnish sniper, is credited with 705 kills in 100 days during the Winter War. He was a goddamn killing machine. But after the war, he never killed anybody.

With Dracula there's a variety of other problems with your idea, one of the most prominent of which is that the vast majority of his victims would have simply been people he ordered to be killed, as opposed to actually killed. Over 100 people were killed by the state of Texas during George W. Bush's term as governor, any of whom he could have easily saved. Is he also a serial killer?

[Flagg]

I always assumed that back in the bad old days the serial killer types were the torturers, dungeon masters, and executioners. I think it's kind of interesting that you only really started hearing about serial killers after alot of those practices became either outlawed or in the case of executions, institutionalized to the point where it wasn't any one person doing all the killing.

Not to say that there weren't serial killers back then. As has been mentioned, modern investigative techniques and mass media played their part in shedding light on something that went largely undetected previously.

[Trav]

You should also consider prehistory. Could there have been a paleolithic Ted Bundy? It would be hard to conceal multiple murders if you lived with only a few dozen people, right?

[Sarevok]

Consider serial killers in other countries besides searching the past. Serial killers are not known in many non western countries. For example the HBO movie on Citizen X claimed part of the reason he was so successful was Soviet authorities refused to admit serial killers exist in USSR too. Recently serial killers have emerged in India too. Cases like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moninder_Singh_Pandher raised a big WTF in Indian media since this sort of stuff is unheard of there. India today is becoming America lite culturally, socially and economically. Is the serial killer due to the emerging new society in India ? Or did they always exist and only now are being caught with the new advanced technology Indian police has ? Or is it Indian media, so keen to ape Americas, also trying to copy "missing pretty 14 year old girl" and "murderous stalker" stories ? Answering questions like this will answer the question posed in OP.

[Wedge]

What do you think? Is serial killing truly a sign of something rotten in modern culture or is it simply being brought to the light because of the advances of modern society?

Well I do think there are more serial killers, not only because there is more population and therefor there are more psychopaths, but also in percentage.

I believe that psychological disorders are increasing in industrialized western nations, for example depression (I know it's old but it was the quickest to find). I don't have any numbers now for other psychological disorders, but I remember that like depression many were increasing.
It's obvious it has to do something with our culture, what exactly I don't know. So maybe other cultures were less prone to create this disorders, because maybe they had to fight to live, they had more existential crisis and didn't had time for psychological disorders or else they would die. Of course the top of the pyramid could have the luxury to do it, but the general populace of the ancient world, I don't think so.

Well, I mention him cause he seemed a little eccentric about it. IIRC, he dipped bread in the blood of the fallen.

I mean, yes, you could say he was being a just king, but he was so darn enthusiastic about it.

I've been in Romania a couple of times, because my girlfriend (who's surname is Vlad) is from Brasov (in Transilvania). Really all those stories are from hear-say and pretty much nonsense. I also have a history Professor from Romania and he laughs or gets very angry depending on his mood, when he hears all the bullshit about Vlad.

[Surlethe]

Serial killers, I'll bet, are not more common today, but there are more of them than there were because of the recent population explosion. So if I have my population figures right and 0.001 of the population are broken and become serial killers, today we'd have six million killers; five hundred years ago, there would be less than one million, and two thousand years ago there would be 300,000.

[Imperial Overlord]

Well, I mention him cause he seemed a little eccentric about it. IIRC, he dipped bread in the blood of the fallen.

Again, most of the stories of this type come directly from the German merchants who operated in Wallachia, who were among his primary internal enemies. It's very likely that they lied about him extensively.

It's one of the standard evil king stories that pops up over and over again. So is the bit where the evil king has a feast for the poor and then locks the building and sets it on fire, a crime is also attributed to Vlad by his enemies.

Modern police investigators have trouble catching serial killers. With far fewer investigative tools and a more lawless environment serial killers would have been harder to catch. Add in robbing the dead who can tell if the motive was greed or thrill killing? How does one distinguish a murderous bandit from a serial killer even if one would be inclined to try and differentiate between them?

[Frank Hipper]

There's always the case of Peter Stubb for evidence, too.

Couching his behavior in the supernatural would probably have been required of the 16th century mind, but ignoring that, you're left with a classic, particularly vicious serial killer...then again, check out the illstrations of his execution in detail for some real blood-drenched depravity; broken and braided on the wheel, and that's just for starters.

[ArmorPierce]

Well the prison guards for vlad the impaler reported seeing him killing rats, mices, roaches, etc, and staking them and being mystified by it. He would line them up at his window. That is definitely serial killer tendancies. Another thing I heard put forth was that all those brutal murders that were attributed be the work of some animal or beast in small villages were actually the work of serial killers.

[Zixinus]

I understand correctly that the cause of serial killers are highly abusive parents who teach contradicting things to the children (keep your shirt out one day, then on the other day tug it in, punish the child in both cases) and have no access to therapy or any kind.

In this case, how the hell can you accurately tell whether a culture produces people like that or situations like that?

And the thing about serial killers, is that they do their job stealthily and purposefully do not leave behind evidence. They know what they are doing is wrong and they don't want to get caught.

They also stems out in their choice of targets. In the medieval ages, who really cared if a peasant or some other low-class person disappeared in the slums? And if they did find someone like that, its unlikely they would talk much about it.

As for the Soviet Union not having serial killers, that's bullshit propaganda. There have been cases of psychopaths, just that unlike in the free Western Media, it was kept secret.

[Junghalli]

Yeah, I think that most likely it was a simple matter of being much harder to catch or detect them in ancient times, when for the most part organized police forces were basically nonexistant, let alone forensic investigators and stuff like that. Poor record keeping in preindustrial times also helped. Anything that wasn't written down would be lost in a generation or two, and something that was written down could easily have been lost if the slip of paper or three it was written on was destroyed or lost.

Another thing I heard put forth was that all those brutal murders that were attributed be the work of some animal or beast in small villages were actually the work of serial killers.

I always wondered if some old monster stories like Beowulf might have started out that way. Grendel was based on some crazy nut who lived in a cave, and as the story was retold he gained more and more inhuman attributes and the stories about his crimes got more and exaggerated. It's not that big of a leap from a hairy dude with a scythe who stabs people to a monster with claws that eats people.

[Shroom Man 777]

I believe that in ancient times, nobody really gave a fuck if you died with a hole fauceting blood out of your side. Since people died a dime a dozen, with disease and deprivation stalking the land like...two big stalking things.

[Aquatain]

I believe that in ancient times, nobody really gave a fuck if you died with a hole fauceting blood out of your side. Since people died a dime a dozen, with disease and deprivation stalking the land like...two big stalking things.

Yup people were to busy dying of other things to notice serial killers...

[Coyote]

In some cases, the societies they lived in were probably already sufficiently violent to allow them to indulge in their desires without being detected-- they may have even been praised as "particularly motivated warriors" and good for the tribe.

In other cases, they may have been smart enough to move around in paperless ancient proto-states where information about the occasional strings of murders were never pieced together by what authorities existed at the time...

There's also the possibility that they were discovered earlier among their social groups and more quickly killed or exiled by peers. I wonder how many tales of vampires, werewolves, witchcraft or demonic possession were partially motivated by long-ago serial killers.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Wouldn't said brutality only further prove the answer to the OP is "yes, and lots of them"? That vast killing was simply accepted as common practice anciently?

There's a very real and very large difference between somebody who kills as part of military or social duty, and a serial killer. For example, Simo Häyhä, a Finnish sniper, is credited with 705 kills in 100 days during the Winter War. He was a goddamn killing machine. But after the war, he never killed anybody.

But that's in a MODERN military. Modern militaries tend to frown on soldiers who kill without orders. And they don't prize savagery nearly as much as in the past; a Viking berserker would do poorly in the USMC, say. Nor is it as common for the authorities to regard the killing of "peasants" by soldiers as trivial. Modern militaries also tend to spend less time fighting & conquering, and had fewer jobs that didn't involve killing And so on.

And the fact that "there's a very real and very large difference" between serial murderers and soldiers doesn't mean that the serial murderer won't take advantage of a soldier's position to gratify himself, even if doing so makes him a poor soldier. If the military in question lets him get away with it. I wouldn't be surprised if the more brutal militaries out there even today don't have serial killers in them for just that reason.

Consider serial killers in other countries besides searching the past. Serial killers are not known in many non western countries. For example the HBO movie on Citizen X claimed part of the reason he was so successful was Soviet authorities refused to admit serial killers exist in USSR too. Recently serial killers have emerged in India too. Cases like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moninder_Singh_Pandher raised a big WTF in Indian media since this sort of stuff is unheard of there. India today is becoming America lite culturally, socially and economically. Is the serial killer due to the emerging new society in India ?

Possibly. I don't have a cite; it's something I read many years ago. I recall an interesting interview with an African doctor ( a psychologist as I recall ) who noted that while you found mentally ill people in both traditional and Westernized groups, the kinds of mental illness tended to change depending on how Westernized the group was.

It does seem plausible to me that in different societies, minds would break in different ways.