Caitlyn Podcast

The podcast discusses the factors that contribute to creating a serial killer. It explores the nature versus nurture debate, stating that both biological factors (nature) and environmental factors (nurture) play a role. One biological factor mentioned is the MAOA gene, which is found to be low in many serial killers, leading to high levels of aggression. Childhood trauma, such as abuse, is also discussed as an environmental factor that can contribute to the development of a serial killer. However, it is emphasized that not everyone with these factors becomes a serial killer. The podcast concludes by stating that the reasons behind becoming a serial killer are complex and individual, and that it ultimately comes down to personal choice. Listeners are encouraged to form their own opinions on whether a person's life events or inherent traits make them evil. Hello everyone and welcome back to True Crime with Caitlin. I've got a question for you viewers out there. Have you ever watched Criminal Minds, NCIS, Bones, SVU, any of those TV shows? Chances are you're probably interested in true crime and figuring out why serial killers do what they do. I mean, we all know it's disturbing. It's like a car accident, but you can't look away. We often come away from the stories of serial killers with one question though. Why? Why do they do it? What makes these people into the monsters that they are? Well, that's what I will be talking about today. Today I'm going to run you through two aspects of what creates serial killers. You might have heard of this in a psychology class, but we have nature and we have nurture. Nature is biological, what a person is born with, their genetics, inherently what makes them them. Nurture is the environment that they grew up with and the people that they grew up with and how that can affect how someone develops. I'm going to talk about some of the factors that researchers believe make people likely to be serial killers and I'm going to leave it up to you to decide what you think of it. So I was reading this article the other day by Julian Highsmith called Nature and Nurture in a Criminal and I was really surprised to find out that apparently there's a gene that's called MAOA or monomide oxidase. I'm not into chemistry, so I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. But apparently low levels of MAOA make it hard for an individual to resist inflicting physical and psychological pain on others. And so in many serial killers they have found that they all have low levels of this gene. So they have high levels of aggression, they can't resist harming other people. Like I said, we found low levels of this gene as a common denominator in a lot of serial killers. But plenty of people have low MAOA levels and do not become serial killers. So there's got to be more to it. Now, a factor in making people serial killers that is quite talked about is childhood trauma. Enduring abuse during childhood can cause an individual to become aggressive, act out, because of the own pain that they've suffered. They haven't worked through that, so they inflict it onto other people. Two researchers, Mitchell and Omlott, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right, found, they published in their article the incidence of child abuse in serial killers, they found that on average 50% of serial killers have experienced psychological abuse, 36% have experienced physical abuse, and 26% have experienced sexual abuse. Obviously links have been found between the type of abuse endured and the type of killing that is carried out by the individual, such as when someone has been physically abused as a child, they tend to overkill their victims. So stabbing them much more, many more times than would be necessary to kill them. I read that in an interesting article, a behavior sequence analysis of serial killers' lives from childhood abuse to methods of murder by Abby Jean Marano, and I've definitely seen that in criminal minds, the overkill and how that's linked to physical abuse endured as a child. So I guess the built-up aggression from being so helpless, they have to take it out on other people. But again, not everyone who endures childhood trauma becomes a serial killer. So now that I've introduced you to an aspect of nature that creates serial killers and an aspect of nurture that creates serial killers, I want to talk about the fact that it's not cut and dry. It's not an easy answer, unfortunately. You can't always figure out why people do the things they do. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you want to know, sometimes you just won't. Some serial killers, like John Wayne Gacy, had very terrible childhoods, and you're like, oh, okay, so that would make sense. But Jeffrey Dahmer had a peaceful upbringing. And from a very young age, Ted Bundy was unable to feel pity or remorse and did not value human life. But he also had a somewhat difficult upbringing. There's an article, Development of Serial Killers, by Nelisha Baldeo, where she discusses the nature and the nurture of different popular serial killers. I would recommend you give it a read. But the final point being is that it is individual to each and every person. There's factors on both sides of the debate, nature versus nurture, that we should consider when studying these criminals. At the end of the day, though, it is always a choice to kill somebody or not kill somebody. Serial killers' genetic makeup, how they were born, or having low levels of the MAOA gene, can be the primary reason that they become who they are. Or maybe they had a terrible childhood and were abused as a child, and all of those anger and feelings, they didn't know what to do with it, and so they took it out on others and became... Either way, there's a multitude of factors and causes that formulate the choice in a person's brain to take the life of another human being, of multiple human beings. And it's a tragedy either way. Well, guys, that's the end of today's podcast. I hope you had fun hanging out with me, learning a little bit more about nature and nurture and what makes a serial killer. Now it's up to you to decide if you think events in a person's life can make them evil or if they're just born with it.