Canadian Killer

My past blogs have been about American killers, but for my last one I wanted to make it about a legendary Canadian serial killer, Clifford Olson.

He made history to be one of the greatest killers in Canada. Clifford's motivations to killing his victims were not as clear as the past serial killers in my blog. He was infact psychotic but even when psycho sometimes there are motives. He seemed to have had a troubled past like most serial killers, he is another psychotic master mind I will never understand. 

Clifford was born January 1st of 1940 in Vancouver. As a teenager he started small crimes such as theft and robbery and was put in the pen where he sexually assaulted another inmate. After his release he assaulted a 7 year old girl in Nova Scotia and that is where it all really began.

He had over 11 female and male victims which he assaulted and killed. He would kill his victims in brutal ways, such as stabbing, strangling and at times he would abduct the victims before committing further crimes (rape/murder). He was an aggressive person and impulsive but still managed to get away with killing over 11 people within the span of a year (1980-1981). He was arrested in 1981 for suspicion of the abduction of two of his victims, he then agreed to  confess to killing 11 people and recovering the bodies.

Although his killings were very aggressive and seemed spontaneous at times, he was smart an overall organized killer though slightly impulsive. He's "work" leaned slightly more twoards the organized killer, he would hide the bodies after doing damage and mananged to almost get away with the abductions because he had planned them out before hand. He could cover up his tracks but because he was at times impulsive he was discovered.


I was simply interested in him not because of his killings, but because he was Canadian. I feel like he was not as smart as Ted Bundy or even Charles Manson, but he did have better qualities than Charles. He was able to cover up his tracks (hide the bodies) which Manson could never do. Ultimately Ted was the smartest of the three able to do all that work on his own and get away with it for years even when inprisonned.

It is insane that some serial killers were so brilliant that they are still discussed today with fear.

sources:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/the-life-and-death-of-clifford-olson/article4197011/?page=all

Charles Manson

Charles Manson has got to be one of the greatest serial killers of all time. He had the corrupt mind to follow through with multiple killings.

Charles was born the year of 1934 in Ohio to a mother who did not want him and since a young age Charles became used to committing illegal acts. It is said that he has impregnated multiple women throughout his life but never stayed long enough to see the children. Manson was also in and out of jail for different reasons throughout his whole life, but he continued on his crime sprees. None of his crimes were as severe as murder until the late 1960's.

After 1967 Charles Manson was able to form a cult, he had found a group of followers who had the same passion for drugs (mainly magic mushrooms and LSD) and the lifestyle he was living (life of crime). Charles was a leader to his followers, it was what he said that would happen. This cult was called the Manson family numbering around 100 or more followers and once this number grew they had began to live on a deserted ranch. This is when the killings began (1969), Charles would have his followers kill the elite people in Hollywood or areas around there. His motivation to the killings are said to be because he was unsuccessful in his attempt to peruse a music career, ruined by some of his later on victims.

members of the Manson family (carved swastika symbols on

their foreheads to show they were part of the cult)

Some would say Charles was smart for in the beginning he had his followers do the killings in order to keep his hands clean, while still getting the satisfaction. A lot of his followers were young and impressionable which to me seems like the reason as to why he could get them to believe in the lifestyle he believed in and do anything he asked. He would plan out the killings, give his followers a list of names, an address and when to kill. All of the killings were performed extremely violently, victims were being stabbed to death, slaughtered etc. Charles even commanded one of his most loyal followers to kill a pregnant women by stabbing her in the stomach repeatedly...

This all came to an end in late 1969 when Manson and his group were arrested for vandilization but by digging further in the detectives realized the truth, especially after one of the followers confessions to murder. The cops knew that this was led by Charles because of his past, his psychosis, his pathological ego and the destruction left behind. He was sentenced to life in jail along with his most loyal followers.

Charles was smart because he convinced so many people to follow him and still to this day it is debatable to whether or not he ever even killed any of his chosen victims. He was a mad man for sure, and his downfall was that he thought he was "king of the underground" he thought out the plans but didn't cover up his tracks. The drugs probably messed up the whole operation in general, because some of those drugs make even a normal person feel on top of the world, so I can only imagine what it would have done to a group of psychotic killers.

What is most scary about all this is that he genuinely believed he was a type of God and that his killings were providing justice, he got over 100 people to follow in his footsteps. This is scary to me because if he could easily get that many people to kill for him, it shows the amount of insane, easily influenced and simply idiotic minds there are in this world.

His rough past explains a lot of his acts throughout his life and his mental illness, but it is hard to fully comprehend the mind behind this. You have to be psychopath to fully understand one.

sources:
http://www.biography.com/people/charles-manson-9397912#arrest-and-trial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xioCGmZVoqw

Theodore Bundy

In my opinion among all the serial killers I have learned about, Theodore Bundy is one of the best.

Ted Bundy was born in November of 1946, in Vermont. He was aid to have a pretty stable "at home life" but he began to start being slightly disturbed in is youth by stealing things or peering through people's windows. To get to the interesting part Ted Bundy was/is a well known rapist/serial killer, there is no exact time as to when his killings started but it had definitely begun in the early 1970's (which is when he was attending University). His killings were said to have begun after his tragic breakup with his girlfriend.

The whole created in the ceiling

is how Ted escaped prison

Ted was said to be a very charming an intelligent man he graduated from university and attended law school. Although he was convicted in 1975 of raping and killing over 30 females, he was able to escape out of prison and get a head start from the police. He once again continued raping and killing messily two other girls. I feel as if he knew he would get caught once again and just wanted the abnormal satisfaction of killing one last time. After being caught he had received the death penalty and was killed in January of 1989.

Ted's murder kit

Ted was by far one of the smartest killers of all time, he was said to have most definitely killed more women then he was convicted of. Ted to me was highly intelligent but most definitely corrupt, his killings seem to have been a job for him, he had taken it very seriously. As I have explained in previous blogs Ted seemed to definitely be the organized type of killer. He had planned things well ahead, picked out his victims and even had a "murder kit".

It's almost incomprehensible how someone was raised supposedly well and in good hands but can turn out so vicious even from childhood. I would say life does that to you, as in maybe it was all cause of his breakup with his girlfriend that he was said to be madly in love with but that would be insane of me because no one with a non psychopathic mind should react in this way. Even so, Ted was said to be disturbed at a young age but did not show actual signs of possibly mental illness till his teens, which might bring up the topic of possible birth with psychosis.

The only downfall to his killings was simply that he had done it so many times he got comfortable he even stated "It's like changing a tire, the first time you are careful, but by the 30th time you forget where you left the wrench." He talked about killing as if it was nothing he did not feel remorse, he did not care, he once stated when asked if he felt guilty that he does not and feels bad for those who feel any type of guilt at all.

He was quite a confused person and is scary to think that there are people out there like that, and that are so capable of covering it up with charm and intelligence like Ted.




sources:
http://www.biography.com/people/ted-bundy-9231165#related-video-gallery

Something you should know

As indicating in my last blog ceratin serial killers tend to be smart, infact the majority of serial killers are insanely intelligent and have very high IQ's. Which is why there is one other type of killer other than the organized vs unorganized, this killer is called the medical killer.

The medical killer is very rare but to me it is definitely the most terrifying. This killer will enroll in the medical school, earn a medical degree in order to work in a hospital and kill innocents in order to fulfill their gratification. The medical killer finds this ideal because of the fact that it is common for deaths to constantly occur in hospitals. Also, if they ensure to make it seem like a natural death then there is no traces, or suspects to the murder.

The rare few that have actually tried this method have succeed in killing dozens of people. One of the primary examples of this is Michael Swango, born in October of 1954, in Tacoma Washington.

Michael had grown up in Quincy, but had went away for education in 1982 and 1983 when he was linked to 10 deaths (5 deaths in Springfield, Illinois and 5 deaths in Ohio) both places he went to become educated in the medical field. Michael had then moved back to his hometown Quincy where he worked at the hospital, he was later convicted and jailed for poisoning co-workers.

He was released shortly after and made another move to Long Island after practicing medicine again for a year. In Long island there where another 5 mysterious deaths which lead authorities to dig deeper into the case. Michael had then escaped to Zimbabwe where 20 patients died. He was immediately arrested in his return to the United States in 1997 and was sentenced to life in prison in 2000.

To me it is amazing the simple fact that he was capable of getting away with killing possibly over 35 murders on his hands, and that this lasted 15 years.
Michael was a psychopathic genius, he just wasn't smart enough to cover up his tracks completely. I believe his defaults were that he was caught in the act of taking a serious interest in mysterious deaths by the scrapbooks (with news on multiple deaths) his coworkers saw him make. That made him quite sketchy in the eyes of his coworkers in Quincy and poisoning them did not help his case. After those incidents he must have been marked as dangerous.

It is extremely disturbing that someone would go through all the effort just to get the chance to kill possible innocents and hopefully get away with it. Then again there are no literal facts as to why Michael thought in the way he did, there are rumors of his past problems, but I guess one can only assume.

Although a medical serial killer is rare it is still insane that the people (doctors, surgents etc.) who we are supposed to confide in with our lives are the ones capable of the most damage. I guess that applies to life, in the sense that confiding in someone always leaves the possibility of them destroying you in more ways then one.



sources:
http://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/types-of-serial-killers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2MbVFJA1cQ
http://crime.about.com/od/serial/a/michael-swango.htm

Some would say there are different types of serial killers those who say that would be right in the sense that they all plan their killings in different ways. Of course every serial killer has the same cruel and mentally ill objective (to kill), but that does not necessarily mean the same mentality. That is probably why this subject is very interesting to me, trying to understand the minds behind such an aggressive and most terrible crime.

How does one even have the mental capability to take a life? In certain cases you do not have to be mentally unstable, some do it out of spite or revenge for something very severally unfair and life threatening towards them or someone they care about (ex; A father killing the person who killed his son) which does not make them a serial killer. A serial killer is defined as a person who murders three or more people usually due to abnormal psychological gratification.

Each killer has a different mentality which determine their success in murder, meaning how it works out well, if its traceable/untraceable, how many people they are capable of killing etc. The two main types of serial killers are the organized and unorganized these are the biggest and most obvious traits that differentiate the workings of serial killers.

An organized killer: This killer is more dangerous because they are highly intelligent and capable of planning things out thus ensuring that their plans do not fall through by making planning out every detail. They leave no traces of their killings, and in some cases hide the body until they desire the body to be found. An organized killer will chose wisely their victim by watching them for days on end and once they decide the best option they follow their chosen victim for a long enough time to know when and how to attack. Some of these criminals have different tactics on how to get close enough to kill, some watch behind the scenes and wait for a chance to enter into the victims territory. Other killers try to literally get close to the victims by gaining their respect or a friendship to possibly be invited into their home this adds suspense which also gives them a higher satisfaction when committing the crime

An unorganized killer: This killer is impulsive and kills whenever they get a chance. They do not plan things out and usually do not take the time to cover up their tracks. Usually an impulsive and organized killer does not have a planned victim before hand they just kill, which is why they are constantly moving towns/cities. This killer simply is of low intelligence and does not think about what they are doing.

The brain of a serial killer is hard to understand but their are obvious difference between them and reasons as to why some are so hard to track down. The mind of a continuous killer is unsane, they are psychotic. Their are more possible psychopaths in even you're own city/town than you think.

Click here to find out what kind of serial killer you'd be?

sources:
http://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/types-of-serial-killers