John Wayne Gacy"The Clown Killer"

Ted Bundy

Ted Bundy was born on November 24, 1946.  He was born Theodore Robert Cowell.  Bundy’s biological father was absent his entire life. Bundy’s mother took Ted and moved to her parent’s house in Philadelphia shortly after his birth.  Bundy would later refer to his grandparents as mother and father.  He grew up referring to his actual mother as his older sister.  At the age of four Ted and his mother moved to Tacoma, Washington, to live with relatives. A year after the move to Washington, his mother married Johnnie Culpepper Bundy, whose last name Ted would use for the rest of his life. Ted’s mother and stepfather then had four other children which Bundy spent most of his after school time babysitting.  Bundy and his stepfather never really bonded, and in fact Ted never really took Johnnie as his father.  The only man Bundy ever really respected was his grandfather.  

Ted was often very shy in junior high and made fun of by bullies.  Stephen Michaud was quoted as saying this about Bundy: "No one noticed that he was different, not like other children. He looked and acted like them...But he was haunted by something else: a fear, a doubt --sometimes only a vague uneasiness -- that inhabited his mind with the subtlety of a cat. He felt it for years, but he didn't recognize it for what it was until much later. By then, the rip in his psyche had become the locus of a cold homicidal rage."

When Bundy was in high school he was remembered as being good looking and friendly but had very few dates.  This social awkwardness and fear of social situations followed him from high school into college. Bundy would later recall, "My social life was a big zero. I spent a great deal of time with myself. It was lonely for me...I didn't feel socially adept enough. I didn't feel I knew how to function with those people. I felt terribly uncomfortable."

        Bundy had a series low level jobs.  None of which he stayed at very long.  Bundy became involved with a woman while in college.  He became obsessed with her.  She eventually broke off all relations with him, and his obsession is what led to what made him kill.  Bundy confessed to 28 killings but its believe the real number to be anywhere from 33-100 girls.  His preference was women with shoulder length or longer brown hair parted down the middle.  Ted Bundy was executed January 24, 1989. The hundreds of people holding a vigil outside the prison held up signs such as "Burn Bundy Burn", and celebrated once news of his death was announced.

Edmund Kemper

Edmund Kemper was born to a mother who ridiculed him his entire life.  She constantly belittled him both on his physical appearance and “weirdo” personality.  Kemper was a boy who grew up to be a six-foot-nine-inch, three hundred pound behemoth.  Under these conditions he grew to show signs of extreme psychological disturbance in grade school.  When the other boys would be playing and pretending they were Superman or Davy Crockett, Edmund was pretending he was being executed in the gas chamber.  When someone had found out about a childhood crush on his second teacher, Edmund was asked teasingly why he didn’t kiss her.  Edmund then responded, “If I kiss her, I’d have to kill her first.”  This was an early expression of his growing belief that the only women he could count on were dead ones.  

        Kemper showed early signs of psychological problems leading to his life as a serial killer.  When he was a child he contented himself with dismembering his sister’s dolls, and after a while torturing the house pets.  He decapitated one family cat with a machete and buried another alive.  But by his early teens, he would have fantasies while masturbating of slaughtering everyone in town and having sex with their corpses.  

        Kemper’s first real kill at the age of 15, was his paternal grandparents.  Kemper shot his grandmother in the head with a .22 rifle before stabbing her repeatedly while she sat at the kitchen table.  After a short while when his grandfather returns from running errands Kemper shot him to death.  He then notified his mother and sat down and waited for the police.  When Kemper was asked about his motives he shrugged and said, “I just wondered how it would feel to shoot Grandma.” But the murder of his grandfather was an act of mercy: a way to spare the old man the pain of discovering what had happened to his wife.  

        Kemper was deemed a schizophrenic before the age of 16 and committed to a mental institution.  He spent a lot of time reminiscing about the serial rapists he had met on the ward.  After five years of being in the institution and against Kemper’s doctor’s wishes, Kemper was released into the custody of his abusive mother.  Kemper’s doctors feared that sending him back into the abusive atmosphere might trigger him into violent rages.  They were all too right.  Kemper killed 11 times after his release.  One of the victims being his mother with him he killed on Easter 1973 when he smashed in her skill, slit her throat, cut off her head, and raped her decapitated corpse.  Kemper fled, but realized he had nowhere to run and turned himself in.  Kemper offered a full and sickeningly detailed confession.  At his trial he was deemed legally sane and convicted of eight counts of murder.  He was sentenced to life in prison.

 There are ten traits of serial killers according to the International Association of Forensic Sciences.  They are:

1. Most are single white males.
2. They tend to be smart, with a mean IQ of “bright normal.”
3. Despite their intelligence, they do poorly in school, have spotty employment records, and generally end up as unskilled workers.
4. They come from deeply troubled families. Typically, they have been abandoned at an early age by their fathers and grow up in broken homes dominated by their mothers.
5. There is a long history of psychiatric problems, criminal behavior, and alcoholism in their families.
6. As children, they suffer significant abuse-sometimes psychological, sometimes physical, and often sexual.  Such brutal mistreatment instills them with profound feelings of humiliation and helplessness.
7. Because of their distant, absent, or abusive fathers, they have a great deal of trouble with male authority figures. Because their mothers dominated them, they have a powerful hostility toward women.
8. They manifest psychiatric problems at an early age and often spent time in institutions as children.
9. Because of their extreme social isolation and a general hatred of the world and everyone in it (including themselves), they often feel suicidal as teenagers.
10. They display a precocious and abiding interest in deviant sexuality and are obsessed with fetishism, voyeurism, and violent pornography.

All three killers had just about the same issues as listed.  Gacy was abused by his father both physically and emotionally.  While, Bundy was never really knew his father.  Kemper was raised with a dominating mother who berated him and constantly put him down.  All the killers were typical to the stereotype and all fit the profile in one-way or another.