My Analysis of the Psychology of Serial Killers

NBK, there are several people who think family life is a big influence on how we are when grown, were your father and mother together during your childhood?

Family life is a big influence, but I also believe the environment and even our genetic make-up can play a role in our physical and psychological development.

My mother and father were only together for about 15 months after I was born. They did not stay together because my mother did not want to be with him anymore. Apparently my father had been having some emotional problems and had attempted suicide on one occasion during their relationship. Sometime after the break-up he succeeded in killing himself.

How do you feel about your father's death?

Not having a father used to bother me a bit as a child because I would see other children with their dads and I knew that I could never be with mine. I knew my father had died, but it wasn't until sometime in my teenage years that I found out he had killed himself. That discovery also impacted me a little bit. I wouldn't say it impacted me a great deal though because I had already accepted his death by that stage.

What impacted me the most about my father's death was finding out that he cared more about me then my mother had told me he did. She made it seem like he never cared at all, but after contacting my Aunt, (my father's sister) in whom I hadn't seen since early childhood, I finally discovered he did love me and that my mother had prevented him from seeing me after she left him. From the discussions with my Aunt, it is my belief that the separation and him being unable to see me may have contributed to his resulting suicide.

I don't think about his death much anymore. I mean, there are days when I feel depressed and wished I had a father I could turn to, but I've had to learn to deal with most of my problems on my own, so it's not a real issue. I think my life may have turned out a little differently though if he was alive today.

Do you have any siblings? If so, how is your relationship to them?

I have two half-siblings who are both younger than me. My relationship with them is okay. I've always been fairly close to my brother, but my sister and I used to argue a lot when we were young. I believe my mother was the main cause of the friction between us. Although she'll never admit it, my mother had a tendency to play favorites and of course, I was always the one left out.

My relationship with my sister has improved over the years and although we rarely argue anymore, my brother and sister have developed a closer relationship with each other than they have with me. I've always been a loner, so it's never bothered me.

What was your family like while growing up and what type of education did you or your siblings receive?

My mother and I have never been able to bond. Even as a child I never really felt that much affection towards her. I mean, I did care about her because she was my mother and the only person in the world I could rely on to look after me, but she could also be abusive in that she would hit you and you'd wonder if she was ever going to stop. She was going through her own problems of course, with the abusive men she went out with, but I always blamed my mother the most for the abuse because I felt that she could have changed the way things were if she had really wanted to. I started to view my mother as a weak woman and I hated her for that. I hated her for the choices she made.

My sister is approximately 18 years younger than me and hadn't even been thought of when I was attending school. My brother and I attended public school during our younger years, but when it was time to attend high school, my brother was sent to a private school where my mother believed he would get a better education. I was left to attend the local, public high school.

I have always believed that public education is no worse than private education because academic achievement is really only based on how much the student is prepared to learn.

Anyway, according to my mother, a woman's education is not as important as a man's because a woman doesn't need a career. All she has to do is marry a man who can support her and she's set for life. Of course, my mother seems to have forgotten that times have changed and that, in this day and age, most women actually want a life outside of the family home.

My mother is now married to a reasonably wealthy man and still she works, so I can't help but question her beliefs at times. What I really think it comes down to is, my mother considers my brother's life more important than mine.

Were you or anyone in your family mentally or physically abused during your childhood or as you were growing up?

I would love to say there was no abuse while I was growing up but unfortunately, that would be a very big lie.

My mother suffered most of the abuse during my childhood due to the men she chose as boyfriend's. My brother's father was physically and verbally abusive and my sister's father was also abusive. He was verbally abusive for the most part, but he didn't just abuse mum, he became abusive towards my brother and I as well.

My mother was more physically abusive when we were younger in the sense that when we did something wrong, she would hit us continuously to the point where you would think she wasn't ever going to stop. I don't remember her hitting me as a child but I'll never forget the way she punished my brother once after I told her he was stealing money from the motel mum was managing at the time.

Initially I was pleased with myself for getting my brother into trouble, but when he kept yelling at her to stop and she just kept hitting him and hitting him, I couldn't stand listening any longer and I took off to hide somewhere. I must've got over that incident fairly quickly though because I don't remember being scared for long. My brother didn't get over it too quickly though. He started punching into me every time mum and her partner weren't at home. After awhile he got over his little hate session with me and everything went back to normal between us. Well, as normal as could be expected under the circumstances we were in anyway.

She also hit my little sister with a bat once - not very hard but hard enough to hurt and she hit her pretty bad for back answering on another occasion. I actually had to yell at her to stop.

My mother's abuse was physical for the most part when we were kids but as we got older, the hitting stopped and the emotional abuse started. At least for me anyway. My mother knows I'm not afraid to hit back now and I've told her that what she did when we were younger was child abuse. That didn't stop her from putting a pillow over my daughter's face once to stop her from crying though.

Obviously she didn't hold the pillow on for very long because my daughter is still alive, but in my opinion, it's not the kind of thing you should ever do to a young child, regardless of the circumstances and you can be damned sure I told her that. I believe the only reason I found out what she had done to my daughter is because she was worried my little sister, who was also in the room at the time, would tell me what happened. At least that is my presumption. I don't know for certain that is the reason why. All I really know for certain is my mother tells me things sometimes just to hurt me. So, who really knows if what she told me was even the truth.

My mother's emotional abuse has been ongoing for as long as I can remember. Sometimes I think she hates me just for being alive...

Were there ever any depression or other types of psychological problems within your family?

My father had emotional problems which I believe were related to depression and committed suicide as a result. I also suffer from bouts of depression and have been diagnosed with several personality disorders - Narcissistic, Antisocial, Schizoid and a mild touch of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder).

I am not sure if my brother or sister have any psychological problems but my daughter has ADD and learning difficulties that I am assuming are associated with the ADD. She has also been diagnosed in the past with Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

I couldn't tell you what's wrong with my mother as she's never been diagnosed, but I do know that when it comes to emotions, she's like a robot. No emotion whatsoever at times. I am like that at times as well, but that's only because I have shallow emotions and can dissociate from them at will. Sometimes though, I feel completely numb and what I should be feeling just isn't there.

I've been trying to self-diagnose in order to understand myself better and hopefully, improve my way of thinking and feeling but it's difficult to fix something when you don't really know what it is that's broken or if it's even broken at all.

If your father or mother were not around were you ever abused by other men or women in your life?

My sister's father was abusive towards me and at least one other man my mother went out with that I can remember, but my mother was usually around when it happened.

With mum working all the time and partying afterwards, my brother and I had our fair share of babysitters while growing up. I only remember one ever doing anything bad though and that was make us bath in hot water. The water wasn't hot enough to scald us permanently but it was hot enough to turn our skin red when we sat in the bath. Mum couldn't always afford a babysitter when she was single, so sometimes we were left alone while she went off to work.

I remember her leaving us in a playground once when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I can't remember exactly how old I was but I remember my brother was only 6 or 7 at the time. Mum didn't come back to pick us up until just on dusk. I kind of felt like we were always in her way and she was probably hoping somebody would pick us up before she got back.

If so, did you try to report them for the abuse and If you did, who to and what happened?

Nobody reported anything to anybody. Hell, mum didn't even report it when she was being abused.

What feelings did you have toward your family during your childhood?

I hated my mother for being weak. For not leaving the abusive relationships when they first became abusive and I hated her for running after each boyfriend hand and foot, like she was their goddamn slave or something. I also hated her for not treating me with the kind of love a mother is supposed to treat her child with.

Do you still have these feelings now? NBK, what is your relationship with your family?

My mother still has a tendency to make me feel like I don't matter. She told me once that I am a disappointment to her and she should never have had kids. So yeah, there's still some hatred there. I honestly feel like killing her at times but I care about her as well. The problem is, it's caring about her that makes me hate her so much.

Have you ever been in an abusive relationship?

My daughter's father abused me verbally for the most part in our relationship. When I was pregnant with our daughter he would threaten to throw me down stairs or kick me in the stomach and yet, it was him who decided we should have a family. I never took any of his threats seriously and even went so far as to call his bluff on one of them. Thankfully, he was all talk and no action. That changed though on the night he came home drunk from a party and accused me of cheating on him.

To make a long story short, the story he was told by a friend isn't what had really happened, but instead of asking me if it was true or not, he automatically accused me and began punching into my leg while I was laying on the bed with our ten month old daughter. I put her aside on the bed for fear she would get hurt and not long after that, he put his hands around my throat and attempted to strangle me. Considering he was standing beside the bed leaning over me and I was now laying on it, I was in a position to use my legs for defense, so I started kicking into him as hard as I could to make him stop and he eventually did. He started yelling at me again and all I could think to do was tell him everything he wanted to hear. Then after awhile he left and at that stage, I didn't know if I should pick my daughter up and hide somewhere or stay and hope to God he'd gone for the night. As it turned out, he must have felt guilty for hurting me because, according to what the police told me later, he went out to a phone box and called the cops on himself.

If so are you still in that relationship now or did you take action to get out? If so, how did you do it?

The police organized for my daughter and I to stay in a woman's refuge and we stayed there overnight. I rang mum next morning and told her the situation (no surprise to her of course) and asked if I could move back home for awhile. She wasn't exactly keen on the idea but agreed to it anyway. So, a friend helped me pack my gear while my boyfriend was at work and we left, never to return. Mind you, after explaining to my mother what had happened, she told me I probably provoked him. I can easily say that hurt a lot more than being beaten and strangled by an angry man!

My daughter's father and I had another fight on her first birthday - he spent her birthday money on the races, but that's the last time I ever saw him.

So NBK, in reading your web site and blogs you admit to having homicidal fantasies, how did these fantasies start?

I was 16 when the fantasies started and they were based purely on family at that stage. I thought that if I killed my family all my problems would disappear. After doing some research, reading true crime books etc., I soon realized how easily I could become a suspect. So, I never did kill my family.

I think what really started them was hatred and my own sadistic desires. I hated my life. I was being teased at school and abused at home and all I wanted to do was let loose. Killing people just seemed like the only thing in my life that made any sense.

Do you think that your childhood contributed to these thoughts and If so, why?

I do believe my childhood contributed to these homicidal fantasies but I also believe there are other contributing factors as well. I think, in some way, I familiarized myself with my mother's boyfriends because I always saw them as the ones with the power and my mother as weak. I am also a sadist and have been for as long as I can remember. I've used my brother as a guinea pig on several occasions [grin], and I've physically hurt other people during S&M. I found that it releases built-up tension and aggression and so, I used S&M as an outlet, but even that isn't completely satisfying.

I also had a fascination with pain and death when I was younger, but I'm not exactly sure why. As a child I would kill insects just to watch them die and when I got older, I used to hunt roo (kangaroo) with my sister's father. I found that enjoyable. I would love to go hunting again, given the opportunity. I also abused and killed some of my own pets when I left home, but that was mostly due to irresponsibility and anger. I don't abuse or kill my pets anymore. Besides, if I ever did, my daughter would hate me for it.

I suspect that falling off a race horse and landing on my head may have contributed to these homicidal fantasies as well. At the time, I blacked out temporarily and actually saw stars. I read somewhere that most serial killers suffered a head injury at one stage or another in their life, so I've been wondering if that's partly the cause of my own homicidal urges.

What was your first homicidal fantasy about?

My first ever homicidal fantasy involved killing my family. I imagined tying them all up at gun point in the lounge room and then I would set the house on fire, burning them all to death. The funny thing is, the house actually did catch fire one night while my mother and sister were asleep inside. My mother awoke to the smell of smoke and noticed that the laundry door had smoke pouring in around the edges. She called the fire station, took my sister out of the house and the fire was eventually put out. After investigating the room in which the fire had originally started, it was believed that the clothes dryer may have been the cause of it. At one stage I was told that an old gas bottle may have exploded, so I'm not sure which one they believe it was. All I do know for certain is I didn't start the fire because I have an alibi. I was in town at the time getting drunk and stoned with a couple of guys I knew.

Did you ever attempt to fulfill this fantasy?

No, I never did attempt to fulfill the fantasy because I knew I would never get away with it.

Do you believe that you could or would ever fulfill these fantasies? Why or Why not?

I am certainly capable of fulfilling these fantasies. I have a conscience but I can also dissociate from my emotions (just like turning on and off a switch in my head - something I learned from childhood). But to say whether I will or not in the future is a whole other story. The fear of losing my child is enough of a deterrant to stop me from doing it... But who's to say it will always be that way. Even I can't tell you that.

Because you do have a daughter do you ever see any of these same signs in your child? If so what and how do you control them?

My daughter is like me in a lot of ways. She's dominant and aggressive. She's not afraid to fight back when hit and will assert herself in most situations. She is also as strong-headed as I am and likes to push the boundaries. She once threatened to stab me with my knife when she was 8 years old because she'd been naughty and I refused to let her go outside to play. She didn't pick up the knife at the time, so although I was a little shocked, I wasn't worried at all. My only concern was that, as she gets older, she may get the confidence to do so one day.

She also told me once that she wanted to blow up the bookstore we were in because she was bored and frustrated waiting for me to finish what I was doing. I actually found that amusing. I imagined her sitting outside the shop with a miners helmet on and her hands on the handle of one of those big old-fashioned detonators, ready to push down. Don't ask me why I found that funny, but I did.

Truth is, my daughter is a good kid for the most part. Her behavior has improved over the last couple of years. She's not as defiant as she used to be and I feel that her aggression is beginning to settle down as well. She can still be aggressive but it's more controlled these days.

I've had this fantasy of turning my daughter into a serial killer, trained by me of course. So, in a way, I'm actually thrilled that she has an aggressive streak, but on the other hand, If I were to actually train her to become a killer (through psychological and physical conditioning), I may have to start locking my door when I go to bed at night, lol. Thus the reason why I believe that kind of fantasy is best left as fantasy.

What do you think leads so many to break and become murderers and eventually, serial killers? What keeps you from doing the same?

When you are made to feel insignificant and powerless as a child, it is easy to understand why that same child would grow up craving power and control. That kind of power can make you feel like a God. I know what it's like to crave that kind of power because I crave it myself. I believe this is the case for most serial killers. It can take real motivation though to step over the line, especially when you know your freedom and all that you care about is at risk if you do.

I think most serial killers started killing because they either believed they would get away with it or they acted without really thinking about the consequences and discovered they could get away with it. Thus the reason why they kill a second time. By the third time they probably feel immortal or think the cops are too stupid to catch them.

Murder can also become an addiction, an insatiable hunger. The desire to fulfill that kind of hunger can be a strong motivation in itself. There are serial killers who find it hard to stop killing because they have become addicted to murder. In a way, that is also my problem except that my addiction are the fantasies associating murder.

I believe I am as capable of getting away with murder as anybody else who has thought about it but I discovered during S&M once just how easily I can lose control and it's this fear of losing control that has prevented me from giving in to my urges. I know that if I start killing I may not be able to stop myself and if that happens, the chance of capture increases along with the chance of losing my child. There have been times though where I almost think it would be worth it just to release the rage I feel inside (especially when my mother angers me), but then I look at my daughter and realize that no amount of killing would be worth losing her.

If there is anything else that you would like to say or add please do so at this time.

To anyone who has thought about killing someone, look at what you cherish the most and ask yourself if it's worth losing...