Should Serial Killers Be Executed or Studied

Theodore Bundy, John Wayne Gasey, Jeffrey Dahmer, Gary Leon Ridgeway (The Green River Killer), Dennis Rader (The BTK killer); these are but a few of the known serial killers that have been captured and most of them executed. Should they be executed or studied?

Ted Bundy met his date with the electric chair; but, he was allowed to get married and have conjugal visits which resulted in a child. A child should not be condemned, but one must ask the question, "are these genetic traits passed along"?

It took 20 years to catch Gary Leon Ridgeway, and he didn't know how many women he had killed; but, he plea bargained. The death penalty was taken off the table so that he would show investigators where the bodies were from other women he had killed the investigators knew nothing about. Ridgeway couldn't even remember the number himself. When asked by a psychiatrist what he thought made him different from other people, he said, "that caring thing".

The "Green River Squad" was so desperate to find Ridgeway; they flew to Florida to enlist the help of Ted Bundy in an effort to know what to look for. Bundy called the killer, "The River Man". The Green River Killer killed in the Seattle -Tacoma area of Washington State. That is where Bundy began his killing spree. Bundy's advice to the investigators was to find a fresh body and stake it out. He said the killer would return to the kill; to have sex with the dead body or to gloat over his power. Unfortunately, the investigators never found a fresh body...they were always decomposed. However; when they caught Ridgeway, he stated he would go back to the sight and have sex with the dead bodies, sometimes moving maggots out of the way.

Dahmer was killed in prison by another inmate. Gasey had 30 some odd boys buried beneath the floor space of his house. He was electrocuted. Should he have been studied? All the autopsies showed normal brains. There was not an area that could be called a killing zone.

Most of these killers had troubled childhoods, but not all. Many people have troubled childhoods, but don't become serial killers. How many killers are active now and we just don't know about it? The number would be scary.

I believe these killers should be kept alive with a life sentence and no chance for parole. They should be studied. There must be a common denominator that would help us predict and make it easier to find existing serial killers. Yes, they deserve death; but, what purpose does that serve humanity if we can hone in on the reason they don't care to kill. Most of the killers were motivated by grotesque sex acts. That alone is common. There must be more that we can learn from these animals that will save lives in the future.

Dennis Rader, the BTK killer was a promising member of society...a deacon at his church...an assistant with little league. Normal in every way if you excluded his deviated killings which seemed to be sexually motivated. He fit into society so very well, he was difficult to catch; and, when he was caught, his friends and associates were agasp.

What makes them tick? We have to find out. We must learn from these deviants. There must be a way to develop the ability to predict the killer before so many lives are lost to people with no conscience.