i was watching a special on dahmer last night in which he said very early on he remembers feeling many strange feelings which led to him beginning to kill animals and later led to what we all know. however, he said, he was scared to let it all out and tell people because of how he'd be viewed. maybe it's society and how we view different people that almost forces people to do what they do.

But here's the thing...whether or not he was comfortable sharing his feelings with others doesn't change the fact that he had an urge to kill animals. So obviously, he was fucked up at a very young age and was mentally unstable.

ah, i see what you're getting at now. lemme think.

Has anyone seen the movie Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer?

i really think there is a major difference between a single and a serial killer.

i truly believe everyone is able to kill once. not condoning it what so ever. be it rage, confusion, drunkingness, being high, fear, whatever it is. Every single person can be in a situation where they will kill.

now when it comes to serial killers, there is a whole other thing going on. mental illness' and abuse being the main roots of this behavior being enacted.

Brenda Ann Spencer (born April 3, 1962 in San Diego, California, United States) wounded eight children and one police officer and killed Principal Burton Wragg, and head custodian Mike Suchar, in a shooting spree at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, on Monday, January 29, 1979.

The school was across the street from her house. She used the rifle she had recently been given for Christmas from her father. When the six-hour incident ended and the sixteen-year-old was asked why she had committed the crime, she shrugged and replied, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day." She also said: "I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun," "It was just like shooting ducks in a pond," and "(The children) looked like a herd of cows standing around, it was really easy pickings."

She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life, currently being served at The California Institution for Women in Corona. She has been eligible for parole four times and has been turned down each time, the last in 2005. Spencer will be eligible for parole again in 2009.

In 2005, she claimed that she was drunk and under the influence of PCP at the time of the shootings and also that her father, Walace Spencer, had sexually abused her as a child (a claim she did not make during the earlier years of her incarceration). She has also claimed that the state and her attorney conspired to hide her drug test results.

On 23 January 2006, the British broadcaster Channel 4 screened a documentary titled I Don't Like Mondays. It spoke to members of the Spencer family, including Brenda's father, who had never before spoken publicly about the events twenty-six years earlier. He denies being responsible for the shooting and says that he has absolutely no knowledge of the accusations his daughter made against him in 2005. To this day, he continues to visit her every Saturday afternoon, when possible.[citation needed]

Spencer's crime, lack of remorse, and inability to provide a serious explanation for her actions when captured inspired the song "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats, written by musician Bob Geldof.

I'd say that mental illness and the cycle of physical/sexual abuse are two of the main culprits. Violence in media might give people who are already prone to such behavior the impetus they need to commit such acts, but I don't think you take a normal kid and show them a Friday the 13th movie and they turn into a serial killer. That said, I do think exposing kids to too much violence at a young age might give them the incorrect assumption that such violence is a norm, and could contribute to violent behavior.

The Bath School disaster was a series of bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, USA, on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in second to sixth grades attending the Bath Consolidated School. The bombings constituted the deadliest act of mass murder in a school in U.S. history.

The perpetrator was school board member Andrew Kehoe, who was upset by a property tax that had been levied to fund the construction of the school building. He blamed the additional tax for financial hardships which led to foreclosure proceedings against his farm. These events apparently provoked Kehoe to plan his attack.

On the morning of May 18, Kehoe first killed his wife and then set his farm buildings on fire. As fire fighters arrived at the farm, an explosion devastated the north wing of the school building, killing many of the people inside. Kehoe used a detonator to ignite dynamite and hundreds of pounds of pyrotol which he had secretly planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers started gathering at the school, Kehoe drove up, stopped, and detonated a bomb inside his shrapnel-filled vehicle, killing himself, the school superintendent, and killing and injuring several others. During the rescue efforts, searchers discovered an additional 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol planted throughout the basement of the school's south wing.