A Murderer in The Making

What Causes Someone to Become a Murderer? The minds of killers have forever fascinated people, leading to documentaries, books, podcasts, and more. It has been a long-standing hope to dissect and find the answer to the ever-popular question: “what makes a killer kill?” There has been a large debate on whether a person is born to kill, or if society conditions them to do so. The reality is it may lay somewhere in between.The concept of nature vs. nurture has been around for years, with supporting evidence from both sides.

Those who believe nature shapes how people interact with the social environment claim that biology sets a predetermined path based on genes and hereditary traits. This does not always effectively explain human behavior though. An analysis done on more than100 cases of twins separated via adoption showed 50% of their variance in antisocial tendencies was linked to genetics.

This leaves 50% to be unexplained by the natural stance.In the scenario of a murderer, it is typical to see traces of depression or other mental illnesses atplay.

However, not everyone who suffers from mental illnesses turn out to be a killer. The other side of the debate, nurture, views a person as a malleable subject, starting as ablank slate, that is affected by society and the conditions in which they live. This idea is that society and their environment can change how a person thinks, feels, and acts in the social system. Again, this does not account for the variety in personality, action, and development ofthose who live in similar social environments.

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Abusive childhoods are often linked to violent criminals like John Wayne Gacey and Charles Manson. Sadly, many grow up in abusive homes or poor environments, but the number of abuse cases is not equal to the number of murderers. In2014 there were over 207,000 cases of child maltreatment. The idea of nurture controlling a person would imply each neglected child has similar outcomes, however this is not true.

Many grow up to be functioning and respectable people. It is important to look at nature and nurture in combination when thinking of how people like Gacey, Manson or the Columbine shooters come to fruition. In the case of Columbine, bullying was brought to the media’s attention and how actions of others can cause a person to actout in violent ways. John Wayne Gacey suffered in an abusive household as a child, as did Manson. These factors alone did not make them killers, but was combined with their mental state and personalities to create a deadly outcome. Many grow up suffering from bullying or abuse,but the number of killers and shooters are relatively low in comparison.If neither nature or nurture act independently to create a person, it should then be assumed that they do not act independently to influence the use of violence in people. A combination of life events and biological factors work together to create a killer.

A person must have a biological drive for violence while simultaneously being exposed to an environment inwhich the person is encouraged to act through some form of stimulus. In the given examples it isa combination of biological traits and abuse or bullying. At the same time, an environment that provides an easy way to accomplish violent acts such as access to weapons, can encourage people to act more readily than others in an environment with little access.Nature and nurture are two concepts that become entangled together in human society,and it is truly difficult to separate them. They work together to form others by adding learned behaviors to the traits they were born with. Sometimes, the environment and the biological factors combine to make something complex and disturbing, but neither can function without the other.