Serial Killers: A Necessary Evil

Why is there evil in this world? Although you may have not directly thought about the wickedness of society, you react on it. You are precarious of caliginous streets when the only light in the sky is the moon, you stray from those who believe would cause you harm, and you sometimes lie about your age or address just to avoid injury. The reason you protect yourself from pain is because of people equivalent to H.H. Holmes and Jeffrey Dahmer. Serial killers are described as, “a person kills several victims of usually of a particular type, over a period of time with varying intervals in between, apparently without motive except for sexual or sadistic gratification (Dalal).” Serial killers may exist in different time periods or regions, and may have a different methods of killing, but ultimately, the core of each killer is the same. But, does the evil that exist in these people exist because of society, or are some inherently born evil? H.H. Holmes, or Herman W. Mudgett, was born to Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page Price May 16, 1861 in Gilmaton, New Hampshire and is often credited as America’s first documented serial killer (Plummer). Holmes was raised in a strict Methodist house with a distant mother and alcoholic father. With Holmes’ mother using religion as a tool for parenting and his father’s stringent chastening, his early life was not lacking in mental and physical abuse. When his father used barbaric tactics for punishment, Holmes often found sanctuary in the forest. It was in the isolation of wilderness where Holmes became interested with anatomizing animals. Holmes did not only face maltreatment in his home life, but at school as well; Holmes once said that the explanation for his curiosity in anatomy and later his interest in medicine was when his peers forced him into a doctor’s office and stroked a skeleton against his face (H.H Holmes Biography). In medical school, Holmes adored working with corpses refined techniques in both anatomy and chemistry. Holmes was involved in a scandal in medical school when he had burned and disfigured cadavers to seem as if they were killed in an accident. This incident led Holmes to move to Chicago, the city were several of his murders occurred. Holmes purchased a hotel in Chicago which he dubbed “The Castle” and became open to the public in 1893. During construction of the Castle, Holmes was constantly dismissing workers claiming that they were incompetent. As a consequence of different workers building the Castle, only Holmes truly knew what was being built. The first floor of the Castle were general stores, and the upper tiers contained rooms for guest. Although the Castle seems like a …show more content…
After being ‘booted’ from the military, Dahmer moved to Ohio where his crime deviation began. Dahmer’s first kill was a hitchhiker by the name of Stephen Hicks; Dahmer hit Hicks with a dumbbell and then buried Hick’s body in the backyard. Dahmer states that he had no recollection of the crime. It would be approximately nine years until Dahmer struck again, but the next time even more ruthless than before (“Jeffrey Dahmer”). Dahmer was known for killing males, even choosing a selected few at gay bars. One of Dahmer’s first victims in his murder spree was Steven Tourmi, whom he found at a gay bar dubbed Club 219. After going back to the Ambassador Hotel, Dahmer states that he could not recall the previous night’s events but that Tourmi was dead with blood flowing from his mouth. Dahmer then performed necrophilia on the corpse after bringing it back to his house. After sexual intercourse with the carcass, he dismembered the remains and threw them away. After this horrid murder, he served eight years due to exploitation of a child and second-degree assault. While in prison, Dahmer admitted to hating black people; it later came to light that Dahmer killed Anthony Sears, a black twenty-four year old male. He then decapitated the remains and proceeded to have sexual intercourse with Sears body. In total, Jefferey Dahmer killed sixteen people all male and in the fourteen to thirty-one age range. Dahmer mutilated, ate, posed, and had sex with his victim’s dead bodies and was apprehended for his heinous crimes July 24, 1991