Ted Bundy
If you haven’t already read the blog on socio and psychopathy, that is a good preliminary read to this one
Ted Bundy was one of the most famous psychotic sociopaths in criminal history. But why? What did he do? Who was he? How did he become the person he was on death row in 1989? Born in 1946, Vermont, Theodore Robert Bundy. He appeared to have grown up in a happy, middle-class family. His mother loved him, but he had a strained relationship with his stepfather. Although his mother said his father was a war veteran who left her after her pregnancy, Bundy's father remains unknown. For a time, there was speculation that Ted was a product of incest, these were quickly shut down. Ted was lied to and told that his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister for the better part of his childhood. Stories vary as to how he discovered the truth. When Bundy realised he was lied to as a child, a feeling of betrayal festered in him. One that could eat anyone up from the inside. Bundy had a long standing affinity for knives. Abuse by his grandfather and depression by his grandmother were later discovered which may have been causes for this.
Bundy later claimed in an interview his childhood was uneventful, but investigation led to the opposite. His shyness made him an easy target for bullies, which may have caused his deep-rooted trauma and unhealthy tendencies. Despite a troubled childhood, Theodore went to college and graduated in psychology, almost ironically.
He began his dark days in 1974 when he sexually assaulted and raped several younger women in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Florida. He also enjoyed being cruel to animals. He stopped assaulting in 1978. All pointing to evidence that he actually gets off on violence. Regardless, He confessed to 28 women's deaths one year later, but many suspect he killed more. He died in 1989. Bundy never regretted anything. As an extreme narcissist, he couldn't have felt better about his five minutes of fame, depicting his inhumanity and twisted mind in ways we can't even bear to imagine.
Jeffrey Dahmer
If you haven’t already read the blog on socio and psychopathy, that is a good preliminary read to this one
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer. The Milwaukee Cannibal. The male sex offender that dismembered all his victims. Dahmer grew up with an attention seeking and greedy mother, and many say was deprived of good attention and care from very early in life. Already laying the basis for his absolute psychoticism. Dahmer’s father was never home and his mother was depressed. She tried to commit suicide using Equanil while Dahmer was a child.
From a young age, Dahmer became fascinated with dead animals, not unlike Ted Bundy’s affinity for knives. Seeing a trend? Dahmer quickly grew curious with bones and was oddly fascinated with them, according to his father. He began to collect the bones of smaller animals and even went as far as to ask questions about how bones would react when placed in bleach. From there he only went downward, collecting roadkill and other dead animals. He even dismembered a dog in 1975 and pranked his friends using it. Dahmer’s mother remained depressed during this time. It is painfully clear that Dahmer had some form of a screwed up childhood. It helps to tell us that an abusive home is not a requirement for a child to have issues mentally, but rather a number of factors including both deprivation of attention and abusive parents. As Dahmer continued to grow, he found he was gay and became eerily fascinated with chests, dissecting them in particular. This led to his first time attempting to attack a man, although he failed, it set boundaries for him to reach and cross (no matter how bad and sociopathic they were).
Throughout his teenage years, he became addicted to alcohol and was often inebriated. Later, in 1978, Dahmer’s parents divorced. Jeffrey Dahmer had to live a hard childhood, watching his parents struggle with their marriage, his mother try to kill herself, all while being deprived of attention (and quite possibly, love). It led him to do bad, think worse and feel unloved. He murdered his first man in his 20’s. And from there, the motivation behind his choices are plain to see. He joined the army, he came back, he continued in his alcoholic ways, raped and killed a man, and his following murders and convictions followed solely from that point. Jeff Dahmer and Ted Bundy shouldn’t be judged as people rotten from the very beginning, they should be known and seen as people who were dealt bad cards and did what they saw fit after hard lives and childhoods lived.