What makes a serial killer? || The Guardian

J Oliver Conroy interviews Peter Vronsky, the author of a new book explores why some people become killers, and others don’t

What exactly is psychopathy?

The number one trait of a psychopath is a lack of empathy. Others are a tendency to lie, a need for thrills – psychopaths become bored very quickly – and narcissism. But the lack of empathy is the biggest thing.
One common explanation is that psychopaths experience some kind of trauma in early childhood – perhaps as early as their infant state – and as a consequence suppress their emotional response. They never learn the appropriate responses to trauma, and never develop other emotions, which is why they find it difficult to empathize with others.
They grow up not knowing how to “feel”, and learn instead how to manifest what they think are emotions or the correct appearances of emotion. They know the “mask” they should wear.
In the case of serial killers, that’s why there are individuals who can raise a family, be what most people would consider a good spouse and parent, and at the same time have secret second lives where they go out and kill strangers. They can compartmentalize.

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It seems like the more research there is on serial killers, the more we realize how little we know.

We are floundering. We are floundering in masses of information but very little knowledge coming out of that information. We seem to know less about serial killers now than we thought we did 20 years ago. We are only now realizing how little we know. That’s partly because the more serial killer case studies we aggregate, the less clear the patterns become. We are starting to see all these anomalies.

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