Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Hey, composition of the killer fans, Doctor Cassidy. Here today we're going
to continue our study of the Master'sthesis the development of a serial killer.
As always, anything that we discussedin this podcast is not to be considered
a clinical diagnosis, all right,So let's dive in. This is part
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three. If you haven't listened tothe last two, you might want to
listen to those first, and itwould just make more sense if you listen
to it sequentially. So we endedthe last one talking about how fantasy can
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be a large play a large rolein some of these you know, serial
killers, and he continues to saythat eventually the fantasy is not enough to
fulfill the need. That's when serialkillers mature from their remote fantasies. Their
fantasies become a cognitive stage and groundfor actual crimes. Some fantasies include a
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cognitive rehearsal for sexual murder, butbecause of its constant repetition, the fantasy's
cognitive rehearsal power diminishes, and thatis when an individual seeks to act on
them. In other words, it'sthe same, it's exactly the same when
you're talking about children that need stimulus, you know, they certain things will
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be exciting to them for a while, and then as when the new wears
off, they have to get somethingelse that's just as exciting. Adults do
that too, and of course thisis a good example the you know fantasies.
A lot of people that have violentthat are violent offenders that deal with
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like pornography. They'll start out withjust very vanilla pornography and then work their
way up to, you know,really horrific pornography that has a lot of
violence in it. Sometimes there's snuffpornography where someone actually dies, and of
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course they're illegal, but that doesn'tmatter. Just because something's illegal doesn't mean
someone's not gonna do it right.And usually when you have a serial killer
who has this kind of personality,they're gonna get it. They're going to
get their their fix, no matterwhat it costs. And so in this
context we're talking about lives, humanlives. So they get to the point
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where the fantasy is not really doingit for them anymore, and then they
actually seek out a medium for themto actually play out their fantasy. Some
fantasies include a cognitive rehearsal for sexualmurder, but because of its constant repetition
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the fantasies. I've just read thatthe fantasy's cognitive rehearsal power diminishes, and
that just wanted an individual six toact on them. For those who have
an impaired prefernal cortex and experience suchfantastic fantasies repeatedly, it becomes additionally difficult
to control behaviors, and acting upontheir fantasies seems like an easy way out.
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Wrestler Burgess and Douglas suggested that fantasycan be a contributing factor leading to
serial killers serial killing. Moreover,if the victim does not cooperate enough or
the criminal life is hindered because ofunanticipated circumstances, the serial killers fantasy is
unsatisfied, leading him or her todevelop new and more violent fantasies in order
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to reach the same level of satisfaction. Miller says, perhaps some of us
have secret fantasies that resemble those ofmurders. Retain control of our actual behavior
and remain law abiding members of society, whereas our involvement in such mayhem begins
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and ends at the level of fantasy. The perpetrator of serial killing or serial
murder or serial homicide. Those arethe most common terms. Goes further,
for the serial killer, such fantasiesare not cathartic, but facilitative the first
step, not the last. Hisfantasies build along with a neuropsycho dynamically driven
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hunger that only the orgastic release oftorturing and murdering another human being will provide
what most people. Typically men mayconstitute, a momentary journey into cruelty during
the heat of battle, as forexample, in military service, becomes for
the serial killer his life's guiding purposeand mission. That is why he's so
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relentless. That is why he willalways continue to kill until he is dead
or securely confined. Now, thisparticular study is seeking to determine reasons as
to why a person would engage incommitting multiple murders. Many aspects from the
lives of the perpetrators have been studied. However, the worldview that portrays a
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serial killer as being a white male, an evil monster with an unusual appearance,
having dysfunctional relationships, engaging in animaltorture, or being sexually or physically
abused in childhood, and therefore statisticallykilling for sexual gratification should be challenged and
he we repeat this. This isthis is repetitious of the first part of
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this master's thesis. You know,we have a we have this preconceived idea
of serial killers, and we areso wrong on so many levels most of
the time. So it you know, for us to look outside of those
characteristics that we we deem as thisis what's common. You know, we
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really have to think about it,and we really have to in order for
us to learn enough to protect ourselves, protect our children, we have to
kind of think outside the box.And that's what this that's what this guy,
this gentleman did with this master's thesis. He really looked at multiple theories,
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lots of expert opinion, and useda lot of resources to come up
with with these different opinions that hehas throughout the article. As contemporary research
shows, serial murderers do not alwaysencompass the aforementioned traits or behaviors. Levin
and Fox further point out that warningsigns for most serial killers are not evident
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and that most serial killers can goand detected. On the other hand,
McDonald proposed a triad which suggests crueltyto animals, fire setting, and recurrent
bedwetting or a neurosister in childhood.Now, this is the McDonald triad that
we talk about. I talk aboutin many, many of our different podcasts.
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I bring up the McDonald triade.You know, there's a lot of
truth to the triad and it isa part of a lot of a larger
set of characteristics from McDonald, Butthe triad is the most popular. And
we tend to say if we havechildren who are cruel to animals, have
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issues with setting fires, and ourrecurrent bedwetters even into teenage years, those
are like red flags, and wealso can determine that it's a visible warning
that the child is facing significant stress. So in the early childhood, when
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we're looking at children, we're observingchildren and trying to figure out what's the
catalyst behind certain behaviors. Our observationsare more powerful than anything else. So
to be able to sit and watchchildren and determine over a pretty lengthy amount
of time that we have to watchthem and see what it is that's going
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on, ask questions, figure outwhat their environment is at home, what
is it that is the trigger,and how can we what can we put
into place as an intervention to stopthis from happening, prevent it from happening.
And we don't want to forget it'snot just the act of stopping it,
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it's the act of preventing it inthe future. We don't want to
have to stop a behavior and haveto continue that same process every single day.
We want to stop whatever that behavioris and then try to figure out
how to prevent it. And Iwould rather use preventative measures as what we
call band aid interventions that don't reallywork. If we don't address the root
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cause of what is going on withthese children, then when we're not around,
who's going to do that? Who'sgoing to interfere and say, you
know, this isn't how we actat school, or this isn't how we
treat our family. Let's think aboutLet's think about what's going on. Why
are you upset? Who upset you? What did they do, or what
has happened that's causing you to dothis. If we don't find the root
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cause, we're just repetitively, youknow, reacting to the situation, and
we really need to be proactive andprevent it. Hickey suggested that not all
children can face stress and indulge inthese maladaptive behaviors go on to become serial
killers. So true, no,they don't, you know, statistically there's
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very few that become serial killers,but yet we have them. But such
behaviors have been noted in the childhoodsof recognized serial killers, whether it be
and others suggested that the McDonald triadbe connsidered as cautionary signs to parents,
teachers, and other authority figures indicatingand need to help children presenting such behaviors.
And certainly, if I am toldabout a child who is demonstrating these
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three characteristics then or three behaviors,then I'm going to want to address those,
but also see what else is goingon. You typically don't have just
these three things. There's usually someanti social behavior, you know, psychotic
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behavior. You know, even inour youngest children, we see these kind
of really out of control situations,and those are huge red flags. I
mean, these children need our attentionand they need our interventions, and so
I think the use of things likethem mcgond will try checklists like the ACES
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behavior you know, studies on childrenare absolutely essential for us to be able
to prevent and stop, prevent andstop the development of serial killers. So
Borguson and Koonel pointed out that thecurrent topologies being used by criminologists are based
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on limited data and sample size,which serves as a limitation to form theories
and generalize findings to larger criminal populations. And what that means. If you've
never heard of a limitation in astudy, I'm putting on chapstick. A
limitation is something that you identify inour research project. This is why this
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is limiting. You know, wewant to know these things, but here's
what could prevent us from finding outall that we want to know. Whether
it be not being able to getaccess into a child's home, not being
able to see what their home environmentlooks like. That limits your ability to
give a thorough and well informed decisionon that child. So there's a limitation
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in research as well. You know, there's a limited data and sample size
with a lot of these typologies,So that's a limitation. Does that really
can you really generalize that information tothe entire population? You can't. You
can't. We just know that theseare red flags. These are you know,
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generalized findings, but certainly not findingsthat you would say, yep,
this fits the mold for every singleperson out there who has potential or who
is a serial killer. Using thesame strategies, theories, and reasoning to
investigate serial offenders limits lawn voice enforcementof officials and researchers way of looking at
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this phenomenon. Because of the aforementionedreason, Borguson and Koonel suggested that researchers
treat such topologies, theories, andhypotheses as tools and not definitive facts when
attempting to understand a serial offender's behavior. Likewise, Latent and Scrapic suggested researchers
should approach with open minds while searchingfor knowledge relating to this phenomenon without preconceived
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assumptions or hypothesis, which is whatwe started out this study, and the
first segment of this I had said, you know, we want to go
into this very unbiased. We don'twant to use our inherent biases in this.
We want to be able to lookat things without any kind of filter
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and be very open minded about it. And that's what they're saying here.
We should approach with open minds whilesearching for knowledge relating to this phenomenon without
preconceived assumptions and hypotheses. Furthermore,every serial killer's drive to kill multiple victims
may be unique, dependent on hisor her history and experiences, and is
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therefore difficult to quantify. Any determinationof the motives of these killers should be
concluded from an examination of observable behavior. This is not different than the observations
that we do in schools. Wehave to figure out what those motives are,
and we typically get the best,most accurate information observing their behavior and
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then really trying to break down whatis catalyst of that behavior. In other
words, this topic of study iswell suited to you to the use of
qualitative methods, which focus on drawinginductive conclusions from the analysis of data and
emphasize the meaning of behaviors for eachindividual. The present qualitative study attempted to
understand serial killing with a thorough analysisof the lives and behaviors of a small
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number of killers. So that's thisis what he's introducing. This is my
limitations. I'm wanting to understand.I'm going to use my qualitative data.
Remember, qualitative is quality, Quantitativeis quantity, and qualitative is like interviews
observations, whereas quantitative quantitative is numbers, statistics. Those type of things,
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and you can have mixed methods,which is, you know, that's that's
what I'm very familiar with, becausethat's what my dissertation was. It was
a mixed methods theory. So he'sbasically telling us he's using limited information on
a small number of killers. Weknow that there's three, and his conclusions
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are going to be based on this, just this information. The aim of
the current study was to compare detailedand descriptive accounts from the law of three
serial killers without keeping in mind assumptionsand hypotheses, in order to find possible
commonalities or differences between them as aroute to identifying possible life events leading to
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a serial killing. Starting from scratchallowed the data to speak for itself,
which you know, that's another wayof him saying, you know, I
started from scratch. I didn't takeany preconceived notions with me. I started
this very fresh, very new,so that the data would speak for itself.
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And if you have good data,it does speak for itself. If
you have really good data. Youknow, gosh, data is so powerful
if it's done correctly and if it'sutilized. You know, once it's collected
and analyzed, it's so powerful.And there's so many parts of our lives
that are affected by this type ofstudy that we just aren't even aware of.
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So the grounded theory method is withthe qualitative research approach. The grounded
theory method was used to generate ananalyzed data. The term grounded theory incorporates
two interconnected meanings. It firstly refersto a type of theory that emerges from,
or is grounded in inspection, ananalysis of a complex amount of qualitative
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data. So they're looking at datathat's already in existence. They're looking at
books that have been written, they'relooking at medical reports, they're looking at
court papers, interviews, all thosetype of things. Secondly, it denotes
a method of analysis first developed bysociologists Glacier and Strauss in sixty seven,
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which was further developed and adopted byresearchers from an array of social science sciences
disciplines. Because of its theory buildingtechnique, grounded theory has gained a contemporary,
widespread appeal. According to Sharmaz,the grounded theory method assembles sociological reality
by conceptualizing and analyzing the constructed data. Grounded theorists analyze data gathered early in
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the data collection process. Unlike mosttraditional approaches that derive their hypothesis from existing
theories, grounded theorists, being continuouslyinvolved in data collection, use the emerging
theoretical categories to shape data collection,thus studying analytical categories established while studying the
data. Because of grounded theorists continualinvolvement in data collection, they may face
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the need to follow up on recurringthemes, which may lead them in unanticipated
directions. And you'll see the theproduct of this type of study would be
when you're looking for when it talksabout, they may face the need to
follow up on recurring themes. Whenyou collect qualitative data, you have to
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look for a common theme. Whatare the common words that people are using
in these interviews, What are thecommon actions that we are seeing among these
three killers? And can we whenwe draw those out, you know,
we can develop a theme. What'sthe overarching theme. That's what McDonald did.
He basically took all this data,all the data that had been you
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know, collected thus far. Hetook all of it and looked for recurring
themes and behaviors, and those,you know, top three were bed wedding,
cruelty to animals, and starting firesas your top three. So that's
what you're doing in qualitative data analysis, you know and grounded theory. For
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the purpose of the present study,descriptive accounts of offenders' lives their childhood,
youth, and adulthood were examined examinedto determine potential theoretical categories, which were
used to analyze relationships between the keycategories. This process integrated theories regarding possible
ideologies of the serial killing behavior.This was achieved by opening an open by
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keeping an open approach towards data collection, considering information from previous literature, but
not assuming the same. So eventhough some of this material that he used
was part of a research on adifferent theory, he did not accept the
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theory. He just used the data. He may come to the same conclusion
that he's not going to make thatgeneral assumption. The process integrated theories regarding
possible ideologies of the serial killing behavior, and this was achieved by keeping an
open approach towards data collection, consideringinformation for previous literature, but not assuming
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the same as the population being studiedwas either dangerous, deceased, or incarcerated.
A major way to collect data wasfrom publicly available information, and what
would be some publicly available information.Can you think of things, certainly biographies
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that were written about someone, youwould want to make sure that the sources
were very good, reliable sources inthose books. I would want to see
medical records. I would want tosee psychiatrist reports, any kind of any
kind of clinical diagnosis. All thosereports I would want to see. I
would also want to see court records, if you could get details of the
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crimes. The more information the better, right, the more detailed the better.
And sometimes that stuff's really hard toread, really hard to see.
But if you're really if you reallywant to dive into the information and make
some discoveries, you really have toface that some of it's very difficult to
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read or see. Pictures are horrible. So the method that he used he
did thorough search on Google by typingsuch terms as serial killers, famous serial
killers in America, famous serial killersall over the world, and so on.
This generated a list of forty eightkillers from all over the world,
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including serial killers, cannibalistic serial killers, cannibals with a single victim, people
indulging in cultural cannibalism, and peoplewho ate and or served their own flesh.
From this list, the authors selectedMillie Kate is with us, so
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she's trying to get to a magnet. Stop it. From this list,
he selected three killers who were themost famous, prominent, and had rich
data of available, who had akilled multiple victims as per the aforementioned definition
of serial killers. B were arrestedin English speaking countries, and c did
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not participate in cannibalism. So that'shis reasoning for not picking someone like Bundy.
He really just he stuck to thosewho had a rich data available,
who had killed multiple victims, whowere arrested in English speaking countries and did
not participate in cannibalism. And hecame up with Gary Leon Ridgeway, which
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we know as the Green River Killer, Richard Ramirez who killed thirteen people in
Los Angeles and San Francisco, andin Ted Bundy, American serial killer who
killed twenty to thirty young women inUtah, Colorado, and Florida. He
has some details about their offense.There's plenty, plenty more but of him
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information, but he's narrowed it down, he's summarized it. Gary Ridgeway was
an American serial killer known as theGreen River Killer. He was convicted of
murdering forty eight maybe forty nine youngfemale prostitutes and runaways in Washington State between
nineteen eighty two and nineteen ninety eight. Sheltering immense rage toward women, Ridgway
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unleashed his serial killing career on prostitutes. Most times he choked and strangled prostitutes
with his bare hands or with thehelp of items like an extension cord or
a towel. He killed them whenhe was close to ejaculating or in the
middle of having sex with them,thus making him ejaculate. His murder sites
include his house, truck, motels, and outdoor areas like forests. After
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dumping victims, he went back tothe sites to engage in necrophilia, which
of course is having sex with deadbodies. He is one of the he
is in his typology. It's sexuallymotivated, but it's also motivated by power.
You know, he got off onthe keel and you know, continued
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to go back and try to relivethat when he was engaging in necrophilia.
Richard Ramirez he was an American serialkiller who killed thirteen people in Los Angeles
and San Francisco with an aim toburglarize homes. Ramirez also spread fear through
his sexually sadistic violent murders. Hewas a Satan worshiper, and he killed
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his victims women, men, andchildren in the late hours of night or
right before sunrise. He first murderedthe men or boyfriends, raped the women,
sometimes made their children see his sexuallysadistic acts, and at times he
also molested children. His methods includedstabbing, beating to death, or shooting
the victims. After his murders,he would ransack his victims' homes and sometimes
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draw the sign of Satan's pentagram andthen run away. He was he if
you recall from the first podcast,the first of the series, he was
one of those that the press absolutelyloved because he wasn't necessarily a bad looking
guy. He wasn't bad looking perse, and women just flocked to him.
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I mean he up until he diedin prison, he was getting hundreds
of letters a day from women wantingto have a relationship with him. And
I mean, the psychology of thatis just crazy. Why women pursue that.
I'm sure men do that too,but overwhelmingly it's women. I mean
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that the trials his trials were andhearings. Women were, you know,
standing room only lines outside the door. It's crazy, even though they knew
he was a Satan worshiper, ahorrific, sadistic, violent murderer who killed
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and molested children, and they werestill attracted to him. So I think
those people, that's a whole notherconversation. Ted Bundy. He was born
Theodore Robert Cowell. He was anAmerican serial killer who killed twenty to thirty
young women in Utah, Colorado,and Florida between seventy three and seventy four
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and then seventy eight, whether atuniversity campuses, parking lots, or the
Lake Samamish State Park. Bundy adoptedan interactive way to kidnap his victims.
He would fake a fractured armor legand then ask for his assistance with his
boat or his books or dress,and adopt a persona of an authority figure.
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He would then knock his victim unconsciousand drive her into the wilderness to
be raped, sodomized, and strangled. And he did that his last you
know, of course, he wasvery active from seventy three to seventy four,
and then we see four years laterin seventy eight he became active again.
That's when he escaped from jail andwent on that rampage where he went
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into the girl's sorority house and killedI think five five young women in their
beds. There was one that survived, So, you know, he was
active for one full year, thenwent kind of dormant, and then was
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arrested, you know, for allthese other murders and then talked you know,
basically took an opportunity to escape,jumping out a two story window at
the courthouse. Very opportunistic individual.He didn't let manything slide by him.
So data collection as much as possible, all the available information about each of
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the three killers was accumulated. Hesaid that he found the majority of the
information from books written about each serialkiller. And these books included their taped,
transcribed and or summarized interviews, partsof trial transcripts which the authors attended,
and secondary information with people who knewthe serial killers. And these are
very rich sources of information. Thetrial transcripts from people who were actually in
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attendance, that is usually incredibly goodinformation. And if you can get multiple
people that were at the same trial, you typically get a couple of different
perspectives, because no matter how hardwe try, we always have a bias.
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We always have some inherent bias,and it affects the way we write,
it affects the way we talk,it affects our opinions. And so
if you can get multiple different peoplewho were in that same trial or same
court hearing or whatever, you're goingto get a much broader picture of what
actually happened. Primary sources. Althougha variety of sources were consulted as data,
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several sources were particularly valuable. Keppeland Burns is how is about how
Ted Bundy offered to help Keppel ininvestigating and finding Gary Ridgeway, the Green
River Killer. Robert Keppel was thechief criminal investigator for the Washington State Attorney
General's Office. Keppel has been aninvestigator and or consultant to more than two
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thousand murder cases and over fifty serialmurder investigations, so I think we could
easily say he's an expert. Keppelwas responsible for investigating and catching Ted Bundy,
and he successfully did so. Whenin nineteen eighty two, the hunt
for the Green River Killer began,Bundy wrote from death row to offer his
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help in Catching the Killer. Thebook report's interviews with Bundy, where Bundy
was educating Kepel to understand serial killers, and on the other hand, Keppel
was trying to confessions from Bundy.And you know, that's one of a
lot of people who worked with Bundyor who dealt with Bundy said it was
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such a shame that he did not. The judge actually said this during his
during his sentencing, that it wasa shame that he had used all of
his knowledge for these bad things,because he was so talented and so intelligent.
I mean, he was going tobe an attorney. He studied law
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and was very successful up until thatpoint. So it's, you know,
it is a shame. It's ashame that somebody who has such potential to
do great things had had this penchantto be a serial killer. Mishad and
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Ainsworth is based on more than onehundred and fifty hours of tape recorded interviews
with Ted Bundy while on death row. With the help of the taped interviews,
the book outlines the process of Bundy'surges to his sexually sadistic serial murders.
Michalde was a journalist and staff editorand reporter for Newsweek and BusinessWeek magazines.
Ainsworth was an investigative reporter for ABC'stwenty twenty, a bureau chief for
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Newsweek, and an editor for dailynewspapers such as The Dallas Morning News in
Dallas Thimes Herald. The contents ofMichald and Ainsworth's interviews with Bundy helped break
Kepl's barriers to gain a confession.Mishad and Ainsworth further explored Bundy's life with
the tape recorder interviews with Bundy wellon death Row. That's some very good,
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I mean excellent resources. Line Deeckeris an account of Ramirez's thievery,
rape, torture, and murders.Information in this book comes from interviews and
official police and court records, andthe book is based on and starts from
his childhood in El Paso to hiscrimes in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
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The author, Clifford Line, wasa former daily newspaper journalist and an investigative
reporter with eighteen years of experience atthe Philadelphia Choirer, Rochester Times Union,
Fort Wayne New Sentinel, and severalother Indiana newspapers. Carlo describes Jramirez his
childhood in El Paso to his crimesin San Francisco and Los Angeles. This
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book is based on nearly one hundredhours of interviews with Richard Ramirez while he
was on death row. The author, Philip Carlow, was an American journalist
and a best selling biographer for ThomasPetera, Richard Kuklinsky, and Anthony Kaeso
and Richard Ramirez. Rule in twothousand four outlines the two decades of intense
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investigations to catch Gary Ridgeway. Thisbook includes information from official police records,
transcripts, photographs, and maps.And Rule did not know Ridgeway, but
apparently knew her and attended her booksignings. Former police officer and a Savilian
advisor to the Violent Criminal Apprehension ProgramTask Force, and Rule presents and validates
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a comprehensible account of the hunt andinvestigation of Gary Ridgeway. Prothero and Smith
is an account by Ridgeway's co leaddefense attorney, Mark Prothero, who spent
years representing Ridgeway. Smith is anaward winning journalist who contributed as an investigative
reporter on the Green River murder case. Information in this book was obtained from
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various interviews, transcripts, and theauthor's personal recollections and notes from conversations with
Gary Ridgeway. Gary Ridgeway was veryupfront once he was caught, very upfront
with what he did. He wasinvolved in hundreds of hours, and a
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lot of that was allowing him certainfreedoms in prison or certain advantages that most
other criminals didn't get, so thathe would give them information on the people
that he killed. And sometimes heyou know, sometimes he sensationalized that he
would tell them lies and they wouldgo on these trips, take him out
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into the field where he said hecould find the body, but he was
just manipulating him. And then whenthey would get to the point where they
were going to shut down everything,where they were going to shut everything down,
he would he would, you know, come back and be like,
okay, fine, you know,I'll tell you let's let's let's go.
I'll show you. And he didthat so many times. They were really
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frustrated with him, and Bundy didthe same thing. There's a lot of
manipulation because they do know they heldthe power. If you want, you
know, if you want closure forfamilies, if you want justice to be
served, it's typically thought that youcan, you know, instead of giving
them the death penalty, you'll givethem life in prison if they'll tell you
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information about the victims and maybe whereto find their bodies. So, you
know, that's why we see alot of you know, they may be
charged with you know, capital murderand all this stuff, but sometimes they're
not convicted of the absolute worst.They get life instead of death row or
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you know, it's it's a meansto an end. Really, it's a
negotiation that shouldn't have to happen,but it does. Of course, the
data was collected and analyzed using themethods of grounded theory, and this method
analyzed data from the beginning of thedata process. Coding categories were generating in
an ongoing process while data was examined, thus allowing the data to drive the
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analysis. So you're looking for themes. You're looking you're coding your information,
you're coding these interviews, you're codingthe books. You're looking for themes.
You know, you're looking for topology, if you will. And you get
all of that collected, and thatkind of shows you which way your story
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is going. It gives you,it drives the data analysis. This is
what this means. This is whatwe can say about this person based on
all these interviews, based on allthis information that we've gathered. This is
the overwhelming consensus. Initial coding facilitatedthe constant comparison of data to find similarities
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and differences within the information collected foreach serial killer and also between serial killers.
This process of constant comparison was accomplishedby paying attention to and coding important
lines and sentences or parts of itfrom every source that was read. So
he really just broke down everything thatit was reading and looked for those,
you know, sentences that were powerful, powerful words, and powerful actions.
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This helped identify record in detail importantfragments, similar and dissimilar of data relating
to serial killers' lives. Through this, he maintained or he remained open to
the data, paid attention to thenuances explored leads, identified implicit concerns,
and dissected and compared each explicit lineor statement within a serial killer's life and
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or between serial killers. Lines ofdata were compared to the conceptual conceptualization of
previously coded lines from other sources.Thus, line by line coding helped him
think critically, asking questions about thedata and identifying significant commonalities, differences,
and or contradictions within the data ona particular serial killer or between serial killers.
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So he took information from all threeof these men and compared it.
What were some commonalities, what weresome differences, What were some contradictions?
This person did it, this persondid it, this person didn't do it.
Why didn't this person do it?If these two people are doing it,
why did this one not do it? Could we generalize that information?
No, because there's not enough.You don't have enough sources. You would
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need to do a study of let'ssay two hundred serial killers or one hundred
serial killers, and then you couldgeneralize. But three is not Three is
going to give you ideas. It'sgoing to give you commonalities, it's going
to give you differences, but it'snot going to give you a generalized theory.
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These categories and their inner relations incompass possible theories regarding the ideology or
causes of these killers' behaviors. Theadditional coding phase was temporary, comparative,
and grounded in the data, whichhelped him to see the world through the
offender's eyes and facilitated new ideas aboutthe ideology and psychological makeup of serial killers
from the very beginning. While comparingand reviewing information with the information information with
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code, code with code, codesof information with other codes, and codes
with categories, and concepts with categories, the process of memo writing was embarked
upon. Memos were his notes ondeveloping conceptual relationships and ideas. I can
imagine, I can imagine his room, maybe his office, covered, the
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walls covered with all these themes,and then on maybe like that really big
chart paper that we stick to thewall and write on and then have post
it notes and post it notes andpost it notes of all these themes and
categories. And then as you get, as you gather all that data,
and all of that starts growing intojust this bigger, you know, animal,
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you're able to condense those ideas whenyou find those commonalities and you can
make broader categories that encompasses maybe twoof those codes. So that's how that
works. And it's a lot ofwork, man, I admire him for
this. It's so much work,but it's so interesting. If you love
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the topic that you're working with,it's not work. You know, you
discover something new all the time,and it's exciting work. You know,
it can be really exciting. Duringthe coding process, in vivo codes were
formed which included the offenders special termsthat captured significant meaning or experience. These
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codes reflected offenders essential assumptions, meanings, and their views. While looking for
implicit meanings, he looked for howthese meanings may have been constructed and acted
upon. On one hand, thisinitiated new categories while further comparing data,
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and on another, it focused onwhich categories a particular code suggests. In
short, in vivo codes mirrored assumptionsand worldview the offenders, including meanings that
frame their actions. Therefore, studyingthese helped him to explore leads to develop
a deeper and better understanding of whatthey meant. The next step was to
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generate focused codes, and these werethe most frequently occurring or significant initial codes.
These significant initial line by line codeswere studied to synthesize and explain larger
fragments of data. If you've neverseen a line by line coding, you
can. You can google that andyou can see you literally go line by
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line looking for those action verbs,looking for you know, adjectives, anything
that helps to build this idea ofa person or their purpose, whatever it
is you're looking for, but inthis case, of course, serial killers
and what causes them to do whatthey do. So line by line coding
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is time consuming, but it's veryeffective. As part of the focused coding
process, theoretical codes were highlighted toshow possible associations between categories. These theoretical
codes further emphasized how essential codes arerelated to each other as possible hypothesis.
After the formation of theoretical categories,more data was collected to fill in the
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gaps and further refine these categories.So he basically created these categories based on
the data and then went back throughit and determined if there were gaps in
the information, if he needed todo research a little deeper into this area
or that area, and then hewould refine those codes. This established differences
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and relationships between categories relating to datawithin and between serial killers. More appropriate
and relevant data was collected to elaborateand hone the categories in emerging theories,
and when no new properties were foundto develop a theoretical category or no relation
relationships were established between categories, theoreticalsaturation was achieved. Basically, we would
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call this an exhaustive search. Youhave researched so much, so much material
that now everything you look at youalready have, so it's just repetitive.
So you can stop looking. That'sthe idea. You can stop looking because
you have covered pretty much an exhaustivesearch of everything available on these people or
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this subject. So when you hearsomebody talking about an exhaustive search, someone
has really been I mean, it'sjust very deep and time consuming, and
it's usually a longitudinal study because ofthat. After the formation of let's see
(44:52):
this established differences in relationships, andthen more appropriate and relevant data was collected
to elaborate and hone the categories ina emerging theories With the help of memos,
categories were sorted to fit them intoemerging theories. Using this process without
keeping in mind assumptions and hypothesis,enabled him to gather information with an open
(45:13):
mind. He started from scratch,which allowed him the detailed in descriptive data
to speak for itself. Commonalities anddifferences between the three serial killers served as
a route to identifying possible life eventsand factors leading to serial killing. I'm
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looking at the time, do Ihave time to dive into this? Yeah?
Let's talk about it, so let'slook at their biographies. Ted Bundy
is the first one that he covered. Ted Bundy was born into a stable,
loving, lower middle class Methodist family. His mother had him out of
wedlock and therefore his grandfather pretended toadopt him, and at age four,
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Bundy and his mother moved to tocome to Washington. Within a sh short
span of time, his mother marriedan army cook, and Bundy was forced
to live in a meager lifestyle,leading him to resent the rich and fortunate.
Bundy's classmates remember him to be loving, intelligent, and popular. However,
as reported by Bundy, this,things changed in high school and he
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seemed to have lost his self confidence, becoming more alienated and did not perform
as well in school. In nineteensixty five, he enrolled at the University
of the Puget Sound, but Bundyfelt lonely and unfamiliar with the surroundings.
In sixty seven, he transferred fromthe University of the Puget Sound to the
University of Washington's Asian Studies program.Here Bundy met Marjorie, who went to
(46:42):
school at the University of Washington andwas from a wealthy family in San Francisco.
The two became a couple and wasthe start of Bundy's first serious relationship.
While he was walking around the streetone evening, by chance, Bundy
washed a woman undress through a window. After this incident, he began to
for more opportunities to see women address. Bundy was granted a scholarship to Stamford
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and followed Marjorie to San Francisco.In San Francisco, Bundy's performance in Chinese
language studies dropped. Marjorie broke upwith him and he returned to Tacoma.
At this time he engaged in thieveryand voyeuristic activities alongside. Bundy entered the
world of politics and working on campaigns. But y'all didn't know that. Yeah,
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he worked on campaigns, you know. In September of seventy one,
he was employed at the Seattle CrossisClinic and he graduated from the University of
Washington with a psychology degree in seventytwo and was accepted at the ut College
at the Utah College of Law,but he dropped out of law school and
this was the time he began trollingfor victims. Ted Bundy was a mobile
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serial care who committed his murders inCalifornia, Colorado, Florida, Idaho,
Oregon, Utah, and Washington.I thought, when I read that earlier,
he only has maybe three states,and I thought, no, but
it's not right. There's more thanthree states. In January of eighty nine,
Bundy was executed in Florida. Butthere's so much that happened in between.
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This is a very superficial summary.Let me just say that. The
next one is Gary Ridgeway. Ridgewaywas born in forty nine in Salt Lake
City, Utah, into a workingclass family, and was one of the
three sons born to his domineering motherand submissive father. He graduated from high
school in sixty nine after being heldback two grades. He was a slow
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learner. He committed arson. Hestabbed a six year old boy and suffocated
a pet cat. Talk about redflags, Red flags, red flags.
He joined the Navy in sixty nineand decided to fight in Ventna and was
sent to duty station in San Diego. It was during this time that he
discovered Filipina prostitutes and contracted a venerealdisease. That was significant. That was
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a very significant event for him.He was honorably discharged in seventy one,
and Gary Ridgeway was married three times. His first two wives had affairs and
divorced him. His first marriage inseventy ended in divorce in seventy two.
His second marriage in seventy three lasteduntil nineteen eighty one, just one year
before he embarked on his murderous career. So the seeds were planted back in
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the seventies where really in the latesixties, and it really took him.
He probably survived on fantasies and youknow, being able to indulge in those
fantasies until they just didn't work anymore, right, just like the information we
read earlier. But then around eightyone, well, eighty two is when
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he started killing the prostitutes. Hisson was born to his second wife in
seventy five, and then he marriedfor the third time in eighty eight and
legally separated in two thousand and two. His third wife said that they had
a happy marriage and that he wasa reliable, regular employee at the same
job. He was a truck painterin a factory for thirty two years.
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I mean for thirty two years.He held the same job and was considered
a reliable employee. He eluded policeby leaving fake evidence at the crime scenes
and made sure to trim the victim'sfingernails. So do you think he's an
organized or a disorganized killer? Rememberthose terminologies from I Believe, the second
(50:42):
podcast on this. He's an organizedserial killer. He thought things through,
He planned these things. He tookfingernail clippers with him. You know,
he brought peace of evidence with himto leave to throw off the cocks.
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So that was one reason he wasso very successful. He was very organized.
And let me say, just fromour when you when you look at
these serial killers and you think,oh, they're all creepy looking, they're
all they act funny, you're gonnaknow that they're bad from the minute you
see them. You would not thinkthat about Gary Ridgeway. He just looked
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like I would call him, likea mousey little man that wouldn't probably hurt
a flee. He just seemed,probably like his father, very submissive.
But the fact that he was ableto be married that many times, I
mean, he had to have somekind of personality or charm to him,
(51:49):
right. So he for me,it's just it's just an anomaly. He's
kind of a weird He's a weirdone for me, rich Ramirez. Well,
DNA actually led to the arrest ofGary Ridgeway in two thousand and one,
and he admitted to his killing ofalmost fifty prostitutes. Thirty to forty
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is the number. But again yourecall we talked about how they may think
maybe there is fifty or sixty,but they can only prove twenty. And
then sometimes they lie. You know, in these interviews, they lie and
manipulate situation. You're not dealing withhonest people here. So if you if
you think you're gonna sit down andthey're going to tell you the truth,
(52:36):
I mean they may tell you piecesof the truth to manipul neally, our
neighbor's dog is barking. Nope,we're not barking, okay. But you
may not get you may not getthe truth. And so you have to
figure out you have to figure outwhat's true what's not true. Richard Ramirez
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was born in al Paso, Texas, on February twenty eighth of sixty.
He went through difficult times while growingup. He witnessed violence and physical abuse
on his brothers by their father andhis cousin Mike, who introduced him to
drugs, thievery, and sexually sadisticpictures and stories. Because of these influences,
Ramirez always almost indulged in petty crimesand became alienated from his parents.
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At twelve years of age, Ramirezwitnessed Mike kill his wife. In seventy
seven, Ramirez was sent to ajuvenile detention center for a series of petty
crimes. He was also put onprobation for marijuana position in eighty two,
and soon after this he moved toCalifornia and continued to commit similar crimes such
as burglary, possession of cocaine,and carthiff charges which resulted in a jail
(53:45):
sentence. Ramirez committed his murders fromeighty four to eighty five, and then
in eighty nine. He was twentynine. At that time, he was
convicted of thirteen murders and five attemptedmurders, eleven sexual assaults, and fourteen
burglaries. He was sentenced to diein California's gas chamber. And let me
go back and say, on GaryRidgeway, he has one of the most
(54:07):
distinctive childhoods that shows you know.They said that he had a dominating mother.
She was the one who she wasthe one, the mother who really
degraded him for peeing in the bedand was just a horrible I mean,
she was a horrible mother just fromhis accounts, really messed with him.
(54:31):
And so you would have to Iwould have to say, probably there's an
attachment issues there. He probably neverfelt loved by his mother or accepted by
his mother. It's always his mother. There's very few accounts of anything about
his father. It's his mother thathas seen to be is believed to have
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been the catalyst in the development hisdevelopment into a serial killer. So,
you know, unfortunately, you know, mothers are very powerful people. You
know, we are very powerful,and we have the ability to you know,
make you know, a wonderful childand help them grow and be productive
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members of society, loving and caringand have a normal family on their own.
But we also have the power toabsolutely screw somebody up so bad that
they turned into a serial killer.And I'm not you know this, his
mother may have been you know,attacked and abused and all kinds of horrific
things during her childhood which would makeyou maybe make you think, why would
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she want to do that to herchild when she knows how it feels.
Merely, but you know, they'rejust mean people in this world. It
could just be that there are justmean people in this world. Well his
results, the grounded theory method wasutilized to find commonalities and differences between the
three serial killers and and without hypothesisor assumptions. He began collecting data with
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only one question in mind, whathas led these vendors to commit such crimes?
Analysis began early on in the datacollection process, but unlike processes and
quantitative data collection, which uses establishedcodes and categories, he created codes by
defining and giving meanings to data.Initial line by line coding involved the naming
(56:22):
of each line of data, sotaking the smallest statements lines apart and studying
their implicit and or explicit meanings enabledhim to better understand and shape emerging analytic
categories. Initial line by line codingwas followed by focused coding, which incorporated
significant initial codes, which were thendeveloped into categories to formulate factors. For
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example, one of the categories wasstress and Trauma, and that came into
being with the help of the followingfew line by line codes for each serial
killer. I love that he didthis. I love it because anybody can
read this and understand what he didat, what the process, what the
methodology was. So's the here's theline byline codes that he's giving Ted Bundy
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failure in law school and attending asecond rate law school, a repeat of
his nineteen sixty seven Chinese studies givingup on his Chinese studies. Failure and
inability to succeed, vent tension andfrustration, need to kill depending on several
factors, principally stress, the invivo code, stress and its long term
(57:31):
effect on Ted Bundy's personality in vivocode. So he would read these and
he would take out the you know, the significant words that related to and
described Bundy Ramirez. His sentences wereobserved physical abuse on brothers, observation of
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father's anger and self harm, witnessingsister in law's murder effect and negative violent
influence of witnessing sistern laws murder.I mean those are huge themes, huge
themes and huge events that will causeyou to be damaged, right, Gary
(58:15):
Ridgeway. The sentences used were dissolutionof first first two marriages leading to stress,
stress and adjustment issues after the firstwife lefting that's an NVVO code,
stress and adjustment issues after second wifeleft in pressure and stress to perform sexual
acts in a hurry. And thenas a result of the two phases of
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the coding process, the following factorswere identified. So out of all of
those sentences plus many many more,meaning anymore, these are factors that he
identified, stress and trauma, powerand control, need for belonging, belonging,
loneliness, low self esteem, sexuallysadistic and violent, cornov, the
(59:00):
American culture, peer influences, satanism, parent relationship patterns, and then neurodevelopmental
complications. And those are excellent,excellent, and they go a little deeper
than what what the norm what wetypically think. Right, It's interesting to
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me that he says the American culture. You know, how does the American
culture? How does that impact someoneyou know or affect someone to become a
serial killer? But it does,you know, he found this in the
data, and the data speaks foritself, right, all right, So
(59:44):
we're going to start analyzing these codesin the next series, So it will
be the fourth segment of this master'sstudy, and we will find out exactly
what each of those terms that eachof these codes that he came up with
(01:00:07):
what they mean and what he wasable to turn them into, which I
think is going to be. Imean, such an eye opener. I
love new information. I love itwhen you get different perspectives. It's certainly
it's certainly another perspective that I thinkhelps us understand a little bit deeper what
(01:00:32):
happens to these people. So,as always, if you have questions or
thoughts, you can email me atdoctor Kimberly Cassidy eighty nine at gmail dot
com. You can check out myTikTok page, you can check out my
Facebook page, Instagram, all ofthose, and you can get links on
(01:00:54):
all of those to all of thepodcast that I have published. So I
hope you enjoy today, and Ihope you get to listen the next time
that we're together. Have a greatday.