Page 40 of The Truth You Told (Raisa Susanto #2)

There’s no denying the world is fascinated by serial killers. But despite that, there’s still so much we don’t know about these monsters that have captured our attention.

Twin studies have shown that psychopathic traits are 60 percent inheritable. That means that nature (DNA, that is) is heavily weighted in whether someone could be diagnosed as a psychopath.

But not all serial killers are psychopaths and not all psychopaths are killers, let alone serial killers.

Does that mean nurture then comes into play, the person primed for violence but not necessarily destined for it?

That could be true in some cases. When children are abused, they sometimes are unable to create successful and productive coping mechanisms, which then leads to violent outbursts. As children, the tantrums can be written off, but the cycle is reinforced until adulthood, where the only way they can deal with anger, disappointment, and shame is to lash out and hurt someone else.

That all holds up until anyone looks at the backgrounds of some of the country’s most famous serial killers. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Dennis Rader all had healthy childhoods with supportive family members and yet still they went on to kill.

A 2005 report from the FBI’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime emphasized that agents agree there is “no single identifiable cause of factor that leads to the development of a serial killer. Rather there are a multitude of factors that contribute to their development. The most significant factor is the serial killer’s personal decision in choosing to pursue their crimes.”

The section “Causality and Serial Murder,” however, ends with the bullet point that FBI agents agree more research is needed to identify the pathways of development that produce a serial killer.

Because even the best minds in the world still cannot pinpoint how a serial killer is created.

While the call for more research is admirable, the struggle is that the ethical constraints put into place—wisely—for everyone’s protection tie the hands of the very scientists who could make forward progress with the field.