Are there any serial killers that you do legitimately feel for?

Ever since I started reading about Carl Panzram I felt I could relate. He hated Christianity and burned churches because he was abused at a Christian training school. Throughout his life, he had a very lengthy criminal record and got treated horribly at the prisons he went to. He was tortured throughout his life and never got love from anybody. He only ever had one person who he could truly call a friend (Henry Lesser) and that was the reason he became a criminal. He even said it himself when he was recounting his experiences at Leavenworth that "No one lays a hand on me (at Leavenworth). No one abuses me in any way. I have been trying to figure it out and I have come to the conclusion that, if in the beginning I had been treated as I am now, then there wouldn't have been quite so many people that have been robbed, raped and killed.”

While Panzram did some evil things in his life, I personally don’t think that he was evil himself. He was just a product if his environment. I would personally consider someone like Ronald Simmons to be evil, but not Carl Panzram. But that’s just my opinion on him.

Prednisolone wrote:

Ever since I started reading about Carl Panzram I felt I could relate. He hated Christianity and burned churches because he was abused at a Christian training school. Throughout his life, he had a very lengthy criminal record and got treated horribly at the prisons he went to. He was tortured throughout his life and never got love from anybody. He only ever had one person who he could truly call a friend (Henry Lesser) and that was the reason he became a criminal. He even said it himself when he was recounting his experiences at Leavenworth that "No one lays a hand on me (at Leavenworth). No one abuses me in any way. I have been trying to figure it out and I have come to the conclusion that, if in the beginning I had been treated as I am now, then there wouldn't have been quite so many people that have been robbed, raped and killed.”

While Panzram did some evil things in his life, I personally don’t think that he was evil himself. He was just a product if his environment. I would personally consider someone like Ronald Simmons to be evil, but not Carl Panzram. But that’s just my opinion on him.

I don't believe that anyone is born a 'certain way'. We are all products of our environment, especially our childhood environments.

Jeffrey Dahmer. He didn't seem like a full blown psychopath and he never even meant to kill anyone, he just wanted someone that would stay with him and never leave him.

SavageGlocker wrote:

Jeffrey Dahmer. He didn't seem like a full blown psychopath and he never even meant to kill anyone, he just wanted someone that would stay with him and never leave him.

Speaking of Jeffrey Dahmer, a lot of people said he was racist because of the majority of his victims being black, but as this relates to serial killers and the OP, Carl Panzram actually was kind of racist.

>He eventually got a job with the Sinclair Oil Company as a foreman on an oil-drilling rig. At that time, the American oil industry was involved in an exploratory expedition to search for new sources of oil in Africa. In the coastal town of Luanda, Panzram raped and killed an 11-year-old boy. "A little nigger boy about 11 or 12 years old came bumming around," he said. Panzram lured the boy back to the Sinclair Oil Company grounds where he sexually assaulted and killed him by bashing his head in with a rock. "I left him there, but first I committed sodomy on him and then I killed him," Panzram wrote in his confession. "His brains were coming out of his ears when I left him and he will never be any deader."

>"Then I went to town, bought a ticket on the Belgian steamer to Lobito Bay down the coast. There I hired a canoe and six niggers and went out hunting in the bay and backwaters. I was looking for crocodiles. I found them, plenty. They were hungry. I fed them. I shot all six of those niggers and dumped 'em in. The crocks done the rest. I stole their canoe and went back to town."

But then again, I doubt he really meant it in this case. Here’s something else that he also said.

>When he burglarized homes, he looked for guns first. "I would spend all my spare change on bullets. I would take potshots at farmers' houses, at the windows. If I saw cows or horses in the fields, I would cut loose at them," he wrote.  He rode the trains over vast distances and spent time in Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Utah, cutting a path of destruction across the country in a methodical, relentless way that kept police hot on his trail but a step behind. He raped without mercy, rarely passing up an opportunity to take on a new victim.  "Whenever I met one that wasn't too rusty looking I would make him raise his hands and drop his pants. I wasn't very particular either. I rode them old and young, tall and short, white and black. It made no difference to me at all except that they were human beings," he said years later.

Also, another peculiar detail is that Henry Lesser was Jewish.

>At the Washington , D.C. , jail at this time was a 26-year-old rookie guard, the son of a Jewish immigrant, who was hired that year. His name was Henry Lesser. As Panzram was processed through the booking procedure, Lesser asked him what his crime was.

So yeah, there tends to be a lot of politics involved with serial killers, too. A lot of them tend to be pretty insensitive to not just morals in general, but even to political correctness, interestingly enough.

Another serial killer who I can say that I can feel sympathy for was Steven Judy. Even though he was a sociopath, I think he still had an ability to feel some remorse. He was involved in crimes dating back to childhood, including an incident when he posed as a boy scout to then rape and stab a woman with a pocket knife and hack her with a hatchet. This was what put him in foster care, where he found a new family to live with prior to the quadruple murder in 1979 where he had murdered a woman and her three kids. While the act itself was evil, but the thing about him that tells me he wasn’t evil was the fact that he wanted the death penalty, even threatening the judges and jury had they not given it to him. He even dropped his appeals, just to opt for the electric chair. He even told them that if they didn’t want another death hanging over their heads, they would’ve needed to execute him. In fact, I don’t even think he plead insane during his trial (or at least he did at first, but dropped it later, realizing that what he did was wrong). One thing that really hit me was that just prior to his execution, he was telling jokes and cracking up with his lawyer (who also supported the verdict). The fact that he managed to stay positive even with the electric chair just minutes away is what tells me that perhaps he wasn’t that bad, narcissistic or self-centered at all, but he actually did realize the consequences for his actions.

Another redeeming quality about Judy was his personality. He was known as polite by his defense counsel, and had a very kind, prosocial appearance on the outside. So, perhaps he was a nice person, but had demons inside of him that made him commit the acts that occurred in April 1979.

I am not that interested in Serial Killers, but i would say that Ted Bundy is my favorite.

I have empathy for anyone who would feel it necessary to take someones life in order overcome their own shortcomings.

I personally feel for Edmund Kemper, He probably would have been a good guy.He was kinda doomed from the start. His mom really didn’t like him and she was alcoholic. When he was 15 he was forced to sleep in the basement which was locked.Due his history of killing animals his mother was scared that he might kill her and his siblings.The man was 6 foot 5 at 15.He didn’t like that too much soo he runs away to his father.Only to be sent to his grandparents house. This is the part where I personally think he wasn’t all the way messed up.One day with grandma he gets upset from a argument and kills her.Before grandpa gets back he kills him too. Ed says “He didn’t want him to see his wife dead, meaning he didn’t want him to suffer that so he basically put him out of his misery. He also wanted to be a cop but unfortunately was turned down due to his height 6.9ft. And to be fair he turned himself in he could went on to kill many more people before being stopped if possible. The man was immensely perspicacious with very high Iq score. I feel if you would have taken those major unhealthy factors in his life he would have been good.

I always felt for Aileen Wuornos and think she should not have been executed.
She never had a change, has been abused her whole life.

As they are incapable of empathy and ruined lives, no.

Guest wrote:

Jeffrey Dahmer. He didn't seem like a full blown psychopath and he never even meant to kill anyone, he just wanted someone that would stay with him and never leave him.

I don't agree, and here is why. He was murdered by another prisoner who was repulsed by his prison behaviours which were all orientated around him intimidating the guards by suggesting he wanted to kill and eat them. That to me suggested that he not only wanted to kill and eat people but he enjoyed the notoriety.

I think with none of them, or the ones I know at least

Having read his autobiography, I feel sad for Danny Rolling.

I also feel a bit for Robert Hansen.

Quote :

In his youth, he was painfully shy, afflicted with a stutter

Quote :

Throughout childhood and adolescence, Hansen was described as being quiet and a loner, and he had a difficult relationship with his domineering father.

I can't help but think that if they became murderers today they'd have probably been rampage killers instead of serial killers.

I think I mentioned it a few times, but I feel sorry for Jeff Weise. He had objectively a horrible life, lost his father in a way that would clearly leave him traumatized for life. His mother was an addict and never took good care of him, his family didn't seem to love him or even care (which from what I know is very odd in native american culture). He was born on a reservation among one of the most underprivileged and impoverished groups in the country.

Really, he drew a very, very short straw. I can't and will not condone what he did. At the same time, I can feel sorry for the way his whole life went up to the day of the shooting.

I guess maybe I also find it easier to feel sorry for him, as we both come from nomadic cultures that ended up fragmented and being forced into a sedentary majority society.

Prednisolone wrote:

Ever since I started reading about Carl Panzram I felt I could relate. He hated Christianity and burned churches because he was abused at a Christian training school. Throughout his life, he had a very lengthy criminal record and got treated horribly at the prisons he went to. He was tortured throughout his life and never got love from anybody. He only ever had one person who he could truly call a friend (Henry Lesser) and that was the reason he became a criminal. He even said it himself when he was recounting his experiences at Leavenworth that "No one lays a hand on me (at Leavenworth). No one abuses me in any way. I have been trying to figure it out and I have come to the conclusion that, if in the beginning I had been treated as I am now, then there wouldn't have been quite so many people that have been robbed, raped and killed.”

While Panzram did some evil things in his life, I personally don’t think that he was evil himself. He was just a product if his environment. I would personally consider someone like Ronald Simmons to be evil, but not Carl Panzram. But that’s just my opinion on him.

Theodore Kaczynski was the product of a cruel environment and the government's sadistic mind control experiments. If he had not been literally tortured by the government, I reckon he would be a household name purely for his remarkable intellect and the ideas presented in his manifesto. Unfortunately most people look past this and see anyone who kills another as evil, allowing them to ignore ideas no matter how true they may be. In some ways I have encountered many of the same problems Kaczynski faced (albeit I'm far from a genius) and can relate to him not only on a philosophical, but also an emotional level.

This is why I've been interested in mass murder for years, not because of petty personal grievances or typical fanboying, but rather because I am able to understand the people who commit such crimes. The only way that we as a society will ever reduce the number of these killings would be to remove the absurd stigma of empathising with the perpetrators.

I agree about Ted Kaczynsky. I don't condone what he did, but I agree with him on a lot of things and he was put through a lot of awful things. I also agree about Wuornos and don't think she should have been executed.

Sabratha wrote:

I think I mentioned it a few times, but I feel sorry for Jeff Weise. He had objectively a horrible life, lost his father in a way that would clearly leave him traumatized for life. His mother was an addict and never took good care of him, his family didn't seem to love him or even care (which from what I know is very odd in native american culture). He was born on a reservation among one of the most underprivileged and impoverished groups in the country.

Really, he drew a very, very short straw. I can't and will not condone what he did. At the same time, I can feel sorry for the way his whole life went up to the day of the shooting.

I guess maybe I also find it easier to feel sorry for him, as we both come from nomadic cultures that ended up fragmented and being forced into a sedentary majority society.

I feel so sorry for him. His father killing himself, his mother getting in a car accident and getting brain damage, his numerous suicide attempts. He really did have an extremely hard life leading up to the shooting, which I also don't condone by any means.

Joseph James Deangelo as he watched his 7 year old sister get raped when he was little. Doesn't excuse what he did but I hope everyone involved in this situation is healing.

'Dirty Dozen' gang member Robert Oliver had pretty hard childhood although I still don't like him you known with him being a sex killer and all

Robert Oliver's mother wanted a daughter so made Mr. Oliver dress in girl clothes and the bullying got so bad teachers would buy clothes for him and because of this he had a major identity crisis in his mit-teens and became a rent boy

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He technically wasn't a serial killer, but the closest example for me would probably be Ed Gein. His controlling religious fanatic mother and abusive alcoholic father left him a neurotic mess, he never really had a chance at living a normal life. It's especially sad when you read that he was a polite, model patient while in Mendota Mental Health Institute after his crimes.

I feel as if Aileen Wournos and Charles Manson (not a serial killer although everyone classifies him as one!) definitely deserved better in life. I don't know how society expected them to turn out differently than they did, honestly. It hurts my heart to think of them at all.

Carl Panzram because of how humanity turned him into a misanthrope

Jeffrey Dahmer because of his loneliness, depression, sexual fantasies/desires (though mine arent on the scale his were)

David Berkowitz, Jeff Dahmer and Lee Boyd Malvo

Mr Bubbless wrote:

Prednisolone wrote:

Ever since I started reading about Carl Panzram I felt I could relate. He hated Christianity and burned churches because he was abused at a Christian training school. Throughout his life, he had a very lengthy criminal record and got treated horribly at the prisons he went to. He was tortured throughout his life and never got love from anybody. He only ever had one person who he could truly call a friend (Henry Lesser) and that was the reason he became a criminal. He even said it himself when he was recounting his experiences at Leavenworth that "No one lays a hand on me (at Leavenworth). No one abuses me in any way. I have been trying to figure it out and I have come to the conclusion that, if in the beginning I had been treated as I am now, then there wouldn't have been quite so many people that have been robbed, raped and killed.”

While Panzram did some evil things in his life, I personally don’t think that he was evil himself. He was just a product if his environment. I would personally consider someone like Ronald Simmons to be evil, but not Carl Panzram. But that’s just my opinion on him.

Theodore Kaczynski was the product of a cruel environment and the government's sadistic mind control experiments. If he had not been literally tortured by the government, I reckon he would be a household name purely for his remarkable intellect and the ideas presented in his manifesto. Unfortunately most people look past this and see anyone who kills another as evil, allowing them to ignore ideas no matter how true they may be. In some ways I have encountered many of the same problems Kaczynski faced (albeit I'm far from a genius) and can relate to him not only on a philosophical, but also an emotional level.

This is why I've been interested in mass murder for years, not because of petty personal grievances or typical fanboying, but rather because I am able to understand the people who commit such crimes. The only way that we as a society will ever reduce the number of these killings would be to remove the absurd stigma of empathising with the perpetrators.

That's a whole lot of words for not much substance.

aileen wuornos, kip kinkel, adam lanza, the two academy maniacs
obviously i dont excuse what they did (except maybe wuornos) but i feel like their actions couldve been prevented. though that applies to many other murderers and criminals.

Ed Kemper. His mom was such an abusive psychopath that his Vietnam Vet dad said going on suicide missions during the war was less stressful than living with her.

Richard Chase, he's one of the few killers I can say was actually crazy, here's some of the shit he did!;
-Complained his heart would stop beating when he was young
-Mixed blood and coca-cola in a blender and drank to "stop his heart from shrinking"
-Wouldn't go inside of a house if the doors were locked because then it meant he "wasn't welcome"
-When he entered a house and saw no one was home, he shit and pissed on the infant's bed then promptly left
-Raped a woman's corpse while stabbing it
-Pulled Macaroni and Cheese out of his pockets during an interview because he thought it was poisoned by the prison guards (who were working with UFO Nazis).
I don't feed bad for him based on his life, but when it comes to what was going on in his head I would hate to be him.

Andrei "butcher of Rostov" Chikatilo is my favorite serial killer

Theodore Cowell I feel like he’s one those people everyone labels a Villain although he does have a backstory like most. I do believe he was a broken Character in life.His Grandfather abused him heavily in early life as a child then he goes into life as a shy and timid person. He develops a porn addiction which I believe played a heavy part in his life. And addition to that his love of his life breaks up with him and went on to call him “Weak and Pathetic”. Out of heartbreak i would say he started raping and killing women that resemble his now Ex Girlfriend. Years later he gets caught and eventually executed. Everyone says he got what deserved and that he sick person but in my opinion he was victim of loneliness and life. Theodore had no friends and no one to talk to about his problems And I feel like like if most people had series of events unfold in life like that we wouldn’t be normal or fine afterwards.