I am sure we all have heard much about serial killers and the aftermath of the terror they caused, but what exactly happens to their victims? A great majority of serial killers rape their victims, but what they do after that results in the victims death is sometimes too gruesome and, I suppose, insensitive for the reporters to bring to light after the body is found. In the following blog I will discuss several serial killers and what their victims went through during the murder.
First we have a well known modern serial killers, Theodore Robert Cowell, otherwise known as Ted Bundy. He used his charm and good looks to lure women to him, but most of his victims were obtained by abduction. Once he had them he would rape them and continue by murdering them by strangulation. He would also not only engage in the taboo of cannibalism, but he would also engage in necrophilia before and even after dumping the bodies. But how does the body tell us how they died? Well, with strangulation there are two many ways of finding out if this was the cause of death. The first way is to see if there is discolouration. This discolouration either can be bruising or ecchymosis (internal bleeding). Although this alone cannot make a case if the material that was used to strangle was not the hand. When the hand is used strangulation requires much strength and for an extended period of time. Once the body has stopped moving this just means they have lost consciousness, it does not mean they are dead. To fully stop the flow of blood and air, it requires a few minutes, not seconds. With all this force to the neck the second way to know if strangulation was the cause of death is the fracture of the larynx (voice box) or a horseshoe shaped bone, the hyoid (image below of one fractured). Ted Bundy's victims were numbered 14+.
First we have a well known modern serial killers, Theodore Robert Cowell, otherwise known as Ted Bundy. He used his charm and good looks to lure women to him, but most of his victims were obtained by abduction. Once he had them he would rape them and continue by murdering them by strangulation. He would also not only engage in the taboo of cannibalism, but he would also engage in necrophilia before and even after dumping the bodies. But how does the body tell us how they died? Well, with strangulation there are two many ways of finding out if this was the cause of death. The first way is to see if there is discolouration. This discolouration either can be bruising or ecchymosis (internal bleeding). Although this alone cannot make a case if the material that was used to strangle was not the hand. When the hand is used strangulation requires much strength and for an extended period of time. Once the body has stopped moving this just means they have lost consciousness, it does not mean they are dead. To fully stop the flow of blood and air, it requires a few minutes, not seconds. With all this force to the neck the second way to know if strangulation was the cause of death is the fracture of the larynx (voice box) or a horseshoe shaped bone, the hyoid (image below of one fractured). Ted Bundy's victims were numbered 14+.
Next we have Edmund Emil Kemper, also known as The Co-ed Killer. His murderous tendencies started at a young age. He would torture and kill animals. And his mother did not help him when she realized there was something wrong; she was afraid that he would molest his sisters and thus locked him in the basement at night. If this was not bad enough, she suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder, and would frequently beat him. At the age of 15, Kemper was eventually sent to live with his grandparents and his first victim was his grandmother then when his grandfather arrived home he killed him as well. When asked why, he said that he just wanted to know how it felt to kill his grandmother, and when asked then why kill his grandfather, he answered that he knew he would be angry at him for what he had done. Once he was older he would pick up hitchhikers and ensue to rape and murder them. But the way he would murder them was much different from Bundy. He would beat, rape, decapitate, and ensue to having sex with his headless victims. But he would keep the heads long after he got rid of the bodies. Now it is easy to tell if someone has been decapitated, but the actual act of decapitation is not as easy. We have seen in movies or comics when the head just falls off after being swung at with a knife or some of the sort. The truth is a knife could not do the job, and if there was one sharp enough, it would take a while. The instruments that are prime for the act of decapitation are ax, chain saw, anything more powerful than a knife. Reason being is the muscles in the neck are rather thick, also there is the cervical vertebrae that needs to be severed along with the veins in the vertebral artery. Another reason that an instrument that does the job quickly is the amount of blood; after all the jugular is in the neck. The Co-ed Killer's victims were numbered 10.
The next and last serial killer I will address was not in anyway shy of blood. This one goes by the only name we can call him; Jack the Ripper. He may have gone the way of the boogie man, but in 1888 he was very real to the inhabitants of Whitechapel, London, England. He was by no means a prolific serial killer, but what he did to his victims was enough to carry his name more than 100 years since his last victim. His first and third victims, Mary Nichols and Elizabeth Stride, the bodies had not been mutilated, but some theorize that he did not have an opportunity to work on Stride. This theory seems to hold water because the same night Stride turned up dead, is the same night Jack the Ripper's fourth victim was killed and mutilated; Catherine Eddowes. His second (Annie Chapman), fourth, and fifth (Mary Kelly) victims all had been mutilated and had an organ missing. The uterus from Chapman, the left kidney and most of the uterus of Eddowes, and Mary Kelly was the worst; all her organs, sans the brain, were taken from her (image below). The first injury he most likely gave his victims was a slash to the throat. When slashing the throat, the most effective and fastest way of getting blood out would be to cut the jugular, which is the thickest vein in the neck measuring 14-16 cm in circumference. What came next was more gruesome than what the previous serial killers did; he cut a huge gash in their abdomen. This is where the theory Jack the Ripper was a doctor comes in. Reason being is to get to the organs he had taken, he needed to know where to look. To get to the kidneys he had to take out both small and large intestines, or at had to move them aside. The kidneys were not in plain sight, and as for the uterus, in 1888, only a doctor and women would know where it was.
Now two out of three serial killers were caught and it should come at no surprise who is the one who was not caught and we do not even know who he was; Jack the Ripper. Serial killing is not only a messy thing to do, but also a cruel and inhuman thing to do. I cannot begin to image how it feels to have a knife to my throat, nevertheless the feeling of being abducted. The scariest thing is that the United States has the highest amount of serial killers, and as I am typing this, there are most likely a few hundred out there right now; a boy torturing a cat or a woman with a prolific list of kills. It is terrifying to think that you can know when you are living next to a child molester, but, as an adult, a serial killer may look and act like a normal neighbour. Ted Bundy and the Co-ed Killer were seen as “nice” young boys; the Co-ed Killer even had a van with the university mark that allowed him to go in and out of the premises whenever he so wanted. As for Jack the Ripper, I believe the only one who will know of his identity is Jack the Ripper.
Please feel free to comment on what you thought of the blog, or other physical anthropological subjects you would like me to cover.
Please feel free to comment on what you thought of the blog, or other physical anthropological subjects you would like me to cover.