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Rough draft -- Definition Paper 01.30.11

A serial killer is a person who murders a number of victims for pathological purposes and psychological release. The killer suffers from one or a varying series of mental disorders and handicaps that they are born with or develop from abuse, more more often than not they are subject to both. Serial killers are sociopaths, meaning that they are unable to have full emotional connections to people and are incapable of possessing any solid form of human conscience, and are unable to feel remorse for negative actions they have perpetrated against other human beings. It is not simply that they are bad people, they are incapable of being morally rational. A serial killer's victims often all have one or more key characteristics in common. They may all be female, children under the age of nine, brunettes, teenage boys, etcetera. The methods in which they are murdered may all also be the same or share similarities, such as dismemberment, decapitation, and sexual abuse before or after death.

This is great so far, I'd like to see what more you put into it and also elaborate more on what makes up a serial killer from more than just one angle. -Alyssa