StudentShare
Contact Us
Sign In / Sign Up for FREE
Search
Go to advanced search...
Free

Two of Americas Most Wanted and Renowned Serial Killers, Gary Ridgway and Dennis Rader - Essay Example

Cite this document
Summary
The paper "Two of America’s Most Wanted and Renowned Serial Killers, Gary Ridgway and Dennis Rader" discusses that both these serial killers have committed a large number of wrongdoings by murdering innocent people. What is extremely astonishing is that they both had so many aspects in common…
Download full paper File format: .doc, available for editing
GRAB THE BEST PAPER95.5% of users find it useful
Two of Americas Most Wanted and Renowned Serial Killers, Gary Ridgway and Dennis Rader
Read Text Preview

Extract of sample "Two of Americas Most Wanted and Renowned Serial Killers, Gary Ridgway and Dennis Rader"

Assignment Society is inflicted with a large number of problems that arise from people who are not of sound mind. Such people have motives that do not suit the rest of the people that they live around as it threatens their sense of being and security and have the potentiality to put their lives in danger. Serial killers are extremely common and heard of because in the recent past, the crime rates have gone up tremendously, leaving the lives of people in jeopardy. It has become extremely difficult for people to trust others around them and leave their children alone at homes for fear of them being abducted or kidnapped by strange people who pretend to be nice. This paper deals with the lives of two of America’s most wanted and renowned serial killers, Gary Ridgway and Dennis Rader. Both of them have caused a great amount of grievances and havoc among the people by killing several individuals and were hunted down by the police with an aim to stop murder from taking place. This paper observes a compare and contrast of the lives of these two serial killers, their motives and the way that they went about murdering people. Gary Leon Ridgway and Dennis Rader were both born in the countryside; Ridgeway in Utah and Rader in Kansas, and only have a four year gap between each other. They both have gruesome nicknames which have made them quite unpopular among the people – Gary is called ‘Green River Gary’, the ‘Green River Killer’ or ‘The Riverman’ whereas Dennis has adorned the nickname of ‘BTK’ or the ‘Bind, Torture, Kill Strangler.’ Both of them have the commonality of strangling their victims and killing them, then dumping their bodies away in order to dispose of them. Both have been subject to life imprisonment without parole and are hated among people for having killed so many people without any reason at all. The police are still trying to understand their reasoning behind the killings. Delving into the personal lives of serial killers always helps a person understand the atrocities of their past and what made them become the way they are in the present. Ridgway had a very troubled childhood because he often witnessed his parents fighting violently with each other. He was dragged into the fight and abused by his mother for whom he began to develop both anger and sexual feelings. (Prothero, Mark; Carlton Smith ) Rader on the other hand had a very normal childhood and graduated from high school and then college. As a child, he loved torturing animals and hated them with all his might. He also had a sexual fetish for women’s under garments; this was seen in his killings as he often killed women, stole their under garments and went about wearing them on his own. What is common between the two is the sexual energy that they both contained in abundance. Both men were married more than once as well and even gave birth to children. Ridgway was obsessed with having sexual intercourse and despite being married, took to harbouring his fantasies with prostitutes. He has been known to demand intercourse from his second wife in public places as well. Rader married two women as well and as mentioned above, had very weird sexual fetishes for under garments. (Beattie, Robert) After graduating from high school, Ridgway joined the Navy however he had a very low IQ and his friends from school and college did not remember him much. As a child, he had stabbed a young boy in the woods and told people that he often wondered what it would be like to kill someone. Rader on the other hand was quite the society man as he was a Cub Scout leader, head of the Lutheran Church and elected president of the Congregation Council. He had worked a number of jobs including an assembler for a gear firm, census field operations supervisor and even a dog catcher. One of his neighbours had complained that he purposely euthanized their dog for no reason at all. Both killers were not afraid to admit to their wrongdoings and were arrested within a matter of time. Ridgway was also a religious fanatic and was sometimes torn between his love for religion and committing the sin of having sexual intercourse as well as necrophilia. Rader on the other hand did not believe in any such thing, and simply murdered 10 people. His wife complained that he would often leave home early, perhaps to bury the bodies or dispose of them somewhere where the police could not find them. Ridgway’s third wife also told the interviewers that after her presence in his life, the number of murders that he had committed had gone down a reasonable amount and she was happy that she was able to bring about such a change. Rader’s wife as well tried her best but divorced him because her mental health was getting affected dearly. Thus, women in both the killer’s lives helped them to an extent. Ridgway has been known to have murdered at least 71 women within a decade and his victims were mostly prostitutes or runaways who he had had sexual intercourse with. He strangled most of his victims, killed them and then dumped them in the wooded area around the Green River, earning his nickname. He has also been known to have intercourse with the dead victim’s body sometimes. Despite these killings, he could only have remained a suspect and not proven to kill these women because of lack of evidence. He also passed a polygraph test and thus the police could not do much but arrest him on charge of prostitution. (Keppel, Robert; Birnes, William J.; Rule, Ann) Rader on the other hand has been proven to murder 10 people by suffocating them with objects like ropes, belts and plastic bags. He has even been known to stalk two women who had to then move away for reasons of security. The police caught him because of the letters that he would send to them in which he described his killings. They finally were able to trace the document and put together his DNA samples because of which they arrested him for 175 years of imprisonment without parole. In conclusion, both these serial killers have committed a large number of wrong doings by murdering innocent people. What is extremely astonishing is that they both had so many aspects in common as discussed within the purview of this paper. This helps us to understand how every killer comes from the same line of thought, and mostly has a troubled childhood which causes him to become a bully in the first place. It is important to understand that the police have take every step in order to counter such problems and despite that they still exist in the world today. Works Cited Prothero, Mark; Carlton Smith (2006). Defending Gary: Unraveling the Mind of the Green River Killer. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Keppel, Robert; Birnes, William J.; Rule, Ann (2004). The Riverman: Ted Bundy and I Hunt for the Green River Killer. Simon and Schuster. Beattie, Robert (2005). Nightmare In Wichita: The Hunt for the BTK Strangler. New American Library. Read More
Cite this document
  • APA
  • MLA
  • CHICAGO
(“It can be a Compare or Contrast or it can be Compare and Contrast Essay”, n.d.)
It can be a Compare or Contrast or it can be Compare and Contrast Essay. Retrieved from https://studentshare.org/law/1437584-it-can-be-a-compare-or-contrast-or-it-can-be
(It Can Be a Compare or Contrast or It Can Be Compare and Contrast Essay)
It Can Be a Compare or Contrast or It Can Be Compare and Contrast Essay. https://studentshare.org/law/1437584-it-can-be-a-compare-or-contrast-or-it-can-be.
“It Can Be a Compare or Contrast or It Can Be Compare and Contrast Essay”, n.d. https://studentshare.org/law/1437584-it-can-be-a-compare-or-contrast-or-it-can-be.
  • Cited: 0 times

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF Two of Americas Most Wanted and Renowned Serial Killers, Gary Ridgway and Dennis Rader

Control Strategies for the Problem of Serial Killers

serial killers Author Institution Abstract Researchers have encountered challenges in tracing the phenomenon of serial killing into ancient history owing to the absence of sufficient evidence.... In the last few decades, there has been sufficient evidence to enable scholars construct character models for serial killers.... hellip; Presently, majority of the criminologists concur that serial killers emanate from dysfunctional social backgrounds manifesting considerable abuse during childhood....
11 Pages (2750 words) Research Paper

Women and men serial killers; gender inequality on crime sentencing

One of the stunning facts about serial killing is that majority of male serial killers are getting life terms or sentencing for a prescribed period of time whereas majority of the female serial killers are getting capital punishment.... “The very mention of the term "serial killer" evokes a spine chilling reaction in most people.... It is something we do not quite want to think about, yet at the same time we can't get enough of” (serial Killing: A Forgotten Phenomenon)....
5 Pages (1250 words) Research Paper

Principles of Criminal Investigation

The case of the Green River Killer ranks among other serial killing cases persisted for almost two decades without ever bringing anyone to book… In the 1980s, dozens of women were murdered in unknown circumstances and the bodies disposed within the vicinity of the Green River.... The discovery of the bodies alerted the locals on a possibility of having a serial killer targeting prostitutes.... This could be later followed by the formation of the Green River Task Force that had the mandate of looking into the increased serial killings....
6 Pages (1500 words) Term Paper

Serial Offender Profile- Dennis Rader

dennis rader used to kill the victims by strangling after torturing them sexually (Barkan & Bryjak, 2011).... In effect, dennis rader derived sexual gratification from the victims, and thrilled in causing pain before committing his heinous crimes.... The authorities arrested dennis rader in February 2005 after approximately thirty-one years of a manhunt.... The court sentenced dennis rader for ten counts of first-degree murder after pleading guilty to all the charges....
2 Pages (500 words) Assignment

Serial Killers: Wilson's Theory

The paper "serial killers: Wilson's Theory" presents detailed information, that Wilson, an expert criminologist and ex-prison governor in his book “serial killers: Hunting Britons and Their Victims 1960-2006,” looks at every serial killer in Britain from 1960 to 2006.... In comparing murder in Britain and Poland I picked Wilson's book “serial killers: Hunting Britons and Their Victims 1960-2006,” and Gierowski's & Jaskiewicz-Obydzynska's book “Killers and their victims: Psychological profile”....
14 Pages (3500 words) Research Paper

BTK Killer - Dennis Lynn Rader

As a child, dennis rader appeared outwardly normal.... dennis rader graduated from Wichita Heights High School, class of 1963.... This research will begin with the statement that Dennis Lynn rader was born on March 9, 1945.... hellip; The researcher states that Dennis Lynn rader is the oldest of four sons.... Between 1965 and 1966, he attended Kansas Wesleyan University It is evidently clear from the discussion that Dennis Lynn rader began the murders with the Otero family in 1974....
6 Pages (1500 words) Research Paper

David Rader: The Serial Killer

The goal of the present assignment is to provide a comprehensive summary of the life of dennis rader from childhood all the way up to imprisonment.... hellip; dennis rader was born in a calm corner of Kansas, near where Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri all meet, on March 9, 1945.... As a child, dennis rader showed up apparently typical and unremarkable.... dennis rader moved on from Wichita Heights High School, class of 1963.... The writer of the assignment "David rader: The Serial Killer" pays specific attention to describing the rader's murder spree....
8 Pages (2000 words) Assignment

Serial Killers

hellip; Theorists and researchers believe that the reasons why serial killers commit a crime are biological, and some people are born to be serial killers.... Several researchers and medical practitioners have contradicted the arguments and stated that serial killers are committed the crime due to various motives that they gain from society.... Scientists and medical practitioners have discovered that serial killers have a determining factor in their personality....
7 Pages (1750 words) Report
sponsored ads
We use cookies to create the best experience for you. Keep on browsing if you are OK with that, or find out how to manage cookies.
Contact Us