Running head: PERSPECTIVE OF A SEXUAL SERIAL KILLER

Taylor Dunn
Psychology and Sociology of Deviance
Dr. Emily Sweitzer, Dr. Holiday Adair, and Dr. Justin Hackett
Keywords: Serial killer, Criminal Profiling, Anger-retaliatory, Power-reassurance, Social
perception.

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Abstract
A person’s perception means a great deal more than one might believe. Even for a serial
killer, the way that they view their own status in society has an effect on what happens in
their life and how they treat the idea of a human life. Research was conducted to look into the
sociological and psychological aspects of the two disorganized, sexual serial killer
typologies: the power-reassurance and anger-retaliatory serial killers. The way that they see
the social ramifications that would occur due to their behavior has a tremendous influence
over the way that this research profiles and categorizes them. The current profiling system
lacks insight into the serial killer’s perspective. The sociological perceptions of both Jeffrey
Dahmer and Ed Gein matters greatly to their criminal profiles. The positions in which these
serial killers envisioned themselves holding in their society helped to give way to eventually
becoming deviant criminals. The extended profiles of two famous serial killers helps to
answer the questions of why serial killers do such horrific acts and give different ways that
the scholarly community can further influence the profiling system in which serial killers are
placed into groups. The views of Dahmer and Gein are not mutually exclusive in determining
whether or not they would be future serial killers. The status of the killers’ psyche and the
actual crimes committed were taken into account while making the profiles using the Social
Perception and Psychological Anaylsis Profiling System.

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Introduction
Serial killing is not a new subject in the field of psychology, nor in the field of
sociology. Serial killers have been a long-time interest to countless people in the areas of the
mind and societal deviance. To properly understand such gruesome killers, psychologists
must do extensive research into their backgrounds and their current mental states, usually
based on the crime scenes and previous crimes that resemble them. This research also reaches
into the realms of the sociological by determining the perception of the killers, themselves, on
their social statuses and consequences of their actions. The typology can be narrowed down
to not only the category of lust serial killers, but to the sub-categories of the powerreassurance and anger-retaliatory serial murderers. However, the process of evaluating the
self-perception of social status and social consequences in power- reassurance and angerretaliatory serial killers has yet to be suitably executed by both the psychological and
sociological disciplines.
Psychology and sociology are two fields which do their best to distinguish themselves
apart from one another. Social Psychology is the closest that they come to truly merging.
However, social psychology is based on the individuals, whereas sociology is based on
people in groups and societies and does far less controlled experimentation and more simple
observation (Myers, 2013, p. 4). Many in both fields seem to hold the same idea; that both
sociology and psychology should have clear and distinct borders for their different uses. This
should not always be the case, however, it seems to be the overwhelming majority’s opinion.
Psychology and sociology should be able to intermingle and work together to further such
systems as profiling criminals. Social perception and psychological stability or instability can
be major causes in the different typologies that certain serial killers fit into; this should be one
of the ways that sociology can be better used in application alongside its psychology
counterpart. A new frame of reference for the profiling community to evaluate crimes and the

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deviants that are responsible for them is a necessary tool to be able to accurately and
efficiently find and catch criminals.
Background
According to Durkheim (1972), criminal behavior is defined as behavior that deviates
from the law of the society in which a person resides. However, Bromberg (1965) had
defined it as being an internal conflict between the basic human desires and what was left of
the moral and ethical values of a person. Bromberg (1965) also had accounted for those that
did not have any moral reasoning, claiming this to mean that the inherent cravings would go
unchecked and, therefore, be completely able to be acted upon freely (as cited in Palermo &
Kocsis, 2005). Both of these definitions work together to give a full view of criminal
behavior; criminals deviate from societal norms by both legal and social means. Though, this
means that there first needs to be established norms of a society. While there is no definitive
definition of a “norm,” according to Campenni, Andrighetto, and Conte (2014) norms tend to
be any kind of “laws and prescriptions, conventions and rules, obligations and forbearances,”
that are generally accepted and put into place in a society (p. 1). The norms for the society in
which the behavior is being conducted are the determinants for whether or not the behavior
can be considered “criminal.” After criminality is confirmed, there has to be an ability to
disassociate one kind of crime from another crime and the different motives of each criminal;
this is where profiling can be used.
Criminal profiling can be seen throughout history. Profiling of sexual serial killing
can be traced back as far as 1866 when Richard von Krafft-Ebing wrote a book about sexual
pathology. The book was titled Psychopathia Sexualis and contained many of the same
components of sexual murder that are still used to profile killers such as keeping souvenirs,
lying, manipulating, humiliating victims and torture of their victims for sexual arousal.

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However, von Krafft-Ebing described the killers as having no pronounced manifestation of
psychopathology (Miller, 2014). Havelock Ellis was a social reformer that developed his own
profile system in 1907. Ellis used the categories of “instinctive”, “occasional” and “habitual”
criminals. The instinctive criminal is one that cannot control his basic urges and will seek out
any sexual urges, while the occasional criminal will be most likely to act when tempted and if
the correct social situation is given. The occasional criminal is likely to fall to peer pressure
when in the wrong crowd (Palermo & Kocsis, 2005). In the 1930’s there were more detailed
accounts of sexual serial killers, such as Albert Fish. Albert Fish was a sadomasochist and
cannibal that preyed on young children. Cases like Fish’s brought about investigations into
the sexual connection to both death and eating of the corpse (Miller, 2014). Later on,
Gibbons (1965) brought in a radical new perspective that the self-assessment of the criminal
matters to the typology. The crime that had been committed was the central point to Gibbons’
(1965) classifications. The labels that were produced for this typology were aggressive,
passive-aggressive and related to psychological stress. The aggressive involved crimes that
confront victims outright, such as murder and rape, passive-aggressive included crimes that
were hurting people indirectly such as arson and forgery, and the crimes related to
psychological stress were often sexually based crimes such as pedophilia and exhibitionism
(as cited by Palermo & Kocsis, 2005).
Profiling is incredibly dependent on the crime itself, the crime scene and the motive.
However, there is a standard profile that is likely to be the demographic of any serial killer.
Most often, serial killers are white males in their 20’s to 40’s that are described as “loners.”
This is not always the case, though, as there have been many serial killers that are married or
in committed relationships. The average serial killer could be in a stable job and a settled life,
or they are constantly moving from place to place (Miller, 2014). Due to these variations in

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serial killer profiles, there needs to be more specific classifications for sorting the killers from
each other in order to determine who is more likely to be the culprit of any future attacks.
The motivational typologies of sexual criminalities was first developed by Nicholas
Groth in 1979. In the beginning, the typologies were used to categorize rapists. The four
categories are power-assertive, anger-excitation, power-reassurance and anger-retaliatory. To
increase the management of the classifications for murders, crime scenes were split into
whether they were organized or disorganized. An organized crime scene will exhibit signs of
a planned attack and well controlled behavior, while a disorganized crime scene will likely
show signs of psychosis, being a crime of passion and using any weapon that they can obtain
(Helfgott, 2013). The two were combined to investigate sexual killings by Keppel and Walter
(1999). They determined that anger-excitation and power-assertive were organized forms of
sexual murders and that the disorganized classifications were the anger-retaliatory and
power-reassurance offenders (Higgins, Carter, Tully, & Brown, 2017). These typologies and
categorizations depend on the motives and behaviors of the killer and the physical aspects of
what is left behind to investigate at the crime scene. The reasons why the murder is
committed is split into anger, power and control issues within the perpetrator. However, this
does not account for the sociological views that the killer possesses.
The term sociopsychological criminal profiling was coined by Palermo and Kocsis
(2005). The sociopsychological form of profiling is meant to encompass all forms of
knowledge that contribute to the profile of any given criminal including: sociology,
psychiatry, psychology and criminology. Due to the fact that humans live in a social world,
social psychology must be taken into account when creating their profile. The disorganized
type of sexual serial killer is said to be a loner not by one’s own accord, but by being
perceived as strange and, therefore, isolated. Disorganized killers are of an average
intelligence, socially inept, sexually incompetent, had a difficult childhood, live alone and

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have little to no lifestyle changes, to name a just a few characteristics. However,
sociopsychological criminal profiling persists with the theme of ignoring the societal
perspectives of the serial killers, themselves (Palermo and Kocsis, 2005).
Analysis of Typologies
Both serial killer typologies believe themselves to be of lower social status, even if
socioeconomically they are not of the lower class. This is due to the perception of being
“inadequate” or feeling like a “loser.” Those with a higher status self-perception are more
likely to exhibit less empathetic qualities that are generally attributed to these sexual serial
killers (DeAngelis, 2015). However, the lack of an empathetic nature is shown within their
kills.
In normal life, anger-retaliatory killers display signs of feeling inadequate in
schooling; as most of these killers either were never very good in school or declined in
academic achievement as their fantasies became more intense. This is where the offenders
were established as “lower status” in their own minds. But, psychologically, this would have
created a cognitive dissonance in these killers. As explained in McLeod (2008), cognitive
dissonance is a contradiction between beliefs that a person may hold and their behavior. The
contradiction usually leads to feelings of immense discomfort and causes the person to want
to make both behavior and personal attitude agree. In order to eradicate this uncomfortable
feeling, the killer would prove his (This paper will use the pronoun, “his,” due to the fact that
most of these serial killers have been men and all of the killers I will be referencing in the
paper is of the male sex) high sense of self-worth through his authority over his victims.
In contrast, the power-reassurance killers are more likely to deal with these selfloathing feelings by succumbing to their own fantasies. In their fantasies, the powerreassurance killer will think that he can get any partner that he wants. He will have delusions

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of perfect sexual experiences with women or men. Many times, this will begin with simple
stalking and fantasizing but will eventually escalate to rape. When the killer realizes that his
fantasy will not be met unless he has complete control, he will kill his victim and likely have
post-mortem sexual intercourse. For the power-reassurance offender, the murder is only an
outcome of the murderer needing to fulfill his daydream.
Though both types of killers have similar intentions to establish dominance through
their sexual and violent actions, there are key differences in their perception of the situation.
The impaired perception is a primary reasoning for the social consequences that occur. The
killers seem to hold common mental structures; such as fantasies and personality disorders
that make their social perception relatively skewed compared to that of a psychologically
congruent person. This is the main point in which the two typologies distinguish themselves
apart from each other.
The anger-retaliatory sexual serial killer will likely have the mind set to kill initially.
The offender will usually commit a kind of “overkill” against his victim after the sexual act
(Godwin, 2002, p. 13). “Overkill” tends to refer to the mutilation of a body after the initial
kill or more stab wounds than was needed to commit the intended murder. Godwin (2002)
explains the occurrence by stating that “In the disorganized type murder [under which the
anger-retaliatory killer falls], the victim is depersonalized by cuts and stab wounds to specific
areas of the body” (p. 5). Anger-retaliatory killers tend to have a certain sense of loathing
toward the female sex; it is their official motive for their sexual dominance and eventual
murder of their victims. A sexually, physically and/or verbally abusive mother is a common
reason for the anger-retaliatory serial killer to retaliate against women. They usually have the
characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. When those with Narcissistic Personality
Disorder feel their control has been taken or their self-esteem has been breached, they will
become increasingly aggressive and seek out a means of extinguishing that feeling of

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anguish. According to Kohut (1966, 1968), having Narcissistic Personality Disorder, in turn,
makes the killer believe that he is right in what he is doing; in his mind, the woman deserved
it simply for being a woman and he is in no way wrong it what he has done. His perception of
social consequence for the crime he has committed is calmly written off by this selfgratifying attitude.
A power-reassurance killer, however, exhibits other personality disorders, such as
Antisocial Personality Disorder; this is defined as a psychological disorder where the person
does not value the rights of others and tends to infringe upon those rights (Psych Central,
2014). According to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5),
Antisocial Personality Disorder can be viewed a spectrum, making psychopaths, such as
serial killers, on the most severe end of the disorder (American Psychiatric Association,
2013). Power-reassurance sexual murderers will likely show signs of very little remorse, very
high affliction for fantasy and delusion and will have used many manipulative and charming
ways to lure their victims; the killer will think of this as his “seduction” of the victim. In the
mind of this category of serial killer, he truly believes that he was not in the wrong for the
murder that occurred. For the power-reassurance killer, the sex was the main reason for the
attack; not the “thrill of the kill”, as they would associate with other killers. These killers will
blame the fantasies instead of themselves for the killing, but will not show any guilt for the
fact that it happened; this is because, to them, the murder was simply necessary for their
control over the victim (Godwin, 2002).
Analysis of Serial Killers
A prominent power-reassurance serial killer is Jeffery Dahmer. Jeffery Dahmer was a
serial killer in the 1980’s, and was arrested in 1991. Dahmer was found in 1991 with human
heads in his refrigerator, skulls throughout the apartment and other remains of 11 victims

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(Nichols, 2006). He would generally meet the men that would later become his victims in gay
bars or other various places in which someone would go to make a connection with people
and possibly form a bond; this, too, was Dahmer’s intention. However, for Jeffery Dahmer,
this bond meant much more than going to the movies or out to eat. Dahmer would make sure
none of his guests would ever leave him. He resorted to cannibalism and necrophilia to
complete his fantasy that the people would always be a part of him, as well as gain the sexual
pleasure that he had originally wanted. Dahmer says, in the interview with Stone Phillips, that
he did not choose the victims off of anything other than how attractive they were to him,
“[Sex] was a big part of [the killing], my only objective was to find the best looking guy that
I could. Their sexual preference didn’t matter to me… No, their race didn’t matter to me,”
(Jeffery Dahmer Stone Phillips interview, 13:25). In this interview, Dahmer also refers to the
killing as a “means to an end.” This quote proves the fact that Jeffery Dahmer was a powerreassurance serial killer. But it goes even deeper than just classifying him into one typology.
Jeffery Dahmer was a child born into a middle class, American family to Lionel and
Joyce Dahmer (Nichols, 2006). Though he had been born into the middle class, Dahmer had
always felt unaccepted and of a lower status. His self-perception was that he was not only the
reason for his parents’ arguments, but also that he was unwanted and isolated. He states in the
interview that he disagreed with the idea that he was a very introverted child and says that his
dad only wrote that because, “there was so much tension in the home that I really didn’t feel
like being up and happy a lot of the time,” (Jeffery Dahmer Stone Phillips interview, 19:48).
Jeffery’s birth was unexpected and therefore not incredibly easy to deal with for the
Dahmers. Not only was his mother’s pregnancy a treacherous one, but after he was born the
parents found out that he had a leg deformity, which made it all the more difficult on his
mother to care for him. The build-up of stress from such a difficult pregnancy and infancy
caused Joyce to suffer from postpartum depression. Dahmer always blamed himself for his

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mother and father’s arguments and strain (Nichols, 2006). After age 15, Dahmer only felt
more isolated by his “thoughts [that] were basically unsharable” (Jeffery Dahmer Stone
Phillips interview, 17:46). These thoughts were mainly about his homosexuality and because
of this feeling of isolation due to his sexual preference, Dahmer began to fantasize more
heavily on his sexual interests. He also focused on aspects of complete control, so that the
people would not leave him alone; this is why he later becomes a necrophiliac and cannibal
and kept mementos from his victims. Dahmer’s perceived lack of social status, paired with
his knowledge that he wanted to be the one in control, made him realize he needed to show
people his true power.
Antisocial Personality Disorder had a huge impact on Jeffery Dahmer’s social
consequence perception. The main points to Antisocial Disorder are: failure to conform to
social norms, a lack of remorse, deceit, impulsive behaviors, irritability and aggression,
reckless disregard for others and himself and consistent irresponsibility (Psych Central,
2014). Dahmer’s failure to conform is fairly obvious, as he clearly lacked care for the laws
and performed such terrible, deviant and criminal acts as kidnapping, dismemberment,
cannibalism, necrophilia and murder. The deviance that Dahmer displayed was no less than
taboo in the society. The word “taboo” means something that is widely deemed unacceptable
within a community. His lack of remorse for these acts is also shown in the interview that
was held with Stone Phillips. Dahmer was very calm and collected in his answers to the
questions about all of his heinous crimes. At the very end, Dahmer saw a lock box that
reminded him of the one that he had as a young adult that had held a severed human head; he
pointed this out to Stone in the same manner most would refer to a painting that they
recognized on a museum wall.
Jeffery Dahmer kept his family in the dark from the horrific activities that he was
taking part in. During the interview with Stone Phillips, Jeffery Dahmer’s father was also

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there with him. In the interview, Stone Phillips asks about the incident where Dahmer’s father
almost opened a locked box that was in Jeffery’s room; which contained a human head.
However, before his father could open it, Jeffery convinced his dad to leave it be until the
next day; within the time between the argument over opening the box and the next day,
Jeffery had switched the human head out for pornographic material (Jeffery Dahmer Stone
Phillips interview, 1:08:08). His deceit was also shown in the way that he picked up his
victims. Dahmer would get a victim by doing what most normal people would do to get a
date. He would meet the victim at a bar, mall or various other public places and ask them
back to his home. He seduced his victims by being flattering to them. According to Matthews
and Springen (1992), Dahmer would introduce himself in a flirtatious manner by saying
things like, “Hi, I’m Jeff. I like the way you dance,” and “You’re the nicest guy I’ve met in
Milwaukee” (as cited in Nichols, 2006, p. 244). He would lure the men in and give them a
beer, hangout and watch movies or take pictures together. However, when they would try to
leave Dahmer would get scared and would then take to his form of control; strangulation and
dismemberment (Nichols, 2006). Acting on impulse was also well depicted by Jeffery
Dahmer. When Dahmer was only 18 years old, he had gone out for a drive and was coming
home and saw a hitchhiker (Nichols, 2006). Dahmer had held a fantasy of meeting a
hitchhiker and bringing him home with him to have his way with the man, and this seemed to
make him stop and realize he could have exactly that (Jeffery Dahmer Stone Phillips
interview, 9:57). However, acting on impulse and fantasy, Jeffery Dahmer stopped and
picked up the young man, named Steven Hicks, and brought him home to have a few beers.
Dahmer explained the reasoning in Hicks being his first victim. When it came time for Hicks
to leave, Dahmer panicked and killed him, dismembered him and made sure his remains were
well beyond unrecognizable (Nichols, 2006). Dahmer states that “the guy wanted to leave

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and I didn’t want him to leave,” according to Schwartz (1992) (as cited in Nichols, 2006, p.
249).
Irritability and aggression was common for Jeffery Dahmer as well. He argued quite
often with his parents as an adolescent and emerging adult. Dahmer was very upset by his
parents’ constant violent arguments in the home (Nichols, 2006). He became easily agitated
while alone and would go out and get someone to be with but when they would get ready to
leave him, Dahmer would not have that. These reactions to his need for constant
companionship and fear of loss coupled with his fantasies of control, lead to immense sexual
aggression and commonplace irritability. Reckless disregard for others was in the actions that
he exhibited against the people that he killed and the animals that he hurt as a child. Even as a
child he held little respect or care for the life of another. Consistent irresponsibility was
shown as he entered Ohio State University. He only spent half of the semester there before
dropping out and ending with a .45 GPA. He also enlisted into the army but was dishonorably
discharged for his alcoholism, the same reason as to why he dropped out of college so early
and did so poorly (Nichols, 2006).
These stories from Jeffery Dahmer’s past show how he viewed the world and his own
accountability for his crimes. Dahmer said that he feels responsible for how he made his
parents feel, however he said it with a very nonchalant and uncaring demeanor. Social
consequence was not a worry of Dahmer’s. He did not perceive himself to be responsible for
his own actions because, to him, he had done these things so that he could gain the control
that he wanted and may have even felt that he needed. Therefore, the social ramifications
could not fall upon him from these acts, in his mind.
One well-known and highly-depicted anger-retaliatory killer was Ed Gein. As a very
recognized killer, Gein has been in used to create multiple different fictional killers in the

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media. Inspirations of Gein’s are Leather Face from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Buffalo Bill
from Silence of the Lambs, and his most accurate portrayal being Norman Bates from Psycho
and Bates Motel. However, this is the real Ed Gein; not as star-striking as the big screen (or
the little screen), yet he is still a highly influential example of an anger-retaliatory killer.
Ed Gein grew up with an older brother, a drunken father and a very strict mother in
the early 1900’s. Ed attended school but was not a very high achiever. His mother was a very
key contributor of what would later be the killer that was Ed Gein. He had a rather unhealthy
attachment to her, for a young boy. Because Gein’s father was either drunk or working, his
mother was the disciplinary and head of house; and she was very unmovable from these titles.
When his father died, the detachment from his brother and attachment to his mother only
become worse (Taylor, 2004). One day, Ed and his brother, Henry, went behind their house
to extinguish a fire on the property. However, only Ed would come back alive. When the
body of Henry was eventually found, through a shady form of knowledge from Eddie, the
body was not burned at all. There was, though, a large lump upon his head; as if from a blunt
object. Overlooking this, the cause of death was declared as asphyxiation and the rest of them
moved on with their lives (Horsting, 2000). However, when his mother died Ed became even
more shut out from the rest of the town he lived in (Plainfield, Wisconsin); blaming the towns
people and farm life for his mother’s death (Horsting, 2000). However, Ed would still help
neighbors when asked and would sometimes ask Mary Hogan and Bernice Wordon, two
middle-aged and heavily built women, to go dancing or to the movies with him. These two
were specifically chosen by Gein because they both reminded him of his mother (Horsting,
2000). These women would also be the ones that he chose to kill and don the skin of. This is
likely due to the fact that he was taking out his aggression on women that brought back
memories of his abusive mother, no matter how saintly he deemed her to be.

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Ed Gein was not a very well-off man. Born into a low status anyway, Ed was only
more pushed down by the fact that he was not a very good student and was never able to live
up to his mother’s standards. His need to be seen as successful in his mother’s eyes even
outreached her life span. After death, Ed continued to try to be what his mother would have
wanted and therefore finally having her recognize that he was, in fact, the perfect child that
he had strived to be all along. But in Ed’s mind, this meant to become a woman. Women, like
his mother, held all of the power and the control. In Ed’s mind, this wicked woman was not
wicked at all. According to Horsting (2000):
He would insist, in testimony and interviews that, "My mother was a saint" though
every psychologist who interviewed Ed over the years of his confinement would later
assert August was a dominating rigid, and very likely, abusive head of the household.
(pp. 1)
Eddie Gein’s social status was perceived as less than women and therefore to be in power, as
he desired, he needed to become exactly what it was that was in power— a woman. So he set
out to making a suit of woman skin, trying to visualize and become the power that he needed
to have to soothe the dissonance that exhausted his mind. He was the good child, the loved
child. But if he was not his mother, he was not the one in charge of his life; and the real,
“Her,” was gone. At his house, investigators would find leggings made of dried skin and an
entire dried upper half of a woman’s skin (including preserved breasts) that would make up
his “woman suit” (Horsting, 2000, pp. 32).
Eddie Gein suffered from a form of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Some of the
symptoms that he exhibits this disorder are: preoccupation with fantasies of power and
success, requiring excessive admiration, exploiting of others, lacking of empathy and envying

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of others. Gein was not overly popular or overly self-proclaiming; however, he still had many
attributes of a narcissist.
The perceived need to feel power was immensely depicted in Gein’s crimes. He
would save pieces of each body that he dug up and woman that he killed to commemorate the
fact that he had achieved this feat. The woman suit was the very brink of his sickness, though.
He wanted the power that he felt women had innately, and would dress up in women’s
clothing as well as women’s skin. Horsting (2000) elaborates on this notion:
Gein confessed that many of the body parts he had preserved were meant to be worn.
He would undress and strap on the preserved breasts and leggings, tie a vagina over
his penis and don a face mask and "dance" in his yard on warm nights, or he would
don a mask or vagina and wear it while indoors. (pp. 41)
Gein wanted his mother to see him and his success, even if she could not do so physically; he
perceived his acts as something that would please her in the long run. This idea delves into
the fact that he required the constant admiration of his mother, even after she was deceased.
He would exploit others in the most gruesome of ways; murder and grave robbery.
The murder of both Mary and Bernice were shocking and terrible enough to the town in
which he lived, however to learn that he was also desecrating the graves of their loved ones
was also disturbing knowledge. But even after killing and defiling graves, Gein did not stop
his exploitation. He used their bodies to furnish his home as well as his own perverse fantasy
of being female (Taylor, 2004, pp. 11). Taylor (2004) sets the scene for the disarray that the
police walked into on entrance to Gein’s home:
Soup bowls had been made from the sawed-off tops of human skulls. Chairs had been
upholstered in human skin. Lamp shades had been fashioned from flesh, giving off an
eerie and putrid glow. A box was discovered that contained nothing but human noses.

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A belt had been made from female nipples. A shade pull had been decorated with a
pair of woman's lips. A shoe box under a bed contained a collection of dried, female
genitalia. The faces of nine women, carefully stuffed and mounted, were hanging on
one wall.... and there was much more, including a bracelet of skin, a drum made from
a coffee can and human flesh, and more. (pp. 11)
Eddie’s lack of empathy was shown in his interviews with the police. He had no care
for what he had done to the woman and grave robbing had only been a means to an end. Gein
had little care for anyone and anything besides himself and his mother. With his mother being
dead, Gein focused on only himself. Even his trophies seemingly meant little to him, for
when he was told of his house being burnt down he only said, “Just as well” (Taylor, 2004,
pp. 14). Gein also shows his envy of women throughout all of his actions. He goes as far as to
try to take on the very persona of a woman to try to reach this ideal identity.
All of this goes into how Eddie Gein views his social consequences. His perception is
self-gratifying as he justifies his actions as rational. In Gein’s mind, he deserves these
women’s skin especially that of the dead, as they no longer need it. He will continue to
believe he is not in the wrong because he has hurt no one that did not deserve it. The women
he killed had tried to be demanding and he wanted to have that power of demand and control
that they tried to bestow upon him. He took little to no responsibility for his actions, as every
answer to the cops’ questioning would begin with “I may have…” or “I could have…”
instead of an outright confession (Horsting, 2000, pp. 40).
Discussion
Criminal investigation focuses too highly on the legal aspects of catching and
prosecuting a criminal, not taking into account the psychological and sociological
components of the criminal. Criminal profiling will focus more on the crime that has been

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committed than on the person, though it claims to be the scale used to determine the
characteristics of the person that committed a certain crime. However, this means that the
team analysing the profile of the killer should be using a system akin to that of the research
done in this study. In order to truly understand the mind of the criminals, they must be able to
discern how the killers were able to justify their actions and do something that is not a
common norm in the particular society such as murder.
The analysis of Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Gein can be furthered upon and used as a lens
to profile other past sexual and even non-sexual serial killers in order to create a more whole
idea of the Social Perception and Psychological Anaylsis Profiling System (SPPAPS). The
main parts of the SPPAPS are taking into account the killers’ perceptions of their own social
status and the social consequences while also acknowledging the psychological abnormalities
that contribute to these perspectives and heightens the likelihood of extreme deviant
behavior. SPPAPS also includes the standard typologies and crime scene investigation
techniques of the current profiling system and is not meant to replace it. Instead, SPPAPS
was created in order to enhance the abilities of the criminal justice system and include more
humanity into the act of tracking down criminals.
Conclusion
The Social Perception and Psychological Anaylsis Profiling System allows for a new
lens with which to view the two typologies of serial killers that were considered. Powerreassurance and anger-retaliatory serial killers are sexual serial killers that are stratified from
one another because of their social perceptions of status and consequence. Each killer has a
motive for his crimes that is all his own. Jeffery Dahmer and Eddie Gein both have their own
distinct fantasies and rationalizations for their actions. Though neither killers felt that their
actions were their own fault, the reasons for this are differentiated based on the killer’s

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specific typology. Due to certain personality disorders, the killers construct their mind-sets to
allow themselves the ability to disassociate from social consequence. Status perception is also
rather differentiated between the two categories. Though they both feel unsatisfied with their
perceived social status, each killer has a novel reason for their feelings and uses a different
approach to alleviating the feelings. Psychology and sociology’s merge form a better
understanding of these serial killers and is the best way to further the research and application
in profiling serial murderer typologies based upon their specific mental and social perspective
characteristics; this will, in turn, more thoroughly clarify the typologies of serial killers and
create a more complete understanding of who the people are behind the crimes.

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