Crime is wrong, any type of crime, and criminals are wrong to do what they do, but there is a vast difference in different types of crimes. You have your petty thieves, your white collar criminals, your scam artists and even your killers, but the worst monsters of all are the serial killers. Some people don't believe there is such a thing as evil and write off serial killers as insane. In our society, in this time and place, it is easy to tell some people who are insane but relatively impossible to determine if others are insane or not. Hopefully this may change in the future. There is no doubt that some serial killers were insane but there is also some doubt as to others.

The profile of the average serial killer (if there could be such a thing) is a white male heterosexual, between the ages of 20 twenty years old to his mid or late thirties. He is said to have low self esteem. There are exceptions to this of course.

When one hears of serial killers he or she tends to think of killers in this country, the U.S., but there are serial killers all over the world. A serial killer named Padro Alonso Lopez killed the amazing total of over 300 women, and he did this dastardly deed in three different countries. Pedro was the son of a prostitute. She threw him into the street when he was eight years old. He landed up being taken in by a pedophile. He wound up in prison before he was eighteen and was sexually assaulted over and over.After he was released he had killed three of his assaulters but he had also killed over 100 girls by 1978. He moved around from Columbia to Ecuador and it is believed Peru. This killer must have averaged almost one killing per day since his release from prison. He was aptly named the Monster of the Andes.

John Wayne Gacey was a famous American serial killer. When he was a child, he was hit in the head by a swing which caused a blood clot. The clot was not discovered for five years and he suffered blackouts until the clot was dissolved. He complained about heart pain for his entire life but nothing was ever found wrong with his heart. His father was abusive but John loved him. Gacey had a contracting business and managed to murder 32 young men who wanted a job. He would also dress as a clown to entertain children.

Lets take a look back into history. We can find serial killers that lived hundreds of years ago. In France there was a war hero named Gilles de Rais. He lived in the fifteenth century. He was a close alley of Joan of Arc during the war. He had been named Marshall of France by the King and was a Duke. He would torture and kill young boys whom he had sodomized. He did this on his estate and enjoyed it very much. He practiced black magic The Duke of Brittany found some of the graves and arrested him. He confessed and was burned and hanged at the same time. Two of his servants that helped were buried alive. The death toll is believed to have been over 300 people.

One of the most famous serial killers in this country was David Berkowitz. Berkowitz was also known as the 44 caliber killer because he was running around New York City killing women with a 44 caliber hand gun. He was also known as the Son of Sam killer because he had left a note for the investigating officer where, among other things, he wrote, "I am the Son of Sam. I am a little brat." He also called himself a monster. Berkowitz didn't start out as a serial killer, he started out as a serial arsonist. He had set over 1,400 fires before he decided to kill women. I am no psychiatrist but I think the fact that he got away with setting all those fires made him feal he could get away with anything. He killed six people. The prosecution argued that even though Berkowitz was neurotic he was as sane as anyone else. If one reads the full story of Berkowitz they would have to admit that there was nothing sane about this man.

But who was the most famous serial killer in history? It had to be Jack The Ripper. What makes Jack so famous is not the body count or the way he murdered his prey, but the fact that he or she was never caught and many stories have been written about him. To make things even more intriguing, some say he was royalty while others say he was a surgeon and still others say he was the surgeon to the crown. As most of us know, Jack the Ripper, did not murder that many people. His total, while barbaric, was only five women and all of them were prostitutes and murdered in a crime ridden slum. This case is so famous that people, even today, are still trying to solve it.

I guess that we will always, however unfortunately, have serial killers with us. Even if mental illness was cured, they would still exist in the form of people or just get their kicks out of killing.