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My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers
Unavailable
My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers
Unavailable
My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers
Ebook377 pages6 hours

My Life Among the Serial Killers: Inside the Minds of the World's Most Notorious Murderers

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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About this ebook

Over the course of twenty-five years, Dr. Helen Morrison has profiled more than eighty serial killers around the world. What she learned about them will shatter every assumption you've ever had about the most notorious criminals known to man.Judging by appearances, Dr. Helen Morrison has an ordinary life in the suburbs of a major city. She has a physician husband, two children, and a thriving psychiatric clinic. But her life is much more than that. She is one of the country's leading experts on serial killers, and has spent as many as four hundred hours alone in a room with depraved murderers, digging deep into killers' psyches in ways no profiler before ever has.

In My Life Among the Serial Killers, Dr. Morrison relates how she profiled the Mad Biter, Richard Otto Macek, who chewed on his victims' body parts, stalked Dr. Morrison, then believed she was his wife. She did the last interview with Ed Gein, who was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. John Wayne Gacy, the clown-obsessed killer of young men, sent her crazed Christmas cards and gave her his paintings as presents. Then there was Atlanta child killer Wayne Williams; rapist turned murderer Bobby Joe Long; England's Fred and Rosemary West, who killed girls and women in their "House of Horrors"; and Brazil's deadliest killer of children, Marcelo Costa de Andrade.

Dr. Morrison has received hundreds of letters from killers, read their diaries and journals, evaluated crime scenes, testified at their trials, and studied photos of the gruesome carnage. She has interviewed the families of the victims -- and the spouses and parents of the killers -- to gain a deeper understanding of the killer's environment and the public persona he adopts. She has also studied serial killers throughout history and shows how this is not a recent phenomenon with psychological autopsies of the fifteenth-century French war hero Gilles de Rais, the sixteenth-century Hungarian Countess Bathory, H. H. Holmes of the late ninteenth century, and Albert Fish of the Roaring Twenties.

Through it all, Dr. Morrison has been on a mission to discover the reasons why serial killers are compelled to murder, how they choose their victims, and what we can do to prevent their crimes in the future. Her provocative conclusions will stun you.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateOct 13, 2009
ISBN9780061809590
Author

Dr. Helen Morrison

Helen Morrison, M.D., is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology for general psychiatry as well as child and adolescent psychiatry. She is also a certified forensic psychiatrist. She is the editor or coauthor of four academic books, as well as the author or coauthor of more than 125 published articles in her field. Dr. Morrison has worked with both national and international law enforcement, and has made presentations in more than fifteen countries. She lives in Chicago with her husband and children.

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Rating: 3.1741072499999996 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have a morbid fascination with serial killers, and a newfound appreciation for true crime, so of course I was going to give this book a try. And here is where I'm torn. The author's psychological explanation for why serial killers kill is that they are addicted to killing, they are impulsive and incapable of controlling their actions once they are pushed too far, and they have the emotional maturity of a young infant. Ie. their killing sprees are impulsive rather than premeditated. That's a pretty hard claim to justify, and a claim that had me raising my eyebrow in certain parts. But on the other hand, the visceral details of these murders are truly shocking and gut-wrenching, and that was why I picked up the book in the first place. The big names (John Wayne Gacy, Gary Ridgeway, etc.) had the most pull for me, but even the unfamiliar criminals had me enthralled and disgusted. At any rate, it certainly has me clamoring to learn more about true crime and serial murders.So I suppose that determining whether or not a reader will like this book comes down to their interests: if they're interested in the details of serial murderers, they'll probably find a wealth of fascinating information in here. If they're interested in a strong psychological analysis of the criminals' motives, they might be better off choosing a different title. I'm giving this book four stars because of my personal reaction to it. But will it be the book for every fan of true crime? Not likely. Readalikes:If you're interested in learning more about some of the people mentioned in the book, you might try Green River, Running Red (Ann Rule), The Stranger Beside Me (Ann Rule), or John Wayne Gacy: Defending a Monster (Sam Amirante).If you're interested in the idea of psychological profiling, you might try How to Make a Serial Killer (Christopher Berry-Dee), The Measure of Madness (Cheryl Paradis), or Whoever Fights Monsters (Robert K. Ressler).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Fans of true crime who haven't already explored the case studies included in this book will find Morrison's work informative and engrossing. But the work falls short in providing adequate documentation to bolster the author's controversial assertion that nature (neurological disorder or disorders) solely determines who will become a serial killer. Morrison acknowledges several times toward the end of the work that there are "more questions than answers." Even though the last third of the book focuses (almost to a fault) on the scientific/psychiatric aspects, the case that Morrison presents to bolster her hypothesis seems a bit flimsy.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was a very interesting book, but I don't think that much of the author's theory. She believes a genetic, neurological problem causes serial murder and environment, upbringing, etc., has nothing to do with it. In order to get her theory to work she used a very narrow, arbitrary definition of a serial killer. If Ed Gein was a serial killer, why wasn't Elizabeth Bathory? This book is good to read for all the information it contains about certain serial murderers, including some relatively obscure ones, but I don't think it's the answer to everything.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Dr. Morrison's insight into historical views of serial homicide is beneficial in forensic social work. However, she does not always accept the idea of a study of serial murder done by the behavioral unit of the FBI, which I appreciate. Her insight into different serial killers' minds was essential to how I view forensic psychology and social work intervention when working with my clients. Critically, she added to the study of this phenomenon.

    Hilary Hanna
    2022
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent book bought this when it was first released and it piqued my curiosity further.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Hm. An interesting theme (naturally!) and Dr. Morrison goes through quite many cases, a couple of which I didn't know that much about. At first the approach felt scientific and convincing, but the further it went the less convincing it became. At the very end where Dr. Morrison first says that serial murder is basically all in the genes and that's that, and then wants to do PET scans and all other kind of scans to serial murderers' brains to really understand what's going on. I really don't think it's that simple. Towards the end she claims that serial murders are not able to complete lengthy written psychological tests (more that twelve hours is a long time for anyone, I don't think you need to do that at one go) because they are not able to even focus on having a discussion for that long. I mean, come on. That's just bullshit. My attention started to scatter towards the end, when I realised that instead of telling a narrative she was baiscally just listing different murderers. The point really was beyond me at that point. To conclude, anyone who carries a piece of a serial killer's brain around is not someone who can jugde others for keeping murder trophies. There. That was 5+ hours of my life wasted.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    She’s a psychiatrist who works as a profiler and claims to have interviewed 80 serial killers. A lot of it feels like bullshit, like how she talked to Ed Gein, but has nothing new to add about him. She says she had a correspondence with UK accessory to murder Rose West, but sorry, she doesn’t have permission to share any of the content. True crime name dropping? Her own theories seem like personal opinion - she thinks serial killers aren’t psychopaths but are stuck at an infant level of emotional development, and she says there are no female serial killers, which is demonstrably false. The only interesting parts were descriptions of a few cases I wasn’t aware of. Though I’ll admit my jaw dropped at the fact that Rose West, in prison for life, became engaged to the bass player from Slade, a glam band I like. Turns out it was Slade II, a later lineup of new musicians, and they fired him “for the good name of the band”.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Oh, where do I begin with this piece of work. I am fascinated by killers, specifically serial killers, and how their minds work. I thought this book would give me grand insight. To a degree it did, but with it came a very opinionated view disguised as a scientific conclusion.It has been a while since I read this, but I will do my best to describe my biggest gripes with the book. For starters, the author goes on about how she has to keep her personal life a secret so her patients (the serial killers) can't use it to manipulate her. However, in the book she will describe random moments with her children and husband in detail I would think her paranoid to say should one of her patients get ahold of the book. This is what I care about the least.She has many moments where she makes a statement that just doesn't seem right compared to all the evidence. One statement, which is brought up many times against this book, is how she believes John Wayne Gacy would have still killed in front of a police officer. This was said in his defense as he could not help himself and wasn't in touch with reality enough to know consequences (again this is roughly speaking from my memory), when several times he did show that he did indeed know and avoided getting caught. She seems to ignore valuable details to support her theories.Along with that, with the backlash of her defense of Gacy, she claimed it was because she was a female in her field and it was a boys club. She seems so out of touch with how her theories stack up against what we know and the evidence that she will say about anything to keep from admitting she may be wrong. From reading her book, I got a constant condescending tone and it was frustrating. And as long as we are on the topic of being a woman, she claims there are no female serial killers. She backs this up with an incorrect definition of a serial killer that pretty much allows her to selectively push out many people who qualify. Why? I suspect it's because they do not fit her theories. As a woman, I find this behavior peeving and likely maybe part of the reason some people do not take women in the field seriously.Another issue I have is she claims serial killers are never addicted to substances and are never sexually motivated. Ted Bundy (I believe I have the right guy) alone is enough to disprove this. I could attempt to go into more detail about why she believes this to be true, but I no longer have the book with me. Should I get it again, I will update this review to cover it more thoroughly.I could go on and on about my gripes with the author herself. Her claim that she has interviewed around 80 serial killers is questionable (and said to be impossible by some) and has been a hot topic for some time now. She overall, in the book, reeks of "praise me because I'm amazing!". I honestly got more about her than I recall of the serial killers. It was disappointing. From her disturbing controversial opinions to her general attitude, this book was a mess. I truly did want to love it, but I just couldn't with the lack of professionalism amongst what I have listed above.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    This is a brazen attempt to cash in on the misery of others. Helen Morrison is not much better than the internet ghouls that fawn over killers. Morrison offers a theory that murderers are born not made, but has no evidence to support her thesis. Most of the book recounts the events of various serial killers. How they killed, in graphic detail, how they were caught, where are they now. There is next to nothing new here. Read wikipedia about each killer and you get 90% of this book. Of course she interjects herself into each story with the following format: ·Description of where she was when she found out she could meet killer.·What the killer looked like when she met him·The questions she asked ‘Why did you do it?”·Huge unfounded theoretical leap to finish it offMorrison demonstrates the worst side of psychology, the idea that theoretical concepts like the Id, Superego, etc, are solid proven facts and can be used to explain the actions of madmen. She also shamelessly inserts lurid details for pure sensationalism. John Wayne Gacy’s Mother revealed some strange, embarrassing parenting techniques. Even though “Dr”. Morrison is sure the details had nothing to do with Gacy becoming a killer, and that Mrs. Gacy seemed mortified, and denied the statements later, she includes a detailed account in her book.It is impossible to respect this writer as a scientist. She claims to want to understand, to predict to save people, but those statements don’t stand up to examination. In reality she has achieved her, far less noble, goal of becoming famous.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A very detailed discourse on serial killers, Dr. Morrison has theories and postulates that may differ from the usual angle that forensics experts take. She does not agree that childhood abuse is a major factor in creating a serial killer, but rather puts a unique theory on the table.

    When I read her theory being underscored over and over throughout the text, it made sense to me. By the end of the book, a part of me agrees, while the other parts are open for other perspectives.

    This is perfect for those who are into forensics, crime reads, and serial killers. For those who are studying Psychology, as well, this is a great book to review, too.

    Not everyone may agree with Dr. Morrison's theory, but it is certainly unique, and lends a different perspective to what we think about serial killers and why they do what they do.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Pompous, self-absorbed, poorly written. Hardly to be considered scientific, especially given her arbitrary definition of serial killer. Are we really to believe that serial killing, unlike most other physical and psychological aspects of humans, is entirely dependent on genetics and is not influenced by environment? Ludicrous. She brushes aside environment entirely. "Sure, he was beaten by his father, but not as severely as he'd have you believe, and it can't possibly be the reason he became a serial killer." Perhaps not the sole reason, but can it be ignored? Throughout, she seeks a single reason and does not seem to entertain the idea that the interplay of many different things might lead one to serial murder.

    2 people found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    My Life Among the Serial Killers wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped. In fact, a lot of it was dull, particularly the final two chapters, and it was a book that was hard to get into, and I wasn't sure at first whether I would read it all the way through. I did, however, although I admit to some skimming over the boring technical details of those final two chapters. Helen Morrison is a psychiatrist who studies the behaviour of serial killers. Based in Chicago, she is probably best known for her study of John Wayne Gacy, and has spent decades trying to understand what makes serial killers behave the way that they do. I don't envy her this work. I could not deal with the nearness of (mostly) men who kill and torture numerous people. I don't know what I think about her theory (I am not going to mention it for fear of spoiling someone else's read) about why serial killers kill, or about why they behave the way they do. Not a great book. Interesting to the die-hard true crime fan, but not enough to keep me reading - I kept putting the book down to do something else, which says a lot about how I felt about reading it.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I made it to page 25 - and I skipped the prologue - and OMG she sounds like Professor Lockhart from Harry Potter! Sounds like an interesting topic, but couldn't handle it.

    1 person found this helpful