Research Memo

 Serial Killers, Are they Animals?

Hypothesis:

In this memo I want to show that people do not realize all that serial killers are. I believe that they are just normal people that are getting treated like animals. These people do not get to live a normal life. I want people to agree with me and learn that they understand how they feel. Serial Killers and murders are just people who have a turning point in their life. I want to show that everyone has a certain thing that makes them snap.  For many of the people I want to research I want to get information that will help me understand if people know about serial killers and what goes through their mind. I don’t believe that people should be called mentally insane or twisted before they know anything about the person.

Context:

While distributing my surveys I wanted to target people between the ages of 13-50, because this is the time frame that many of the serial killers that I had look up had started to become as what their were.  After receiving over 50 completed surveys’ I was sure that there would be a positive outcome and I could speed through this activity.  I did get back great answers that had helped my research and informed me about how people are informed and how people feel about serial killers but I didn’t  answer all my questions. I still have many questions that could help me understand more about serial killers in general. They cannot be called insane because that your opinion but ,you have to understand that this is not how they started to plan their life.

How old are you?	Question 1.) How could serial killers decisions be changed if they had a different childhood?	Question 2.) What is a bigger effect on serial killers?
11-18 (12 participants)	They could take their lifestyle a different way. They could probably grow up better. Less violent. Maybe they wouldn’t kill people, because you get seriously demented and psycho. The mental health would be preserved. They would see people in a different view. They couldn’t have the mindset of killing people. Depends on their childhood. If they have a loving father.	Family Issues (7) Childhood (7) Mental Issues (1)
19-39 (11 participants)	Positive child means positive future. A different role model can inspire different perception on life. They might not have decided to start killing. Learning how to deal with problems. They would have a better sense of right and wrong. Would have more value on a human life. And would care about how their decisions affect others. Grow up in a loving home. Teaching a better structure. Learn ho to deal with problems. More loving.	Family Issues (4) Life Experience(1) Childhood (6) School ( 1) Outside Influence (1)
40+ ( 2 participants)	No responses creditable.	Childhood (1) Circumstances (1) Revenge (1)
	Question 3.)Should the public be more informed about getting a mental disease?	Question 4.) A person’s insanity should be noticed before the age of….
11-18 ( 12 participants)	Yes (11) No  ( 1)	New Born (0) Toddler(2) Child (5) Pre-Teen (3) Teen (2) Adult (0)
19-39 ( 11 participants)	Yes (11) No  (0)	New Born (0) Toddler (2) Child (3) Pre-Teen (2) Teen (4) Adult (0)
40+ ( 2 participants)	Yes (2) No  (0)	New Born (1) Toddler (0) Child  (1) Pre-Teen (0) Teen(0) Adult(0)
	Question 5.)How did you hear about Jeffery Dahmer or other serial killers?	Question 6.)What serial killers do you know?
11-18 ( 12 participants)	Newspaper (3) TV (6) Friends ( 5) Family (1) Internet (1)	Pee-Wee (1) Ted Bundy (20 Jeffery Dahmer(2) Albert Fish(1) Jack the Ripper (4) Albert Manson(1)
19-39 (11 participants)	Newspaper (3) TV(5) Friends(1) Reading Books(1) School (3) Studies (1) Internet (1)	Jeffery  Dahmer (4)  DC Sniper ( 4) Son of Sam (3) Buffalo Bill ( 3) Jack the Ripper (4) John Wayne Gasey (4) David Karesch ( 2) Ted Bundy (3) Carl Watts (2) Charles Manson (2) Some concider Dr. (3) Kavorcian (2) The zodiac Killer (2) The Green River (1)
40+ ( 2 participants)	Newspaper (1) TV (1) Friends (0)	Freddy (1) John Wayne Gasey (1)
	Question 7.)What do you feel most serial killers do to their victims?	Question 8.) Someone’s childhood may predict their future?
11-18 ( 12 participants)	Molest/Rape (11) Drug (10) Kidnap (11) Dismember (5) Make the family suffer (5) Kill (1)	True (12) False (0)
19-39 (11 participants)	Molest/Rape (50 Drug (2) Kidnap (8) Dismember (0) Make the family suffer (1) Kill (1)	True ( 9) False(2)
40+ ( 2 participants)	Molest/Rape (1) Drug (0) Kidnap (0) Dismember (1) Make the family suffer (1) Depends on mind set (1)	True ( 2) False (0)
	Question 9.) Do family issues have an effect on serial killers?
11-18 ( 12 participants)	Yes (12) No (0)
19-39 ( 11 participants)	Yes (10) No(1)
40+ ( 2 participants)	Yes(2) No(0)

Data Analysis:

My age question made life 5 times easier and really gave me a way to organize my data. I realized that not having a question like this in the first place just was not a smart way to go. Even though I would like a more variety of age I liked the range that I received.

Question one: I was surprised on how many different answer everyone had.  I was also surprised about some that I really was not expecting. I did expect positive outcome and that is what I got.  The answers ranged from thing effect the serial killer as an individual as well as how it would affect the people around them.

Question two: My result for number two really helped, because now I know what people think affects them which is something I will never know about what really does affect them. My surprise for this one is that there were a lot of things they came up with that. I had such a hard time coming up with effects that could cause a serial killer to start its killing spree.

Question three:  I agree with the result that I received. Everyone besides one said that we should be informed more about mental diseases. This leads me to another question. How would being informed about this type of thing affect anyone’s lifestyle? Would the effect be positive or negative?

Question four:   The responses for this question are partially what I wanted. I figured that people would want to know if they had a mental disease earlier in life but, I was thinking more people would go towards toddlers when an individuals mind is first developing. I am not disappointed by these results at all. I am actually glad that they turned out this way.

Question five:  Results for this was exactly what I thought. People find out about things like murders or serial killers though TV or other thing such as family or while doing their own research on other topics retaining to the subject. There were several ways that people had been informed about crime related things and, the thing I was not expecting was the internet or reading books.

Question six: These results actually taught me about more serial killers. I myself had to do more research to find out who a few of these people to make sure they were actual people. I learned more about serial killers than before. I really got directed with this question.

Question seven:  I was surprised with the answers for this question. I didn’t realize that there were so many people that noticed so much about serial killers as individuals. I am not going to use this question to further my research because, now I understand what people know about serial killers and what they do to their victims.

Question eight: This was a very opinionated question and I realize it now. I really didn’t which side was going to come out with a better outcome which is why the results surprised me because there were not many people who thought that it does not affect the individual.  This is why when I further my research I would like to know why they believe that a child hood shows the future of an individual.    

Question nine:  I agree with the result because, something like serial killers has an effect on both the victim and the killer’s families. This question could be an arguing question because; someone could have said that they are strong and not affected by anything like this. Mostly I know that I would be affected by something like this and I notice that it is something that we look at just like a normal death in our family.

Conclusion:

My survey has given me a lot of usable and unusable information that I can further my research. I don’t need to think about the results deeper and think about how this could help me and prove the points that I want proven. I have come up with that it is still not right to do this but, it is still not fair for them to be called insane, or wrong. They could have a disease that no one knows about.

Follow up:

With these survey results I would like to take this in a direction that is unexpected from both me and anyone else. I am going to prove that not enough people are completely informed about the lives that these people live and that we need to understand that anyone of us could snap any second now. I found that it is a common sense thing that serial killers all have one thing in common. They all disrespect their victims mentally, verbally, and physically. I will be surveying more people to show that there are many people who do not understand how serial killers are treated, and what causes these flips that changes live. I am not saying that people should not be punished for this type of crime, but they we need to realize it is just like any other murder, homicide, or suicide.