How to Make a Serial Killer: The Twisted Development of Innocent Children into the World's Most Sadistic Murderers [Paperback]

Christopher Berry-Dee (Author), Steven Morris (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 2008

THE LOST CHILDHOODS, HORRIFIC CRIMES AND DEMENTED MINDS OF THOSE WHO KILL WITHOUT REMORSE.

They were born into this world as innocent children. They ended up as merciless killing machines. How to Make a Serial Killer leads you on an insightful, scary, and ultimately disturbing investigation into what made these infamous murderers go bad. Following the biographies and killing sprees of Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Washington D.C. snipers John Muhammad and Lee Molvo and many others, this book asks:

•Is there really a “demon seed”?
•Do genes play a role?
•Was it the killer’s family background?
•How did peer group pressure influence their murderous instincts?
•Can it all be traced back to a shattering experience early in life?

How to Make a Serial Killer follows the lives of these lost souls from early childhood to dark destiny. It provides a fascinating look into the potential for disaster created by a violent and abusive upbringing. No matter what their crime, these killers are still human, and this book explores the twisted workings of their destructive minds.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Christopher Berry-Dee and Steven Morris are the Editors of The New Criminologist. Berry-Dee is also the Director of the Criminology Research Centre and has written numerous books on murderers and serial killers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 276 pages
• Publisher: Ulysses Press (May 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1569756546
• ISBN-13: 978-1569756546
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #465,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting overview, September 25, 2008

By 

K. Cole "starving student" (Waco, TX) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How to Make a Serial Killer: The Twisted Development of Innocent Children into the World's Most Sadistic Murderers (Paperback)

The authors spend each chapter focusing on a serial killer, making an effort to determine what factors made them psychopaths. They were fairly good about including a variety of serial killers--not all of the examples were the standard lust killers. They even included a woman, which not all authors bother to do. However, I would have liked more depth from this book, particularly when it came to the killers' motives. I also felt that the authors did relatively little to answer their own question of what causes people to become serial killers. They included charts that compared each example to the FBI's list of factors that predict someone may kill (having a criminal history, alcoholism, domineering father, etc.). But they did little to incorporate that data into the actual text, and they offered no explanation for why some of the killers had few (or none!) of the FBI warning signs. This book is a good overview for beginners, but I was expecting more.

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read..., January 2, 2011

By 

Lana J. Swanson - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Make a Serial Killer: The Twisted Development of Innocent Children into the World's Most Sadistic Murderers (Paperback)

Interesting book for those interested in why serial killers do what they do. It goes through the childhood and into the formal years of these people (about 10) and examines their childhood, murders, and why they did it. I've read another of this guy's books and it too was great. The books are pretty gruesome and shouldn't be read by young adults w/o the parents looking at it first. Based off of interviews with the killers themselves.

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars how to make serial killer, February 11, 2010

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M. E. Usher (sylmar, ca USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Make a Serial Killer: The Twisted Development of Innocent Children into the World's Most Sadistic Murderers (Paperback)

It showed how there really can't be one profile that shows that an individual will become a serial killer, but the life histories of some of the famed killers do contribute to their delinquency. The killers were assessed at the end of their stories they are reviewed in a special scale to predict if they would be likely to become a killer. Very interesting reading.