Key Takeaways
Every murder is a cataclysm , but spree , serial and spate murdersare considered peculiarly reprehensible . For one affair , these murders miss a exonerated motivation ; with most slaying , the rationale is a desire for retribution or fiscal amplification . This broadly is n’t the case when a mortal defeat someone they do n’t even know , but it ’s only human to attempt to understand or label violent Acts of the Apostles and the citizenry who commit them .
So are murderers mentally ominous ? Not necessarily . In fact , many sea wolf do n’t meet the criteria for insanity . What ’s more , the field of psychology has skin to create a psychological poser that explains all of these enactment .
ape killingsadd another burl to the tangle – these are execution committed in a direction that was already base by a premature execution committed by another individual . Some credit the year 1912 with the birth of this class of killer . Intense media coverage of theJack the Ripper murdersspawned a multitude of like criminal offence , and the condition " copycat essence " came into being .
innovative criminologist have long been aware of the potential for media pic to guide to copycat killing . As the media has grow , other forms of entertainment – especially movies and video games – have come under fire for allegedly leading to copycats basing crimes on what they see on the screen door .
What follows are 10 criminals , real and fictional , who inspired others to postdate in their brutal footsteps .
10: Tylenol Killer Copycats
In 1982 , the public ’s trust in box over - the - counter medical specialty was fundamentally shaken . How ? Seven people died in the Chicago sphere after taking Extra - Strength Tylenol that had been laced with nitril . The dying caused enough panic among Americans that the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA ) began to call for that all over - the - counter drug be sold in tamping bar - resistant promotional material .
Although one human beings was arrested and sentenced toprisonfor sending an extortion note to Johnson & Johnson , the makers of Tylenol , no one was ever arrested for the actual murders , and the example remains open . The widespread packaging given the case has lead to some imitator , however .
The most noted of these came four days later , when a womanhood in New York died minutes after taking two Tylenol capsule that turned out to have been entwine with cyanide . That same class , Excedrin bring together its challenger as a vehicle for poison livery . Two people in Washington State died after taking cyanide - enlace Excedrin . In this case , however , the cause of death was uncover . Stella Nickell – the wife of the man who pop off from the envenom Excedrin – was found guilty of merchandise tampering and doom to 80 years in prison [ source : Bell ] . Another ape cause of death surface in 1993 , when Joseph Meling undertake to pop his wife and actually killed two stranger by filling Sudafed ejection seat with nitrile . He was sentenced to liveliness in prison house [ source : Snopes ] .
The Food and Drug Administration ’s current requirement that over - the counterpunch medicine be sold in tamp - resistant promotional material is the direct result of the Tylenol - laced - with - cyanide killings – and their aper .
9: Natural Born Killers Copycats
Several films have been entail in copycat execution over the years . The Russian toothed wheel scene in the film " The Deer Hunter " has been linked to a number of accidental suicides . The ultraviolent " A Clockwork Orange " has been accused of spur actual - life sentence violence . Even " The Fisher King , " a spectacular comedy mastermind by Monty Python ammonia alum Terry Gilliam , partly invigorate a muckle violent death .
But perhaps no other movie has been held more responsible for inspire a contemporaries of copycat killers than the 1994 Oliver Stone moving picture " Natural Born Killers , " which , ironically , discusses the glorification of vehemence in the American media . The film also has the outlandish condition of unwittingly create imitator of imitator . The movie is loosely base on the cleanup express out in 1957 and 1958 by teenage spree killers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate .
The malefactor most often cited as having been inspired by the movie are teenage couple Benjamin Darras and Sarah Edmondson . The pair watched the picture repeatedly under the influence ofLSDand decide to go on their own crime spree the next day . They traveled from Oklahoma to Mississippi , where Darras and Edmondson shot two masses , killing one and paralyse the other .
As many as 12 other slaying have been linked to the movie [ author : Ramsland ] .
8: Zodiac Copycat Eddie Seda
During a five - year period in the late 1960s in the San Francisco area , the self - distinguish Zodiac Killer used a knife and a pistol to take the lives of at least seven stranger . He was perhaps the most famousserial killerto employ the medium for attention , sending localnewspaperoffices qabalistic and taunting alphabetic character aimed toward the police . The Zodiac Killer was never identify .
Twenty years later , a Zodiac imitator began his own tone-beginning in New York City , take away a more literal interpreting of his predecessor by murdering victims base on their Zodiac foretoken . This copycat orca , however , was eventually name .
Heriberto " Eddie " Seda begin his copycat fling in November 1989 by sending inscrutable letters to the police and the media . In the calendar month following the missive , he began stalk his victims , shooting each with a homemade gun . At the vista of each crime , Seda left similar tone .
Over the course of the next three years , Seda polish off three New Yorkers and set about to kill five more . Seda was discovered through witness and because he pull up stakes fingerprints on his notes . After he engaged police force in an unrelated gunfight in 1996 , Seda was get and convicted of the Zodiac copycat offence . He was sentence to 238 year in prison house [ rootage : Haynes ] .
7: ‘Scream’ Copycat Thierry Jaradin
Most copycat killers choice victims they do n’t know , but oneslasher filmfan aim the girl next room access . When a 15 - yr - onetime schoolgirl refused the romantic advances of her home ’s neighbor , 24 - year - old Thierry Jaradin , the Belgian man decided to take a retaliation based on " Scream . " The 1996 American revulsion photographic film secernate the account of a high-pitched school student and her friends who are stalked , stab and polish off by a sea wolf who wears a black gown and a mask patterned after Edvard Munch ’s painting " The Scream . "
The thwarted Jaradin , a hack driver , left the room to don a Scream costume and grab two enceinte knives . When he returned , he dig the girl 30 times , leaving one finical wound that closely mirrored a wound shown in the movie . He then yell his father and a coworker to tell them of his offense . After he was pick up , he told police his legal action were cheer by the photographic film and its subsequence [ source : Osborn ] .
" Scream " was based , in part , on the real - sprightliness murders of five Gainesville , Fla. , student in August 1990 , who were find stabbed and murdered in their apartments . The culprit , Danny Rolling , was eventually arrested and sentenced for the killings , and an probe into his ground revealed that he ’d stand a childhood filled with physical and emotional abuse from his father – and that four month before his killing spree begin , Rolling had attempted to polish off him , too [ beginning : brand ] .
6: Jack the Ripper Copycat Derek Brown
Derek Brown , a 47 - year - old - father of seven , follow in the grisly footsteps ofJack the Ripper120 years after the original , infamous execution occurred . In 2008 , Brown was convicted of polish off twowomendespite neither of the eubstance being find .
Brown piece his dupe from the Whitechapel area of East London , where Jack the Ripper had carried out his five execution . In August , Brown murdered Xiao Mei Guo , a 29 - twelvemonth - old street seller , who was videotape entering a London subway with Brown the day she disappeared . The following calendar month , Brown picked up 26 - year - old prostitute Bonnie Barrett and murdered her .
While the bodies were never go back , police ground ampleblood evidencefrom both womanhood in Derek Brown ’s apartment . Blood evidence was found throughout his domicile , with the highest concentration of origin stain set up in the bathroom . Investigators conceive Brown dismember the woman in his bath and disposed of their bodies .
He was sentenced to 30 class in prison for the execution . constabulary trust he was on his agency to becoming aserial killer , and after he was caught , they linked him to six unresolved sexual assaults [ source : Sky News ] .
5: ‘The Matrix’ Copycats
The 1999 movie " The Matrix " was a corner office hit that enliven some fan to wear tenacious , black deep coats and glib shades – just like Neo , the motion picture ’s main theatrical role . Played by Keanu Reeves , Neo toggles between a computer - simulated world called the Matrix , where he works as a computer computer programmer , and the real world , where he becomes a submarine sandwich bent on violently and forcibly free humans who have been subverted by technology . Unfortunately , the flick and its subsequence also may have inspired some copycat killings , too .
In September 2002 , Vadim Mieseges polish off his landlord in California and claim he ’d been in the Matrix during the enactment . That same fall , Lee Boyd , who had been arrested for 10 baneful sniper shootings near Washington , D.C. , throw homage to " The Matrix " in sketches he made while in jail . In February 2003 , Virginian Joshua Cooke said he live in the Matrix when he murdered his parents . In July 2002 , Tonda Lynn Ansley shot and killed her landlord . The Ohio resident then say police her landlord had been involved in a conspiracy tobrainwashand murder her , just as Neo is persecuted in " The intercellular substance " [ source : Bean ] .
4: ‘Dexter’ Copycat: Mark Andrew Twitchell
Police believe that Canadian self-governing film producer Mark Andrew Twitchell was on his style to becoming a full - fledgedserial cause of death . Fortunately , he was take in before he was able to confide the needed three execution . Instead , he was discovered – and stop – after his first killing and , in 2011 , condemn to living inprison .
Twitchell is said to have been inspired by the tv set show " Dexter , " which portray aforensic scientistwho stalks and murders serial murderers . Twitchell created his own plot line , however , which he shoot as a brusque moving-picture show about a vigilante murder with the same succession of events that he would follow before long afterward .
Twitchell is believed to have placed an advert on anonline datingservice posing as a woman to lure John Brian Altinger to a rented garage under the simulation of run across a appointment there . Altinger was never seen again . His disappearance and mistrust murder may not have been linked to Twitchell had Altinger not e - mailed his friend directions to the garage before going . Police search the leasing history of the garage and plant that Mark Twitchell had let it .
Police set out to suspect that Twitchell was on the path to serial cause of death status after another valet de chambre came forward . This near - dupe get away from the same garage follow being flap by a serviceman in a masquerade party after he ’d been lured there by the same online dating artifice . His escape take post a week before Altinger ’s disappearance [ reservoir : Blais ] .
3: “Taxi Driver” Copycat John Hinckley
On March 30 , 1981 , John Hinckley , Jr. joined penis of the press awaiting then - President Ronald Reagan ’s exit from a Washington , D.C. hotel . As thePresidentleft the building and walked toward his car , Hinckley pulled out a revolver and give the axe six shot . One of the bullets lodged near the President’sheartand was off during surgical procedure . Presidential Press Secretary James Brady was shot in the principal and paralytic , and a police force officeholder and a Secret Service agent were spite as well .
It was the third presidential assassination attempt in six years , but was the only one credit as a copycat shot found on a film ; Hinckley signal to a 1976 film , " Taxi Driver , " as his inhalation . The movie ’s plot of ground centre around a Vietnam old hand who seeks to assassinate a presidential prospect , and stars Robert Di Nero and Jodi Foster . During his tribulation , Hinckley , who had been stalking Foster , said the blackwash try was a bid for Foster ’s attention . In 1982 , Hinckley ’s trial terminate ; he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and condemn to stay in a mental institution .
Hinckley ’s offense was a accelerator that led to widespread changes in the way of life the Secret Service vetted public stops for sitting president . presently , the public ca n’t be present when the President get in at or leave an event . The utilization ofmetal detectorswas increased markedly , as was the number of Secret Service agents ascribe to responsibility . At the time of President Reagan ’s assassination attempt by Hinckley , there were about 1,500 Secret Service member ; as of 2011 , the identification number had doubled [ source : Welch ] .
2: School Shooting Copycats
pop in the 1990s , a good deal of aper shoal shooting graze up across the United States . Most were given widespread metier exposure , including a 1996 incident of classroom violence that defeat three people . Shooter Barry Loukaitis , 14 , burst into a Moses Lake , Wash. , classroom wearing a black trench coat and volley shots from shooting iron and a rifle at his classmates . The scene was eerily similar to one in " The Basketball Diaries , " a cinema in which a basketball player ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) develops a heroin addiction and dreams of shooting schoolfellow in a schoolroom while fag a black trench coating .
Another school shot fall out on the same Clarence Day , this time in Atlanta , when a 16 - class - old student shot and killed a instructor . It was one of at least 50 school day shot that occurred from 1983 to 2008 , include the toss off spree at Columbine High School in Littleton , Colo. Students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 13 multitude and offend 23 others before kill themselves on their high school campus on April 20 , 1999 [ source : Allender ] . News reporter rushed to the scene and much of the violent incident play out on alive TV , depart some to wonder whether the medium attention that the shooting garnered would contribute to school - centered emulator crimes .
1: Murder-Suicide Copycats
From March 2009 to April 2009 , 43 multitude in the United States break down during murder - felo-de-se , stirring speculation that copycats were becoming inspired byreal - life crimes . One of the most publicized incident was the shooting of 13 people at the American Civic Association in Binghamton , N.Y. , before the gunman turn his weapon on himself . In accession , from 2008 to 2010 , there were a serial of parent - child murder - suicides in state from California to Maryland [ root : Sandberg ] .
While researchers point to a possible combining of factors that may be creditworthy for the addition in murder - suicides – economics , unemployment and passionate motives like jealousy – they also let out that suicide alone are a mostly seasonal case , as evidenced by an uptick in self - inflicted deaths each spring . There ’s also often an increment in the suicide charge per unit in the areas surrounding a highly publicized suicide . However , there ’s no conclusive evidence that murder - suicide follow the same patterns – even if there have been an unusual number of murder - suicides within specific time period of time [ source : Szalavitz ] .
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