Do you think like me? I have had this question in my brain for most of life, and although I have lived 18 years on this earth, I still quite haven’t figured out the answer. As humans yes we are all similar in some ways, but in many ways different. Quite different. Whether it is the way we solve problems or how we process emotions. Also how we act and react to certain things. As decided by my previous post, this passion blog called Beautiful Minds, and it will be on the beautiful minds of humans and how quickly beautiful, can turn murderous.

In the image above we have Ted Bundy, one of America’s most notorious serial killers. Bundy kidnapped, raped and killed 30 to 40 women during the 1970’s and possibly earlier, committed across seven different states. But eventually he was caught and put to death by electric chair in 1989. Although Bundy was a horrible person and a murderer, that is not the reason he got this much attention. He was known as being wildly charming and attractive to many women. Even when he was convicted and charged, he had fans saying that he seemed too “nice and charming to commit such horrible crimes like those”. To a person reading this, this may seem ridiculous that these women who make these statements or the ones who wrote him love letters in jail (yes there were multiple women who wrote him love letters during his time in jail) can be swayed solely on appearance and a charming personality. But in actuality it’s quite common in everyday situations. For example, think back to a moment where you met someone who you would consider charming. They charmed you in the way they smiled, maybe their body language or the words they said to you. When you meet someone incredibly charming, their words may be convincing enough to have you believe whatever they want you to. In this instance he had these women convinced he was innocent. His ability to be charming and clever also assisted in how he captured his victims. He would pretend to have a cast, crutches and pretend to have a disability (also posing as authority figures, like police officers at times) in order to lure his victims to his car, where he would then strike them and put them in his car. Although Bundy was found guilty and eventually put to death, some people claim he was mentally ill and that he shouldn’t have been held entirely accountable for his actions.

Pictured above you see a comparison of two brain scans, the one on the left is a normal brain and the brain on the right presents a brain with a psychopathic pattern. If you look at the differences in the brain scans you see in the normal brain there are lots of patches of red and yellow, in comparison to the one with the psychopathic pattern there is no red and barely any yellow. The orbital cortex puts a break on another of the brain called the amygdala, which is involved with aggression and appetites. But in some people, there’s an imbalance — the orbital cortex isn’t doing it’s job — perhaps because the person had a brain injury or was just born that way. What takes over in it is place? The area that drives your id-type behaviors, which is rage, violence, eating, sex, drinking. In my personal opinion I don’t believe that he was born like that or that his brain sustained an injury. I was conducting more research on Bundy and other serial killers as a comparison, in order to see what makes them become violent. Here is what I found: If early in life a person is lonely and doesn’t fit in and is empty, they begin to look for some way to undo that, to satisfy their loneliness. And they turn to fantasy to comfort themselves. This is what happened with Bundy. He started out lonely and shy as a child. He believed all of the attention was paid to the younger kids, who were really (his stepfather) Johnnie Bundy’s children from a previous marriage. He started fantasizing about women he saw while window peeping or elsewhere and mimicking the accents of some politicians he listened to on the radio. In essence, he was fantasizing about being someone else, someone important. But just because someone is lonely, may come from an emotional dysfunctional family, or have similar things like Bundy does not mean that they will turn out to be a serial killer.These things did not cause him to kill—they built up the desire within him to experience more real sexual activity with a girl. He was not interested in killing. The real thing was to get as close to controlling a woman as possible and perhaps rape her, because it was the next step in what was getting to be exciting for him. The fact that he had an attachment disorder from his mother passing herself off as his sister, and then developed an obsession of knives, along with many other things eventually leading him to become a serial killer. How fascinating how a person can be born so normal, and the environment and people around them change them dramatically and eventually lead them to become murderers.

For my passion blog, I would like to focus on the new advances of research in psychology, primarily focusing on children. I am interested in seeing what new strides have been made medically, whether it be in discovering new mental illnesses, medications or just new ways to conduct research. Being a psychology major I would like to see what’s new and possibly what can be improved. Another interest I have is in the same area, still dealing with some form of psychology. I would like to take a look inside the mind of criminals, primarily serial killers. Some serial killers grow up living normal lives, then turn out to be criminals. My analysis would focus on what drives them to become murderers and possibly theories behind it.

Welcome to Sites At Penn State. This is my Passion Blog called Beautiful Minds!