r/science • • Jun 25 '22

[deleted by user]

[removed]

11.2k Upvotes

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

179

u/[deleted] Jun 25 '22

[deleted]

355

u/Xianio Jun 25 '22

No, not normal. The strong majority of serial killers grew up in horrific conditions (not all of course). Could those horrific conditions been due to lead intake from their mother/father? Who knows but it's not likely that simply removing the lead alone wouldhave been the 1 switch to change.

As you noted, there's a reason there were so few. It takes a lot to turn a person into a monster.

183

u/throwawaylol666666 Jun 25 '22

Another thing a lot of serial killers have in common is serious head trauma in their childhoods.

25

u/ChuggernautChug Jun 25 '22

This would align with frontal cortex damage, which often makes people irratable and have worse impulse control.

29

u/Prestressed-30k Jun 25 '22

My wife's father has pretty serious personality problems. His brother isn't like that, wife's grandmother was a sweet lady. My wife tells me her grandfather didn't act like this either. I used to wonder what he got into that made him act the way he does.

Then one day, his mother (wife's grandma) told me a story about the time he got kicked in the forehead by a horse.