They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and serial killers' psychological dysfunction often correlates strongly to a broken childhood home. According to psychologist Terence Leary, director of the Serial Killer Database Research Project, nearly all of them are raised in an abusive environment.
"What we're finding is a great, great preponderance of abuse amongst serial killers," Leary tells A&E Crime + Investigation, adding that his database contains information about more than 5,000 serial killers, and dates back to the 1950s. "In every case I've looked at… there's some kind of horrendous home situation."
But every rule has its exceptions. For all the killers with miserable pasts, there are also a select few whose biographies provide scant clues to the murderous impulses they would unleash later in life. What made these killers tick? We look at some of the killers whose seemingly normal childhoods gave way to unspeakable cruelty.
