Society to Blame for Serial Killers

Convicted Kenyan Serial killer Philip Ondara Onyancha.

A serial killer is a very frightening person. He/she is said to be a person who has killed three or more people over a period of more than a month but taking short breaks in-between the murders. Since time immemorial, the world has been shocked and dismayed by the sordid tales of these human beings who totally lack respect for the sanctity of life. They kill without remorse whatsoever, sometimes for reasons better known to them.

Over the years, serial killers have grown younger, bolder and thirstier for human blood. According to criminologist Jose Sanchez, “the young criminal you see today is more detached from his victim, more ready to hurt or kill…the lack of empathy for their victims among young criminals is just one symptom of a problem that afflicts the whole society”. It’s apparent the society no longer has control over its own, and a serial killer is just but an exposed sore thumb of a badly rotten hand that is our society.

The guardians of morality have badly failed our society. Kenyan serial killer Philip Ondara Onyancha was introduced to a satanic cult by his high school teacher. Contrary to the common expectation that a teacher ought to guide a student in a path of what is right and proper, this female teacher went against the grain by introducing a student entrusted in her care to the dark world of secret cultism. By the time of his arrest, going by his own confession, Philip, then a 30 year old security guard, had killed 19 people mostly children and women whom he considered “the weaker sex”. Such machismo is definitely a by-product of an incorrect upbringing.

Regardless of how you look at it, a broken home always impacts negatively on a child. According to authors Ressler and Shachtman, a missing proper father figure is a common feature manifested in almost every serial killer’s childhood. Stewart Wilken was a horrendous South African serial killer who abused and killed children because he himself had been abused as a child after he was abandoned by both his biological parents. To paraphrase an anonymous author, apparently, fantasies find especially fertile soil in the tortured and the isolated. If only parents could consider their children more before parting ways, sometimes on the flimsiest of reasons, somebody somewhere could be saved the unnecessary pain of losing a loved one in the most scary of ways possible to imagine.

Nowadays the society is more tolerant to a foul mouth than ever before. Furthermore, a violent culture is now welcomed and celebrated. Some call it emancipation while others are of the opinion that it’s a clear highway to self-destruction.  American serial killer Ted Bundy cited a pornographic and violent culture as an influence to his nauseating crimes, and Ed Kemper confessed to idolizing actor John Wayne. It goes undisputed that our media content has grown more graphic, a situation that clearly exacerbates moral decadence. Our obsession with murderers is clearly reflected in our films and books. And this informs the need to kill, especially famous personalities so as to become famous as was the case with singer John Lennon’s killer. The media equally made Jean Harris famous for killing her celebrity boyfriend, cardiologist Herman Tarnower, famed as the creator of the Scarsdale diet.

In his book titled Gangster, Lorenzo Carcatterra blames the society for a cycle of violence in which children of criminals become criminals as well because the society doesn’t treat them any better. It should be understood that being born of a criminal parent doesn’t automatically qualify one as a criminal. Crime is an individual choice that has nothing to do with genetics. By pointing fingers and ostracizing children from criminal households, the society only tends to push such unfortunate children into the murky waters of crime, because regardless of how good they become, the society will always remain blind and accusing. However, it should be noted that children tend to be very imitative and can sometimes easily take to the life of crime because somebody they hold in high regard, say a father, is involved in the same.

Serial killers unlike ordinary people tend to be more pleasant, gracious, charming and sometimes quite attractive. So what turns such a person into a killer? I think people become mean because they are hurt. And most of us tend to be indifferent to the pain of others. Different people react differently when hurt. Some bolt the pain inside them and blame everybody for how they feel while others try to share. But then again, sometimes, this pain explodes because there is nobody understanding enough to talk to and listen. Most families have become dysfunctional and brooding grounds for future perverts because every parent is obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder to the top, at the expense of their children’s well-being. Clearly, the society is to blame for serial killers and unless people tone down a little bit, care and treat each other much better and courteously, then our society is headed for harder times.

Lodges of Terror

Lorna screamed and hysterically thumped her jungle boots on the dusty promontory. The tour guide hit the black Mamba with a stone to immobilize it before crushing its glaring head with the tough sole of his left safari boot.

“Did it bite?” asked the concerned tour guide, a sincere tone of concern in his husky voice.

“No,” she was breathing heavily. “Just slid over my boots.”

On realizing it wasn’t a serious cause for panic, Steve and Jane openly laughed at a petrified Lorna who stared daggers at them.

“Did he come to your room?” the guide inquired, walking towards the green land rover.

“Who?” Jane shot back.

“The man with a clunky cloth cap.”

“You mean Shaban?” Steve asked, adjusting his seat belt.

“Yes.”

“You know about him too?” Jane was perplexed.

“What are you talking about?” wondered Lorna, prompting Jane to try to demystify the puzzle for her. How interesting, she thought. It was an unbelievable tale, better described as a cock and bull story.

Now, according to the tour guide, Shaban was supposed to be a ghost roaming in the dark—dead and buried for the past seven years. It happened that, seven years ago, a youthful Croatian couple was on holiday in the game reserve and they were assigned Shaban as their guide. He was quite handsome and soon got entangled in a nasty love triangle that eventually wound up in three lifeless bodies. You see, Shaban, working in cahoots with the lady, strangled her husband in his bed at night using a sisal rope. A few days later, while still celebrating their new found freedom and illicit love, she accidentally shot him in a drunken stupor and later got mauled by a pride of lions as she tried to make good her escape, that same fateful night.

“Poetic justice at its best,” Lorna expressed her thoughts loudly. The way things happen in this world!

“I suppose so,” the guide answered back as he brought the all terrain vehicle to a halt outside an old wooden lodge in Mara.

“So why does he bedevil innocent people who had nothing to do with his killing?” asked a bemused Jane, who presumed the guide to be a mine of cockamamie.

“The reasons are unfathomable….”

“Excuse me,” Lorna interrupted. “But does the management of this hell on earth know about this?”

The guide smiled wryly and shook his head. “Apparently, yes.”

“And what action have they taken so far?” Steve pressed on. This could make an interesting magazine feature, he thought.

“I don’t know,” replied the guide supinely, his hands raised in a sign of surrender. But there was something he apparently knew but didn’t want to disclose—a closely guarded secret that was as old as the lodge itself. A secret about a mysterious man whose tales sent cold shivers down the spines of many who over the years had had an unfortunate encounter with him. Some shaken tourists had once claimed to stumble on a headless man mowing the lodge’s lawn in the dead of the night. But majority of the people simply dismissed his case as yet another addition to the endless string of urban legends that curiously, made the lodge as popular as ever, because controversy always sells. But did he really exist?

“I am scared,” said Jane in a mocking low sad tone as the petrol engine died down outside the lodge. The rest exchanged worried glances and climbed out of the vehicle’s seats.

“Perhaps we can request for another room?” Steve tried to console the ladies, having learned from the guide that theirs was the haunted room.

The guide watched the trio saunter and disappear into the lodge’s bushy entrance. He slouched into the driver’s seat and lit an unfiltered cigarette that he pulled on and puffed thoughtfully, before a sudden knock on the side window disrupted him. It was Steve.

“I forgot to ask, can we start shooting tomorrow?”

“I wish we could, but the animals are yet to start swimming across the river Mara.”

“Come on. Haven’t they even assembled at the banks?” Steve asked, looking desperate. “You know, we can force them to move.” He thought he sounded stupid.

“How?”

Steve exhaled heavily and shrugged. He could feel exasperation slowly but surely setting in. If you must know, he wasn’t fond of ghosts. He really wanted to get out that creepy place and so did the girls, or perhaps he thought.

“So when do we commence business?”

“Friday,” replied the guide without looking at Steve or giving his answer a thought. Friday was five days away. Steve scratched his head furiously.

“But you understand the girls are spooked out?”

“Yeah.” The guide released a cloud of white smoke. “But no need for panic,” he said. “If anything, do you believe in superstition?”

“Save that crap for another day!”

The vehicle’s engine sprang to life. The guide took a prolonged stare at Steve walking away in a huff and felt he didn’t like him at all.

He took a final puff, then pressed the cancer stick between his thumb and index finger to extinguish the burning end and threw the stub out the window before driving off….

(to be continued)