Searching For The Reason Why

Murderer. Serial killer. Sociopath.

There are so many different words for people who take the life of others. For me though, there is so much more behind those words. It is not always about who killed someone but the why behind it all. Why did the preacher's wife Mary Winkler shoot and kill her husband Matt? Why did Casey Anthony kill her two-year-old daughter Caylee? Why did Zach Adams murder nursing student Holly Bobo? Why did Jeffery Dahmer start raping, killing, and eating other men?

This is something that I have always been interested in. It started for me at a young age when I used to watch “CSI” (the OG) with my parents. My crime junkie heart will always have a special place for this show. However, what caused my interest in wanting to know the why behind it all were the criminal profilers of the FBI in “Criminal Minds”. Reid, Gideon, Hotchner, JJ, Rossi, Garcia, Morgan, and Prentiss took simply finding the killer a step further into the analysis of the crime scene (and other murders in the case of a possible serial killer) and into the psychology of the killer. This is called “criminal investigative analysis” and includes investigating the plan and/or trigger of the murder, the manner in which the victim was killed, how (as well as where) the body was disposed of (or displayed), and how the murdered behaves after the crime.

There is so much involved in the psychology of a killer, especially serial killers. How did Charles Manson brainwash women into committing murder? Why did Ed Gein make masks out of the faces of his victims? How did Ted Bundy manage to murder at least 20 women before being caught?

And then there are the people who kill those who they supposedly “love”. What causes these individuals to finally crack? What makes them think that they will get away with it? What could have possibly happened to cause Scott Peterson to kill his pregnant wife Laci? What was it about Jodi Arias that caused friends of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, to say that she was dangerous even before she murdered him? Why would Michelle Carter convince boyfriend Conrad Roy that it was okay to kill himself? Why did Sam Little think that no one was accounting for the unknown number of women that he killed? What caused Erik and Lyle Menendez to brutally murder their parents in the den of their home? How could a sweet, disabled young girl in a wheelchair murder her mother who was her sole caregiver?

This longing to find the answer to the ultimate question of “why” is what sparked my interest in psychology and caused me to get a degree in it. In 2015 when Gypsy Rose Blanchard killed her mother DeeDee we discussed the case at length in class. Münchausen syndrome by proxy was supposedly the reason behind it all. But something about that did not give me all of the answers. At that time though, that was all I got. That is, until the summer of 2019 when I started watching “The Act” on Hulu sparking my interest in the case all over again and ultimately still searching for the reason why. During this search of mine, I came across someone who is now a dear friend of mine, Fancy, and what you all now know as The Good Wives Guide to True Crime. I am so excited to be working for the team again and continue searing for the reason why behind so many cases. Stay tuned for a psychological deep dive into the minds of these infamous murderers!

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