IndexIntroductionJeffrey Dahmer and Ted BundyConclusionWorks CitedIntroductionBetween the 1970s and the mid-1990s, America was cursed with many tragedies and mass murders. The country's citizens were introduced to horrible, heartless people like Charles Manson, the Zodiac Killer, Richard Ramirez, and John Wayne Gacy. However, after watching extensive documentaries about two of America's most notorious killers: Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, despite their differences, I found many similarities between the two. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy Jeffrey Dahmer was a cannibal who kept and ate various body parts of his victims. He killed 17 teenagers and young men between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia. Ted Bundy, on the other hand, was a law student who raped and murdered more than 35 women in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Utah, and Washington. To begin with, Ted Bundy's life growing up involved a lot of confusion within him not knowing that his so-called sister was actually his mother. For three years, Bundy lived in the Philadelphia home of his grandparents, Samuel and Eleanor Cowell, who raised him as their son to avoid the social stigma that at the time accompanied his birth mother's out-of-wedlock birth. it was the exact opposite on the inside. Bundy's grandfather, Samuel, was remembered as a very violent and belligerent person. Her grandmother Eleonora, on the contrary, was shy and obedient, as described by family and friends. She periodically underwent electroconvulsive therapy for depression. At a young age, Bundy showed alarming signs. His aunt Julia remembers waking up one day with knives around her head and Bundy at her bedside, smiling. Fast forwarding in time, Dahmer discovered that his "sister" was actually his mother. Then she got married to a man named Johnny. They had four children. During his adolescence, Ted was always distant from his other siblings and parents. He often found himself in garbage cans looking for photos, magazines, etc. of naked women. He was also very interested in reading crime and creepy novels and articles about murder cases. He was very quiet and never really developed a social life during his high school years. Growing up, Bundy earned a degree in psychology from the University of Washington. He was an honor student and well regarded by his professors. However, after being rejected by his first love, something inside him ignited. He started killing women on campus at night and women in the area. He later moved to Utah to attend law school. He continued to kill there too. As for Jeffrey Dahmer, his life as a child was also quite unusual. As a child, his parents were busy. Her father attended Marquette University, majoring in chemistry, while her mother suffered from extremely severe anxiety. On one occasion, Dahmer's mother, Joyce, attempted suicide by overdosing on prescription pills. Aside from all this, at a young age Dahmer showed an interest in dead animals. His cruelty to animals began at a young age with his interest in science. He learned to bleach the flesh and connective tissue of dead rodents found under his house. His father, Lionel, a research chemist, taught him this. Even though he had learned these tactics at a young age, he still remembered them well enough to use them on his victims. When he was in elementary school he gave a tadpole to his teacher, she gave it to another student. He got angry, poured gasoline into the tank and gave it to himfire. These actions continued as a teenager, when he impaled a dog's head with a stick in the forest behind his house. Unfortunately, these actions were just the beginning of a long series of reckless behavior. Some say Dahmer's fascination with dead animals may have begun when he saw his father remove animal bones from under his house. According to Dahmer's father, Jeffrey was "strangely thrilled" by the sound of the bones being produced. He clearly showed signs of unusual interest from the start. During his high school years, Jeffrey was initially seen as an outcast. Peers recall that Dahmer brought and consumed alcohol to school. This period of his life was very confusing for him too. Dahmer realized he was homosexual. Regardless, his peers recognized him as a class clown due to some pranks he was known to pull. In the midst of his high school fame, Jeffrey's parents were growing apart. After several unsuccessful counseling sessions, Jeffrey's father, Lionel, left home. A few weeks after graduation, Dahmer's mother, Joyce, left home with custody of her younger son, thus leaving Jeffrey alone in the family home. This manifested his twisted thoughts and he finally had the opportunity to realize his wildest fantasies. His first victim was a male hitchhiker and from then on the situation got worse. So to compare the two gruesome killers, they both had a parent who suffered from a mental disorder. Bundy's mother was severely depressed and Dahmer's mother suffered from severe anxiety. To put it obviously, both were unlikable serial killers. They also had very impressionable childhoods. Ted lived with his abusive "father" and grew up to discover that he was actually his grandfather. As for Jeffrey, after seeing his father remove the bones, it stuck with him forever and eventually manifested into something worse. To dig deeper, however, Dahmer and Bundy both killed for sexual satisfaction. Dahmer stated that he liked the feeling of being in control during sexual acts and that he wanted to find a way to own his sexual partners in a sense. Bundy, similarly, claimed that he enjoyed killing and mutilating women for sexual arousal. Both men were obviously psychopaths. On the surface they seemed more than normal to the average person, but deep down they manipulated people and committed horrendous acts. I would also say that both Dahmer and Bundy had no concept of love. Dahmer didn't get a lot of TLC growing up, and Bundy certainly didn't have any either. The differences between these men are very polarized in some ways. Ted and Jeffrey had different “types” to prey on. All of Bundy's victims were very similar appearance-wise. His “type” was young women who had blonde hair parted in the middle. People think he was this way simply because a woman who broke his heart had similar characteristics. On the other hand, almost all of Dahmer's victims were young gay men. This would be obvious because she showed attraction to men and wanted to have sexual relations with them. One could say that these two individuals were born to be killers. Some might say that their childhood experiences started it all. Some might even say it's a combination of both. It's simple nature versus nurture. Personally I think it was a combination of nature and nurture. I say this because after researching and watching in-depth documentaries about the two men, they had negative and traumatic childhoods, yet both tested positive for the disorders.