Abstract
Serial killers are loathsome individuals who murder at least three individuals, usually for psychological gratification. Gerard John Schaefer fit that description for the multiple murders he committed while operating as deputy sheriff. He clearly relished torturing and murdering young girls. His behavior and actions were attributable to his troubled childhood that was devoid of parental love. As a child, he experienced a lot of bad events that were registered in his subconscious mind and though he tried to suppress them, it reached a time when the conscious mind would involuntarily pick that information from his subconscious mind. The theory that best fits the reason and motives behind Gerard’s criminal activity would be the Psychoanalytic /Psychodynamic Theory. The psychoanalytic theory is more of a model of mind as its main concepts provide better interpretations of one’s behavior while at the same time accounting for those behaviors in a wide scope.
Serial killers are loathsome individuals who murder at least three individuals, usually for psychological gratification. Gerard John Schaefer is commonly known as “murderer from Florida” and was imprisoned in 1973 for murders he committed while operating as deputy sheriff ("Gerard John Schaefer", 2006). He was convicted of two murders, and was also believed to have committed many other murders. While in prison, he always maintained that he was innocent, but on conducting a search at his home where he lived with his mother, the police found evidence that linked him to the disappearance of at least eight other girls. Later on, before he met his death the police associated him with at least 30 more murders while he himself claimed that he had committed more than 80 murders.
Gerard was the first born of three children and was born on the 25 of March, 1946. His parents, Doris and Gerard Schaefer, lived in Wisconsin where they gave birth to him and later moved to Georgia where they raised him. While in Georgia, Gerard was able to attend Marist Academy up until 1960 when his family relocated. He never got along well with his biological father as he believed that his father continually favored his younger siblings over him. In his later interviews, Gerard described his father as an alcoholic who was always abusive while at the same time being abusive and was never at home due to his numerous business trips and other activities ("Gerard John Schaefer", 2006). As a teenager, Gerard became very obsessed with women’s panties, and kept that character for many years. He was also known for his peeping behavior, and was often caught spying on a neighbor’s girl. In his later interviews, he admitted to the police that at a younger age he was accustomed to killing animals as well as practicing cross dressing.
He was then able to graduate from St. Thomas Aquinas High school in 1964 and straight away joined college. It is while he was in college that he met his future wife. In 1969 he successfully secured a job as a teacher in one of the local school. As fate had it, he was soon fired. He later on decided to pursue a career in priesthood but was soon turned down. Something that saw him shifting to law enforcement career and was able to secure a job as a sheriff deputy.
His violent nature was even reflected in his early childhood games. He is recorded saying that he always wanted to get himself hurt and get killed in the process ("Gerard Schaefer", 2016). His violent nature was even the key reason why his wife Martha Fogg eventually decided to file a divorce in 1970. Just two months into his new sheriff deputy job, he made a dumb mistake that would soon cost him his job as well as his freedom. On July 21, 1972, while doing patrol, he came across two teenage girls who were hitchhiking and told them that hitchhiking was illegal in Florida. He took the vulnerability of the girls and abducted them to a nearby forest. It is there where he tied them on a tree and threatened to kill them and told them if they kept on being stubborn, he would sell them to prostitution. Soon, he got a call on his radio and had to leave the girls tied to the tree. On returning, he found out that the two girls had managed to escape and had already reported the issue to the nearest police station. As events turned out, the station that the girls who were aged 17 and 18 reported to was his station. Gerard decided to call his station and claimed that he had done “Something dumb”. He explained to the station that he had pretended to kidnap and threatened two girls who were doing hitchhiking with the sole purpose of scaring them into avoiding such dangerous activities in the future. As it turned out, his boss did not take any of his words and ordered him into the station where he stripped him of his budge and fired him on the spot.
Gerard was later charged with false imprisonment that was accompanied with two cases of assaults and was later released on a $15,000 bond. As his trial opened in November 1972, Gerard pleaded guilty to one assault charges which saw other assault charges being dropped. He was then sentenced to one year in jail which was then later on supposed to be followed by a three year probation.
As all this was happening, the police discovered that two other girls had gone missing. This happened while he was out on a bond release. Susan Place and Georgia Jessup were between the ages of 16 and 17 and had vanished mysteriously. Susan’s parents claimed that their daughter together with the other girl were seen leaving with an older man who was known as Gerry shepherd on a claim of playing guitar at a nearby beach (Newton, 2000). They never came back but luckily, their parents had taken Mr. Gerry Shepherd’s license number together with the description of the car. Investigation took quite a long time, but the car as traced back to Gerard by which time he was serving his time in jail for assault cases he had committed.
As expected, Gerard denied having had any contact with the two ladies. But luck was not on his side as on April 1, 1973, the two girls’ skeleton were found on some far island. The two bodies were later identified as belonging to Susan and Jessup (Newton, 2000). On a closer examination, the crime scene indicated that the two girls were tied to some tree where they were assaulted and later brutally butchered. These events prompted the police to search his mother’s home where he had personal items stored. It is here that the police found a number of women’s jewelry as well as writings and sketches that attributed to female mutilations and murder. Identification documents of two girls Collette Goodenough and Barbara Wilcox, who were both 19 were also found among the items (Whitney, 2016). The girls were last seen alive one week before Gerard was arrested. The skeleton remains of the two girls were later found in 1977, but no cause of death could be discovered from the crime scene, and as such, no charges were filed. But evidence gathered suggested that Gerard was behind the murder of the two girls.
Pieces of jewelry belonging to Leigh Bonadies, who also disappeared in 1969, were also found among the evidence that policed unmasked from his mother’s place (Whitney, 2016). The list of suspected victims and suspected murders kept growing over time but he was charged with only two accounts of murder ("Silent Scream A True Crime about the Victims of Gerard John Schaefer", 2009). In October 1973, he was found guilty of two incidences of first-degree manslaughter and was condemned to life imprisonment. He kept on insisting on his innocence and filed a number of appeals that reached a maximum number of 20 appeals.
Gerard’s motives for killing and committing such brutal murders could not be explained with exact precision. But on a closer look, his motives for killing were drawn from his own fantasies. His childhood upbringing also had a lot in his later decisions. He always felt that his father favored his younger sisters. He wished that he was born as a girl too. It is here that he began hating girls inwardly and thus explain why all his victims were young girls. He was completely wrecked from an early age and no one took notice. This trait even explains why he enjoyed abducting two women at once and can be argued that he was revenging for the love that his father shows to his two younger siblings.
The theory that best fits the reason and motives behind Gerard’s criminal activity would be the Psychoanalytic /Psychodynamic Theories. The psychoanalytic theory is more of a model of mind as its main concepts provide better interpretations of one’s behavior while at the same time accounting for those behaviors in a wider scope ("The Idea That Wouldn't Die", 2016). The psychoanalytic theory was developed by Sigmund Freud in the 19th century and argues that personalities and how certain individuals behave is always the result of intercom of three parts of the mind: the ego, id, and superego (Lenzenweger & Clarkin, 2005). Here, the unconscious part of the mind and the role that it plays in shaping one’s behavior and personality is critically emphasized. The unconscious brain part is indeed very vital for the drives and desires that can only rest with it. The unconscious brain area inhabits the suppressed id if functions such as bad past memories and images which end up provoking anxiety are stored there and, consequently, cannot be permitted into the conscious territory of the mind (Elliott, 2002). The theory suggests that an individual’s personality always arises as one attempts to resolve conflicts between their unconscious sexual behaviors and the resultant aggressive impulses that comes with societal demands as well as the efforts to restrain from such behaviors and impulses (Lenzenweger & Clarkin, 2005).
It is a proven fact that many psychological processes occur within one’s mind and this becomes even worse when such processes occurs on an individual with an id that leads to performance of certain acts (Barker, 2012). Throughout one’s life, an individual is not continually aware of all the information that they have acquired as at each moment. As such, only certain information is often selected and actively used by the conscious part of the mind. This is always reflected in how the individual behaves. Individuals always find themselves unaware of the many factors that they have acquired since childhood that end up controlling their emotions and behaviors (Silverberg, 2013). In this theory also, parenting and childhood development also play a significant role in the personality of an individual. Childhood is by far the most critical part of one’s development and if one thing was to go wrong here, then the individual is immensely affected, something that reflects in later phases of life (Elliott, 2002).
The relevance of Psychoanalytic /Psychodynamic Theory in the young Gerard is evident. Gerard never felt loved by his father, something that really angered him. He believed that his father’s love was only for his younger siblings and always favored them over him. He sometimes wished to be a girl. He conceived and embraced this idea on his unconscious and subconscious mind for a long time that it became part of him. Because of his father’s love on his younger siblings, he despised ladies from deep inside without even knowing it. This indeed agrees with psychoanalytic theory where parenting and childhood development always play a critical role in the behaviors of a kid. The unconscious part suppresses these images and wishes which would then be reflected at a later stage without even the individual knowing ("The Idea That Wouldn't Die", 2016) He felt rejected and he even confessed on his later interviews that he was an illegitimate child. He felt that his parents did not want him. This was even reflected in the type of games that he chose as a kid. He loved dangerous games and always wanted to be killed. He saw no need for living. This explains why in later years he felt a lot of satisfaction when he tortured younger girls were aged around 18. On torturing and killing those young girls, he felt proud and accomplished and to him, it was a way of revenging for what his father did. It acted as an ego boost more so on his trend of abducting two girls at the same. Subconsciously, he saw his two younger siblings and the thought of them taking everything from him angered him and killing those girls made him feel good.
The id part of the psychoanalytic theory is also manifested in Gerard’s life. The id reflects itself in accordance with the pleasure principle where at the end of the day, it avoids pain and seeks pleasure. At an early age, Gerard was on record as being addicted to women panties. He even went ahead to stalk his neighbor so as to see her naked. He developed sexual fantasies at a very young age. This even made him to start masturbating while still at a tender age. Before killing his victims, Gerard always raped his victim so as to gain sexual satisfaction. From there he would proceed to torture his victims and eventually murder them. That way, he derived a lot of pleasure and felt accomplished ("Silent Scream A True Crime about the Victims of Gerard John Schaefer", 2009).
Gerard was affected by his social upbringing; his personality and ways of reasoning were a result of what he had undergone as a young child. He was on record as saying that his father was never home and when he was home he was either abusive or spend time with his younger siblings. He felt rejected and, in order to feel good of himself, he had to commit. To him, this made sense. But his actions were not because of his rational thinking but because of the psychological damages that he had undergone as a child. This is even reflected in later years before his death when writing letters to the district attorney; he felt so proud of the murders he had committed. The police had placed the number of his victims around 30 but he claimed it was more than that and could even be more than 110 (Schaefer & London, 2011). He even stated that he is not aware of the number because he does not know if killing a pregnant girl meant that he had killed two people. This is the result of how damaged he was as a kid. He married still at his early 20s and could not even stay with his wife for long who left him on the basis of his violent nature. His childhood upbringing led him to react violently to everything that happened around him.
As discussed above, the situation presented by Gerard is more than just being a serial killer. Gerard was psychologically damaged and his ways of thinking were biased in relation to how his father treated him and his younger siblings. Gerald’s actions can be explained from a psychological point of view, where his life took a sharp turn while he was still a kid. He experienced a lack of parental love, something that made him very angry with everyone and everything that he came across. This is why he even wanted to be dead and enjoyed dangerous activities while still a child. His father’s love for her younger sibling made him unhappy, jealous and led him to loathe girls. This was later to reflect in his life as he never treated any female entity with respect; his wife even filed a divorce complaining about his violent nature. Psychoanalytic theory has it that whenever an individual suppresses a lot of images, past bad memories and anger in his/her unconscious mind, it later determines the individual’s personality and how they behave. This indeed explains the reason why Gerard always wanted to see younger girls suffer. To him this was not only justice but it also made him feel good about himself. He was reacting against the society’s social norms despite doing what made him feel good about himself. He had led a life of rejection to a point that he just wanted to die.
His murder crimes were meant to act as an ego boost and a way of expressing exactly how he felt. Killing younger girls made him very accomplished and proud. His childhood encounters, which went unchecked, were the reason Gerard enjoyed doing the unexplained brutality to young ladies. This is in line with the psychoanalytic theory as throughout his life he suffered a lot. Apart from him not receiving fatherly love, his parent later on divorced and this must have affected him a lot. His father took with him his younger siblings while he was left with his mother. He had a lot of bad events entering into his unconscious mind and though he tried to suppress them, it reached a time where the conscious mind would pick specific information from his unconscious mind. This was reflected in how he behaved; enjoying torturing and murdering girls.
References
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