Dorothea Puente: A Serial Killer

Prison reform has been an ongoing topic in the history of America, and has gone through many changes in America's past. Mixed feelings have been persevered on the status of implementing these prison reform programs, with little getting done, and whether it is the right thing to do to help those who have committed a crime. Many criminal justice experts have viewed imprisonment as a way to improve oneself and maintain that people in prison come out changed for the better (encyclopedia.com, 2007). In the colonial days, American prisons were utilized to brutally punish individuals, creating a gruesome experience for the prisoners in an attempt to make them rectify their behavior and fear a return to prison (encyclopedia.com, 2007). This practice may have worked 200 years ago, but as the world has grown more complex, time has proven that fear alone does not prevent recidivism. In the 19th century, Dorothea Dix, a women reformer and American activist, began lobbying for some of the first prison reform movements.

Terry Blair was born September 16, 1961. He is in prison for life with no possibility for parole.

The theory used in this journal pertains to the race, age, and gender of a serial killer; how they kill, the race, age, and gender of the victim; and how the killer lived before and during the killings. Before beginning his own study, Pakhomou (2004) found that “Serial (sexual killers are believed to be mostly white males in their twenties and thirties (at the time of the crimes) with above-average intelligence who commit intra-racial (within the same racial group) murders of strangers” (p. 220). Approximately half of them never had consensual sex with another adult, some joining the military, about half did not finish high school, and they had a history of burglary and sexual offenses prior to murders. There is no set reason or evidence that explains why people commit sexual homicide; however, there are many theories. One set factor that all researchers agree on is that “the most monstrous and most perverse sexual acts are usually committed by persons of sound mind, who are functionally rigid (in terms of a number of activities that they carry on), obsessed with fantasy and who have a determination to do what they want” (Pakhomou, 2004, p. 221).

The nurse I decided to write about is Dorothea Dix. She was an author, teacher, and a reformer. Dix fought for the mentally ill and prisoners on how they were treated across the United States as well as in Europe. She established many hospitals for the mentally ill, along with how the mentally ill can be helped or even cured. Her troubling background and family history served as an impact of her career. Dix started off with creating an elementary school within her grandmother’s home. She desired to be a school teacher and wanted to share her knowledge to young women “who dominated the teaching profession” (ncbi). Along with all of her accomplishments with teaching and being an advocate for the mentally ill, Dix volunteered during the American Civil War and was appointed to organize the Union Army hospitals as well as oversee majority of the nursing staff (history).

“I come to present the strong claims of suffering humanity. I come to place before the Legislature of Massachusetts the condition of the miserable, the desolate, the outcast. I come as the advocate of helpless, forgotten, insane men and women; of beings sunk to a condition from which the unconcerned world would start with real horror.”

Most sexual offenders are male, and nearly all known serial killers are also male. Aileen Wuornos is one of history’s highest-profile female serial murderers. She was imprisoned and sentenced to death for the murder of six men. During her childhood, Wuornos was exposed to abandonment by her biological parents, seclusion and physical and emotional abuse from her grandparents. The conspicuous lack of attention and communication from her caregivers along with the violent and toxic environment she endured forged a pattern for Aileen’s early-on criminal nature and violent behavior. This would be the path that would ultimately drive her towards the murder of at least six truck drivers along Florida's highway. Wuornos confessed to having committed

Carol M. Bundy was a ruthless serial killer. In her early years Carol M. Bundy was young kind and beautiful. Not many people would have thought or even believed that she would become a serial killer. She was kind too everyone she knew she helped people however when her mother died she became very nonsocial to everyone her mother’s death hurt her very badly. It eruct her hard she lost her mind completely. She killed over sixteen people and she was arrested August 11, in 1981 and her and her husband was soon known as the sunset strip killers. Carol M. Bundy was an American serial Killer. All the dead bodies and all the horrifying evidence this proves that Carol M. Bundy was an American serial killer.

Criteria: Describe the criteria for a serial killer and what did the person do to qualify as a serial killer?

Over the past few decades, hundreds of people have been falsely imprisoned. Many of their cases were founded on the account of one or more eyewitnesses. The criminal justice system often relies on eyewitness accounts to piece together a crime and identify the perpetrator. But studies showing the faultiness of our memories, particularly in stressful events, suggest that witnesses may not be as reliable of a source as we think.

The late sixties and early seventies were mostly known as a time of overseas war and stateside flower power. Although for the Northern California communities, it was a time of fear and desperation. During this time a man, a psychopath really, was terrorizing the people with his deranged antics. This man was, and still is, one of the most well known and dangerous serial killers that the United States has ever produced. This man is the one and only infamous Zodiac Killer.

This essay will examine the case study of the convicted serial killer Gary Ridgway, who was eventually caught and convicted for the murders 48 women. Ridgway, went on a killing spree of women without getting caught for over two decades, he went on to become the Green River Killer (Reichert, 2004). The essay will explore and evaluate the characteristics including the attribution of Garry Ridgway’s horrific crimes. In the 1980s and 1990s Ridgway targeted prostitutes, runaway girls, hitchhikers and vulnerable women in the locality of where he lived in Washington State, USA (Reichert, 2004). It baffled the authorities as to how he was able to commit these crimes whilst working and living in the locality of his crimes however, he was not suspected

Dorothea Dix is well known for her efforts to reform insane asylums and because of her dedication to changing the lives of help themselves who are in need of assistance, such as the mentally ill and the imprisoned. “She was a leading figure in those national and international movements that challenged the idea that people with mental disturbances could not be cured or helped.” Throughout her years of improving and changing of the prison conditions and the mentally ill, Dorothea Dix has made significant changes through her efforts and can be seen all over the U.S, Canada, and many European Countries.

Martha Stewart a famous talk show hostess, world-renowned maker of several kitchen items that we use today. She was convicted of insider trading. What he finds insider trading is for a person to use the information given to them by someone in another company to sell short on stocks in order to keep them from losing money. Martha had been a shareholder of the company ImClone. ImClone had developed a drug to treat colon cancer but the FDA refused to grant license which made their stock plummeted. Martha's broker had informed her that the CEO of ImClone have sold off his stock shares, and Martha decided to sell her securities which totaled 3928 shares.

“I know that I am a destroyer of the most precious thing, which is life”. This quote was from Patricia Krenwinkel. Patricia Krenwinkel had an important role in the Manson trials because she stabbed Abigail Folger countless of times and then later on she stabbed Rosemary LaBianca with a carving fork to death. She was found guilty of murder and they gave her the death sentenced, but the judge overruled it so she got life in prison. It has been 46 years since the murder of the Manson family. They put x on their heads like Manson made during the trials, sung the songs that Manson wrote with their arms locked and also shaved their hair off because Manson told them.

Eva Dugan, 52, was the first woman to be executed in Arizona for the murder of Andrew J. Mathis, 65.