By PAUL J. McGEADY
General Counsel of Morality in Media, Inc.
September 22, 2000
http://www.obscenitycrimes.org/harmfuleffects.cfm

10. Serial Murderers Fueled by Pornography

Addiction to pornography can lead apparently normal people to commit the ultimate crime of murder of a fellow human being. This is a hard saying, but its truth lies in the stories and confessions of serial killers.

A. Gary Bishop, Serial Killer

Gary Bishop, a convicted homosexual pedophile, murdered five young boys in Salt Lake City, Utah, in order to conceal his sexual abuse of them. After his conviction he wrote a letter which revealed the fact that pornography and his addiction to it was the root cause of his murders. It said:

"Pornography was a determining factor in my downfall. Somehow I became sexually attracted to young boys and I would fantasize about them naked. Certain bookstores offered sex education photographs or art books which occasionally contained pictures of nude boys. I purchased such books and used them to enhance my masturbatory fantasies.

"But it wasn't enough. I desired more sexually arousing pictures so I enticed boys to let me take pictures of them naked. From adult magazines, I located companies specializing in kiddie porn."

"Such material would temporarily satisfy my cravings, but soon I would need pictures more explicit and revealing … Finding and procuring sexually arousing materials became an obsession. For me, seeing pornography was like lighting a fire on a stick of dynamite. I became stimulated and had to gratify my urges or explode."

Note: The balance of this letter explained how he sexually abused and killed his boy victims.

B. Ted Bundy, Serial Killer

Serial killer Ted Bundy killed at least 28 young women and girls. He was interviewed on the day before he was executed by Dr. James Dobson, a well-known psychologist.

Bundy told Dobson that "I encountered soft core porn in the local drug store (and later) came across pornographic books of a harder nature."

Dr. Dobson asked whether these included violence. Bundy answered, "Yes, and this is something I want to emphasize as the most damaging kinds of pornography."

Dobson asked if "it fulfilled your fantasies." Bundy said:

"In the beginning it fuels this kind of thought process. Then at a certain time, it's instrumental in what I would say crystallizing it … At that point … I was on the verge of acting out these kinds of thoughts … and it happened in stages … my experience with pornography that deals on a violent level with sexuality is that once you become addicted … I would keep looking for more explicit, more graphic kinds of materials … until you reach the point where the pornography only goes so far. You reach that jumping-off point where you begin to wonder if maybe actually doing it will give you that which is beyond just reading about it or looking at it. …"

Bundy continues:

"The influence of violent pornography-which is an indispensable link in the chain of behavior … the assaults, the murders and what have you … I know that I could not control it … that these barriers that I had learned as a child were not enough to hold me back with respect to seeking out and harming somebody."

Bundy then says:

"I think people need to recognize that those of us who have been influenced by … pornographic violence-are not some kind of inherent monsters. We are your sons and we are your husbands. … Any pornography can reach out and snatch a kid out of any house to-day."

"I've lived in prison for a long time … and I've met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence just like me. And without exception every one of them was deeply involved in pornography -- deeply influenced by an addiction. There is no question about it. The FBI's own study shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography."

C. Jeffrey Dahmer, Serial Killer

Jeffrey Dahmer drugged and killed 17 men and boys. As related in a confession to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and often had sex with the body. When asked what motivated him, he told the FBI in 1992, "heavy drinking, pornography, and masturbation" -- admitting while in the U.S. Army he found graphic porn in Germany and spent thousands of dollars on it. He admitted to killing as often as once a week.

‘If a person doesn’t think there is a God to be accountable to, then—then what’s the point of trying to modify your behaviour to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we, when we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing…’
-Jeffrey Dahmer, in an interview with Stone Phillips, Dateline NBC, Nov. 29, 1994.