If you leave the local news on in the background for ten minutes, you’ll likely hear about a handful of monstrosities. Cruelty, kidnapping, manslaughter… and even cold-blooded murder. What is it about humans that compel them to take the lives of others? Why do people kill when many (rightfully) regard life as so precious?

I’ve long since believed it was due to neurological abnormality. Of course upbringing can play a role in sculpting a serial killer or shaping a particularly sick mind, but I never believed it to be the entire story. When you look into the eyes of a true, cold-blooded killer, there is something that is simply off. They don’t have the same capability for empathy that healthy, functioning humans are equipped with.

When I think about sick, manipulative beings, Charles Manson is always one of the first that comes to mind. I won’t lie: something about this monster enormously fascinates me. In no way do I sympathize with any of the actions of Manson, and I wholeheartedly wish the entire Family could rot in jail for life. I’m happy Susan Atkins got the death she deserved, and Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel don’t deserve a single breath of freedom despite what their lawyers say. Nor do I believe Tex Watson should be forgiven for being a “changed man” of faith.

What truly fascinated me about Manson was the ability of such a strange and delusional little man to control the minds of so many young people so entirely. He got them to shed their families like summer skin and join his strange world filled with theft, violence, and murder. The fact that he convinced seemingly normal people (you could argue that, say, Van Houten had a traditional upbringing) to commit such monstrosities is quite horribly fascinating.

However, I’ve grown to decide that there is nothing “special” about what Manson did. Clearly there was a magnetic element to him that allowed him to draw others in, but his manipulation is just that. Manipulation. Manson didn’t convince level-headed individuals to prey on others. He hand-selected people who were vulnerable, who were in need of guidance or suffered from some sort of gaping emotional wound. He was in no way the son of God that he envisioned himself to be. His skill was finding people who were damaged and using this to his advantage.

Take Ted Bundy for instance. This sick mind was able to coherence probably one-hundred beautiful, intelligent, thoughtful girls. His victims were noted for being smart and of respectable backgrounds. They were attractive, thriving girls leading full lives. Bundy wasn’t able to consume so many young lives because there was something “special” about him. He was of above average physical looks, and he simply knew how to prey on the vulnerabilities of the females he selected to murder. Bundy would masquerade as wounded or crippled and ask for assistance before knocking a number of his victims unconscious and capturing them. While these girls likely would have avoided a strange man, they were susceptible to capture due to their kind hearts that compelled them to help someone disabled.

I do think that both Manson and Bundy were of above average intelligence. Bundy in particular seemed to display the capacity for some real insight into the minds of such murderers, and though he undoubtedly deserved his fate, it would have been beneficial if his mind could have been further studied. However, it strikes me that these kind of sick people are not the masterminds that they so clearly fancied themselves to be. Their strengths lay simply in the fact that they were able to manipulate others and feed off of the vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and sympathies that make us human. They exploited the very things they lacked.