Law Essay: Arthur Shawcross

Arthur Shawcross
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Arthur Shawcross
Artur Shawcross hailed from Kittery in Maine. However, his family relocated to Watertown (Norris, 1992). Based on Shawcross' accounts, he had turbulent adolescence and a difficult relationship with his parents. He claimed that his mother was particularly domineering. Shawcross had early encounters with sexual behaviour. According to him, they included being sexually molested by his aunt, sexual relations with his younger sister, and a homosexual encounter at 11 (Norris, 1992). His school records show that he was not particularly bright and had a tendency towards bullying. Shawcross' first two marriages did not last more than five years each. In his second marriage, Shawcross drafted into the army and served in Vietnam. According to his accounts, he murdered two girls and several children while in Vietnam. After serving in Vietnam, Shawcross returned and shortly after was convicted for arson. He served two years out of his five-year jail term (Norris, 1992). However, soon after his release, Shawcross claimed his first victim. A ten-year-old boy named Jack Blake. Later he raped and murdered an eight-year-old girl named Karen Hill. Shawcross became a prime suspect and was officially arrested on October 3, 1972. He confessed to both killings but was only found guilty of Karen's killing. He was sentenced to 25 years in jail but was released on parole in April 1987.
Upon his release, Shawcross had to be moved to a different area due to public outcry in his former Binghamton town. He and his new wife, Rose Whalley, settled in Rochester. However, Shawcross soon returned to his criminal and murdering ways. He strangled a prostitute named Dorothy Blackburn in 1988. However, the authorities were unable to tie him to the murder (Norris, 1992). By 1990, a mounting death toll in the region prompted local authorities to seek assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Eventually, Shawcross was captured after he had returned to one of his crime scenes. He was found guilty of ten murders he had committed after being released from prison. He served his life sentence at the Sullivan Correctional Facility until his death in November 2008 (Norris, 1992).
One of the symptoms Shawcross exhibited that is related to the present disorder is arson. Several serial killers have committed arson attacks at some point in their life (Garbarino, 2015). The crime is in their earlier stages of life. According to contemporary research, arson is psychologically attractive to potential serial killers because...