with serial killers, there’s a familiar villain lurking just off to the side of the bodies:
The mother.
From Norman Bates’ mummified parent in Psycho to interview clips where killers spit venom about “what she did to me,” it’s tempting to believe there’s a straight line from monstrous mother → monstrous son.
Criminologist Steven Egger famously noted:
“Serial murderers are frequently found to have unusual or unnatural relationships with their mothers.”
And in many notorious cases? That’s true.
But it’s not the full story.
This article digs into:
- What “unnatural” mother–child relationships actually look like in serial killer histories
- How attachment theory explains the damage
- Where real cases support the trope (Kemper, Gein, Lucas, etc.)
- And where “blame the mom” becomes lazy, misogynistic, and wrong
Table of Contents
The “Monstrous Mother” Trope in Serial Killer Lore
The seductive idea:
He kills women because his mother was cruel, controlling, religious, emotionally cold, or sexually repressed.
Egger and other criminologists note that many serial murderers display:
- Unusual or unnatural maternal relationships
- Histories of humiliation, abuse, or dependency
- Resentment toward their mothers that later transfers to women as a whole
So yes — there’s a pattern.
But stopping here is basically doing the psychological equivalent of a clickbait YouTube comment. Let’s actually dig deeper.
Attachment Theory 101: How Bonds Can Break
Attachment theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth, and later researchers) argues that a child’s early bond with caregivers — often the mother — becomes the template for:
- How they see themselves
- How they view others
- How they relate, trust, and regulate emotion
Healthy attachment does not mean perfect parenting.
It means:
- Caregiver is mostly consistent
- Emotional needs are acknowledged
- Boundaries are stable, not cruel
In many violent offenders, including serial killers, you see the opposite:
- Insecure or disorganized attachments
- Caregiver loving one minute, cruel the next
- Child unable to predict whether comfort or pain will follow
- Humiliation, fear, or sexualization within the family
- No emotional anchor or safety base
A review of serial killers through the attachment lens found repeated themes of:
- Emotional neglect
- Chaotic caregiving
- Harsh punishment
- A later pattern of using violence and control to regulate emotions or create a warped sense of connection
Mothers aren’t the only factor — but they are often the central emotional figure these men circle, resent, and eventually try to symbolically destroy.
Edmund Kemper: Humiliation, Contempt, and Matricide
If you want the gold-standard case study of a toxic mother–son dynamic in a serial killer’s life, it’s Edmund Kemper.
The Childhood Dynamic
According to Kemper, family accounts, and court documents:
- His mother, Clarnell, was domineering and emotionally volatile
- She belittled him constantly
- She told him no woman would ever want him
- She made him sleep in a locked basement because she “didn’t trust him” with his sisters
Kemper’s father later claimed living with Clarnell was worse than combat.
Meanwhile, Edmund was already showing:
- Animal cruelty
- Violent fantasies
- A fixation on execution and torture scenarios
From Co-Ed Murders to the Real Target
When Kemper was released at 21, authorities sent him to live with his mother again — despite psychiatric warnings.
What followed:
- He began murdering female hitchhikers
- He often hunted right after arguments with his mother
- Victims functioned as surrogates for Clarnell
Eventually, he murdered his mother directly — then turned himself in.
Kemper’s arc is one of the clearest examples of mother-as-wound, mother-as-symbol, mother-as-final-target.
Ed Gein & Augusta: Control, Religion, and Warped Worship
If Kemper’s mother was humiliating, Gein’s mother, Augusta, was apocalyptic.
Augusta was:
- Fanatically religious
- Obsessed with sin and female “corruption”
- Determined to isolate her sons from the world
She taught Ed:
- Women were wicked
- Sex was sinful
- He should devote himself only to her
When Augusta died:
- Gein was emotionally shattered
- He preserved parts of the house as shrines
- His grave-robbing and later murders were attempts to recreate or become her
This mother–son relationship didn’t create hatred — it created a religious fixation and dependency so extreme that it warped identity itself.
Norman Bates was practically copy-pasted from this dynamic.
Resentment, Hatred, and the Mother-as-Target Pattern
Kemper and Gein are the loudest examples, but not outliers.
Across multiple case studies, you see:
- Resentment toward mothers over humiliation, favoritism, or emotional cruelty
- Transfer of this resentment onto women at large
- Love–hate dependence with emotionally absent or unstable mothers
- Victims who represent the mother figure symbolically
Patterns include:
- Overcontrolling, shaming, or boundary-violating mothers
- Emotional or sexualized enmeshment
- Symbolic reenactment of maternal conflicts in the murder ritual
But—this is crucial—
For every Kemper–Clarnell dynamic, there are killers whose mothers were:
- Imperfect but not monstrous
- Victims of abuse themselves
- Or barely present in life narratives
The mother-blame narrative is sometimes accurate — but absolutely not universal.
Are All Serial Killers “Made” by Their Mothers?
No.
A loud, resounding no.
Broad research across serial offenders consistently shows:
- High childhood abuse
- Often multiple abusers
- Violent, chaotic, unstable home environments
- Early trauma as a major catalyst
A 2020 behavioral sequence analysis found:
- Physical and sexual abuse were common
- Many experienced disrupted caregiving
- Violence emerged from a combination of trauma, fantasy, and opportunity — not one parent
What’s notably missing:
“Every serial killer had a monstrous mother.”
They did not.
Some did.
Some had monstrous fathers.
Some had neither.
Some had neurological injuries.
Some had chaotic peer environments.
Some made horrific choices absent any extreme abuse.
The reality is a multi-factorial storm, not a single maternal lightning bolt.
Why “Blame the Mother” Is Too Easy
Three major reasons this trope gets overused:
1. Cultural Habit: “Bad kid = failed mom.”
Our culture instinctively blames mothers for:
- Emotional issues
- Behavioral issues
- Criminal outcomes
It’s outdated and sexist, but persistent.
Fathers are often erased from the narrative.
2. Misogyny Disguised as Analysis
The “monstrous mother” trope reinforces:
- Suspicion of women who are too strict, too religious, too assertive
- The fear of “bad mothers” being more horrifying than bad fathers
It makes great horror stories — and terrible criminology.
3. Killers Use It as an Excuse
Serial killers love externalizing blame:
- “She made me this way.”
- “If my mother had treated me better…”
Is trauma real? Yes.
Does it cause murder? No.
Many people survive horrific childhoods without harming anyone.
Serial killers still made choices — repeatedly, violently, intentionally.
