Loving a serial killer

I hope that maybe this reaches someone who has experienced guilt in loving someone who has killed someone else. In my case, my brother was a serial killer. For some reason, adding the word “serial” brings this all to another level. Someone who has killed people is one thing. Someone who was a serial killer and found enjoyment or release out of such an act, is another level, I’m not sure how to say it or what the right adjective would be, but it’s horrible. The horrible and inexcusable act my brother committed happened when I was young. Too young to understand a lot that was going on at the time it all happened, but old enough for it to impact me. I spent decades of my life with this core confliction of is it right to love my brother after what he has done. And when I did allow myself to feel that love, I felt that I must be a horrible evil person. The way myself and even some others remember him is not of a horrible person but of someone who didn’t fit in to society and someone who was constantly bullied. Took me a long time to understand that as his sister it’s OK to love him. It doesn’t mean I love what he did because obviously I do not, but I love who he was before all that. It doesn’t mean, I accept what he did. It doesn’t mean that I don’t grieve for his victims and their families, and it doesn’t mean that I am OK with any of that. I am not evil and I am not a horrible person. I love my brother. Just not what he did.

Posted Jun 10, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

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