Assumption buster #1 M.O.

[Errata]

I realize that these are opinions and not definitive results but they do allign with what I have been suggesting.

Cheers

There are absolutely correlations between brain abnormalities and serial killers. No question about it. Last I checked, I think 60% of surveyed serial killers have brain abnormalities. Mostly centered in the frontal lobe, right above the eyes. The assumption is that it may be the seat of empathy, and it would explain why they lack that.

But what about the other 40% whose brains are normal? This is what I mean by there being any number of things that can make killing easier, but nothing creates the desire to kill. One of the major reasons people started collecting data on violent offenders and serial killers was to hopefully find a commonality between them all. A psychiatric disorder, a dead spot on the brain, a childhood experience. Anything that can be pointed to and declared to be the reason they do what they do. The obvious follow up would be to treat people with whatever the condition was before they start killing. Preventing it. There's nothing. There is nothing common to every killer. Not even common to every serial killer.And first it was in fact assumed to be a kind of madness. But it didn't fit any known definition of insanity, nor has it fit the dozen or so definitions of insanity since.

In the Victorian era, clearly it was assumed that the perpetrator of such crimes had to be mad. But even back then, it was patently obvious to everyone concerned that if it was a kind of madness, it was a very different kind of madness from anything they had ever seen before. The famous serial killers who followed pretty much were lumped into one of two categories. They were evil, or mad. H.H. Holmes, Albert Fish, evil. Jack the Ripper, Ed Gein, mad. And to be fair, Ed Gein was in fact barking mad. I mean, you read his biography and you can use it as a textbook as to how to create a serial killer. It wasn't until the forties that people started looking for other causes, because they were running into some unusual scenarios. The whole stereotype where nobody noticed some guy was a monster, that he was "shy, quiet, mostly kept to himself". This is where the psychopathic model really came into play. But a couple of decades later, the idea that every serial killer was a psychopath fell apart. When the FBI started gathering data on these guys, in the very beginnings of the BSU, they decided that it was a triad. A combination of sociopathy, insecurity, and hideous child abuse. And that idea lasted until the serial killer spree of the latter half of the 70s. Ted Bundy fit every criteria. Charles Manson did as well, but he was unique. He was the first serial killer whose weapon of choice was other people. And it is incredibly difficult for sociopaths to gain loyalty, a trait he clearly had no problems implementing. Charles Manson is a sociopath. And he isn't. He is something different.

The Hillside Stranglers posed another problem. One of them was a textbook serial killer by the Triad. And partnerships were nothing new. But in this case, the dominant partner was not a killer. A rapist, violent, a terrible human being, but he stopped. The submissive one was the classic serial killer, except for the fact that he was submissive. Which didn't track at all with known behaviors.

But the one who really broke all of the molds was Jeffrey Dahmer. He should have been a monster. But he wasn't. He may have been a sociopath, certainly he displayed some signature traits. But he genuinely loved his grandmother, and was solicitous of her well being. Which should be impossible for a sociopath. He wasn't abused. Maybe ignored a little, but not neglected. His childhood was ordinary, except that he was exceptionally cruel to animals. When he was caught, when he was brought in, he simply confessed. He was genuinely distressed at the idea of facing his father and telling him what he had done. He felt shame. He felt remorse. His defense team tried to get an insanity plea for him. He was examined minutely for even the least hint of some sort of explanation. Not because they were interested in treating him, but because he was the first genuine monster most of those shrinks had ever gotten their hands on. He was a whole new class of killer. He tested into the borderline range of an Attachment disorder. Just on the edge of having one and not. One doctor said he was a schizophrenic without examining him. After he'd been in prison awhile, he became born again. A conversion that by any standard had to be genuine, if it weren't for the fact that psychopaths don't have faith. His brain was normal, scans were confirmed after his death, when they got what was left of it out of his skull. So what the hell happened with him? He wasn't crazy, his brain was normal, he was very unsociopathic for a psychopath. He wasn't abused, he wasn't neglected, at most he was an odd guy. Who killed and ate people. Frankly, after his death, the rules went out the window. By every behavioral observation ever made, Dahmer shouldn't have been a serial killer. But he was. And it only got weirder.

It's hard to think that Dahmer wasn't crazy. After all, if he wasn't forced my some biological or chemical impulse to do what he did, whats to prevent the rest of us from suddenly deciding to do that? And the truth is, nothing. Nothing prevents it, other than our own discipline and desire. All of the evidence (all of it, not just whats on the FBI website) says that any one of us could become a serial killer at any time. If there's a necessary condition that needs to be met, we don't know it. If there is some trigger, we don't know that either. Something triggers these people to kill. It's different for each one. They play by the rules, and then one day they don't. Often it's some emotional blow, sometimes it's drugs, but other times it's a complete mystery. The esteemed Dr. Fallon is a perfect example. By all rights, he should be a serial killer. He isn't one. So why isn't he one, when Dahmer (who had none of those genetic or structural issues) is? If the brain was the issue, the roles would be reversed. There's an x factor. One that isn't measurable by any instrument we possess.

[Michael W Richards]

Hi errata,

I have to admit I do enjoy reading your posts, they are always thoughtful and often insightful. I also have to admit that the premise we've been discussing is primarily being addressed from the realm of serial killers and their statistics, and thats something Ive said many times is a valid approach only if serial crime is what we are looking at.

We dont know that any of these 5 Canonical deaths were connected to each other by the killer so we certainly have cause for doubt that it was in fact a series of murders by one man or men.

Now that we are back on more familiar ground for me........assuming that Polly and Annie were killed by one man, and that the killers impulse to kill was one of very few impulses he could not contain to some extent, meaning....he was functional the majority of the time,.....its still his inability to constrain himself using Moral and Emotional filters,..and compassionate reasoning, that allows him to commit the acts.

As in the example with the serial killers and their level of function in certain areas of the brain, can we not say it is more probable than not this killer had some kind of dysfunctional brain?

Best regards

[Errata]

H

Now that we are back on more familiar ground for me........assuming that Polly and Annie were killed by one man, and that the killers impulse to kill was one of very few impulses he could not contain to some extent, meaning....he was functional the majority of the time,.....its still his inability to constrain himself using Moral and Emotional filters,..and compassionate reasoning, that allows him to commit the acts.

As in the example with the serial killers and their level of function in certain areas of the brain, can we not say it is more probable than not this killer had some kind of dysfunctional brain?

Best regards

Well, we don't know that he had an inability to constrain himself, or that he lacked compassion or reason. He may have had all of those things, and chose not to exercise them, or go forward despite them. We do it all the time.

As for saying that statistically a serial killer is more likely to have a dysfunctional brain, the answer is no. Despite the fact that dysfunction is a psychological term, it is a societal construct. For example, if someone can't hold a job, that is considered dysfunctional. But if that person has inherited wealth and only works at any job for as long as it is entertaining, that makes perfect sense. But society values work, so a lack of work is dysfunctional. A lack of work is amoral, so is either a result of bad morals or of something wrong with the mind. But a lack of a desire to work, or a lack of work ethic isn't amoral. It just is. A lot of people don't understand it, and it fact couldn't stand living that way.

Serial killers are actually fairly representative of the population. Barring gender balance that is. Equal socio-economic spread, fairly representative racial spread, they represent all corners of the globe, all religions, all creeds, all levels of education (though the Unabomber may have artificially lifted that number). The dim spots above the eyes on MRIs as best can be determined are one possible cause of sociopathy. But sociopaths are rarely killers. And there are any number of sociopaths who don't have those dim spots. Another x factor. I mean it's an easy answer to say that yes, there is more likely to be something wrong with a serial killers brain that not. But that's incorrect. The real question is, does it show up in a higher percentage of serial killers than non serial killers? There isn't a whole lot of data available, but what there is suggests no. If say, one in fifty non serial killers has that brain abnormality, then one in fifty serial killers will. Their behavior is not connected to their brain function. It's possible that their impulses may be hard wired. Which is a whole other area of behavior we know little about. What makes people want to kill? Want to have sex with children? Want to eat human flesh, want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane, want to invent a sport like curling? These aren't things intrinsic to us, like food or sex or sleep. Nor is it learned, since nothing in our childhoods tells us this stuff is okay. So if it isn't hardware, and it isn't software, what the hell is it?

Remember my definition of the soul as a catch all for things we can't trace? The irony is that one of the very very few things that can stop people from exhibiting this kind of behavior is a religious conversion. Not saying that some almighty is lifting the burden, but faith seems to be an adequate substitute for these desires. If I knew why, I would be a very rich lady indeed.