New Member

[Psych_Nurse]

Hi

Just a quick line to introduce myself and to thank admin for authorising my account!

I've been interested in JtR for many years and have read loads of books on the subject. I love the way in which the story is continually evolving, even after all of this time.

I work with mentally disordered offenders and I'm trained to assess patients for psychopathy so I'm generally approaching this from a psychological viewpoint but I'm also interested in others' approaches to the subject.

I'm looking forward to chatting to folks who share my interest.

Mel

[lynn cates]

welcome

Hello PN. Welcome to be boards. If you like to work with the mentally disordered, I shall volunteer. (heh-heh)

Happy hunting.

Cheers.
LC

[Tom_Wescott]

Hi Psych! Great to have you here. Given your expertise, I'd be curious what you make of Rob House's work in his book 'Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard's Prime Suspect'. He goes in depth about psychopathy (I may be using the wrong term!) relating to Kosminski, and as a layman, I found his work very intriguing.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Phil H]

Welcome. I hope you enjoy your stay.

Your thoughts on many issues could be illuminating (even therapeutic).

Phil H

[Psych_Nurse]

Hi

Thanks very much for the welcome, I'm sure I'm going to enjoy my time on here!

Lynn: I'm sure you don't meet the criteria for my client group, I hope not anyway!! And I think that mental disorder is a very subjective thing

Tom: I'm not familiar with the book which you've mentioned. I've actually just ordered it from Amazon, I'm always on the lookout for new reading material and as it comes highly recommended...

I have to say, and obviously I might change my mind about this after reading the book, I've never really fancied Kosminski as JtR. The bits I've read about him in other books suggest that he would probably be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia today and I've always thought that whoever JtR was, he would most likely have a personality disorder (psychopathy, or anti social personality disorder, as the pc folks would have us call it now) I base this on the callousness of the crimes and the blatant lack of concern which the killer seemed to show with regards to being caught in the act (The night of the double event and the long time which he must have spent mutilating Mary Jane Kelly)

It's obviously true that there have been cases of serial killers who had a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, the most well known of which is Peter Sutcliffe. My own personal opinion is that Peter Sutcliffe is not, and never has been mentally ill. I believe that the authorities took his description of symptoms at face value following the assault in which he was almost blinded and moved him to Broadmoor as a 'soft' option.

In my experience, people with schizophrenia tend to be disorganised and lack the power of coherent thought and planning. I'm not convinced that this would enable someone to carry out the murders.

All of that said, I'm very open minded and am very willing to have my opinions changed, in fact I expect that from the persuasive arguments I've read on here!

Mel

[Steadmund Brand]

Welcome to the boards Psych_Nurse, I look foward to reading more of your posts.

Steadmund Brand

[RivkahChaya]

Thanks very much for the welcome, I'm sure I'm going to enjoy my time on here!

Off-topic, but how can it say you have 0 (zero) posts?

I've never really fancied Kosminski as JtR. The bits I've read about him in other books suggest that he would probably be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia today and I've always thought that whoever JtR was, he would most likely have a personality disorder (psychopathy, or anti social personality disorder, as the pc folks would have us call it now)

I used to be a caseworker for an agency that supervised community living (as opposed to institutionalization) for people with a variety of disabilities. We had some clients with schizophrenia, most of whom were medicated, and I tend to agree with this, although I'm very cautious about diagnosing historical figures; however, in this case, we know that Kosminski had some kind of problem-- it's not like inventing something out of whole cloth, like people who want to say that Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, and Stonewall Jackson all had Asperger's syndrome. The food thing he was reported to have is a big deal, because all the schizophrenics I've known have had some weird food thing, whether it was eating the same things all the time (eg, the same breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day), or refusing to eat anything they hadn't seen prepared.

Anyway, I think any paranoid schizophrenic would have behaved oddly enough to set off alarm bells with any prostitute he approached, assuming that he did. Since there was no evidence of a struggle, and that, along with witness descriptions, caused police to assume that JTR first approached his victims as a client*, and that women who were soliciting were particularly on the lookout for anyone who seemed a little "off."

I wouldn't say that "sociopathy" is a PC term for what used to be called "psychopath." Psychopath is a term that the criminal justice system has used to describe people with personality-motivated crimes (shooting the guy upstairs who won't turn down his stereo), but it has never been an official diagnostic category used by the American Psychiatric Association. Generally, in criminal justice, the term got tossed around in contexts like "He's a psychopath, but he isn't legally insane."

"Sociopath," in the US at least (I can't speak for the UK), is a shorthand term for "antisocial personality disorder," which is a diagnostic category, although a person can be diagnosed as having "anti-social behavior" as part of a lot of things, including attachment disorder, a manic phase of bipolar disorder, or the result of a head injury. You don't get diagnosed with Anti-social Personality Disorder, unless the behaviors are present all the time, you have no insight into them (sometimes bipolar people, when they come out of a manic state, feel remorse they weren't capable of feeling when they were manic), and they can't be accounted for by anything else.

Not every serial killer is a Sociopath. Jeffrey Dahmer had been a serious alcoholic since he was a teenager, and could have had a lot of brain damage from that, and a number of serial killers, like Henry Lee Lucas and Aileen Wuornos, had abusive parents who not only caused them emotional trauma, but at least once caused a very serious head injury that resulted in loss of consciousness.

It's obviously true that there have been cases of serial killers who had a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, the most well known of which is Peter Sutcliffe.

It's also true that there isn't much defense in court against serial murder. In death penalty states, serial killers with good lawyers often try to plea bargain a full confession in exchange for life in prison. In non-death penalty states, where there may be no margin for a plea bargain (IIRC, Jeffrey Dahmer's lawyer tried for something like 50-life-- in other words, a parole hearing after 50 years), life without parole was what the prosecutor knew he'd get from a judge, and the case was a slam-dunk, so his lawyer suggested that Dahmer plead insanity, and be sentenced to a psychiatric facility, and then possibly a review of the case in 20 or 30 years, when public fervor had died down. He lost. "Winning" with insanity was never a likely outcome, it was just the only thing there was to try.

Ted Bundy, who may have been a Narcissist, rather than a Sociopath, I don't know, never subject himself to a psychiatric inquiry, acted as his own attorney, plead not guilty, lost, and got the death sentence.

In my experience, people with schizophrenia tend to be disorganised and lack the power of coherent thought and planning. I'm not convinced that this would enable someone to carry out the murders.

That's pretty much my experience too. They often to lose track of what they are doing, and need large print daily checklists on the wall to make sure they shower and take their medication. I think that JTR had his escape plan in mind before he killed anyone, and followed through with it. I would speculate that even if someone with schizophrenia were capable of planning beforehand, he would lose track of what he was doing in the excitement.

Of course, there are high-functioning schizophrenics who appear normal, and some, with medication, are normal to all intents and purposes, but that doesn't describe Aaron Kosminski, and at any rate, someone like that is even less likely to be a criminal.

*I'm not presuming one killer, just that all the women we know did work as prostitutes were approached this way.

[Cogidubnus]

Off-topic, but how can it say you have 0 (zero) posts?

Pub talk/Social chat posts don't count up Rivkah...

Hi Psych Nurse and welcome to the boards

All the best

Dave

[johns]

Welcome

[Beowulf]

I have to say, and obviously I might change my mind about this after reading the book, I've never really fancied Kosminski as JtR. The bits I've read about him in other books suggest that he would probably be diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia today and I've always thought that whoever JtR was, he would most likely have a personality disorder (psychopathy, or anti social personality disorder, as the pc folks would have us call it now) I base this on the callousness of the crimes and the blatant lack of concern which the killer seemed to show with regards to being caught in the act (The night of the double event and the long time which he must have spent mutilating Mary Jane Kelly)...


...In my experience, people with schizophrenia tend to be disorganised and lack the power of coherent thought and planning. I'm not convinced that this would enable someone to carry out the murders.

All of that said, I'm very open minded and am very willing to have my opinions changed, in fact I expect that from the persuasive arguments I've read on here!

Mel

Welcome, and I will look forward to anything you might add, prob be very interesting.

Manson was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, obviously he would've sent his girls to do the job but he certainly had no problem thinking it out.

Personally, I find Kosminski's ability to eat from the gutter on par with being as comfortable with disgusting behavior as JTR was likely to be during these murders.

Part of me thinks Jack probably took part cannibalism, must've been delusional, heard voices, obeyed them. I often think of Kosminski's statement he knew where everyone in the world was at any given time or something, making me think he felt comfortable with his prowess not to be caught? Maybe he was able to be very clever. Then again, Kosminski could've been too disorganized.

Kosminski would not eat the food at the asylum because of his paranoia. I have often wondered if that is tied up with cannabalism of the victims. If there is any connection there.

I'm not saying Kosminski is JTR but I would recommend to you to read Rob House's book on him, Prime Suspect, because it gives some very interesting information, and the last chapter or two goes into the ways a sociopathic killer fields his victims. Really well thought out.

Btw, I'm a nurse too.

[RivkahChaya]

I have seen several different diagnoses for Manson. I've seen Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Schizotypal Personality Disorder, and Bipolar disorder with psychotic features.

You have to remember that Manson was beaten by his mother, sold by her (prostituted out is what I assume that means), sometimes for beer, and by the time he had his "family" on the ranch, he was in his early 30s, and had spent more than have his life incarcerated in some way. If he'd been born in 2004, under similar circumstances, he'd probably get a diagnosis of attachment disorder, and it wouldn't surprise me if he had a serious head injury at some people, between being a small guy in prison, and having been beaten by his mother.

Then at the time of the Tate-LaBianca murders, he was doing a lot of drugs, including windowpane. That can make a normal person paranoid by itself, and the combination of windowpane and pot can produce extreme paranoia. I don't know whether they had any stimulants, like speed, but that's something that will produce extreme paranoia, if you manage to get hooked.

I know he still acts nuts whenever he's interviewed, or has a televised parole hearing, but he is Charles Manson, and he likes attention. I think at this point, a lot of it is the fact that he knows he's never getting out of prison (and maybe doesn't really want to, because he'd probably get lynched), so he plays his Charles Manson role for the camera. It's pretty pathetic to watch, anymore. He looks like he's getting cataracts, and the "crazy" is gone from his eyes. He's gaunt, and his hair is white, and his swastika is drooping, getting lost in the wrinkles on his forehead.

He was a pathetic guy who found people more lost and pathetic as he was, and became their king. Sometimes losers do evil things, and they don't have to be crazy. Lee Harvey Oswald wasn't crazy, just a loser desperate for attention.

My personal experience of schizophrenics saying they know where everyone in the world is, or something to that effect, is that they are deliberately lying. They are paranoid about being watched, so they lie, and tell you they know you are watching, and they see you doing it. They're trying to convince you that whatever intelligence you've gathered about them, they know you know it, so you can't use it against them. They don't really believe it, though.

[Errata]

In the case of serial killers, I have adopted a policy of completely discounting any diagnosis made after capture and before trial. And number of serial killers have been diagnosed as Schizophrenic. John Wayne Gacy was. But after conviction, they are no longer treated for any illness they may have been assigned. Because they don't actually have it. It takes about a year of observation to actually, scientifically diagnose someone. Time that a court psychiatrist simply doesn't have. They aren't lying about a diagnosis per se, but they are playing the odds, not reflecting reality. A guy says he hears voices in a three hour session, the odds say that is schizophrenia. The assumption is that in a brief session that the patient is accurately self reporting. Which in the outside world is a pretty good assumption, but in a session devoted to competency for trial, it's a very bad assumption. I look at 5 years later. Are they still on medication, are they still in therapy, are they getting brain scans to determine the rate of decay, are they still being treated.

And for the vast majority of these guys, the answer is "no".

[Beowulf]

I agree with you regarding scepticism of diagnosing these guys. Oh they are all schizos and want no criminal charges, yes. But obviously JTR had something really wrong with him, don't you think?

Speaking of Manson, he has some of the 'family' out here in Az. You know they never were caught for some of the murders, other than the famous ones, that took place. Their 'hippie' lawyer, who disappeared after a quarrel with the family as to how to represent them and then turned up dead, for instance. Bugliosi felt there were various murders they committed and never caught for around LA at that time.

They bought a piece of land out here and started a Halloween Haunted house, way back in the 70s. They at that time put on plays around Halloween, as a 'haunted house' and for an admission price you would see little enactions, 'plays' of a woman being raped, a woman having an abortion, a man killed in a robbery, a violent murder... all sorts of heinous things. Very 'Manson Family' style living rest of year. Pumpkins grown, homemade articles for sale, etc.

It's about 20 min from my house. Still running, large piece of land, lots of three wheeler vehicles roaming about, old run down ranch/farm like buildings on the property, really reminds me of Spahn ranch stuff. The paper reported years ago a member of the Manson family, and his pals bought and owned it, many of them did not get arrested, and are still writing to Manson and visiting him.

[ChrisGeorge]

In the case of serial killers, I have adopted a policy of completely discounting any diagnosis made after capture and before trial. And number of serial killers have been diagnosed as Schizophrenic. John Wayne Gacy was. But after conviction, they are no longer treated for any illness they may have been assigned. Because they don't actually have it. It takes about a year of observation to actually, scientifically diagnose someone. Time that a court psychiatrist simply doesn't have. They aren't lying about a diagnosis per se, but they are playing the odds, not reflecting reality. A guy says he hears voices in a three hour session, the odds say that is schizophrenia. The assumption is that in a brief session that the patient is accurately self reporting. Which in the outside world is a pretty good assumption, but in a session devoted to competency for trial, it's a very bad assumption. I look at 5 years later. Are they still on medication, are they still in therapy, are they getting brain scans to determine the rate of decay, are they still being treated.

And for the vast majority of these guys, the answer is "no".

A good post, Errata. These guys are sociopaths but they are able to think rationally and to plan their crimes, so they are not "nuts" as such.

Best regards

Chris

[RivkahChaya]

In the case of serial killers, I have adopted a policy of completely discounting any diagnosis made after capture and before trial.

There's precious little in the way of a good defense for a serial killer, and "insanity" is the only thing to try, in a lot of cases. In a state that has the death penalty, but where it isn't popular, often the SK can plea bargain a full confession for life without parole, especially if he can take the district attorney to bodies that haven't yet been recovered. Death penalty trails, plus appeals, are very expensive-- way more expensive than housing someone in prison for 50 years, believe it or not, and a DA who avoids one saves his constituency a lot of money. But in a state like Texas or Florida, where a plea bargain for life without parole would be very unpopular with the constituency, or in a non-death penalty state, the defense attorney really has nothing to work with. In my opinion, actually, I think they would be amiss not to at least ask for a psychiatric evaluation.

Now, on another topic, I read an article by a psychiatrist who had looked into the medical histories of people in prison for homicide, although not necessarily serial murder, but they were all personal homicides; in other words, no vehicular homicides, murder for hire, drive-by shootings; they were all rage killings of some sort, and he found that an exceptionally large percentage of the people in prison for that sort of act of violence had had a head trauma during childhood during which they lost consciousness. It was much higher than you would expect to see in the average population-- something like 75%. Many of them had been beaten by parents, but some of them had been in car accidents, or fallen out of trees.

Now, I'm not saying that anyone with a head injury gets a free pass. But since these were childhood injuries, there were probably early warning signs, and maybe something could have been done. Maybe medication, or behavior therapy based on Skinnerism could have helped. Maybe just making the person aware of the problem could have helped.

I'm also not saying that "impulse control problems" = "legal insanity," although in some states, it does, if it can be demonstrated that the lack of control is absolute, and it's a very tough burden to meet. You pretty much have to have Tourette's syndrome, with a "strangling the guy next to you" tic. I don't know that anyone has ever met that burden. Jeffrey Dahmer tried, and failed.