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Here is the story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090123...echildrenknife
A madman with his face painted garishly in black and white attacked a children's day care center in Belgium, using a knife. It is at this time not known how many are dead or injured. The man fled on a bicycle and was apprehended.
I had two reactions. I began to think about organized/disorganized again. Then reproaching myself, I cried. Then with the tears still coming I prayed for the children and their families.
I am growingly convinced that this concept of organized/disorganized needs to be viewed as a spectrum rather than two rigidly separated categories. I believe it is possible to assign known killers a placement on the spectrum relative to the positions of others.
Those that are at the far left (very disorganized) are not likely to become SK's because they will be caught the first time.
If we can see where Jack fits on the spectrum we can have a better idea of what he was like by looking at those to the right and left of him. Here is my arrangement of several killers from left to right.
Mr. Li (bus decapitator), Belgian knife wielder, Jack the Ripper, Robert Napper, Dennis Rader.
Mr. Li was the most disorganized because he did what he did in front of witnesses and had no viable plan for escape afterward.
Today’s latest heartbreak was perpetrated by someone only slightly more organized than Li. He had provided himself with a bicycle and managed to escape for a brief time. Nevertheless the use of garish makeup was foolish and he too did it in front of witnesses.
Both of these two are too disorganized to become serial killers because they both were caught almost immediately. They belong at nearly the same spot on the spectrum.
Jack is a little to the right. His insane mutilations certainly place him on the disorganized end of the spectrum, but he had the presence of mind not to do it in front of witnesses and he managed to escape and never be caught.
To the right of Jack is Robert Napper. His actions were the result of paranoid schizophrenia but his career was longer than Jack’s and without the invention of DNA testing he would be a free man today.
Finally there is Dennis Rader. He would be much more organized than the others.
It might be possible to come up with a numbered scale (1 to 10 with decimals?) on which to place these killers.
A madman with his face painted garishly in black and white attacked a children's day care center in Belgium, using a knife. It is at this time not known how many are dead or injured. The man fled on a bicycle and was apprehended.
I had two reactions. I began to think about organized/disorganized again. Then reproaching myself, I cried. Then with the tears still coming I prayed for the children and their families.
I am growingly convinced that this concept of organized/disorganized needs to be viewed as a spectrum rather than two rigidly separated categories. I believe it is possible to assign known killers a placement on the spectrum relative to the positions of others.
Those that are at the far left (very disorganized) are not likely to become SK's because they will be caught the first time.
If we can see where Jack fits on the spectrum we can have a better idea of what he was like by looking at those to the right and left of him. Here is my arrangement of several killers from left to right.
Mr. Li (bus decapitator), Belgian knife wielder, Jack the Ripper, Robert Napper, Dennis Rader.
Mr. Li was the most disorganized because he did what he did in front of witnesses and had no viable plan for escape afterward.
Today’s latest heartbreak was perpetrated by someone only slightly more organized than Li. He had provided himself with a bicycle and managed to escape for a brief time. Nevertheless the use of garish makeup was foolish and he too did it in front of witnesses.
Both of these two are too disorganized to become serial killers because they both were caught almost immediately. They belong at nearly the same spot on the spectrum.
Jack is a little to the right. His insane mutilations certainly place him on the disorganized end of the spectrum, but he had the presence of mind not to do it in front of witnesses and he managed to escape and never be caught.
To the right of Jack is Robert Napper. His actions were the result of paranoid schizophrenia but his career was longer than Jack’s and without the invention of DNA testing he would be a free man today.
Finally there is Dennis Rader. He would be much more organized than the others.
It might be possible to come up with a numbered scale (1 to 10 with decimals?) on which to place these killers.
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