Insanity

The FBI model classifying offenders as disorganized, organized, or mixed was only the beginning of an effort to classify serial killers. Part of the problem is that there is no precise definition of insanity—doctors define insanity differently from courts of law. The insanity plea has existed in English jurisprudence since the reign of Henry III (1216–1272), when the king could commute a death sentence of an insane criminal if it was demonstrated that irrational behaviour was not unusual for the person in the past. In such cases, the prisoner would often end up being confined in a monastery. In the next century the plea was moved into the regular appeals process, no longer requiring the king’s authority. In 1581 legal authorities were arguing what a test of insanity should consist of in law, settling upon “knowledge of good and evil” as the test. In 1843, English jurisprudence developed the concept of insanity as a defense against charges of murder. A mentally ill man named Daniel M’Naghten came to believe that he was personally being threatened by Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel and mistakenly shot and killed Peel’s private secretary. He was acquitted on the grounds of insanity in what is known to this day as the M’Naghten rule. And it says:

“It must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong”.

In other words, to claim insanity, a defendant needs to prove that he could not distinguish between right and wrong, or that he was not aware of what he was doing, because of mental illness.  Trials where such a defense was used required the conflicting testimony of psychiatrists who frequently disagreed on an exact definition of “mental incapacity” and its effect on an “irresistible impulse” of a defendant. Defense lawyers for serial killers who were lucid, cleverly concealed their crimes, and functioned in their daily lives argued that they were not guilty by reason of insanity—that they could not resist the impulse to kill, even though they knew it was wrong, because they were sick. The inability to resist an impulse to kill, for whatever reason, is no longer a viable defense for a serial killer. Most serial killers do not fit the legal definition of insanity, especially the organized ones. They search for and stalk their victims, they arrive with weapons and restraints prepared, they take their time killing, and they destroy the evidence afterward, demonstrating a full knowledge of the consequences of their crime. They elude detection and therefore are obviously aware of the wrongfulness of their act. So what is wrong with these guys? Obviously something makes them different from the rest of us. Describing them as merely evil seems too simplistic and unscientific—after all, what is “evil” exactly? Psychologists over the last decade have been desperately attempting to evolve clinical definitions and explanations for the deeds and personalities of serial killers. The two concepts most often associated with serial killers by the public, press, law enforcement, and academia are psychotic and psychopath. The two terms have very different meanings. A psychotic is someone who has psychosis, a debilitating organic mental illness, still not entirely understood, that can result in delusions, hallucinations, and radical changes of behavior. Individuals with this disorder are rarely violent, and very few serial killers are diagnosed as psychotic. The psychotic’s incapacitating disconnection with reality rarely makes him a good candidate for a long career as a serial killer. Psychotics who display violence most often direct it at themselves. On the other hand, serial killers are most often diagnosed as psychopaths, or another closely related term, sociopath. A psychopath is profoundly different from a psychotic. The psychopathic state is not so much a mental illness as a behavioral or personality disorder. One forensic psychiatrist described it as follows:

“A morality that is not operating by any recognized or accepted moral code, but operating entirely according to expediency to what one feels like doing at the moment or that which will give the individual the most gratification or pleasure. The term psychopathic state is the name we apply to those individuals who conform to a certain intellectual standard, sometimes high, sometimes approaching the realm of defect but yet not amounting to it, who throughout their lives, or from a comparatively early age, have exhibited disorders of conduct of an antisocial or asocial nature, usually of a recurrent or episodic type, where, in many instances, have proved difficult to influence by methods of social, penal, and medical care and treatment and for whom we have no adequate provision of a preventive or curative nature. The inadequacy or deviation or failure to adjust to ordinary social life is not a mere willfulness or badness which can be threatened or thrashed out of the individual so involved, but constitutes a true illness for which we have no specific explanation.”

Psychologists theorize that psychopaths have a diminished capacity to experience fear and anxiety, which are the roots to the normal development of a conscience. Psychopaths are often very charismatic and very able at manipulating people. They are highly talented in feigning emotions while inside feeling nothing. They have no remorse for their victims and have highly developed psychological defense mechanisms such as rationalization. (“She should have known better than to hitchhike”), projection (“She was a heartless manipulating slut”), and disassociation (“I don’t remember killing her”). They have a very weak realization of self and compensate for that with grandiosity and an inflated notion of entitlement— meaning that they feel that they are special and “entitled” to act above the law or morality. Most notably, psychopaths lack any sense of empathy with the feelings of others. A psychiatric lists some of the primary characteristics of the psychopath, many if not all of which can be found in a serial killer: glibness and superficial charm; grandiosity; continuous need for stimulation; pathological lying; conning and manipulative behavior; lack of remorse or guilt; shallow affect; callous lack of empathy; parasitic lifestyle; poor behavioral controls; promiscuity; early behavior problems; lack of realistic long-term goals; impulsivity; irresponsibility; failure to accept responsibility for actions; many short-term relationships; juvenile delinquency; revocation of conditional release; and criminal versatility. The official psychiatric term for a psychopath is antisocial personality disorder. The diagnostic criteria for this disorder, as described by the standard Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV), are as follows:

1.  failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;

2.  deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure

3.  impulsivity or failure to plan ahead

4.  irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights and assaults

5.  reckless disregard for the safety of self or others

6.   consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behaviour or honour financial obligations

7.  lack of remorse, as indicated by indifference to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

Violent psychopaths emerge out of a combination of personal social conditions and biological and genetic factors. Brain injuries can cause a psychopathic behavioural pattern; many serial killers have a record of head injuries when they were children or recent injuries prior to their beginning to kill. But this is not the cause of their murderous behaviour—other behavioural problems are already present. Healthy people who sustain head injuries do not become killers. Psychopaths also show abnormal balances of chemicals currently linked to depression and compulsive behavior: monoamine oxidase (MAO) and serotonin. They show cortical underarousal, high CSF free testosterone, and EEG abnormalities. A high level of urine kryptopyrrole and an extra Y chromosome have also been suspected as factors in the violent behavior of psychopaths. There is evidence that some type of congenital genetic abnormalities resulting in brain damage may be common to many serial killers. Nineteenth century criminology tended to promote the idea of a genetic criminal type. This idea has been swept away in the twentieth century by environmental theories. Now criminology is beginning to steer a line somewhere in between the two approaches. The prevailing theory is that there is a delicate balance between a chaotic or abusive childhood and biochemical factors that can trigger murderous psychopathic behavior. Healthy social factors can prevent a biochemically unstable individual from committing criminal acts; healthy biochemistry can protect a person with a turbulent childhood from growing up to be a killer. Violent offenders emerge when both elements are out of balance. This theory goes a long way to explain why some children with difficult childhoods do not become serial killers and not everyone with a head injury behaves criminally. The problem with psychopaths is that the disorder is highly elusive— it is not a disease that can been directly traced to a single chemical, viral, or organic agent; it is a mysterious behavioral disorder whose history is buried deep in the offender’s psychology, environment, and biochemistry. It is likely that a cure for cancer will be found before psychopaths can be routinely treated and cured. Numerous serial killers, after committing their first murders and being sent to psychiatric facilities or receiving psychiatric treatment in prison, were deemed “cured” and committed more escalated series of murders after their release. A psychiatric context is virtually impossible to definitively identify in cases of serial murder. Serial killers seem to come close to a psychiatric definition of psychopaths, but in the final analysis, they elude existing categories.

Acknowledgements:

The Police Department;

www.politie.nl and a Chief Inspector – Mr. Erik Akerboom     ©

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