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CCJ1191 - HUMAN BEHAVIOR
DR. ELIZABETH BUCHHOLZ
SERIAL MURDERERS & THEIR VICTIMS
CHAPTER 3: Psychopathology and Biogenics of Serial Murderers
Learning Objectives
 To explore biological and genetic foundations of violent behavior
 To examine insanity and mental illness as they relate to violent behavior
 To understand the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual spectrum of personality disorders as
they relate to violent behavior
 To debunk myths surrounding the label psychopath and evaluate psychopathy as a
spectrum of development
 To be able to differentiate female and male psychopathy
 To know the Factors in the Hare PCL-R and be able to distinguish the tools from the
deficits
 To examine cases of serial murder committed by legally insane psychotic offenders
 To examine cases of serial murder involving offenders with mental illness, personality
disorders, and psychopathy
EARLY CRIMINOLOGISTS:
 USED PHRENOLOGY TO DETERMINE CRIMINAL PROPENSITIES: What is
phrenology? Was it good science?
 CESARE LOMBROSO NOTED THAT HABITUAL CRIMINALS HAVE WEAK
NATURES, ARE ATAVISTIC AND CAN BE IDENTIFIED BY PHYSICAL
ATTRIBUTES PRIMARILY MALE
LOMBROSO CONT.
 Lombroso believed “born criminals” (those biologically predisposed) were cold and
cruel, showed no remorse, retained no close friends, and were prone to sell out their
accomplices.
 According to Cesare Lombroso’s criminal categories, the habitual criminal engages in
crime because he/she has no choice.
Jukes, Kallikaks & Mutineers
 CRIMINAL FAMILIES: Is it possible to inherit criminal propensities?
 Google search the mutineer descendants of Captain Bly and Mutiny on the Bounty:
Hundreds of years later almost all the males are offenders…please explain!
Hans Eysenck (1977)
 from a biosocial perspective, argued that criminal behavior, including homicide, stems
from both interactions of environmental conditions and inherited personality traits.
 attributed criminality to persons born with nervous system characteristics that are distinct
from “normal” people. In turn, these characteristics interfere with their ability to conform
to the rules, values, and laws of society.
Hans Eysenck cont.
 extroverts are more likely than introverts, because of the biological differences in their
nervous systems, to be involved in antisocial behavior.
 most people avoid antisocial behavior because they have been trained to recognize the
negative consequences.
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INSANITY AND MENTAL ILLNESS
 As far as the criminal courts are concerned, insanity is a legal term, not a psychiatric
distinction and is used to define the state of mind of an offender at the time of the offense.
 Many mass murderers, unlike serial killers, have a history of mental illness.
 Most mass murderers were found to have had several major life events that precipitated
the murders.
TESTS FOR DEFINING INSANITY
 The M’Naughten Rule
 Must prove 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, he did not know he was doing what was wrong.
TESTS FOR DEFINING INSANITY
 The Irresistible Impulse Test
 Supplements the M’Naughten Rule, which allows an insanity defense when it can
be determined that the offender understands the difference between right and
wrong yet succumbs to uncontrollable impulses.
TESTS FOR DEFINING INSANITY
 The Brawner Rule, or Substantial Capacity Test
 Combines the intents of the M’Naughten Rule and the Irresistible Impulse Test
 The accused only needs to show a lack of substantial capacity as opposed to total
impairment.
▪ Excludes repeated criminal behavior (acts committed by sociopaths or
antisocial personality disordered people)
TESTS FOR DEFINING INSANITY
 The Durham Rule, known also as the Products Test
 The accused is not criminally responsible if his unlawful act was the product of
mental disease or defect
▪ Criticism: “mental disease” or “defect” leaves juries to rely on
psychiatrists’ decisions/definitions
TESTS FOR DEFINING INSANITY
Read the cases of Joseph Kallinger, the Shoemaker and Edward Theodore “Ed” Gein,
American Psycho
 MENTAL ILLNESSES/DISORDERS
 NEUROSIS
 Mental disorders in which behavior is less violent in nature than those of
psychotics.
 Incudes anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders, PTSD, acute stress,
substance-abuse disorders.
 PSYCHOSIS
 A severe form of mental disease in which the individual suffers from a severe
break with reality and may exhibit dangerous behavior.
 Symptoms include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly
disorganized or catatonic behavior.
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MENTAL ILLNESSES/DISORDERS
 DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS:
1. Dissociative Identity Disorder
a. Presence of two or more distinct identifies or personality states (multiple
personality disorder)
b. “UFO of psychiatry”—little evidence to support multiple personalities as a true
disorder
c. Some people avoid or escape stressful or painful experiences
d. More common among women
MENTAL ILLNESSES/DISORDERS
1. Dissociative Identity Disorder cont’d
e. Wilbur—Personalities diagnosed as dissociative had been battered as children
▪ Stress fuels anxieties, then dissociative response to adapt to intolerable
situation
f. More likely to be used as a decoy defense than to be valid (Kenneth Bianchi, p.
79)
Kenneth Bianchi
Bianchi and his cousin Angelo Buono, Jr., together are known as the Hillside Stranglers. He is
serving a term of life imprisonment in Washington. Bianchi is also a suspect in the Alphabet
murders, three unsolved murders in his home city of Rochester.
MENTAL ILLNESSES/DISORDERS
 DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS:
2. Dissociative Amnesia
a. Loss of memory due to psychological reasons rather than organic problems.
1) Triggered by highly stressful events (war, natural disasters)
2) Experience anterograde amnesia (loss of memory after a traumatic
experience)
 DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS:
3. Dissociative Fugue
1) Disturbed state of consciousness in which the one affected seems to perform acts
in full awareness but upon recovery cannot.
2) Sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one’s customary workplace with
inability to recall one’s past.
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Hannah Upp, a teacher from New York, went missing on August 28, 2008. She was
rescued from the New York Harbor on September 16 with no recollection of the time in
between. The episode was diagnosed as dissociative fugue.
 DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS:
4. Depersonalization Disorder
a. Feeling detached from one’s mental processes or physical body
1) “Out-of-body experience”
2) Splitting off, blocking out, or not remembering undesirable memories
(repressing)
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Psychoanalytic Factors
 Sigmund Freud
 Linked abnormal behavior to mental problems induced by early childhood
trauma
 Mind is constantly engaged in balancing the three-part personality structure of id,
ego, and superego
▪ Id—primal component of a person’s mental state, driving force for the
necessities to sustain life, such as food, water, and sex
▪ Ego—serves to guide an individual’s behavior to conform to rules, laws,
and community standards.
▪ Superego—the composite of moral standards and values learned within
the family and community. Sits in judgment of a person’s behavior.

Henry Lucas
 Was involved in a dispute with his 15-year-old lover and confidante. In anger,
she reached over and slapped him, who responded by stabbing her repeatedly
until she was dead.
August Aichorn
 Latent Delinquency
 A state in which a youth constantly seeks immediate gratification while
neglecting the feelings or needs of others
 Centers on a lack of remorse or sense of guilt in satisfying instinctive urges
David Abrahamsen
 The Murdering Mind
 All murderers are intensely tormented and are constantly beset by inner conflict
 Emphasized psychosexual factors
 Sexual traumatizations may later surface as aggressive, sometimes homicidal
behavior
FRUSTRATION
 “Frustration is the wet nurse of violence.” DR. DAVID ABRAHAMSEN IN THE
MURDERING MIND
 Frustration is not an emotion but rather a state of being that often leads to emotions such
as anger, sadness or depression.
 In order for frustration to occur, a person must have some hope for goal attainment.
(Either tangible like having more money or intangible as in intimacy with another person)
CASE EXAMPLE:
Years ago a patient named Calvin executed his college roommate with a shotgun blast to his head
while he slept. The roommate had told Calvin not to use his laundry detergent, that he would
have to purchase his own. Prior to the killing that evening Calvin had been reading Dr.
Abrahamsen’s book, The Murdering Mind and said that he had been fantasizing about killing
someone for a long time.
What prompted Calvin to kill?
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Personality Disorders
 Personality disorder patterns are commonly manifested in two or more of the following
ways:
 Cognition
 Perception and interpretation of self, other people, and events
 Affectivity
 Range, intensity, and appropriateness of emotional response
 Interpersonal functioning
 Impulse control
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Paranoid
 A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others
Schizoid
 A pervasive pattern of detachment from relationships
 Limited expression of emotions
Schizotypal
 Social and interpersonal deficits, eccentric behaviors that inhibit the development
of close relationships
Personality Disorders
 Antisocial
 Extreme disregard and violation of the rights of others
 Borderline
 Instability in interpersonal relationships and self-image, and extreme impulsivity
 Histrionic
 Excessive emotionality and attention seeking
 Narcissistic
 Grandiosity, need for praise, lac of empathy
Personality Disorders
 Avoidant
 Social inhibition, feelings of inadequacy, hypersensitive to criticism
 Dependent
 Need to be cared for, fear of abandonment, submissive and clinging
 Obsessive-compulsive
 Preoccupation with orderliness, perfectionism, mental and interpersonal control,
inflexible and inefficient behavior
Personality Disorders
 Are the most resistant to change.
Antisocial Behavior
 Common among violent offenders.
 Behaviors include
 Incorrigibility
 Theft
 Fighting during childhood
 Deceitfulness
 Excessive alcohol/drug use
 Reckless regard for safety of self or others
 Impulsivity
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Aggressive behaviors during adolescence
Antisocial Behavior
 Demonstrate poor work habits
 Lack of responsibility
 View the world in negative, hostile terms
 Frequently show lack of insight into their problems and future plans
Trolley Quandary
 Five persons are about to be killed by a runaway trolley
 By pushing a large man off a bridge into the trolley’s path, the man will die but the five
others will be spared
 What do you do?
Trolley Quandary
 By pulling a lever to divert the train, the man will die but the five others will be spared
 What do you do?
 Most people studied would be willing to pull the lever, but not willing to push the man
onto the tracks to save others.
 Psychopaths lack attachments to groups or individuals and would do either.
Asperger’s Disorder
 Silva, Ferrari, and Leong
 Tendency for isolation from others
 Repetitive thinking and behaviors
 A pattern of actively rejecting other people’s worldviews even when the others
make themselves available for potential social interaction
Ted Kaczynski: The UnABomber
 “In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting
impression, we had to kill people.”
Psychopath
Cleckley’s The Mask of Sanity
 Intelligent
 Rational
 Calm
 Unreliable
 Insincere
 Without shame or remorse
 Having poor judgment
 Without capacity for love
 Unemotional
 Poor insight
 Indifferent to the trust or kindness of others
 Overreactive to alcohol
 Suicidal
 Impersonal sex life
 Lacking long-term goals
 Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior
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PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS in PSYCHOPATHY
 Control/Power
 Loving and hating are similar forms of attachment
 Frustration/Aggression
 Fantasy
 Abandonment/Rejection
 Intimacy: The holy grail of being human
Hare’s PCLR: FACTOR 1 or “Tools” of the Psychopath
 Glibness/superficial charm
 Grandiose sense of self-worth/narcissism
 Pathological lying
 Conning, manipulative behavior
 Lack of remorse or guilt
 Shallow affect
 Callousness/lack of empathy
 Failure to accept responsibility for actions
Hare’s PCLR: FACTOR 2 or “Deficits” of the Psychopath
 Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
 Parasitic lifestyle
 Poor behavioral controls
 Early behavioral problems
 Lack of realistic, long-term goals
 Impulsivity
 Irresponsibility
 Juvenile delinquency
 Revocation of conditional release
SOCIOPATHS AND PSYCHOPATHS ARE DISTINGUISHED BY
 SKILL LEVELS
 INTELLIGENCE
 EXPERIENCE
Psychopaths become adept at psychological game playing and ultimately become proficient at
controlling their environment. This is usually not true of the sociopath.
GENERAL COMPARISON OF SOCIOPATHS TO PSYCHOPATHS
 SOCIOPATHS
 Long history of criminal behavior
 Average to below average intelligence
 Anti-social
 Explosive temperament
 Limited in social skills
 PSYCHOPATHS
 Average to above average intelligence
 Little or no criminal history
 Anti-social
 Adaptive social skills
 Limited or no visible emotional responses
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PRIMARY (Advanced) PSYCHOPATHS
 ABOVE AVERAGE TO HIGHLY INTELLIGENT
 SOCIAL CHAMELIONS
 VAGAL-REACTORS: Persons who can beat the polygraph because they have no galvanic
skin response. They are calm at the moment of the kill.
 ANTI-SOCIAL
 COMPULSIVE LIARS
 COMSUMMATE PREDATORS
Female Psychopaths
 It is difficult to distinguish psychopathy from other personality disorders that have similar
core traits.
 Female psychopaths appear to lean toward “histrionics”—deliberate displays of
emotion—rather than the narcissism commonly found in male psychopaths.
“The Nightmare Nurse”
 “This is my ambition—to have killed more people—more helpless people—than any man
or woman has ever killed.”
—Jane Toppan
The PCL-R and Female Serial Killers
 Female serial murderers appear to exhibit some traits similar to those of male serial
murderers in terms of psychopathology.
 The women tend to be insincere, amoral, impulsive, prone to exercise manipulative
charisma and superficial charm, without conscience, and with little insight because they
failed to learn from their mistakes.
Measuring Criminal Psychopathy
 Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R)
 On a 40-point scale, normal persons rate about a 5, a typical incarcerated male
offender rates about 23, while bona fide psychopaths rate at 30 points or higher.
 Persons with high PCL-R scores are 3 times more likely to recidivate than
persons with low scores.
Measuring Criminal Psychopathy
 Factor 1: Measures a selfish, callous, and remorseless use of others. Inferred traits
include—
 Glibness/superficial charm
 Grandiose sense of self-worth/narcissism
 Pathological lying
 Conning, manipulative behavior
 Lack of remorse or guilt
 Shallow affect
 Callousness/lack of empathy
 Failure to accept responsibility for actions
 Measuring Criminal Psychopathy
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Factor 2: Measures social deviance, as manifested in a chronically unstable and
antisocial lifestyle These traits are more explicit, and include—
 Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
 Parasitic lifestyle
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Poor behavioral controls
Early behavioral problems
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Juvenile delinquency
Revocation of conditional release
Promiscuous sexual behavior
Many short-term marital relationships
Criminal versatility
These factors vary with age, social class, cognitive abilities, alcohol and drug abuse or
dependence, violent behavior, and recidivism of the psychopath.
Factor 1 measures are tools used by the psychopath to achieve his main purpose: control.
Factor 2 measures are more deficits of the psychopath—things that his tools will conceal
through lies and manipulations.
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Signature or master tool of a psychopath:
 Tools used to differentially gain control over others
▪ Financial
▪ Sexual
▪ Emotional
▪ Physical
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The psychopath uses distraction to “remain hiding in plain sight.”
 Ponzi schemes (see Madoff, p. 96)
 Luring children with puppies (“lost puppy”)
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Distraction is such a powerful tool that actual violence is used only by certain types of
psychopaths for specific purposes.
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Criminal psychopaths are more dangerous than most other people, but research indicates
most are not violent.
They appear to be more prone to violent behavior than other people.
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Jacobson’s “Vagal Reactors”
 Found men who were antisocial abusers had a different physiological response to conflict
than other men in similar circumstances.
 Their heart rates decline during heated arguments that involve emotionally aggressive
confrontations.
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The decrease in heart rate is a result of being in control of another person—common to
psychopaths who seek control.
Psychopaths have a need to control or have power over others—their social an physical
environment.
Psychopaths are dangerous because they constantly seek control over others.
Violent psychopaths seek to release their frustrations by finding someone to kill.
Psychopaths are not amenable to treatment because they do not believe they need; in fact,
they simply add what they learn to their arsenal of psychological tools that they can later
use to control other
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Psychological treatment must appeal to their self-interests, not emotionality.
Psychopaths do not fear pain or consequences.
Insight on psychopaths…
 They are likely to engage in conflicting self-image struggles (Campbell).
 They live in a “presocialized emotional world” in which feelings are experienced only in
relation to self and never to others (Meloy).
 They show significant impairment on social contract roles (Ermer and Kiehl).
Catathymic Crisis (Wertham)
 A person with underlying emotionally charged conflicts develops a fixed idea that he
must kill future victim. (Carry out a violent act.)
 Two forms: Chronic (lasts from several months to more than a year) or Acute (sudden,
short course)
 The “crisis” involves the superficially integrated person who struggles with inadequacy,
specifically sexual inadequacy.
 The person resorts to violence when potential victims challenge his sense of integrity,
adequacy, or sexual competence.
Compulsive Homicides (Schlesinger)
 May be induced by underlying conflict, but are motivated by psychogenic (originating
from the mind) sources, with little environmental influence.
 Are opportunistic or methodically planned.
 Have strong potential for repetition.
 Ritualistic acts are sexually motivated, and act of aggression itself is eroticized.
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The better a person’s self-concept, the higher an individual’s self-esteem, the less need
he/she has to control and dominate others.
RELATED MOVIES TO WATCH
 A BEAUTIFUL MIND (True story of a brilliant man who was schizophrenic)
 DIRTY FILTHY LOVE (Story of a man with OCD and Tourette’s Syndrome).
 PRIMAL FEAR ( Story of an alter boy who murders a priest)
 BLACK SWAN ( Story of a delicate ballet dancer who slips into insanity).
 NOTES ON A SCANDAL ( A story of female psychopathology)
 AMERICAN PSYCHO (Story of a narcissistic banking executive who gets lost in the
dark side of fantasy).
RELATED WEBSITES
 Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute: Insanity
Defense: www.law.cornell.edu/wex/insanity_defense
 Without Conscience": Robert Hare's Web Site devoted to the study of Psychopathy:
www.hare.org
 The Madoff Recovery Initiative: www.madoff.com.