The Killer Across the Table

by John E. Douglas

three words seemed to characterize the motivations of every one of our offenders: Manipulation. Domination. Control.

They are all predators, and all grew up without forming trusting bonds with other human beings during their formative years.

But anyone who has “experienced” a murder knows there is no such thing as closure, nor in fact should there be.

The mourning process will go through stages and eventually the pain will become less unbearably acute, but it will never go away, any more than the hole in one’s personal universe left by the loss of the victim and the erasure of a lifetime of promise will ever be filled in.

One of the hallmarks of narcissistic, borderline, and sociopathic personalities is the unwillingness to assume personal responsibility for anything. It is always someone else’s fault.

Excuse me - not all borderlines are like this

The fascination with “true crime” is actually fascination with what writers and philosophers call the human condition. We all want to know and understand the basis of human behavior and motivation, why we do the things we do. And with crime, we are seeing the human condition writ large and at the extremes, both for the perpetrator and for the victim.

Predators may look and sound and often act like we do, but they don’t think like we do. Their logical process is completely different.

that he evoked in the midnight of his soul?

“Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives into conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining.”