The Killer Across the Table

by John E. Douglas

My colleagues and I on the criminal analysis side of behavior science operate from the premise that anyone who commits a violent or predatory crime is mentally ill.

One of the things that is interesting and pretty consistent among serial predators is that two emotional concepts are constantly warring within them. One is a feeling of grandiosity and entitlement. The other is a deep-seated and pervasive sense of inferiority and inadequacy.

What this statement actually demonstrates is the one universal among all serial killers and violent predators: other people don’t matter, they aren’t real, and they don’t have any rights.

Third, Kondro reaffirms for us that a casually violent personality—one capable of ripping a phone out of the wall, breaking household objects in a fit of rage, or leading a domestic partner to seek a restraining order—is by definition capable of a heightened or intensified level of violence. Because as we say, “Behavior reflects personality.”

Within just about every serial predator, there are two warring elements: a feeling of grandiosity, specialness, and entitlement, together with deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness and a sense that they have not gotten the breaks in life that they should.