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Gein’s age and mental illness resulted in such rambling, disordered thought patterns that the interview wasn’t productive. He did, however, still enjoy working in leather crafts, making wallets and belts.
On one of his court-mandated visits to a state psychiatrist following his release from Atascadero, Ed Kemper had the head of his latest victim, a fifteen-year-old girl, in the trunk of his car.
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. This is almost ipso facto, in that “normal” people do not commit such crimes. But a mental disorder, in and of itself, does not mean the perpetrator is insane, which is a legal, rather than a medical, term that has to do with culpability.
This was an out-and-out psychotic, as opposed to a run-of-the-mill criminal sociopath.
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.
I explained that between the ages of approximately twenty-five and thirty-five, certain individuals—and this applies to men overwhelmingly more than to women—realize that they’re not going to amount to what they think they should.
When we interviewed Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz, he told us that when he used to set fires and then watch the fire department arrive on the scene, he would masturbate. For this nobody, the power to control great forces—fire itself and the human force of the fire department, plus all of the curious spectators—was a sexual act.
In our research, there is a strong correlation between domineering mothers and men who grow up to be predators. Though the vast majority of those with such mothers do not grow up to be offenders, of those who do, the domineering mother constitutes a significant influencing factor.
Bill is a composite of three actual serial killers—Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, and Gary Heidnick, all of whom we studied in great detail at Quantico.
In real life, there are no violent criminals as brilliant or “glamorous” as Hannibal Lecter—anyone who says there are hasn’t met them.
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.
“Yeah. Later I overcame those, you know, feelings.” In other words, he learned to detach himself emotionally from his victims, so their pleas or suffering didn’t affect him or stop him from doing what he intended.
Dennis Rader told me that his BTK reign began because he lost his job. “It was all because of my getting laid off at Cessna. I wasn’t having any sexual problems with my wife or financial problems. It was all because of unemployment. It didn’t seem fair. I really loved that job.”
“Well, I was pressed for time. I didn’t go out and dig a hole or anything like some of these other murderers do, but I just took her over to this big old broken log that was sitting up against this cliff and threw her behind the log
In my heart I don’t think that was right. Can you believe this guy? I had trained myself over the years not to react with my true feelings, to keep them in check, but sometimes it is difficult to keep your composure when you hear such outrageous statements.
His entire personal history showed that nothing in his sorry life was as important or fulfilling to him as this perversity, and what made the most sense to him was to fulfill it in the easiest and most direct means available to him.
I have real trouble believing that a man who is so casual and cavalier about raping and murdering children could be that concerned with being a lost spirit.
“I’ve been portrayed as a cold-blooded murderer, but I don’t see myself that way,” Harvey told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “I think I’m a very warm and loving person.”
Interestingly, though, instead of characterizing what he did in terms of euthanasia or assisted suicide, he observed, “I was being the judge and the jury and the executioner.” Executioner is not a word we normally associate with mercy killing.
She did ask me to kidnap a girlfriend for her to have like a pet and I refused. Having a captive is not fun at all.
“I do wish I could have found a better way to deal with Meagan, but having a captive is extremely stressful and I have no idea how anyone could be turned on by that logistical nightmare, emotional mess.”
Dogs offer unconditional and nonjudgmental love. Mothers don’t always.
We study these people not as psychologists or sociologists, but as criminologists.
Why? + How? = Who.
With the exception of very few outliers like blood-drinking Richard Trenton Chase and human-skin-wearing Edward Gein, who were so delusional that they couldn’t discern reality, most killers know exactly what they’re doing.
