Criminal Profiling: When Categories Fail

[Fishface]

After reading a third book on the criminal exploits of Pee Wee Gaskins, it struck me what a pain in the rear this guy would be to an FBI profiler. He's like a more 'corn pone' Hannibal Lecter. He's functional and planful enough to qualify as a totally organized serial killer. He craftily lures people into striking range, jokes with them, hears their life stories, tells them all about himself, then kills them horribly and takes pains to make sure he never gets caught. But he's also so DIS-organized that he kills almost anyone who crosses his transom, using whatever comes to hand as a weapon, doesn't really discriminate much between relatives, friends and strangers, varies wildly in the way he kills (ranging from a clean, single bullet to the head to days of slow torture), and claims to have done the act that is the one undeniable hallmark of the disorganized killer: cannibalism. We can't prove he did it, but he is clearly excited by even talking about it, which is a lot closer to psychotic poster boy Albert Fish than non-psychotic poster girl Aileen Wuornos. He also claims to have acted on voices in his head, which is not the hallmark of an organized killer. But if he's psychotic, come on, are these the acts of a man out of touch with reality?

What do you make of him?

[Rita]

Fishface wrote: "After reading a third book on the criminal exploits of Pee Wee Gaskins, it struck me what a pain in the rear this guy would be to an FBI profiler. He's like a more 'corn pone' Hannibal Lecter. He's..."

I haven't read the book but I am going to read Final Truth.

[Fishface]

Bring your Pepto-Bismol when you do, Rita. It's probably the most revolting book I've ever read, and that's really saying something.