Mass Killings and Child Murderers: not a new thing
Posted: January 12, 2011 Filed under: Crime, Gun Control, just because, Main Stream Media, psychology, the internet | Tags: Arizona shooting, history of violence, Jerad Lee Loughner, juvenile crime, mass murder, mass shootings 17 Comments
At 3 o’clock early one summer morning, Ms. Heartwell and Ms. Gillbard woke Mr. and Mrs. Ballard with the horrible news. Their neighbor, Captain Purington had brutally murdered his entire family, except for the eldest son who suffered injuries he sustained in the attack. After killing his wife and 6 children with an ax, Purington then killed himself with a razor. The horror of these murder suicides created a scene, and huge numbers of towns people, reporters and curious travelers came to the funeral of the family. The news of the killings spread rather quickly throughout the nation, and the world. Headlines screamed of the “Horrible Massacre.” Friends were at a loss for why the Captain committed such a heinous act. Reports showed that his behavior up to a month prior to the murders was normal without any hints of the dreadful scene to come. The town was a pleasant little place in Maine, the Captain and his family were well known and liked in the community. What could have brought all this on? Any suggestions? Well, surely the Captain was involved in some sort of online role-playing mass murder video game, where the object of the game is killing lots of people. Perhaps, he participated in some religious cult? Maybe he felt that he had to take out his entire family including himself after reading media reports about bad economic times ahead? Well, it was none of these…there were no video games or media doomsday reports, this “Horrible Massacre” took place on July 10, 1806, in Augusta, Maine. The Captain went off the deep end, and decided to take his family with him.
How about Lizzie Borden…the murder of her parents was so gruesome, and caused such a morbid curiosity that a child’s poem was written, who can forget this:
Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And gave her mother forty whacks,
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.
Actually, the Bordens received only 29 whacks, not the 81 suggested by the famous ditty, but the popularity of the above poem is a testament to the public’s fascination with the 1893 murder trial of Lizzie Borden. The source of that fascination might lie in the almost unimaginably brutal nature of the crime–given the sex, background, and age of the defendant–or in the jury’s acquittal of Lizzie in the face of prosecution evidence that most historians today find compelling.
Background
On a hot August 4, 1892 at 92 Second Street in Fall River, Massachusetts, Bridget (“Maggie”) Sullivan, the maid in the Borden family residence rested in her bed after having washed the outside windows. She heard the bell at City Hall ring and looked at her clock: it was eleven o’clock. A cry from Lizzie Borden, the younger of two Borden daughters broke the silence: “Maggie, come down! Come down quick; Father’s dead; somebody came in and killed him.” A half hour or so later, after the body–“hacked almost beyond recognition”–of Andrew Borden had been covered and the downstairs searched by police for evidence of an intruder, a neighbor who had come to comfort Lizzie, Adelaide Churchill, made a grisly discovery on the second floor of the Borden home: the body of Abby Borden, Lizzie’s step-mother. Investigators found Abby’s body cold, while Andrew’s had been discovered warm, indicating that Abby was killed earlier–probably at least ninety minutes earlier–than her husband.
I will tell you another story, this one occurred within the last 87 years, and created a media circus the likes of which we find to this day. It involved the murder of a teenager, by two other teens…and these were not troubled teens. They came from good solid families, were very intelligent and highly educated. One of the boys was the youngest graduate in the history of University of Michigan, and was accepted as a student at Harvard Law School. Of course, I am talking about the famous Chicago murderers “Leopold and Loeb,” two wealthy teenagers that murdered 14-year-old Bobby Franks, and were famously defended by Clarence Darrow.
The past few weeks we seem to be bombarded with horrible images of mass murder, hostage situations, school shootings, and a 10-year-old boy accused of killing his mother.
What are the reasons for a person to commit such violent crimes? There have been a lot of speculation and blame from all sides. My opinion is not made from a professional standpoint, it is not bias toward political rhetoric on either side, it is formed out of common sense. These people have serious mental issues. They have chosen to act out, get attention and give the public and media something to talk about.
Children and Violence
I want to focus this post on children and violence, so let’s get down to discussion of various types of juvenile murderers.
What makes these children choose to take a gun, or guns, to school and proceed to shoot numerous rounds into school faculty and fellow students. I think the following information may also be relevant to the recent shooting in Arizona. Peter Langman, Ph.D., a psychologist that has focused his research on juvenile shooters, has a website with information: SchoolShooters.info His article published in the professional journal Aggression and Violent Behavior, Rampage School Shooters:
A number of researchers have sought to identify the features that school shooters have in common in terms of family life, personalities, histories, and behaviors. This article examines the cases of ten rampage school shooters in an effort to find out not only how they are alike, but also how they differ. Based on available information, these youths are categorized into three types: traumatized, psychotic, and psychopathic. Out of the ten shooters discussed, three were traumatized, five were psychotic, and two were psychopathic. The three traumatized shooters all came from broken homes with parental substance abuse and parental criminal behavior. They all were physically abused and two were sexually abused outside of the home. The five psychotic shooters had schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, including schizophrenia and schizotypal personality disorder. They all came from intact families with no history of abuse. The two psychopathic shooters were neither abused nor psychotic. They demonstrated narcissism, a lack of empathy, a lack of conscience, and sadistic behavior. Most people who are traumatized, psychotic, and psychopathic do not commit murder. Beyond identifying the three types of rampage shooters, additional factors are explored that may have contributed to the attacks. These include family structure, role models, and peer influence.
[…]
In a study conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), O’Toole (2000) reviewed 14 cases of actual shootings and four cases of planned shootings that were stopped before they could be carried out. The study identified 47 descriptors that many shooters had in common, including 28 personality traits and behaviors, seven family dynamics, seven school dynamics, and five social dynamics. Not all the shooters had each of these features, but the identified dynamics were seen as constituting significant trends. A few of the common individual features included narcissism, bigotry, alienation, poor anger management, fascination with violence, low self-esteem, and a lack of empathy.
[…]
The rampage school shooters investigated in this study include the following:
• Evan Ramsey, who killed two people and wounded two in Bethel, Alaska in 1997
• Michael Carneal, who killed three and wounded five in West Paducah, Kentucky in 1997
• Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden, who killed five and wounded ten in Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1998
• Andrew Wurst, who killed one and wounded three in Edinboro, Pennsylvania in 1998
• Kip Kinkel, who killed four and wounded 25 in Springfield, Oregon in 1998
• Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 13 and wounded 23 in Jefferson County, Colorado in 1999
• Jeffrey Weise, who killed nine and wounded seven in Red Lake, Minnesota in 2005
• Seung Hui Cho, who killed 32 and wounded 17 in Blacksburg, Virginia in 2007
Peter Langman breaks these killers into three types or categories: traumatized, psychotic, and psychopathic. Traumatized shooters are the ones who have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse, come from broken homes, whose parents have previous substance abuse problems and at least one parent who has a criminal past. Psychotic shooters are very different. These kids came from intact homes with no history of abuse, and no parental criminal activities. These psychotic shooters however show signs or symptoms of Schizophrenia, schizotypal personality disorder, including paranoid delusions, delusions of grandeur and auditory hallucinations. The Psychopathic shooters also come from whole families with no history of abuse or dysfunctional families. These shooters exhibit narcissism, a lack of empathy, a lack of conscience, and sadistic behaviors.
According to Langman, Jeffrey Weise (Ojibwa reservation Red Lake) is the traumatized shooter. Dylan Klebold (Columbine) and Seung Hui Cho (Virginia Tech) are in the Psychotic category. Eric Harris (Columbine) has been placed in the Psychopathic category. I picked these particular examples from the article because they are more than likely the shootings that you may remember off the top of your heads.
However, what I find interesting is that not all of these shooters end in suicide. In Psychology Today, I found an article written by Peter Langman, where he discusses the non-suicide cases of school shootings that he studied while researching his book, Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters.
Though many school shooters are suicidal at the time of their attacks, there are exceptions. Some were suicidal earlier in their lives, but did not seem to be suicidal at the time of their attacks. Others planned to kill themselves during the attacks, but when the time came, they chose not to. Of the fifteen shooters I have studied…a significant percentage of them made no effort to kill themselves or to set themselves up to be killed by police (i.e., “suicide by cop”).
This was most noticeable among the five psychopathic shooters, only two of whom committed suicide (Robert Poulin and Eric Harris)…of the six psychotic shooters, only two committed suicide (Klebold and Cho). Kip Kinkel intended to but was tackled before he could. Andrew Wurst planned to, but instead he surrendered. Michael Carneal made no effort to kill himself though he yelled for someone to kill him after throwing down his gun. Luke Woodham attempted to drive away from the scene.
Of the four traumatized shooters, three were suicidal. Evan Ramsey planned his attack initially as a suicide at school. His friends talked him into committing homicide. Though Evan put his gun under his chin at the end of his attack, he did not pull the trigger. He had left a suicide note, however, and clearly expected he would die during the attack. Jeffrey Weise had a suicide attempt prior to his attack, and killed himself during the attack. Asa Coon also killed himself.
[…]
Though the sample sizes are small, it is interesting that the highest percentage of non-suicidal shooters seems to be found among the psychopaths. Given their narcissism, it is not surprising that they would be less likely to take their own lives. Also, the psychotic and traumatized shooters tended to experience far more depression and anguish than the psychopathic shooters, which made them more suicidal.
Langman has another article which discusses Adult School Shooters, age 25 and older. Be sure to take a look at it.
I find the results of this small study very interesting, especially with the mass murder in Arizona. The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, exhibits some of the above mentioned psychopathic tendencies. But again, I am not coming at this from a professional standpoint. It is a logical conclusion that juveniles and adults who commit violent crimes, have some mental disorders which make them act out. As history shows us, there have always been cases of killings, single, multiple and mass murders, that have occurred without the influence of political rhetoric, media, video games or loud music. These things seem to be just added nuances that give us all something to talk about. Do they help the situation? No. It exacerbates the situation. I think that these violent oriented speak, games and music just make people feel worse about the outcome of these shootings. It gives them something to place the blame on, some way to find an explanation to why these people do these terrible things.
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Just another thought…Maybe people are just born bad?
And BTW, I played Rhoda when I was in High School…such a lovely perfect little darling.
Who knows what combination of genes and stressers go into creating monsters. That’s not a known recipe. Usually, though, you can find little monsters around bigger monsters.
Well this post sort of evolved into something different from what I had originally intended. With this recent shooting, and all the talk going on, it sort of turned into this. It is amazing just how many internet pages have been made with the Arizona shooting. It is overwhelming almost everything.
It’s an interesting insight about those who engage in the ultimate violent action.
that’s the recency effect
I like the karma explanation the best. If the “original sin” is put in the right context, it’s the same as karma. We bring with us our little bundle (experiences, likes, aversions, etc., from past lives) with us, but those bundles don’t develop, or come out from the subconscious until events and the environment wakes them up from the dormant state. It’s then not uncommon to have two children, in the same environment react differently. One child can be deviant, while the other, takes the hardship and comes out of it stronger. Their perspective, and most important their desires are different.
It’s the Eastern understanding of why a beautiful child doesn’t turn out as we would expect. And it’s the reason that suicide is frowned upon as a terrible decision because the mind in distress at the time of death would not be at peace.
Shakespeare:
From the karma perspective then, “bad and evil” don’t make sense. Buddha explained that it’s ignorance is what keeps us acting in ways that’s harmful, ultimately, to ourselves. He also explained that like milk that does not sour immediately, actions don’t bear consequences immediately. Karma means action. Due to ignorance, or being in the dark, we act from our subconscious and are acting out our routine, like in a movie. Most of us don’t really act in a deliberate manner, but live in perpetual reaction. The teaching of JC, to turn the cheek is for the benefit of the person who is being hit because if one is hit, then it’s a great opportunity to stop the continuation of the consequences of previous actions the person is enmeshed in.
Again, one of my favorite quotes from Shakespeare:
Judge, lest ye be judged, Jeebus (a master in his own right)
Yes, I wonder if this is also where that psychotic and psychopathic category comes in. Where the family is pretty normal and shows no signs of dysfunction, but the kid has developed issues or problems.
As the ego develops, or as a psychologist calls it, the subconscious, all sort of dysfunctions appear.
Karma can’t be proven, but it’s what those in the East understand. I believe that there are no contradictions between Christianity and Buddhism, but the West has distorted the principles, like “original sin” to mean something else. Many of what the East understands, is perceived differently in the West. Another example of a principle that’s lost in translation is the “born again” understanding. From the Eastern view, there’s a moment in our lives, when we’re just born, that we’re clean. We’re in paradise. We have a mind, that’s clean. In Zen, it’s known as “no mind”. The ego, the bundles I spoke of before, has not awakened. As we leave that beautiful space, (the Bible explains it as being kicked out for eating the fruit of knowledge) we are burdened with what life dishes out and we’re caught in a mind, constant thoughts (the movie). We start projecting based on what we “know”, the past. The past controls our responses. Unhappiness and all the mind problems come to be. To be born again, then is to drop what we think we know (not an easy task) and get back to the state that we were in as children. In that state we were living in the here and now, and as we can see with children, particularly young ones, difficult moments are dealt with an acceptance, and soon, children can get back and play and be happy. Chuang Tsu, a great Taoist teacher, who lived long before Jeebus, said it: one must be born again to be “enlightened” or sometimes called “nirvana” or as Jeebus said it because he needed to explain it to the people of his time in a way they understood, “the kingdom of God”.
Happiness then, rests in the here and now, like a child. It’s easier said than done. Going back takes lots of work because the mind will do everything to not be there. In the here and now, the mind has nothing to do. Here is an exercise: When visiting a friend, try not to talk about anything related to the past or the future. One finds there’s little to talk about. The mind is forced to be silent. Those who are very sick mentally, are in their mind and rarely connect with the here and now.
When I say “the mind”, I don’t mean intelligence, or awareness, which is there, even when we’re children. I mean the internal talking, useless worrying, imaginings that serve no purpose. It never stops, not even when we sleep. That mind is supposed to be there because it’s absolutely necessary to communicate. But it should be a tool to be used with purpose, not in a constant distraction from the here and now. In a way, we’re all crazy. The difference between the sane and the insane is a matter of degrees.
“The shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, exhibits some of the above mentioned psychopathic tendencies.”
Though it’s impossible to be certain at this point, it seems pretty likely to me that Loughner falls in the psychotic and not the psychopathic category. The word salad in some of his writings, a friend’s report of comments of his that indicate visual hallucinations, and various other features would all fit with psychotic. Psychopaths are a whole different breed (they make sense, unlike Loughner, but lack the circuits for emotional empathy).
Also, from his last video, it seems that Loughner expected to die in the attack.
I would say Loughner fits paranoia-schizophrenia
Below are excepts from the Mayo clinic
Paranoid-schizophrenia
Key symptoms
Delusions and hallucinations are the symptoms that make paranoid schizophrenia most distinct from other types of schizophrenia.
Bostonboomer is going to have a great thread coming up on that in a few hours. You may want to check it out.
I actually think he fits the psychotic category of the three, I think when I was writing this I felt that he exhibited both psychotic and psychopathic. But now with more insight into what and who he is coming out…yes I agree with you cwalts…but remember I am no psychologist. I was originally going for the historic aspect of these type of crimes. (Since that is what my background is in, history.) I am so glad that BB is doing something on this. I did not want to step on her toes by posting the psychology stuff I found…that she is writing a post on that makes me very glad.
I’m inclined to believe that science will discover that psychopaths are either similar to psychotic folk where they have a deficiency. Science just hasn’t found it yet.
I’d also juxtposition that even though society was different back in history that their were still societal stressors and people still didn’t exist in a vacuum. The Salem witch trials are a perfect example of society run amook and hysteria. Or how about McCarthyism? Japanese internment? All of these things were originally driven by society, not just random deranged individuals.
We’ve seen an increase in the number of threats. Is it because of the increase of deranged individuals who aren’t reacting to their environment? I guess it’s possible. However, I find it far more probable that rhethoric such as insisting that one side is patriotic and the other is evil, vile and everything wrong with the country along with societal stressors of a bad economy could indeed be pushing some people over the edge.
In your essay you suggest that people are placing the blame on political rhethoric because they are seeking to find answers as to why tragedy occurs. That’s entirely possible. Could it not be just as possible to suggest that some of the individuals who are acting out are placing blame on an ideology for what they see as the disintegration of their security and as a result of the heated overblown rhethoric that gives them an easy answer and someone to blame? I see that as equally feasible.
Loughner may indeed have been a paranoid schizophrenic and a ticking time bomb. His actions may indeed have been random because his world was no longer seen through the same scope our world is seen. He literally lived in another reality filled with imaginary enemies and fragmented thought. That being said Loughner is not the only person who has threatened death or sought to commit mass murder. He just happens to be the person who succeeded at the moment. I’d prefer to not have to attend a live blog funeral of another child because Glenn Beck conveniently scapegoated someone he was ideologically opposed to and someone who reached the edge of his tether decided he needed to place the blame for his misery somewhere and get “justice” for it.
I just realized why I didn’t like the school shooting study. All of the shooters were neatly placed in one box or another as if it is entirely unlikely that someone who was psychotic to not have come from a traumatic background or as if someone who came from a traumatic background might not have some sort of psychosis(our body is filled with neurotransmitters that respond to outer stimuli. When our body is repeatedly subjected to stress it makes sense the body would attempt to compensate.) Additionally what constitutes trauma? People have such different thresholds. While one person might weather being ostracized at school, another might see it as an untenable situation. Human beings are complex and as much as we might like to put things in neat little boxes, it doesn’t always work. People with psychosis and trauma often are addressing multiple issues which complicates things further. A person who was the victim of trauma might have attempted to self medicate. Heck, often the psychotic seek self medication as their world falls apart. Medication further muddies the water because our bodies respond to them too. They alter our body chemistry. It’s why I tend to be cynical when I see studies that suggest only an either or scenario.
interesting post, but I must quibble:
Lizzie Borden was not a child, she was in her 30’s. So unless you’re talking about parricide in particular, which you’re not, you should qualify what you mean by including her. Also, she was acquitted, so….
The Captain was not a child either. I used those as examples of violent murders that took place at a time when there were no video games, rock music, or politicians on talk radio…and as far as being Borden being acquitted, I have one thing to say to that…O.J. Simpson.