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The Mind of a Murderer

  
 
Papess
19:09 / 09.04.05
In a lot of murder cases, people that are interviewed that knew the killer often say something like, "Ze was such a quiet person....went to church...kept to themself...was involved in the community...",etc... Not always do they say that, but often enough that I often wonder who are these people? What is it about them, or their environment, that makes them snap and lose the fight for the preservation of life enough to destroy it in cold blood?

Having never been part of a murder in any capacity, never having murdered or been murdered, or had a family member or friend murdered, I wonder what is it that allows someone's mind to make the leap to actually murder. What seems to most like a natural repulsion from such behavior, to actually eliminating another's life from the face of the earth, mystifies me. I am not talking about killing another from a defensive position, but in the case of an offensive or attack position. Especially where there is no previous relationship between victim and perpetrator, nothing to emotionally spur such behavior. Although, I am not sure I can even understand murder even in such a case.

I assume there is a lack of conscience, an inability to differentiate between right and wrong. Perhaps an emotional devoid, but even that doesn't seem to work, IMHO, with the amount of rage it seems to take to commit such acts. I understand there is a certain psychosis with murder, but is it also true in gang related killings? What about in the case of child murder or even filicide?

I want to discuss what throws that switch from the instinct to preserve life to wanting to destroy it, and specifically not in a crime of passion.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
19:24 / 09.04.05
There's an instinct to preserve life?
 
 
Papess
19:29 / 09.04.05
I always thought so. I could be wrong.
 
 
Jack Denfeld
19:43 / 09.04.05
I always thought there was an instinct to preserve one's own life, and one's people (family, gang, country)
 
 
Tryphena Absent
20:03 / 09.04.05
You could try reading some psychological case studies if it really interests you- local universities and big libraries usually have a books and resources on the subject.
 
 
Papess
20:21 / 09.04.05
I always thought there was an instinct to preserve one's own life, and one's people

Yes Jack. Exactly what I was thinking. I guess didn't see the distinction intrinsically between "one's people" and the rest of the human race, although, obviously there is. Also, in wanting to preserve one's own life, what would that have to do with the urge to take another if not in self defence? (Which wasn't what my question was about.)


Nina: I am sure there are books. What I was looking for was a discussion. While as I am curious, I am not doing research.
 
 
Papess
20:23 / 09.04.05
I am especially very curious about what people here think.
 
 
sleazenation
20:45 / 09.04.05
While as I am curious, I am not doing research.

As damning an indictment of modern society as any comments about the minds of murderers, I feel.
 
 
Lilly Nowhere Late
20:57 / 09.04.05
I recently found out that my uncle has just nearly murdered a woman he had been involved with.
My uncle was as far as I was concerned one of the friendliest, most jolly, happy go lucky members of my mom's side of the family. He was involved in everything, made great money, loved his family, even the ones no one else liked and told great funny stories at family gatherings. Then about 5 years ago, he just changed into a private monster. He told everyone that his wife left him and that he had major health problems preventing him from working. He milked the family for quite a lot of money.(he lived in another state and so was able to keep most of his lies to everyone very secret until he really flipped out)He became involved with a woman who had a history of being a serial homewrecker. After nearly four years of living with him and trying to sort it all out, his actual wife finally left him. Apparently he stayed in their house, let the utilities get cut off from nonpayment of bills, broke into his church and used the computers to access online porn, went to nursing homes impersonating a priest and had free meals, went to hospitals in the same guise and verbally abused patients and nurses and then one day went to the girlfriend's house, tied her hands and feet to a chair and nearly beat her to death. Luckily neighbours heard her screaming and the police came and stopped him but not before he'd managed to break her cheekbones, nose, wrists, arm, ribs and ankle. It was after his arrest that my mom found out about everything being all lies and finally actually spoke to his wife. My uncle had threatened her that he would kill her and their adult daughter if his wife tried to contact my mom. Now he's in jail awaiting trial. He seems to have no remorse and is still telling totally stupid lies to everyone. No one in his community, his doctor, his priest, etc. can believe it all has happened. His cousin thinks he must have a brain tumor which has caused some weird personality shift. I feel like it's all some strange story and wouldn't be able to believe it if I hadn't read the newspaper reports and if I didn't trust my mom. I found out about it all the same week as my other friend's schizophrenia diagnosis. Is everyone wacko?
So what happened there? He was apparently on the verge of killing the woman. I've thought about writing to him in jail and just asking him, but I don't know that he'd be able to answer with any honesty so I haven't done so.
 
 
Brigade du jour
20:58 / 09.04.05
Call me a pious twat, but I always find it helpful in these kind of debates to look inward and wonder whether I have the capability to kill someone.

But is that what we're really talking about? 'Murder' is a rather differently loaded term, I think, to 'kill'. I kill, or end life, every day. I must have stepped on hundreds of tiny insects, and that's without going into all the amoebae and miniscule particles of living matter than I know next to nothing about(!).

Still, to be more precise, 'to kill in cold blood' as you put it, surely implies a certain detachment, a 'psychosis' as you also put it. I don't think I could actually do that. I have a pretty lousy temper sometimes, and feel that if I ever did kill another human being it would be a. someone I know, b. someone who had pissed me off big-time and c. they'd really gone right out of their way to piss me off big-time.

I think the simplest answer to your thread summary is 'fury' but of course I can only speak for myself on that.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:01 / 09.04.05
If you're not prepared to read about it then I don't really think you're going to get anywhere with this exploration. I don't mean to be offensive at all but I'd be quite surprised if anyone here who had met a murderer in any capacity would be truly comfotable with talking about it. And really the rest of us could speak and speak but it wouldn't mean anything without anything specific to discuss. We all have the capacity to understand fury but to examine either a lack of guilt in killing or indeed cold blooded murder is only to imagine.

Do we imagine that killers are quiet? Yes. But isn't that a societal frame of reference placed on people because we have to imagine that killers are outcasts after the fact? The most shocking thing about serial killers is that a lot of them aren't caretakers like Ian Huntley, they're often calm, self-possessed and functioning members of society with a wife and children. You can't reach any conclusion of their mental health unless you read or seek out the opinion of experts in some way.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:07 / 09.04.05
And no I don't think that people are necessarily born with a passion for life. A lot of people seem to spend their entire time presuming that others are guilty of imaginary crimes- benefit fraud, economic migration, stealing- and that to me seems to show a real willingness to dehumanise other human beings constantly. We apply deficiencies to people very consistently as a species, how far do you have to go from that to someone who dehumanises even further?
 
 
Brigade du jour
21:09 / 09.04.05
I'd just like to apologise to Lilly for our unfortunate posting synchronicity. I probably wouldn't have posted all that solipsistic nonsense if I'd read your post first.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
21:14 / 09.04.05
I've got to say that I'm not surprised that your cousin thinks he might have a brain tumour. It sounds very shocking.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
21:48 / 09.04.05
Fuck, that story chills me to the bone. I'm not an expert or anything but the kind of horrific personality change you describe sounds a lot like some kind of brain damage.

Getting back to Strix' original question... I'm slightly obsessive about the whole murder thing. People seem so damn fragile to me. When I walk down the street everyone always seems to look tired or miserable or messed up in some way; I mean, why kill 'em? We're only going to die anyway.

The one thread which seems to link murder to murder is depersonalisation. Empathy precludes murder, therefore the object of one's murderous impulse must be removed from the sphere of empathy, made un-human. For the sociopath, this is a done deal--everyone who isn't hir is an animal or a doll. For the rest of us, it is something more subtle: the person must be taken outside our set of what is human and placed elsewhere.
 
 
Papess
21:52 / 09.04.05
Geesus Lilly, that is incredible. You have my empathy for you and your family, as much I can understand what your situation may be like. Thank you for accounting it here. It certainly sounds like some physical dusfunction, and I am sure historically tumours or other ailments have caused people to be murderous. The part I find disturbing the most is the "no remorse" part.

I always find it helpful in these kind of debates to look inward and wonder whether I have the capability to kill someone. ~Brigade

You know, that is partially why I wanted to discuss this. I just don't have that feeling that I could kill anyone. I can barely kill insects, or a lobster for dinner. Dammit, I can't even go fishing anymore since I really contemplated the pain these creatures might endure.


If you're not prepared to read about it then I don't really think you're going to get anywhere with this exploration. ~ Nina

This is a discussion not exactly a Headshop debate. I am asking for opinions. I didn't say I wasn't prepared to read about it, but you didn't seem prepared to have a discussion and brushed it off without even offering the name of a book.

Besides, do people have to read a book about a topic before they have a discussion about it? I've read books on serial killers, I still don't understand. I watched documentaries, forensic investigative specials and I am still baffled. I think this is a matter of opinion mixed in with some facts as to why people kill. What is wrong with just contemplating and imagining the possible truth?
 
 
Olulabelle
22:25 / 09.04.05
On the book thing - I think Nina's right because I just find whenever I am interested in anything or curious about it, my first reaction is to get a book. Then another book.

But then I am book-obsessed to the point of being a bit OCD about it so I suppose I would think that.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:31 / 09.04.05
I didn't really mean a book though, I meant a case study, a blow by blow account and psychological analysis of a killer. The reason I reacted like that wasn't that I was attempting to belittle the discussion but rather that any talk we have here is going to be mere assumption for the most part and it would probably be more interesting for you to actually get to the root of the idea. The reason that I wasn't really talking about it is because I genuinely don't know very much about it and any opinion I have would be grounded in idle thought, which might not be interesting to you if you're starting a topic on it.
 
 
Tryphena Absent
22:33 / 09.04.05
And forensic programmes and that sort of thing only really explain the case and have tiny inserts about the person... a lot of case studies have the notes about the killer attached. My brother read some fascinating notes by a criminal psychologist about a murder case when he was doing an 'A' level (he was quite disturbed by it I think) and if it's available to people at that level of education than I'm sure there's more complex stuff around.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
23:20 / 09.04.05
There was a bit of discussion on this a while back, a thread I'd been thinking of reviving. Some interesting comments in there, and a lot of emotion.
 
 
Lilly Nowhere Late
05:24 / 10.04.05
Cheers for the nice thoughts. To be honest, I'm so detatched from the situation that I feel very little about it other than extreme sympathy for my aunt who's know about and suffered with my uncle's aberations the longest. And of course total shock and confusion. I thought about posting the news for awhile but felt also a bit embarrassed that I seem to know so many chaotic people.
Anyway, for insight(or not), my aunt swears that she doesn't understand what's happened and that up until 5 years ago, my uncle was exactly in private as nice as he was in public. They were married for over 25 years before anything strange happened. Where's Ganesh? He must know a bit about these things.
Futher to the murder discussion, a very long time ago when I was a dreary punk rock/goth n'er do well, I wrote a piece of prose for an art project a friend was doing called "Murder as an Art Form". In my bare research and reading, I found a strong opinion of professionals that one who murders is likely to have gone through a period of dehumanizing one's self, for example elevating oneself to godlike levels in one's own perception thus making it possilbe to see a human victim as below and less significant and more deserving of extinction. I'm sure this is only one theory to a limited area of murder, but the dehumanizing theme seems pretty strongly attatched to all murder theory.
 
 
Papess
15:04 / 10.04.05
I found a strong opinion of professionals that one who murders is likely to have gone through a period of dehumanizing one's self, for example elevating oneself to godlike levels in one's own perception thus making it possilbe to see a human victim as below and less significant and more deserving of extinction.

Which is interesting if one considers tantric practice and the sinister current (a.k.a LHP) of self-deification. Of course, in tantra one must also consider everyone else an embodiment of the deity as well as themself. There seem to be differing opinions about that in the LHP. However, it is not unheard of that someone who has practiced tantra will go mad, possibly even kill. Actually, I think there have been atttempts on the life of one of the lamas that I have studied under, from their pupils. And to speculate, what triggered it may have been that the lama represented an opposition to their delusions...as lamas tend to do.

So, in essence (and in theory), a killer instinct is about proof of one's superiority?

I'm sure this is only one theory to a limited area of murder...

It's all theory, really. Substantiated theory, but still theory, nonetheless.
 
 
lord henry strikes back
15:53 / 10.04.05
I think that there are a lot of reasons (that is not to say justifiable ones) for murder. For example I don't think it takes too much of a mental leap for most people to understand the motivations behind a 'crime of passion'. But in terms of 'cold blooded' murders one aspect that I think could be very important is the social situation of the murderer.

One of the things I hear discussed in realation to torture is that, if everyone around you, especially those that you see as authority figures, consider torture acceptable, then almost anyone is capable of the most horrendous acts. If this is applied to 'gang-related' (I dislike that term for being so loaded, but I can't think of a better one right now) murders then I think the same arguement could well be used. If, within the gang, which makes up most or all of your social surroundings, murder is considered an acceptable way to deal with problems, then I should become easy for anyone to act in that fashion. This then becomes self perpetuating, as new members would come into a situation where the 'murder is acceptable' mind set is well establishied, they take up this ethos, and so set the ground work for further new members. It would be interesting to examine how these structures get established in the first place, but once they are I think that they would become very hard to break.
 
 
Papess
18:42 / 10.04.05
It would be interesting to examine how these structures get established in the first place...

I think so too. I have wondered what kind of circumstances it would take for me to actually kill someone, but mostly I just come up with a crime of passion because I don't have to wiring of someone who kills for pleasure or power.

However, violence begets violence, so the axiom goes. So it makes sense that one's environment plays a large role in developing the mind of a killer.

Society has no one to blame but itself.
 
 
Lilly Nowhere Late
18:48 / 10.04.05
Yes yes. I worked with Los Angeles area gang boys in a problem solving sort of group thingy, very non-red tape and very unconverntional. Murder within that gang system was an active way of gaining acceptance, respect and rank. I often observed that the murderer-to-be completely failed, on purpose or through over anticipation to realize the humanity of his/her would be victim. I mostly worked with boys although I think it wasn't much different with the girls. Curiously, once the deed was done, many of those kids seemed completely overwhelmed with the reality of stopping another's life and really did suffer their own remorse to such extremes that turning onself in or suicide often followed. So for those kids, they usually undid their own plans of advancing in their gang because they did not anticipate their own inability to deal with their guilt.
BTW, if this makes it sound as if I and our group stood idly by watching kids kill each other, I assure you, we did not; however, being involved with them did give a really unpleasant view into their narrow world.
 
 
LykeX
18:53 / 10.04.05
I just don't have that feeling that I could kill anyone. I can barely kill insects, or a lobster for dinner. Dammit, I can't even go fishing anymore since I really contemplated the pain these creatures might endure.

I don't see that as related at all. Though I haven't been in a situation where it would be relevant, and I therefore don't know for sure, I think it would be easier to kill a human than an animal. Humans seem to deserve it more.
An animal has a certain innocence, even the really gross and disgusting ones. If a spider is crawling across my arm, I know it doesn't mean anything personal by it. It might not even be aware that I'm alive.
If a person is bugging you, it becomes personal very fast. If someone has bothered me somehow, I tend to remember for a long time, even if it's a small thing.

I imagine that with human beings, it's simply easier to get so angry that personal ethics go out the window. Animals just don't piss you off enough to bother with killing them.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
10:34 / 11.04.05
I want to discuss what throws that switch from the instinct to preserve life to wanting to destroy it, and specifically not in a crime of passion.

The offer of free cigarettes from an not-entirely-disinterested third party, possibly in your local public house at a time just before closing time and just after you have discovered that the fag machine is busted?
 
 
Triplets
02:25 / 12.04.05
Amen to those blessed saints and kin.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
03:26 / 12.04.05
J the B;

L( first and last time I'm saying this, hopefully, )OL !
 
 
bio k9
04:13 / 12.04.05
Society has no one to blame but itself.

As a member of society I would like to ask that people quit blaming me for their failings. Thank you.
 
  
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