Serial Killers and Self Concept

By The Stranger

The Killer as Evil: Richard Ramirez

Recently there have been theories about killers like Ted Bundy and Andrei Chikatilo having monstrous alter egos or entities inside them that cause all the remorseless killing. Medieval ideas of possession and pure evil were not too far from the current speculations about demonic entities within. Perhaps we have arrived back at the beginning of a circle that began with supernatural and religious explanations for extreme violence, moved on to scientific territory with psychological and neurological theories about the nature of psychopaths, and has now found the scientific perspective inadequate. We may end up where we started in our conclusions about serial killers-- with statements about their essentially evil nature that belong in theological discourse rather than science.

Certainly science lacks credibility in the case of serial killers, for a number of reasons. For one, much of the information that scientists use to form theories about serial killers in general comes from interviews with specific killers. Since these people are known to lie, sometimes compulsively, any information or speculation they offer with regard to the mechanisms of serial killing must be understood as suspect. Their aim is just as likely to mislead authorities as to enlighten them; and even if a serial killer wants to “tell the truth” about murder the way he sees it, his egoism and insecurity are likely to influence his opinions so that he views serial murder as a proper context within which to define his own identity.

In other words, if a serial killer like Richard Ramirez believes he is evil and wants everyone to think he is motivated by Satan himself, he will speak in ways that highlight his devotion to evil and not mention other reasons why he may have become a killer. He will talk at length about the extent of his sadism and hatred, but not about his vulnerabilities. Ramirez did in fact seem to have this particular bias according to the various statements he made to the press and to interviewers, but in no way does one serial killer’s perspective indicate a common thread in all serial killers. Perhaps the most important thing to notice about the serial killer’s confessional account is that he generalizes about the motives of serial killers as a group, blinded to individual differences by his grandiosity and self-centeredness. Both Ramirez and Bundy have made statements about what serial killers are like and how they function.
more on Ramirez and Satanism.

The Killer as a Victim: Ken Bianchi

To underline the importance of individual differences among serial killers, I will present Kenneth Bianchi in contrast to Ramirez. Bianchi did not portray himself as evil, but instead latched on to a psychological model of himself as a victim and product of the violent influences around him. He attempted a defense of not guilty by reason of the mental defect known as multiple personality disorder, and was convicted of murder by a jury that believed (sensibly) that Bianchi was putting on an elaborate act. He spoke often about his remorse and anguish about the killings, placing himself in the role of a person victimized by his own behavior as well as other people’s.

Consistently, Bianchi used psychology to avoid responsibility for his psychopathic behavior, having read up on dissociative disorders and the effects of abuse on the personality. It is probably wise for investigators to notice things like what books a killer has read, what kind of religious background he had as a child, and to speculate about the conclusions the killer might have drawn from what he has experienced and observed in his life. Bianchi was not raised Catholic like Ramirez, so perhaps he was never as likely to embrace Satan as a way to define himself. Bianchi also grew up in a safer, more affluent environment and did not witness murder, daily domestic violence, and child abuse as Ramirez did. Ramirez, in order to feel stronger and meaner than his past, may have needed to align his own fragile identity with that of an unshakeable archetype of evil.

The Satanic context for Ramirez was a way to triumph over fear and defenselessness. Bianchi undoubtedly had his own difficulties in childhood, like an intrusive and dependent mother who probably made Bianchi very angry in her efforts to prevent him from developing an independent self. Bianchi’s portrayal of himself as a multiple personality- a product of sadistic abuse- is motivated not by fear as in the case of Ramirez, but by an intense resentment of having to be responsible for his mother’s emotional satisfaction. Bianchi avoided responsibility because he had been given too much of it as a child.

The Problem of Verification: John Gacy

Many people who knew John Gacy held him in high regard. Others thought he seemed insincere and calculating; however, even they had never wondered whether Gacy might have been hiding a destructive streak that made him capable of serial murder. Gacy's friends and neighbors were shocked when the police discovered thirty-three bodies, mostly males between the ages of twelve and twenty-five, buried underneath his house.

During Gacy's trial, psychiatric experts for the defense found Gacy to be suffering from “a mental illness that caused him to swing from periods of normalcy to intense psychosis,” while experts for the prosecution diagnosed him with “psychopathic or antisocial personality with sexual deviation.” The prosecution also stated that antisocial personalities “do not display the kind of psychosis that Gacy’s defense team aimed to prove.” This is generally true for individuals officially diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, but I think it is important to note that some serial killers do not meet criteria for this disorder. Those who do not can suffer from a variety of illnesses, often in combinations, such as severe substance abuse, paranoid schizophrenia, and paraphilias. These conditions are more likely than antisocial (psychopathic) personality to include psychotic symptoms. However, the prosecution ultimately convinced both the jury and Donald Black that Gacy was a simple psychopath, a vicious but sane killer who never lost touch with reality in the course of all his violent acts. Gacy showed no evidence of psychosis in his everyday presentation, and the prosecution made the important point that it was unlikely he could have suffered thirty-three different isolated episodes of psychosis that resulted in murder. What seemed distorted was Gacy’s sense of morals.

There was little evidence to falsify the hypothesis that Gacy did not care to follow conventional rules of morality. He killed more than thirty people, sexually assaulted and tortured his victims, lied habitually to cover up these crimes, and never expressed any remorse. He vigorously denied responsibility up to the moment of his execution by the state of Texas. Much of what psychologists observed about Gacy was taken from his self-reported statements, which were clearly questionable. Some killers, like Henry Lee Lucas, confess to killings they did not commit. Gacy, in contrast, tended to underreport his criminal activities, but this in itself indicates that any inductive information taken from self-reports by Gacy was fallible. Donald Black says, “One challenge of studying any antisocial [psychopath] is the constant need to evaluate what he says critically, separating fact from fiction.” So for the scientific assessment of the motivation of psychopathic individuals, there are two levels of initial falsification that must occur: one, recognition and correction of the lies that will inevitably punctuate his narrative, and two, Popper’s method of falsificationism applied to the true problematics of the individual psychopath. In other words, first it has to be determined that the psychopath did in fact lie, and second, that the lies were part of the psychopath’s pathological pattern of dishonesty and immorality.
 

Jeffrey Dahmer

Another killer whose inner life and self-portrayal can possibly be linked to childhood experiences is Jeffrey Dahmer, a loner who by all accounts was “strange” and introverted throughout his life and found it difficult to achieve the human connections he, like all of us, needed in order to thrive. Dahmer’s attachment disorder might have begun in infancy or even before birth, and then in childhood he was not given sufficient tools or encouragement to replace some of his fantasizing with actual socializing. Because Dahmer was not an obvious “problem child” (many serial killers were apparently not antisocial or disruptive as children, including Ramirez and Ted Bundy), no adult stepped in to deal with the child’s disturbance.

Dahmer was suspected of killing animals in his neighborhood, which he did with great frequency, and it seems that if his parents had been properly vigilant they might have discovered this and tried to help their son. Jeffrey Dahmer lived his entire life alone, viewing other people as nothing more meaningful to him than potential sex slaves or authority figures. This level of isolation is not called abuse or even trauma, but it is clearly not normal and it does affect most children negatively. In Dahmer’s case, his natural tendency toward reserve and introversion was intensified by an environment that made no effort to include him in the world of typical human feelings and desires. As an adult, Dahmer spoke in short sentences with little emotional expression and did not seem to be the natural actor that Bianchi was. The lack of histrionics-- or in fact any signs of emotion-- in Dahmer’s confession may suggest that he can be taken at his word more reliably than other killers with more complex constructions of false self-concepts.

Dahmer seemed to know that he was sick and also responsible for his own horrible actions. However, his insight into the emotional aspects of his illness, because of his generally flat emotional state and lack of experience with normal feelings, was probably quite lacking. For example, Dahmer cannot be taken as stating the truth when he explains his cannibalism by expressing a desire to have his victims inside him. This sounds like something that could have been cooked up (no pun intended) by a defense lawyer in order to make Dahmer seem more profoundly insane than evil. I suspect Dahmer had no real idea why he was eating people, though he did know the behavior was abnormal and that he was out of control with it.

It may have been the case that Dahmer simply lacked the emotional resistance to these sorts of activities that most of us acquire and learn in childhood when we develop caring relationships with others. Cannibalism, and perhaps even killing, may have been “habits” for Dahmer the way nail-biting is for some people. No one would claim that nail-biting is symbolic of, say, wanting to consume oneself and be annihilated; so why is it necessary to attach this sort of questionable theory to Dahmer’s behavior?

 

General Statements

Why do some people bite their nails in response to stress, while others laugh nervously or become tearful? We know there is some genetic cause for one behavior to develop over another. But we don’t know how other factors might play into the equation, because each person’s life is absolutely unique and it is impossible to create a formula for nail-biting or depression or serial killing in a person. We can say that there are certain common characteristics among all serial killers that suggest a possible “type” of person who is at risk for developing this behavior. However, someone may display all of these characteristics and NOT be a serial killer, and there are serial killers who do not conform to the following description.

The serial killer is usually male. He has a history of problematic relationships due to shyness or failure to attach to others. He may have been victimized physically, emotionally, and/or sexually, sometimes in connection with his visible vulnerability (he is an easy target) and sometimes due to pure circumstance. Or he may have been neglected and abandoned by one or both parents. He had authority figures who terrorized him as a child and/or did not provide enough caring discipline for him to learn WHY he should do the right thing. He has been overly intimate or notably detached in his relationships with parents and siblings.

He has a record of previous arrests (before he is discovered as a serial killer) on record for theft, drugs, assault, or sex offenses. He has used substances and behaviors in addictive or compulsive ways. He may be obsessed with sex and with certain types of sexual activity. He may be noticeably abnormal emotionally and socially, or he may have perfected a “mask of sanity” that fools everyone into believing he is not only normal, but exceptional in his empathy and leadership. He has a higher IQ than the average antisocial non-serial killer. He enjoys watching and discussing scenes of extreme violence and does not become uncomfortable with such topics. He may have studied serial killers and seemed to identify with them or be on their side. He lacks any instinct to develop increasingly intimate relationships with people he cares for, opting instead for one-night stands and infidelity if he is in a partnership. He does not trust anyone; he does not understand what it means to trust. He may, however, be able to convincingly act as though he does trust people.

Often the serial killer is misogynistic and reactionary in his ideas about gender roles. He holds himself to a high standard of macho authority and has intensely ambivalent feelings toward people who work in law enforcement. He may try to spend time with police officers and detectives at the same time that he is breaking the law in the worst possible ways. He wishes to be part of a group, like law enforcement or the survivalist movement, that uses violence as a method of control and heroism. At the same time, he is a loner who experiences a basically constant (though not always conscious) rage toward the entire human race that prevents him from forming any deep connections with others. What he wants is unconditional respect, deference, and special consideration for him as a person who is not obligated to obey moral rules. The antisocial killer does know the legal definition of right and wrong, but he believes that his actions are exempt from such judgments.