Homicide 9780128125298

Citation preview

Homicide

Homicide Wayne Petherick Associate Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Society and Design, Bond University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

Natasha Petherick Director at Forensic Analytic, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia

Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier 125 London Wall, London EC2Y 5AS, United Kingdom 525 B Street, Suite 1650, San Diego, CA 92101, United States 50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions. This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be noted herein). Notices Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary. Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility. To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-0-12-812529-8 For information on all Academic Press publications visit our website at https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals

Publisher: John Fedor Acquisition Editor: Elizabeth Brown Editorial Project Manager: Joshua Mearns Production Project Manager: Anitha Sivaraj Designer: Mark Rogers Typeset by SPi Global, India

About the Authors Dr. Wayne Petherick is Associate Professor of Criminology at Bond University in Australia. His areas of interest include forensic criminology, forensic victimology, criminal motivations, criminal profiling, and applied crime analysis. He has worked on risk and threat cases, a mass homicide, stalking, rape, and a variety of civil suits involving premises liability and crime prevention. He has presented to audiences in Australia and abroad and has published in a variety of areas including social science and legal works in the areas of criminal profiling, expert evidence, stalking, serial crimes, criminal motivations, and victimology. Dr. Petherick is the author/editor of several Elsevier books, has several book chapters in other works and a number of journal articles in peer reviewed journals. Natasha Petherick is graduating shortly in a 4th year psychology degree at the University of New England and will continue to persuade Masters in psychology with goals to specialize in forensic psychology. Her areas of interest and research include sex offenders, psychopathology, addiction, and trauma. Natasha has worked ‘behind the scenes’ with Dr. Petherick on a number of his books and journal articles as editor and proofreader.

xi

Foreword My preference in the past has been to work with others in compiling a text, based on the idea that no man is an island, meaning that one person will not ostensibly know more than a collective with knowledge of the subject matter. Put another way, the pooling of ideas of many people will likely provide a richer, more fertile discussion on the subject, and will therefore go further in educating people about the subject of the work. While this sounds good in theory (and let’s be honest, looks great in practice), there comes a time when you have to consider moving past the pooling of wisdom and hope and trust in your own wisdom to get the job done. It doesn’t really seem to matter how many books or articles you have published, until you are able to do it without the contributions of a number of other contributors there are some who think that an edited volume is nothing more than riding on the coat tails of others. Despite the fact you may have contributed the greater stock of words on the pages, it still seems as though there are some that need convincing that you are capable of independence. But within that gripe there is also a sliver of desire. I have never really had any objections to working with other authors; in fact, I think I am richer for the experience. But there comes a time when the allure of a work where you are more than the editor, fed by the words of your colleagues and beloved, becomes too great to resist and so you take the first step of the journey. Over time the project becomes more and more appealing. Setting your own schedule for writing and having to negotiate only with your partner in crime to meet a deadline is a pleasant change of pace. But within that too is a need to stay focused and disciplined to the work. Knowing that, if a deadline is missed, you have only yourself to blame. I do love writing but I will admit it hasn’t always been this way. And I will admit I often have difficulty getting started. I was pretty much the worst student in school, being advised a number of times to drop out or seek out a trade rather than pursuing anything academic. Various teachers and academic advisors informed me that I wasn’t suited to tertiary studies, and at the completion of my secondary schooling I applied for programs I knew I had no hope of getting into. I do not recall specifically what these may have been, but I seem to remember applying for medicine and law. For a student whose time at high school could be summed up by telling you I spent my last day on detention, this was not pie in the sky. This was buddy, you’ve got no hope! I did what my career adviser advised and took a year off. I worked casually and joined the Army Reserve where I served as a rifleman in an infantry company. I didn’t like all of the xiii

xiv

FOREWORD

walking too much, but I loved all of the other aspects of the reserves. I enjoyed shooting (and still do, it was one of the things I used to look forward to on my yearly sojourn to the United States), and I loved the adrenaline rush of fire and movement and some of the combined arms training we did. I travelled to “the top end” which is Aussie-speak for the Northern Territory and took part in K89, a massive military exercise involving troops from Australian and other nations. I loved every minute of it and decided this was something I wanted to do full time. I joined the Regular Army and became a driver-signaler of an M113A1 in the Royal Australian Armored Corp (RAAC). I loved the job and I was pretty good at it. Life in the army was fairly regimented (no pun intended) and your day is pretty much planned out for you. Wake up this time, be here this time, run this far, do these jobs, eat, do these jobs, go home. Rinse. Repeat. Life on base was fun too, if a little boring and repetitive sometimes. But going away on exercise was where things were really interesting. There is definitely something visceral about being a 19-year-old driving a 12-ton armored vehicle through the bush at 60 km an hour with a .30- and .50-caliber machine gun blazing away inches above your head. As much fun as it was and as much as I enjoyed it, I also knew I wasn’t a career soldier. There was too much disillusionment among my fellow soldiers, some of whom wanted to get out but proclaimed they were too old to do anything else. They were only several years older than I was at the time and the idea of feeling stuck in my job wasn’t appealing to me, especially knowing I was not a “lifer.” Do not get me wrong, I enjoyed my time in the military and wouldn’t change my service for any price, especially seeing as the tools and skills it gave me powered me through the next couple of decades of my life. I made up my mind and put in my papers. I decided I wanted to be a police officer. I started studying for that purpose and found that I really enjoyed “hitting the books.” I studied Police Law and found a subject titled Human Behavior Perspectives for Police which I enjoyed far more. I did well in some subjects, and not as well in others. I figured this was just how things went. The human behavior subject intrigued me far more than the law, so I changed path and started studying psychology. This was a much better fit for me and I decided that as a psychologist I could help people. I changed potential career paths again. Here, I again found that I excelled in some subjects and not others. Some of the things I was studying were absolutely fascinating and interested me greatly. Abnormal psychology and criminal justice were my favorite subjects and I did really well in them. Sociology and statistics were my least favorite, and I didn’t do quite so well in them. But again, I thought that was how things went. You did well in what captivated you and not so well in what didn’t. But that didn’t explain why my fellow students, some hating those subjects more than me, got better grades than I did. After studying for 3 years and seeing what I can only describe as turmoil within the registration process to become a psychologist, I applied for entry into fourth year programs and was successful in four applications. I had to decide which of the programs I wanted to go into, but at that time I found I was having second thoughts. Did I really want to be a

Foreword

xv

psychologist? It didn’t seem that anyone could give me a firm answer about how long it would take me to get registration or what the best pathway for that was. I approached Dr. Tricia Fox, a lecturer in the justice studies I had taken, and asked her advice. I had developed a great deal of respect for Tricia’s teaching style and her open-door policy for her students gained her a great deal of respect from pretty much everyone. And she knew what she was talking about, so I respected her opinion a great deal too. I laid out my conundrum, and her reply was like a gut punch—“I do not think you are well suited to psychology.” I knew I was having my doubts, but still, having someone voice this seemed a little different. She obviously saw I was a bit offended by her comments and continued, “let me explain. Over the last three years I have seen you grow as a student and I have seen your interests. What I mean is I think you would be far more suited to criminology. I think it will be a better option for you, and I think it will give you the option to be doing what you want to do a lot sooner and without all the headache of figuring out the registration requirements or process.” She gave me the name of an institution I had heard of but knew nothing about: Bond University on the Gold Coast (GC). Like so many of my fellow Aussies I was familiar with the GC as a tourist destination and had been there a number of times in my life. I went to Bond and met with the staff, and I applied on the spot. I got my letter of offer and responded immediately. I couldn’t wait to get started down my new path—both looking forward to studying new material and also viewing the new experience with some trepidation. I left my undergraduate program and started studying my Master of Criminology. Crime and its various aspects fascinated me even more than the psychology I enjoyed. There wasn’t anything I didn’t like about it. The content was awesome, the readings were awesome, and even the assignments were interesting. I loved every second of it. I gave up on attending my own undergraduate graduation ceremony and instead was sitting my first exam at the time! Such was my desire to finish off the subject and get my first grades in my new program. And my grades were great too. I was getting among the top marks in the classes I was taking, and even made it onto the Vice Chancellor’s List of Academic Excellence. This was better. This was how it was meant to be. I was used to big programs and big subjects. Many of my core undergraduate classes had over 300 students in them. Lots of faces you never got to put a name to. Bond was different. I learned very quickly that their philosophy was small class sizes and personal contact. My very first day in class the lecturer arrived, and obviously seeing a new face walked up to me and said, “you must be Wayne?” Mind. Blown. I was used to turning up to a lecturer’s office after having taken several of their subjects only to be asked “who are you again?” One day after class I went to the bar on campus for a beer and run into several other students and some of the staff. Based on unexpectedly large enrolments, I was asked if I wanted to run some tutorials, and I thought “yeah why not? It will do until I graduate and get a real job.” I found that I loved doing this. A lot.

xvi

FOREWORD

One of my subjects was a special study, which was pretty much self-directed learning. I was asked if I wanted to help put a subject together and I jumped at the chance. I was very interested in criminal profiling and had written a few papers about it in my psychology degree, and that was the new subject they wanted to introduce! I couldn’t have asked for more. Little did I know at the time, but my task was to put together some of the materials. By the end of semester, I had compiled pretty much all of them—I had written lectures, planned out tutorial activities, compiled readings. The lot. Based on the work I had done I was asked if I wanted to give some of the lectures too, and I did. This was both exciting and daunting. My studies continued and eventually I finished my Master of Criminology and moved onto a PhD. I would like to claim some noble reason for this: the pursuit of knowledge; a grand contribution to my field; a desire for scholarly excellence; achieving the highest academic qualification. Some of these may be true to some degree. But the reality is I had inquired about what was necessary to stay in academia because I enjoyed the teaching so much. The response: you need to get a PhD. I picked a topic that I thought would capture my attention and started research and writing. I worked on it for a while, then changed direction because it just wasn’t holding my attention. I started writing again and changed direction again. I just found that nothing I tried held my attention long enough. Even when I found a love for the topic, I found myself staring out the window for long periods of time. I procrastinated. I found more interesting things to do. It seemed that everything was more interesting than what I was doing. Maybe this being an academic thing wasn’t meant to be? I had a consultation with a student who was looking for a topic for an assessment item. I told them the work that needed to be done in the area but we both ended up agreeing it was too large for what they were doing. And in that moment, I found my new doctoral research. I stared with gusto and plowed through the project. One chapter down. Then two. A third. Now a fourth. And in between times I had started writing my first book, and I was plowing through that too. I was contributing to trade and professional journals. I served on committees and editorial boards. And I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I loved every minute of it. I’ve always enjoyed movies and television, and over time I had found that it was possible for me to watch something while I worked. In fact, I found that this made me more productive. I talked to my colleagues about a good movie or TV show I had watched. They were amazed I could not only watch so much TV, but they couldn’t understand how I could do it and get so much work done. To be honest I was amazed too. I didn’t know how I could be so productive, but I was getting things done. Some of my friends couldn’t have any noise while working, but I found I couldn’t work without some kind of distraction. I was not sure why, but this worked for me. Fast forwarding through my story, I finished my PhD and secured a full-time teaching gig. By this time I had taught hundreds if not thousands of students. I had the opportunity

Foreword

xvii

to talk to many of them about various problems they had while studying. Family problems, having to work full time to support themselves, medical problems, and a host of other issues. I soon learned that my role could be as much pastoral as it was pedagogical. And I was seeing a growing number of students with attention-related problems. Now I do not think for a second that the problems were becoming more numerous. It is my belief now, as it was then, that clinicians and medical professionals were simply becoming better at identifying and diagnosing problems that once saw people labeled as naughty, disruptive, disengaged, or any number of other derogatory titles for behavior wherein people literally could not focus on something that may not have been enough to hold their attention at the time. I was hearing stories and associating with them wholeheartedly. The number of times I had said “that was me at school” or “that is exactly my school experience” was too much to ignore. Over time I realized it wasn’t just my school experience, but also my university experience, and my experience in other things where I just wasn’t that into what I was doing. I would find myself staring out the window without realizing I was doing it. I would procrastinate or find something more interesting. I did some investigating and found that there were many stories like mine. Stories where you could simply plug my name into the narrative, and they became my narrative. I came to realize that I may have the same issue as many of the people whose stories I had come across. ADHD, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It certainly explained why I had so much trouble maintaining attention in school and in activities where I just wasn’t that invested. My “naughty” or “disruptive” behavior in school now made sense, as did my many detentions for various infractions. At this point I had no interest in medication or therapy. I was well into my third decade of life and couldn’t wind back the clock on those things where medication may have had impact on my life. But I decided to have it formally investigated anyway, more out of interest than medical intervention. Two or three quick meetings confirmed my suspicion and I was asked if I wanted medication. I didn’t feel that I needed it, and quite frankly, watching a good movie or TV show while I worked had become my pill. It worked for me, and it still does to this day. This was my Ritalin. So what is the point of my story? After working in tertiary education for two decades I have lost count of the times that I have heard “I would love to study/go to university, but I have ADHD and do not think I could do it,” or “I have ADHD so I can’t get very good grades.” Now I am fully aware there are different grades or severities of every condition, ADHD included. I know that my experience will be different to that of others, and that what works for one will not necessarily work for others. But if anything, my story should serve as a sign to those with self-doubt about whether they could have attention difficulties and still be able to achieve their dreams. Even to those who think they cannot study because they were not a very good student at school. You just have to find something that will be interesting enough to hold your attention and find ways to control or focus your attention when you would otherwise find yourself staring out of a window.

xviii

FOREWORD

You have to find an area that you love, with topics that you love. You have to find your passion as I have been fortunate enough to do. I cannot say I have ever been bored with the topics I have written about. In part that is because I have been able to choose most if not all of them, but it is also because I have been lucky enough to find a discipline that is full of fascinating subjects, with my focus being on an interesting subset of these again. My past texts on forensic criminology, victimology, serial crime and profiling, and applied crime analysis have all been works that I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been involved in. Not only did I love putting them together, but I have been fortunate enough to work with an amazing publisher and some amazing contributors. And every time I get the opportunity to work on a new edition, I become excited all over again. Not only because I get to add to and update these labors of love, but because I get to write about what I am passionate about. Plus, there is the positive side effect of getting to catch up on some great movies and television. This project started with a phone call from a colleague. They asked if I had ever considered writing a book on homicide because they were teaching a course on it and were not happy with the text they were using. I was surprised to be told, and later in my research to find, that there really were not many books on the subject around. To say that I was surprised that such a universal and serious subject had not been the focus of many textbooks would be an understatement. I decided then and there that I would write this book for two reasons. The first is that it really seemed to be needed. The second is that the subject is just damned interesting. As often happens, life and opportunity got in the way of writing. I got asked to participate in a few other chapters and managed to pick up a large project teaching public transport operators about violence and warning signs of violence. In addition to my normal teaching this became very time consuming and finding time to sit down and write became more problematic. I looked at my deadlines and knew I would have trouble meeting them the way things were going. I got an extension. But I knew that things were still going to be difficult. I was told my commitments to the violence project could increase based on commitments of the others I was working with as well as the addition of training the incoming drivers. My time was going to get less, not more. For 4 years or so my wonderful partner in crime had been doing editing for me in various projects, and even managed to find mistakes I had missed (a number of times). Within a week of meeting her, I had asked her to edit some chapters without having actually met her yet in real life. She had found some of my work and saw I was relatively local, so contacted me through social networking. We met about a week later, and four or so years down the track are now married. I knew I would need her editing skills again, but this alone didn’t solve my time problem. Having watched her over the years, her motivation, her diligence, and the professional attitude she had to her studies, a thought occurred to me. This thought became a conversation, and the conversation would end with this text becoming a joint project with Tash.

Foreword xix

Now I would say at this point that the decision was based on more than her being at a desk a few feet from mine. Despite numerous offers of help while studying (by the by, she never studied under me always being a student at different institutions), she always wanted to do it on her own as she didn’t want anyone thinking she had an unfair advantage because she knew me. As I said before she has a very professional attitude toward her studies and has not needed extensions or special consideration despite her often crippling workload. She just gets things done. This is the attitude and posture that is needed. Anything else makes work a chore, and I am ecstatic and fortunate to be working with someone who shares my passion and my life. She is my biggest supporter and my biggest critic. She is exactly what I need, and what this project needed. We sincerely hope that you find the content as interesting to read as we did to write. Thanks again to all those involved, and to all of those who made it possible Time to fire up our respective keyboards.

Acknowledgments This is my first foray into a nonedited volume. As such the list of people to thank will be invariably shorter than other publications. Shorter, but no less important by any means. Of course, the first and most important acknowledgment goes out to my wife, Natasha (Tash), my “partner in crime.” When I floated the idea about this book to her I had barely finished my sentence when she blurted out her consent, agreement, encouragement, or whatever you would call it. She has always been there as a great source of support in all of my projects, and she even gets considerably more excited than I do about some of them. She is a book lover in every sense of the word, and she supports and encourages me every step of the way in every project. Beyond her support and the occasional (read: regular) whip cracking to get writing, she also provides critical advice on structure and content, and is a fantastic editor. But with this project she has been more than a supporter and proofreader. She has actively been on board as an editor in title and responsibilities and has contributed to the writing. Next would be the wonderful staff at Elsevier. Liz and the whole crew, all did a wonderful job and were there to answer what always seems like a never-ending stream of questions about the projects. From concept to finished product, they are a team of consummate professionals. I am occasionally asked if I would ever consider working with another publisher and my thought every time is “why would I when I am already working with the best there is?” Thanks to Yolande Robinson. It was Yolande who first brought the idea of this project to me and gave the initial encouragement to write it. It was a great idea and something that proved to be really enjoyable. I would also like to extend my thanks to all those authors and researchers whose works form the core of the literature and theory covered in this work. Without you it wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be damned near close enough to it. Thanks for your efforts, professionalism, and dedication to your craft. I would like to thank Bond University as an organization, and specifically, the outgoing Executive Dean of the Faculty of Society and Design, Prof. Raoul Mortley. Without the opportunity to take time away from teaching and dedicate time to writing in the form of nonteaching leave, projects like these would be all but impossible. Thanks Raoul for your support in my endeavors. Last but by no means least, I would like to extend my thoughts and condolences to all of the victims of homicide and their families. While it is certainly not appropriate to thank them in the ways above, we have something to learn from their loss. Hopefully those who work tirelessly to reduce and prevent crimes like homicide can make their sacrifice mean xxi

xxii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

something so that overall the suffering of the various parties concerned can be softened. While elimination is not practically possible, it should remain our ultimate goals so let us keep working to that end. Wayne Petherick

1 Homicide: An Introduction CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1 Structure of This Book ..................................................................................................................... 3 What Is Homicide? ........................................................................................................................... 5 Lawful Homicide ..........................................................................................................................6 Unlawful Homicide .......................................................................................................................6 Manslaughter ...............................................................................................................................7 Types of Homicide ........................................................................................................................7 What Is Murder? .............................................................................................................................. 8 Conspiracy to Commit Murder ....................................................................................................9 Types of Murder ...........................................................................................................................9 Degrees of Murder .....................................................................................................................11 Provocation .................................................................................................................................... 13 Self Defense ................................................................................................................................... 16 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 17 References ....................................................................................................................................... 17

Introduction On the spectrum of human behavior, homicide is considered one of the worst problem interactions because it “strikes at the very heart of what most of us hold most precious - our life” (Brookman, 2005, p. 1) representing the highest level of aggression in all cultures (Mohanty, 2004). Even though homicide is a universal crime, the way homicides are treated will differ across jurisdictions and the context of the crime, with some offenders serving lesser sentences based on a variety of factors such as provocation by the victim, the social milieu at the time of the homicide, the quality of the investigation, and whether the accused has adequate legal representation. These and other factors dictate how the crime is treated, whether the offender is punished, and the period of sentence given. This extends not only into the legal system, but how the victim and offender are viewed within society itself. The female long-term victim of domestic violence who kills their abusive partner might find a different reception than the cold, calculating, and premeditated killer who targets strangers where circumstantial elements mitigating or explaining the crime are absent. Homicide not only has serious legal ramifications, but it also has serious emotional and psychological consequences for all involved. The victim loses the most—their life—but their family and friends must carry the weight of what happened to their loved one for Homicide. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812529-8.00001-X © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1

2

HOMICIDE

the rest of theirs. They often relive the tragedy over and over again through court proceedings, media coverage, and on the anniversaries of the loss; each and every occasion and each and every year until their own passing. Society suffers from homicide to different degrees, from individual homicides, to serial and mass homicides, to homicide as a collective social problem. The killing of one person by another (or others) will not only undermine individual perceptions of safety, but a high profile and high impact homicide—such as that of a child or much-loved public figure—can rock communities to their core and significantly undermine confidence in institutions such as the police, courts, and prisons. While there may be a growing focus on this crime with a more diverse array of media covering it, homicide is by no means a product of modern times. Historically, homicides have been of interest in stories and lore, such as told in the bible with Cain and Abel in Genesis 4: 1–18, and in the assassination of Julius Caesar by his friend Marcus Brutus, perhaps best known for his alleged utterance at his killing, “et tu Brute,” Latin for “you too Brutus” highlighting the betrayal. Beyond its interest as an egregious infraction of social convention and contract, “across fiction, journalism and professional writing there is acknowledgement of a near universal voyeuristic fascination with homicide” (Taylor, 2006, p. 55). Modern stories include any number of serial killers including Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, to novel or unusual homicides such as that of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in Los Angeles in 1994, and the apprehension of a suspect as The Golden State Killer in the United States. It would be remiss of us not to acknowledge any given s, including the homicide of Jon number of hugely popular documentaries and expose Benet Ramsey, and the murder of Teresa Halbach as told in the hugely popular Netflix documentary Making a Murderer. Also in other popular “faction” (fact-fiction) series such as that depicting the early days of the FBI’s Behavioral Sciences Unit, Manhunter. While these depictions provide a superficial view of how different homicides might be viewed based on things like the victim’s social status and systemic issues like legal representation, it does little to truly illustrate how different individual homicides can be. Indeed, we often talk about “murder” or “homicide” as representing one homogenous group of behaviors. Even some of the published material canvassing the area states that “although a distinction is made in the literature among homicide, murder, and killing, for the purpose of this book, the terms are used interchangeably” (Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, & Ressler, 2006, p. 95). Though the above work treats the terms synonymously throughout, the authors distinguish between criminal enterprise (with subtypes), personal cause homicide (with subtypes), sexual homicide (with subtypes) and a variety of other types, shining a spotlight on the different forms homicide can take. The reality is that homicide, in all its permutations, is a manifold and multifaceted event with a seemingly never-ending array of variables, features, and characteristics. Across individual offenses there will be variations in the offender, the victim, the crime scene, the environment, and the social-structural elements. Each will be the culmination of many individual characteristics that collectively may never be seen in another homicide. To put this the simplest way possible: homicide is complex.

Chapter 1 • Homicide: An Introduction

3

Structure of This Book While conceiving of structure and content for this text, it was important to consider market requirements and what best serves the students, academics, researchers, practitioners, and other interested parties. It would be impossible to include every possible aspect of a topic such as this as you would end up with an encyclopedia rather than a book. Decisions must be made about what to include and what to exclude so that as much of the substantive material is covered, while still ensuring that the content is manageable and accessible within the scope of the work’s most common usage, such as a time-limited subject at a tertiary institution where the amount of reading will be boundaried by the lecture content and weeks of semester. Consideration must also be given to redundancy, that is, the amount to which the content may be covered in similar works such that you are not simply writing more of the same. To accomplish this, a survey of numerous courses on homicide was undertaken, in addition to scouring the literature and research to find the most appropriate or contemporary topics within the subject areas. But there is more to that for this book as we had more in mind. While there are not many texts out there on the subject, the few that are have much the same content. As do most of the theories of crime books covering not only different reasons crimes are committed, but also the different crimes themselves. The same can be said of many introduction to criminology texts. One of the important tasks facing authors is to look at what has been covered enough, and what has barely been covered at all, and try to strike a balance there. With that in mind we chose to take a more novel approach to content in that we include topics that have a place within the scientific literature but not really within the theories of crime or homicide texts. We have therefore included novel topics such as whether the moon influences homicide and whether a protozoan could take control of our brain such that we end up killing. The following chapter outline is based on the above inquiry. This first chapter outlines the difference between murder and homicide, and the various types that exist. As noted, because of the range of legislation around the world it would be impossible to cover every nuance of these. Instead, the major differences will be discussed so the reader has a better understanding of these across locations. This chapter will also discuss the different types of homicide such as the murder of family members (familicide) and killing a child within their first year of life (infanticide). Lastly, self-defense and provocation, known in many legal systems as total and partial defenses respectively, will be discussed. The next three chapters cover a variety of explanations for homicide. Chapter 2 examines the biological roots of homicide starting with the nature and nurture debate, including the most recent accepted explanation for behavior, known as the biopsychosocial model. This chapter also explores the relative contributions of genetics, hormones, the chemical messengers known as neurotransmitters, and factors related to toxicity and illness. This chapter includes both more commonly accepted biological influences, though in keeping with the general theme of this work—covering the novel or not

4

HOMICIDE

widely discussed factors—also covers possible contributions such as Toxoplasmosis gondii, a parasite found in infected animal feces and uncooked meat. Chapter 3 considers the various psychological factors that play a role in the commission of homicide. This will start out with the controversial theory of victim precipitation, before moving on to discuss the role of emotions and personality in killing. There is a significant body of literature covering the role of extremes of personality which cause distress in thinking accompanied by dysfunction, known as personality disorders, and those related mental illnesses that may play a role. There is a vast array of psychological explanations for homicide, and some of the main or most relevant ones will be further discussed here, such as catathymia and psychopathy. Chapter 4 then canvasses the vast array of social or sociological theories of homicide. This includes victim precipitation, Sutherland’s differential association which states that we learn criminal behavior through criminal association, and strain theory. Also discussed are fame and attention seeking as seen in school shootings and other mass homicides. This will be the last chapter in the general theories of homicide. The next several chapters discuss in detail various homicide events. Chapter 5 examines children and juveniles who kill, including features of these homicides, rates of recidivism (repeat offending), school violence, and homosexual juvenile killers. Chapters 6 and 7 cover what could be generally referred to as mass-victim homicides. This includes serial murder (Chapter 6), and spree murder and mass murder (Chapter 7). These three topics are broken into two separate chapters because of the breadth and depth of the subject matter that comprises the literature on serial murder, which rationalizes the grouping of spree and mass murder into one chapter based on a more limited corpus of information about them. The key differences between these types will be discussed including the relevance of victim count, the significance of time between the offenses known as a cooling-off period or cooling interval, and the dynamics and motivation of the offense. Chapter 8 examines domestic homicides, those homicides that usually happen between victims and offenders who have known one another within some type of preexisting relationship. This will include the incidence of domestic homicides, the risk and protective factors, and then the specific types of intimate partner homicides, child homicides, and elder homicides. Some case studies will be discussed. Sexual homicides will be the focus of Chapter 7, and the difference between a sexual homicide and other homicide types will be discussed. Again, incidence and prevalence of this type of homicide will be explored in some depth along with the different subtypes of sexual homicide. As with other aspects of homicide, there will be some overlap between topics with, for example, many serial murders also being sexual murders. The authors have framed a certain type of homicide based on a set of beliefs or characteristics specific to an individual or social group as ideological homicides. In this work ideology will be defined according to the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy which defines ideology as “any wide-ranging system of beliefs, ways of thought, and categories that

Chapter 1 • Homicide: An Introduction

5

provide the foundation of programs of political and social action: an ideology is a conceptual scheme with a practical application” (Blackburn, 2016, p. 158). These can be individual or small group (such as the beliefs held by a husband, wife, or family), or they can be related to the ideology of a large group (such as a culture, political movements, or terrorist groups). This chapter then presents four important ideological homicides of historical and contemporary relevance: honor killings, terrorism, genocide, and the killing of abortion providers. The final two chapters revolve around the central question what can be done about homicide? Chapter 11 provides an overview of the different investigative approaches available. This includes linkage blindness and analysis, the problem of false reports, crime scene staging, criminal profiling, victimology, psychological autopsies, and the determination of criminal motivations. Many of these practices will assist in developing the suspect pool in homicide investigation and as such could be described as “after the fact” approaches. This chapter will not discuss the criminal investigation undertaken in the first instance as there are simply too many jurisdictional differences in how the process is applied to cover them all in one work. The final chapter then discusses preventative measures for homicide, either as before the fact interventions or after the fact interventions to reduce or prevent reoffending. This includes the levels of prevention, social interventions and the role of law enforcement, warning behaviours, gun control, and emergency medical care. Because of the paucity of research materials and case studies in the peer reviewed and professional literature, the authors have taken a balanced approach to presenting the topics by drawing on media sources where relevant. We have taken steps to confirm the validity of these sources where possible.

What Is Homicide? As stated, homicide and murder are terms used interchangeably though this may not always be accurate or appropriate. At the simplest level, all murders are homicides, but not all homicides are murders. Because of this, calling a murder a homicide would be accurate, but calling a homicide a murder will only be correct in cases where the legal definition of murder is met in that jurisdiction, usually involving a killing with intent. Homicide is a clinical term that simply refers to the killing of one person by another, without any specific explanation or description of planning, motivation, or context. A homicide can be lawful (such as in the case of self-defense), or it can be unlawful (such as in murder, or when the killing occurs during another crime). The context of the killing and the psychological and social milieu in which the homicide occurred are vital in determining legal or other implications of the act. Reaction to a domestic homicide may be different during public education campaigns aimed at reducing or eliminating this crime than it would be when the spotlight is on other offenses.

6

HOMICIDE

Whether homicide or murder, it is not enough just to accept that one person has killed another. We must make every attempt to understand all the complexities of the exigent case and this is most usually accomplished through a detailed and thorough investigation. This investigation can be undertaken by the police at the time of the crime, or sometimes later by investigators of a variety of flavors for many and varied reasons. This could be to determine whether the initial investigation was appropriate and focused, to answer further questions (such as the individual’s propensity to reoffend), or for a civil suit such as a claim for wrongful death as happened to O.J. Simpson in the death of his wife and her companion.

Lawful Homicide A lawful homicide is one in which an argument can be made to lawfully excuse the behavior. A law enforcement officer who shoots a felon during a crime can be a lawful homicide (providing it can be proven that the felon presented a grave threat to the officer or the life of another person, for example). This may also include cases involving the defense of self, the defense of others, and killing by soldiers during war time (providing these are within the accepted rules of engagement), as just a few examples. Whether or not something can successfully be argued to be a lawful homicide depends on a host of factors including the context of the offense, the skill of legal representation, and the cultural factors at play in the jurisdiction where the offense is said to have occurred, among others. In some jurisdictions, when the homicide occurs to prevent a serious crime, this could potentially be a lawful, also sometimes called justifiable, homicide.

Unlawful Homicide By contrast, an unlawful homicide is one in which no legally defensible argument can be made, and where the act is a violation of the criminal law. This is perhaps the most common understanding of what a murder is. The degree to which someone can be held liable for unlawful homicide depends on the degree of responsibility that can be ascribed to their behavior, which will include intent, planning, and premeditation. The mental capacity of the offender is also important as someone who is mentally ill may not be able to understand their behaviors at the time of the offense, or the consequences of their actions, and thus may not be legally liable. They may also not be compos mentis to assist in their own defense. Competency to stand trial is not the same as insanity though the two are often confused, with competency relating to the defendant’s ability to understand their legal situation (McGrath & Torres, 2010). Insanity refers to the person’s ability to understand that what they did was wrong or against the law (McGrath & Torres, 2010). While it may be a common perception that insanity pleas are a regular feature of the criminal justice system, evidence has existed for some time showing that this defense is in decline (see Steadman,

Chapter 1 • Homicide: An Introduction

7

1985 as an example). This is perhaps because those who successfully argued the defense could spend longer in forensic mental health facilities than they would in mainstream prisons. This is not to say that the defense is bogus or unwarranted, but insanity pleas may be a legal maneuver to get the best sentence for the client (Blau, McGinley, & Pasewark, 1993).

Manslaughter Manslaughter is a type of homicide where one person kills another without a common legal requirement for murder known as malice aforethought (Siegel, 2011), or kills another by accident. The basic requirement for manslaughter is that the death was not the intended outcome, or was not planned by the “offender,” such as may happen when someone is killed in a collision between two vehicles. However, this basic distinction may not apply in a given jurisdiction with a further distinction being made between voluntary manslaughter (I meant to do it, but there are mitigating factors) and involuntary manslaughter (I did not mean to do it). Brookman (2005) suggests the vast majority of homicides that do not fall under murder are included in the category of manslaughter. A voluntary manslaughter exists when there are factors that might mitigate rather that excuse the offense. Provocation discussed later in this chapter is one such example of this. Data from various countries tends to suggest that most homicides fall under the category of heat of passion or heat of the moment killings (Blackburn, 1993), which describe a situation in which someone is so overwrought by the circumstances or situation they are unable to contain their rage or fear. The reasonable person test is often used in these circumstances, that is, would a reasonable person have reacted in the same way under the same or similar circumstances. These homicides differ from mass-victim crimes such as serial murder, spree murder, and mass murder where at least two or more victims are killed, and the victims are usually strangers (Pakhomou, 2004). Involuntary manslaughter occurs when one person kills another without intent. This type of manslaughter happens when the offender does not use proper care and attention while undertaking a legal act, or while undertaking an act that is not considered a serious offense. This could be the result of negligence or while being reckless, as in the case of someone driving carelessly, or where someone is carrying out their lawful duty but does so in a reckless or careless way, such as a doctor performing a medical procedure.

Types of Homicide Thus far we have looked at some of the legal classifications of homicides. These revolve around whether laws exist that might excuse someone for the killing such as within lawful homicide, or whether laws exist that might see someone charged with a crime as in unlawful homicide. These are different to the context of the killing, such as domestic homicide or sexual homicide, and do not necessarily factor in the relationship of the killer to the victim.

8

HOMICIDE

The following discussion describes the more common types of homicide by relationship or context of the killing. Every single type will not be discussed as some occur so infrequently there are no recent examples and so will not be discussed further, such as Papicide, or the killing of a pope. Murder-suicide: This involves the homicide of one or more people by (usually) one person, where that person then goes on to kill themselves. Familicide: The killing of close family members. These types of homicide can also be murder-suicides. Filicide: Filicide is the killing of children by their parent/s. Prolicide is where a parent kills their own child. Fratricide: Fratricide involves the killing of a brother. Neonaticide: Neonaticide is the killing of a child within hours or months of their birth. The actual timeframe will differ by region and laws. If the killing occurs outside of the specified period for neonaticide, then it would likely fall under the banner of infanticide. Infanticide: This involves the killing of a child under 1 year of age. Matricide: The killing of one’s mother, from the Latin mater for mother. Patricide: The killing of one’s father, from the Latin pater for father. Parricide: Parricide is the killing of the mother, father, or other close relative. Matricide: Matricide is the killing of the husband by the wife. The killing of the wife by the husband is known as uxoricide (maritus is husband, while uxor is wife). Amicicide: Amicus is Latin for friend, so an amicicide is the killing of one’s friend. Androcide and Femicide: These two types of killing involve systematic killing of males (andro is Latin for man or male) or females (femina is Latin for female). Sororicide: The killing of a sister (soror is Latin for sister, hence the term sorority denoting a sisterhood group at a university following the Greek system, most usually in the USA). Honor killing: An honor killing is a culturally constructed homicide where a person (usually female) is killed by (usually) male family members, or members of their community. The perception is that the victim has brought shame upon their family. In this work it is considered a type of ideological homicide. Capital punishment or homicide by the state: Where the state takes the life of an individual for a crime where the punishment is death. Euthanasia: Euthanasia is the killing of a person on medical or compassionate grounds. Many jurisdictions do not allow for the terminally ill to be euthanized, and those who participate in the euthanasia may be liable to criminal sanctions. Genocide: The systematic eradication of a racial, cultural, or religious group is known as genocide. These often happen on a grand scale such as the holocaust, or the Rwandan genocide between the Hutu and the Tutsi peoples. These are also considered a form of ideological homicide in this work.

It should be apparent that homicides come in many shapes and sizes, and that they can vary according to the nature or context of the homicide, the motive of the homicide, or the relationship between parties.

What Is Murder? Murder is a type of homicide in which one person kills another with malice aforethought which is usually equated to intent (Brookman, 2005). Murder is considered among the

Chapter 1 • Homicide: An Introduction

9

most serious of crimes as it is the grossest violation of social mores and a grave threat to autonomy, safety, and security of the self. As such, in countries with capital punishment it can still be punishable by death (Siegel, 2011). Because of the seriousness of the crime in many legal systems there is no time limit in which someone can be charged with murder. This is called the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations is defined as the period of time under which a person or persons are subject to legal sanctions. This will be circumscribed by the jurisdiction in which the crime occurs, as well as the type of crime itself. If an offender or crime is identified after the statute of limitations has expired, typically speaking, the offender cannot be charged with the crime regardless of the strength of the case against them. The statute of limitations entered jurisprudence to protect people from defending themselves against charges where the passage of time would hamper or prevent them from doing so, such as where exculpatory evidence is lost and memories wither. There are exceptions, such as where someone deliberately flees the jurisdiction to “run out the clock” on the statute. In these instances, the time away may be excluded from the statute allowing them to be charged with the crime should they return.

Conspiracy to Commit Murder It generally holds true that one cannot be charged with thinking about committing a crime. If this was possible, it is likely that a vastly greater number of people would be serving jail terms! As such, these “thought crimes” are not prosecuted because you can usually think about doing something as much as you like, and that something does not become a problem until a thought is coupled with an action. It is then the action that becomes punishable under the law, and the thought may be used as evidence of planning, premeditation, and intent. This is different when it comes to conspiracy to commit murder, which is an offense in many jurisdictions and is punishable under the law. A conspiracy to commit murder is an agreement between two or more people to commit the crime of murder at some point in the future. For the most part, it does not require that the plan be set in motion, only that an agreement has been made. No actual acts against the victim are thus required. This differs from attempted murder where an act has occurred but failed, where the reason for the failure is not important to the charge. For example, if you try to murder someone by shooting but are a terrible shot and they live because you only injure them, it is enough that you tried. For conspiracy you do not even have to have tried, which separates conspiracy from attempts.

Types of Murder Murder is a homicide with intent to kill. As murder involves intent, an accidental homicide could not be considered murder though other types of homicide which may be excusable under certain circumstances could be considered murder under others. For example,

10

HOMICIDE

when a soldier kills during war time they are killing another with intent. This is not, however, considered murder unless they operate outside of the rules of engagement. Consider the following (Oppmann, 2011): Army Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs has been sentenced to life in military prison with eligibility for parole in 10 years. … He was reduced in rank to private and ordered to forfeit all pay and benefits. Whatever sentence Gibbs serves will be reduced by the 547 days he has already spent in prison. “He said they were all dirty savages,” prosecutor Maj. Andre Leblanc said at Gibbs’ sentencing hearing. … Gibbs is the highest ranking of five soldiers charged with being part of a rogue “kill squad” that targeted civilians. Another seven soldiers also were charged with lesser crimes including abusing drugs, keeping “off the books” weapons and intimidating a fellow soldier not to speak out against the platoon’s alleged killings. Gibbs had pleaded not guilty. … The murders Gibbs is accused of committing took place over a period of five months last year, while Gibbs led the 3rd Platoon of the Army1s 5th Stryker Brigade in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. Gibbs’ platoon was tasked with patrolling small villages in the area to build relationships with an Afghan population wary of the U.S. presence in their country. Instead, prosecutors said Gibbs and a small group of rogue soldiers allegedly plotted to murder civilians and then planted weapons on them so they appeared to be Taliban attackers. “Selling a fake engagement as a real engagement, that’s what they were doing,” Stelle told the court. In court testimony, Gibbs said he did not execute anyone. Prosecutors said Gibbs participated in the killings of three unarmed civilians: two farmers and a village cleric. Gibbs said he killed one of the men, but he claimed it was in self-defense. However, the staff sergeant admitted to ripping and cutting off fingers of all three men he was charged with killing. He kept the body parts, he said, to give to soldiers he favored or to intimidate soldiers he disliked. … Phillip Stackhouse, Gibbs’ defense attorney, had argued other soldiers were framing his client. Three soldiers pleaded guilty to the killings and agreed to testify against Gibbs as part of plea deals. “What if there is no hard evidence other than what you have heard from that witness stand?” Stackhouse said Wednesday. Some witnesses also admitted to smoking

Chapter 1 • Homicide: An Introduction

11

hashish they obtained from Afghan translators. Their testimony, Stackhouse said, “came under a cloud of hash.” Stackhouse argued Gibbs wasn’t where other witnesses said he was during the engagements. And, according to Stackhouse, in February 2010 Gibbs couldn’t have smuggled an AK-47 in his backpack into a village where prosecutors said he then planted the assault rifle on the body of an Afghan man he had killed. Grasping an AK-47, Stackhouse showed the rifle would not fully fit into a soldier’s backpack. Prosecutors countered that Gibbs had used a model of the rifle that has a shorter muzzle and could be concealed. Gibbs remains under investigation for the 2004 shooting death of a family in Iraq during his tour there, Army spokesman Maj. Chris Ophardt told CNN Thursday. The investigation into the family’s killing had been closed but was reopened after Gibbs was charged with the murders of civilians in Afghanistan. During testimony last week, Gibbs said he shot at a car that failed to stop at a checkpoint in Iraq that he was manning. Inside the bullet-riddled car, Gibbs testified, were not combatants but an unarmed Iraqi family. Gibbs admitted in court that he told his troops in Afghanistan about the Iraq shooting as an example that soldiers would not face consequences for acting aggressively, even if civilians were hurt. “If they are put in a tight situation, don’t not pull the trigger,” Gibbs said he advised members of his platoon in Afghanistan. “You won’t go to jail for it.”

Degrees of Murder In some jurisdictions, murders are classified according to the degree of planning and intent. This is more common in the United States than anywhere else. The crimes range from first degree to fourth degree murder. In first degree murder there is premeditation and malice aforethought (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2010). Premeditation means that the person has, prior to the act, planned to kill and has the intent to do so. As intent is a mental component, it may be the presence or evidence of premeditation that is used to establish intent. This means that intent may not be directly provable but is predicated on establishing the planning and preparation. If it can be demonstrated that someone purchased a firearm, watched the victim for a prolonged period of time, stated to a third-party that they were going to make the victim pay for some wrong against them, and then carried out the homicide in the exact manner their preparation dictated, this would be considered a proxy measure of intent. For a homicide to be murder there must be actus reus (an action which constitutes a crime) and mens rea (the intention or knowledge of the wrongdoing). However, when a homicide occurs during another crime, even when the offender did not have intent to commit that homicide or it was not part of the original plan, it can be considered murder

12

HOMICIDE

(specifically felony murder). That is, as the homicide was committed during another crime it automatically fulfills the intent requirement. An example of this would be when, during a bank robbery, an armed offender accidentally fires their weapon, striking a customer and killing them. They did not have the intent to kill the customer, only to rob the bank, but as they were committing another crime at the time they killed the customer they have met the intent requirement by default and can be charged with murder. However, there is some limit to the scope of this rule in that it should only be applied to those behaviors that are inherently dangerous and requiring some degree of foreseeability (Sidak, 2016). When entering a bank with a loaded weapon, it could be argued that someone may be killed even accidentally, and any such homicide could be foreseeable given the overall circumstances. Ostensibly, felony murder statutes are intended to be a deterrent to anyone thinking about robbing a bank or committing another crime where someone may reasonably be killed because this will deprive them of the “I didn’t mean to kill him/her” defense should the homicide occur. Second degree murder occurs with malice aforethought (intent) but without premeditation (Brown et al., 2010). For example, two colleagues have a disagreement in the workplace resulting in a fight which has to be broken up by others. Both are sent home by management. That same day, one employee sees the other out in public, pulls a gun, and shoots him dead. He did not premeditate the killing but made a decision in the heat of the moment. The killing was impulsive. Also included within the seconddegree murder classification is where someone attempts to cause serious bodily harm but instead kills the victim. This would also include those situations in which the killer demonstrated a depraved indifference to human life, also known in jurisprudence as a depraved heart. According to Duffy (2007, p. 428) “in its early development, depraved heart murder, like much of the common law, was based on morality, aiming to punish those offenders who committed acts so reckless that they violated all social and political norms.” Third degree murder may also be called voluntary manslaughter. In voluntary manslaughter the person usually has the intent to kill but without premeditation. This means that, at the time of the crime, the intent was to kill the victim but that they had not thought about it beforehand but were instead greeted by circumstances that caused them to become emotionally disturbed, carrying out the killing on impulse. Another more common name for these would be crimes of passion or heat of the moment crimes. For this type of crime, a legal test known as the reasonable person test is used. This is used to determine liability by establishing that the killer is not simply hypersensitive to criticism or challenge, or prone to over reacting. Fourth degree murder, also known as involuntary manslaughter, is a type of killing where there is no intention to kill but where a negligent or careless act leads to the death of another person. This is often used to prosecute driving fatalities (Brown et al., 2010), such as where the driver kills another person while under the influence of alcohol or other drugs (Siegel, 2011). The absence of intent refers only to the absence of intent to kill and

Chapter 1 • Homicide: An Introduction

13

does not mean that the person did not have the intent to drive a vehicle in a reckless or dangerous manner. In a scenario involving an accident where the driver was not driving recklessly but, say, swerved to avoid another obstacle or threat and hits a pedestrian this may not be considered a fourth-degree murder.

Provocation Provocation is a relatively controversial defense to many crimes, not just murder. Unlike self-defense which can be a total defense, provocation is known as a partial defense meaning it can mitigate the killing, perhaps reducing the offense from murder to manslaughter or some similar lesser charge. Provocation argues that events transpire which could cause a reasonable person to lose control over their emotions and actions. This set of events so impacts a person’s mental state their response is not deemed to be entirely within their control, thus affecting the degree to which they can be held liable. Because of the contentious nature of the defense it has been abolished in a number of jurisdictions, while in others it has been replaced by loss of control (Gooch & Williams, 2015). Sometimes a change to the legislation follows a high-profile case where the defense was successfully argued, and this leads to public outrage. One such example happened in Queensland, Australia, in 2005. As discussed in Wuth (2014): TARYN Hunt was an innocent 14-year-old schoolgirl when her family moved from Brisbane to the Gold Coast. With her long, blonde hair and perfect figure, the Year 9 student dreamt of becoming a model. Then, in the Christmas school holidays of 2003, her life changed when she met the man she believed was the love of her life – Damian Sebo. At 26 years old, he was older and seemed more mature than the teenage boys she knew at school. He had his own car and money. While her friends went to the movies, Sebo snuck the teenager into bars and clubs and within weeks, Taryn begged her mother, Jennifer Tierney, to let him move into the family home. Ms Tierney wasn’t convinced – later telling police she thought Sebo was too old for her beautiful daughter – but Taryn threatened to leave home if they could not be together. In the end, Ms Tierney agreed to let Sebo in, believing it was better to keep an eye on her headstrong daughter and the boyfriend who was 12 years her senior within her own walls.

14

HOMICIDE

At first, the young couple were happy. They lived in Taryn’s tiny bedroom, Sebo treated her like a princess and people said the pair were very much in love. Friends described Sebo as immature and obsessed with Taryn and he worried constantly about losing control of the beautiful teenager who was rapidly growing tired of her possessive lover. In April, 2005, Taryn fell pregnant and Sebo was thrilled. For him, their baby was the perfect way to anchor her to him forever. But Taryn wasn’t so sure. Even as Sebo begged her to keep the child and talked baby names and weddings, Taryn terminated the pregnancy in May. It would be the beginning of the end. By August, Taryn ended the relationship and Sebo moved out of her room and into the family garage, where he remained obsessed and determined to win her back. When Taryn started a new relationship, Sebo seethed with jealousy. There were threats, fights, tears and phone calls as Taryn spent time with both men. Two days before her death, Sebo was home on a Saturday night while Taryn partied with her new man. Angry and jealous, he made a chilling prediction to Taryn’s mother: “The problem with her behaviour is if she doesn’t stop behaving the way she does soon, somebody’s either going to murder her or rape her.” Two days later, the 16-year-old decided to leave school and agreed to celebrate with her ex-boyfriend, for old times’ sake. After a night at the Prince Albert with friends, Sebo and Taryn were heading home when she asked him to drop her off at her boyfriend’s home. Sebo told police they argued and Taryn taunted him that she had cheated on him. He flew into a jealous rage. The furious lover grabbed the steering wheel lock he carried in his car and clubbed the teenager in the head while on the side of the M1 at Coomera. Taryn tried to defend herself and the first blow shattered her wrist. The second and third into the back of her scalp were delivered with such force, they shattered the back of her skull and split her optic nerves.

Chapter 1 • Homicide: An Introduction

15

Then Sebo waited and watched vital minutes tick by as she was lying face down on the ground with her skull fractured in several places, blood soaking her blonde hair. At 1.36am, he made a frantic emergency call, claiming to have found the teenager by the side of the road and during the nine-minute drive to hospital, he was desperately planning his defence. After moving his blood-soaked car from the emergency entrance, he disposed of the murder weapon in a wheelie bin in a nearby street before returning to hospital where he told police Taryn must have been bashed by a stranger after he’d dropped her off on a deserted stretch of road. Worried when she didn’t come home, he claimed to have found her unconscious in the bush near exit 54. Police treated Sebo as a suspect from the start and after hours of interrogation, he cracked and claimed it was all her fault. That with her prickly teenage taunts and schoolgirl manipulation, Taryn made him do it. When police took him to the scene of the crime, Sebo collapsed, blaming Taryn for bringing it on herself: “She goes, ‘well I cheated on you, so go on, use it; it’s not gonna stop it or something’,” Sebo said in his interview. “That’s when I think I have come across with it. I just got blood on my hands and on my shirt and then that’s when I thought ‘oh my God, it’s totally wrong’.” No one knows what she said, because two days later on September 9, 2005, Taryn’s family was told she was brain dead. Her life support machines were switched off. Damian Sebo was charged with murder but pleaded provocation. The jury agreed and found him guilty of manslaughter only. He was sentenced to a minimum of eight years’ jail and was released in September last year. In March, 2011, the State Government passed legislation to close a legal loophole preventing the provocation defence on the basis of a victim’s alleged infidelity, insults or threats to leave a relationship. Provocation exists to accommodate those situations in which the homicide would not have happened but for the provocative act. Hemming (2010) argues the defense is biased

16

HOMICIDE

toward heterosexual men who claim that an ex-lover’s confession of infidelity, falling out of love, or otherwise striking an emotional blow is a sufficient enough condition to make them lose self-control. It is a problematic defense because it only allows for a one-sided version of events where the victim is blamed for being the catalyst, despite not being present during trial to provide their version of events. While provocation is a legal construct, it is akin to the criminological theory of victim precipitation. Victim precipitation exists when the person who suffers the greatest harm or loss is the initial aggressor, with the precipitation becoming the claim of provocation. Like its legal counterpart, precipitation is widely criticized as victim blaming (Eigenberg & Garland, 2008) even though a corpus of literature exists suggesting the opposite. For example, Wilson (2009, p. 158) states that “victim precipitation implies that the victim did something to cause or hasten another person to act criminally, but it does not imply blameworthiness on the part of the victim.” This is discussed more in Chapter 4.

Self Defense While provocation is a partial defense, where allowed, self-defense is a total or absolute defense meaning it completely absolves an individual of legal responsibility for murder. This is not a blanket exception however, and as with most things there will be both subtle or gross local nuances dictating how self-defense can be employed. For example, in some locations there is a duty to retreat where the individual must first attempt to extricate themselves from the dangerous situation before defending themselves. By contrast many jurisdictions in the United States have “stand your ground” laws which do not require the person to retreat, where they can instead defend themselves or others in situations involving threat or perceived threat. The duty to retreat may not apply in situations wherein retreat is impossible (such as when backed against a wall) or where it would be unsafe to do so. Claims of self-defense also require that there be proportionality in the response to the threat or perceived threat. That is, the actions undertaken in defense of the self or others must be generally equivalent in nature and force to that used by the aggressor. For example, should someone come at you with a pencil, a claim of self-defense might not be sustainable if you were to empty both barrels of a double-barrel shotgun at them, killing them in the process. However, shooting them may be proportionate if they began by shooting at you. Not only must the response be proportionate, it must also be reasonable meaning that it is appropriate in and for the situation. Self-defense may be rejected when the initial aggressor is disarmed and/or is retreating. In these cases, the threat no longer exists and any pursuit goes beyond the need to defend oneself, and may be considered an aggressive act in itself. As with most things, the claim of self-defense is complex and is comprised of many variables for consideration and litigation. Should one party respond with force that is unreasonable and disproportionate, then the other party may be able to claim of self-defense even though they were initially the instigator. However, one may not be able to claim self-defense in a situation where they have provoked the individual.

Chapter 1 • Homicide: An Introduction

17

Conclusion Homicide and murder are complex events, with the outcome determined by a variety of factors. These can be victim related, offender related, situation related, or environmental. A homicide involves the killing of one person by another, while a murder involves the killing of another with intent. Even this distinction does not canvass the nuances of each act, with homicide and murder each being different based on the relationship between victims and offenders or the context or circumstance of the offense. There can be no doubt that homicide and murder are complicated matters, and that any given instance of killing may defy ready identification, classification, or disposal in the criminal justice system.

References Blackburn, R. (1993). The psychology of criminal conduct: Theory, research, and practice. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons. Blackburn, S. (2016). The Oxford dictionary of philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blau, G. L., McGinley, H., & Pasewark, R. (1993). Understanding the use of the insanity defense. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 49(3), 435–440. Brookman, F. (2005). Understanding homicide. London: Sage Publications. Brown, S. E., Esbensen, F. A., & Geis, G. (2010). Criminology: Explaining crime and its context (7th ed.). New Providence, NJ: Andersen Publishing. Douglas, J. E., Burgess, A. W., Burgess, A. G., & Ressler, R. K. (2006). Crime classification manual: A standard system for investigation and classifying violent crimes (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Duffy, J. C. (2007). Reality check: how practical circumstances affect the interpretation of depraved indifference murder. Duke Law Journal, 57, 425–456. Eigenberg, H., & Garland, T. (2008). Victim blaming. In L. J. Moriarty (Ed.), Controversies in victimology (2nd ed.). Newark: Anderson Publishing. Gooch, G., & Williams, M. (2015). A dictionary of law enforcement (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hemming, A. (2010). Provocation: a totally flawed defense that has no place in Australian criminal law irrespective of sentencing crime. University of Western Sydney Law Review, 14, 1–44. McGrath, M., & Torres, A. N. (2010). Forensic mental health experts. In W. A. Petherick, B. E. Turvey, & C. E. Ferguson (Eds.), Forensic criminology. Burlington: Elsevier Science. Mohanty, M. K. (2004). Variants of homicide: a review. Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine, 11, 214–218. doi:10.1016/j.jcfm.2004.04.006. Oppmann, P. (2011, October 28). U.S. army sergeant to be tried for alleged Afghan sport killings. CNN. Retrieved from: (2011, October 28). https://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/28/us/afghan-sport-killingscourt-martial/index.html. Pakhomou, S. M. (2004). Serial killers: offenders relationship to the victim and selected demographics. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 6(4), 219–233. Sidak, J. G. (2016). Two economic rationales for felony murder. Cornell Law Review, 51, 51–63. Siegel, L. (2011). Criminology: The core (4th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth. Steadman, H. J. (1985). Insanity defense research and treatment of insanity acquitees. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 3(1), 37–48.

18

HOMICIDE

Taylor, P. J. (2006). Editorial: homicide. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, 11, 55–60. doi:10.1002/ cbm.429. Wilson, J. K. (2009). The Praeger handbook of victimology. Santa Barbara: Praeger Publishing. Wuth, R. (2014). The moment killer Damian Sebo confessed to teenage ex fiance’s death. The Gold Coast Bulletin, May 2. Available from https://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/news/crime-court/ the-moment-killer-damian-sebo-confessed-to-teenage-ex-fiances-death/news-story/ adac0226d0de0f177bf2586127c449d9. (Accessed 10 September 2018).

Further Reading Dowden, C. (2005). Research on multiple murder: where are we in the state of the art? Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 20(2), 8–19.

2 Biological Influences on Homicide CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 19 The Biopsychosocial Model ........................................................................................................... 20 Relative Contributions ................................................................................................................... 23 Genetics .......................................................................................................................................... 26 Neurotransmitters .......................................................................................................................... 27 Dopamine ...................................................................................................................................27 Serotonin ....................................................................................................................................28 Norepinephrine ..........................................................................................................................28 Gamma Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) ..........................................................................................29 Hormones ....................................................................................................................................... 29 Brain Structures .............................................................................................................................. 31 The Frontal Lobes .......................................................................................................................31 The Amygdala ................................................................................................................................ 32 Low Resting Heart Rate ................................................................................................................. 33 Infection .......................................................................................................................................... 34 Lunar Lunacy or “Lunar Tidal Waves” .......................................................................................... 37 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 41 References ...................................................................................................................................... 42

Introduction The next three chapters are concerned with various contributions to homicide from the biological, psychological, and social/sociological domains. This first chapter of the three deals specifically with biology and discusses the role of genetics, hormones, neurotransmitters, various brain structures, low resting heart rate, an infection known as Toxoplasma gondii, and the effect of the moon. Before continuing onto these individual areas, this chapter will begin with a discourse on the nature versus nurture debate, followed by a brief discussion on the issue of causality. As stated elsewhere in this volume, we have chosen to take a somewhat different route with some of the topics. The role of age and sex and drugs and alcohol in homicide are discussed in a vast number of volumes from others on homicide to any given number of works covering theories of crime. To make this book different we wanted to cover some topics not covered elsewhere in a single volume.

Homicide. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812529-8.00002-1 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

19

20

HOMICIDE

The Biopsychosocial Model The most current and accepted paradigm of understanding crime is known as the biopsychosocial model. This views crime as the result of a complex combination of factors with each providing a relative contribution that is different between people and crime types. For example, there will be differences between offenders who commit homicides and those who commit white collar crimes, right down to the relevant genetic, psychological, and social factors. There will be commonalities too however, such as an opportunity structure where crime would not happen without the opportunity to do so. The biopsychosocial model is a more complex form of what is being referred to when the more casual term nature and nurture is used. Nature draws from the biological domain, and nurture from the psychological and sociological domains. We no longer refer to “nature versus nurture” as geneticists now accept that it is not one competing with the other, but both working together. Sometimes this happens in harmony, and sometimes not. In fact, “trying to separate out nature and nurture as explanations for behavior…is now said to be both impossible and unproductive” (Levitt, 2013). Since the first attempts to understand criminal behavior, the pendulum has swung back and forth between biology, psychology, and social or sociological factors as the main causes of criminal behavior. Successive generations of theorists and practitioners advanced their view of causes, and as each failed to account for crime through their understanding, others shifted the focus onto factors to explain what their predecessors could not. Among the first to undertake this endeavor, theorists looked largely toward biological factors as the cause of crime. This approach was known as positivism. These theorists were not interested in various emotional and social influences per se but saw that underlying biological forces exerted the greatest influence on behavior. Perhaps the best known of the biological positivists was Italian doctor Cesare Lombroso, who was heavily influenced by the work of Charles Darwin and others. Lombroso promoted atavism, the idea that criminals are throwbacks to previous stages of evolution in terms of both inferior physiological features and biological regression marked by less civil forms of mentality and behavior (Newburn, 2017). Among these differences were enormous jaws and canine teeth (Siegel, 2012), low foreheads, prominent jaws and cheekbones, protruding ears, excessive hairiness, and unusually long arms (Carrabine, Cox, Lee, Plummer, & South, 2009). The idea that criminals are genetic throwbacks has been largely discredited and was even challenged at the time. A large part of Lombroso’s work was conducting postmortem examinations on deceased criminals, from which he argued that criminals have smaller brains and that these differences in mass explained the criminal behavior. Lombroso was criticized for not considering alternate hypotheses for this observation, such as the possibility that the process of imprisonment itself, poverty, neglect, or poor diet may have caused any change in brain volume. However, it was a challenge from British doctor Charles Goring who, after reviewing Lombroso’s work, found no statistically significant difference in brain size between criminals and noncriminals. Had Lombroso looked

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

21

outside of the prison walls he would have found that features he attributed to criminals were found throughout the population (Carrabine et al., 2009). Later theorists followed along with this work on biology, specifically focusing on physique. An interesting though again largely discredited idea is that your body shape or type makes you more prone to certain antisocial behaviors and/or crime. One of the bestknown approaches at somatotyping (soma means body) is known as Sheldon’s body types, the first of which is the mesomorph who is athletic with well-developed musculature and aggressive behavior (Siegel, 2012). Because of this, the mesomorph is more likely to commit acts of violence such as assault and homicide. The endomorph is heavily built and moves slowly, and is therefore less likely to commit violent crime though they are likely to engage in activities like moving stolen property (Siegel, 2012). The last type, the ectomorph, is lean and fragile, has a delicate body and droopy shoulders (Newburn, 2017). This type is said to be more intellectual and will thus commit crimes along these lines, such as fraud and embezzlement. The main problem with Sheldon’s work “relates to the most fundamental of methodological maxims, namely, that correlation does not imply causation” (Walters & White, 1989, p. 456). The implications of the biological school are many and varied, but perhaps none is greater than concern this has on criminal liability. Simplifying the argument for the sake of illustration: if behavior is outside of our control (i.e., the result of biology), then we cannot be held responsible for crimes we commit. Indeed, Enrico Ferri, an Italian criminologist and student of Lombroso, argued that criminals should not be held personally or morally responsible because their crimes were the result of forces beyond their agency (Ferri, 1917), thereby placing behavior solely within the biological domain. Another possible abuse of biological predisposition is known as eugenics, which involves attempts to improve the biological quality of the human genetic pool. This has resulted in numerous attempts to “clean the gene pool” including that of the Nazi regime during World War 2. In the early 1900s, Henry Goddard (Goddard, 1912) embarked on a landmark study (at the time) proposing that feeble-mindedness was genetic, which lead to the enforced sterilization of people deemed to be intellectually inferior. Tracing the lineage of the Kallikak family (a pseudonym designed to protect the identity of the Wolverton family), Goddard believed he had found good evidence of the link between “morons” and antisocial conduct, noting in his book (pp. 18–19): This illegitimate boy was Martin Kallikak Jr., the great-great-grandfather of our Deborah, and from him have come four hundred and eighty descendants. One hundred and forty-three of these, we have conclusive proof, were or are feeble-minded, while only forty-six have been found normal. The rest are unknown or doubtful. Among these four hundred and eighty descendants, thirty-six have been illegitimate. There have been thirty-three sexually immoral persons, mostly prostitutes. There have been twenty-four confirmed alcoholics.

22

HOMICIDE

There have been three epileptics. Eighty-two died in infancy. Three were criminal. Eight kept houses of ill fame. Many of these links were incorrect and Goddard largely ignored a number of the Wolverton family who were productive members of society, business owners, and land owners among others (the interested reader and podcaster should consult the Science Vs podcast by Gimlet Media titled How Science Created Morons, or to read Goddard’s book The Kallikak Family). Because of the perceived failure of the biological school alone to explain crime, largely the result of theories being discredited or disproven, the focus shifted toward psychological and social or sociological explanations. The first was the sociological school that examined social forces such as the how geography and crime are related, and the second is the individualistic or psychological approach which sees crime arising from the individual’s emotional makeup ( Jones, 2008). Well-known sociological explanations for crime are strain theory and differential association. Strain theory posits that crime is socially induced, and that a criminal or deviant individual is a product of the social order (White & Haines, 2006). Society imposes not only opportunities for individuals but also cultural processes through which these can be achieved where crime is seen to be a failure of the individual to legitimately acquire that which society places a premium on (designer clothes for example). Because they do not have legitimate means to acquire these goods, they turn to illegitimate means to get them. Differential association refers to individuals adopting ways of behavior from those they associate with. When those ways view violation of the law as more favorable than conforming to the law, crime may follow. Psychological explanations for crime usually revolve around the role that certain psychopathologies, brain structures, and brain chemicals have on an individual’s ability to act in prosocial or antisocial ways. As with social and biological explanations there are a host of psychological explanations for crime and criminal behavior, ranging from Freud’s psychoanalysis which viewed crime as a product of a malfunctioning superego which is the internalized moral and social standards which guide behavior (Newburn, 2017). Some of these approaches to understanding crime and criminality were better at explaining certain types of crimes than others. For example, strain theory is perhaps better at explaining financial or property crime than it is violent crime like homicide. Genetic predispositions to criminality are perhaps a good overall or general explanation for why some engage in crime and not others, however, they may not be able to account for why some will engage in extreme violence such as homicide, or why two people may have the same genetic condition, though only one of them commits an act of violence. As biology, psychology, and sociology have individually failed to account for why some commit crimes, a more recent approach has been to combine these into one model—the biopsychosocial model—that combines elements of all three to varying degrees of relative contribution. Single factor approaches have

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

23

predominated in the past, because the identification of the link between, say, a gene and criminal behavior will point to a simple way to reducing such behavior (Levitt, 2013).

Relative Contributions While the biopsychosocial model looks at individual factors, the model itself does not account for the degree to which different factors play a role. Currently, there is no “scientific way” to do this as we do not have the technology or the understanding to ascribe different amounts of influence, or to gauge the different amounts of influence, of one factor over another. Even if someone has a biological predisposition, there is no way to gauge the degree to which this directly impacted on their behavior, or whether it simply created a psychological and social milieu where external forces were more or less likely to take hold and drive or guide the behavior. It is necessary therefore to consider the issue of relative contribution, which is a term we use to describe the meaning or significance of one variable relative to the meaning or significance of another variable or variables. While there have been numerous attempts to develop a unified theory of crime, that is one theory that explains all crime (or most it), through the unification of multiple disciplinary viewpoints (Boutwell et al., 2015), most of them have failed. Because the contributions to crime are many and varied and impact any given individual to varying degrees, crime is the outcome of a complex interplay of many factors. This would appear to be similar to that proposed by Andrews and Bonta (2010, p. 4) where they discuss their Psychology of Criminal Conduct (PCC) paradigm: So defined, the psychology of criminal conduct is, in part, and intellectual exercise in the use of general psychological principles and methods. Therefore, the psychology of learning and cognition and the general principles of human development may be applied to the analysis of illegal behavior. At the same time, studies of criminal behavior may contribute to knowledge in psychology generally. For example, the study of socialization as a major element of the psychology of crime and is also a major concern in developmental psychology. Take for example alcohol, as the link between alcohol and certain crimes is well established (Dearden & Payne, 2009; Kuhns, Exum, Clodfelter, & Bottia, 2013; McMurran, 2003). Where would we, or could we, place the attribution of the criminal act for the person affected by alcohol? The first logical step would be to blame the alcohol itself as producing a change in the neurochemistry of the brain, subsequently producing a behavior change leading to crime. Alcohol affects regions of the brain responsible for overall behavior control and impulsivity—specifically the frontal lobes where it exerts a significant effect thanks to the ascending frontal artery. As alcohol is a central nervous system depressant at higher doses (Abadinsky, 2017), the main effect of it in the brain is a suppression of activity. Even

24

HOMICIDE

though alcohol is a depressant, when it suppresses parts of the brain responsible for suppression, the overall effect is activation. This may cause someone to act rashly or impulsively without thought for the consequences of their actions, or they similarly may react to an insult or challenge in an uncharacteristic manner. If the suppression of the frontal lobes means the individual loses control over their behavior, then control over behavior may be governed by the midbrain meaning the response will be more emotional. If we attribute the criminal behavior directly to this, then it could be said that the relative contribution of alcohol (the catalyst) was largely responsible for this change in outcome (behavior). But what if the alcohol consumption and crime is merely symptomatic of another underlying issue? What if the individual has chronically low self-esteem and abuses alcohol as a form of self-medication (i.e., “it is better to feel nothing than to feel something”). What if, while under the influence of alcohol, they had a confrontation which further reduced their feeling of self-worth and so they reacted violently to the perceived threat? In this case, what is the relative contribution of each factor? The role that alcohol played has to be considered, as do the psychological implications of low self-esteem, and what could be a biological predisposition toward disorders that are linked to both violence, low self-esteem, and addictive behaviors such as alcohol consumption (e.g., borderline personality disorder or BPD); ( Jackson, Sippel, Mota, Whalen, & Schumacher, 2015; Moore, Tull, & Gratz, 2017; Zeigler-hill, 2011; Zeigler-Hill & Abraham, 2006). Is low selfesteem the cause of the behavior, is the effect of alcohol on the brain the cause of behavior, or is some underlying (and possibly undiagnosed) personality disorder at play, where the dysregulation of serotonin may be a factor (Hansenne, Pitchot, & Ansseau, 2002)? It may well be a combination of all three that is behind the effect we are observing. It is also possible that the criminal behavior and the alcohol use are linked through another third variable, such as culture. Drinking excessively may be culturally condoned within this individual’s social and familial groups, and the alcohol consumption could be part of a general pattern of antisocial behavior which is viewed positively among those with whom they associate. Therefore, both the alcohol use and crime could be largely the result of an overall attitude or disposition to behave a certain way, adopted through interaction with our peers (i.e., differential association). Perhaps this is even encouraged within the family or social unit. But even within this possible explanation we cannot ignore the biological impact of the alcohol, nor its disinhibiting effects on the frontal lobes or on chemicals responsible for emotional states. For any crime, we are left to piece together the relative contributions and how these impacted upon the individual in that moment. As we cannot go back in time and remove a variable to determine its contribution to the event, we are often left to infer catalyst and effect relationships by viewing the supporting evidence, either directly or indirectly (has the individual behaved this way in similar or different circumstances before? Were they known to have a self-esteem problem? Is crime condoned in their family or peer groups? Has a direct relative exhibited similar behaviors? If so under what circumstances?) It is very difficult to isolate one specific factor as the catalyst of the effect we are observing. As such, any of the discrete topics discussed in this and the subsequent two chapters will best be viewed as one part of a bigger picture, of having a relative

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

25

contribution to the event. The nature of this contribution may be unknowable, it may be the result of a best guess, or it may be substantiated by any given amount of evidence. The direction this will take will be dictated by the type of case involved where there may be more evidence in a domestic homicide than a stranger homicide, the quality of the initial investigation, the collective body of wisdom drawn upon to offer opinions and conclusions and as always, using the scientific method to hypothesize, falsify, and conclude. It must also be acknowledged that while the above examples include features such as low self-esteem and borderline personality disorder, it is only fair to point out that not everyone who has low self-esteem, BPD, or consumes alcohol is violent or criminal. These are discussed for illustrative purposes with the full acknowledgment that some individuals with conditions such as BPD will be violent, as will some individuals who have low selfesteem and who consume alcohol. Similarly, crime may be committed by some who have never consumed a drop of alcohol, who does not have any symptoms or characteristics of BPD, or those who have a healthy self-esteem (actually healthy, not just a mask or a scar, see Steiger, Fend, & Allemand, 2015; Zeigler-hill, 2011). When trying to understand the relationship between variables, this can be confounded by illusory or false correlations. This is a relationship between two or more things that appear connected when they are not, or when the relationship is explained by something else entirely. This something is usually called the third variable and may lead to what is known as the third variable problem. Of course, this will be more problematic when the third variable is not accounted for, and even worse when the mere existence of the third variable is not known. Because of this (and other factors) we must be judicious in our attempts to understand and identify when one thing can be said to the agent of change in any number of other things. And nowhere else in this text will this be more important and potentially dangerous than in the way we ascribe causality to the factors discussed in this and the following two chapters. For this reason, it is critical to understand that in many situations, homicide and other crimes included, the actual commission of a criminal act will be dependent on the complex interplay between a great many factors. In the earlier example, any given number of protective factors may inhibit the likelihood for violence or aggression in any given situation. The way an individual was taught to think about conflict resolution (the coping mechanisms of rational thinking for example) and the reinforcement of the values of positive social interactions by family and peers (that aggression is not socially acceptable) may be enough to dampen any biological urge to strike. Before moving onto the individual factors, we close this section with a quote from Raine (2008, p. 325): Despite arguments for a direct causal pathway from genes to brain to antisocial behavior, psychosocial processes cannot be ruled out and could be critical. Environmental influences early in development could directly change gene expression (the way in which a gene’s DNA sequence is translated into neuronal structure and function), in turn altering brain functioning and resulting in antisocial behavior.

26

HOMICIDE

Genetics One critical part of the study of genetics in crime is that genes are passed from generation to generation, with those that are well suited to the environment being more likely to succeed, while those that are not suited to the environment dying off in the process of natural selection. The reader will likely identify this as the theory of evolution. Not only are the genes more suited to the environment likely to survive and be passed on to a new generation, the theory also posits that those who manage to pass their genes along are more competitive and successful (Gannon, Collie, Ward, & Thakker, 2008). These are known as direct and indirect adaptations respectively. From an evolutionary criminology point of view, some crime may be the result of an offender trying to pass along their genes, or through the passage of genes to successive generations because the offender is more dominant and aggressive than social counterparts. Taking rape as one example, the argument would be that offenders pass along their genetic code to subsequent generations through forced sexual interaction, or the genetic code may be passed along through sexual promiscuity without resorting to criminal behavior. For homicide, a criminal may be trying to maintain their genetic code within a population by eliminating competing genes, thus ensuring the continued dominance of their lineage. Or a genetic line may be maintained because an individual is naturally more aggressive and therefore more likely to engage in aggressive behavior leading to homicide. As genetics are a type of positivism, a significant criticism of the evolutionary approach is that, if we are subject to the whims of our genes that we cannot be held responsible for our behavior. This view places the responsibility on biological factors as the sole determinant of behavior and thus ignores the role of other nonbiological factors. However, Gannon et al. (2008) state that we must not confuse evolutionary ideals with biological determinism, which anchors patterns of gendered behavior to enduring biological roots (Miller & Costello, 2000). Wortley (2011, p. 27) adds to this by stating “critics have objected to the portrayal of human behavior as a direct consequence of the pressure on individuals to spread their genes, and the associated assumption that there are direct parallels between humans and animal social behaviors.” Genetic expression will dictate the way our brain and body work in other ways too, such as whether our chemicals are in balance and operating at an optimal level, and how the different parts of the brain work (or do not work) toward maintaining prosocial and productive behaviors. Specific genes result in structural and functional brain changes that either express or suppress predispositions to antisocial behavior (Raine, 2008). One of the genetic factors relating to aggressive behavior is monoamine-oxidase A (MAOA), also called the “warrior gene.” Geneticists have traced an allele that predisposes men to aggressive and violent behavior back to a monkey ancestor 25 million years ago (Gibbons, 2004), and was first identified in the early 1990s when the mutation was found in a large Dutch family. As none of the women in the family had behaved violently, this suggested that the disorder is caused by a recessive gene on the X chromosome

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

27

(Morell, 1993). As men have only one X chromosome they are more likely to have symptoms when they get the bad gene, whereas women are protected because their second X chromosome carries a good copy of the gene (Morell, 1993). MAOA breaks down neurotransmitters (NTs) in the brain including serotonin and dopamine, preventing excessive NTs from interfering with neurological communication, where individuals with the mutation have fewer repeats of the gene and thus remove fewer NTs (Gibbons, 2004). Since discovery, the expression of MAOA has been studied with good support for its influence on violent and aggressive behavior. One study examined 1037 children in Dunedin (52% of which were male) where parts of the overall sample had experienced different types of maltreatment (Caspi et al., 2002). In this study, men who had the short allele were more likely to be aggressive and violent if they were maltreated as children, being four times more likely to commit crimes such as rape, robbery, and assault (Gibbons, 2004). In another study, McDermott, Tingley, Cowden, Frazzetto, and Johnson (2009) gathered genetic samples from 78 males who were assigned to high MAOA and low MAOA groups. The researchers were attempting to determine whether there was a link between MAOA activity and aggression, using a “hot sauce” approach, where subjects administer hot sauce to those known to not like its taste. Subjects were to administer an amount of hot sauce to those who had taken money from them, as “high take” where they lost 80% of their money, and “low take” where they only lost 20% of their money. Findings show that subjects losing 80% of their money were more likely to act aggressively than those who only lost 20% of their money. Overall, the researchers found that MAOA is less associated with aggression in a low provocation condition, but significantly predicts aggressive behavior for the high provocation group.

Neurotransmitters Another aspect in the study of biology and crime has been the chemical messengers in the brain that both excite and inhibit behavior. These are known as neurotransmitters. A number of these have received theoretical and research attention in the study of homicide including but not limited to dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-hydroytryptophan or 5-HT), norepinephrine (NE), and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA).

Dopamine Dopamine is a major excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain which has a role in the activation of behavior, reward, and goal-directed behavior (Berman & Coccaro, 1998). Dopamine is activated in the substantia nigra which plays a role in reward and movement, and the ventral tegmental area, which is a major part of the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, a major structure of the limbic system (Mead, Beauchaine, & Shannon, 2010). This has been proposed as a general incentive system and is involved in reward and behavioral activation (Toates, 2011).

28

HOMICIDE

Dopamine dysregulation has been implicated in borderline personality disorder (BPD) which is characterized by impulsivity (in which serotonin also plays a role) (Seo, Patrick, & Kennealy, 2008), with associations being found between BPD and violence in adolescents and other groups (Arola et al., 2016; de Barros & de Pa´dua Serafim, 2008; Johnson et al., 2000). Rat studies of dopamine tend to imply its involvement in aggression and the exposure to violence, where rats who are separated from their mothers at birth develop a decrease in dopamine and an increase in the stress response (Meaney, Brake, & Gratton, 2002). These same authors identify a link between mesolimbic dopamine systems and substance abuse, with substances like alcohol being associated with criminal and violent criminal activity.

Serotonin Serotonin is widely implicated in mood regulation and impulsivity, and low levels are implicated in increased aggressiveness in adolescent males (Kalat, 2009). The functioning of serotonergic systems within the brain can be affected in the same way as other neurotransmitter systems, such as complications during pregnancy and human development, maternal or caregiver rejection, stress and anxiety, poor diet, socioeconomic conditions, and abuse (Lee & Coccaro, 2001). Specific receptor sites for serotonin which are implicated in violence can be found in the hippocampus, amygdala, and the raphe nucleus (French & DeOca, 2001). The relationship between serotonin and violence in humans has been well established (Krakowski, 2003; Seo et al., 2008) with impulsive offenders who behave aggressively while intoxicated having a lower rate of serotonin turnover in the brain (Virkkunen, Goldman, Nielsen, & Linnoila, 1995). Studies on the link between human aggression and serotonin focus on two main areas. The first is the association between aggression and measures of serotonin function, established through serotonin metabolites and endocrine studies, and the second is where serotonin levels are experimentally modified (Krakowski, 2003). Early studies were undertaken on individuals with a history of suicidal tendencies or with “lifetime aggression” who exhibited behavioral problems from childhood (Krakowski, 2003). These individuals were found to have significantly lower 5-HIAA levels (the level of 5-HT in the cerebrospinal fluid). Lucki (1998) suggests that serotonin’s primary function is the regulation of emotion, where it also facilitates avoidance of adverse situations through anxiety. It is suggested that if 5-HIAA levels are depleted then violence can follow. In a given situation, if the individual’s 5-HT levels change, anxiety promoted by the situation may be inhibited thereby leading to impulsive reactions. As serotonin has an inhibitory effect on impulsivity, reduced levels of 5-HT may play a role in homicides with an impulsive flavor to them, such as domestic and alcohol-fueled homicides.

Norepinephrine Norepinephrine (NE) is a major excitatory neurotransmitter and has links with the frontal lobes and the hippocampus (important for memory; Kalat, 2009) and the thalamus (which

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

29

receives input from the sensory system; Kalat, 2009), and is associated with impulse control and arousal (French & DeOca, 2001). It is thought that NE establishes sensitivity thresholds in an organism preparing it for response to environmental stimuli (Berman & Coccaro, 1998). Norepinephrine is an important neurochemical and is part of the “fight or flight” system (Taylor et al., 2000). Swann et al. (2013) conducted a study on the relationship between norepinephrine and impulsivity, defining rapid response impulsivity as an “inability to withhold response to a stimulus until it is adequately appraised” (p. 84). This definition may reflect violent and criminal behaviors which are not well thought through or appraised rationally. These researchers administered yohimbine which increases the release of NE to healthy controls then monitored their performance on tasks designed to assess impulsivity. They found that increased sensitivity to NE increased impulsive behavior. This indicates that during confrontation or threat situations, initiation of the fight or flight response could lead to a higher risk of impulsive behavior culminating in violent crimes which are not well thought out, such as moment of passion crimes. Despite a number of animal and human studies on norepinephrine showing similar results (Higley et al., 1992), the consensus is that serotonin has been found to account for more variance in aggression.

Gamma Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) Gamma aminobutyric acid is an inhibitory neurotransmitter and like other neurotransmitters has been studied because of its effect on aggression. GABA is well known as the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the human brain (Narvaes & Martins de Almeida, 2014) and it is proposed that GABA has an inhibitory role in aggression (de Almeida, Ferrari, Parmigiani, & Miczek, 2005). Because of this, low levels of GABA would lead to increased levels of aggression. Almeida and colleagues review previous studies which found that low levels of GABA in relevant brain areas in rats and mice show that GABA is linked to aggression. Despite a number of studies demonstrating a link, some of the evidence is contradictory (Narvaes & Martins de Almeida, 2014). These authors note that studies directly manipulating GABA levels have found an inverse relationship, but that those using a GABA modulator such as alcohol have found enhanced aggressive behavior. This may indicate that GABA in association with a modulation of other chemicals or chemical messengers could have a more positive association with aggressive behavior than GABA alone. Obviously, these studies have found a link between GABA and aggression, but not all aggressive acts involve homicide, though some invariably will.

Hormones Neurotransmitters only work in the central nervous system (CNS), while their slower chemical counterparts—hormones—are distributed throughout the entire body. Just like neurotransmitters, hormones exert a powerful influence on the body and any fluctuation is said to

30

HOMICIDE

influence behavior. The argument for hormonal influence, at least on its face, is a strong one: those hormones linked with aggression such as testosterone are found in higher levels in males who have a higher association with aggression, especially at ages when testosterone levels peak (Rafter, Posick, & Rocque, 2016). However, there are still other factors to consider here, such as socialization wherein males are taught to be more aggressive while females are taught that aggression is not “feminine.” Raine (1993) cautions against the causal inference of testosterone and violence, suggesting that it may indeed be that violence increases the production of testosterone, and not the other way around. Adrenalin has also been linked to violence ( Jones, 2000). Katz (1988) suggests that crime is exhilarating and fun and provides an emotional experience that may otherwise be mundane and boring. Crime may therefore provide a form of excitement or arousal through the fight-or-flight response which produces adrenalin, especially in younger people who are overrepresented in crime data and who also have underdeveloped frontal lobes. A significant proportion of crime is committed by younger people, and in the United Kingdom, one-fifth of those cautioned or convicted are aged 10–17 years of age (Cane & Conaghan, 2009). It is not just men who are prone to the influence of hormones that have a possible effect on aggression and disorder. Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) was first described in 1931 by gynecologist Robert Frank who labeled it “premenstrual tension” and hypothesized that the cause was an excess of estrogen (Raitt & Zeedyk, 2000). The psychological symptoms include irritability, depression, crying/tearfulness, and anxiety (Kwan & Onwude, 2014). One very dated study by Morton, Additon, Addison, Hunt, and Sullivan (1953) of 249 volunteers at Westfield State Farm showed that 62% of their crimes were committed in the premenstrual week, 19% during midcycle, and 17% during menstruation. These results would tend to indicate that crimes are committed at or around a time when premenstrual hormones peak, though Parlee (1973) is critical of the study, noting that it is not clear how the authors established the phase of the cycle at the time of the crime, noting specifically that 8 of the 58 women listed “cannot remember” for this information. A common critique of studies in such custodial populations revolved around the idea that you are more likely to find aggressive or violent women in prison populations. These studies focus on showing that women as a whole commit crimes during their cycle, and not that a small percentage of women suffering PMS are more prone to commit crimes than those not suffering PMS (McSherry, 1994). This is a valid point, with the evidence suggesting that 95% of women of reproductive age experience PMS, and that severe, debilitating symptoms occur only in about 5% of those women (Kwan & Onwude, 2014). Homicide likely constitutes an unbelievably small percentage of that already small 5%. Whether there is a valid biological basis to hormone’s influence on violence, various legal systems include the possibility that they do in partial and absolute defenses to criminal behavior. Two cases of homicide involving successful legal defenses for “premenstrual syndrome” are discussed below (The Hastings Centre, 1982, p. 2): Sandie Smith, a barmaid, was accused of killing another barmaid in a pub where they worked. According to her lawyers her premenstrual phases “rendered her an

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

31

animal every month”. She was convicted of manslaughter and set free on condition that she be given progesterone injections by the local nursing service. When the doses were reduced, she became violent again, attempted to kill a police sergeant, and was arrested again. She was tried and released once more on probation, subject to treatment (New York Times, De. 29, 1981). In a second case, Christine English, who pleaded guilty to pinning her lover between the hood of her car and a lamppost, was convicted of manslaughter and also released. Her lawyer argued successfully that she was suffering from an extremely aggravated form of premenstrual physical condition”. In 1963 she had married and after the birth of her second child suffered from postnatal depression. In 1971 she was sterilized. According to Dr. Katherina Dalton of the Premenstrual Syndrome Clinic (University College Hospital, London), both postnatal depression and sterilization aggravate PMS. There are three ways that evidence of PMS could be admitted by the courts, and these are (McSherry, 1994, p. 142): 1. Form the basis of existing defenses such as insanity, diminished responsibility or automatism; 2. Form a new substantive defense; or 3. Be accepted as a mitigating factor in sentencing.

Brain Structures The Frontal Lobes The frontal lobes of the brain, the part occupying the front half of the cortex beginning behind the eyes, is responsible for a broad array of cognitive tasks collectively referred to as executive functioning (Seiden, 2004). The frontal lobes are responsible for logic, reasoning, and critical thinking, along with short-term memory, attentional focus and distractibility, overall behavioral control, and the ability to predict the consequences of our actions (Kalat, 2009; Mesulam, 2002). As such, any dysfunction in this region will have a concordant impact on criminal behavior, such as crime being the result of an outburst or impulsive reaction to a situational threat, or because one has a limited ability to predict the consequence of violent behavior. Located within the frontal lobes, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) governs “empathetic, civil and socially appropriate behavior” (Seiden, 2004, p. 398). One of the ways that socially appropriate behavior is defined and reinforced is known as social constructionism. Here, acts are defined and framed according to personal and social values leading to constructions and reconstructions of behavior (Adler & Adler, 2011). Crime and deviance is therefore in the eye of the beholder. Individuals with frontal lobe dysfunction may have difficulty

32

HOMICIDE

understanding how something has been socially constructed and thus not appreciate the weight of a violation of these rules or norms. Elsewise, an individual with frontal lobe dysfunction might not understand how important socially appropriate behavior is in maintaining order and social cohesion. This coupled with an inability to control impulses and predict the consequences of their behavior could predispose one to commit a homicide. The frontal lobes of the brain are also said to be the “seat of personality,” that is, where information about who we are as a person is encoded in the brain (Mesulam, 2002). For this reason, anything that impacts upon the frontal lobes, or causes damage or change to it, can bring about changes in the personality of the individual. Perhaps the most famous case of this, and one that will be familiar to every first-year psychology student is Phineas Gage. Gage was a rail worker who was setting a charge into rock using a tamping iron, at which point the gunpowder charge ignited blowing the tamping iron outward. The iron penetrated his skull and destroyed much of his left frontal lobe. Those who knew him said that he underwent significant personality change following the accident, transforming from a quiet, reserved, and temperate man into a rude, abrasive, and aggressive one (Macmillan, 2008; Macmillan & Lena, 2010). One of the best-known researchers in this area is Adrian Raine, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Raine describes himself as a neurocriminologist who uses neuroscience to understand and explain crime. Raine, Buchsbaum, and Lacasse (1997) studied positron emission tomography (PET) scans of 41 individuals who were convicted of murder or manslaughter with results showing that the subjects had significantly decreased metabolic function in the frontal lobes compared to the scans of the control group. Scans in fact showed that their frontal lobes were relatively inactive (Seiden, 2004). Perhaps for this reason, a change in frontal lobe function may be a significant indicator of personality change, and this may be more marked in an older person who has had more time to develop their “original” personality than a younger person whose personality is still developing. Raine et al. (1998) did a follow up study and separated murderers into two groups based on the nature of the homicide. Group 1 were classified as “affective” murders, whose crimes were characterized by impulsive aggression that is usually uncontrolled and emotional. Group 2 were predatory murderers who acted with controlled, purposeful aggression. This second study found that the killers in Group 1 had low prefrontal activity, and Group 2 had similar prefrontal activity to the control group. The study identified a “strong association between increased aggression and reduced prefrontal cortical size or activity” (Brower & Price, 2011, p. 724). This suggests that frontal lobe deficits are associated with impulsive rather than purposeful violent crimes. Thus, an association can also be made that murderers who act in an impulsive and uncontrolled manner may be suffering from frontal lobe dysfunction.

The Amygdala Amygdala is Latin for almond, and this brain structure is located bilaterally in the right and left temporal lobes (DeLisi, Umphress, & Vaughn, 2009). The amygdala is one part of the

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

33

limbic system which is commonly referred to as the “old brain” because it looks like that found in lower-level animals, and is considered to be the oldest part of the human brain (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). Because this part of the brain developed earlier, it is thought to be responsible for control of the more basic emotions such as anger and fear (Andrews & Bonta, 2010). As a result, the size of the amygdala (known as volume) might be a useful biomarker for identifying those who are at risk of aggression and psychopathic tendencies (Pardini, Raine, Erickson, & Loeber, 2014). The link between amygdala volume and aggression and violence may be an indirect one, with one of the amygdala’s roles being physiological responses to emotional cues such as fear (DeLisi et al., 2009). As such, individuals with lower amygdala volume may not experience as much fear reactivity, thus not recognizing and responding to dangers signaling potential violence (DeLisi et al., 2009), or where there may be a lesser fear of the consequences of killing. A longitudinal study examined 56 men with a history of chronic serious violence (CSV, n ¼ 20), transient serious violence (TSV, n ¼ 16), and no serious violence (NSV, n ¼ 20) from the Pittsburgh Youth Study (Pardini et al., 2014). These individuals were studied at age 26 and were subjected to neuroimaging to measure amygdala volume. There were no differences in NSV and CSV between the left and right amygdala volumes, though dimensional analyses revealed that lower left and right amygdala volume were associated with adult self-report aggression and higher levels of premeditated aggression. Significant associations were found between lower amygdala volume and measures of aggression and psychopathy in childhood and adolescence. Of the 56 men, 21 (37.5%) engaged in violence across the postscan follow up, with 1 in the NSV group, 6 in the TSV group, and 14 in the CSV group. Lower left and right amygdala volumes were associated with increased risk for violence, higher verbal or physical aggression, and an increase in psychopathic features.

Low Resting Heart Rate An interesting, and perhaps intuitively contradictory marker, low resting heart rate has been extensively studied as a significant contributor to antisocial behavior and crime. In fact, low resting heart rate has been found to be diagnostically specific to antisocial conduct and criminal behavior and not to any other psychological disorder (Raine, 2002), possibly indicating fearlessness (Farrington, 1997). Not only has this finding been replicated over and over, it is a finding usually reserved for males, with the same artifact not being found extensively in females as women have faster resting heart rates than men (Merri, Benhorin, Alberti, Locati, & Moss, 1989; Pham, 2003; Ryan, Goldberger, Pincus, Mietus, & Lipsitz, 1994). It should be noted that this finding is not limited to homicide, but it has been found across other crimes, including, interestingly, stalking (Boisvert et al., 2017). Heart rate is moderated by the vagus nerve (also called the pneumogastric nerve) which is the tenth cranial nerve, and the longest of the nerves in the autonomic nervous system (Howland, 2014). Stimulation of the parasympathetic vagus nerve lowers heart rate

34

HOMICIDE

(Golosheykin, Grant, Novak, Heath, & Anokhin, 2017), so individuals with a low resting heart rate have a higher activation of the vagus nerve. The exact mechanism through which low resting heart rate contributes to antisocial behavior and criminality has not yet been established, and thus gaps in our understanding of the relationship remain (Portnoy et al., 2014). Despite this, several hypotheses have been put forward and subjected to empirical review. The first is sensation-seeking theory, which posits that a low resting heart rate represents low autonomic arousal (Raine, 2002). This low state of arousal is believed to be an unpleasant state which leads those who experience it to seek out stimulating behaviors (Portnoy et al., 2014). While not discussing low resting heart rate specifically, Katz (1988) suggests that some crime is the result of sensation seeking, and that criminals are often bored with their day-to-day life. Crime therefore is a way to inject a level of arousal not otherwise experienced. However, it should be noted that like many biological markers of crime, there are some who have the markers who do not go on to behave badly, though “it is conceivable that an extreme (antisocial) group within this general population does have low arousal on multiple arousal measures” (Raine, 2002, p. 419). The next hypothesis regarding the link between low resting heart rate and antisocial behavior is fearlessness theory. Fearlessness theory states that crime results because individuals have a low level of fear reactivity. Violent behavior requires a degree of fearlessness in its commission (Raine, 2002), and this may represent an underlying deficit in the development of conscience. One mechanism for these cognitive functions in the human brain has been identified as the ventrolateral frontal cortex, specifically the lateral frontal pole, which is involved in strategic planning, the making of decisions, and multitasking (Neubert, Mars, Thomas, Sallet, & Rushworth, 2014).

Infection An interesting field of study is one that examines the role of various toxicities and diseases as they relate to behavior change. In many respects it is not dissimilar to the effect of alcohol and drugs on the brain, as they too can alter functional neuroanatomy and neurochemistry in such a way that significant behavior change results. One interesting infection that is common in human populations is Toxoplasma gondii, or T. gondii. The interest in this infection has spurned research articles both implicating it in criminal behavior (Al-Hassnawi, 2014; Coccaro et al., 2016), or stating “little evidence that T. gondii was related to increased risk of psychiatric disorder, poor impulse control, personality aberrations, or neurocognitive development” (Sugden et al., 2016, p. 1). A number of news and Internet sites have also covered the infection and its purported role in aggression, criminal behavior, and psychiatric disorder. These include Common Parasite Linked to Aggression, Intermittent Explosive Disorder (Rodriguez, 2016); How Your Cat is Making You Crazy (McAuliffe, 2012); and The Myth of “Mind-Altering Parasite” Toxoplasma Gondii? (Neuroskeptic, 2016) and others.

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

35

T. gondii is a protozoan infection that is widely found in humans but its prevalence varies from place to place (Hill & Dubey, 2002). Felines are the definitive host for T. gondii and the only place it can undergo sexual reproduction (Hutchinson, 1966), though it can infect many warm-blooded animals, including humans. Human infection occurs through the ingestion of tissue cysts in uncooked or undercooked meat, or through food and water contaminated with cat feces (Hill & Dubey, 2002). Al-Hassnawi (2014) used immunoassay techniques to study serum IgG antibodies for T. gondii. Fifty-four female prisoners ranging in age from 20 to 55 were compared to 90 females without a criminal record ranging in age from 15 to 60. Results showed an infection rate among the criminal sample of 16 out of 54 (30%), while the control sample rate of infection was 6 out of 89 women (7%). This difference was statistically significant. The author notes that there is a relationship between toxoplasma infection, schizophrenia, and behavioral change, and that mental illness or schizophrenia is “the most important and main reasons for the behavior of killing of women” (p. 189). However, it is also noted that the development of antibodies to T. gondii differs according to age, sex, and immune function, and thus other variables may be at play. It may be that infection with T. gondii is more common in lower socioeconomic groups, and that these same groups are more likely to commit crimes and be imprisoned. Further investigation of the contributions of these variables would need to be incorporated into future research. Other research (Coccaro et al., 2016) examined 358 physically healthy subjects who were evaluated for aggression, anxiety, and other behaviors to study correlates of aggressive and other personality related behaviors. They sought individuals who “(1) reported psychosocial difficulty related to syndromal psychiatric and/or personality disorder conditions or (2) had little evidence of any psychopathology” (p. 335). Results of this study show that composite impulsivity scores and composite aggression scores adjusted for composite impulsivity scores were higher among those with T. gondii seropositivity. Contrary to other studies (Alvarado-Esquivel et al., 2013; Ling, Lester, Mortensen, Langenberg, & Postolache, 2011), Coccaro and colleagues found that seropositivity was not predictive of a history of suicide attempt, not predictive of a history of self-injury, or history of either type of self-directed aggressive behavior. Of most interest to these authors is the link between T. gondii seropositivity and the presence of borderline and antisocial personality disorder. As impulsivity and risk taking and frontal lobe functions are features of borderline and antisocial personality disorders it may be that other risky behaviors (eating or poor hygiene habits) may be factors. Put another way, those with these disorders are more likely to place themselves at risk of T. gondii infections, rather than the infection causing or contributing to psychological disorder. The link between personality disorder and T. gondii infection has also been found by other authors (Hinze-Selch, Daeubener, Erdag, & Wilms, 2010). Lastly of interest to this chapter is the finding that seropositivity was linked to higher state and trait anger scores, but not to depression and anxiety. To determine whether T. gondii infection is related to brain and behavior impairments, Sugden et al. (2016) tested the IgG antibodies in a sample of 1037, comprised of 52% males and 48% females from Dunedin, New Zealand. This study compared seropositive status to

36

HOMICIDE

a large range of behavioral outcomes and psychological functions, finding little evidence for a link between infection and outcome. Of the sample of 1037, 236 (28.2%) had antibodies above the study threshold, with males more likely to test positive for infection than females (32.6% compared to 23.7%). Different to other research, this sample was shown to be relatively balanced on its socioeconomic profile, thereby allowing for the inference that socioeconomics do not play a large role in T. gondii infection. However, there were greater rates of infection at lower socioeconomic levels at 32.2% (low), 29.4% (medium), and 23.4% (high), differences that were not statistically significant (P ¼.11). T. gondii infection was not associated with an elevated prevalence of schizophrenia or major depression, nonsuicidal self-injury, suicide attempts, criminal convictions, and traffic-related offenses. The personality profiles as judged by the Five Factor Model of personality were “indistinguishable from the personality profiles of individuals who tested negative” (p. 8). Infection was associated with poorer memory performance, though there were associations with verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, processing speed, executive functioning, and motor functions. If there is a link between T. gondii and certain behavioral and personality styles (pathological or not), the exact mechanism of this is not fully understood. It may well be that the parasite infects a specific brain region with the outcome being a change in behavior based on lateralization and function (McConkey, Martin, Bristow, & Webster, 2013). Should the infection occur in the frontal lobes, then the resulting symptomatology would be a change in anything moderated or mediated by the frontal lobe, such as impulsivity, memory, and personality. Infections occurring in the amygdala may be more likely to impact on fear, anxiety, and aggression. Berdoy, Webster, and Macdonald (2000) found that rats affected by Toxoplasma exhibited a reduced aversion to the smell of cats. Like many other disease agents, it is hypothesized that through infection Toxoplasma increases its chance of success in the environment by changing behavior in the host. Functional changes in the amygdala of prey animals like rats reduce fear responses to predator animals like cats, thereby increasing the chance of reproduction of the protozoa in the dominant host. This increases the dominance of the organism within the ecosystem. However, as the infectious agent cannot reproduce in the human organism, this would have no impact on its succession or dominance, and thus human infection may simply represent a random zoonosis. In fact, if there is a link between violence, aggression, and a blunted fear response this would decrease the organism’s chance of success as these effects are potentially harmful or deadly to the human host. This is possibly also reflected in the lack of a specific tropism for specific brain regions in secondary hosts (McConkey et al., 2013). This type of behavioral and neurological manipulation is not unheard of in the animal kingdom. For example, the Reclinervellus neilseni wasp infects the Cyclosa argenteoalba spider and essentially hijacks it to create a web structure that is conducive to pupation for the wasp (Takasuka et al., 2015). Once the web is created for the wasp pupa, the spider dies thereby creating a safe environment for transformation to adult wasp. The spiders are

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

37

colloquially referred to as “zombie spiders” (for an excellent and reader-friendly distillation of the complex underpinnings to this behavior, see Moss, 2015 on The Conversation).

Lunar Lunacy or “Lunar Tidal Waves” One interesting and somewhat controversial idea is the effect that the moon, by virtue of lunar cycles, has an effect on human behavior. Public debate about this arises virtually every full moon, predicated largely on the argument that the moon has an influence on the tides in the ocean, and as humans are approximately 60% water, the moon will also have an influence on humans (actual water composition varies by age but this approximation will suffice for this discussion). Public debate increases in intensity and frequency with the “super moon.” Popular claims include “science has proven,” or “it is a scientific fact,” and “ask any policeman or emergency room nurse and they will tell you they always put more staff on for a full moon.” But these anecdotal claims are hardly scientific evidence, and the available scientific data shows (1) there is no link between lunar cycles and behavioral outcomes, or (2) the link is tenuous or weak and likely the result of a third variable, or (3) there is a link, though these tend to be earlier studies and are often critiqued in later reviews over methodological problems. Studies range from changes in the frequency of poisonings, suicide attempts, emergency room admissions, psychiatric admissions, and crime and antisocial behavior, including homicide (Biermann et al., 2009; Climent & Plutchik, 1977; Eisenbach, Ungur, Unger, Stremmel, & Encke, 2008; Oderda & Klein-Schwartz, 1983; Ossenkopp & Ossenkopp, 1973; Schafer, Varano, Jarvis, & Cancino, 2010; Stolzenberg, D’alessio, & Flexon, 2017; Tasso & Miller, 1976; Thakur & Sharma, 1984). The results of these studies have been mixed, and admittedly they focus on a wide range of behaviors not limited only to homicide. There may however be links between alleged moon-induced behaviors, such as assault and violent behavior or psychological phenomenon (admissions to psychiatric facilities) and homicide. For example, a serious aggressive assault has an increased chance of becoming a homicide owing to the nature of the injuries or following medical complications postassault. As such, these studies may still have an indirect relationship to the subject of this text. The lunar cycle is created by the relative position of the sun, earth, and moon. While the earth and moon travel around the sun, the moon is also travelling around the earth. It is the position of the moon during these orbits that illuminates different proportions of the moon (the same side of the moon always faces earth, hence why there is also a dark side of the moon). The tides on earth are the result of the gravitational pull of the moon which causes the water to stretch out creating what are generally known as tidal bulges, more commonly called tides. For most of the earth’s bodies of water that have tides there are four in a day: two high and two low, each lasting about 6 hours. The influence of the moon on human behavior is covered by a variety of explanations from the effect of the increased illumination itself, to the actual gravitational forces exerted on the human body, to

38

HOMICIDE

influences on neurological and biological structures. Some of these explanations have an almost supernatural flavor to them, while others are far more logical. For illumination, the argument follows that while criminals enjoy the cover of darkness, some ambient light will make it easier for them to move around the environment in which they commit offenses. As a result, there may be more criminals out and about plying their trade during full moons than during other lunar cycles. This may explain a small proportion of certain crimes types, especially those with an element of planning, but does not necessarily explain violent crimes that are impulsive or motivated by emotions of the moment. And the illumination hypothesis definitely does not explain a large number of the crimes that occur indoors, or those that occur during daylight hours. In the gravitational argument it is proposed that, as the human body is mostly made up of water, the moon has functionally the same pulling effect on us as it does the oceans. Despite this being advanced as a theory, explanations as to how this gravitational effect might cause someone to burgle a house or kill a loved one are conspicuously absent, save for one partial explanation in one of the earliest papers on the subject. According to Lieber and Sherin (1972, p. 69): If one considers the human organism as a microcosm comprised of essentially the same elements as and in similar proportion to those of the Earth’s surface (approximately 80 percent water and 20 percent organic minerals), one could speculate that the gravitational forces of the moon might exert a similar influence upon the water mass of the human microcosm. (one of us (A.L.L), drawing on evidence from various medical and nonmedical scientific disciplines, theorizes that the moon, via the effects of its gravitational forces on the human organism, causes cyclic changes in water flow among the fluid compartments of the body (intracellular, extracellular, intravascular, and intraluminal), as well as changes in total body water….These changes, together with associated electrolyte and hormonal shifts, may set the stage for differential thresholds of neural triggering and/or altered levels of neuromuscular irritability, thus giving rise to “normal” variations in emotional tone, and, in certain constitutionally predisposed individuals, to more or less emotional disturbance. The current authors have seen no support in any other works for the argument that the moon causes changes to total water volume in the body. What is of more concern to this argument (in this work and all others like it) is the inherent bias toward any purported effect being a negative one. Why, for example, is the moon seen to have inherently negative effects on humans and not to contribute positively to behavior by biologically promoting altruism or other prosocial behaviors? Moreover, gravity is effected by size and distance, so something as large as the ocean will be more prone to gravitational pull than will something as small as a human body, where there is no difference in gravity on one side of your body compared to the other (Britt, 2016). Furthermore, as a rule, children have a greater proportion of body water than adults, and we could therefore reasonably expect that any effect would be more

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

39

pronounced with children than adults. We found no evidence that this assumption was true, or that it had been tested empirically. There are four tides each day, but there is also no explanation offered as to which of these has an effect, or whether it is more of a collective effect. Because of the way the moon circles the earth (more of an ellipse than a circle), it would be reasonable to expect that when the earth and moon were closer (called perigee) there would be more of an effect than when they are further apart (called the apogee). No research found by the authors tested this assumption. Ironically, if the effect were one of gravity, then the greatest effect would be seen at the new moon, when the moon is between the earth and the sun where we are subject to the combined gravitation effects of both objects (Britt, 2016). The other explanation for lunar lunacy is the effect the moon exerts on substructures within the body. Studies in mice have shown that there are changes in the pineal gland and salivary glands of mice at the new and full moons, and that the effect of the pineal gland stimulates the neuroendocrine system which in turn effects different organs in the body (Gerasimov, Kostyuchenko, Solovieva, & Olovnikov, 2014). Of course, violent crime like homicide are only one very small proportion of the total possible behaviors that might be influenced by these underlying changes, and so it would be reasonable to argue that any variance attributed to the moon’s influence would be small, perhaps negligible. It is also a long bow to draw that increased salivary function leads to criminal behavior, or similarly how the pineal gland, which plays a role in circadian rhythms, would lead someone to violate the criminal law. It is also possible that there is no direct effect of the moon on behavior, and that any changes in behavior could be attributed to indirect effects. For example, if someone has a belief in any of the moon’s effects, then they might be more inclined to behave in a way that is in sync with that belief. Other forms of bias may also exist. If a police officer or emergency room worker believes that a full moon will be busier, they may be inclined to pay more attention to arrests or admissions during full moons than at other times when the belief is not at play. Equally, if administrators or supervisors roster more police on during these times, the net result may simply be more arrests, inflating the crime statistics, thereby fulfilling the prophecy of a moon effect on behavior, or police may be more likely to categorize incidents as criminal during these times (Schafer et al., 2010). Similarly, certain admissions such as those to medical or psychiatric facilities may increase around full moons if the moon is central in an individual’s neuroses or psychoses and there is some evidence for this (Schofield & Claridge, 2007; Williams & Irwin, 1991). One study examined 34,318 criminal offenses over 1 year (Tasso & Miller, 1976). The researchers found that rape, robbery and assault, burglary, larceny and theft, auto theft, offenses against the family and children, drunkenness, and disorderly conduct occurred more often (and at a statistically significant level) during times of the full moon. Homicide did not occur more frequently during the full moon phase. We recommend skepticism of these results because the range of crimes that happen with more frequency during full moons happen for a variety of different, often complex reasons, and for there to be a lunar effect this would have to be uniform across a variety of different behaviors with a variety of different motivations, circumstances, and contexts.

40

HOMICIDE

Thakur and Sharma (1984) studied crimes between 1978 and 1982 in three towns in India. They report that the number of crimes on full moon days was much higher than on all other days. Thakur and colleague did not further disaggregate any of their data such as the types of crime involved and as such, it cannot be known how many of these total crimes were homicides. Similarly Stolzenberg et al. (2017) examined total crimes committed in 13 states in the United States examining the differences between indoor crime and outdoor crime. These researchers found that moon illumination intensity had little influence on total crime, but that there was a significant effect of illumination on outdoor crime between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., supporting the illumination hypothesis. These authors conclude (p. 195): It is plausible that the enhanced visibility engendered by the natural light of a full moon intensifies criminal activity by affording offenders a better opportunity to ascertain the vulnerability of a potential victim, gauge the value of a victim’s property, and by assisting them in determining the proximity of capable guardians. It is also possible that the natural illumination generated by a full moon motivates people to venture away from their homes by diminishing the fear of crime. These researchers do not offer any of the biologically or supernaturally oriented explanations. They also do not disaggregate the types of crimes to determine whether the moon has any effect on homicide rates compared to other crimes. One of the earliest studies showing a link between the moon and homicides was Lieber and Sherin (1972), discussed above for its water-compartmentalization-volume-changing hypothesis. Lieber and colleague gathered all homicide data from 1956 to 1970, a total of 1949 cases, and all homicide data from Cuyahoga County Ohio during 1958 and 1970, a total of 2033 cases. After controlling for missing data, the final number of cases was 1887 and 2008 respectively. For their Dade County data, homicides peaked at the full moon with a second peak just after the new moon. There was no difference around apogee and perigee, suggesting that any influence of the moon was no different when closer to or further from the earth during its orbit. For the Cuyahoga County data, homicide peaked at three intervals after the full moon with secondary peaks. They note that the peaks are similar to the Florida data but are shifted to the right, also noting that two of the periods “approached significance” with an alpha level of 0.07 (some might argue that 0.07 is quite a way from statistical significance). To explain the differences between homicide trends and lunar cycles, the researchers suggest “that geographic location may be a significant variable, as it often is for geo-physical and meteorological phenomena” (p. 104). They then go on to cite other research conducted on hamsters in support of this. It is not unreasonable to suggest that, given the distance of the moon from the earth, that any gravitational effect might be a little more uniform across geographic locations. It is also not unreasonable to suggest that the effect of the moon on hamsters would be negligible. Providing results of a comprehensive meta-analysis into lunar-lunacy research (including some discussed in this chapter), Rotton and Kelly (1985) break down the various studies

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

41

by crime type including homicide. Results of their meta-analysis show that none of the studies approached significance across the full moon, new moon, and total phase. In fact, the lowest alpha value found was 0.15 and the highest was 0.77. They conclude (p. 300): Although the meta-analysis uncovered a few statistically significant relations between phases of the moon and behavior, it cannot be concluded that people behave any more (or less) strangely during one phase of the moon or another. This is not the same as saying that there is no relation between phases of the moon and behavior. Just as we cannot prove that werewolves, unicorns, and other interesting creatures do not exist, we cannot prove that the moon does not influence behavior. However, the burden of proof lies with those who favor the lunar hypothesis. They will have to collect a great deal more – and better – data before they can reject the null hypothesis of no relation between phases of the moon and behavior. Looking at potential precursor behavior to homicide (battery and aggressive behavior), Biermann et al. (2009) and Kazemi-Bajestani, Amirsadri, Samari, and Javanbakht (2011) in Bavaria and Iran respectively examined the effect of lunar phases on behavior. Bierman and colleagues found no statistically significant associations between the full, absent, and interphase lunar cycles and the crime of battery. A further Fourier analysis also failed to find any associations between violence and the moon’s phases. Kazemi-Bajestani et al. (2011) examined 5431 patients in the psychiatric emergency services department during a 1-year period. They found a slight increase in visits during the full moon, but these differences were not statistically significant. However, a significant increase in aggressive behaviors was found in the beginning and end of the moon cycles. Schafer et al. (2010) and others also studied crimes in a major Southwestern American city across a number of different crimes, though not including homicide, though they did include its possible precursor assault. They failed to find any statistically significant differences.

Conclusion There are many biological influences on the commission of homicide. These may be genetic such as the “warrior gene,” or other downstream genetic influences such as the chemical messengers hormones and neurotransmitters. Brain structures such as the amygdala—the body’s fight-or-flight center—and the frontal lobes—responsible for executive functioning and overall control of our behavior—also play a role. Beyond these “obvious” influences this chapter has also discussed more novel contributions to homicide including the protozoan infection T. gondii and the purported influence of the moon on behavior generally, and homicide specifically. Following the biopsychosocial model though, the reality is that the link of biology and homicide is somewhere along the spectrum of tempering our psychological states and any given number of sociological factors such as peer groups.

42

HOMICIDE

References Abadinsky, H. (2017). Drug use and abuse: A comprehensive introduction (9th ed.). Belmont: Cengage. Adler, P. A., & Adler, P. (2011). Constructions of deviance: Social power, context, and interaction (7th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing. Al-Hassnawi, A. T. S. (2014). Toxoplasma gondii may be an advisor for aggressiveness: seroprevalence of toxoplasmosis in murderer women in Iraq. American Journal of Biology and Life Sciences, 2(6), 187–190. Alvarado-Esquivel, C., Sa´nchez-Anguiano, L. F., Arnaud-Gil, C. A., Lo´pez-Longoria, J. C., MolinaEspinoza, L. F., Estrada-Martı´nez, S., et al. (2013). Toxoplasma gondii infection and suicide attempts: a case-control study in psychiatric outpatients. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 201(11), 948–952. doi:10.1097/NMD.0000000000000037. Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2010). The psychology of criminal conduct (5th ed.). New Jersey: LexisNexis Group. €rvi, L. (2016). Borderline personality disArola, R., Antila, H., Riipinen, P., Hakko, H., Riala, K., & Kantoja order associates with violent criminality in women: a population based follow-up study of adolescent psychiatric inpatients in Northern Finland. Forensic Science International, 266, 389–395. doi:10.1016/ j.forsciint.2016.06.028. Berdoy, M., Webster, J. P., & Macdonald, D. W. (2000). Fatal attraction in rats infected with Toxoplasma gondii. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 267(1452), 1591–1594. Berman, M. E., & Coccaro, E. F. (1998). Neurobiologic correlates of violence: relevance to criminal responsibility. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 16(3), 303–318. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0798(199822)16:33.0.CO;2-C. € bel, A., Keller, J., Sperling, W., et al. (2009). Relationship Biermann, T., Asemann, R., McAuliffe, C., Stro between lunar phases and serious crimes of battery: a population-based study. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 50(6), 573–577. doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2009.01.002. Boisvert, D., Wells, J., Armstrong, T., Lewis, R. H., Woeckener, M., & Nobles, M. R. (2017). Low resting heart rate and stalking perpetration. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, doi:10.1177/0886260517698823. Boutwell, B. B., Barnes, J. C., Beaver, K. M., Haynes, R. D., Nedelec, J. L., & Gibson, C. L. (2015). A unified crime theory: the evolutionary taxonomy. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 25, 343–353. doi:10.1016/ j.avb.2015.09.003. Britt, R. R. (2016). It’s just a phase: the supermoon won’t drive you mad. Retrieved from: (2016). https://www. livescience.com/7899-moon-myths-truth-lunar-effects.html. Accessed 1 June 2018. Brower, M., & Price, B. (2011). Neuropsychiatry of frontal lobe dysfunction in violent and criminal behaviour: a critical review. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 71(6), 720–726. doi:10.1136/ jnnp.71.6.720. Cane, P., & Conaghan, J. (2009). The new Oxford companion to the law (1st ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carrabine, E., Cox, P., Lee, M., Plummer, K., & South, N. (2009). Criminology: A sociological introduction (2nd ed.). Oxon: Routledge. Caspi, A., McClay, J., Moffitt, T. E., Mill, J., Martin, J., Craig, I. W., et al. (2002). Role of genotype in the cycle of violence in maltreated children. Science, 297(5582), 851–854. doi:10.1126/science.1072290. Climent, C. E., & Plutchik, R. (1977). Lunar madness: an empirical study. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 18(4), 369–374. doi:10.1016/0010-440X(77)90009-8. Coccaro, E. F., Lee, R., Groer, M. W., Can, A., Coussons-Read, M., & Postolache, T. T. (2016). Toxoplasma gondii infection: relationship with aggression in psychiatric subjects. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 334–341. doi:10.4088/JCP.14m09621.

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

43

de Almeida, R. M., Ferrari, P. F., Parmigiani, S., & Miczek, K. A. (2005). Escalated aggressive behavior: dopamine, serotonin and GABA. European Journal of Pharmacology, 526(1–3), 51–64. doi:10.1016/ j.ejphar.2005.10.004. de Barros, D. M., & de Pa´dua Serafim, A. (2008). Association between personality disorder and violent behavior pattern. Forensic Science International, 179(1), 19–22. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2008.04.013. Dearden, J., & Payne, J. (2009). Alcohol and homicide in Australia. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 372, 1–6. DeLisi, M., Umphress, Z. R., & Vaughn, M. G. (2009). The criminology of the amygdala. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 36(11), 1241–1252. doi:10.1177/0093854809343119. Eisenbach, C., Ungur, A. L., Unger, U., Stremmel, W., & Encke, J. (2008). Admission to intensive care for parasuicide by self-poisoning: variation by time cycles, climate and the lunar cycle. Psychiatry Research, 161(2), 177–184. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2007.09.008. Farrington, D. P. (1997). The relationship between low resting heart rate and violence. In A. Raine, P. Brennan, D. Farrington, & S. A. Mednick (Eds.), Biosocial bases of violence (pp. 89–106). New York: Plenum Press. Ferri, E. (1917). Criminal sociology. Boston: Little, Brown & Company. French, L. A., & DeOca, B. M. (2001). The neuropsychology of impulse control: new insights into violent behaviors. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 16(2), 25–32. doi:10.1007/BF02805178. Gannon, T. A., Collie, R. M., Ward, T., & Thakker, J. (2008). Rape: psychopathology, theory and treatment. Clinical Psychology Review, 28(6), 982–1008. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2008.02.005. Gerasimov, A. V., Kostyuchenko, V. P., Solovieva, A. S., & Olovnikov, A. M. (2014). Pineal gland as an endocrine gravitational lunasensor: manifestation of moon-phase dependent morphological changes in mice. Biochemistry, 79(10), 1069–1074. doi:10.1134/S0006297914100083. Gibbons, A. (2004). Tracking the evolutionary history of a “warrior” gene. Science, 304(5672), 818a. doi:10.1126/science.304.5672.818a. Goddard, H. H. (1912). The Kallika family: A study in the heredity of feeble-mindedness. New York: MacMillan. Golosheykin, S., Grant, J. D., Novak, O. V., Heath, A. C., & Anokhin, A. P. (2017). Genetic influences on heart rate variability. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 115, 65–73. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho. 2016.04.008. Hansenne, M., Pitchot, W., & Ansseau, M. (2002). Serotonin, personality and borderline personality disorder. Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 14(02), 66–70. doi:10.1034/j.1601-5215.2002.140203.x. Higley, J. D., Mehlman, P. T., Taub, D. M., Higley, S. B., Suomi, S. J., Vickers, J. H., et al. (1992). Cerebrospinal fluid monoamine and adrenal correlates of aggression in free-ranging rhesus monkeys. Archives of General Psychiatry, 49(6), 436–441. Hill, D., & Dubey, J. P. (2002). Toxoplasma gondii: transmission, diagnosis and prevention. Clinical Microbiology and Infection, 8(10), 634–640. doi:10.1046/j.1469-0691.2002.00485.x. Hinze-Selch, D., Daeubener, W., Erdag, S., & Wilms, S. (2010). The diagnosis of a personality disorder increases the likelihood for seropositivity to Toxoplasma gondii in psychiatric patients. Folia Parasitologica, 57(2), 129–135. doi:10.14411/fp.2010.016. Howland, R. H. (2014). Vagus nerve stimulation. Current Behavioral Neuroscience Reports, 1(2), 64–73. doi:10.1007/s40473-014-0010-5. Hutchinson, W. M. (1966). Recent observations on the biology of Toxoplasma gondii. Transactions of the Ophthalmological Societies of the United Kingdom, 86, 185–189. Jackson, M. A., Sippel, L. M., Mota, N., Whalen, D., & Schumacher, J. A. (2015). Borderline personality disorder and related constructs as risk factors for intimate partner violence perpetration. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 24, 95–106. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2015.04.015.

44

HOMICIDE

Johnson, J. G., Cohen, P., Smailes, E., Kasen, S., Oldham, J. M., Skodol, A. E., et al. (2000). Adolescent personality disorders associated with violence and criminal behavior during adolescence and early adulthood. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 157(9), 1406–1412. Jones, S. (2000). Understanding violent crime (1st ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press. Jones, D. W. (2008). Understanding criminal behavior: Psychosocial approaches to criminality. Devon: Willan Publishing. Kalat, J. (2009). Biological psychology (11th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage. Katz, J. (1988). Seductions of crime: A chilling exploration of the criminal mind - From juvenile delinquency to cold-blooded murder. New York: Basic Books. Kazemi-Bajestani, S. M., Amirsadri, A., Samari, S. A. A., & Javanbakht, A. (2011). Lunar phase cycle and psychiatric hospital emergency visits, inpatient admissions and aggressive behavior. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 4(1), 45–50. doi:10.1016/j.ajp.2010.12.002. Krakowski, M. (2003). Violence and serotonin: influence of impulse control, affect regulation, and social functioning. The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 15(3), 294–305. Kuhns, J. B., Exum, M. L., Clodfelter, T. A., & Bottia, M. C. (2013). The prevalence of alcohol-involved homicide offending: a meta-analytic review. Homicide Studies, 18(3), 251–270. doi:10.1177/10887679134993629. Kwan, I., & Onwude, J. L. (2014). Premenstrual syndrome. Women’s Health, 13. Lee, R., & Coccaro, E. (2001). The neuropsychopharmacology of criminality and aggression. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 46(1), 35–44. doi:10.1177/070674370104600106. Levitt, M. (2013). Perceptions of nature, nurture and behaviour. Life Sciences, Society and Policy, 9(1), 13. doi:10.1186/2195-7819-9-13. Lieber, A. L., & Sherin, C. R. (1972). Homicides and the lunar cycle: towards a theory of lunar influence on human emotional disturbance. American Journal of Psychiatry, 129, 69–74. Ling, V. J., Lester, D., Mortensen, P. B., Langenberg, P. W., & Postolache, T. T. (2011). Toxoplasma gondii seropositivity and suicide rates in women. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 199(7), 440–444. doi:10.1097/NMD.0b013e318221416e. Lucki, I. (1998). The spectrum of behaviors influenced by serotonin. Biological Psychiatry, 44(3), 151–162. doi:10.1016/S0006-3223(98)00139-5. Macmillan, M. (2008). Phineas gage - unravelling the myth. The Psychologist, 21(9), 828–831. Macmillan, M., & Lena, M. L. (2010). Rehabilitating Phineas Gage. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 20 (5), 641–658. doi:10.1080/09602011003760527. McAuliffe, K. (2012, March). How your cat is making you crazy. The Atlantic. Retrieved from:(2012, March). https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/ 308873/. McConkey, G. A., Martin, H. L., Bristow, G. C., & Webster, J. P. (2013). Toxoplasma gondii infection and behaviour – location, location, location? The Journal of Experimental Biology, 216(1), 113–119. doi:10.1242/jeb.074153. McDermott, R., Tingley, D., Cowden, J., Frazzetto, G., & Johnson, D. D. P. (2009). Monoamine oxidase A gene (MAOA) predicts behavioral aggression following provocation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(7), 2118–2123. doi:10.1073/ pnas.0808376106. McMurran, M. (2003). Alcohol and crime. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 13(1), 1–4. doi:10.1002/ cbm.526. McSherry, B. (1994). Premenstrual syndrome and criminal responsibility. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 1(2), 139–151.

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

45

Mead, H. K., Beauchaine, T. P., & Shannon, K. E. (2010). Neurobiological adaptations to violence across development. Development and Psychopathology, 22(1), 1–22. doi:10.1017/S0954579409990228. Meaney, M. J., Brake, W., & Gratton, A. (2002). Environmental regulation of the development of mesolimbic dopamine systems: a neurobiological mechanism for vulnerability to drug abuse? Psychoneuroendocrinology, 27(1–2), 127–138. Merri, M., Benhorin, J., Alberti, M., Locati, E., & Moss, A. J. (1989). Electrorepolarization and risk of druginduced proarrhythmia has cardiographic quantitation of ventricular repolarization. Circulation, 80, 1301–13087. Mesulam, M. M. (2002). The human frontal lobes: transcending the default mode through contingent encoding. In Principles of frontal lobe function (pp. 8–30). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134971.003.0002. Miller, E. M., & Costello, C. Y. (2000). The limits of biological determinism. American Sociological Review, 592–598. Moore, K. E., Tull, M. T., & Gratz, K. L. (2017). Borderline personality disorder symptoms and criminal justice system involvement: the roles of emotion-driven difficulties controlling impulsive behaviors and physical aggression. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 76, 26–35. doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2017.03.008. Morell, V. (1993). Evidence found for a possible “aggression gene”. Science, 260(5115), 1722–1723. doi:10.1126/science.8511575. Morton, J. H., Additon, H., Addison, R. G., Hunt, L., & Sullivan, J. J. (1953). A clinical study of premenstrual tension. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 65(6), 1182–1191. doi:10.1016/0002-9378(53) 90358-5. Moss, E. D. (2015, August 6). Mind-controlling wasps enslave zombie spiders to build them a perfect nest. Retrieved from:(2015, August 6). http://theconversation.com/mind-controlling-wasps-enslave-zombiespiders-to-build-them-a-perfect-nest-45731. Accessed 7 May 2018. Narvaes, R., & Martins de Almeida, R. M. (2014). Aggressive behavior and three neurotransmitters: dopamine, GABA, and serotonin—a review of the last 10 years. Psychology & Neuroscience, 7(4), 601–607. doi:10.3922/j.psns.2014.4.20. Neubert, F. X., Mars, R. B., Thomas, A. G., Sallet, J., & Rushworth, M. F. S. (2014). Comparison of human ventral frontal cortex areas for cognitive control and language with areas in monkey frontal cortex. Neuron, 81(3), 700–713. Neuroskeptic (2016, February 20). The myth of “mind-altering parasite” Toxoplasma gondii? Discover Magazine. Retrieved from:(2016, February 20). http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/ 2016/02/20/myth-mind-altering-parasite-toxoplasma-gondii/#.WzFR_NIzYuU. Newburn, T. (2017). Criminology (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. Oderda, G. M., & Klein-Schwartz, W. (1983). Lunar cycle and poison center calls. Journal of Toxicology. Clinical Toxicology, 20(5), 487–495. Ossenkopp, K. P., & Ossenkopp, M. D. (1973). Self inflicted injuries and the lunar cycle a preliminary report. Journal of Interdisiplinary Cycle Research, 4(4), 337–348. doi:10.1080/09291017309359396. Pardini, D. A., Raine, A., Erickson, K., & Loeber, R. (2014). Lower amygdala volume in men is associated with childhood aggression, early psychopathic traits and future violence. Biological Psychiatry, 75(1). doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.04.003. Parlee, M. B. (1973). The premenstrual syndrome. Psychological Bulletin, 80(6), 454–465. Pham, T. (2003). Gender differences in cardiac development: are hormones at the heart of the matter? Cardiovascular Research, 57(3), 591–593. doi:10.1016/S0008-6363(03)00221-9. Portnoy, J., Raine, A., Chen, F. R., Pardini, D., Loeber, R., & Jennings, J. R. (2014). Heart rate and antisocial behavior: the mediating role of impulsive sensation seeking. Criminology, 52(2), 292–311. doi:10.1111/1745-9125.12038.

46

HOMICIDE

Rafter, N., Posick, C., & Rocque, M. (2016). The criminal brain: Understanding biological theories of crime (2nd ed.). New York: New York University Press. Raine, A. (1993). Features of borderline personality and violence. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 49(2), 277–281. Raine, A. (2002). Annotation: the role of prefrontal deficits, low autonomic arousal, and early health factors in the development of antisocial and aggressive behavior in children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 43, 417–434. doi:10.1111/1469-7610.00034. Raine, A. (2008). From genes to brain to antisocial behavior. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17 (5), 323–328. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00599.x. Raine, A., Buchsbaum, M., & Lacasse, L. (1997). Abnormalities in murderers indicated by positron emission tomography. Biological Psychiatry, 42(6), 495–508. doi:10.1016/S0006-3223(96)00362-9. Raine, A., Meloy, J. R., Bihrle, S., Stoddard, J., LaCasse, L., & Buchsbaum, M. S. (1998). Reduced prefrontal and increased subcortical brain functioning assessed using positron emission tomography in predatory and affective murderers. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 16(3), 319–332. Raitt, F., & Zeedyk, S. (2000). Premenstrual syndrome. In The implicit relation of psychology and law: Women and syndrome evidence (1st ed.). London: Routledge. Rodriguez, T. (2016, March 28). Common parasite linked to aggression, intermittent explosive disorder. Retrieved from:(2016, March 28). https://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/disruptive-impulse-control-andconduct-disorders/t-gondii-parasite-associated-with-aggression-and-intermittent-explosive-disorderin-humans/article/485839/. Accessed 7 May 2018. Rotton, J., & Kelly, I. W. (1985). Much ado about the full moon: a meta-analysis of lunar-lunacy research. Psychological Bulletin, 97(2), 286–306. Ryan, S. M., Goldberger, A., Pincus, S. M., Mietus, J., & Lipsitz, L. A. (1994). Gender and age-related differences in heart rate dynamics: are women more complex than men? Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 24(2), 1700–1707. Schafer, J. A., Varano, S. P., Jarvis, J. P., & Cancino, J. M. (2010). Bad moon on the rise? Lunar cycles and incidents of crime. Journal of Criminal Justice, 38(4), 359–367. doi:10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2010.04.003. Schofield, K., & Claridge, G. (2007). Paranormal experiences and mental health: schizotypy as an underlying factor. Personality and Individual Differences, 43(7), 1908–1916. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.06.014. Seiden, J. A. (2004). The criminal brain: frontal lobe dysfunction evidence in capital proceedings. Capital Defense Journal, 16(2), 395–420. Seo, D., Patrick, C. J., & Kennealy, P. J. (2008). Role of serotonin and dopamine system interactions in the neurobiology of impulsive aggression and its comorbidity with other clinical disorders. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 13(5), 383–395. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2008.06.003. Siegel, L. J. (2012). Criminology (11th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage. Steiger, A. E., Fend, H. A., & Allemand, M. (2015). Testing the vulnerability and scar models of self-esteem and depressive symptoms from adolescence to middle adulthood and across generations. Developmental Psychology, 51(2), 236–247. doi:10.1037/a0038478. Stolzenberg, L., D’alessio, S. J., & Flexon, J. L. (2017). A Hunter’s moon: the effect of moon illumination on outdoor crime. American Journal of Criminal Justice: AJCJ, 42(1), 188–197. doi:10.1007/s12103-0169351-9. Sugden, K., Moffitt, T. E., Pinto, L., Poulton, R., Williams, B. S., & Caspi, A. (2016). Is Toxoplasma gondii infection related to brain and behavior impairments in humans? Evidence from a populationrepresentative birth cohort. PLoS ONE, 11(2), 1–14. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0148435. Swann, A. C., Lijffijt, M., Lane, S. D., Cox, B., Steinberg, J. L., & Moeller, F. G. (2013). Norepinephrine and impulsivity: effects of acute yohimbine. Psychopharmacology, 229(1), 83–94. doi:10.1007/s00213-0133088-7.

Chapter 2 • Biological Influences on Homicide

47

Takasuka, K., Yasui, T., Ishigami, T., Nakata, K., Matsumoto, R., Ikeda, K., et al. (2015). Host manipulation by an ichneumonid spider ectoparasitoid that takes advantage of preprogrammed web-building behaviour for its cocoon protection. Journal of Experimental Biology, 218(15), 2326–2332. doi:10.1242/ jeb.122739. Tasso, J., & Miller, E. (1976). The effects of the full moon on human behaviour. The Journal of Psychology, 93, 81–83. Taylor, S. E., Klein, L. C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., & Updegraff, J. A. (2000). Biobehavioral responses to stress in females: tend-and-befriend, not fight-or-flight. Psychological Review, 107(3), 411–429. Thakur, C. P., & Sharma, D. (1984). Full moon and crime. British Medical Journal; London, 289(6460), 1789. doi:10.1136/bmj.289.6460.1789. The Hastings Centre. (1982). Premenstrual syndrome: do raging hormones lead to crime? The Hastings Center Report, 12(4), 2. Toates, F. (2011). Biological psychology (3rd. ed.). Essex: Pearson Education. Virkkunen, M., Goldman, D., Nielsen, D. A., & Linnoila, M. (1995). Low brain serotonin turnover rate (low CSF 5-HIAA) and impulsive violence. Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, 20(4), 271–275. Walters, G. D., & White, T. W. (1989). Heredity and crime: bad genes or bad research? Criminology, 27(3), 455–485. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1989.tb01042.x. White, R., & Haines, F. (2006). Crime and criminology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University press. Williams, L. M., & Irwin, H. J. (1991). A study of paranormal belief, magical ideation as an index of schizotypy and cognitive style. Personality and Individual Differences, 12(12), 1339–1348. Wortley, R. (2011). Psychological criminology: An integrative approach. Devon: Willan Publishing. Zeigler-hill, V. (2011). The connections between self-esteem and psychopathology. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 41(3), 157–164. doi:10.1007/s10879-010-9167-8. Zeigler-Hill, V., & Abraham, J. (2006). Borderline personality features: instability of self-esteem and affect. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25(6), 668–687. doi:10.1521/jscp.2006.25.6.668.

3 Psychological Influences on Homicide CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 49 Emotional Processing ..................................................................................................................... 50 Personality Disorders ..................................................................................................................... 54 Antisocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy .....................................................................57 Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) .......................................................................................58 Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) ........................................................................................59 Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) ......................................................................................61 Studies on the Link Between Personality Dysfunction and Violence ......................................62 Mental Disorder ............................................................................................................................. 65 Motivations .................................................................................................................................... 68 The Motivational Typology ........................................................................................................69 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 75 References ...................................................................................................................................... 75

Introduction With the failure of early biological explanations to fully explain criminal behavior, the focus shifted to psychological factors to explain why some people became criminals and some did not. These explanations were not mutually exclusive to biological factors, and the second may indeed contribute to the first. Genetic differences in the ability to process, upregulate, or downregulate chemicals undoubtedly plays a role in resultant emotional states and subsequent behaviors. As but one example among many “amygdala volume might be a useful biomarker for delineating individuals at risk for exhibiting early emerging and persistent aggression and psychopathic personality features” (Pardini, Raine, Erickson, & Loeber, 2014, p. 2). This is a biological feature (amygdala volume) that contributes to a difference in something typically conceived of as a psychological function (childhood aggression and psychopathic traits). As another example, oxytocin released in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a crucial part of the brain’s reward circuitry, is critical for reward through social interactions (Hung et al., 2017). Failures in this area may dictate whether one engages in prosocial or antisocial behavior through various reward schemas. So the effect would be both biological and psychological as well as a complex interaction of both. That is to say nothing of the complex and myriad social influences that, through Homicide. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812529-8.00003-3 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

49

50

HOMICIDE

reinforcement and reward, change and shape these influences yet again. As such the distinction between these three domains is, for the purpose of this text, a matter of author discretion.

Emotional Processing The “pathways model” arose out of frustration with voids in the literature regarding the progression from early life events to the development of pathology later in life, whether in the teen or adult years. This model sees development as occurring according to various influences that shape and mold us such as the style of interaction with our family, socialization with friends and family, and physical and emotional trauma (Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014). While this model is based on biology, psychology, and socialization, it pays attention to the psychological aspects and their overall influence on behavior, and thus the model is covered in this chapter. This is especially true of the terminal phase of the pathways model, that of motivation, and so that will be discussed herein also. The below information is taken from Petherick and Sinnamon (2014) unless otherwise stated. This is a framework to describe how individuals develop, from birth to adulthood. The general idea follows basic rules of neuroanatomy and the development of the human brain, with the limbic system (emotional processing structures of the mid-brain) being among the first to develop, followed by more advanced cognitive functions that come along at later parts of development, such as the executive functioning that starts to develop as the frontal lobes mature. Because of this, a necessary first part of the model is emotions and emotional processing which must precede executive functioning, ideas about the self, personality, and motivation. Put simply, emotions are the core for all these other functions. Emotion is influenced by both subjective and objective factors as well as the effects of chemicals (hormones and neurotransmitters) and various brain regions. For example, the frontal lobes play a critical role in emotion regulation and in recognizing the emotions of others. Damage or impairment to the frontal lobes may result in emotional dysregulation, and because the frontal lobes are the “seat of personality,” also in personality dysfunction where there are focal lesions or neurodegeneration (Chow, 2000). Introspection is an important component in the pathways model, which is defined in its most basic form as “the degree to which one can identify, understand, and appreciate one’s emotional state” (Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014, p. 396). So, if an individual engages in behavior and they can “look inwards” and appreciate that the behavior was maladaptive, they may be able to initiate behavior change. Emotions are in and of themselves powerful motivators and they can promote further biological or physical responses. For example, in the face of a perceived or actual threat triggering the emotion of fear, the amygdala triggers a response through the hypothalamic-pituitary-amygdala (HPA) pathway promoting the fight-flight-freeze response. Under this condition, the frontal lobes of the brain are “hijacked” by amygdala activation while it does its job of keeping us alive. This “rational brain hijack” is based on

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

51

the work of LeDoux (see Rethinking the Emotional Brain as a good overall discussion around this issue; LeDoux, 2012) and Daniel Goleman (Goleman, 2000). Emotions are, in their simplest form, how we feel, while self-schemas refer to the understanding of our place and position within our environment and social group and are based largely on emotional functioning related to our place and role. If we are “happy” in this regard, then our self-schema will be positive, with the opposite also being true if we are anxious about aspects of our role. The self-schema is based on both internal and external factors. These can in turn further shape and influence our emotions, as one part of a complex system of feedback loops, where each part of a circuit or system not only receives feedback from other parts but also provides feedback to other parts of the circuit or system. As an example, positive information about our self-schema provides a positive emotional experience, while a negative experience will usually result in a negative emotional experience. A promotion or acknowledgment of our efforts by our boss or colleagues will usually result in a feeling of pride and satisfaction. Being told we are not a “team player” in our workplace may make us feel guilty. Our self-esteem is another part of the circuit, and this refers specifically to how we feel about ourselves. Once formed the self-esteem can also feed back into our emotions and this has the potential to shape our emotional bias. One example of this would be the effect of self-esteem and emotion on self-efficacy, which is a “belief in one’s capabilities to mobilize the motivation, cognitive resources, and courses of action needed to meet given situational demands” (Wood & Bandura, 1989, p. 408 cited in Gist & Mitchell, 1992). While the relationship between any of the developmental parts is bidirectional, it must be stated that up until this point emotions must precede self-esteem, which must precede selfefficacy. Self-efficacy is the judgment about the perceived capability to perform a specific task (Gist & Mitchell, 1992). In the pathways model, the next step is personality. Like other constituent parts of the model, the definition of personality has been plagued by disagreement and definitional problems. Personality comes from the Latin persona which represented the theatrical mask worn by actors in ancient dramas (Millon, Grossman, Millon, Meagher, & Ramnath, 2004). Personality development is based on temperamental (biological), experiential (social), and emotional (psychological) factors, and it is argued that personality develops with temperament at its base as a coping mechanism for our environment (Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014). As stated by (Cohen, 2008, p. 479): Over time the basic positive and negative emotions are gradually replaced by emotional schemas in which cognitive frames, appraisals, and attributions develop out of the individual’s emotional experience and replace the basic emotions as predominant motivations. These “motivators” may be seen as temperament in early childhood, in a period in which it may be normative that biological differences may have a dominant influence. With increasing age, the schemas combine these emotional states in relatively common/correlated patterns but more-or-less uniquely across individuals, based on genetic and experiential combinations. Thus,

52

HOMICIDE

personality differences develop from combinations of individual genetic-based difference in the relative strength of these emotions and life experiences that shape the nature of the individual’s schema regarding self, others, and the world they live in. Providing our environment is relatively conducive to normal development (we acknowledge there may be no such thing, but this term will suffice for the sake of this argument), then our personality develops in a way that is relatively conducive to a productive and even fulfilling life. Where there is significant or prolonged trauma at any level or stage, personality aberrations may surface. These may be subtle or significant nuances of personality function. In some instances, these may be referred to as “quirks,” though if the personality dysfunction is serious and meets the relevant diagnostic criteria it may be classed as a personality disorder. These are sometimes serious psychological conditions with clinical and forensic considerations. According to the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 645): A personality disorder is an enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual’s culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment. With emotions, self-esteem, self-schema, and personality as a foundation we each develop a style of interacting with the world which drives our behavior. The reason we do these things will largely develop from our experiences, insight and introspection, and our coping mechanisms. When we act, it is usually the result of our needs and desires and may indeed be an attempt to restore some balance or equilibrium to our emotional state. This action may indeed be a coping mechanism in and of itself. We would call this our motivation. Motivation refers to those forces that guide or stimulate cognition and behavior. According to Rockelein (2006, p. 406) “the term motivation comes from the same Latin stem ‘mot-’ (meaning move) as does the term emotion. The term motive applies to any internal force that activates and gives direction to behaviour.” These forces can be internal, such as a desire for acceptance or belonging, or they can be external, such as rejection from an intimate relationship or social group. Emotions and personality are central to the expression and study of motivation and to the pathways model and the role they play in developing the motivation to commit a crime like murder. As motivations have a significant basis in psychological functioning they will be further detailed later in this chapter. A brief description of how the pathways model might look from a practical and not strictly theoretical point of view is warranted. During gestation, a baby is exposed to cortisol (a stress hormone) produced by the mother that has a negative impact on infant cognitive development (Davis & Sandman, 2010). This could predispose the child later in life to be sensitive to stressful events such as separation from parents, thus developing an anxious attachment style (Mikulincer & Orbach, 1995; Simpson, 1990). This is where a

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

53

child cries and becomes inconsolable at the departure of a caregiver, which may in turn lead to emophilia, a tendency to fall in love quickly and often, later in life ( Jones & Curtis, 2017). A negative emotional state from feeling abandoned as a child can lead to a negative self-schema, creating feelings that you do not have a place or role within the family or the world. A feeling of isolation, not feeling loved or needed, and not feeling like they belong to a family group can in turn lead to feelings of low self-worth, that is, low self-esteem. Continued conflict with parents and caregivers reinforces this throughout the childhood and teen years, and at some point, the individual starts to develop interpersonal, romantic, and/or sexual relationships. These may be characterized by dependent behavior where the individual is described as clingy and needy. Where a parent experiences physical or psychological illness, and the other parent psychologically unravels, and the (by now) teenager experiences sexual abuse, this can further cement a future of maladaptive behavior and relationship patterns. To deal with the trauma, the individual turns to drugs or alcohol as a form of self-medication. Their romantic relationships are therefore marked not only by fear of abandonment but also by the negative impacts of drug and alcohol use. This can include violence, property damage, and other antisocial behaviors. Concerns over the termination of relationships leads to paranoid behavior, where partners are accused of infidelity and hiding things from them such as having secret bank or email accounts to facilitate intimate or sexual relationships with other people. The fear has become so ingrained that they even start to worry that their partner will not return after the work day. Other forms of addictive behaviors develop to alleviate feelings of emptiness. Hypersexuality develops to increase the bonds in a relationship and to “fix” the relationship after discord. Any perceived challenge, insult, or threat to the self may be met with aggression or violence. Their relationships tend to be tumultuous and often brief as each partner refuses to tolerate the accusations and in some cases, the threats of violence as well as the actual violence. The paranoia is draining and eventually their worst fears are realized: the relationship ends. Over time the individual becomes sensitive to signs of the end, and so they are not left alone, they seek out new relationships prior to the existing one even being over. They hop from one relationship to the next, and may indeed begin a new one before the old one is over. In the absence of a supportive parent or caregiver, the child-come-adult has been left to their own emotional development and barring adequate role models develops poor coping mechanisms and unproductive ways to deal with conflict. Unable to process negative emotional states or experiences, the flight or flight mechanism engages, and the frontal lobes are further inhibited. Responding becomes more emotional and less rational. There are repeated threats and suicidal gestures throughout the lifetime. Sometimes these are based on a negative emotional state and are therefore legitimate, and sometimes they are to seek attention. Eventually they meet a new partner, and after a brief period they move in together. The new partner takes on a fatherly role to a child from a previous relationship. From day one the relationship is marked by disagreement, hostility, and aggression with the new partner

54

HOMICIDE

being blamed for there being no internet connection. Conflict increases daily. Excluded from the decision making, the individual “snaps” and there is a violent altercation late one night after a period of heavy drinking. By all appearances, the new partner threatens to leave at which point they are attacked with a knife. However, the attacked becomes the victim after being disarmed. They are subsequently stabbed to death in the living room of the home they shared as a couple. This is not a hypothetical scenario. This is the exact road map of the development of a victim of homicide from one of the author’s (WP) case files.

Personality Disorders While there may be associations between aggression, violence, personality, and other mental disorders, the reader is reminded that not all those who suffer from any given psychological condition will be aggressive or violent, and most of those with any number of conditions will be just as law abiding as those not so afflicted. Having said that, there is sufficient evidence to show that certain psychological conditions are associated with violence under certain circumstances, and researchers have found higher rates of mental disorders among those who commit homicide than in the general population (Arola et al., 2016; Martone et al., 2013), especially among those who suffer comorbidity with antisocial personality disorder and substance abuse, or with other personality disorders (Esbec & Echeburu´a, 2010; Freestone, Howard, Coid, & Ullrich, 2013; Howard, 2015; Stone, 2007). According to Stone (2007, p. 139) “one way of understanding personality disorder in general is to view them as habitual dispositions toward the interpersonal world – that limit one’s options in relation to stressful situations, and thus lower adaptiveness.” Thus, they may open one up to poor frustration tolerance and render them less able to interact in a prosocial way, especially when confronted or challenged. There is significantly more research available on the general topic of violence of all types, with less being carried out on homicide specifically. As a result, the relationship between certain psychological disorders and homicide may not be entirely clear in the general research corpus. These studies will be discussed in this chapter as they will contain some homicides, and because certain types of violent crime such as assault is more likely to lead to death. Some of those studies that do discuss homicide and psychological dysfunction do not go on to draw links between which cases involved homicide and which had specific personality disorders. Some jurisdictions may not carry out routine psychological testing on defendants in serious crimes, and so diagnostic information may not be part of the information available for any given research project. This obviously means that the links between psychopathology and violence in certain research populations will never be known. To compound the problem, the wide range of symptoms observed in personality disorders are also typical of other conditions such as mood, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and eating disorders, and so personality disorders may go undetected (Paris, 2005).

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

55

For personality disorders, since at least Samenow and Yochelson’s controversial threepart series titled The Criminal Personality, there has been recognition that certain personality constellations are linked with higher rates of relationship and social dysfunction in addition to aggression and violence. One particular aspect of their work that has been criticized is their rejection of psychological and criminological theories of crime except their own (Wulach, 1988). Foregoing further criticism of their work as beyond the scope of this one, of interest is their identification of personality features represented by four disorders (Wulach, 1988). These are what was, in the DSM-IV-TR classification system, the Axis 2 Cluster B disorders of antisocial, borderline, histrionic, and narcissistic personality disorders. It is these disorders which will be discussed further in this chapter. Because many of the personality disorders share some features or characteristics there is considerable diagnostic overlap, and therefore some individuals are diagnosed with more than one disorder. In fact, the norm may be to receive more than one diagnosis (Millon et al., 2004). This overlap is the result of comorbidity being based on the associated personality features, especially as they relate to the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality (Howard, 2015, p. 1): In particular, it explains why antisocial PD is most highly associated with borderline PD. In terms of FFM, both antisocial PD and borderline PD are primarily characterised by low levels of Agreeableness facets and low levels of Conscientiousness facets, but in addition borderline PD is significantly and positively related to all Neuroticism facets (anxiousness, angry, hostile, depressiveness, self-conscious, impulsiveness and vulnerability). This section examines these disorders and the conditions under which those who suffer them might kill. This will be done using the latest criteria provided in the DSM-5. Before looking toward the individual disorders and their link to violence and homicide, a note on bias in diagnosis is warranted as this will potentially skew the results of studies linking certain personality disorders to aggression, violence, and homicide. Put simply, if there is a gender bias in the way that certain personality disorders (PDs) are diagnosed, and the diagnostic bias was against one sex over the other, that would have a concordant effect on the link between that PD and the rate of violence. For example, there are different rates of diagnosis between men and women for antisocial (ASPD) and histrionic personality disorder (HPD) (Ford & Widiger, 1989) and between borderline personality disorder (BPD), histrionic personality disorder, dependent personality disorder (DPD), and antisocial personality disorder (Skodol & Bender, 2003). If histrionic, borderline, and dependent occur more often in women, and women have a lower rate of homicide, then there will be less of a link between these disorders and homicide. Conversely, if men are more likely to be diagnosed as antisocial, then there will be a greater association between antisocial personality disorder and homicide. These constellations will be observed even if there is no difference in the actual prevalence of the personality disorders between men and women.

56

HOMICIDE

Skodol and Bender (2003) identify two broad reasons why there may be differences in the rates of diagnosis for BPD. The first is a gender bias in BPD, and the second is a link between BPD and the risk factors for BPD. For the gender bias in diagnosis, they identify biased sampling which results in a perception that certain disorders are more common among certain sexes, biased diagnostic thresholds involve the greater likelihood of attributing certain behaviors as more abnormal for a man or a woman (such as violence), and lastly, the biased application of criteria involves a tendency to ascribe diagnoses based on the sex of the clinician. They also note it is possible that risk factors for certain disorders are more common in some sexes than others. They note specifically that “biological differences between women and men, or differences in their rearing or other life experiences, account for the different prevalence rates” (p. 355). Even the DSM weighs in on the issue of gender related diagnostic issues. For antisocial, it is noted that while ASPD is more common in males than females, that it may be “because of the emphasis on aggressive items in the definition of conduct disorder” (p. 662). Borderline is noted as being more commonly diagnosed in females (75%), but this may be related to the number of females seeking treatment as some of the symptoms may not be considered culturally appropriate for women such as risk taking (especially binge eating or sexual promiscuity), inappropriate intense anger, and others. Indeed, differences in the presentation of males and females is noted in presentation to mental health clinics when discussing HPD (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 668): In clinical settings, this disorder has been diagnosed more frequently in females; however, the sex ratio is not significantly different from the sex ratio of females within the respective clinical setting. In contrast, some studies using structured assessments report similar prevalence among males and females. The rate of diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) among males is cited as more varied at 50%–75% in the DSM, and considering the lower range of 50% it is possible that narcissism is equally common among women as it is men. According to Kaplan (1983) there is a tendency toward identifying behaviors as “sick” or “healthy” according to the sex of the person presenting for diagnosis, and that those identified as sick may be more commonly ascribed to women, even though they may actually be healthy. However, this conclusion is not based on empirical data itself, such as might be found through manipulating experimental variables and monitoring the change in the rate of diagnosis or the attribution of behaviors and diagnoses to males and females. This examination was undertaken by Ford and Widiger (1989) though, and their findings indicate that there is a sex bias in the diagnosis but not in the diagnostic criteria for the criteria. For example, they found that “there was a clear tendency of subjects to diagnose women with HPD and not with APD, even when cases were more antisocial than histrionic” (p. 304).

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

57

Antisocial Personality Disorder and Psychopathy There is debate in the literature as to whether psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) represent the same or a different disorder, or whether they are thematically similar but still fundamentally different disorders. Some research shows distinctly different rates of psychopathy and ASPD, with results from one study conducted in a Dutch forensic psychiatric facility finding that more than 80% of the patients diagnosed as psychopaths met the diagnostic criteria for ASPD, while only 38% of those with ASPD scored above 30 on the PCL-R (30 is considered the cut-off for the PCL-R) (Hildebrand & de Ruiter, 2004) though it is suggested elsewhere that could be lower at 25 or 26 (Cooke & € m, Grann, La˚ngstro € m, & Kullgren, 2000). This study and others Michie, 1999; Tengstro indicate that while there is some diagnostic overlap among the behavioral themes for each condition, the two syndromes do not overlap perfectly (Lykken, 2006). This debate is of considerable proportions and as such will not be covered further herein and we will treat both disorders the same. The interested reader should consult Hare (1996) as an easy-read on the matter. Perhaps the first identification of this disorder was by French doctor Phillipe Pinel in the 19th century (Kiehl & Hoffman, 2011). Pinel observed that some of his patients had significant personality dysfunction but lacked impairment in other areas in the same way as someone who was psychotic, referring to disorder as manie sans delire, or insanity without delirium. J.C. Pritchard stated that those who suffered what he called moral insanity, and exhibited behaviors far outside of social norms (Augstein, 1996). In 1968, Personality Disorder, Antisocial Type was introduced to the DSM. Through its various permutations the DSM concept has undergone revision and change, and the DSM-5 name for this is now antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). The diagnostic criteria for ASPD, section 301.7 in the DSM-5 are as follows (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 659): A. A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following: 1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviours, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest. 2. Deceitful ness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure. 3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead. 4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults, 5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others. 6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behaviour of honour financial obligations. 7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalising having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another. B. The individual is at least 18 years of age. C. There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.

58

HOMICIDE

D. The occurrence of antisocial behaviour is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. In their work on psychopathy, Cooke, Forth, and Hare (2012, p. 129) note that “a recent study by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (1992) found that almost half of the law enforcement officers who die in the line of duty were killed by individuals who closely matched the personality profile of the psychopath.” Even among criminal populations, the killing of police officers is usually avoided at all costs because of the collective response of law enforcement when this happens. As such, this claim may indicate the degree to which a psychopath is incapable of controlling themselves and/or appreciating the severity of the consequences of their actions. ASPD is also notoriously difficult to treat (Lowe & Widiger, 2008).

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) Borderline personality disorder dates back more than 60 years and is traced to the clinical observations of Adolph Stern who had a subgroup of patients that eluded diagnosis as either having psychoses or neuroses (Gunderson & Links, 2008). These patients were therefore deemed to occupy the diagnostic landscape between psychosis and neurosis, and thus were on the borderline of both diagnoses. BPD first entered the DSM-III (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—3rd edition) in 1980 and was adopted in 1992 by the World Health Organization in their ICD (International Classification of Diseases) (Gunderson & Links, 2008). Those with BPD may be more disposed toward violence when an overwhelming predominance of aggression interferes with sensuality, where there may also be weaknesses in ego control, a lack of anxiety tolerance, and impulse control problems (Kernberg, 2004). Borderline PD is common in forensic samples, and is the second most common disorder found in men and often the first in women (Esbec & Echeburu´a, 2010). For women, self-harm may be a greater risk and this is not only common in forensic samples, but also in clinical sample (Paris, 2005). Suicide and suicidal ideation is in fact one of the diagnostic criteria, discussed later. BPD most recently falls under the Cluster B Personality Disorders in DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) after discarding the Axis system found in DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and previous versions. The diagnostic criteria for BPD are (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 663): A pervasive pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects, and marked impulsivity, beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five or more of the following: 1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment (Note: Do not include suicidal or self mutilating behaviour covered in Criterion 5). 2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterised by alternating between extremes of idealisation and devaluation.

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

59

3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. 4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). (Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behaviour covered in Criterion 5). 5. Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour. 6. Affective instability due to marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days). 7. Chronic feelings of emptiness. 8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). 9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms. While individuals with BPD are often characterized by self-harm, they can display externalized aggression also, and on rare occasions may commit murder (Sansone & Sansone, 2012). The diagnostic criteria above would in many ways be linked to acts of aggression and crimes of violence, especially when faced with rejection or abandonment and includes at least a pattern of unstable relationships, identity disturbance, impulsivity, affective instability, inappropriate and intense anger, and paranoid ideation. BPD shares many features with posttraumatic stress disorder, which is an anxiety disorder caused by major physical or emotional trauma (Martin, 2015). The relationship between the two disorders is well established, where it has been found to be common but not ubiquitous (Zanarini et al., 1998), with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) being twice as likely to be found in borderline patients (Golier et al., 2003). It is suggested that one is an extreme version of the other, and data from the Collaborative Longitudinal Personality Disorder Study (CLIPS) shows that BPD was often comorbid with PTSD and substance abuse (which is also one of the diagnostic criteria), and suggest a shift from Axis 2 to Axis 1 under the old DSM-IV-TR classification system (New, Triebwasser, & Charney, 2008).

Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) Histrionic personality disorder is not typically associated with violence on the part of the sufferer, though this can be seen when there is a comorbid disorder, especially antisocial personality disorder (Esbec & Echeburu´a, 2010) or where the diagnosis of HPD is inaccurate. Like most things, though uncommon there are examples. One such case is documented by Stone (2007) about Susan Wright. Wright was a former go-go dancer who started a relationship with Jeffrey Wright who she married when 8 months pregnant. Jeff Wright was a well-known lothario, and upon discovery of his indiscretions Susan Wright drugged him, sliced his penis with a knife, and then stabbed him 193 times. While Wright claimed she killed her husband in self-defense, the prosecutor argued she was angry at her husband’s drug use and infidelities claiming this was “divorce by homicide” ( Jakobsson, 2010).

60

HOMICIDE

The diagnostic criteria for HPD, section 301.50 of the DSM-5, are as follows (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 657): A pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following: 1. Is uncomfortable in situations in which he or she is not the center of attention. 2. Interaction with others is often characterised by inappropriate sexually seductive or provocative behaviour. 3. Displays rapidly shifting and shallow expression of emotions. 4. Consistently uses physical appearance to draw attention to self. 5. Has a style of speech that is excessively impressionistic and lacking in detail. 6. Shows self-dramatisation, theatricality, and exaggerate expression of emotion. 7. Is suggestible (i.e., easily influenced by others or circumstances). 8. Considers relationships to be more intimate than they actually are. While the DSM in its various editions only recognizes one type of HPD, Millon et al. (2004) identify six different types based upon the specific behaviors and features of the individual. These six types are appeasing, vivacious, tempestuous, disingenuous, theatrical, and infantile (unless otherwise stated all information in the following section is taken from Millon et al.). The appeasing histrionic has histrionic, dependent, and compulsive features and they have one mission: to get you to like them and become their friend. They use flattery and praise to this end and will escalate efforts when there is indifference to their approach. When there is conflict, they will often surrender their own position to ensure acceptance. This comes at a cost however, as “beneath their friendly smiles lies the emptiness of the histrionic, the guilt of the compulsive, and the inferiority and helplessness of the dependent” (p. 299). This type become “super-pleasers,” and as such appease tormentors. This type may be less likely to be a perpetrator of homicide and may be more likely to be a victim as they are willing to put up with neglect and abuse and may even accommodate violence from another for the sake of acceptance. The vivacious histrionic is seductive with the energy of the hypomanic. This type often portrays an outward demeanor of charm and playfulness without full consideration of the consequences for doing so. They will reach out for a new relationship before an old one is over when they foresee a breakup. Their ideas are somewhat superficial but so infectious others will often get taken in by their excitement. Many vivacious histrionics also have narcissistic traits. Like their appeasing counterpart, the vivacious type is more likely to be a victim than offender. The tempestuous histrionic “combines features of the histrionic and negativistic personality” (p. 300). They are very moody and emotionally variable, which leads to significant confrontation between the histrionic and those whom they associate with. This type may present histrionic features of being superficially friendly and sociable, though

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

61

they are sensitive to criticism, cannot tolerate frustration, and are socially immature. Should there be concordant borderline features “the result is emotional overdrive” (p. 300). There is more similarity with the borderline though, and the tempestuous is more likely to display and be vulnerable to unmoderated and raw rapidly changing emotions. Perhaps more problematic, “over time, these individuals may become less and less histrionic and more and more disgruntled and critical of others, begrudging others’ good fortune” (p. 300). The disingenuous histrionic has histrionic and antisocial features. While an immediate positive impression will be made, their first interactions cause others to lower their guard, though their interactions are more manipulative, and tend to indicate a willingness to violate social norms, possibly erupting with anger and physical confrontation. As such they may be instigators of homicide or victims of precipitated homicide events. This type may enjoy conflict and be gratified and amused by it. Should they fear being viewed as weak, they may attempt to right this wrong impression by through predatory behavior. This could include anything up to and including homicide.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) Narcissitic personality disorder was named after Narcissus, a character from Greek mythology. Narcissus was a hunter from Thespiae who was renowned for his arrogance and self-absorption. As a punishment by the Gods, he was doomed to perpetually stare at his own reflection in a pool of water until he wasted away and died. NPD is characterized by grandiosity, the need for attention and admiration, a sense of entitlement, extreme emotional reactivity, especially to sleights, and fragile self-esteem (Zeigler-Hill, Myers, & Clark, 2010). The diagnostic criteria for NPD, section 301.81 of the DSM-5, are as follows (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 669): A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behaviour), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning in earthly adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following: 1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements). 2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. 3. Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions). 4. Requires excessive admiration. 5. Has as sense of entitlement (i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations).

62

HOMICIDE

6. Is interpersonally exploitative (i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends). 7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognise or identify with the feelings and needs of others. 8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her. 9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes. Narcissists may become violent when they are rejected or there is otherwise a blow to their self-esteem (Meloy, 1996) or otherwise rejection or a challenge to their perceived authority. Narcissism appears to develop in one of two main ways, and both relate to parental praise and attention. In one situation parents do not give love, affection, and praise and so the child starts to tell themselves that they are special and worthy of love, which becomes their life-narrative. The second involves parents who give excessive though undeserved praise which the child comes to believe. These may be referred to as the mask model and scar model. In the mask model the narcissist is hiding deep-seated feelings of inferiority with a superficial grandiosity, and in the scar model the narcissism is an emotional scar that develops to hide feelings of inferiority owing to abuse or neglect (Bosson et al., 2008; Orth, Robins, Meier, & Conger, 2016).

Studies on the Link Between Personality Dysfunction and Violence Many studies have shown a link between personality disorders (PDs) in general and specific personality disorders and violence. Some have examined homicide while others have taken a broader view on the connection between PDs and crime, with some comparing two or more disorders to determine where the strongest links may lie. Much of the most recent data tends to show a stronger link between certain personality disorders and violence when there is a comorbid substance abuse disorder (Fountoulakis, Leucht, & Kaprinis, 2008). Some of the studies do not disaggregate homicide from the sample of violent offenders so we are not always sure what the representation of homicide is in the overall proportion of the violent offenses studied, nor do some of the studies disaggregate types of PDs in the study population, only indicating whether a PD was present or not. In Brazil, de Barros and de Pa´dua Serafim (2008) were interested in determining the link between ASPD and BPD. The sample was comprised of 51 individuals in a personality disorders clinic, where 11 had a diagnosis of ASPD and 19 BPD, with a control group of 21 patients with an Axis 1 disorder. The ASPD group had 10 males and 1 female. All subjects had a history of violence, aggression, or other unlawful behavior with seven having crimes against property, two for aggression, one for homicide, and one for robbery with homicide. The comparison group was 19 borderline patients, 12 males with seven females. There was a history or some misdeed in 11 of the group, 1 engaged in crimes against property, 7 in aggression of homicide attempt, 3 in both, and 8 had no record of violence. The control group were 10 males and 11 females, where 4 had a history of aggression, 1 a crime against property, and 16 had no criminal history. None of the control groups were involved

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

63

in homicide. While this study found a statistically significantly higher rate of violence between the two experimental groups and the control group, they excluded homicide as it only occurred two times in one of the groups. While the BPD group were more likely to engage in violence overall, the antisocial group were more likely to commit homicidal violence. Interestingly, the difference in violence and property crime between the two groups was inverse: minus the homicides from the overall data, the antisocial group engaged in more property crimes than the borderlines, and the borderlines engaged in more crimes against property than people. The authors note that “emotionally unstable patients tend to be more impulsive and usually do not engage in premeditated misdeeds, but in explosive episodes of aggression and physical violence” (p. 21). Looking specifically at homicide defendants, Martone et al. (2013) coded psychiatric evaluation files (n ¼ 278) with matching court case files (n ¼ 208) for homicide defendants in Alleghany County between 2001 and 2005. The sample was relatively young with a median age of 22, mostly African-American (79%) and mostly male (93%). Ninety percent had at least one arrest with 16% spending time in a custodial environment, though nearly half of the sample had no prior adult convictions. The homicide occurred largely between males (73%), with a firearm used most of the time (also 73%). The most common diagnoses were from Axis 1, with a high degree of substance use. For the Axis 2 disorders, 24% (n ¼ 68) of the overall sample had a diagnosis, with 23% (n ¼ 64) having at least one Axis 2 PD, 5% (n ¼ 14) had antisocial personality disorder and 18% (n ¼ 51) were diagnosed with other personality disorder. It is not possible to know from this data what other personality disorders were present in this population. Mela, Audu, Tesfaye, and Gurmu (2013) examined the rate of personality disorders in a sample of 573 homicide offenders from Ethiopia. Data was gathered by doing face-to-face interviews within a prison environment with consenting offenders. The homicide offenders were 38.4% of the total number of offenders, and of the sample of 576, 95% consented to interview resulting in an end sample size of 546. In the second phase, only 55.1% of the offenders consented to take part in the study. As with most of the research discussed in this chapter, the sample was overwhelmingly male, at 94.3%. Most of the sample were farmers and the motives were self-defense, anger, or revenge. There is no discussion provided as to why those who engaged in self-defense were imprisoned, though it may be possible that self-defense claims were rejected by the courts. Approximately one-in-five were diagnosed with a personality disorder, specifically, Axis 2 under the DSM-IV. Passive-aggressive PD, obsessive-compulsive PD, and depressive personality types were diagnosed in two, four, and eight cases respectively. Histrionic and paranoid PD were diagnosed in six cases each, as was antisocial PD, and borderline PD was diagnosed three times as much, at 18 cases, representing 36% of the diagnoses. Also, like other research on the relationship between PDs and homicide, Mela and colleagues found that when comparing offenders with personality disorders to those without, a history of substance use was prevalent in those with a PD. There were three factors that were predictive of the development of a PD, which were psychiatric history, juvenile offenses, and history of abuse.

64

HOMICIDE

Using data on homicides from the National Confidential Inquiry (NCI) database for England and Wales, Oram, Flynn, Shaw, Appleby, and Howard (2013) yielded a sample of 1180 offenders who killed an intimate partner with another 251 being convicted of a homicide of a family member for the years 1997–2008. These were the only two types of homicide studied and as with other research, this study only identified the broad diagnosis of personality disorder without going further into the specific types of personality disorder, and therefore individual personality disorders were not mapped back to homicide type. For adult family homicides (n ¼ 251), the vast majority were again male (n ¼ 221, 88%) and also for intimate partner homicide (n ¼ 953, 81%). The adult family homicide offenders were younger on average with a mean age of 32.2 years (SD ¼ 0.4 years) than intimate partner homicide offenders who were a mean age of 39.6 years (SD ¼ 0.4 years). Victims for the offenses were mostly male for the adult family homicides (for females, n ¼ 99, 39%) while the opposite was true for intimate partner homicides with three-quarters being female (n ¼ 895, 76%). Sharp instruments were used in about half of the cases and were by far and away the most common weapon type. Firearms did not have their own category and may therefore not be a common weapon type with England and Wales having restrictive gun laws. Personality disorders were not overly common in either group, representing only 5% of adult family homicides and 7% of intimate partner homicides. Similarly, rates of a lifetime diagnosis of substance dependence were low at 9% and 10%, and neither the diagnosis of a PD or substance abuse were significantly different between homicide types. Also using data from England and Wales, Shaw et al. (2004) used homicides from 1967 to 1997, but instead focused only on stranger killings. For these years, 358 of the homicides were against strangers. Perpetrators were again mostly males (99% of the cases), with more than one victim in only eight cases (2%). Most of the killings were murders (58%) with about one-third (38%) being designated as Manslaughter Other. The lifetime primary diagnosis was 11% for a personality disorder, or 23 cases, and this was not dissimilar to the homicides where the parties were known where PDs were also present 10% of the time. Examining a sample of 508 patients in an inpatient psychiatric facility in Northern Finland, Arola et al. (2016) sought to establish the association between disorder and crime in adolescents. The offenses were categorized as no crime, nonviolent crimes, and violent crimes. Homicides were included in the latter category. Of the overall sample, 124 had committed a crime (80 men and 44 women), with 80 committing a violent crime (59 men and 21 women). After excluding those with a concurrent diagnosis of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, they were left with a sample of 24 men and 33 women. Seven of these (three men and four women) had multiple PD diagnoses, categorized according to the primary PD. Seven had diagnoses of BPD and other PD, one was schizotypal and PD not otherwise specified (NOS), one was paranoid and avoidant PD, one was diagnosed with BPD and ASPD, and one was passive-aggressive and PD NOS. A control group of 451 (184 men and 267 women) was used for comparison purposes. Results show that women with a personality disorder commit crimes at a statistically significantly higher rate than men. More violent crimes were committed by the personality disorder group than the controls,

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

65

at nearly five times the rate. Men with paranoid PD committed one violent crime, those with antisocial committed four violent crimes, those with borderline also committed four violent crimes, and the rate was two violent crimes for PD NOS. For women, one violent crime was committed by someone with antisocial, four by those with borderline, and one with a PD NOS. Overall the study showed that females with borderline PD committed more violent crimes than those with other diagnoses. Men with antisocial and borderline PD committed more violent crimes. The authors of this study suggest that their findings are in line with the findings of other studies, citing a variety of literature in support of this. We must remember that, while their findings are supported by other research, the number of offenders in each category are small and that the violent crimes included homicide, assault, and battery. This means that an actual homicide may not have been committed by any given offender, though homicide was obviously represented in the data set as it was included within the violent category.

Mental Disorder Mass murderers who capture the media’s attention appear to suffer from mental disorder (Knoll & Meloy, 2014), and violence among the mentally ill has a devastating effect on all involved (Keshavan & Shah, 2013). Researchers have found higher rates of mental disorders in those who commit homicide than the general population (Martone et al., 2013), though while true in some samples, the vast majority of incidents of violence are committed by those who are not mentally ill (Keshavan & Shah, 2013). Of all the mental disorders, schizophrenia appears to be the one most closely related to violence ( Jones, 2000). While our understanding of what mental illness involves has increased, our perception of mentally ill people as dangerous has also increased, which may be owing to media coverage of a number of high profile cases (Markowitz, 2011). There may be an inherent bias toward viewing mentally ill people as more likely to commit crime, though research found higher risk predictions for crime for the mentally ill than controls in experimental vignette-based research, though predictions were for minor crimes (Nee & Witt, 2013). Despite this view, the opposite may be more accurate. According to The Lancet, there are two clear messages from reports in England and Wales on violence and mental health. The first is that mentally unwell individuals are more likely to kill themselves than they are to kill others, and the second is that people who suffer mental illness are more likely to be victims of crime, and to suffer further adverse reactions as a result of this (The Lancet, 2013). Despite this, mental illness is found in homicide populations, and there has been a small but significant increase in in violent behavior among the mentally ill in the United States (Keshavan & Shah, 2013). Using a sample of 309 males referred to Bridgewater State Hospital between 1987 and 1995 Nestor, Kimble, Berman, and Haycock (2002) used cluster analysis to determine the degree of relationship between psychosis, psychopathy, and homicide. Potential subjects were between 17 and 80 years of age. After exclusionary criteria were applied, 26 subjects

66

HOMICIDE

remained. All subjects completed a number of psychometric tests under the supervision of a trained neuropsychologist. The cluster analysis revealed two subgroups, both with 13 people each. Cluster 1 was found to have a higher incidence of psychosis, with none of those in cluster 2 meeting the criteria for this diagnosis. The cluster 1 subjects also rated lower on the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) with a mean score of 4.23 across both factors (SD ¼ 6.09). In contrast, the subjects in cluster 2 who were rated as psychopathic scored much higher on the PCL-R with a mean of 21.29 across both factors (SD ¼ 7.23). Interestingly, even factoring in the standard deviation, those subjects did not meet the minimum score of 30 out of 40 on both factors to actually meet the diagnosis. The average number of years of education were higher for the cluster 1 subjects who were also older, though not significantly so. While interesting these results do not necessarily paint a picture of the role of psychosis and psychopathology on the commission of homicide in a purposive sample of offenders. Even the authors note that “formal diagnostic procedures for axes I, II, and III disorders would also be necessary so that comorbidity might also be addressed” (p. 139). Similarly, important would be substance use and abuse measures as it may be that these play a significant role in offending, in spite of or in light of, the presence or degree of psychopathology. In the United Kingdom, The National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness collects data on all those who have contact with mental health services (Swinson & Shaw, 2007). There were 2670 homicides in England and Wales between April 1999 and December 2003. Both offenders and victims were young males, and in stranger homicides they were less likely to have a history of mental illness. While there was a rise in the number of homicides in general as well as a rise in stranger homicides, there was not a rise in the number of crimes committed by people who are mentally ill. Those who were mentally ill represented almost exactly 10% of the overall sample (n ¼ 261), and the biggest majority had a diagnosis of schizophrenia (n ¼ 104, 40%), though affective disorders were close behind (n ¼ 97, 37%). As this study and others draw data from the same source there will undoubtedly be some double-dipping on our part on presenting this data, though it also needs to be acknowledged that these studies span different timeframes. Those with schizophrenia represented 5% of the overall sample. For this sample who had prior contact with mental health services, approximately 20% had another diagnosis, most commonly a personality disorder or substance abuse problem. Of those who had prior contact 57% had a history of violence. As discussed in the domestic homicides chapter, a positive risk assessment (that the offender presented a risk) provided a clear indicator of potential violence. Of interest in this study, 29% of the inquiry cases were seen by mental health services during the week prior to the homicide. Of the overall sample, 57% presented with mental state issues on their final contact which includes things such as an increase in hostility or increased use of drugs and alcohol. Despite this, in 88% of the cases the risk was judged “to be low or absent in 88% cases” (p. 454).

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

67

Again using the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness (Flynn, Abel, While, Mehta, & Shaw, 2011), 4572 people were convicted of homicide for the 8 year collection period with less than 10% being women (n ¼ 446). Compared to males, females were a little older (M ¼ 30 compared to M ¼ 27) and this was significantly different, and they were also more likely to be unemployed. Over half of the women in the sample were married, though it needs to be remembered that the overall sample of women was small, and 10% lived alone. Men, however, were more likely to be single and to live alone or be homeless. Men were also more likely than women to have a history of violence or drug use. Nearly one-quarter of women killed their own children, including stepchildren. More than one third of homicide offenders killed a current or former spouse, and factoring in other family members two-thirds of victims of female homicide offenders were related to the offender, while men were more likely to kill strangers (n ¼ 21 or 5% for women, and n ¼ 790, or 24% of the valid percentage of cases). Overall, the data reveal that for women 7% had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, with 6% of males and the difference was not statistically significant. A much larger sample of women (14%) had an affective disorder compared to men (5%) with 10% of women having psychotic symptoms and 12% of men. Turning to Australian data Nielssen, Malhi, and Large (2012) examined a group of homicide offenders found not guilty by reason of mental illness (NGMI). The sample for this study was drawn from Nielssen, Yee, Millard, and Large (2011), which included 138 cases of homicide and 134 cases of attempted homicide and assault resulting in serious injury. Schizophrenia was the most common diagnosis, found in most of cases (n ¼ 234, 86%), with nearly one-third having a cooccurring substance use disorder. The findings of this earlier study suggest that the first episode of psychosis is a particularly risky period for homicide or other types of serious violence. Twelve of the NGMI offenders (nearly 5%) were reported to be manic, and two were in the manic phase of bipolar, and the rest (n ¼ 10) were in the manic phase of schizo-affective disorder. Of this 12, most were males (n ¼ 10 compared to n ¼ 2). For the 138 homicides (5%) were committed during an episode of mania, and for the 134 assaults, 5 (4%) were committed during a period of mania. For these 12 cases, 2 were diagnosed with bipolar affective disorder and the remainder were schizo-affective disorder. As a main substance of abuse, five used alcohol, two used amphetamine, four used cannabis, and one used cannabis and alcohol together. Three were reported to be intoxicated at the time of the offense, with nine reporting no intoxication at the time of the offense. While the authors point out a number of limitations with their study, it should be noted that their findings are not dissimilar to other studies. It should also be noted that while one of their limitations is small sample size, there are a small number of homicides in Australia, and the NGMI proportion of these cases will be even smaller still. Oram et al. (2013) used a consecutive case series of all homicides in England and Wales between 1997 and 2008 (this study was discussed above relating to personality disorders).

68

HOMICIDE

For the adult family homicides (n ¼ 251), 71 (28%) had schizophrenia and other delusional disorders while for the intimate partner homicide group (n ¼ 1180), 68 (6%) had the same diagnosis. Alcohol dependence was relatively low across both groups (n ¼ 16, 6% and n ¼ 91, 8%) as was drug dependence (n ¼ 7, 3% and n ¼ 28, 2%). At the time of the homicide, approximately one-third (n ¼ 85, 34%) of the adult family homicide group had psychosis or depression, with about one-fifth (n ¼ 231, 20%) of the intimate partner homicide group having psychosis or depression. For psychosis only, the rate was 27% (n ¼ 67) for the adult family homicide group, and 7% (n ¼ 84) for the intimate partner homicide group. Looking at mass murders specifically, Fox, Brook, Stratton, and Hanlon (2016) groupmatched 23 mass murderers and 103 single murderers. The sample was aged 15–67. For the mass murder group, they were further broken into three subgroups: family mass murderers who murdered family members (n ¼ 6), family mass murderers who were acquainted with but not related to the family members (n ¼ 8), and classic mass murderers (n ¼ 9) (we will not delve further into the subgroup findings here). For the mass murderers, one had a history of ADHD diagnosis while 14 of the single murder group had a history of ADHD diagnosis. A small number of the mass murder group met the criteria for intellectual disability while more of the single murder group met the criteria for this (n ¼ 2 compared to n ¼ 19). While similar in percentage points, more of the single murderers had psychotic disorders than the mass murderers (n ¼ 4 compared to n ¼ 20). Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the offenders in both groups had a criminal history (n ¼ 14, 60.9% compared to n ¼ 55, 53.4%) and a history of violence (n ¼ 10, 43.5% compared to n ¼ 44, 42.7%). A history of juvenile crime was also relatively common (n ¼ 10, 43.5% compared to n ¼ 30, 29.1%) and a premeditation of crime was more common among the mass murderers than the single murderers (n ¼ 13, 56.5% compared to n ¼ 24, 23.3%).

Motivations The issue of motivations is a complex one. Not only is the development of motive poorly understood, but motive is often confused with intent, and in some instances for behavior (e.g., claiming that the motive was murder). Investigators do not routinely get training in the psychological implications of motive, though they may be able to identify a crime in which there is anger, and those with training in psychology may understand the emotional salience of motive but may not be able to identify motive in a crime scene. To obscure the matter further, it is possible to confuse the motive at a crime scene, either because of a number of ambiguous behaviors signaling many possible motives, or because the offender deliberately tries to obscure the motive through crime scene staging. Generally speaking, there are six questions that need to be answered in a crime. These are who, what, when, where, how, and why. Motive speaks directly to why, that is, why the crime occurred. Though not always established, it is an important element of the crime to know for many reasons, not the least of which is that it will often lead to the answer to

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

69

other questions. When we know why (the motive), this often leads to who (the offender) which can also establish how (specifically, how the crime was committed) should this be unknown. Motive is an inherently psychological aspect of offending as it relates largely to psychological states that drives behavior, in fact, it is perhaps the most important of the psychological aspects of homicide as they would not generally occur without it. Stated another way, no one acts without motivation. Motivation is also the capstone phase of the pathways model, presented at the start of this chapter. Emotions, self-esteem, self-schema, and personality all conspire in the formation of a motivational dynamic that drives a wide range of behaviors, from those relating to relationships, to employment, to crime, and to victimization.

The Motivational Typology A typology is a classification system where items are grouped according to similarities. These are usually derived through statistical analysis, and the result will be any number of groupings depending on the themes found in the data. Typologies can be either categorical or dimensional, though many are both. In categorical systems items are allocated to types based on whether a minimum number of criteria are met. A given type may have eight individual criteria, though to be classified as that type, any given individual may only have to have five of the eight to be allocated to that category. Dimensional systems involve the identification of key themes representing the type. There are no minimum or maximum number of criteria, classification is based on the matching of features. Commonly found in clinical constructs, these recognize that there may be important clinical differences among those who fall above or below categorical thresholds (Helzer, Kraemer, & Krueger, 2006). Where both categorical and dimensional models are used, the dimensions may dictate which of the categories are used for definitive categorical classification. Neither the categorical nor the dimensional approach is without issue, however. Over time, classification systems change and the key characteristics used will therefore be different (Williamson, Gleaves, & Stewart, 2005). There may also be problems when two different conditions share the same features, which leads to both being diagnosable and results in high rates of comorbidity. Good examples of where this happens are the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). Dimensional systems also suffer problems, such as how many dimensions are required for accurate allocation (Williamson et al., 2005). For both approaches, using the wrong one can impair clinical understanding and therefore decision making (Helzer et al., 2006). An example of a dimensional typology is that developed by Nicholas Groth which was based on the observation of more than 500 offenders over more than a decade (Groth, 1979). While this typology was originally developed on rapists, it was later modified and adapted as a general motivational typology (Turvey, 2012) and then as a typology that also describes victim behaviors (Brotto, Sinnamon, & Petherick, 2017;

70

HOMICIDE

Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014). According to Groth, all rapes have three dimensions, though classification of the case is based upon the main domain or dimension (Groth, 1979, p. 13): Rape is complex and multidetermined. It serves a number of psychological aims and purposes. Whatever other needs and factors operate in the commission of such an offence, however, we have found the components of anger, power, and sexuality always present and prominent. Moreover, in our experience, we find that either anger or power is the dominant component and that rape, rather than being primarily an expression of sexual desire, is, in fact, the use of sexuality to express these issues of power and anger. Rape, then, is a pseudosexual act, a pattern of sexual behavior that is concerned much more with status, hostility, control, and dominance than with sensual, pleasure or sexual satisfaction. It is sexual behavior in the primary service of non-sexual needs. For anger rape, the rape experience is one of conscious anger and rage. According to Groth (1979, p. 13): In some cases of sexual assault, it is very apparent that sexuality becomes a means of expressing, and discharging feelings of pent-up anger and rage. The assault is characterized by physical brutality. Far more actual force is used in the commission of the offence than would be necessary if the intent were simply to overpower the victim and achieve sexual penetration. Power rape leads the offender to engage in fantasies of conquest and sexual prowess. Power over another is the main goal, and provides a sense of reassurance, which was to later become another name for this motivational type. Moreover, it is stated that (Groth, 1979, p, 25): In these assaults, it is not the offender’s desire to harm his victim but to possess her sexually. Sexuality becomes a means of compensating for underlying feelings of inadequacy and serves to express issues of mastery, strength, control, authority, identity, and capability. The last of the elements in Groth’s original typology is sadistic rape. These involve rapes where sexuality and anger become entwined, such that the expression of anger is almost required for the sexuality to manifest. According to Groth (1979, p. 44): There is a sexual transformation of anger and power so that aggression itself becomes eroticized. This offender finds the intentional maltreatment of his victim intensely gratifying and takes pleasure in her torment, anguish, distress, helplessness, and suffering. The assault usually involves bondage and torture and frequently has a bizarre or ritualistic quality to it.

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

71

As stated the various motives are all in play at the same time, though to varying degrees, and it is the degree to which each is involved that dictates the motivational theme or dimension. Some cases will be predominantly power oriented with anger and sadistic overtones, while others will be primarily anger oriented, with elements of power and sadism. The dimensional nature of the typology is further stated by Groth (1979, p. 60): Regardless of the pattern of the assault, rape is a complex act that serves a number of retaliatory and compensatory aims in the psychological functioning of the offender. It is an effort to discharge his anger, contempt, and hostility toward women – to hurt, degrade, and humiliate. It is an effort to counteract feelings of vulnerability and inadequacy in himself and to assert his strength and power – to control and exploit. It is an effort to deny sexual anxieties and doubts and reaffirms his identity, competency and manhood. It is an effort to retain status (in gang rape) among male peers, and it is an effort to achieve sexual gratification. Rape is equivalent to symptoms formation in that it serves to defend against anxiety, to express a conflict, and to gratify an impulse. It is symptomatic of personality dysfunction, associated more with conflict and stress than with pleasure and satisfaction. Sexuality is not the only – nor the primary – motive underlying rape. It is, however, the means through which conflicts surrounding issues of anger and power become discharged. Rape is always a combination of anger, power, and sexuality, and each of these components must be examined in evaluating the offender and assessing the impact of the assault on the victim and the nature of her trauma. The typology was empirically derived using the best science and statistics of the time, and Groth likely hit upon some of the main themes of offending in rape. What he likely could not have known at the time was that his typology would serve as the basis for many other typologies, be revised, and expanded upon, and eventually be adapted for use as a general motivational typology for offending and for victim behavior—a use neither intended nor likely envisaged. Published earlier and somewhat confusingly, Groth, Burgess, and Holmstrom (1977) refined the original three dimensions of Groth (1979). This development saw the typology as having two main themes—power and anger, each with two subtypes. For power, there was power reassurance and power assertive. For anger, there was anger retaliatory and anger excitation. Reassurance oriented offenders want the victim to like them, will be self-deprecating, and engage in foreplay behaviors. Assertively oriented offenders do not want the victim to like them, act macho, and degrade the victim. They effectively want another to feel worse, which enhances their feelings of superiority. Anger retaliatory offenders are trying to right a real or perceived wrong by getting back at the victim. These offenses are best known by their other moniker—revenge. Excitation offenses are sadistic, where the offender gets sexual gratification from victim pain and suffering. This could be physical pain, or simply humiliation and degradation.

72

HOMICIDE

Groth credits Ann Burgess as a mentor, and in fact dedicates Men Who Rape to her. In 1994, Ann Burgess teamed up with Robert Hazelwood of the FBI and wrote Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation: A Multisdisciplinary Approach. This work is now in its fourth edition. In this, Hazelwood (2009) wrote a chapter titled Analyzing the Rape and Profiling the Offender, and in this is a modified version of what is generally called the Groth typology. Like Groth, Hazelwood (2009, p. 103) acknowledges the dimensional nature of the typology: A word of caution is necessary at this point. Seldom does a rapist commit a crime in a manner consistent in every detail set forth. It is more common to find that the offender exhibits some behaviors that are consistent with two or even three types of rapist – in other words, a mixture or blending of behaviors. It is at this point that experience and common sense play a dominant role in the analysis. Hazelwood also includes the power reassurance, power assertive, anger retaliatory, and anger excitation types. They also add the opportunistic type and the gang type. Of the opportunistic type it is noted that “he simply had not anticipated committing a sexual assault because he was originally at the assault location to commit a robbery or burglary” (Hazelwood, 2009, p. 108). Gang involves an attack by three or more males who operate with a pack mentality. While Hazelwood notes that gang is a separate type, he also adds that gang members should be interviewed separately as each will have their own motive. This leads to logical questions about whether gang is a motive or a context. Opportunistic is most certainly a context and not a motive in its own right. The first adaptation of this typology outside of rape was by Turvey in the first edition of Behavioral Evidence Analysis: An Introduction to Criminal Profiling. This text is now in its fourth edition (Turvey, 2012). Turvey excluded opportunity and gang as motivational types but includes administrative behavior in the fourth edition. This is behavior intended to “service financial, material, or personal gain” (p. 324). This type includes not only those crimes motivated by profit and personal gain, but also those offenses geared toward goal-directed behavior, “such as eliminating a living witness or eliminating a threat” (p. 325). This also includes cases in which the offender feels that they need to eliminate a person simply because they are in the way, such as killing a partner to move onto a new relationship. To recap the history of this typology, it was presented by Groth in Men Who Rape in 1979, though it was published in an adapted form in 1977. The authors can only rationalize this as the former was a book and the latter a somewhat brief journal article, and that it takes longer to write a book than a journal article. Hence, the book, with a more basic form of the typology was published second. In the first edition of Practical Aspects of Rape Investigation Hazelwood published an adapted typology, though still focusing on rape. In 1999, Turvey further modified the typology, expanding its use out to crime in general which would obviously include homicides. This was called the “behaviour-motivation typology.” Petherick (2015) and Petherick and Sinnamon (2014) again made some small changes with

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

73

one addition from a different typology known as the Massachusetts Treatment Center Revision 3 (MTC-R3). We also applied this typology to victim motivational behavior, though further discussion of this is outside the scope of this work. While originally developed as a rapist typology from a clinical sample of rapists, we would agree with Turvey that this is a general motivational typology useful for classifying the motive in a wide range of offenses including homicide. Not only is there good anecdotal support for it, there is also by-poxy support in other typologies in which there is considerable overlap, meaning that the general themes are valid. One example of this is the , and Purcell (2008). This was developed typology of stalkers developed by Mullen, Pathe independently of the Groth typology, though there are numerous parallels. We will now take a closer look at the modified Groth typology suggested for analyzing the motive in homicide. Unless otherwise stated, all of the following information is drawn from two sources (Petherick, 2015; Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014). Power reassurance offenders are driven by low self-esteem, and the offenses are typically characterized by low levels of aggression and violence. This type is also known as compensatory as they are compensating for feelings of inadequacy. The offender has a relational fantasy in which intrusive behavior such as stalking and sexual assault are seen to be a way establish a relationship, specifically, if the victim just got to know them they would come to like them, and the attraction would become mutual. The attack is intended to restore their self-esteem, and they are more likely to target vulnerable victims to increase the chance of success of an attack. Along this line, they may also target a number of victims in advance in case the first one is unsuccessful. It would seem contradictory to suggest that an offense typically characterized by low levels of aggression would end in homicide. While the initial offense is driven by the desire to establish a relationship with someone, if this approach fails (and it usually does) or if the victim presents a further direct threat to their self-esteem, then aggression and violence may ensue. There is good research support for this with links between low self-esteem, aggression, and antisocial behavior (Donnellan, Trzesniewski, Robins, Moffitt, & Caspi, 2005; Trzesniewski et al., 2006) including links with self-esteem and psychopathology (Zeigler-hill, 2011; Zeigler-Hill et al., 2010). The case of Ryan and Leah discussed in the chapter on Domestic Homicides is considered an example of this. Power assertive offenders also have a low self-esteem, but in this case that is directed outward in a display of machismo, superiority, and deprecation toward the victim. This type is also known as entitlement, as they believe in their superiority over others and are thus entitled to do what they want. Whereas the reassurance oriented offender wants the victim to like them in the hopes of reciprocity, the assertive offender has no such desire. They do not aim for or wish for a relationship with the victim who is simply a vehicle through which they enhance their feeling of self-worth. Put another way, they make themselves feel better by making someone else feel worse. The assertive offender uses moderate amounts of force and so the chance of even an accidental death is present, however, like their reassurance counterpart the greatest threat for extreme violence and homicide comes when the self-esteem is challenged or confronted, and the offender reacts

74

HOMICIDE

explosively. For both of the power types there is a possibility of a personality disorder and drug and alcohol use, so this too can contribute to homicide risk. They may also kill as a general expression of their dominance, put another way, simply because they want to. In the other typologies, there were two anger-based types, though we added a third (albeit from a different existing typology). The first type is known as anger retaliatory, though is better known by its alternate title, revenge. In retaliatory homicides the offender is getting even for real or imagined wrongs against them. This revenge may be extracted against individuals, groups, or organizations. These attacks can be cathartic and thus last a brief amount of time, though the offender may continue the attack until such a time as the pent-up anger subsides. A revenge offense can be committed against you either because of something you have done as a person or because you work for an agency or organization the offender has issues with. Revenge has a strong neurological component and is satisfied by feelings of reward, specifically activated in the nucleus accumbens (Chester & DeWall, 2016). The second type is known as anger excitation, and will also be better known by its other name, sadism. Excitation offenses are those in which the offender gets sexual gratification from the pain, suffering, and humiliation of the victim. Of all the DSM disorders, it has one of the lowest diagnostic thresholds though it requires the most extreme offender behaviors (a good overall summary of sadism, including critiques of the diagnosis can be found in Krueger, 2010). The third type of anger-based offense is known as pervasively angry. The inclusion of this type was predicated on discussions regarding the absence of a type arising from general rather than targeted anger. With the retaliatory offender the anger may be focused: the offender is not happy with their boss or their partner or their finances. In a pervasive offender, they are not happy with their boss and their partner and their finances. That is, the anger runs throughout many aspects of their life (ergo, is pervasive). Victims of pervasively angry crimes are more likely to be opportunistic rather than targeted, crossing the offender’s path when their anger is at a peak and exceeds the individual’s ability to control their behavior. This is usually referred to as a window of tolerance (Corrigan, Fisher, & Nutt, 2011). The pervasively angry type was adopted from the MTC:R3 typology (see Knight, 1999; Knight, Warren, Reboussin, & Soley, 1998; Reid, Wilson, & Boer, 2010). While we have previously used the category of profit oriented (Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014) the preference would be to label this type materially oriented (Petherick, 2015). This is because some offenders may only indirectly profit from their crimes (such as someone who kills their partner, so they do not have to give a portion of the house sale to their ex) or they may profit directly but this may amount to much money, or may only be enough for a subsistence living. It may also be that the offender is not receiving money for their offense but rather receives goods or other objects without monetary value. The final type is based on self-defense as a motivator. We call this type self-preservation or preservation oriented. Here the person who commits the homicide is responding to a threat and trying to preserve or protect their safety or life, or the safety or life of another such as a child in their care. This is a physical survival-based motive. The threat may be

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

75

omnipresent and the homicide a preemptive strike, such as when a long-term victim of domestic violence kills their abusive partner while they sleep. All of the above are considered primary motives. That is, they are the primary agent of behavioral initiation or change. A secondary motive is that physical or psychological need to come into play after an initial motive has generated an outcome. The most obvious secondary motivation is crime concealment. Rather than being a discrete type, it is a variant of self-preservation though we distinguish between the two as self-preservation can operate independently as a motive while crime concealment must always follow after the primary motivation.

Conclusion Psychological aspects of homicide are as diverse as the biological aspects that underpin them. We examined the role of various psychopathologies and mental disorders. Those that are implicated across a range of studies are antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Though our view of these may be distorted somewhat by diagnostic overlap and diagnostic confusion. This chapter has also discussed the pathways model which explains how we grow and develop and the emotion and emotionally based contributions to this, such as self-esteem and self-schemas. Our personality develops in response to these factors and all form the basis for our motivations: those physical and psychological needs that drive and initiate behavior.

References American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (IV-TR). Arlington: American Psychiatric Association. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (V). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. €rvi, L. (2016). Borderline personality disArola, R., Antila, H., Riipinen, P., Hakko, H., Riala, K., & Kantoja order associates with violent criminality in women: a population based follow-up study of adolescent psychiatric inpatients in northern Finland. Forensic Science International, 266, 389–395. doi:10.1016/ j.forsciint.2016.06.028. Augstein, H. F. (1996). J C Prichard’s concept of moral insanity–a medical theory of the corruption of human nature. Medical History, 40(3), 311–343. Bosson, J. K., Lakey, E., Campbell, W. K., Zeigler-Hill, V., Jordan, C. H., & Kernis, M. H. (2008). Untangling the links between narcissism and self-esteem: a theoretical and empirical review. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2(3), 1415–1439. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00089.x. Brotto, G., Sinnamon, G. C. B., & Petherick, W. A. (2017). Victimology and predicting victims of personal violence. In W. A. Petherick, & G. C. B. Sinnamon (Eds.), The psychology of criminal and antisocial behavior (1st ed., pp. 79–135). San Diego: Academic Press. Chester, D. S., & DeWall, C. N. (2016). The pleasure of revenge: retaliatory aggression arises from a neural imbalance toward reward. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(7), 1173–1182. doi:10.1093/ scan/nsv082. Chow, T. W. (2000). Personality in the frontal lobes. Current Psychiatry Reports, 2(5), 446–451.

76

HOMICIDE

Cohen, P. (2008). Child development and personality disorders. Psychiatric Clinics of North America, 31, 477–493. Cooke, D. J., Forth, A. E., & Hare, R. D. (2012). Psychopathy: Theory, research and implications. Boston: Springer Science and Business Media. Cooke, D. J., & Michie, C. (1999). Psychopathy across cultures: North America and Scotland compared. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108, 58–68. Corrigan, F. M., Fisher, F. J., & Nutt, D. J. (2011). Autonomic dysregulation and the window of tolerance model of the effects of complex emotional trauma. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 25(1), 17–25. doi:10.1177/0269881109354930. Davis, E. P., & Sandman, C. A. (2010). The timing of prenatal exposure to maternal cortisol and psychosocial stress is associated with human infant cognitive development. Child Development, 81(1), 131–148. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01385.x. de Barros, D. M., & de Pa´dua Serafim, A. (2008). Association between personality disorder and violent behavior pattern. Forensic Science International, 179(1), 19–22. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2008.04.013. Donnellan, M. B., Trzesniewski, K. H., Robins, R. W., Moffitt, T. E., & Caspi, A. (2005). Low self-esteem is related to aggression, antisocial behavior, and delinquency. Psychological Science, 16(4), 328–335. doi:10.1111/j.0956-7976.2005.01535.x. Esbec, E., & Echeburu´a, E. (2010). Violence and personality disorders: clinical and forensic implications. Actas Espan˜olas de Psiquiatrı´a, 38(5), 249–261. Flynn, S., Abel, K. M., While, D., Mehta, H., & Shaw, J. (2011). Mental illness, gender, and homicide: a population-based descriptive study. Psychiatry Research, 185, 368–375. Ford, M. R., & Widiger, T. A. (1989). Sex bias in the diagnosis of histrionic and antisocial personality disorders. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 57(2), 301–305. Fountoulakis, K., Leucht, S., & Kaprinis, G. (2008). Personality disorders and violence. Annals of General Psychiatry, 7(1), S322. doi:10.1186/1744-859X-7-S1-S322. Fox, J. M., Brook, M., Stratton, J., & Hanlon, R. E. (2016). Neuropsychological profiles and descriptive classifications of mass murderers. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 30, 94–104. doi:10.1016/j.avb. 2016.06.014. Freestone, M., Howard, R., Coid, J. W., & Ullrich, S. (2013). Adult antisocial syndrome co-morbid with borderline personality disorder is associated with severe conduct disorder, substance dependence and violent antisociality. Personality and Mental Health, 7(1), 11–21. doi:10.1002/pmh.1203. Gist, M. E., & Mitchell, T. R. (1992). Self-efficacy: a theoretical analysis of its determinants and malleability. The Academy of Management Review, 17(2), 183–211. doi:10.2307/258770. Goleman, D. (2000). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Golier, J. A., Yehuda, R., Bierer, L. M., Mitropoulou, V., New, A. S., Schmeidler, J., et al. (2003). The relationship of borderline personality disorder to posttraumatic stress disorder and traumatic events. The American Journal of Psychiatry. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.160.11.2018. Groth, A. N. (1979). Men who rape: The psychology of the offender. New York: Plenum Press. Groth, A. N., Burgess, A. W., & Holmstrom, L. L. (1977). Rape: power, anger, and sexuality. American Journal of Psychiatry, 134(11), 1239–1243. Gunderson, J. G., & Links, P. S. (2008). Borderline personality disorder: A clinical guide. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing. Hare, R. D. (1996, February 1). Psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder: a case of diagnostic confusion. Psychiatric Times, 13(2). Retrieved from: (1996, February 1). http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/ antisocial-personality-disorder/psychopathy-and-antisocial-personality-disorder-case-diagnosticconfusion.

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

77

Hazelwood, R. R. (2009). Analyzing the rape and profiling the offender. In Practical aspects of rape investigation: A multisdisciplinary approach (4th ed., pp. 97–122). Boca Raton: CRC Press. Helzer, J. E., Kraemer, H. C., & Krueger, R. F. (2006). The feasibility and need for dimensional psychiatric diagnoses. Psychological Medicine, 36(12), 1671. doi:10.1017/S003329170600821X. Hildebrand, M., & de Ruiter, C. (2004). PCL-R psychopathy and its relation to DSM-IV Axis I and II disorders in a sample of male forensic psychiatric patients in the Netherlands. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 27(3), 233–248. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2004.03.005. Howard, R. (2015). Personality disorders and violence: what is the link? Borderline Personality Disorder and Emotion Dysregulation. 2, doi:10.1186/s40479-015-0033-x. Hung, L. W., Neuner, S., Polepalli, J. S., Beier, K. T., Wright, M., Walsh, J. J., et al. (2017). Gating of social reward by oxytocin in the ventral tegmental area. Science, 357(6358), 1406–1411. doi:10.1126/science. aan4994. Jakobsson, L. (2010, November 4). “Blue-eyed butcher” sentenced to 20 years. CNN. Retrieved from: (2010, November 4). http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/03/texas.susan.wright.sentence/index.html. Jones, S. (2000). Understanding violent crime (1st ed.). Buckingham: Open University Press. Jones, D. N., & Curtis, S. R. (2017). Emophilia, sociosexuality, and anxious attachment: approach and inhibition differences. Personality and Individual Differences, 106, 325–328. doi:10.1016/j.paid. 2016.10.032. Kaplan, M. (1983). A woman’s view of DSM-III. American Psychologist, 7. Kernberg, O. F. (2004). Borderline personality disorder and the borderline organization: psychopathology and psychotherapy. In J. J. Magnavita (Ed.), Handbook of personality disorders theory and practice (pp. 92–119). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Keshavan, M. S., & Shah, J. L. (2013). Violence and mental illness. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 6(1), 1–2. doi:10.1016/j.ajp.2013.01.001. Kiehl, K. A., & Hoffman, M. B. (2011). The criminal psychopath: history, neuroscience, treatment, and economics. Jurimetrics, 51, 355–397. Knight, R. A. (1999). Validation of a typology of rapists. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14(3), 303–330. Knight, R. A., Warren, J. I., Reboussin, R., & Soley, B. J. (1998). Predicting rapist type from crime-scene variables. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 25(1), 46–80. doi:10.1177/0093854898025001004. Knoll, J. L., & Meloy, J. R. (2014). Mass murder and the violent paranoid spectrum. Psychiatric Annals, 44(5), 236–243. doi:10.3928/00485713-20140502-07. Krueger, R. B. (2010). The DSM diagnostic criteria for sexual sadism. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(2), 325–345. doi:10.1007/s10508-009-9586-3. LeDoux, J. (2012). Rethinking the emotional brain. Neuron, 73, 653–676. Lowe, J. R., & Widiger, T. A. (2008). Personality disorders. In J. E. Maddux, & B. A. Winstead (Eds.), Psychopathology: Foundations for a contemporary understanding (2nd ed., pp. 223–249). New York: Routledge. Lykken, D. T. (2006). Psychopathic personality: the scope of the problem. In C. J. Patrick (Ed.), Handbook of psychopathy (pp. 3–13). New York: Guilford Press. Markowitz, F. E. (2011). Mental illness, crime, and violence: risk, context, and social control. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16, 36–44. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2010.10.003. Martin, E. (2015). Post-traumatic stress disorder. In Concise medical dictionary. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from: (2015). http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199687817.001.0001/ acref-9780199687817-e-8102. Martone, C. A., Mulvey, E. P., Yang, S., Nemoianu, A., Shugarman, R., & Soliman, L. (2013). Psychiatric characteristics of homicide defendants. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 170(9), 994–1002.

78

HOMICIDE

Mela, M., Audu, M., Tesfaye, M., & Gurmu, S. (2013). A developing world perspective on homicide and personality disorder. Medicine, Science and the Law, 54(3), 132–138. doi:10.1177/0025802413499911. Meloy, J. R. (1996). Stalking (obsessional following): a review of some preliminary studies. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 1(2), 147–162. Mikulincer, M., & Orbach, I. (1995). Attachment styles and repressive defensiveness: the accessibility and architecture of affective memories. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68(5), 917–925. Millon, T., Grossman, S., Millon, C., Meagher, S., & Ramnath, R. (2004). Personality disorders in modern life (2nd ed.). New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Mullen, P. E., Path e, M., & Purcell, R. (2008). Stalkers and their victims (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nee, C., & Witt, C. (2013). Public perceptions of risk in criminality: the effects of mental illness and social disadvantage. Psychiatry Research, 209(3), 675–683. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2013.02.013. Nestor, P. G., Kimble, M., Berman, I., & Haycock, J. (2002). Psychosis, psychopathy, and homicide: a preliminary inquiry. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 159(1), 138–140. New, A. S., Triebwasser, J., & Charney, D. S. (2008). The case for shifting borderline personality disorder to Axis I. Biological Psychiatry, 64(8), 653–659. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2008.04.020. Nielssen, O. B., Malhi, G. S., & Large, M. M. (2012). Mania, homicide and severe violence. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 46(4), 357–363. doi:10.1177/0004867411433217. Nielssen, O. B., Yee, N. L., Millard, M. M., & Large, M. M. (2011). Comparison of first-episode and previously treated persons with psychosis found NGMI for a violent offense. Psychiatric Services (Washington, DC), 62(7), 759–764. doi:10.1176/ps.62.7.pss6207_0759. Oram, S., Flynn, S. M., Shaw, J., Appleby, L., & Howard, L. M. (2013). Mental illness and domestic homicide: a population-based descriptive study. Psychiatric Services, 64(10), 1006–1011. Orth, U., Robins, R. W., Meier, L. L., & Conger, R. D. (2016). Refining the vulnerability model of low selfesteem and depression: disentangling the effects of genuine self-esteem and narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 110, 133–149. Pardini, D. A., Raine, A., Erickson, K., & Loeber, R. (2014). Lower amygdala volume in men is associated with childhood aggression, early psychopathic traits and future violence. Biological Psychiatry, 75 (1), 1–18. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.04.003. Paris, J. (2005). Borderline personality disorder. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 172(12), 1579–1583. doi:10.1503/cmaj.045281. Petherick, W. A. (2015). Motivations. In W. A. Petherick (Ed.), Applied crime analysis: A social science approach to understanding crime, criminals, and victims (1st ed., pp. 148–171). Waltham: Academic Press. Petherick, W. A., & Sinnamon, G. C. B. (2014). Motivations: offender and victim perspectives. In W. A. Petherick (Ed.), Profiling and serial crime: Theoretical and practical issues (3rd ed., pp. 393–427). Oxford: Anderson. Reid, S. L., Wilson, N. J., & Boer, D. P. (2010). Application of the Massachusetts treatment Centre revised rapist typology to New Zealand high-risk rapists: a pilot study. Sexual Abuse in Australia and New Zealand, 2(2), 77–84. Rockelein, J. E. (2006). Elsevier’s dictionary of psychological theories (1st ed.). San Diego: Elsevier Science. Sansone, R. A., & Sansone, L. A. (2012). Borderline personality and externalized aggression. Innovations in Clinical Neuroscience, 9(3), 23–26. Shaw, J., Amos, T., Hunt, I. M., Flynn, S., Turnbull, P., Kapur, N., et al. (2004). Mental illness in people who kill strangers: longitudinal study and national clinical survey. British Medical Journal, 328, 734–737.

Chapter 3 • Psychological Influences on Homicide

79

Simpson, J. A. (1990). Influence of attachment styles on romantic relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(5), 971–980. Skodol, A. E., & Bender, D. S. (2003). Why are women diagnosed borderline more than men? Psychiatric Quarterly, 74(4), 349–360. doi:10.1023/A:1026087410516. Stone, M. H. (2007). Violent crimes and their relationship to personality disorders. Personality and Mental Health, 1, 138–153. doi:10.1002/pmh.18. Swinson, N., & Shaw, J. (2007). Homicides and mental disorders: the National Confidential Inquiry. Psychiatry, 6(11), 452–454. € m, A., Grann, M., La˚ngstro € m, N., & Kullgren, G. (2000). Psychopathy (PCL-R) as a predictor of vioTengstro lent recidivism among criminal offenders with schizophrenia. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 45–58. The Lancet (2013). Truth versus myth on mental illness, suicide, and crime. The Lancet, 382(9901), 1309. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62125-X. Trzesniewski, K. H., Donnellan, M. B., Moffitt, T. E., Robins, R. W., Poulton, R., & Caspi, A. (2006). Low selfesteem during adolescence predicts poor health, criminal behavior, and limited economic prospects during adulthood. Developmental Psychology, 42(2), 381–390. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.42.2.381. Turvey, B. E. (2012). Behavioral evidence analysis: An introduction to criminal profiling (4th ed.). San Diego: Elsevier Science. Williamson, D. A., Gleaves, D. H., & Stewart, T. M. (2005). Categorical versus dimensional models of eating disorders: an examination of the evidence. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 37(1), 1–10. doi:10.1002/eat.20074. Wulach, J. S. (1988). The criminal personality as a DSM-III-R antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, and histrionic personality disorder. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 32(3), 185–199. doi:10.1177/0306624X8803200303. Zanarini, M. C., Frankenburg, F. R., Dubo, E. D., Sickel, A. E., Trikha, A., Levin, A., et al. (1998). Axis I comorbidity of borderline personality disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 155, 1733–1739. Zeigler-hill, V. (2011). The connections between self-esteem and psychopathology. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 41(3), 157–164. doi:10.1007/s10879-010-9167-8. Zeigler-Hill, V., Myers, E. M., & Clark, C. B. (2010). Narcissism and self-esteem reactivity: the role of negative achievement events. Journal of Research in Personality, 44(2), 285–292. doi:10.1016/j.jrp. 2010.02.005.

4 Social Influences on Homicide CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 81 Victim Precipitation ........................................................................................................................ 81 Strain Theory .................................................................................................................................. 87 Differential Association ................................................................................................................. 88 Social Control Theory .................................................................................................................... 91 Fame and Attention Seeking ......................................................................................................... 92 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 95 References ...................................................................................................................................... 95

Introduction Thus far we have looked toward the biological influences on homicide including genetic influences, the role of various brain regions, numerous chemicals that exert an influence on behavior, and on some less mainstream explanations for homicide such as the influence of the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii and the phases of the lunar cycle. The following chapter discussed the role of different psychological factors such as the pathways model, psychopathology, and mental illness. This chapter now looks toward some of the social and sociological factors for homicide. This includes victim precipitation, differential association theory, strain theory, social control theory, and fame and attention seeking. As with other ideas about the contributions such factors have on criminal behavior, these do not operate in isolation but instead work in conjunction with biological and psychological factors. Cultural factors relating to crime and disorder are especially difficult to discern because they operate in a less direct way than something like parental influence (Stone, 2001). This may also be owing to biological and psychological factors serving as the background to social influence. Any given individual may be more impacted by their peers if they have a psychological or emotional need for belonging and acceptance.

Victim Precipitation Not wanting to put too fine a point on it, this text has sought to cover some novel topics that are not included in a substantive way in other volumes like it. In keeping with this we are going to include an old topic (and a very controversial one) in a new way. For the most part, we concede that precipitation is about a particular type of criminal exchange that we Homicide. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812529-8.00004-5 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

81

82

HOMICIDE

call a problem interaction. That is, we include victim precipitation as a social factor in the commission of homicide, though we acknowledge the role of biological and psychological influences. From a historical viewpoint, precipitation was first examined by Marvin Wolfgang as it applied to homicide. According to Wolfgang (1957, p. 48): The term victim precipitated is applied to those criminal homicides in which the victim is a direct, positive precipitator in the crime. The role of the victim is characterized by his having been the first in the homicide drama to use physical force directed against his subsequent slayer. The victim-precipitated cases are those in which the victim was the first to use a deadly weapon, to strike a blow in an altercation – in short, the first to commence the interplay or resort to physical violence. Criticisms of victim precipitation are many and varied, and some are not criticisms of the theory itself, but are instead directed at the difficulty of its study. For example Polk (1997) suggests that in any given data set there are missing values, and this makes the study of samples involving precipitation difficult. We must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater however. Other criticisms are predicated on the assumption that establishing victim precipitated elements is nothing more than victim blaming. It seems that few topics within criminology raise as much suspicion, derision, and ire as victim precipitation. This could be owing to the historical characterization of precipitation in the literature and the early typologies as blaming the victim for whatever befell them which has done little to elevate the theory as a valid construct. Instead it has been relegated to the status of excusing the offender for their actions. Numerous examples of this can be identified but two particularly notable instances of this can be found in the historical and contemporary literature. The first in from Menachim Amir in 1967, and the second from Controversies in Modern Victimology by Laura Moriarty, with the chapter written by Helen Eigenberg and Tammy Garland. In 1967 Amir published Victim Precipitated Forcible Rape. Amir (1967, p. 493) notes that: Once the victim and the offender are drawn together, a process is set in motion whereby victim behaviour and the situation which surrounds the encounter will determine the course of events leading to the crime. If the victim is not solely responsible for what becomes the unfortunate event, at least she is often a complementary partner. While some of Amir’s discussion could be viewed as provocative, if the reader can get past claims that Amir is blaming the victim, this paper presents some very important and noteworthy aspects of victim precipitation that are not provided elsewhere in the literature.

Chapter 4 • Social Influences on Homicide

83

Specifically, Amir discusses the issue of context and perspective and this issue comes up a number of times, for example (p. 493): Theoretically, victim precipitation of forcible rape means that in a particular situation the behaviour of the victim is interpreted by the offender either as direct invitation for sexual relations or as a sign that she will be available for sexual contact if he will persist in demanding it. In furthering the discussion of context and interpretation in precipitation, Amir states that (p. 493): Victim behaviour may consist of an act of commission (e.g., she agreed to drink or ride with a stranger), or omission (e.g., she failed to react strongly enough to sexual suggestions and overtures). This distinction is made in addition to the variety of interpersonal relationships which may exist between them. Victim behaviour can be outright and overt seduction, but whether it is really so is not very important. What is important is the offender’s interpretation of her actions within the current situation. This importance exists because what can be interpreted by others as non-seductive behaviour, leading to a certain act, may have the same result as in a case when seduction was not completely apparent. Despite these caveats, Amir goes on to suggest that (p. 494): Again, logic and truth about the would-be victim’s behaviour are unimportant here. It is highly probable that often the would-be offender will misinterpret the behaviour and the situation, and draw wrong conclusions about the character of the victim and about the ripeness of the situation for sexual exploits. So once again the focus is on the offender’s interpretation of the situation, and the potential victim’s exploits and their subsequent meaning. To reiterate for clarity, the emphasis here is placed upon the offender’s interpretation of events and not on the outcome being the victim’s fault. The validity of the offender’s interpretations regarding the actions that might follow is then discussed (p. 404): Theoretically, there is no problem of validation or of evaluating the truth of the offender’s interpretation. Even if wrong, it leads to action. Therefore, whatever is the case, the behaviour and its (mis)interpretation made the female enter either symbolically, or actually, a situation in which her behaviour and the situation are

84

HOMICIDE

“suggestive” and from which one can infer sexual accessibility. Thus, her resistance, if made, is not taken seriously, and the situation and the offender “motive” becomes such that her presentations are overridden. Despite contextual and situational representations of precipitation as based largely upon offender interpretation, Amir goes on to give a definition of precipitation that may represent the sum total of dissent against his stance (p. 495): The term “victim precipitation” describes those rape situations in which the victim actually, or so it was deemed, agreed to sexual relations but retracted before the actual act or did not react strongly enough when the suggestion was made by the offender(s). The term applies also to cases in risky or vulnerable situations, marred with sexuality, especially when the victim uses what could be interpreted as indecency in language and gestures, or constitute what could be taken as an invitation to sexual relations. Victim precipitation describes criminal events where the person who becomes the victim instigated or played a significant role in the subsequent harm or loss. Precipitation can be either passive or active. Passive precipitation is where the victim possesses features or dispositions that aggravate or entice an offender (Siegel, 2010). This could be passivity, a failure to bond or associate on an emotional level with another, or by being aggressive without escalating to actual physical behavior. Active precipitation, on the other hand, is when the victim engages in overt actions and behaviors that bring about a reaction from the offender (Siegel, 2010). A situation where one individual pushes another and then gets punched, falling to the ground and hitting their head causing death (a so-called one punch or coward punch attack), would be an example of active precipitation. Objections to precipitation could be reduced to the belief that there is a dichotomous view between victims and offenders, with victims perceived as always good and offenders perceived as always bad. This may be reinforced by criminals being described as having villainous traits such as being aggressive and brutal, while victims are described as being weak and passive. This is a somewhat simplistic view of the relationship and dynamics between victim and offender and ignores the complex interaction of person (offender)
person (victim)
situation (context and environment). von Hentig (1940), one of the many fathers of modern victimology, acknowledged the reciprocity between the victim and offender, going so far as to suggest that the victim plays a role in the offense. To understand the various roles played within a criminal event, von Hentig, Mendelsohn, and Schafer developed typologies to aid in this endeavor. Schafer (1977) was a lawyer who started by reading his father’s legal texts which inspired a curiosity about why victims were rarely discussed in these books. He went on to write the first English language book on victimology, and in it describes a seven-point typology covering different levels of victim responsibility including “unrelated victims with no victim responsibility,” “provocative victims with some shared responsibility,” and “precipitative victims with

Chapter 4 • Social Influences on Homicide

85

some degree of responsibility.” Schafer then goes on to further discuss what he refers to as “functional responsibility” (1977, pp. 149–151): In the matter of criminal-victim relationships, alarm and indignation was directed for a long time exclusively against the offender; this was coupled with indifference towards the victim’s role. … However, in the analysis of crime in the twentieth century, the concept of responsibility is far too often evaded by looking only at the causa proxima. It would seem that for a few decades the focus of research has been limited to the matter of judging, patterning, and treating those who are responsible for a crime. It has not been concerned with what this responsibility means; responsibility is handled as if it were some antecedent postulate. The view that victims share in some of the responsibility for the criminal act is perhaps not unusual given that Schafer’s job as a lawyer (as were many of the early victimologists) was to mitigate their client’s culpability in the criminal act. Such a viewpoint is also provided by the criminal law in many jurisdictions through self-defense, provocation, and other total or partial legal defenses. Victim precipitation first formally entered criminological discourse in the 1950s with Wolfgang’s seminal study and subsequent publications Victim Precipitated Criminal Homicide and Patterns of Criminal Homicide (Wolfgang, 1957, 1958). Wolfgang (1957, p. 1) notes that: In many crimes, especially in homicide, the victim is often a major contributor to the criminal act. Except in cases in which the victim is an innocent bystander and is killed in lieu of an intended victim, or in cases in which a pure accident is involved, the victim may be one of the major precipitating causes of his own demise. Wolfgang acted as a participant-observer in the homicide squad of the Philadelphia Police Department noting that the victim was often a key contributor to the homicide. Wolfgang used the term victim precipitated where the victim were a direct, positive contributor to the crime, and was the first to use physical force against the subsequent slayer. As such, Wolfgang only measured what Seigel refers to as active precipitation cases. The data in the study was 588 cases of homicide occurring between 1948 and 1952. Of these, Wolfgang notes that 150 or 26% were victim precipitated according to the definition employed. Again, only those actively precipitated cases were studied, and it is conceivable that the actual number of cases would be higher if the passive precipitation events were included. Despite the fact that precipitated events seem to occur with some frequency, not all writing on the subject agree that it is constructive or useful. Eigenberg and Garland’s (2008) chapter is titled Victim Blaming, and is very critical not only of victim precipitation,

86

HOMICIDE

but also much of the work that has been done in the field (for transparency, some of this criticism is warranted). In discussing lifestyle theory, these authors note (p. 27): This theoretical perspective assumes that people can reduce their risk of victimisation by taking less risks such as staying home at night, refraining from public places (especially “dangerous ones”), and staying away from violent situations. It is problematic to assume that one can predict these things, but it also fails to sufficiently account for a variety of victimisation experiences especially interpersonal violence. For example, women might avoid date rape and domestic violence if they never engaged in intimate relationships; however, this is not a realistic approach to crime prevention. Furthermore, it implies that victims who engage in “risky” lifestyles are somehow to blame for their victimisation. We do not believe that there should be any contention around the idea that people can reduce victimization by limiting the quantity of risky behaviors they engage in. We similarly do not agree with the idea that it is problematic to predict these things, and identify that some locations and situations are inherently riskier than others. This basic understanding steers behavior on a daily basis. It is also not unreasonable to suggest that prospective victims could reduce their chance of harm by better gauging or assessing the specifics of a situation to avoid those posing most risk. For example, it is agreed that simply not dating is not a practical solution to the possibility of date rape or domestic violence. However, one could possibly help protect themselves from date rape by not engaging in risky behavior while dating. When meeting a stranger for the first time, daters could have their encounters in public and well-travelled locales rather than agreeing to meet the other person at a private residence. Daters could avoid having their drink spiked by not drinking anything they have not seen prepared to avoid the addition of further intoxicants. Daters could drink out of bottles and not glasses to make it more difficult for someone else to spike a drink. In fact, these very measures are often a key part of any number of sexual violence reduction campaigns. So why then does precipitation get such a “bad rap”? After having scoured the past and present literature on the subject, it seems to boil down to one thing: some seem incapable of escaping the link to blaming the victim. Blaming the victim is counter-productive, trying to understand the full context of victimization is not. As much of the precipitative behavior will be based on emotions and motivations it is critical to understand what the victim was doing and thinking, what the offender was doing and thinking, and the role of interactions and reactivity of both parties. This means understanding the precipitative factors. As discussed by Petherick and Ferguson (2015, p. 63): Despite the protestations of many, victim precipitation is not the functional equivalent of blaming the victim. Instead, it represents an attempt to fully and completely understand the criminal event and the behaviour of both the victim and the offender and how this contributed to the victimization overall. Most importantly, the elements

Chapter 4 • Social Influences on Homicide

87

that contributed to or precipitated the crime may further contextualise the offender’s behaviour, such as what they were doing or reacting to at a given moment, or other important analytical or evidentiary considerations such as the offender’s emotional state or their motivation. Viewing precipitation in this way shifts the view from blame to understanding and makes precipitation a useful element to establish in a case. Perhaps more importantly though is that establishing and understanding the precipitative events provides an insight into those victim behaviors that lead to harm. This serves two very important functions. The first is a general insight into those factors that lead to victimization which can be used to educate potential victims about factors that lead to harm, thereby reducing the rate of victimization in society. The second, which will not necessarily apply in successful homicides (as opposed to attempted homicides) is to educate victims of specific crimes about those things they did which lead to victimization. As a homicide victim will be deceased they cannot benefit from this information, though it may still be useful for other purposes such as independent death reviews. This information may then be used in the adjudication of the case such as criminal proceedings or civil litigation.

Strain Theory Strain theory arose from Emile Durkheim’s theories of anomie (roughly translated as a state of normlessness), and is at the heart of sociological bids to explain crime (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2010). Cohen picked upon some of the main themes of Merton’s work, and suggested that competition and frustration about status lead to a significant amount of delinquency (Newburn, 2017). Social status is significantly influenced by social capital, and access to educational opportunities. Even when access is possible, actual success may be stymied by inherent bias toward or against social classes, with the middle and upper classes having differential access in dictating policies and programs while the lower classes have little influence. While those in the lower classes may have access in the first instance, their chance of being successful within the system will be inhibited by difficulties in climbing higher up the social strata. According to strain theory, anomie arises when certain groups cannot attain things that are valued culturally through institutions accessible to them (Liem & Koenraadt, 2018). The basic idea behind strain theory is that when access to legitimate opportunities is blocked or inhibited, then some members of society will turn to illegitimate means to acquire them. A very simple or basic example of this can be found in the crime of theft. Certain electronic devices carry with them a high social capital, but they also come at a significant monetary cost. As such, the ability to legitimately acquire these will be limited to certain segments of the population—those that can afford to buy them. For all others, one of the only ways they may have to acquire goods of such social capital is through illegitimate means: stealing from others. The very essence of strain is captured in the phrase “the haves and the have nots.”

88

HOMICIDE

This may be a sufficient enough explanation for something as minor as theft, but it would seem to be more of a leap from strain to violent crime, especially violent crime as serious as homicide. In this regard it is not the inability to acquire social capital that leads to violence, rather, that the inability to acquire social capital leads to frustration and aggression, which in turn leads to violent crime. Moving beyond social capital, strain theory posits that any thwarted goal can lead to anger, resentment, and rage (Winfree & Abadinsky, 2010). These are at least three emotional states that can lead directly to homicidal violence. Eriksson and Mazerolle (2013) suggest that general strain theory extends current theories on homicide and provides a comprehensive explanation for intimate partner homicide. According to Eriksson and Mazerolle, strain increases the likelihood of criminal behavior, with there being three categories of strain. The first is when the individual experiences aversive events. The second is when they lose something positively valued. And the third is when they are prevented from achieving their goals. They note that it is important to view strain from the point of view of the person experiencing it and place it in context. For example, some would find the breakup of an intimate relationship an aversive event, while others may view this event positively. Subjective strain, that interpreted by the individual, would have a stronger connection to criminal behavior than objective strain. This may still not be an adequate explanation for homicide though, and perhaps Agnew’s concept of personal strain rather than social strain may be more suitable to the task (Liem & Koenraadt, 2018). Here, the inability to achieve certain personal goals remains, but in this case the anomie is caused by negative emotions. Thus, this approach emphasizes the value of psychological influences on the social factors that lead to crime and disorder. Another criticism of strain theory in explaining crime is that it focuses too much on the have nots, those members of society that occupy the lower social strata (Tierney, 2006), suggesting that it is their inability to achieve material wealth within the social strata, but perhaps cannot explain why a corporate CEO who earns millions of dollars would still embezzle funds. Strain theory, especially general strain theory, perhaps also fails to account for gender differences in crime, and this is especially true of homicide.

Differential Association One of the better known sociological explanations of crime is differential association, which asserts that deviant behavior is learned through interacting with others (Church, Wharton, & Taylor, 2009). Differential association could then be thought of as a type of social learning theory (Weiten, 2010). This theory was developed by Edwin Sutherland who noted that, like any other behavior, delinquency can be acquired especially through associations with those who may be more or less predisposed to criminality (Marsh, Melville, Morgan, Norris, & Walkington, 2006). Specifically, individuals adopt drives and motivations held by associates which vary in frequency and duration, and those who become delinquent or persistent offenders do so owing to more numerous definitions favorable to breaking the law than unfavorable ones (White & Haines, 2006). It is not just the specific act itself that is learned,

Chapter 4 • Social Influences on Homicide

89

but the associated thoughts and emotions conducive to criminal behavior (Tierney, 2006) such as how crime is rationalized which minimizes psychological or emotional conflict arising from its commission. Over time this makes crime and antisocial behavior “easier” as the criminal is unburdened by feelings of guilt and remorse. Differential association is considered to be a two-way street: just as someone can learn to commit crime, they can learn to act in prosocial ways by changing their associations. As differential association is a sociological theory, it places a considerable premium on social interactions, and it is the context of these that is said to influence behavior on the individual the most. Those who are socialized in neighborhoods characterized by crime and disorder are more likely to have associations that encourage criminal adaptations (Brown et al., 2010), with the opposite also being true for those who come from socially organized neighborhoods. Far from being biological or pathological, crime is a process that takes place in groups (Carrabine, Cox, Lee, Plummer, & South, 2009). It is not just the presence of associations that play a role in the development of antisocial and prosocial behavior, but also the frequency of those associations. In Criminology Sutherland and Cressey (1970) identify nine basic principles of differential association. These are (pp. 77–79):

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9.

Criminal behavior is learned. Criminal behavior is learned as a by-product of interacting with others. Learning criminal behaviors occurs within intimate partner groups. Learning criminal behavior involves assimilating the techniques of committing crime, including motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from perceptions of various aspects of the legal code as favorable or unfavorable. A person becomes criminal when he or she perceives more favorable than unfavorable consequences to violating the law. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anticriminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning process. Although criminal behavior expresses general needs and values, it is not excused by those general needs and values, because noncriminal behavior expressed the same needs and values.

Brown et al. (2010, pp. 270–280) unpack each of these points to provide further description. These are paraphrased below:

1. This first principle specifically rules out heredity, human nature, and innovation. Behavior and misbehavior are taught in a social context.

90

HOMICIDE

2. The second and third principles state that behavior is learned primarily through families and friends with the emphasis on parental influence. Behavior initially influenced by parents will later become influenced by peers as the individual ages and started to interact with larger and larger social groups. 3. The forth principle suggests that learning the procedures for committing the crime is less important than learning the mindset of crime commission such as motives, drives, and attitudes. 4. The fifth principle states that favorable and unfavorable definitions provide the key to differential association because they determine the values of the individual. As children we observe our parents breaking speed limits, stealing from the workplace, and failure to give back excess change from cashiers. 5. For the sixth principle the favorable definitions and unfavorable definitions are considered a ratio, and crime results when ratio of definitions favorable to violating the law exceed the unfavorable definitions. 6. All associations do not carry equal weight. What we refer to in this text as relative contributions. The more an individual identifies with a person, the more weight that association will have. 7. The last two statements link to general learning principles. They emphasize that criminal behavior and noncriminal behavior service the same needs and values (we have also discussed this briefly in this chapter and elsewhere; Brotto, Sinnamon, & Petherick, 2017; Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014). While differential association is generally regarded as a valid and useful explanation for criminal behavior, like most other theories it is not without criticism. Differential association fails to account for how the first generation of lawbreakers came to being such that they could teach successive generations crime and delinquency (Siegel, 2011). Differential association also assumes criminal acts to be rational, but cannot necessarily account for random or spontaneous acts of violence committed by those who are otherwise law abiding citizens (Siegel, 2011). Furthermore, the amount of associations one must face before they act criminally or violently is not explicated in any of the works we have seen, and so the “threshold” of associations between criminal and noncriminal is poorly defined. Perhaps other individual differences play a role here, such as our ability to process emotions, chemical imbalances in hormones and neurotransmitters, frontal lobe dysfunction, amygdala function, and any other number of biological or psychological factors. As such, Sutherland perhaps places too much emphases on social forces without considering the role that other factors have on the degree of influence the social forces have. Differential association also does not account for why some individuals who associate with criminal elements will still not develop tendencies toward committing crime, or why criminals who associate with noncriminals will not be able to break offending patterns. Perhaps one of the greatest criticisms of differential association is that it is difficult to test empirically as we cannot go back in time and change the circumstances of association to see whether the criminal tendencies would still have surfaced. One such example of a

Chapter 4 • Social Influences on Homicide

91

number of these criticisms were the Columbine High School shooters who, ostensibly, lead relatively normal lives, associated with noncriminals, and came from law-abiding families. However, these two went on to commit one of the most high-profile school shootings in American history. Lastly, it is generally agreed that homicide represents the most egregious of social infractions and violations of the criminal law, and it is difficult to reconcile how one can learn to kill. The transmission of this type of attitude is more difficult to fathom in a domestic homicide than say a gang related homicide, where homicidal violence is seen as a normal way to solve a problem. For domestic homicides, it may not be that the individual is taught homicidal behavior, but they are taught precursor behavior such as assault so that domestic violence is commonplace with some domestic violence ending in homicide. We must also remember Sutherland’s fourth principle, that it is not necessarily the actual procedure that is learned, but the motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes that contribute to the crime or other act of violence. So a general attitude of violence against others as acceptable is more likely to lead to homicide than a general attitude of respect and nonviolence. Despite this as a possibility, Cressey (1954, pp. 29–30) suggests that situational crimes and crimes of passion “such as an assault or murder perpetrated after a period of antagonistic or irritating behavior on the part of the victim, present an apparent exception to the generalization and should be examined carefully” to determine if they are exceptions.

Social Control Theory An interesting sociological theory is known as social control theory, and its main proponent is Travis Hirschi. It is not so much a theory that explains why people commit crimes like homicide, but why they do not. Social control maintains that all people have the potential to violate the law where there are many opportunities in modern society for crime (Siegel, 2011). Social control theory focuses on those elements that inhibit rather than promote antisocial behavior, pointing to the importance of family cohesion, family stressors, and nonfamilial relationships in developing or prohibiting deviant and criminal behavior (Church et al., 2009). Social control (also generally known as control theories) views crime as a normal part of society and that it is conformity requiring explanation (Marsh et al., 2006). Teaching social values and mores is an important part of social control, especially that provided by the parents and family as they are typically the first agent of influence. According to White and Haines (2006), poor child-rearing practices (such as a lack of supervision), and absent fathers lead to low self-control and higher crime rates. To be clear it is not the parenting practices as such that “cause” crime, but the inability of the parents to teach good control while absent. Rather than focusing on the offender and asking, “why did they not do it?” Hirschi looks toward the conformist to answer the question why they do not do it (Siegel, 2012).

92

HOMICIDE

Hirschi (1969) suggested that crime is a natural outcome when an individual’s link to society is weak or broken, proposing four types of control including attachment, opportunity, involvement, and belief. These are explained by Carrabine et al. (2009, p. 83): 1. Attachment. Strong social attachments encourage conformity; weak relationships in the family peer group and school leave people freer to engage in deviance. 2. Opportunity. The more one perceives legitimate opportunity, the greater the advantages of conformity. A young person bound for university, one with good career prospects, has a high stake in conformity. By contrast, someone with little confidence in future success drifts more towards deviance. 3. Involvement. Extensive involvement in legitimate activities – such as holding a job, going to school and completing homework, or pursuing hobbies – inhibits deviance. People with few such activities – those who simply “hang out” waiting for something to happen – have time and energy for deviant activity. 4. Belief. Strong beliefs in conventional morality and respect for authority figures restrain tendencies towards deviance. By contrast, people with weak conscience are more vulnerable to temptation. Social control theory shares many of the same criticisms as other sociological theories, such as ignoring the relative contributions of biology and psychology. Social control asserts that crime is committed by people with weak or broken social bonds, but cannot, with any amount of modification or compensation, account for crimes committed by people with strong social bonds. These would include at least the crimes committed by white collar criminals, political figures, celebrities, and popular members of social groups lacking fame or social recognition (i.e., John or Jane Q Citizen). Nor can it account for homicides committed by individuals who otherwise have strong social bonds, perhaps even with the person they kill. As with most general rules there will be exceptions, such as with those growing up in environments with weak familial bonds and parental neglect who do not go on to commit crimes. A major deficiency of control theory relates to the causal order of the social bonds and behavior (Brown et al., 2010). Specifically, there is no general consensus on whether weak bonds and absent parents cause crime, or whether crime weakens bonds. Without putting too fine a point on it, there is perhaps nothing that poses a greater threat to social bonds than killing a family member. Lastly, as with differential association, weak social controls would be an extreme explanation for why one person would kill another.

Fame and Attention Seeking In today’s connected world, popularity may be measured by how many friends we have on Facebook (Bandyopadhyay, 2016), how many likes our posts get (Burrow & Rainone, 2017), the effect of taking and posting selfies (Shin, Kim, Im, & Chong, 2017), and the link

Chapter 4 • Social Influences on Homicide

93

between selfies and grandiose narcissism (McCain et al., 2016). The distribution on any medium is typically limited to those we are linked to, and depending on one’s security settings, our posts and photos may be limited only to those we allow into our online lives. These posts, regardless of whether text or images, could be considered a form of selfpromotion or advertising. Social networking has been used by mass shooters, either school based or in the public, to post warnings, veiled threats, and images and videos of them wielding any given number of weapons. For the same above reasons these may be relatively limited to a small audience. However, free advertising for their mass victim crimes can come from another source: the media. There is considerable concern in the research literature that publicizing these shootings can in fact create situations in which others are inspired to act in the same way, because covering mass killings lead people to think about mass killings (Lankford & Madfis, 2018a). This is why the media typically do not report in individual episodes of suicide. Despite the fact that much coverage of mass homicides is negative, it may still have the unintended side effect of making the shooters de-facto celebrities (Lankford & Madfis, 2018a). One of the obvious solutions to this problem is to not cover these homicides at all. A total media blackout. However, this is likely not possible as it is the medias’ job to report the news, and shootings of any description are news. The other issue is that if these crimes are not covered, then the plight of the victims will not be known. Similarly, the media play a significant role in active shooter situations alerting the public not only to the crime but also to the locations involved. This will stop members of the public from unwittingly going to dangerous places and possibly becoming fatalities themselves. Also important is that media coverage of high profile events can often create important social movements, such as that following the 4th of February 2018 school shooting at Marjorie Stone Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 staff and students were killed with another 17 wounded. Rather than taking an all-or-nothing approach to the problem, Lankford and Madfis (2018b) suggest that all aspects of the homicides be covered, with the exception of the offender/s identity, including photographs of them. This allows coverage of the crime and all the relevant features of it, without providing the fame and notoriety the offender/s are after as their name will not become synonymous with the act. With the recommendations and rationale for the appropriate treatment of these cases, it is very difficult to argue with their stance on this issue. Lankford and Madfis then focus on three main consequences of media coverage of mass shootings. The first is that coverage gives the offenders what they want by making them famous, with more fame seeking rampage shooters in recent years than in previous years (Lankford, 2016). This is based almost on an expectation that their name and face will grace the cover of every type of media for an indeterminate period. Ironically, many of them die during or following the shooting so they do not get to even see, let alone enjoy, this coverage and subsequent fame. The second consequence is that publicizing mass shooters increases competition in others to increase victim counts to be “the deadliest

94

HOMICIDE

offenders” (p. 263). The last of the consequences is that the media coverage creates a contagion effect and possibly inspires copycat crimes. The contagion effect is where heavy media coverage of events like mass shootings leads to imitation by others (Chandler & Munday, 2016), providing a “comradery-focused fantasy, someone to relate to, justify their own actions, and have an ego-boosting fantasized goal to out-do them” (Murray, 2017, p. 120). The copycat effect explains situations where an offender copies the crimes of a previous offender down to the minute details such as mode of dress, weapon, and behaviors among other features. It is generally difficult to determine the degree to which crimes are copy-catted but there is some research (Surette, 2014, 2016). It is our opinion that the number of offenders who copycat is overstated and that most are simply being inspired by the behavior of others (“that looks like a good idea” versus “I am going to be just like them and do exactly what they did”). Thus, we argue that there is more contagion than copycat. Lankford and Madfis (2018b) propose four guidelines for the publication of information about mass shootings. These are (p. 265): 1. 2. 3. 4.

Do not name the perpetrator. Do not use photos or likenesses or the perpetrator. Stop using names, photos, or likenesses of past perpetrators. Report everything else about these crimes in as much detail as desired.

These authors then go on to suggest a number of challenges to implementing these proposals. The first relates to information leaks and offender self-promotion. While it may be possible to have rules in place, this will not prevent some in the media from leaking information. The public will also possibly distribute this information through any number of mediums including email, text messaging, and social networking. It is unlikely that the identity of the offender will remain anonymous for long, and the Internet often reacts swiftly to these types of events. This is to say nothing of the offenders posting information through various channels themselves. While social networking companies respond promptly to removing offensive material, information will likely be in the hands of any given number of others before something can be brought to their attention and removed. The second challenge they identify are exceptional cases such as when an active shooter is on the run after evading capture. The last and perhaps most obvious challenge relates to getting the media to change its stance on reporting these homicides. While fame and attention seeking may explain the social milieu in which an offender commits a mass murder, these are the social contexts but do not necessarily explain the biological or psychological elements that lead to a desire for fame and notoriety. Considering the motives presented in Chapter 2 of this work, a school shooting could be a result of an assertive motive where the offender carries out a mass homicide as an expression of mastery and dominance, a retaliatory motive where the shooter is getting real with the target group for real or imagined wrongs, or a pervasively angry motive where the homicide offender is simply angry with the world, and the mass shooting is an expression of this. The latter example can be seen in the movie Falling Down brilliantly portrayed by Michael Douglas.

Chapter 4 • Social Influences on Homicide

95

Conclusion While the social influences on homicide are important, they face perhaps more numerous criticisms than those relating to biological or psychological influences. This chapter has examined the role of victim precipitation, strain theory, differential association, social control, and fame and attention seeking. While most of these are offered up as theories for why someone would commit a crime, social control relates more to why people do not commit crime. As with the other influences, we disagree with Sutherland and propose, like so many before us, that homicide is a result of many factors and features with each playing a different with different killers across individual homicides. Social factors, therefore, are but one part of a very large jigsaw.

References Amir, M. (1967). Victim precipitated forcible rape. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science, 58(4), 493–502. Bandyopadhyay, P. (2016). The relationship between Facebook friends and self-esteem. San Antonio: The University of Texas. Retrieved from: (2016). http://search.proquest.com/docview/1835177366/?pqorigsite¼primo. Brotto, G., Sinnamon, G. C. B., & Petherick, W. A. (2017). Victimology and predicting victims of personal violence. In W. A. Petherick, & G. C. B. Sinnamon (Eds.), The psychology of criminal and antisocial behavior (1st ed., pp. 79–135). San Diego: Academic Press. Brown, S. E., Esbensen, F. A., & Geis, G. (2010). Criminology: Explaining crime and its contexts (7th ed.). New Jersey: Andersen. Burrow, A. L., & Rainone, N. (2017). How many likes did I get?: Purpose moderates links between positive social media feedback and self-esteem. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 69, 232–236. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.09.005. Carrabine, E., Cox, P., Lee, M., Plummer, K., & South, N. (2009). Criminology: A sociological introduction (2nd ed.). Oxon: Routledge. Chandler, D., & Munday, R. (2016). Contagion effect. In A dictionary of media and communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from: (2016). http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.bond.edu.au/ view/10.1093/acref/9780199568758.001.0001/acref-9780199568758-e-0500. Church, W. T., Wharton, T., & Taylor, J. K. (2009). An examination of differential association and social control theory. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 7(1), 3–15. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541204008324910. Cressey, D. R. (1954). The differential association theory and compulsive crimes. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 45(1), 29–40. Eigenberg, H., & Garland, T. (2008). Victim blaming. In L. Moriarty (Ed.), Controversies in modern victimology (2nd ed.). Boston: Anderson Publishing. Eriksson, L., & Mazerolle, P. (2013). A general strain theory of intimate partner homicide. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18(5), 462–470. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2013.07.002. Hirschi, T. (1969). The causes of delinquency. Berkeley: The University of California Press. Lankford, A. (2016). Fame-seeking rampage shooters: initial findings and empirical predictions. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 27, 122–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avb.2016.02.002. Lankford, A., & Madfis, E. (2018a). Media coverage of mass killers: content, consequences, and solutions. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(2), 151–162. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764218763476.

96

HOMICIDE

Lankford, A., & Madfis, E. (2018b). Don’t name them, don’t show them, but report everything else: a pragmatic proposal for denying mass killers the attention they seek and deterring future offenders. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(2), 260–279. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764217730854. Liem, M., & Koenraadt, F. (2018). Domestic homicide: Patterns and dynamics (1st ed.). Oxon: Routledge. Marsh, I., Melville, G., Morgan, K., Norris, G., & Walkington, Z. (2006). Theories of crime (1st ed.). Oxon: Routledge. McCain, J. L., Borg, Z. G., Rothenberg, A. H., Churillo, K. M., Weiler, P., & Campbell, W. K. (2016). Personality and selfies: narcissism and the dark triad. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 126–133. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.chb.2016.06.050. Murray, J. L. (2017). Mass media reporting and enabling of mass shootings. Cultural Studies and Critical Methodologies, 17(2), 114–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708616679144. Newburn, T. (2017). Criminology (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. Petherick, W. A., & Ferguson, C. E. (2015). Forensic victimology. In W. A. Petherick (Ed.), Applied crime analysis: A social science approach to understanding crime, criminals, and victims. Boston: Anderson Publishing. Petherick, W. A., & Sinnamon, G. C. B. (2014). Motivations: offender and victim perspectives. In W. A. Petherick (Ed.), Profiling and serial crime: Theoretical and practical issues (3rd ed., pp. 393–427). Oxford: Anderson. Polk, K. (1997). A reexamination of the concept of victim-precipitated homicide. Homicide Studies, 1(2), 141–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088767997001002004. Schafer, S. (1977). The victim and his criminal: A study in functional responsibility. Reston: Reston Publishing Company. Shin, Y., Kim, M., Im, C., & Chong, S. C. (2017). Selfie and self: the effect of selfies on self-esteem and social sensitivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 111, 139–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/ j.paid.2017.02.004. Siegel, L. J. (2010). Criminology: The core (4th ed.). Belmont: Cengage Learning. Siegel, L. J. (2011). Criminology: The core (4th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage. Siegel, L. J. (2012). Criminology (11th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage. Stone, M. H. (2001). Serial sexual homicide: biological, psychological, and sociological aspects. Journal of Personality Disorders, 15(1), 1–18. Surette, R. (2014). Estimating the prevalence of copycat crime: a research note. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 25(6), 703–718. https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403413499579. Surette, R. (2016). Measuring copycat crime. Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 12(1), 37–64. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741659015601172. Sutherland, E., & Cressey, D. (1970). Criminology (8th ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott. Tierney, J. (2006). Criminology: Theory and context (2nd ed.). Harlow: Pearson Longman. von Hentig, H. (1940). Remarks on the interaction of perpetrator and victim. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 31(3), 1–8. Weiten, W. (2010). Psychology: Themes and variations (8th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage. White, R., & Haines, F. (2006). Crime and criminology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Winfree, L. T., & Abadinsky, H. (2010). Understanding crime: Essentials of criminological theories (3rd ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth. Wolfgang, M. E. (1957). Victim precipitated criminal homicide. The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 48(1), 1–12. Wolfgang, M. E. (1958). Patterns in criminal homicide. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.

5 Homicide by Juveniles CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 97 Definitions: Child Versus Teenager ............................................................................................... 98 When Juveniles Kill ........................................................................................................................ 98 Juvenile Homosexual Homicide .................................................................................................. 102 School Shootings ......................................................................................................................... 104 Case Study—The Killer at Thurston High ................................................................................107 Recidivism in Juvenile Homicide ................................................................................................. 108 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 111 References .................................................................................................................................... 111

Introduction Killing by children and teenagers is headline news and has been the focus of theoretical and research attention. While there is always a reason for homicides committed by youth, these homicides defy our understanding because they contrast starkly to our expectations of child and teen behavior. These are meant to be the education years where we decide what we want to do as an adult, the years of learning how to ride a bicycle or drive a car, and having and possibly losing your first love. These are the years where we map out the rest of our lives, not end the life of another. Not only do child and juvenile homicides challenge beliefs we hold about what a young person is capable of, they raise the very serious questions of how they can be prevented and what can be done about them once they have happened. The very notion that a young person could perpetrate the most egregious of social infractions, or that they may be beyond rehabilitation, flies in the face of what we know of child development. Indeed, the relatively low base rate of homicides committed by young people makes it difficult to even establish whether or not they constitute a distinct group (Bailey, 2000), or whether they have distinct or unique constellations and risk factors. This chapter examines homicides committed by juveniles, starting with a discussion of the age at which someone is considered a child or teenager. Following this we will look at school shootings (a type of violence more common among juveniles), recidivism in youth homicide offenders, and homosexual homicide offenders. As with other aspects of homicide, the way that child homicide offenders are treated within the legal system differs based largely on the jurisdiction in which the crime occurs. As such, this topic is too broad

Homicide. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812529-8.00005-7 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

97

98

HOMICIDE

and too far outside of the scope of this work, so national and international legal approaches for dealing with child homicide will not be discussed further.

Definitions: Child Versus Teenager The difference between a child, teenager, and adult will be the result of local statutes and the stance which jurisdictions have as to what age someone can or should understand the nature and the consequences of their actions. This will be based on understanding the difference between right and wrong (Harris & White, 2018). While the specific age for this differs according to jurisdiction, in English law, the age at which someone cannot be held liable for criminal behavior is 10 years (Gooch & Williams, 2015). For international law, the individual must be at least 18 years at the time of the alleged offense (Gooch & Williams, 2015). The age at which a young person is either a child or a teenager is important, as this dictates the level of the justice system that adjudicates the case. From a research standpoint, this dictates the inclusion and exclusion criteria if one is only looking at a specific group. For example, some of the research examined excluded children under the age of 10 as that was the age of criminal responsibility in the country where the research was undertaken, so strictly speaking those under 10 were not legally responsible for doing anything, even though that involved killing another person. What this means is that data may not be kept on the case itself, it may be sealed for confidentiality reasons owing to the age of the offender, or the researcher may actively exclude them from the data set as being outside of the scope of their inquiry. Should we set the bar at 12 years of age for a child and from 13 to 19 years as a teenager, then our criteria will conflict with research identifying that a child is someone under 10 years of age. There is no real way to get around this issue however, as the research often employs local statutory considerations to set age thresholds. Because we cannot accommodate all jurisdictional differences we therefore adopt a somewhat arbitrary limit of a child being under 12 and a teenager being 13–19 years. Both children and teenagers are considered juveniles, that is anyone of an age prior to adulthood, where the clear majority of countries set this at 18 years of age, though there are obvious local differences. For example, in the United States you can drive as young as 14 and several months, but cannot vote until you are 18, while you cannot legally drink alcohol until you are 21 years of age.

When Juveniles Kill While specific acts and the characteristics of child homicides are “heterogenous, all these children are seriously disturbed, with high rates of neuropsychological abnormalities, poor impulse control, school failure, and truancy” (Wolff & Smith, 2001, p. 61). Such extreme acts of violence by children beggar belief, and while rare they attract considerable media attention (Rodway et al., 2011). The media maxim “if it bleeds it leads” is perhaps

Chapter 5 • Homicide by Juveniles

99

rarely as pertinent or newsworthy as when a child kills. When there is violence among adults, these acts are often the result of negative emotional buildup leading to interpersonal conflict, in children however such fulminations are absent and so the act often defies rationalization. For juveniles, the causes of violence are described in different ways. Bullying is an often-cited cause or at least contributing factor, as is violent media which is seen as having a significant impact on the developing brain. Numerous reviews of the subject have been undertaken with mixed findings depending on the variables studied and the methodology of the study, even down to the definition of violence used and the indicators of € ller, & Greiviolence (Bender, Plante, & Gentile, 2018; Ferguson, 2014; Fischer, Kastenmu temeyer, 2010; Gentile, Coyne, & Walsh, 2018). There have been calls to examine the media that young people consume and the effect this may have on developing minds (Riecken, 1999). Bailey (1996) provides descriptive data on 20 cases spanning a 5-year period from England and Wales. This was not a general study or a random sample, but rather a purposive sample from Bailey’s own case files as a juvenile forensic psychiatrist. While caution would usually be exercised before making generalizations from a small and purposive sample such as this, the findings accord with other research on homicides by young people and so may still be meaningful and relevant. The offenders were aged between 5 and 18 years, and all had carried out a homicide. Most were Caucasian (n ¼ 19), 1 was Afrocarribean, 18 were male (90%), and 2 were female (10%). Most offenders came from homes characterized by unstable family backgrounds and lives, fathers who were not involved and were likely to have a history of alcohol abuse, psychopathic disorder, and violence in the home. Nearly 80% of the sample used alcohol, approximately 30% engaged in self-harm, approximately 35% used drugs, and just short of 20% used solvents. Mothers tended to have histories of depressive illnesses and had trouble dealing with and coping with their families. Three of the mothers passed care along to relatives. The group as a whole had disruptive behaviors in school along with a high rate of truancy. Five of the adolescents in the group had been abused (interestingly, this was one female and four males) and six, who were all male, had suffered physical abuse. If their siblings had been abused, the individual who carried out the homicide suffered the worst abuse. Male offenders reported uncertainty about sexual identity, and negative feelings about sexual experimentation with females. For two-thirds of this group, previous offending included violence, sexual assault, and arson, with the remaining one-third committing the homicide as their first offense. Eleven of the victims were stabbed, four were beaten, and five were strangled, and there was significant overkill, which is defined as a greater number of injuries than that required to simply kill. More than half of the victims who were stabbed had more than 16 stab wounds, with one victim stabbed 70 times. More than one third of the cases involved sexual assault, an attempt was made to blind one victim, and two were partially dismembered. Bailey notes than one quarter of the cases had watched pornography or violent

100

HOMICIDE

media leading up to the offense, which is an interesting figure but hardly implicates the media as a causative agent for the offense. All the victims under 10 years of age were female, who were apparently targeted because of their vulnerability and the ease with which they can be lead away to an area more conducive to committing the offense. Male victims 11–20 were known to the offenders, sexual assault was absent, and the level of violence was lower. Victims aged 41–60 were homosexual, where in 5 of the cases the motivation was listed as “homosexual.” In 1999, Kathleen Heide (Heide, 1993) studied parricide cases using 10 years of data from 1977 to 1986 using the Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) data. Four categories of parricide were studied with the father as the victim (n ¼ 1368), the mother as victim (n ¼ 887), stepfather as victim (n ¼ 562), and stepmother as victim (n ¼ 54). The overwhelming majority of these cases were classified as homicide (99%, 98%, 99.6%, and 98% respectively). Arguments were the main reason for the homicides across the board, happening in 62% of cases involving the father, 47% of cases involving the mother, 65% of the cases involving stepfathers, and 56% of the cases for stepmothers. The difference between fathers and mothers was statistically significant and reveals that homicidal conflict is the leading single cause of parricide. When the victim was the father, they ranged in age from 31 to 95 years, with the average age being 53.7 years old. Offenders in this category ranged in age from 9 to 67 years, with an average offender age of 24.3 years. Both offenders and victims were of similar ethnicities, and the offenders were males in the majority of cases (87%). When the mother was the victim the age range was similar to the father between 30 and 94 years of age, though the average offender age was slightly higher at 30.2 years. They also shared a similar ethnicity to the offender, and the offender was also likely to be male more often than not (86%). When the victim was the stepfather, they ranged from 20 to 84 years of age, though they were slightly younger than biological fathers with an average age of 46.4 years. The offenders were from 11 to 72 years of age, with an average offender age of 23 years, which was virtually the same as that for biological fathers. There was again parity in ethnicity between the offenders and victims. For stepmother victims, the average age was 23 to 84 years of age, with the average being 50.3, so again slightly younger than biological mothers. Those who killed stepmothers were between 12 and 60 years of age, with an average offender age of 25.6 years. Victims were between 23 and 84 years of age, with an average age of 50.3 years, so again slightly younger than biological mothers. The ethnic profile of the biological mothers and stepmothers was again similar between victims and offenders. Obviously based on the above data, this population included homicides of juveniles as well as adults, and as a result many of the offenders are outside of the scope of interest of this chapter. Though the focus of the article is all adults killed by children, a further analysis of the sample is undertaken on youth involvement. There were very few parents killed by children under 10, with 2 fathers and 1 mother being killed by a child, and no stepparents were killed by children. Fathers were killed by children under 18 years in 25% of cases

Chapter 5 • Homicide by Juveniles

101

and if that is extended to teenagers (so offenders up to 19 years of age), that changes to 36% so just over one-third of the overall sample for biological fathers. For mothers, 15% were killed by children under 18 years, and for teenagers this increased to 22%. For stepfathers, the percentage of children under 18 years was higher than biological fathers at 34%, with another 12% being committed by those aged 18–19 years, bringing the teenage total to 46% for stepfathers. For stepmothers, 30% of children were under 18 years of age, coming up to 41% for teenagers. All told, a higher proportion of stepparents were killed by children under 18 and 19 years of age than were biological parents, and Heide (1993, p. 543) states that this could be owing to the differences in bonding where “a stepchild may be less constrained to murder a stepparent than a son or daughter would be to murder the biological parent.” Acknowledging the problem with the small sample sizes of past research, Heide, Solomon, Sellers, and Chan (2011) used the Supplementary Homicide Research (SHR) data from 1976 to 2007 to examine gender differences among younger and older homicide offenders. The sample was split into two groups, those under 13 years (what we call children) and those 13–17 (what we call teenagers). For the 32-year period, there was a staggering 44,147 children from 6 to 17 years of age who were arrested for homicide. Even though there are states that do not prosecute children under certain ages, these researchers included all the data as their purpose was to compare younger and older individuals who commit homicide. For these juvenile offenders the sex profile did not differ much from adult offenders with 91.9% males and 8.1% females. For the entire period, more than 96% of offenders killed only one victim with less than 4% of offenders killing more than one victim. Heide and colleagues chose to remove the multiple victim offenses from the data set leaving 42,457 offenders. Those offenders aged 6–12 only comprised 1.9% of the population, while those 13–17 years comprised the remaining 98.1% of offenders. Females were represented in 16.5% of the younger offenders but only 8% of the older offenders. This is perhaps because biological, psychological, and social differences between males and females are less pronounced at younger ages. Gender-age differences were statistically significant, though the relationship was weak. Female offenders were significantly more likely to kill younger victims than male offenders, being nearly 30 times more likely to kill infants below age 1, and 5 times more likely to kill children between ages 1 and 5. Male offenders were more likely to kill victims aged 6–12 years though larger numbers of victims of younger male and female homicide offenders were in this age range compared to older offenders of both sexes. Boys also kill far more teenagers and victims in the early adult years, while females were more likely to kill adults aged from 35 to 64 years old. Older girls killed older females nearly threefold to male homicide offenders, though it should be noted that females were more likely to be targeted than male victims. Gender differences were also found for the victim-offender relationships with females of all age groups more likely to target victims closer to them, especially family members. No females in the younger group killed intimate partners, though it could be said that this would be an expected finding. Older male offenders were more likely to kill strangers, and

102

HOMICIDE

were also more likely to kill acquaintances, other known victims, and friends than their female counterparts. Females were far more likely to kill family members, especially when the five categories for family members was collapsed into one. The weapons used were more likely to be guns followed by knives, and this held true across all of the age groups, though males were more likely to use guns regardless of whether they belonged to the younger or older offender group. Females were more likely to use knives. The researchers coded the circumstances as crime related where the homicide happened during the commission of other crimes, which are usually referred to as felony homicides or felony murders. The conflict-related group explains circumstances where there is an argument of any type. The last type is gang related which include any homicides that happened within the context of gang-related activities. Girls were more represented in conflict-related homicides than boys (85% compared to 63%) in the young offender group and the older offender group (61% compared to 41%). Boys were twice as likely as girls to be involved in crime-related homicides than girls (32% compared to 15%) for younger offenders and also for teenagers (41% compared to 34%). Older boys were nearly five times more likely than older girls to be involved in gang-related homicides with no younger females involved in gang homicides, and less than 5% of younger males were involved in gang-related homicides.

Juvenile Homosexual Homicide There is a limited amount of information available on homicides committed by homosexual juveniles. To the best of our understanding, there is only one study thus far on this subject, that of Myers and Chan (2012), though the study by Heide and colleagues above certainly included data on homosexual juvenile homicide offenders even though it was a small number of cases. These researchers drew upon the Supplementary Homicide Reports of the US FBI for the years 1976 through to 2005 (we acknowledge that the long form of this acronym for SHR is different to that reported above and in other sources, though we have reported them as they appeared in the original sources). Myers and Chan define a sexual homicide offender as someone who kills with a sexual component. This reduced the data pool to 3888 cases, most of which were adult (over 18 years, 88%) and most were male (95%). Of this number, 445 of the homicide offenders were juveniles which for this data set means 17 years or younger. Of the 445, 93 offenders were identified as homosexual where 95% (n ¼ 88) of these were male-on-male homicides with the remainder being female-on-female (5%, n ¼ 5). The average age for the sample was 15.8 years, and the range was 12–17 years, placing all the offenders in the teenage category. Therefore, none were classified as children in the distinction used in this text which may be understandable given a child may not fully appreciate their sexual orientation until into the teenage years, particularly around puberty. Most were white (69%) with the remainder being black (31%).

Chapter 5 • Homicide by Juveniles

103

As the number of female-on-female offenders was so small, Myers and Chan excluded them from the rest of the analysis, noting though that they were approximately the same mean age (15.6 years) and their victim’s mean age was 20.6 years, with a range of less than 12 months to 38 years. In three of the five cases, the weapon was a firearm, with one strangulation and one asphyxiation. The number of homicides committed for each age group increased steadily with age, which is again perhaps to be expected intuitively. Those aged 12 years accounted for 1% of victims, 13 years were 6%, 14 and 15 years were both 16%, 16 years were 31% and 17-year-old offenders were similar at 30%. The latter two age groups accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total number of victims. Interestingly, while there were some young victims in the sample (the youngest was 2 years of age), the mean age of the victims was nearly double that of the offenders (30.5 years of age). The victim’s race was similar to that of the offenders with 75% being white, and 25% being black, where the victim was largely the same race as the offender (93% for white and 69% for black). Myers and Chan grouped the victims according to age ranges, including child (under 12 years), adolescent (13–17 years, what we call teenagers), adult (18–59 years), and elderly (those aged 60 years or more). The most targeted age range was the adult group, representing 62% of the sample, followed by children (17%), adolescents (13%), and the elderly (8%). As with other types of homicide, the vast majority of victims were killed by someone they knew more than a stranger (64% in the aggregate compared to 36% for stranger). The categories for victims known to the offender include acquaintance/friend (55%), intimates (5%), and friends (4%). None of the family members were immediate family. The weapons used were personal weapons (hands, feet, etc.), contact or edged weapons (bludgeons and knives), firearms, and other weapons (poison, etc.). Contact and edged weapons were used nearly equally (40% and 39% respectively), which is perhaps not surprising given the data is from the United States where there is a higher availability of firearms. Personal weapons were used in 18% of cases, with other weapons used in only 3% of the cases. The most commonly used weapons against children were personal weapons (53%), with firearms being used against adolescents (36%) and adults (47%), while contact or wedged weapons were more commonly used against the elderly (71%). Myers and Chan note that these crimes decreased in frequency across the 25 years of the study, from a high in 1976–80 (n ¼ 32, 36.36%), falling for 1981–85, 1986–90, 1991–95, 1996–2000, to a low in 2001–05 of 3 cases, or 3.41%. The decrease in homicides among this population may be owing to a change in social attitudes toward homosexuality, or some other change in social or personal conditions or circumstances. The study’s authors then suggest that it is possible that some of the offenders were heterosexual but turned to prostitution to survive and this may have been a part of the reason for the commission of the homicide. Social and educational programs aimed at reducing the number of runaway children would also therefore have a reductive effect on the number of homicides committed. In their discussion of the results, Myers and Chan (2012, p. 98) question “why these JHH [juvenile homosexual homicide] offenders targeted adults rather than similar-aged

104

HOMICIDE

victims is not well understood and deserves further scientific inquiry.” While they did not investigate or discuss the motives for the homicides, we would suggest that the answer to this question perhaps lies in an aggregate of the findings. For most of the offenders (61%) the homicides occurred at 15–16 years of age, around the time of puberty, perhaps when the offender is coming to fully realize their sexual orientation. As the victims are likely to be older, they will have already undergone this process and will associate with their homosexual identity. Add to this the existing relationship in the majority of cases, suggesting that these are not random acts but are instead conflict-based. Considering all of this together, it is possible that these homicides are the result of what is incorrectly labelled “homosexual panic” or “homosexual rage,” which is violence resulting from a homosexual advance against the person who then becomes enraged over homosexual feelings or concern over the perception that they may be homosexual themselves (Goldblatt & Maltsberger, 2016; Thomas & Fremouw, 2009).

School Shootings A school shooting is a type of mass murder (see Chapter 7 of this volume), as they involve a number of victims in one location at a single point in time. They are characterized by the fact that they occur at an educational facility and involve at least a firearm, though they may include other weapons including bombs. When these bombs are used they are often specifically employed to channel or funnel others into kill zones, tight or confined spaces where a higher concentration of victims may be killed. While they may involve adult victims (either the shooter’s family, educators, administrators, or support staff), school shootings occur mostly between students. They are rarely impulsive acts, and school shooters rarely just “snap” (Fox & DeLateur, 2014; Vossekuil, Fein, Reddy, Borum, & Modzelski, 2004). There is no one “profile” of a school shooter, though certain tendencies emerge. Most of these attacks occur during the school day, which makes sense as this is the time at which the victim population is available. Almost all the attackers are students at the facility where the shooting takes place, most of the attacks are carried out alone, though there are certainly attackers who work in pairs, such as the Columbine the plural shooters Harris and Kleblold. Most of the attackers are male, and the most common weapons used were handguns, rifles, and shotguns (Vossekuil et al., 2004). In recent times, school shootings have certainly had their share of attention in the media and academic literature alike. As a result, researchers and theorists have developed typologies to explain this phenomenon in terms of the major features and motivations. One such typology is called the Rampage School Shooter (Langman, 2009). Langman notes a number of problems with the study of this group including an “extraordinarily small” (p. 80) sample size, though other researchers argue that school shootings are increasing (Kalish & Kimmel, 2010), with more occurring since 2000 than in the whole of the 20th century (Katsiyannis, Whitford, & Ennis, 2018). Second is that these offenders sometimes end up deceased either at their hand or that of law enforcement (Which may

Chapter 5 • Homicide by Juveniles

105

be suicide-by-cop), which limits researchers to retrospective reviews of the offender’s life. Third is that, even when offenders live, they may not be available for study owing to legal debate about sanity. Lastly is the problem of definition, which varies across researchers and the population being studied. The sample for Langman’s study consisted of 10 school shooters ranging in victim counts from 2 dead and 2 wounded (Evan Ramsey) to 32 dead and 17 wounded (Seung Hui Cho). There are three types in this classification system. The first is Traumatized, shooters who come from backgrounds of physical and/or sexual abuse, emotional turmoil, fragmented families, and who may be suicidal and, initially at least, direct this aggression outward. The second type is the Psychotic where there is no history of abuse, rather the offender has disorders on the schizophrenia spectrum. These offenders may have hallucinations and delusions. The last type is the Psychopathic. These killers have a lack of empathy, have a sense of superiority, and hold others in contempt. They take pleasure in deceiving others and enjoy inflicting pain on others or animals. As these offenses involve children, questions arise as to how someone so young could commit an act of extreme violence involving many victims. The arguments for this parallel explanations of adult violence in many respects, but also involve arguments that are either more specific to this age group, or perhaps have a greater impact on this age group. One in particular focuses on the role of violent media such as movies, television shows, and computer games. This argument is not new though, nor is it peculiar to school shootings. In fact, concerns over the influence of violent media have been around for some time and even predated computer gaming. In Seduction of the Innocent, Wertham (1954) takes on the issue of violence in comic books, which was the media of the time which youth was exposed to, arguing that they had an undue influence on antisocial behavior and crime. Specifically, Wertham (1954, p. 10) states: Slowly, and at first reluctantly, I have come to the conclusion that this chronic stimulation, temptation and seduction by comic books, both their content and their alluring advertisements of knives and guns, are contributing factors to many children’s maladjustment. All comic books with their words and expletives in balloons are bad for reading, but not every comic book is bad for children’s minds and emotions. The trouble is that the “good” comic books are snowed under by those which glorify violence, crime and sadism. At no time, up to the present, has a single child ever told me as an excuse for delinquency or for misbehavior that comic books were to blame. Nor do I nor my associates ever question a child in such a way as to suggest that to him. If I find a child with a fever I do not ask him, “What is the cause of your fever? Do you have measles?”

106

HOMICIDE

I examine him and make my own diagnosis. It is our clinical judgement, in all kinds of behavior disorders and personality difficulties of children, that comic books do play a part. Of course, they are not in the textbooks. But once alerted to the possibility, we unexpectedly found, in case after case, that comic books were a contributing factor not to be neglected. More recent publications have put this issue to rest, suggesting that the connection has been overstated (Ferguson, 2014; Ferguson, Coulson, & Barnett, 2011). Ferguson et al. (2011, p. 146) state that “research reports, narrative reviews, and meta-analyses that challenge the causal view have begun rolling in with increasing regularity” and that “during the time video games soared in popularity and violence content, youth violence plummeted to 40-year lows.” Research examining concepts such as realism and violence depiction perhaps give us the greatest insight into whether there is a link here with an increase in aggression that may lead to violence (Zendle, Kudenko, & Cairns, 2018 suggest that there is not). If the level of violence, the type of violence, the realism of violence, or the sheer volume of violent media was related to the actual perpetration of violence, then we expect to see a rise in violence commensurate with these features. This simply has not happened. Of course, the problem with these retrospective claims is that in the library of any killer or killers we could find virtually anything that could be used to bolster a claim about the negative influence on their behavior. Martin Bryant who carried out a mass shooting in Australia in 1996 at the historic site of Port Arthur in Tasmania is said to have been obsessed with Child’s Play, a movie about a possessed murderous doll, while it was also repeatedly pointed out that the Columbine shooters played Doom, a computer game where you play a Colonial Marine who fights back hordes of alien invaders. What is not often said about Bryant though is that he is also reputed to have had The Sound of Music in his video library, though this is conspicuously absent in many claims about the influence of media on his behavior. The point is that we are likely to be able to find any hook on which to hang a claim, but that does not make the claim valid. Despite the evidence pointing away from a link, violent media still appears as a potential factor, with Lintott (2004) including it as factor within the social/environmental factors which contribute to school shootings. To be fair, while Lintott’s paper was published before the other articles cited earlier, the evidence against a link between violence and media dates back many years prior to Lintott’s publication. Some arguments for a link between violence and media may be simplistic or may misinterpret the direction of the relationship. For example, say a large quantity of violent media was found in the possession of a school shooter after the fact. It could be the case that the exposure to violent media lead to the violent behavior. It is also possible that an individual predisposed to committing acts of extreme violence is drawn to violent media. Though one does lead to the other, it is perhaps not in the direction we believe.

Chapter 5 • Homicide by Juveniles

107

Case Study—The Killer at Thurston High Kip Kinkel was a troubled teenager who lived at home with his parents and only sister. Later claims were to be made regarding voices that Kip heard, though there is some skepticism that these were the foundation for an insanity claim rather than a mental disorder. While this case involves a school shooting it is a little different to others in that it is also a parricide, involving the murder of both parents the day before. Kip had been seeing a psychologist, was obsessed with guns, and often had a love-hate relationship with his father who punished him at one point by taking his guns away. He had significant conflict at school which was made worse at home point by his father making him play football, where he was specifically targeted on the field owing to his smaller size. The following chronology is provided by PBS (2014) who maintain an extensive amount of information regarding the case. On the 20th of May 1998, Kip went to school and purchased a .32 caliber Beretta pistol from another student whose mother called the school to report the weapon missing. The police were already at the school when the report came in, and after interviewing students were led quickly to Kip who was pulled out of class. He was charged later that day and expressed great concern over what his parents would think of him. He was interviewed and charged with firearm possession. Kip’s father Bill picked him up and drove him home. Kinkel found his father sitting in the kitchen, and shot him once in the head with a .22 rifle. He then took the body to the bathroom and covered him with a sheet. Several hours later at approximately 6.30 p.m., Kip’s mother arrived home with the groceries and was shot in the garage where he told her he loved her before shooting her twice in the back of the head, three times in the face, and once in the heart. She was left where she fell. Kip stayed in the house overnight before leaving at around 7.30 am on the 21st of May 1998. For the first time in his life, he drove his mother’s car to school allegedly barely able to reach the peddles. He had a backpack filled with ammunition, a .22 caliber Ruger, his father’s 9 mm Glock, and a .22 caliber Ruger semiautomatic. Wearing a long trench coat and with a knife strapped to his leg. He parked some distance from the school and walked to the school grounds making his way toward the cafeteria. He shot two students on the way and fired indiscriminately into the cafeteria. Students rushed Kip and he was wrestled to the ground where one students punched him in the face. Kip stated “I just want to die.” First response officers and the first detective to arrive secured him and the officer who charged him the day before arrived, taking Kip to the police station. While handcuffed, the detective left for a brief period before returning and was rushed by Kip who was holding the knife strapped to his leg. Kip Kinkel, 15 years of age, was charged with four counts of aggravated murder and 26 attempted murders. The murders were for both of his parents and the two students he killed. Despite claims of paranoid schizophrenia, Kip Kinkel was found guilty and sentenced to 111 years. Knoll and Meloy (2014, p. 239) suggest that “prior to the shootings, Kinkel had been treated for depression and was fascinated by firearms. His peers

108

HOMICIDE

described him as morbid and preoccupied with violence.” Knoll and Meloy then go on to suggest that his preoffense writings suggest paranoid schizophrenia dynamics.

Recidivism in Juvenile Homicide Because the number of homicides committed by children is relatively small, studies typically rely on small sample sizes. When it comes to recidivism, the sample sizes tend to be similarly small, thus we are cautioned about how to interpret those findings as applicable to the broader population of juvenile offenders. Despite the small population there are several studies that have been carried out on juvenile recidivism and we will now turn to the findings of these. Studies prior to those discussed below are considerably more dated, going back to the 1970s and 1980s, and as such may not be as instructive in understanding recidivism today as the social and legal milieu for homicide (and crime in general) has changed. Liem (2013) notes that recidivism in these studies will be different based on the measures used such as whether the offender is simply arrested again or whether the offender is incarcerated. Liem also notes that juvenile parricide offenders recidivate at a lower rate than other juvenile homicide offenders, which makes sense as one will have a limited number of people who they identify as a parent. Simple arrests as a marker for recidivism may be problematic as police may tend to focus on a small number of known offenders in a geographic region, increasing the chance that certain groups may be arrested more often. On top of this issue, arrest does not equate to guilt. In the first study discussed here, Vries and Liem (2011) considered a sample from the Dutch Homicide Monitor between 1992 and 2007 with a total of 4345 offenders and 3627 victims. They only included those cases where the offenders were between the age of 12 and 17 years where full case information was available, so for the thresholds used in this chapter they only studied teenage offenders. This resulted in a sample of 137 juveniles for 108 homicides with 116 victims. Vries and colleague examined both recidivism (measured as whether there was another offense committed after the homicide), as well as the speed of recidivism which was the duration between release and the first recidivism. This duration between release and reoffending was used to calculate the most at risk period for reoffending after release. The sample had significantly more males than females (mean ¼ 0.85), which is a common finding with this population. Almost half had issues with self-control and more than half had at least one psychopathology. One-fifth had two or more disorders. One in five were physically abused by one or both parents and one in five had a family history of delinquency. Sixty-four (47%) of the juvenile homicide offenders (JHOs) had a criminal record, with about 40% previously convicted of two or more offenses with half being property offenses and a quarter being violent offenses. The offenders were 15 years of age when they committed their first offense and 17 years of age when they committed the index offense (the homicide). Regarding relationships, nearly half had contact with other delinquents or

Chapter 5 • Homicide by Juveniles

109

friends who also had criminal convictions, and drug and alcohol use was common with almost one-quarter using alcohol and drugs regularly. After release, 59% of the sample committed another offense, with only 3% involving another homicide offense (n ¼ 16) though these 16 offenses were not completed, that is, they were attempted homicides. In only two cases (1%) was another successful homicide completed. The recidivists committed 7.64 offenses on average after the initial homicide, with 75% being convicted for two or more further offenses. As time wore on, more of the offenders committed more offenses. This increased from 31% after 1 year to 71% after 10 years. Only 9% of the juveniles monitored did not commit another offense during the 16-year period of the study. The fastest recidivism speed was up to 1 year, with 1–6 years being quite stable, and after 6 years the recidivism speed slows again. Half of the sample had committed another offense within 3 years and 4 months, indicating a higher risk period for recidivism. A secondary goal of the study was to examine the role of risk factors on reoffending. Unsurprisingly the study found that male sex is a major influence, with lack of self-control being an influence albeit less so. Over time, the previous number of offenses, the age at first offense, and the age at the time of the homicide were also found to influence recidivism. This may indicate a greater penchant toward antisocial attitudes or beliefs, and thereby a greater willingness to commit extreme violations of the criminal law. For dynamic risk factors, the only one that impacted on the speed of recidivism was delinquent acquaintances. This again tends to highlight the importance of differential associations in maintaining or promoting criminal and antisocial behavior. Using a sample of juvenile homicide offenders in the United States, Trulson and Caudill (2017) examined 247 offenders from the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) with each subject requiring at least 3 years between their release date and the end of data collection. According to these researchers this allowed them to capture the greatest amount of variance for recidivists. Interestingly, despite their age this sample was split into capital offenders and noncapital offenders with little difference between the two groups in terms of age at state incarceration. For both groups this was about 16 years of age, with the capital group being a mean of 15.46 years (SD ¼ 0.12) and the noncapital group being 15.75 years (SD ¼ 0.08), indicating little difference in terms of age at incarceration between groups. A little over one-third of the sample were capital offenders, while about two-thirds were noncapital offenders. As with the research of Vries and colleague, the vast majority of the sample were male (92% for capital, 93% for noncapital). With regards to ethnicity, most offenders were Hispanic (41%), followed by black (36%), then white (23%). Across the entire cohort, the average subject completed eight grade education, and most were considered truant from school. This suggests a high degree of disengagement from social institutions such as schools, with the correspondent range of problems this may represent such as lower education, poorer problem solving, and higher degree of inhibited life opportunities like gainful employment allowing for the full range of social and economic opportunities. Both groups apparently experienced similar ranges of abuse,

110

HOMICIDE

with 26% experiencing emotional abuse, 6% neglect, and 15% reporting physical abuse. Around 78% of the sample reported substance abuse. For the total 247 offenders in the sample, over half were arrested for another offense within the 3-year follow-up period. While there was some variance between the capital and noncapital group, the differences were not significant. To further the understanding between the groups bivariate and multivariate analysis was undertaken though “it does not provide a clear understanding of the micro-level factors associated with recidivism” (p. 97). For the multivariate analysis where other covariates were held constant, four significant predictors of recidivism were found: experiencing neglect before commitment to TYC was associated with 5.30 times greater probability of recidivism; experiencing physical abuse prior to be being incarcerated was associated with a significantly lower risk of recidivism; longer periods of incarceration were associated with lower odds of recidivism; and those that assaulted peers while incarcerated were more likely to recidivate. Another study in the United States (Khachatryan, Heide, & Hummel, 2018) sought to examine whether there was a difference between offenders who killed in the course of another crime (felony homicides) compared to those who killed during some type of conflict, specifically on preincarceration, incarceration, and postincarceration. Compared to the prior two studies, the sample size for this was comparatively small (43 offenders for 32 homicides). Two hypotheses were tested. The first was that crime oriented offenders would have more postrelease arrests than conflict offenders, and second that crime oriented offenders would commit more violent crimes. For the crime group, there were 25 robberies, 4 home burglaries, 1 vehicle burglary, 1 sexual assault, and 1 male prostitution. Approximately 30% of this group (n ¼ 13) attempted murder with approximately 70% (n ¼ 30) completing a homicide. The conflict group was smaller with 16 offenders and 15 homicides. There were five acquaintance homicides, four stranger homicides, three homicides of friends, and three of family members. All of the family cases involved a significant conflict history, with two involving parents with a history of abuse and one involving a brother killing a sister. None of the family homicide offenders had an arrest history. This group was comprised of one-quarter attempted homicides and three-quarters completed homicides. Neither group differed significantly on demographics and prior history, with more than 60% of participants being black, with most being between 14 and 18 years (therefore teenagers) with around 75% having a history of delinquency where 45% had a history of violent arrests. The average age was just short of 13 years with the average number of arrests being nearly 4. Those in the crime oriented group were more likely to commit homicides in company (86% compared to 37.5%), which would make sense as the conflict offenses, while perhaps having a history of discord, are more likely to be spontaneous and not necessarily thought out or planned where a crime leading to the commission of a homicide is more likely to be thought out and happen in company. The conflict offenders were more likely to use a firearm than the crime offenders (75% compared to 39.5%).

Chapter 5 • Homicide by Juveniles

111

Following the groups after release from prison, a high rearrest rate was found with 87.5% being arrested again, with only one from the crime group being arrested on a parole violation, with all others being arrested for at least one new offense. The mean time for rearrest was approximately 30 months, which is not too dissimilar to that found in the study by Trulson and Caudill (2017). Of those arrested again, 71.4% of offenders committed a violent crime. Of these, 10% were arrested for a completed homicide (n ¼ 4) or an attempted homicide (n ¼ 1). Interestingly that small number of offenders who commit a second homicide is, by strict definition, a serial killer, however without the features and circumstances of the homicide this is not definitive. For example, these may have been drug or gang related, and that type of crime is usually excluded from classification of serial murder. Three crime-oriented offenders were involved in homicides post release and two in the conflict group were also involved in homicides post release. The highest number of new arrests was 30, while the highest number of violent offenses was 23. These figures are considerable given the age of the offenders, and this group perhaps represents the most intractable of the overall sample. Only a small number of offenders had not been arrested post release (12.5%), with all six of these having previously committed homicide. These were distributed evenly between the crime and conflict group (n ¼ 3 each) and had a longer time at risk period, from 40 to 315 months.

Conclusion While not common, homicides committed by juveniles do happen, and some research indicates a different constellation of features to adult homicides. Because they are less common, sample sizes tend to be smaller and purposive rather than being selected randomly from a large corpus of data. As such, we must be careful in how far we run out the findings to all child or all juvenile homicide offenders. Young people do tend to commit more of certain types of homicides than adults, such as school shootings, but this is to be expected because of the circumstances of the offense. Conversely, young people tend to commit less serial homicides than adults, and so this population is smaller still. More research is definitely needed into this population despite small sample sizes.

References Bailey, S. (1996). Adolescents who murder. Journal of Adolescence, 19(1), 19–39. doi:10.1006/ jado.1996.0003. Bailey, S. (2000). Editorial: juvenile homicide. Criminal Behavior and Mental Health, 10, 149–154. Bender, P. K., Plante, C., & Gentile, D. A. (2018). The effects of violent media content on aggression. Current Opinion in Psychology, 19, 104–108. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.04.003. Ferguson, C. (2014). Does media violence predict societal violence? It depends on what you look at and when. Journal of Communication, 65(1), E1–E22. doi:10.1111/jcom.12129. Ferguson, C. J., Coulson, M., & Barnett, J. (2011). Psychological profiles of school shooters: positive directions and one big wrong turn. Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations, 11(2), 141–158. doi:10.1080/15332586.2011.581523.

112

HOMICIDE

€ ller, A., & Greitemeyer, T. (2010). Media violence and the self: the impact of personFischer, P., Kastenmu alized gaming characters in aggressive video games on aggressive behavior. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46(1), 192–195. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.06.010. Fox, J. A., & DeLateur, M. J. (2014). Mass shootings in America: moving beyond Newtown. Homicide Studies, 18(1), 125–145. doi:10.1177/1088767913510297. Gentile, D. A., Coyne, S., & Walsh, D. A. (2018). Media violence, physical aggression, and relational aggression in school age children: a short-term longitudinal study. Aggressive Behavior, 37(2), 193–206. doi:10.1002/ab.20380. Goldblatt, M. J., & Maltsberger, J. T. (2016). Psychotic panic and feared sexual assault – ‘homosexual panic’: the historical role of feared homosexual assault as a contributing factor to self-attack. The Scandinavian Psychoanalytic Review, 39(2), 114–117. doi:10.1080/01062301.2017.1278639. Gooch, G., & Williams, M. (2015). Age of criminal responsibility. In A dictionary of law enforcement. Oxford University Press. Retrieved from: (2015). http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/ 9780191758256.001.0001/acref-9780191758256-e-85. Harris, J., & White, V. (2018). Age of criminal responsibility. In A dictionary of social work and social care: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from:(2018). http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/ 9780198796688.001.0001/acref-9780198796688-e-59. Heide, K. M. (1993). Parents who get killed and the children who kill them. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 8(4), 531–544. Heide, K. M., Solomon, E. P., Sellers, B. G., & Chan, H. C. (2011). Male and female juvenile homicide offenders: an empirical analysis of U.S. arrests by offender age. Feminist Criminology, 6(1), 3–31. doi:10.1177/1557085110387788. Kalish, R., & Kimmel, M. (2010). Suicide by mass murder: masculinity, aggrieved entitlement, and rampage school shootings. Health Sociology Review, 19(4), 451–464. doi:10.5172/hesr.2010.19.4.451. Katsiyannis, A., Whitford, D. K., & Ennis, R. P. (2018). Historical examination of United States intentional mass school shootings in the 20th and 21st centuries: implications for students, schools, and society. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 1–12. doi:10.1007/s10826-018-1096-2. Khachatryan, N., Heide, K. M., & Hummel, E. V. (2018). Recidivism patterns among two types of juvenile homicide offenders: a 30-year follow-up study. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 62(2), 404–426. doi:10.1177/0306624X16657052. Knoll, J. L., & Meloy, J. R. (2014). Mass murder and the violent paranoid spectrum. Psychiatric Annals, 44(5), 236–243. doi:10.3928/00485713-20140502-07. Langman, P. (2009). Rampage school shooters: a typology. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 14, 79–86. Liem, M. (2013). Homicide offender recidivism: a review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 18, 19–25. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2012.08.001. Lintott, J. (2004). Teaching and learning in the face of school violence. Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy, 11(3), 553. Myers, W. C., & Chan, H. C. (2012). Juvenile homosexual homicide. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 30(2), 90–102. doi:10.1002/bsl.2000. PBS. (2014). Who is Kip Kinkel? - Chronology. [News]. Retrieved from:(2014). https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/kip/cron.html. Accessed 1 July 2018. Riecken, T. (1999). When children murder children. Child & Youth Care Forum, 28(4), 235–238. doi:10.1023/A:1021953224647. Rodway, C., Norrington-Moore, V., While, D., Hunt, I. M., Flynn, S., Swinson, N., et al. (2011). A populationbased study of juvenile perpetrators of homicide in England and Wales. Journal of Adolescence, 34(1), 19–28. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2010.03.005.

Chapter 5 • Homicide by Juveniles

113

Thomas, T. A., & Fremouw, W. J. (2009). Homosexual panic. In: A. Jamieson, & A. Moenssens (Eds.), (Vols. 1–5). Wiley encyclopedia of forensic science. New York: Wiley. Trulson, C., & Caudill, J. (2017). Juvenile homicide offender recidivism. Journal of Criminal Psychology, 7 (2), 93–104. Vossekuil, B., Fein, R. A., Reddy, M., Borum, R., & Modzelski, W. (2004). The final report and findings of the safe school initiative: Implications for the prevention of school attacks in the United States: (p. 39). Washington, DC: United States Secret Service and United States Department of Education. Vries, A. M., & Liem, M. (2011). Recidivism of juvenile homicide offenders. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 29(4), 483–498. doi:10.1002/bsl.984. Wertham, F. (1954). Seduction of the innocent. New York: Rinehart & Company Inc. Wolff, S., & Smith, A. M. (2001). Children who kill. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 322(7278), 61. doi:10.1136/ bmj.322.7278.61. Zendle, D., Kudenko, D., & Cairns, P. (2018). Behavioural realism and the activation of aggressive concepts in violent video games. Entertainment Computing, 24, 21–29. doi:10.1016/j.entcom.2017.10.003.

Serial Murder☆

6

CHAPTER OUTLINE Serial, Spree, and Mass Murder .................................................................................................. 116 The Prevalence of Serial Murder ................................................................................................. 116 Serial Murder ................................................................................................................................ 119 History of the Term Serial Murder ..........................................................................................119 Defining Serial Murder ............................................................................................................122 Definitions by Victim Count, Cooling-Off Period, and Location ...........................................123 The Problem With Victim Counts ................................................................................................ 128 The Problem With Cooling-Off Periods ...................................................................................... 129 The Problem With Motive ........................................................................................................... 131 Proposed Definition ..................................................................................................................... 133 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 134 References .................................................................................................................................... 134

Of the various types of homicide, none has captured the attention of academics, researchers, and the public like serial murder. Beyond movies and televisions shows dedicated to the subject, there are a plethora of true crime books and fiction works in various print and electronic formats dedicated to the subject. Added to this are the numerous textbooks on the subject such as Hickey’s Serial Murderers and Their Victims, and Egger’s The Killer Among Us and Serial Murder: An Elusive Phenomenon. Further to these works would be the hundreds of articles appearing in industry, organization, and peer-reviewed journals. The focus on serial murder in the literature has no parallel among the multiple victim homicides and that is the reason why there is a chapter dedicated solely to it in this work. In this chapter, the definitions for serial murder will be discussed, including the three main components or factors common to most, if not all, definitions: victim count, cooling-off period, and crime location. This chapter will start with a history of the term serial murder, and end with a discussion of the problems with various characteristics of those definition.

☆ Authors’ note: This chapter draws on much of the same literature and comes to the same conclusions as a manuscript in preparation.

Homicide. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812529-8.00006-9 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

115

116

HOMICIDE

Serial, Spree, and Mass Murder Gresswell and Hollin (1994) suggest that there are three types of multiple murder: serial murder, spree murder, and mass murder. While there are similarities between them, such as they are all multiple victim crimes, there are differences in the literature about aspects such as the victim count. The differences between serial, spree, and mass murders could be distilled to three common features. The first is the victim count, with this aspect being one of the most debated. The next is what is known as the cooling-off period or the cooling interval. This is more than a simple time break between offenses and represents an emotional disconnect from offending and a return to normalcy. The third is the physical location at which the offense occurs. With an over simplification these differences could be adequately represented as: • • •

Serial murder: Several victims; different general timeframe; different locations. Spree murder: Several victims; same general timeframe; different locations. Mass murder: [More than] three victims; same general timeframe; same location.

The Prevalence of Serial Murder Estimates of the prevalence of serial murder are not difficult to come by, but accurate estimates based on solid methodology and logic are few and far between. To be fair, such estimates of a largely unknowable population will often be based on guesswork and prediction. These may combine a number of known crimes with the average number of victims killed per crime, along with an estimate of the number of missing persons who may be victims of serial murder, among others. The reader should be able to infer from this the difficulty in treating such figures as a reliable predictor of the size of the serial murderer population. Indeed, Fox and Levin (2015, p. 128), who provide their own estimate of the number of these murders state “determining the number of victims killed by these offenders is, unfortunately, next to impossible”. Gresswell and Hollin (1994, p. 6) are somewhat more conservative in their warning, noting that “estimating the current prevalence of multiple murder is, however, fraught with difficulty.” It would be fair to say that most of the research on the prevalence of serial murder has been conducted in the United States. This is likely owing to the often-stated refrain that America has approximately 75% of the global serial killer population ( Johnson & Becker, 1997; Miller, 2014). This figure is supported by independent data, such as the Radford University/FGCU Serial Killer Database (Aamodt, 2016) showing a global population estimate of 67.58% (n ¼ 3204) for the United States. This is followed by the United Kingdom (n ¼ 166, 3.5%), South Africa (n ¼ 117, 2.47%), Canada (n ¼ 106, 2.24%), and Australia near midway on the list (n ¼ 81, 1.71%). Jenkins (1994) presents a table provided by the U.S. Justice Department on the number of serial murderers from 1795 to 1992. This information is reproduced in Table 1.

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 117

Table 1 Justice Department Figures on the History of Serial Homicide in the United States Period

Known Serial Murder Cases

1795–1849 1850–99 1900–24 1925–49 1950–74 1975–92 Total

5 20 13 20 66 331 455

These figures amount to approximately 4.7 serial murder cases per year, which would seem low, and would obviously be skewed by timeframe owing to the large number of known serial murderers between 1975 and 1992. Jenkins notes that for this information to be reliable two assumptions must be made. The first is that earlier cases are just as likely to come to light as later cases, and to be recorded in the official figures. The second is that the search methods used to collect the data were as reliable for the earlier figures as for the latter. Jenkins rightly cautions the need for healthy skepticism of these figures, as not only were there differences in reporting on and recording crimes in the earlier periods, there were also likely differences in investigative strategies employed, such as the ability to successfully link cases to one offender. The “boom” of known cases between 1975 and 1992 could be explained, in part, by the rise in the popularity of the genre along with new investigative techniques such as criminal profiling and the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Jenkins (1994, p. 30) also notes that: Especially troubling is the nature of the cases listed for the different eras. In the 1980s, we have numerous instances of cases involving “only” two or three victims, in addition to the legendary incidents with twenty or thirty killings. For the years between 1890 and 1940, by contrast, the vast majority of the cases listed are instances of “extreme” serial killing, with very large numbers of victims. This either means that early killers were all vastly more successful than their modern counterparts, or else the searches are failing to locate the (hypothetically) numerous petty cases of that era. Two Australian studies, both published by the Australian Institute of Criminology, aimed to identify the number of serial murders in Australia dating back to 1900. In the first, Pinto and Wilson (1990) acknowledge their research does not include every instance of serial murder and that the actual prevalence is unknown. Between the years 1900 and 1987, these authors identify 12 serial murders ranging from several victims through to 37 [suspected] baby murders by Alice Mitchell, a pediatric nurse. This research also includes five unresolved cases which are likely the work of serial

118

HOMICIDE

murderers between 1965 and 1990. Later, Mouzos (1999) conducted follow-up research using data from July 1989 to June 2006. From a total sample of 5743 homicide offenders they identified 11 “groupings of serial murders” (p. 3). Excluding the well-known Claremont serial murders in Western Australia (at the time unsolved, though the trial of a suspect is pending at the time of this writing), this data included 13 known killers. The total number of victims was 52 (which strangely includes the three victims in the Claremont killings), with these murders accounting for less than 1% of the total number of murders in Australia. If we combine these two studies, with the first finding 12 known cases with a further five suspected, and the second finding another 13 known cases, the total of 30 cases for this time falls somewhat short of the estimates of Aamodt (2016) of 81 serial killers. Granted, Wilson and Pinto acknowledge that their research did not include all cases, and that there will be a dark figure of crime (the difference between actual and reported cases), these two studies represent only about 30% of those cases claimed by Aamodt. In the Crime Classification Manual (CCM), Burgess (2006) claims that there are currently about 35 serial killers in operation in the United States, though the source for this figure is absent from the claim. This is similar to that provided by Douglas and Olshaker (1996) who note that based on a conservative estimate there would be between 25 and 50 active serial killers in the United States. Miller and Costello (2000) cites a similar figure along with others from a variety of unidentified sources, and so the veracity of the estimates nor the source of the data can be identified or validated (p. 3): [Referring to the Son of Sam murders in New York in the 1970s]. Up to that time, there were probably less than 10 serial murderers identified in the United States. By the 1980s, the FBI calculated that approximately 35 serial killers were active in the U.S., and in recent years that estimate has swelled to between 200 and 500, accounting for 2000 to 35000 murders a year, more than 10% of all murders in the U.S. In fact, with only 5% of the world’s population, some authorities believe that the U.S. may have up to 75% of the world’s serial killers, perhaps due to the open, mobile nature of American society. The increase in the number of serial killers captured and recoded may be due to an actual surge in the rate of this crime or to better profiling and crime-solving techniques. Estimates of the prevalence of serial murder are often no better than that, an estimate. Because the actual number is unknown we are left with any number of calculations that will invariably involve the known amount, in additions to an estimated amount of killers at a point in time, along with other figures such as a proportion of the missing victims based on an average victim count of known murderers. None of these methods are desirable beyond a basic academic exercise. Even the known number of serial murderers is not a good figure on which to base the proportion of serial murder to nonserial murder, as this will only account for the proportion of offenders who, for one reason or another, failed to evade capture any longer.

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 119

Serial Murder Serial murder is one of the most studied and reported on types of mass victim murders, despite the fact it is still a relatively uncommon event (Schlesinger, 2001). The popularity of the genre is likely the result of the sensational nature of the crime owing to victim counts higher than other types such as domestic homicides, which tend to be single victim events. Popularity increased through the 1980s and onward after several movies and televisions shows, along with memoirs published by ex-FBI agents, brought serial murder into the public conscience. Jenkins (1994) suggests that the serial murder phenomenon was little more than creative marketing by the FBI at the time, in an effort to increase their profile and celebrity. While there is a significant body of research into serial murder, there is perhaps as much conflict in agreement as there is actual agreement. For many years, there was heated debate over whether a serial murderer must kill more than two or more than three victims, and over the significance of the time interval between offenses. Indeed, it took some time for the so-called cooling-off period to be defined and operationalized. Somewhat concerning about this specific feature of serial murder is the fact that, despite some other works in progress by this author and colleagues, the issue of whether serial offenders “cool-off” has never been established empirically. Rather, this period between offending is assumed, ostensibly from early suggestions that cooling-off happens, without any significant investigation being undertaken to determine whether this is in fact true.

History of the Term Serial Murder Credit for coining the term serial murder is given largely to one of three sources. The first is retired FBI agent Robert K Ressler, one of the early profilers in the famed Behavioral Sciences Unit, with Miller and Costello (2000) crediting Ressler during the Son of Sam murders, while Pakhomou (2004) credits him through citation to Ressler’s two biographical works. Ressler became famous for his two memoirs Whoever Fights Monsters and I Have Lived in the Monster and personally takes responsibility for the term in Whoever Fights Monsters, specifically citing his teaching at the FBI Academy and training commitments. He claims that “it was during one of those international sessions that I coined the term serial killer [italics in original], now in much use” (Ressler & Schachtman, 1993, p. 45). Then in I Have Lived in the Monster, while discussing his interviews with incarcerated offenders, Ressler states “as part of my attempt to understand multiple murderers, in the mid-1970s I coined the term serial killer” (Ressler & Shachtman, 1997, p. 1). The second given credit is Pierce Brooks, a retired Chief of Police in Los Angeles, who envisaged a computer network transcending jurisdictional boundaries. The idea was to provide the capacity to track offenders, notably serial murderers, who escaped police apprehension by moving into another state or territory. Brooks felt that the ability to have a “common language” (these author’s own words) between jurisdictions would help overcome serial killers’ ability to evade the law. At the time no such program was possible

120

HOMICIDE

because computers and networks of the day were not powerful enough, however, in 1981 Brooks introduced ViCAP, or the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (Geberth, 2006). In 1998, Steven Egger suggested that “the term serial murder was first used sometime in 1982 or 1983. The criminal investigative pioneer Pierce Brooks, who conceptualized the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program...may have been the first to use the term serial.” This timeline would fit within the assertion by Kocsis and Irwin (1998, p. 198) that “prior to 1980 there was no specific term for serial murderers or serial crimes in general,” but these comments suggest a fundamental lack of knowledge of the wealth of literature canvassing this very issue prior to this time. The third source for the term is the FBI as an agency. This credit appears in several works, either directly or indirectly, with some specifically citing the Behavioral Sciences Unit (BSU) made famous in any number of works on criminal profiling and serial murder. Fox and Levin (2015, pp. 78–79) suggest: Serial murder is a relatively new term, even though the crime itself has existed throughout the history of man’s inhumanity to man. … In the early 1980s, however, when the FBI launched a large-scale initiative at its training academy in Quantico, Virginia, to document, study, and investigate repeat killers, it established a trichotomy of multiple murder. This does not preclude Ressler as being the source for this term while working with the FBI, indicating only that he is not directly credited here by Fox and Levin. Fredric Wertham’s Show of Violence, published in 1949, discusses the effects of violent media on children, as well as discussing what he calls mass murders. It is clear from the meaning and context that this was his term for serial murder, as all the cases discussed in this paragraph are well-known serial murderers as judged by today’s standards. Wertham (1949) states that murder as a social problem plagues mostly unknown victims rather than the famous victims covered in the media. He then goes on to suggest that “what is true of such mass murders is less conspicuous but equally true in the aggregate for single murderers” (p. 260). James Brophy published The Meaning of Murder, first in the United Kingdom in 1966, but then in an American edition in 1967. Brophy specifically used the term serial murder and was to reject the label of mass murder as appropriate when the killings took place over time. As such, this was perhaps the first work to distinguish between serial murders and what we today known as mass murders based on the characteristics of time and distance. One such example of the use of the term is below (Brophy, 1967, p. 181): Murderers of this kind become serial murderers because a business cannot prosper on a single deal. Other serial murderers are of quite a different kind. They will seek out and destroy one victim after another whether or not there is any prospect of profit. With men like Jack the Ripper, whoever he may have been, Gilles de Rais (the one

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 121

and only original of Bluebeard) and Christie the necrophile of Notting Hill, murders happen almost rhythmically; their crimes are like the undulatory progress of a fever. Such men are monsters, who live not merely beyond the unmapped frontiers of sanity but beyond the frontiers of madness as madness is conceivable to most people. As such they must be considered separately to mass murders. Both the works of Wertham and Brophy predate claims made about Ressler and Brookes as the source of the term. A little less than 30 years after Wertham and around the same time as Brophy’s American edition, Lunde published Murder and Madness in 1975. In this work, Lunde discusses both single and mass murderers, and provides some discussion on the difference between the two. He notes that (Lunde, 1975, p. 47) “in common usage of the term, mass murder is applied to someone who kills a number of people…Psychiatric and legal literature sometimes makes a distinction between mass murder and serial murder.” Lunde notes that the mass murder is where a number of people are killed, usually by one person in a single episode, whereas serial murder occurs when a number of people are killed by a single person over months or years. It should be obvious that the term was in use, in a number of sources all tending to indicate the same thing before the 1980s, and spanning nearly 70 years between the first above source and the publication of this text. However, the first use of the term actually predates even this and shows that the term serial murder has now been in use for nearly 90 years. € In 1930, Ernst Gennat of the Berlin Criminal Police published Die Dusseldorf Sexualver€ brechen in Kriminalistische Monatshafte (very roughly translated as The Dusseldorf Sexual € rten, a Criminal in the Criminal Monthly). The article discussed the crimes of Peter Ku € sseldorf Monster or The Vampire of German serial murderer who was known as The Du € sseldorf. In this journal article translated with some assistance from the original Du “Old German,” Gennat (1930, p. 29) states: The question of whether the so-called Flehe child murder - the killing of children H. and L. (No. 9) - is to be added to the account of the "serial killer", is difficult to decide. It would remain to be tested whether the circumstances of the killing of A. allow the conclusion that the perpetrator from that case can also be considered as murderer of L. and H. Issues of translation aside, the original German passage identified states “auf das Konto € rders’ zu setzen ist, ist schwer zu entscheiden.” Here Serienmo € rder refers des ‘Serienmo to serial killer or serial murderer, and is most likely the first time the term was used not only in the professional literature, but also in the history of the problem. Please note that this was published in 1930 and multiple sources confirm that there have been some grammatical and technical changes in the language since that time. As such, the translation, even from a native German speaker of today, may appear somewhat clumsy or grammatically incorrect.

122

HOMICIDE

But even this was not the first discussion in the literature on multiple murder, specifically serial murder, though the specific term has not been found in any works prior to that of Gennat and so the authors would credit him with its genesis. Krafft-Ebing, an Austrian psychiatrist, published Psychopathia Sexualis in the 1880s around the same time Jack the Ripper was terrorizing Whitechapel, London. Numerous reprints of this work have been made over time, and in this work Krafft-Ebing discusses cases of multiple murder (includ€ rd” (lust murder). In this first ing Jack the Ripper), calling these “joy murders” or “lustmo description the term joy murder was used to describe cases where the murder itself was the main motivation rather than another motive like profit. In discussing Jack the Ripper, Krafft-Ebing states that mutilation done during the crime are a substitute for “normal” sex (Krafft-Ebing, 1965, p. 95): Jack the Ripper - On December 1, 1887, July 7, August 8, September 30, one day in the month of October and on November 9, 1888; min June 1, July 17 and September 10, 1889, the bodies of women were found in various lonely quarters of London ripped open and mutilated in a peculiar fashion. The murderer has never been found. It is probable that he first cut the throats of his victims, then ripped open the abdomen and groped among the intestines. In some instances he cut off the genitals and carried them away; in others he only tore them to pieces and left them behind. He does not seem to have had sexual intercourse with his victims, but very likely the murderous act and subsequent mutilation of the corpse were equivalents for the sexual act. It is obvious then that the term serial murder has been around for quite some time, and use of the term definitely predates that stated in much of the literature.

Defining Serial Murder Being able to define the nature and scope of a problem is more than an intellectual or academic endeavor. Defining whatever stimulus or condition is under examination is of immense practical value in that it limits the scope of inquiry only to those things that fall within the boundaries of the provided definition. This will rightly exclude from examination that which does not fall within the scope of the research question. In research methodology this is generally referred to as operationalizing variables. Consider the following example using arbitrary numbers or values for the sake of the argument. In any given population the number of serial murderers available for study who kill two or more victims is 100. For those who kill more than three victims, the number of murderers available is 50. And for those that kill four or more victims the number of murderers available is only 25. If serial murder is defined as the killing of two or more victims then our sample size could be up to 100, if three then the sample size will only be 50, and if four the sample size 25. If we have a sample of 100 offenders, given the relative rarity of serial murder, this may still allow us to generalize our results to larger populations. With this sample size, we

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 123

could have some confidence that this sample is representative of serial murderers in general (i.e., of course, providing our results are statistically significant!) If limiting the sample only to those who have killed four or more victims, we ostensibly have only 25 or so murderers, a population that will be too restricted to allow generalization. Beyond the impact this will have on researching the problem, there are obvious public safety and law enforcement implications. A smaller overall population available for study may indicate a smaller population overall, which means that the risk of death at the hands of a serial killer would be comparatively small. However, if the sample available for study is 100, this may represent an overall fourfold increase in risk from a sample of 25. Our sample of known killers may also indicate nothing about our overall risk though, with this number being representative of the “lowest intelligence” serial murderers. Put another way, this is the pool of serial killers who were not smart enough to continually evade police. As such, we may wish to set a threshold of victim count low to include not only those who get away with many killings (say four or more), but also those with a smaller number of killings (say two or more). This allows more of a comparison between groups, rounding out our overall understanding of the problem. This issue of definition was best summarized by Skrapec (2001, p. 11) who suggests that “defining the term determines the problem.” Beyond just identifying the features of a problem, it could be said that a good definition will go further and explain why the problem has been framed as it has. Sadly, within the literature on serial murder, this has been conspicuously absent. As stated at the start of this chapter, there are generally three criteria on which the difference between serial, spree, and mass murder are based. The first is victim count, the second is a cooling-off period, and the third is that the crimes occur in the same or different geographic location. For two of these at least, the victim count and cooling-off period, the rationale for their inclusion is largely absent from the corpus of publications.

Definitions by Victim Count, Cooling-Off Period, and Location One of the most significant ways that serial murder differs from other forms of multiple victim murder is in victim count. It is also the subject of most variance within definitions and across time, with estimates ranging from two to four or more victims. Despite the differences in victim count, Knoll (2006, p. 64) states that “the offender must have killed at least two victims in temporally unrelated incidents.” Dowden (2005, p. 8) states that the “primary difficulty is the lack of agreement on victim counts, with different researchers use [sic] varying cutoff points.” Kocsis and Irwin (1998) suggest that basing definitions on the victim count is problematic, and that perhaps other features are more important in defining the scope of the problem. They go on to say that “a practical limitation of using minimum offence numbers is that for any given offender the number of known offences may be less than the number of offences actually committed by that person” (p. 199). The definition provided by Burgess (2006) involves the murder of more than two victims, where there is a cooling-off period between the murders, and that they involve “more than one location or crime scene” (p. 437). It is not entirely clear here whether “more than

124

HOMICIDE

two victims” would also include two, or whether this threshold is set at three (with three being more than two?). Burgess (2006, p. 437) defines the cooling-off period as “the state of returning to the murderer’s usual way of life between killings,” however the duration of the cooling off period is not given. There is no further reason or rationale behind these thresholds. Discussing the psychiatrist’s role in serial murder investigation, Liebert does not weigh in on the issue of victim count, though he does go into other aspects of the definition in a general discussion of classification. Here, it is stated that (Liebert, 1985, p. 188): The problem of definition… is subject to interpretation of the crime scene for theories regarding motivation for murder. The assumption formulated…under the term serial murder is that one or more persons are murdering over a span of time and definable space and that there is a common denominator of motivation in otherwise random killings. Liebert does not provide a victim count, though two as the minimum count is implied in that there is a span of time, ostensibly what others refer to as the cooling-off period, and that the offenses must occur in discrete locations. As such, this discussion has two elements of the common three when defining serial murder: time and crime location. Also included herein is the idea of motivation, and that this a common denominator, with motivation being identified by Kocsis and Irwin as an important factor in identifying and defining serial murder. In Mass, Serial, and Sensational Homicides Dietz (1985) examines the effect that a different victim count would have on the study of serial murder. On this it is said that a (p. 487): Requirement of 10 murder victims and killing incidents for inclusion in the category of serial killers is good for the purpose of looking at one extreme and conceptually homogenous group of offenders, but it is too high a threshold for certain purposes, such as alerting law enforcement agencies to a series of crimes in progress. Dietz goes on to suggest that killers with less than five victims are more heterogeneous than those who kill more than five, and that the latter group falls into five categories: psychopathic sexual sadists, crime spree killers, functionaries of organized crime operations, custodial prisoners and asphyxiators, and supposed psychotics. There is no further explication of whether there must be a cooling-off period, or whether the offenses must occur within a different geographic space. Fox and Levin (1998, p. 410) state that “serial murder involves a string of four or more homicides committed by one or a few perpetrators that spans a period of days, weeks, months, or even years”. This is one of only a few definitions that sets the minimum victim count so high, and the authors claim that this tally is not arbitrary. Rather, they suggest that setting the count high will distinguish serial murder from other forms of multiple

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 125

victim murder. They add that the murders are committed by one or more offenders, adding that the killings span days, weeks, months, or years. They later echo this definition in Fox and Levin (2015) even though the FBI definition, long considered the “gold standard,” was reduced to two victims in 2008 (Morton & Hilts, 2008). Egger (1998) provides what is, without a doubt, the most comprehensive definition of serial murder in all of the literature. Egger notes that he has worked over the years to develop a definition of serial murder of use to law enforcement investigators that may be used to flag a potential serial murder in their jurisdiction (p. 5): A serial murder occurs when (1) one or more individuals (in many cases, males) commit(s) a second murder and/or subsequent murder; (2) there is generally no prior relationship between victim and attacker (if there is a relationship, such a relationship will place the victim in a subjugated role to the killer); (3) subsequent murders are at different times and have no apparent connection to the initial murder; and (4) are usually committed in a different geographical location. Further, (5) the motive is not for material gain and is for the murderer’s desire to have power or dominance over his victims. (6) Victims may have symbolic value for the murderer and/or are perceived to be prestige less and in most instances are unable to defend themselves or alert others to their plight, or are perceived as powerless given their situation in time, place, or status within their immediate surroundings, examples being (7) vagrants, the homeless, prostitutes, migrant workers, homosexuals missing children, single women (out by themselves), elderly women, college students, and hospital patients. Egger touches upon the three common factors of victim count, timeframe, and crime location. While no specific count is provided, the second or subsequent murder would imply at least two victims, with a cooling-off period, in different geographic locations. Egger does not operationalize the cooling-off period, however it includes a consideration of the dynamics through motive and states that the victims must be symbolic. As noted previously, Brophy (1967) rejected the term mass murder for multiple victim crimes, favoring the term serial murder for events in which the “repetition of intervals of time” (p. 166) was the defining feature of the crime. Brophy also quickly distinguishes between multiple murders committed for financial gain, such as the case of a hitman, from those committed by violent psychopaths. Interesting, Brophy also points out that there are many differences between murderers, and that any classification system is not as discrete as the various labels imply. He commented further on this aspect of serial murder, noting that “perhaps the only quality which all serial murderers have in common is the sustained purpose to murder” (p. 196). This defining criterion of serial homicide is akin to what others refer to as both the motivation and the serial murderers proneness to repetition (this will be discussed later in a proposed definition). Throughout the period in which serial murder literature has proliferated, the FBI have remained an authority and a yardstick by which to define the problem and scope of serial murder. Most recently this has been done through the publication of Serial Murder:

126

HOMICIDE

Multi-disciplinary Perspectives for Investigators (Morton & Hilts, 2008), a monograph from the Serial Murder Symposium Working Group, and through the previous publication of the Crime Classification Manual (CCM), now in its second edition (Douglas, Burgess, Burgess, & Ressler, 2006). Morton and Hilts (2008) define serial murder as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.” They claim that this definition is based on a “meeting of the minds” of a number of subject matter experts who proposed that the definition must include: • • • •

One or more offenders Two or more murdered victims The incidents being separate events, at different times The time period between murders separates serial murder from mass murder

This definition does not include the specific use of the term cooling-off period though it is stated that the murders must occur at different times. From these considerations the proposed definition is “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events” (p. 9). The Crime Classification Manual was an attempt by a number of FBI agents and their colleagues to provide a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) like reference work for crime (the DSM is a clinician’s “bible” for the diagnosis of a variety of psychological disorders). In the CCM, there is a chapter dedicated to serial, spree, and mass murder, with each type discussed in detail including victimological considerations and crime scene indicators. This chapter in the CCM states (Burgess, 2006, p. 461): Serial murder generally involves three or more victims. What sets this category apart from the two others is a cooling-off period between murders. The hiatus could be days, months, or years. In other words, the serial killer is not killing with frequency. … A serial killer usually goes after strangers, but the victims tend to share similarities such as gender, age, or occupation. Although he prefers a certain look or background, it does not mean he will not substitute another victim is he cannot find his intended target. Haggerty (2009) introduces a feature into his definition that is not common to any other definition included in this review. This states that “a serial killer is someone who has killed three or more people who were previously unknown to him.” The use of the male pronoun is purposive and considered appropriate because “almost all instances of serial killing have been male perpetrators” (p. 184). While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to highlight the fundamental flaws in this assumption, the reader would not have difficulty in locating numerous instances of serial murder committed by female offenders. Kelleher and Kelleher (1999) provide not only many examples, but also a discussion about female serial killers, noting that many of them have higher victim counts than their male correspondents.

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 127

Homant and Kennedy (2014) give a brief definition of serial murder and focus on providing detailed associated commentary. They note that “with serial killing, the same person (or persons) commits three or more murders with a cooling-off period intervening” (p. 342), then go on to suggest (p. 342): Our definition…raises two minor issues that should be dealt with here. The first concerns the cooling-off period. Holmes & Holmes (1998) suggest 30 days as the minimum period for distinguishing spree from serial killing. There is sometimes a grey area here, such as, for example, when a serial killer such as Ted Bundy starts to decompensate and kills with increasing frequency, perhaps with only a few hours separating events…The second issue concerns the number of killings required for someone to be considered a serial killer…Three killings seems to be required in the most popular definition of serial killing since they are enough to provide a pattern within the killings without being overly restrictive. This is not to say that someone who has "only" killed twice does not "qualify" as a serial killer. Indeed someone who has only killed once may well be a serial killer, psychologically speaking, who has simply not yet acted on his impulses or has lacked the opportunity (perhaps being arrested after the first homicide). Insisting on three separate homicides simply lends more assurance that a given person is a suitable example of a serial killer, and we follow that approach in this chapter. This definition and discussion includes a propensity clause suggesting that a defining criterion of serial murder be proneness to repetition. While the victim count is set at three, they rightly note there is a problem with attaching an arbitrary cooling-off period such as that of Holmes & Holmes. They also note that what is important is that the offender satisfies whatever motivated them to commit the crime in the first place, even if only temporarily. Holmes and Holmes (2009, pp. 5–6) suggest serial murder is “the killing of three of more people over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period. The definition of serial murder is killing several victims at intervals ranging between the killings.” There is no explanation for why the time period must exceed 30 days, and there is no further discussion or explanation of what is meant by “significant” regarding the cooling-off period. Indeed, what one investigator may deem significant may be different to another, and what one offender deems significant before returning to their offending may not be so viewed by another. Holmes and Holmes also set their victim count as three. In another widely cited textbook on the subject Hickey (2012) provides a definition similar in depth and breadth and breadth to Egger. Hickey (2012, p. 33) states that: In essence, serial murderers should include any offenders, male or female, who kill over time. Most researchers now agree that serial killers have a minimum of two victims (FBI, 2008). Usually there is a pattern in their killing that can be associated with the types of victims selected, or the method or motives for the killing...In addition,

128

HOMICIDE

serial murderers include those men and women who operate within the confines of a city or a state or even travel through several states as they seek out victims. Consequently, some victims have a personal relationship with their killers and others do not, and some victims are killed for pleasure and some merely for gain. Of greatest importance from a research perspective is the linkage of common factors among the victims. Adjorlolo and Chan (2014) examined the literature on serial murder identifying problems and limitations in the current research before going on to suggest their own definition. Like many others before them, they believe that serial murder has three elements. This includes “(1) that there are two or more forensically linked murders with or without a revealed intention of committing additional murder; (2) the murders are committed as discrete event(s) by the same person(s) over a period of time, and (3) the primary motive is personal gratification” (Adjorlolo & Chan, 2014, p. 490). These authors claim that this definition is a departure from existing definitions, and that it includes “the legal and scientific requirements for associating murders to suspects” (p. 490), though such an aspect of the definition of serial murder had previously been introduced by Skrapec (2001). Only Adjorlolo and Chan and Skrapec have suggested anywhere in the definitions that the murders must be forensically linked. Of course, as a practical matter, one could not count any crimes as part of the series without significant indicators of linkage. This definitional requirement renders the implied a necessity.

The Problem With Victim Counts During an investigation, establishing the victim count is critical as it dictates the resources put into the investigation, such as developing a task force. It may also assist with the linkage of other unsolved crimes, such as when known victims have features or characteristics like any given number of missing persons. This can also allow for public notifications that a serial offender, one who is by definition prone to repeat their offenses, is operating in the area thereby increasing public safety. In a research setting, establishing the number of victims is vital so that we know which cases to include and which to exclude in our attempts to identify and understand patterns, features, characteristics, and other aspects of the offenses, offenders, and victims. As stated elsewhere in this chapter, having a victim count of two will yield a much higher sample size than having a victim count of four or five. The sample size then dictates the degree to which we can generalize results out to the larger population homogeneously referred to as “serial murderers.” When identifying the work of a serial offender, accurately linking the cases together is paramount. The issue of numbers will be moot if the resources and tools to identify linkages between cases are not available or effective. This is the province of case linkage which may be accomplished through forensic evidence or via a “behavioral case linkage” where a

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 129

behavioral scientist examines the offender’s actions to determine which, if any, of a series can be traced back to a common source. Further discussion is beyond the province of this chapter, though cases linkage is discussed in a later chapter in this volume. The interested reader should also consult Woodhams and Bennell (2015). When adopting a higher victim count, the identification of a serial offender will be more sensitive to a failure to link the cases. Should we adopt a count of four, but have only successfully linked two or three, then we cannot say that a serial murderer is in operation even though there may be other crimes that are as yet unknown. A lower victim count such as two will be less sensitive to failures to accurately link cases and therefore more productive in the early identification and investigation of serial murder. A higher victim count may also be counterproductive if an offender only commits a low number of crimes before they are apprehended or prevented from offending for another reason (such as dying or being arrested for a different offense). If an offender commits two murders and is arrested but we use a threshold of four offenses, then according to our definition they would not be considered a serial offender. This despite the fact that a number of sources identify proneness to repetition as a key or defining feature of serial criminals. In jurisdictions that allow for a more serious charge should the offenses be a part of a series, failing to attribute other crimes to them may see a serial offender escape appropriate punishment.

The Problem With Cooling-Off Periods Throughout the literature the idea that offenders disconnect from their offending life and return to their nonoffending life as a husband, father, and employee is treated as selfevident. This so-called cooling-off period has been accepted uncritically as it was first proposed over three decades ago, and it has been repeated ad nauseam by a variety of sources without any actual evidence for its existence. We should consider this the first major problem with the cooling-off period. Skrapec (2001) states that the cooling-off period was introduced into the definition of serial murder in a conference paper by Ressler and colleagues in 1984. This period is said to be as little as 2 days, to weeks or months. Skrapec then goes on to suggest that this idea is not necessarily helpful, and that an arbitrary cooling-off period does not make sense because even in the same offender the period of time between offenses will be dictated by a large number of factors. Some within the offender’s control, and some outside of it. Turvey (2012, p. 543) claims to be the first to operationalize the cooling-off period, and states that this is “the interval during which offenders psychologically disconnect, separate, and compartmentalize themselves from the behaviors and motives that led to…homicidal behavior.” While a stricter definition, this certainly does not contain or introduce anything new to the discussion as the various elements have all been discussed in other works on the subject. Turvey also makes the same catastrophic mistake as other authors: assuming offenders cool-off without empirical evidence this actually occurs.

130

HOMICIDE

Another issue with this time between offending is that the minimum and maximum suggested period ranges from zero (Turvey, 2012) to hours, days, weeks, months, or years (Fox & Levin, 1998; Hickey, 2009; Keeney & Heide, 1995) or just as a statement “over a period of time” (Geberth, 2006; Hickey, 2009). It is not unreasonable to say then that the cooling-off period ranges from virtually nothing to virtually anything, which is less than helpful. As noted above the cooling-off period differs within the offender and between offenders as a result of internal and external mechanisms, and these cannot necessarily be known or understood by third parties on the outside looking in. Offenders themselves may be similarly clueless about why they wait as long as they do, especially where insight and introspective functioning is less than optimal. A related problem is that the cooling-off period is a highly subjective observation. For any given offender who is still at large there will be a tendency to identify any period during which they are not actively committing crimes as a time they are cooling-off. Let us say that in a 30-day period there are no new offenses, we would assume that the offender is going back to being a father, husband, brother, mother, or employee. They are dropping children at school. Doing the groceries. Mowing their lawn or doing oddjobs around the home. They are earning a living. Within the definition and scope of the construct this all sounds very reasonable. In hindsight, should they be captured, we may even use this as evidence that the cooling-off has occurred (the nonoffending activities of Denis Rader known as BTK was used in just this way). But what if, while dropping their children at school they are trying to identify features or patterns in the other parents or in the pedestrians they pass looking for their next victim? What if while doing their groceries they pick up some duct tape and garbage bags, for restraining a victim and disposing of their clothes or possessions post-offense? What if while earning their living they are using the company computer system or internet to troll prospective victims on social media? Have they cooled-off, or are they simply marking time, preparing, surveilling, and waiting for the next opportunity to arise? Egger (2001) notes that serial murderers spend a great deal of time thinking and fantasizing about, and planning for, their next crimes. It is not unreasonable to suggest based on this, that many of them may not be cooling-off at all. Similarly, what if the offender has made every attempt to secure victims and commit another offense, but for whatever reason has been unsuccessful? Perhaps there has been significant coverage about their crimes and the public is on high alert, taking extra security measures and increasing personal safety. Perhaps during this time, they are accountable to someone else. Any given time between offenses then would not reflect a disconnect or a return to normal life, only a change in luck or circumstance meaning that, despite their best efforts, more crimes are not immediately possible. For these and other reasons, we propose that the idea of a cooling-off period be abandoned altogether. This will be discussed more in the proposed definition following later in this chapter. With offending being heavily influenced by motive, we must also consider the impact of motive on the cooling-off period. If anger was the motivating factor, the cooling-off

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 131

period may represent a total or partial abatement of the anger. That is, the anger subsides following the offense. In the case of partial abatement, there may be no total disconnect from the offending, rather enough of a reduction in the anger for the offender to remain dormant for a period. The reality of the cooling-off period is that it exists somewhere in the murky gray between the black and white extremes. This is acknowledged by Skrapec (2001) who states not that an offender must cool-off, but that they can. Some will spend time totally detached from their offenses, some will plot and scheme for the next offenses, and some will daydream and fantasize. Until they are apprehended, if they ever are, we have no idea what they did in the between-times, and how much of this was dedicated to past and future offending.

The Problem With Motive Skrapec (2001) suggests that motive should be included in any definition of serial murder. The importance of motive is also reflected in the definition of serial murder provided by Ferguson, White, Cheery, Lorenz, and Bhimani (2003). These authors provide a definition of serial murder as three or more victims, that the attacks are pleasurable, stress relieving, or consistent with the offender’s internal values and did not fulfill only functional purposes, and lastly that the murders did not happen with the imprimatur of any political or criminal organization. Highlighting the importance of motive in their definition, they suggest that there needs to be three or more discrete murders, where it is implied that the motive is distinct from other homicides. Of the second criteria, they suggest that the motive needs to be in line with the offender’s internal values, such that the motive can be distinguished “from those that may be limited to rage, crimes of passion, or hatred or that may be delimited to functional, emotionally neutral homicides” (p. 290). For the last point, they note that serial murderers do sometimes come together in teams, but that they must still “operate in the context of motives that are intrinsic unto themselves, rather than those which are applied by an outside organization” (p. 291). Motive is an important aspect to understand in any case, though there are problems with this. Despite its importance, motive is poorly understood (Leonard, 2001; Petherick, 2015). If using motive to link a series of crimes, the failure to fully appreciate and identify the motive may prevent the crimes from being linked. At the least, the classification of a series may be impacted by a lack of information and accurate linkage may have to wait until such a time as more information comes to hand. Motive is complex and the accurate identification of it relies on a variety of factors, and it is possible to misidentify the motive based on the emphasis placed on the behaviors representing the various motives. For example, if an offender steals a laptop computer, the behavior itself may represent a financial motive. Either the offender is trying to save their own money by stealing someone’s property, or they plan on selling the computer thereby profiting

132

HOMICIDE

from its theft. However, if the offender steals the laptop to use it as a form of social capital, whereby they will feel accepted by their peer group for having the latest technology, then the motive could be said to be reassurance oriented. If they steal the laptop of a specific person, to pay that person back for real or imagined wrongs, then the motive could be said to be revenge (for a description and explanation of these motives see Groth, 1979; Groth, Burgess, & Holmstrom, 1977; Petherick, 2015; Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014). Identifying the motive without other information can thus be misleading and result in error. A related problem is that, according to Muller (2000), the motive is not always clear or readily apparent. This means that even an expert in understanding motive may not have enough information on which to base an assessment. This may be especially true early in the investigation when evidence collection and interpretation is ongoing, or the offender may have been careful not to leave any physical evidence behind. One form of evidence that may be relied upon to get a picture of the offender’s behavior is the victim’s account, though in homicide the victim will not be available to provide this invaluable input. Motive may also be problematic in the linkage of a serial offender as for this purpose it would need to remain stable across an offense series as this will be a good indicator that the cases are linked. However, the problem here is twofold. First is that different offenders will have similar motives, and the same offender will not only have multiple motives within one crime, but offenders’ motives will be subject to changes across time. This is because offending behavior changes based on the victim and their behavior and circumstances of the offense, and also because the offender’s needs and wants vary over time. This issue has been previously raised by Gresswell and Hollin (1994, p. 5) who state that “the typologies generally fail to pick up interactions between the killer, the victims, and the environment, and do not appear to be flexible enough to accommodate a killer who may have different motives for different victims or changing motives over time.” For example, a stalker may start out with reassurance-oriented motives where their goal is to establish a relationship with their victims. Over time and failing to receive the intended response (a reciprocal desire for a relationship with them), the stalker may become angry as feelings of rejection and frustration take over. Thus, the motive will be different as time goes on. Indeed, if the anger is sufficient, these stalking offenses may even become homicides. While the motive is included in many definitions of serial murder, including motive has met with mixed reception. As the discussion earlier has shown, there are problems with motive and its potential inclusion in any definition, but that does not necessarily mean we should throw the baby out with the bath water. One possible solution to this issue is to leave any discussion of motive out of the definition. This was proposed at the FBI symposium (Morton & Hilts, 2008, p. 9) where it was noted that “motivation was another central element discussed in various definitions; however, attendees felt motivation did not belong in a general definition, as it would make the definition overly complex.”

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 133

Proposed Definition Based on the above considerations of the existing definitions and the problems with the various characteristics present, the following definition for serial murder is proposed. This is based on a careful consideration of each element, and the degree to which it contributes to the potential understanding of serial murders. It aims to be as inclusive as possible without being overly cumbersome. It should be noted that this definition is closest to Adjorlolo and Chan (2014), with a key difference being a full and complete accounting for the rationale for each characteristic: Serial murder involves the killing of two or more victims by the same offender/s where the offenses have been forensically linked. There will be a time break between offenses which varies based on motive and opportunity, where the motive is personal rather than organizational or institutional. Breaking this definition down by characteristic, the justification for each component follows. The number of victims required should be set to a minimum of two. This is not only in line with the current FBI threshold (Morton & Hilts, 2008), but also acknowledges that serial murder is a relatively low frequency event, and as such, once two offenses have been identified, the investigation must undergo a fundamental change. This will also allow for the early identification and classification of a serial offender who is dispositionally likely to repeat, where it is possible to catch them before a third or higher offense. It should be a requirement that the offenses have been forensically linked. This part of the definition is perhaps the most problematic as the physical evidence needed to link offenses is not always present or may at least take some time to collect and return from scientific examination. This linkage between offenses could be accomplished through behavioral case linkage, provided the physical and behavioral evidence, coupled with a sound methodology, is sufficient to provide such a linkage (see Woodhams & Bennell, 2015 and other works for more information regarding behavioral case linkage). Given that the only real justification for a cooling-off period in the literature is to distinguish between serial and spree murder, the proposed definition abandons the coolingoff period in favor of the non-offending period. The cooling-off period carries with it the assumption that the offender disconnects from their offending behavior and emotions and returns to a nonoffending pattern of functioning. There are a number of problems with this assumption, not the least of which is that the existence of this period has never actually been empirically established. Indeed, anecdotal reports (to be discussed in forthcoming works) revealed an almost total absence of a cooling-off period. Labeling this a nonoffending period and not a cooling-off period also dispenses with the value judgment inherent in the former (“the offender has not committed any more crimes, s/he must be cooling off”). Despite the issue that motive is poorly understood, both theoretically and in practice, the motive for the murders must be personal and not in pursuit or furtherance of institutional or organizational goals. This excludes cases involving soldiers during wartime,

134

HOMICIDE

genocides, other politically or religiously motivated homicides, and murders committed by professional hitmen or assassins, among others.

Conclusion Serial murder involves the killing of two or more victims in different locations where the offenses are committed by the same offender or offenders and have been forensically linked. There must be a time break between offenses during which the offender may be cooling-off and returning to their non-offending life and the motive is for personal reasons and not some collective or group goal. Serial murder is distinguished from the similar multiple-victim crimes of spree and mass murder, which will be discussed in the next chapter.

References Aamodt, M. G. (2016). Serial killer statistics. Retrieved from: (2016). http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Serial %20Killer%20Information%20Center/Serial%20Killer%20Statistics.pdf. Accessed 1 June 2017. Adjorlolo, S., & Chan, H. C. (2014). The controversy of defining serial murder: revisited. Aggression and Violent Behavior; 19(5). doi:10.1016/j.avb.2014.07.003. Brophy, J. (1967). The meaning of murder. London: Ronald Whiting & Wheaton. Burgess, A. W. (2006). Mass, spree, and serial homicide. In J. E. Douglas, A. W. Burgess, A. G. Burges, & R. K. Ressler (Eds.), Crime classification manual: A standard system for investigating and classifying violent crimes (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Dietz, P. E. (1985). Mass, serial, and sensational homicides. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 62(5). Douglas, J. E., Burgess, A. W., Burgess, A. G., & Ressler, R. K. (2006). Crime classification manual: A standard system for investigation and classifying violent crimes (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Douglas, J. E., & Olshaker, M. (1996). Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s elite serial crime unit. New York: Pocket Books. Dowden, C. (2005). Research on multiple murder: where are we in the state of the art? Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 20(2), 8–19. Egger, S. A. (1998). The killers among us: An examination of serial murder and its investigation. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Egger, S. A. (2001). The killer among us: An examination of serial murder and its investigation. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc. Ferguson, C. J., White, D. E., Cheery, S., Lorenz, M., & Bhimani, Z. (2003). Defining and classifying serial murder in the context of perpetrator motivation. Journal of Criminal Justice, 31(3), 287–292. doi:10.1016/S0047-2352(03)00009-6. Fox, J. A., & Levin, J. (1998). Multiple homicide: patterns of serial and mass murder. Crime and Justice, 23, 407–455. Fox, J. A., & Levin, J. (2015). Extreme killing: Understanding serial and mass murder (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage. Geberth, V. J. (2006). Practical homicide investigation: Tactics, procedures, and forensic techniques (4th ed.). Boca Raton: CRC Press. € sseldorfer Sexualverbrechen. Kriminalistiche Monatshette, 3(4), 3–85. Gennat, E. (1930). Die Du

Chapter 6 • Serial Murder 135

Gresswell, D. M., & Hollin, C. R. (1994). Multiple murder: a review. The British Journal of Criminology, 34(1), 1–14. Groth, A. N. (1979). Men who rape: The psychology of the offender. New York: Plenum Press. Groth, A. N., Burgess, A. W., & Holmstrom, L. (1977). Rape: power, anger, and sexuality. American Journal of Psychiatry, 134(11), 1239–1243. Haggerty, K. D. (2009). Modern serial killers. Crime Media Culture, 5(2), 168–187. doi:10.1177/ 1741659009335714. Hickey, E. (2009). Serial murderers and their victims (7th ed.). USA: Wadsworth Publishing. Hickey, E. (2012). Serial murderers and their victims (6th ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth, Inc. Holmes, R. M., & Holmes, S. T. (2009). Serial murder (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage. Homant, R. J., & Kennedy, D. B. (2014). Understanding serial sexual murder: a biopsychosocial approach. In W. A. Petherick (Ed.), Profiling and serial crime: Theoretical and practical issues (3rd ed.). Boston: Anderson Publishing. Jenkins, P. (1994). Using murder: The social construction of serial homicide. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Johnson, B. R., & Becker, J. V. (1997). Natural born killers?: The development of the sexually sadistic serial killer. Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online, 25(3), 14. Keeney, B., & Heide, K. M. (1995). Serial murder: a more accurate and inclusive definition. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 39, 299–306. Kelleher, M. D., & Kelleher, C. L. (1999). Murder most rare: The female serial killer. New York: Dell Publishing. Knoll, J. (2006). Serial murder: a forensic psychiatric perspective. Psychiatric Times, 23(3), 64–68. Kocsis, R. N., & Irwin, H. (1998). The psychological profile of serial offenders and a redefinition of the misnomer of serial crime. Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 5(2), 1–10. doi:10.1080/13218719809524934. Krafft-Ebing, R. (1965). Psychopathia sexualis: A medico-forensic study. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Leonard, D. P. (2001). Character and motive in evidence law. Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, 34(2), 439–536. Liebert, J. A. (1985). Contributions of psychiatric consultation in the investigation of serial murder. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 29(3), 187–200. Lunde, D. T. (1975). Murder and madness. California: Stanford Alumni Association. Miller, L. (2014). Serial killers: I. Subtypes, patterns, and motives. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 19(1), 1–11. doi:10.1016/j.avb.2013.11.002. Miller, E. M., & Costello, C. Y. (2000). The limits of biological determinism. American Sociological Review, June, 592–598. Morton, R. J., & Hilts, M. A. (2008). Serial murder: Multi-disciplinary perspectives for investigators. Washington: U.S. Department of Justice. Mouzos, J. (1999). Mental disorder & homicide in Australia (trends and issues in crime and criminal justice no. 133). Canberra, ACT: Australian Institute of Criminology. Muller, D. A. (2000). Criminal profiling: real science or wishful thinking? Homicide Studies, 4(3), 234–264. doi:10.1177/1088767900004003003. Pakhomou, S. M. (2004). Serial killers: offender’s relationship to the victim and selected demographic. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 6(4), 219–233. Petherick, W. A. (2015). Motivations. In W. A. Petherick (Ed.), Applied crime analysis: A social science approach to understanding crime, criminals, and victims. Boston: Academic Press.

136

HOMICIDE

Petherick, W. A., & Sinnamon, G. C. B. (2014). Motivations: offender and victim perspectives. In W. A. Petherick (Ed.), Profiling and serial crime: Theoretical and practical issues (3rd ed., pp. 393–427). Oxford: Anderson. Pinto, S., & Wilson, P. R. (1990). Serial murder. In Vol. 25. Trends and issues in crime and criminal justice. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. September. Ressler, R. K., & Schachtman, T. (1993). Whoever fights monsters: My twenty years tracking serial killers for the FBI. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Ressler, R., & Shachtman, T. (1997). I have lived in the monster. USA: St Martins Press. Schlesinger, L. B. (2001). Is serial homicide really increasing? The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 29(3), 294–297. Skrapec, C. (2001). Phenomenology and serial murder. Homicide Studies, 5(1), 46–63. doi:10.1177/ 1088767901005001004. Turvey, B. E. (2012). Criminal profiling: An introduction to behavioral evidence analysis (4th ed.). San Diego: Elsevier Science. Wertham, F. (1949). The show of violence. New York: Doubleday. Woodhams, J., & Bennell, C. (2015). Crime linkage: Theory, research, and practice. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

Further Reading Egger, S. A. (1990). Serial murder: a synthesis of literature and research. In S. A. Egger (Ed.), Serial murder: An elusive phenomenon. Westport: Praeger.

7 Spree and Mass Murders CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 137 What Is a Spree Homicide? .......................................................................................................... 137 Rapid Sequence Serial Homicide .............................................................................................140 Prevalence of Spree Murder ........................................................................................................ 141 The Washington Snipers ..........................................................................................................142 What Is a Mass Murder? ..........................................................................................................144 Prevalence of Mass Murder .....................................................................................................148 Typologies and Classification ...................................................................................................... 149 Amok .........................................................................................................................................150 Case Study: Domestic Mass Murder ........................................................................................... 152 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 153 References .................................................................................................................................... 153

Introduction Kocsis and Irwin (1998) wrote that thus far research on serial crime had tended to focus on serial murder. Today, with the United States seeing more mass shootings than at any other time in history, research into this phenomenon has also reached a considerable volume. Less research interest has been shown in spree murder, and it has been proposed that spree murder does not represent a discrete category of crime. Instead, there is some evidence that spree murder may in fact be a subcategory of serial murder, perhaps rapid sequence serial homicides (Schlesinger, Ramirez, Jarvis, & Erdberg, 2017). Whether considered a separate category or not, spree murder and mass murder will be discussed as discrete types of homicide in this chapter. The previous chapter discussed serial homicide, which involves the killing of two or more people at separate locations where there is a cooling-off period between the crimes. Spree and mass homicides both involve multiple victims, though spree involves more than one location where mass involves a single crime scene, and neither type involves a cooling-off period.

What Is a Spree Homicide? Serial murders happen at different locations, but this does not preclude the killing of more than one victim in any given location within the offense series. For example, prior to being apprehended Ted Bundy killed two victims and injured another two at the Chi Homicide. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812529-8.00007-0 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

137

138

HOMICIDE

Omega Sorority in Florida. A spree murder, by contrast, is where the offender kills more than two people over time with no time break between offenses. These crimes must also occur in generally different geographic locations. According to DeLisi, Hochstetler, Scherer, Purhmann, and Berg (2008, p. 38) “surprisingly little is known about offenders who commit murder during a crime spree and the preponderance of work that has investigated the topic centers on the somewhat ambiguous ways that the phenomenon has been defined.” Spree killers tend to target random individuals, and many of their victims may simply be people who cross their path (Burgess, 2006). Victims who are therefore in the wrong place at the wrong time. Burgess (2006) also states that the identity of these killers is often known to law enforcement, a feature which differs significantly from serial murderers whose identity remains unknown for a period until identified, or perhaps indefinitely, if never caught. The spree killer has no problem with their identity being known, as many times they know and do not care that their life will soon end, either at their own hand or being killed by law enforcement officers who respond to their crimes. While there is literature on spree murder, the validity of the construct itself has been questioned. This is not based on the premise that spree murder does not exist, but that there are problems in the way it is defined. For example, according to Morton and Hilts (2008, p. 9): The general definition of spree murder is two or more murders committed by an offender or offenders, without a cooling off period. According to this definition, the lack of a cooling off period marks the difference between a spree murder and a serial murder. Central to the discussion was the definitional problems relating to the concept of a cooling off period. Because it creates arbitrary guidelines, the confusion surrounding this concept led the majority of attendees to advocate disregarding the one of spree murder as a separate category. The designation does not provide any real benefit for use by law enforcement. The above critique revolving around a cooling-off period also plagues the definition of serial murder as discussed in the previous chapter such that the current authors propose removing it from the definition of that crime. We see that the issue is no different for spree (or mass) murder as the cooling-off period is a conceptual problem plaguing all the mass victim types. The arbitrariness of the guidelines permeates the study of many phenomenon within the social and behavioral sciences and decisions are often made based upon the best guidance offered by theory and literature. The authors do not agree that definitional problems alone constitute ground for removal of spree murder and feel that the only legitimate reason for doing so is if they happened so infrequently we could not learn anything useful from them, or that their low frequency rendered their study unsatisfactory through typical behavioral science research methodologies (Dietz, 1986). But they do happen, and there have been some high-profile examples so we propose that the type is useful and should remain.

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 139

As discussed with mass murder in the next main section of this chapter, we found ourselves with a conundrum relating to the definition of spree murder. This conundrum essentially revolves around the difference between an offender’s intent and the actual outcome of their behavior. The intent of the offender in mass victim homicides is to inflect a large number of fatalities, and the choice of weapons and the locations (where there is an expectation of a large number of victims) are reflective of this. Beyond a small number of variables within the offender’s control, such as their bringing a large amount of ammunition and firearms and practicing their shooting, many variables are outside of their control. Victims will find a way to escape the area, can take cover behind protection, and first response police and paramedics may arrive sooner than expected. These x-factors (things outside of the offender’s planning or control) may reduce the total number of victims who actually die. If an offender enters a location with 20 potential victims inside and plans to kill them all but owing to factors outside of their control they only kill one but injure all 19 others. By strict definition they are not a spree killer. In another hypothetical incident, an offender enters a location with 20 potential victims inside with a plan to kill them all. For whatever reason, emergency services are delayed or do not arrive at the crime scene for some time. One of the victims was shot and killed immediately, 10 escaped injuries, and the other 9 were shot and injured. Those nine all died from their injuries at the scene, though any number of them they may have lived had paramedics arrived sooner. Two very similar situations with offenders who had the same motivation, the same preparation and planning, and the same intent. The only difference was in one particular factor the offender could not control. So why is one a spree killer and the other not? Because of this we propose that the definition for spree murder be at least one victim killed where the offender’s intent was to kill more, where the homicide/s occur within the same general timeframe, and in different geographic locations. DeLisi et al. (2008) studied 654 homicide offenders from Arkansas (n ¼ 31), Florida (n ¼ 272), Georgia (n ¼ 68), North Carolina (n ¼ 80), New Jersey (n ¼ 39), Ohio (n ¼ 59), Oklahoma (n ¼ 55), and Texas (n ¼ 50). These states were selected because they record information that allowed for identification of the offender, so publicly available criminal records could be obtained. Of the 654 offenders, there were 66 who killed during a homicide spree and 588 who did not. It would be tempting to suggest from this that spree murder makes up about 10% of the total number of murders, but the data does not necessarily show this, and being a convenience sample of a small number of states the data cannot be used in this way. Of this 66 offenders who killed as part of a crime spree, 56% (n ¼ 37) murdered only a single victim, and 23% (n ¼ 15) killed 2 victims. The rest (21%, n ¼ 14) killed between three and nine victims. These researchers also used a control group, and in this 78% (n ¼ 457) killed only a single victim while 15% (n ¼ 89) killed two victims, and 7% killed between three and six victims. This latter group were therefore serial murderers (n ¼ 3) or mass murder (n ¼ 7). As with other murderers, spree killers are mostly males (95% compared to 5% of females). For their criminal histories, the spree murderers had a more extensive array of past offenses, and these were statistically significantly different to the nonspree

140

HOMICIDE

murderers. These were homicide (M ¼ 2.02 for spree compared to nonspree 1.32, P ¼.000), attempted homicide (M ¼ 0.64 vs to 0.18, P ¼.0000), rape (M ¼ 0.86 vs to 0.14, P ¼.0000), robbery (M ¼ 2.68 vs 0.54, P ¼.0000), assault (M ¼ 1.20 vs 0.24, P ¼.0000), child molestation (M ¼ 0.29 vs 0.04, P ¼.006), kidnapping (M ¼ 1.56 vs 0.18, P ¼.0000), burglary (1.15 vs 0.25, P ¼.0000), and weapons violations (M ¼ 0.82 vs 0.18, P ¼.0000). The only two offenses that were not statistically significant were carjacking (M ¼ 0 vs 0.02, P ¼.396) and drug violations (M ¼ 0.11 vs 0.06, P ¼.409). Both of these offenses were very low in frequency for both groups. The spree murder group committed significantly more prior criminal convictions, having more convictions for robbery and child molestation but fewer for narcotics trafficking and narcotics use. While there are not a large number of studies on spree killers and the above study was based on a purposive sample, the results and literature indicate they are a homogenous group and are different to serial murderers, mass murderers, and other homicide offenders. But it is also possible that, at least a small population of the spree murder population are different and represent a subgroup of serial murderers.

Rapid Sequence Serial Homicide Rather than abandoning the classification of spree murder altogether, there may be grounds on which to simply change the classification to a more useful one, perhaps through representing it as a type of an already established and accepted classification (i.e., as a type of serial murder). Schlesinger et al. (2017) examined 44 cases of serial sexual murder with the aim of studying aspects of these cases referred to as rapid sequence. The study examined those cases that did not fit within the traditional mold of serial offenders, that is, cases where the cooling-off period was shorter than the proscribed weeks or months. These cases are specifically referred to as spree murders (spree killings is used in text, but the implication is the same) where the authors note that the problem is that “the periods between homicides denoting a rapid sequence, or what has been called spree killing, have been vague and not substantially more specific than referring to an absence of a cooling-off period” (Schlesinger et al., 2017, p. 74). All cases involved males and of the overall sample 19 (43.2%) were identified as rapid sequence offenders. Six offenders (13.6%) committed all their offenses in a rapid sequence, 13 (29.5%) committed several rapid sequence sexual murders in one or two clusters, while 25 offenders (56.8%) killed with more than 14 days between offenses. The six rapid sequence offenders committed their murders at a mean rate of one homicide every 3.58 days (varying between 1.1 and 9.3 days). Two offenders within this group were also suspects in several other unsolved homicides and had committed several rapes also being suspected in unsolved rapes. This may point to a particular type of criminally versatile offender among the rapid sequence offenders, who appear prima facie to align to the Class 2 offenders of Vaughn, DeLisi, Beaver, and Howard (2009), being characterized

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 141

by higher levels of contemporaneous burglary, rape, and weapons charges, were male, and were more likely to be Caucasian or African-American. For the 13 offenders who committed their crimes in clusters, 1 killed 5 women in 2 clusters, another killed 4 women in 2 clusters, both killing other women with longer than 14 days between offenses. The remaining 11 killed in 1 cluster with more than a 2-week period between offenses. One offender killed multiple victims on 1 day, all committed additional crimes outside of the cluster, some up to 12 years later. While the title may be new, the concept of a fast cycling spree murderer is not, and was discussed earlier in the Crime Classification Manual, albeit with a different name (Burgess, 2006, p. 448): Sometimes there are spree serial killers, a sort of hybrid, where there is a shorter time span between murders, perhaps days, and where the victims may not have a common thread. It is similar to an extension of a mass murder episode; however, the killer moves from one location to another during his killing spree rather than barricading himself in one location, as does the mass murderer. The duration of the spree can be brief as in the case of Wesbecker (nine minutes) or can be much longer as in the case of Charles Starkweather or Christopher Wilder (weeks and months). As a rule, the spree is of shorter duration. Schlesinger and colleagues rightly point out that the identification of the type of offender is important as it helps establish how often an offender might target victims, and in identifying the specific time span between offenses. They also rightly point out that research in this area is scant, and that theirs is the first study of its type. As such, caution must be exercised before making this classification a part of the broader lexicon on mass-victim crimes at least until such a time as empirical validation can be undertaken. Put another way, we do not agree that at this point the concept of spree homicide [murder] be abandoned in favor or rapid sequence serial murder. At least not until such a time when the evidence unequivocally suggests this is the best course of action.

Prevalence of Spree Murder To the best of our knowledge, there have been no attempts made to quantify how often spree murders happen, not the proportion of spree murder to other types of murder, such as what part of the overall number of homicides it is, or how often it happens relative to its cousins, serial and mass murder. Perhaps this is because, comparatively speaking, this type is rare and does not occur with enough frequency to warrant empirical investigation, or perhaps because they occur with such infrequency their small number renders proper empirical study all but impossible. The issue may also be one of classification, as murderers may be classified differently by different authors depending on the criteria they use for victim counts and time between the murders. As such, some spree killers may

142

HOMICIDE

be counted in the mass or serial murder numbers. One example of this is Andrew Cunanan who started his killings in April of 1997 before killing Gianni Versace in July of that same year. While comparative studies are scant, the research of Delisi et al.’s sample of 66 spree offenders shows that while not common, a number of cases do exist.

The Washington Snipers Even though this case is slipping from the public’s conscious, The Beltway Snipers are perhaps one of the more notorious and deadly examples of spree killers in recent history. In 2002 the snipers, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo went on what was to become the killing spree they were best known for. However, and unknown to most, their killings started earlier that year in February. On February 16, 2002, Malvo murdered Keenya Cook in Tacoma Washington (Wakeman, 2017). According to an article published in Vanity Fair (Webster, 2004), Cook was the niece of another woman that Muhammad felt had wronged him by siding with his ex-wife. After leaving town it is reported that the pair killed in Florida, again in Texas, and then again in Louisiana, followed by a shooting in Maryland, before killing another in Atlanta (Wakeman, 2017). These killings all followed what would become a familiar pattern: shooting an average citizen (in one case they shot and killed an FBI analyst) who was going about their life such as visiting a Home Depot or filling up their car with fuel. In one case, following an inquiry from a concerned parent about whether school children were safe, they shot a child being dropped off at school. The snipers used a .223 caliber Bushmaster rifle, like that Muhammad would have used serving in the US Army. While they were given the moniker of “The Washington Snipers” it should be noted that neither of them had achieved that military designation, although Muhammad was apparently qualified in the military as a marksman (the difference between the two classifications is an important one, but outside of the scope of this work). The homicides received worldwide media attention in real time, with images of the crime scenes, police conducting vehicle checks, and interviews with the public being a common scene on television sets globally. Police Chief Charles Moose hosted regular press conferences and was to come under fire for regularly announcing that police had no new leads in the identification of the offender (at that stage it was believed that the sniper was a lone individual). At one point, Chief Moose introduced geographic profiler D. Kim Rossmo, formerly of the Vancouver Police Department, as aiding in the search for the sniper. Later, the investigation came under further fire for using military resources with some claiming that such use constituted a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law prohibiting the use of the military for the enforcement of civilian laws (the National Guard is generally exempted as they operate at the behest of state governors). Despite various concerns about this, there are several exceptions to posse comitatus including cases where there is a sharing of information or intelligence between the military and local police. According to Carter (2002), the use of planes in this context did not violate posse comitatus

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 143

as the planes were flown by military personnel though it was police personnel on the planes that analyzed the gathered information. The killing spree the pair were most famous for began on the 2nd of October 2002. Muhammad and Malvo had converted a 1990 Chevy Caprice by removing the upright part of the rear seat and cutting a hole in the trunk (also called the boot in certain parts of the world). This provided a shooting platform from which they could target people, partially covering the noise of the shot, and concealing themselves from the view of witnesses while also making it easier for them to pull into traffic and disappear. A timeline of their “sniper” crime spree is as follows (FBI, n.d.): • • • • • • • • •

October 2: Man killed while crossing a parking lot in Wheaton, Maryland. October 3: Five more murders, four in Maryland and one in DC. Woman wounded while loading her van at Spotsylvania Mall. Thirteen-year-old-boy wounded at school in Bowie, Maryland. October 9: Man murdered near Manassas, Virginia, while pumping gas. October 11: Man shot dead near Fredrisksburg, Virginia, while pumping gas. October 14: FBI analyst Linda Franklin killed near Falls Church, Virginia. October 19: Man wounded outside a steakhouse in Ashland, Virginia. October 22: A bus driver, the final victim, killed in Aspen Hill, Maryland.

On October 24th, the crime spree came to an end. Despite many red herrings being injected into the investigation, such as the involvement of a white van, many of these being sightings by a well-meaning but incorrect public, information was broadcast about a suspected vehicle that proved fruitful. The vehicle description and registration information were provided—in an odd twist— by Muhammad. According to Kennedy (2015): As police had expected, the baffling case was broken by a tip - but in a bizarre twist, the tip appears to have come from the sniper himself. On Oct. 17, a caller claiming to be the sniper referred to a homicide in “Montgomery.” A caller also telephoned a Virginia priest and left a similar message about “Montgomery, Ala.,” on his machine, using a code phrase that cops recognized as the sniper’s. Police then found an unsolved ambush shooting Sept. 21 at the ABC liquor store in Montgomery, Ala. The suspect left a fingerprint behind. The print was Malvo’s - the biggest break yet for the task force. They tracked him to Tacoma, Wash., and soon had the name of his apparent guardian, Muhammad.

144

HOMICIDE

Now they had names, faces, addresses and license plate numbers - including the Chevy Caprice registered to Muhammad at a Camden, N.J., address Sept. 11. When police electrified the region Wednesday night with the announcement that they were looking for two suspects, Muhammad and Malvo were asleep at the wheel - literally. A truck driver pulled into a rest stop on I-70 about 50 miles northwest of Washington, around 3 a.m. and saw the blue Chevy Caprice he had heard about on the radio. He called 911 and was told to lock himself in his vehicle and block a rest stop exit ramp as police quietly swarmed the area. Armed now with this information about vehicle type and registration number, the information was disseminated widely, being the subject of television, radio, and print media. Discussions propagated throughout various branches of these media formats, with a talk show description being overheard by a truck driver who was looking at a vehicle fitting the description as he pulled into a truck stop off the I-70 near Myersville in Virginia. First response police arrived blocking off the exits before moving on the vehicle in which Muhammad and Malvo were asleep. They were arrested on weapons charges and later charged with the killings of the crime spree. Malvo and Boyd qualify as spree murderers because their crimes spanned time and separate locations. Moreover, should the Schlesinger et al. rapid sequence serial homicide classification be valid, the Washington Sniper homicides could be classified as rapid sequence as the vast majority of the later homicides in October occurred either on the same day or within 5 days, with a number occurring outside of this cluster earlier in 2002.

What Is a Mass Murder? Mass murder is a broad term describing the homicide of a number of people in a relatively short time frame (Busch & Cavanaugh, 1986). The victim count is three or four (or more depending on the source), with there being no significant separation of time between offenses where the offenses occur at the same geographic location. An example of this type of offense is deaths that occurred at The People’s Temple in Jonestown, Guyana. Originally classified as a mass suicide, investigators found injections sites and gunshot wounds in places where it would be impossible that they were self-inflicted, such as between the shoulder blades (Watts, 2018). As mass murder is a general term that only encompasses the number of victims (three or four or more depending on the source), that occur at the same general time, and in the same general place, it does not describe, nor is it dependent on, the context of the act or the specific motivation. For example, anyone entering a school and killing three or more people at the same time is a mass murder, as is the husband who kills his wife and three children in their own home. While we would label the first incident a school shooting and

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 145

the second incident domestic homicides, both are mass murders. It is important to note though, that when compiling official figures on mass murders, some sources exclude family slayings as a type of mass murder, also excluding gang, and drug-related incidents. While a defining criteria of mass murder is that the killings occur in one place within the same general timeframe, not all agree that the location requirement be strictly followed. Dietz (1986, p. 479) limits the timeframe to 24 hours (without explication), suggesting also that the location is not relevant. It is argued that: Surely a murderer who kills half the requisite number of victims at one site and then travels to another site where the other half are killed ought to qualify as a mass murderer, as would one who killed a sufficient number of victims while shooting from a moving vehicle or traveling aboard a train, ship, or aircraft. I would therefore ignore location or distance in the definition of mass murder. While Dietz makes a good point about classification where a minimum victim number is not met, it could be argued that, because boundaries are imposed by the limit of the specific vehicle that a train, ship, or aircraft would represent one physical location. Additionally, it would need to be questioned as to exactly how many of these types of crime involve offenders shooting from a platform like a ship or a plane such that this should be a point of debate. Should the offender kill at multiple locations, then providing other criteria are met the offense would better be classified as a spree murder should there be sufficient space between locations or as a mass murder if, say, the different locations are simply different rooms of the same building or home. Dietz also touches upon another point, by accident or design, in the final decision of victim count where it is stated that accommodations in victim count thresholds can be made without restricting the definition of mass murder as “the willful injuring of five or more persons of whom three or more are killed by a single offender in a single incident” (p. 480). Throughout the literature various accounts are provided of how many people died, but not always of how many were injured in a given mass murder, as the injured are not central to the definition. The actual number of people killed in a given incident may be largely outside of the offender’s control despite their best intentions to amass as high a fatality count as possible. A loss of the element of surprise, poor marksmanship, misjudging bullet trajectory, or any host of other factors may play a role in the number of fatalities, resulting instead in a number of wounded with actual fatalities falling below a threshold. Put another way, a shooter may enter a location with a view to killing all 20 potential victims present, though for any number of intervening factors only three die as a result, even though a number of others might be injured. A victim count of four dead would preclude this being a mass murder by classifications where the cut-off is four actually deceased. Dietz’ definition of five or more injured with three or more deceased factors in the eventuality that some of those intended to die, do not. What is important here is the offender’s original intent, regardless of their skill in carrying out their plan, that a number of people die in the attack.

146

HOMICIDE

Fox and Levin (1998, p. 429) define mass murder as “the slaughter of four or more victims by one or a few assailants within a single event, lasting but a few minutes or as long as several hours.” Fox and Levin also note that the shooting of strangers in a public place by a lone gunman are the most publicized, other types include any number of instances of workplace violence, and the mass killing of witnesses to crime. Geberth (1986) defines mass murder in the same way, as four or more victims within a short time. The victim count of four is also that used by the FBI from their serial murder moratorium, where the murders occur in the same incident, with no distinctive time period between the murders (Morton & Hilts, 2008). They do not specifically use the term cooling-off period in their definition though. One of the only articles that justified the reason for establishing victim counts in the definition was The Patterns and Prevalence of Mass Murder in Twentieth-Century America (Duwe, 2004). Without explanation for the timeframe however, Duwe limits the offenses to a 24-hour period. It is then stated that the minimum victim count should be set to four victims killed. This threshold was selected “because, compared to a three-victim requirement, it minimizes the potential for measurement error in the identification of mass killings” (p. 734). While we applaud the justification, we are not sure we agree with the reason itself. A count of four victims is not predicated on any practical reason directly related to the classification of mass murder but is instead intended to allow for more discriminating search of media articles which provided the data for study. In a footnote, it is stated that although triple homicides are newsworthy events, “there is still a greater likelihood that a study using a three-victim criterion would miss media reports on a larger proportion of cases than would one that employed a four-victim threshold” (pp. 734–735). So, this is not related specifically to the classification itself, but only to the study of the phenomenon, then this should probably not play a role in defining the criteria for identifying when the crime has occurred and when it has not. Given the above considerations we would define mass murder in much the same way as Dietz, in that mass murder is where at least three victims are killed by an offender or offenders, where their behavior indicates a desire to kill more, in a single event at a single geographic location. The question of location is again perhaps an arbitrary distinction, though we would argue that a building is a single geographic location and thus three or more victims in one building would constitute a mass murder, while three or more spanning multiple buildings would be a spree murder. For this reason, we would disagree with Morgenbesser, Burgess, and Safarik (2008) who classify a case study in their article Motives in a Triple Spree Homicide as a spree murder. In short, Steven Santos found a third story window open and entered the apartment surprising the occupant, who was apparently shot by accident when Santos, startled, squeezed the trigger. He then went down the fire escape into a second story apartment where he found an “old lady” sitting in her chair whom he shot before going into the bedroom where the woman’s husband woke up, who too was promptly shot. He was alerted by a knock on the door and proceeded down the fire escape where he was met by police. According to Morgenbesser and colleagues, the crime

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 147

was classified as a crime spree using the Crime Classification Manual (CCM) definition of “two or more crimes committed in a short period of time at different locations with no cooling off period” (Morgenbesser et al., 2008, p. 117). The current authors presume this case was not classified as a mass murder as it did not involve three or more victims, or perhaps because it spanned multiple locations. However, two points need to be raised here. The first is that the CCM definition given by Burgess (2006, p. 437; the same author on the case study article) is “the killing of three [emphasis added] or more victims at more than one location without a cooling-off period between the murders.” There certainly was not a cooling-off period between these crimes, and we would also take issue with the claim that the murders were in different geographic locations, as they occurred in the same building with only one floor separating them. In fact, we presume they were very close to each other as they even shared a fire escape. To conclude, we believe this case could be better described as a mass murder. It could be said that there are three main types of mass murder, and that these three types would cover most mass murders. Like many things, there will always be an exception to the rule, though we are confident these three types will suffice. The first are mass casualty crimes that occur in the community. These usually involve targeted violence rather than being spontaneous or impulsive acts. The offenders will go to locations where there is a reasonable expectation of crowd density, and they will usually be heavily armed and equipped. Some may use bombs or diversionary devices to channel or funnel people into “kill zones” to increase the number of people killed in the event. An example of this type of offender is Stephen Paddock who shot and killed a large number of concert-goers in Las Vegas, Nevada, in 2017. Not only did Paddock have a mass of firearms, many were modified by the controversial bump-stock attachment that legally allows the adaptation of a semiautomatic weapon into a fully automatic one (we use the term adaptation rather than conversion as they attach to the weapon without modifying the actual sear or block). The second type is that of workplace mass shootings, where an offender carries out a mass murder at a workplace. This classification includes school shootings. The offender/s in these crimes may or may not be an employee or student at the business or school (though in a school shooting they most likely are), and the motive for the offense is usually revenge in nature. Examples of this type of murder include the mass killings at Fort Hood army base by US Army Major and psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, the killing of 21 at a McDonald’s Restaurant in San Ysidro, California, and the well-known case of Robert Farley who shot and killed seven, wounding four others, including Laura Black who had a restraining order out against him (this case was made into a movie starring Brooks Shields as Laura Black and Richard Thomas as Richard Farley). The third type includes family massacres, where one person murders three, four, or more family members or people they are associated with. When the parties are related the formal term for this is familicide, and the most commonly conceivable situation or circumstance where this might happen is within a domestic (family or intimate) relationship.

148

HOMICIDE

Prevalence of Mass Murder The prevalence of mass murder will differ according to the type of mass murder being considered. Mass victim crimes occurring in the home may be more common than that which occurs in the community which may be less common than school and other workplace violence. Acknowledging that the study was not a study of mass killings or mass shootings, the FBI identified 160 active shooter cases between 2000 and 2013 (Blair & Schweit, 2014). This represents an average of 11.4 incidents per year, with 486 killed and another 557 wounded. While the authors acknowledge that it was not specifically a study of mass murder, it is noted that 40% or 64 of the 160 incidents would meet the federal definition of mass killing which is three or more victims in a single incident. Despite their caution that this was not a study of all mass shootings, the identified rate at which these occur is consistent with that found by other authors. In those 160 cases, there were 1043 victims, with 486 killed and 557 wounded. Of the total incidents, all but 2 involved a single shooter, with females being the shooter in at least six incidents, with 40% dying by suicide, where 54 shooters died by suicide at the scene. Despite criticisms of the study presented previously in this chapter, Duwe (2004) examined the patterns and prevalence of mass murder in the United States. Using media accounts from the New York Times, Duwe found 173 instances from 1900 to 1965, with an increase in the annual figures during the 1920s and 1930s, followed by a sharp increase beginning in late 1960. From this point, it is noted that the rate remained relatively stable for the rest of the century. For the total 99-year period the study covered, there were 909 mass killings overall. To determine the relationship between firearms prevalence and mass shootings, (Lankford, 2016) gathered international data on the global spread of mass shootings. The dataset on which this research was based on uses a victim count of four or more. All told, 292 public mass shooters were included, though this would have been higher if the victim count of three or more was used in compiling the dataset. On the results, Lankford (2016, p. 192) notes: Complete data were available for 171 countries, and they averaged 1.7 public mass shooters per country from 1966 to 2012. Approximately 31% of global offenders attached in the United States, whereas 69% attacked other countries. The United States had by far the most public mass shooters of any country, with 90 offenders. Only four other countries even reached double digits: the Philippines (18), Russia (15), Yemen (11), and France (10). Homicide rates, suicide rates, and firearm ownership rates varied significantly by country, as did population size and urbanization. Most countries had a sex ratio that was close to 1:1 (male: female).

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 149

Typologies and Classification Fox and Levin (1998, 2002) provide a typology for mass murder, which reflects many of the same categories in other motivational types (Groth, Burgess, & Holmstrom, 1977; Petherick, 2015; Petherick & Sinnamon, 2014). A typology is an overall classification system where individual groupings are based on shared characteristics of the members of the group. A type is one of the individual groupings. There is a lot of confusion regarding the typology—vs—type distinction. As an example, one of the best-known typologies is that developed in the 1970s by Nicholas Groth for rapists. Within this general typology, power is one type, and anger is another type. Within each of these types, there are power-reassurance and power-assertive subtypes, and anger-retaliatory and anger excitation subtypes. The overall classification system is the typology, each individual classification within it is a type. Like the Groth typologies, the first type of Fox and Levin’s typology is the Power type. These acts are perpetrated for the purpose of power and control, and most selfproclaimed “reformists” are motivated by thrill-seeking and power. This type could be what other refers to as the “pseudo-commando” who have a preference for dressing in military style uniforms and turning public spaces into battle grounds. In the revenge type, the offense is aimed at a particular individual or group of individuals for real or imagined wrongs. The offender is attempting to get even with the victim or with something or someone they represent, and this can be over real events, a misperceived event (where they misinterpret reality) or based on faulty reality testing (such as with a delusion or paranoia). These types are said to be expressive rather than instrumental. The Loyalty type is the first of the instrumental types, and results from a warped sense of love and loyalty. These occur when a family member such as the husband is despondent over the state of the family’s affairs and takes his own life and the lives of the other family members. This label might also describe those murders committed by cults, where members are seen to be obedient to the whims of their leaders. Profit cases are perhaps the easiest to understand from a theoretical and practical standpoint, as there is often a clear line between the act and the outcome. This includes cases where the witnesses to a robbery are killed. Lastly, Terror multiple homicides include those where the murders are intended to send a message. Fox and Levin provide The Manson Family as one example of the Terror type. Dietz (1986) provides his own typology, though the basis for the typology is not provided leaving the reader to wonder whether it has been derived empirically or whether it simply anecdotal. Dietz suggests that the mass murders of which he is aware fit unambiguously into one of three types. The first is the Family Annihilator who is usually the senior male in a family who is depressed, paranoid, or intoxicated, killing each member of the family and occasionally the family pet. This individual will then die by suicide or force the police to kill him, which is known as suicide by cop. The second type are known

150

HOMICIDE

as Pseudocommandos where the individual is obsessed with firearms and commit their murders after significant deliberation. Again, they may force police to kill them. The Set-and-Run type use techniques that may allow them to escape after the killings, with one example being the Tylenol poisonings in 1982. While the victim may have intended targets, the motive tends to be the same as bombings in general, with anger and revenge being prominent, though extortion is also possible. Holmes and Holmes (1992) adopt a victim count of three, and their typology does share some similarities as they draw upon those types discussed by Dietz above. Unlike some of the typologies, Holmes and Holmes adopted a more rigorous approach to allocating cases to each type, though there is no explanation or description given about how their types were originally derived, though they do note that decisions are made about basic sources, victim characteristics, motivation, anticipated gain, and spatial mobility along with the type of weapon used, lifestyle of the killer, and other factors. They took 47 cases of mass murder in which there were 437 victims and asked four raters to allocate each of the cases to a type. They achieved an interrater reliability assessment of 93%. Holmes and Holmes share The Family Annihilator, Pseudocommandos, and the Setand-Run killer with Dietz so they will not be discussed again here. They introduce The Disciple, which is one who follows a charismatic leader and perhaps does their bidding. They too give the example of Charles Manson, and so in this respect this type is similar to Fox and Levin’s Terror type, and Holmes and Holmes note that The Disciple is following the leader, so spatial mobility is key. They also note that this type is not likely to suicide or seek suicide-by-cop but will want to live to kill again. Their other type is called the Disgruntled Employee. This is workplace violence where the murderer returns to a company they have been dismissed from, or which has put them on medical leave or disability. These offenders believe they are balancing the scales of justice and carry out the attacks largely for revenge. They will have some form of psychological disturbance and may be medicated or undergoing psychotherapy. While they will usually set out with a target or targets in mind, they will often shoot anyone they encounter.

Amok As noted above mass murder is a broad term that encompasses a vast array of crimes that are independent of the context in which they occurred. There are also distinct cultural elements to mass murders as identified by the existence of culture bound syndromes within the literature. The United States has more mass murders than any other country, with most of these being committed with a firearm. In countries with more restrictive access to guns other weapon types are more likely to see the use of knives and other weapons. Many will be familiar with the term “running amok” (which may often be pronounced as “amuck”), though many who use this term casually would not be familiar with its true meaning or origin. Traditionally, amok is a term used to describe criminal behavior in nonWestern cultures (Hempel, Levine, Meloy, & Westermeyer, 2000).

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 151

Amok is a specific type of culturally bound or culturally related syndrome identified in India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and other countries in the region. It was discovered two centuries ago in remote primitive island tribes with culture playing a role in its development, though it was believed to have started in the Hindu state of India as a warfare tactic designed to simultaneously reinforce the courage of the soldier and to terrify the enemy (Kon, 1994). Amok was included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—DSM-IV (1994) and DSM-IV-TR (Text Revision, 2000) but has been left out of the most recent fifth edition (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The DSM-IV and DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, 2000) (p. 845 and p. 899 respectively) define amok as: A dissociative episode characterized by a period of brooding followed by an outburst of violent, aggressive, or homicidal behavior directed at people and objects. The episode tends to be precipitated by a perceived slight or insult and seems to be prevalent only among males. The episode is often accompanied by persecutory ideas, automatism, amnesia, exhaustion, and a return to premorbid state following the episode. Some instances of amok may occur during a brief psychotic episode or constitute the onset or an exacerbation of a chance psychotic process. The original reports that used this term were from Malaysia. A similar behavior pattern is found in Laos, Philippines, Polynesia (cafard or cathard), Papua New Guinea, and Puerto Rico (mal de pelea), and among the Navajo (iich’aa). Amok means “frenzied murderous state” and was a feared occurrence in Malaysia throughout the 19th century (Kudva, 2011) with the Malay mengamok meaning to “make a furious and desperate charge” (Saint Martin, 1999). A Malay who runs amok “is always in a state of furious homicidal passion, and runs armed through the most crowded street or village stabbing right and left at man, woman, or child, relation, friend, or stranger” (Ellis, 1893, p. 21). This type of mass murder often involved an average of 10 victims and would end when the pengamok (the person running amok; Kudva, 2011) was stopped by their fellow tribesmen. Two types of amok have been identified. The first is beramok which resulted from a depressive or mood disorder, and the second is amok which results from anger, rage, or a vendetta (Saint Martin, 1999). As such, it could be said that the former is a psychologically or psychiatrically oriented offense arising from a breakdown of mental function, while the latter is an emotional offense akin to a revenge-oriented behavior common in most societies and cultures. Hagan, Podlogar, and Joiner (2015, p. 181) suggest that amok has undergone a change in meaning and now defines “a globally occurring constellation of explosive behaviors not limited to any particular culture.” Each country or culture has its own version of amok, including berserk in the Norsemen, piblokto/pibloktoq or arctic madness, juramentado in Mindanao, “going postal” in the United States, and Chinese knife attacks (Kudva, 2011).

152

HOMICIDE

Case Study: Domestic Mass Murder As an example of why the victim count is important in classification, the Singh triple homicide from the Australian state of Queensland is a good example (the following information is taken from ABC, 2012; Parades, 2012). This multiple victim homicide involved the murders of Neelma Singh (24 years of age), Kunal Singh (18 years of age), and Sidhi Singh (12 years of age). All three victims were killed in the family home in the affluent suburb of Bridgeman Downs, North of Brisbane City. Neelma was strangled, Kunal was drowned after being bludgeoned with a pitch-fork, and Sidhi was bludgeoned to death with the same pitch-fork. All three of the victim’s bodies were placed into the full spa bath in the parents’ ensuite which was filled with water, detergent, and bed linen. Stains in Neelma’s bedroom matched her blood, and there were drag marks from her bedroom to the ensuite, with clumps of her hair at various points along the way. Sidhi was sleeping in her parents’ bedroom while they were away as she often did, and there were various bloodstains about this room. Kunal was most likely in his bed when attacked before also being moved to the spa bath where he was placed on the bottom. Neelma Singh had been involved with a previous neighbor and family friend, Massimo (Max) Sica. It was known that Vijay, the father of the children, disapproved of this relationship owing to the age gap of nearly 20 years between Sica and his daughter. In the time leading up to the murder, Sica had visited the house numerous times, and despite the breakdown of the relationship had tried a number of strategies to rekindle the relationship with Neelma. One of these was to claim that he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and he had arranged to see her on the night presumed to be the night of the murder. The prosecution’s case was that Sica had arranged this visit with Neelma and that he had returned late that night or early the next morning. Neelma was not dressed for bed as she usually was (in a purple pair of pajamas she was known to “religiously” wear in the evening). It is stated that Vijay had arranged a marriage for her in Fiji, and one of the purported reasons for the visit was to tell Sica this and to terminate the relationship for good. It was argued that he became enraged, strangled Neelma, and then killed the other two children so they could not implicate him in Neelma’s murder. There were significant attempts to clean up the crime scene including the use of bleach in the downstairs area, moving the bodies into the spa bath, and numerous signs of staging throughout various rooms of the house. All told, it appears the offender spent a significant amount of time in the crime scene doing so. No DNA links anyone, including Sica to the killings. After an exhaustive investigation into the deaths, it was identified as the longest running and most expensive criminal investigation in the state’s history, resulting in the state’s longest murder trial. Adding another record-breaker, the verdict handed down by the court was a nonparole period of 35 years, with defense counsel seeking a sentence of 20–30 years, and the prosecution seeking a nonparole period of 45 years (Keim & Kyriacou, 2012).

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 153

Adopting a victim count threshold of three victims, with the murders occurring in the same general time and location, this case would pass the threshold of classification as a mass murder. However, adopting a victim count of four, this case fails to meet the victim count criteria, and thus would not be a mass murder. Requiring the injuring of five, three of which die as per Dietz (1986), we once again fail to meet the minimum criteria for mass murder. Should we set the victim count too high, this case would elude classification as anything but a murder. If we believe that a mass murderer’s intent is a necessary component of the definition, that is they intend to kill more than a base number of victims (say three), and we consider that the murders of Kunal and Sidhi were not planned but considered functional with the decision made at the time Neelma was killed, then the intent to kill more than the minimum is absent. Thus, once again this would not be classified as a mass murder. If only the minimum number of victims is killed and the intent for a certain number of victims is not a requirement, then again this would be a mass murder. This case is an example of both the importance of a good definition and the problem of definition, and how even a subtle tweak or change to the definition can create a difference in the classification of a case. Depending on the definition used, should we fail to identify this case as a mass murder then it would simply be homicides, specifically, domestic homicides.

Conclusion Spree and mass murder are similar to serial murder in that by definition they involve multiple victims. However, while serial murder definitions have traditionally included a cooling-off period, a time at which the offender “disconnects” from their offending and returns to relative normalcy, spree and mass murder do not have this intervening time period between offenses. Instead, spree murder is the murder of three or more victims in the same general event though at separate physical locations while mass murder is three or more victims at the same general time and same general place. There are no typologies that the current authors could find to classify spree murder, though a few exist for mass murder and these were discussed in this chapter.

References ABC (2012, July). Sica found guilty of triple murder. Retrieved from: (2012, July). http://www.abc.net.au/ news/2012-07-03/sica-found-guilty-of-triple-murder/4100348. Accessed 8 June 2018. American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (IV). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association. American Psychiatric Association. (2000). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (IV-TR). Arlington: American Psychiatric Association. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (V). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.

154

HOMICIDE

Blair, P. J., & Schweit, K. W. (2014). A study of active shooter incidents in the United States between 2000 and 2013 (pp. 1–47). Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. Retrieved from: (2014). https://www.fbi. gov/file-repository/active-shooter-study-2000-2013-1.pdf/view. Burgess, A. W. (2006). Mass, spree, and serial homicide. In J. E. Douglas, A. W. Burgess, A. G. Burgess, & R. K. Ressler (Eds.), Crime classification manual: A standard system for investigating and classifying violent crime (2nd ed., pp. 437–469). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Busch, K. A., & Cavanaugh, J. L. (1986). The study of multiple murder: preliminary examination of the interface between epistemology and methodology. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 1(1), 5–23. Carter, P. (2002, October 17). Why can the army help cops catch the D.C. sniper? Slate. Retrieved from: (2002, October 17). http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2002/10/why_can_ the_army_help_cops_catch_the_dc_sniper.html. DeLisi, M., Hochstetler, A., Scherer, A. M., Purhmann, A., & Berg, M. T. (2008). The Starkweather syndrome: exploring criminal history antecedents of homicidal crime sprees. Criminal Justice Studies, 21(1), 37–47. doi:10.1080/14786010801972670. Dietz, P. E. (1986). Mass, serial and sensational homicides. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 62(5), 477–491. Duwe, G. (2004). The patterns and prevalence of mass murder in twentieth-century America. Justice Quarterly, 21(4), 729–761. doi:10.1080/07418820400095971. Ellis, W. G. (1893). The amok of the Malays. The Journal of Mental Science, 39(166), 21–388. FBI. (n.d.). Beltway snipers. Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved from: https:// www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/beltway-snipers Fox, J. A., & Levin, J. (1998). Multiple homicide: patterns of serial and mass murder. Crime and Justice, 23, 407–455. Fox, J. A., & Levin, J. (2002). Mass murder: an analysis of extreme violence. Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 18. Geberth, V. J. (1986). Mass, serial, and sensational homicides: the investigative perspective. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 62(5), 492–496. Groth, A. N., Burgess, A. W., & Holmstrom, L. L. (1977). Rape: power, anger, and sexuality. American Journal of Psychiatry, 134(11), 1239–1243. Hagan, C. R., Podlogar, M. C., & Joiner, T. E. (2015). Murder-suicide: bridging the gap between mass murder, amok, and suicide. Journal of Aggression, Conflict and Peace Research, 7(3), 179–186. Hempel, A. G., Levine, R. E., Meloy, J. R., & Westermeyer, J. (2000). A cross-cultural review of sudden mass assault by a single individual in the oriental and occidental cultures. American Society of Testing and Materials International, 45(3), 582–588. Holmes, R. M., & Holmes, S. T. (1992). Understanding mass murder: a starting point. Federal Probation, 56 (1), 53–61. Keim, T., & Kyriacou, K. (2012, July 5). Record 35-years for Singh triple murder. PerthNow. Retrieved from: (2012, July 5). https://www.perthnow.com.au/news/max-sica-sentenced-to-35-years-for-murderingsingh-singlings-ng-5a260e68b096cccca50d35034f09e602. Kennedy, H. (2015, October 23). Beltway sniper caught with weapon in Maryland in 2002. New York Daily News. Retrieved from: (2015, October 23). http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/snipercaught-weapon-maryland-2002-article-1.500462. Kocsis, R., & Irwin, H. (1998). The psychological profile of serial offenders and redefinition of the misnomer of serial crime. Psychiatry Psychology and Law, 5(2), 197–213. Kon, Y. (1994). Amok. British Journal of Psychiatry, 165, 685–689.

Chapter 7 • Spree and Mass Murders 155

Kudva, K. G. (2011). Redefining “amok” and other rampage-type culture-bound syndromes: redefining amok. Asia-Pacific Psychiatry, 3(4), 241–245. doi:10.1111/j.1758-5872.2011.00151.x. Lankford, A. (2016). Public mass shooters and firearms: a cross national study of 171 countries. Violence and Victims, 31(2), 187–199. Morgenbesser, L. I., Burgess, A. W., & Safarik, M. E. (2008). Motives in a triple spree homicide. Victims & Offenders, 3(1), 114–125. doi:10.1080/15564880701751779. Morton, R. J., & Hilts, M. A. (2008). Serial murder: Multi-disciplinary perspectives for investigators. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Parades, A. (2012, July 4). Max Sica: 10 things to know about the triple murder of Singh siblings in Brisbane. International Business Times. Retrieved from: (2012, July 4). http://www.ibtimes.com.au/max-sica10-things-know-about-triple-murder-singh-siblings-brisbane-1298287. Petherick, W. A. (2015). Motivations. In W. A. Petherick (Ed.), Applied crime analysis: A social science approach to understanding crime, criminals, and victims (1st ed,. pp. 148–171). Waltham: Academic Press. Petherick, W. A., & Sinnamon, G. C. B. (2014). Motivations: victim and offender perspectives. In Profiling and serial crime: Theoretical and practical issues (3rd ed,. pp. 393–427). Boston: Academic Press. Saint Martin, M. L. (1999). Running amok: a modern perspective on a culture-bound syndrome. Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 1(3), 66–70. Schlesinger, L. B., Ramirez, S., Jarvis, J. P., & Erdberg, P. (2017). Rapid-sequence serial sexual homicides. The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, 45(1), 9. Vaughn, M. G., DeLisi, M., Beaver, K. M., & Howard, M. O. (2009). Multiple murder and criminal careers: a latent class analysis of multiple homicide offenders. Forensic Science International, 183(1–3), 67–73. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2008.10.014. Wakeman, J. (2017, October 30). Flashback: Beltway sniper terrorises Washington, D.C. Rolling Stone. Retrieved from:(2017, October 30). https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/flashback-sniper-terroriseswashington-dc-w509772. Watts, S. (2018, February 21). Was Jonestown a mass suicide or a mass murder? A & E. Retrieved from: (2018, February 21). http://www.aetv.com/real-crime/jonestown-mass-suicide-or-mass-murder. Webster, D. (2004, September 1). The making of a sniper. Vanity Fair. Retrieved from: (2004, September 1). https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2004/10/beltway-snipers-200410.

8 Domestic Homicide CHAPTER OUTLINE Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 157 Characteristics and Incidence of Domestic Homicide ................................................................ 158 Risk and Protective Factors for Domestic Homicide .................................................................. 161 Intimate Partner Homicide .......................................................................................................... 167 Intimate Partner Homicide: Case Study ...................................................................................167 Child Homicides ............................................................................................................................ 172 Child Homicide: Case Study .....................................................................................................174 Elder Homicides ............................................................................................................................ 178 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 180 References .................................................................................................................................... 181

Introduction As the name implies a domestic homicide occurs within a domestic setting, such as when one family member, or person living within the household, kills another. Because these types of homicide involve long-standing relationships and emotional investment, they tend to be among the more violent and extreme of homicides. While they can be “moment of passion” crimes, the acute stage of the homicide is likely the result of a protracted conflict or a build-up of tensions between the victim/s and offender/s. Domestic homicides are the most common, and likely represent the greatest risk of homicide for individuals. While the family is viewed as providing a loving and nurturing environment (Mouzos & Rushforth, 2003), the reality is that the family represents the greatest of risks to us. While our fears of personal harm tend to be located outside the home and we warn children of stranger danger, the reality is that the harm most often comes from within the home and will be perpetrated by someone we know or are related to, are in an intimate relationship with, or have been in an intimate relationship with. This chapter examines domestic homicides, starting with the incidence and prevalence followed by risk and protective factors. Intimate partner homicide will be discussed next, followed by child homicides, before finishing with elder homicides. While some domestic homicides will be sexual homicides, these are discussed elsewhere in this volume and so will not be covered further in this chapter.

Homicide. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-812529-8.00008-2 © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

157

158

HOMICIDE

Characteristics and Incidence of Domestic Homicide In Australia, the National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) is the national clearinghouse for data on homicides and operates under the auspice of the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC). They are tasked with keeping national data on homicides and to provide detailed information and analysis on homicides to educate law enforcement and government and nongovernment agencies to facilitate better criminal justice and policy responses. From the 1st of July 2012 to the 30th of June 2014, there were a total of 487 homicides in Australia, with 249 in the years 2012–13 and 238 in the years 2013–14 (Bryant & Bricknell, 2017). As in most countries males are overrepresented in these figures, as victims (64%) and offenders (88%). Highlighting the fact that domestic homicides are the most common type, 41% (n ¼ 200) homicides were domestic in nature with 27% classified as acquaintance homicides, and only 13% were classified as stranger homicides. Delving deeper into the statistics for domestic homicides, the NHMP found that 63% were intimate partner homicides, 15% filicides, 11% parricide, 8% other family, and 4% sibilicide. For domestic homicides the most dangerous time of the day is between the hours of 6 p.m. and midnight when members of the family come together, often after long days at work or meeting family commitments, and alcohol is more likely to be consumed. It should be noted that this is common across all homicide types, and for likely much the same reason. For all homicides the most dangerous days of the week are Sunday (n ¼ 82) and Thursday alike (n ¼ 82) and as expected, the most domestic homicides occur in the victim’s home (n ¼ 131, 66%) or in the offender’s home (n ¼ 20, 10%), with 9 (5%) occurring in “other home.” A wide array of motives were observed in the data. Before considering individual motives as identified in this chapter, it is necessary to point out that, at least from the author’s point of view, the NHMP seems to be using the term motive as cause or contributing factor. These things are not necessarily the same. For example, drugs are a contributing factor and the main trigger for violence in many situations, but drugs are not a motive. It is our contention that they are a situational or contextual element and not a physical or psychological need that drives behavior. Thus, the reader is cautioned to interpret the following data along those lines. For 32% of the cases (n ¼ 164) the motive was unknown or not recorded, and for 34 (