Part 2 The Development of Serial Killers Master's Thesis & California Serial Killer

This podcast discusses the second part of the master's thesis focused on the development of serial killers as well as the arrest in the California serial killer crimes.

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Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Hey composition of the Killer Fans,Doctor Cassidy Here. Today we're going to
do our second installment of the master'sthesis on the Development of a serial Killer,
and the first part I did earlierthis week just about thirty minutes.
It's a short one because it waspretty pretty deep information. It's a lot

(00:30):
to cover, so today we're we'regonna hopefully finish it. Might have to
do it in three parts. Thiswas actually written by Mayhair Sharma at Eastern
Illinois University, and I want tomake sure that we give proper credit for
his work or her work. Idon't know if it's a male or female,

(00:53):
but certainly an excellent job that theyhave done on this. It's a
lot of information to cover and certainlyfits with the theme of what we're doing.
So today we're going to dive intothe ideological theories of serial killing.
And theories about the ideology of serialkilling can generally be broken into two groups.

(01:17):
That's biological perspectives and psychosocial perspectives.Biological perspectives include brain abnormalities, genetic
predispositions, and other factors, whereasthe psychosocial perspectives generally revolve around mental disorders,
childhood trauma, and social learning reflectrelated influences. So the biological perspective

(01:42):
on serial killers focuses on malformations ofthe brain. Seagull in two thousand and
five reported that brain dysfunction levels arehigher in chronic criminals as compared to non
criminal criminals. He further described acondition called minimal brain dysfunction, or where
an individual abruptly but episodically engages inmaladaptive behaviors such as volatile rage, but

(02:08):
also incorporates kind and neutral states betweenepisodes. We see that. We see
that quite a bit with our serialkillers who have been able to go for
years and years and years and notget caught. Bundy certainly one of those
people, BTK one of those people. They had a completely different lifestyle outside

(02:34):
of serial killing and actually had avery successful life, if you will.
So that's incredibly interesting. And letme remind you that this also goes towards
the idea of nature versus nurture.Is minimal brain disfunction learn behavior? Is

(02:58):
it because of childhood trauma? Aminimal brain dysfunction may result in cases entailing
aggressive behavior, suicide, abuse,and motiveless homicide. Motiveless homicide is probably
what we're looking at in California.In their study of one hundred and sixty

(03:22):
five motiveless murders from all over theworld, lang In DeWitt found that many
serial killers had some form of headinjury or organic brain abnormality. And I
have a podcast on serial killers whoreportedly had head injuries when they were young,

(03:43):
and there's a great there's great studieson that. So it's possible that
some head injuries, depending on wherethey're hit in the head, can cause
someone to have these that MBD.And you probably know that I. I

(04:05):
had a traumatic brain injury when Iwas three years old. I was hit
by a car. They didn't callit that back then, but that's basically
what happened. And I'd like tothink that I'm fairly normal. Maybe maybe
not normal, because I do enjoytalking about and learning about the childhood experiences

(04:29):
of serial killers, and perhaps that'snot normal. But I think because of
the lens that I'm trying to lookthrough to do this, which is,
you know, as an educator,being the best that I can be serving
children, then I think that that'sI think that that's different. I just
think it's different. You may youmay think differently, and that's quite a

(04:54):
right. You have that right.They concluded by stutting that because of the
neurological dysfunctions giving rise to seizures,serial killers act out during periods of uncontrollable
brainwave activity, further causing compulsive behaviors. Alelei and others also suggested head injury

(05:17):
as a cause, but added otherconditions affecting the brains, such as meningitis
during the serial killer's early years.Brain damages suggested as a factor contributing to
aggressive behavior. Significant head injury duringchildhood or prenatal years may result in a
deformed prefrontal cortex or dysfunctions in dopamineand or serotonin levels, thus leading to

(05:41):
a predisposition to serial killing. Alleileeconcluded that there exists a complex interaction between
predisposing neurodevelopmental complications such as a headinjury, stressful and or traumatic environmental incidents,
and serial killing. I I tendto one hundred and ten percent believe

(06:10):
this. I think that there's definitelya complex, complex interaction between a predisposed
neurodevelopmental complication such as a head injuryand the stressful or traumatic environment at early
childhood trauma that we talk about,and I mean that's the crux of the
issue. That is literally what we'retrying to figure out. What does this

(06:33):
stress do to our children? Whatdoes this abuse do to our children?
Are we raising serial killers? Youknow? And believe me, think about
it. At this moment, someoneis raising a serial killer. You're not
going to get rid of sereal You'renot going to get rid of serial killers,

(06:53):
You're not going to get rid ofviolent offenders. So someone right now
is raising a serial killer and thatterrifies me. And if that doesn't terrify
you, I mean you're not That'syou're ignoring reality. The grim reality of

(07:13):
being an education is that we touchedthousands of children's lives, thousands in the
course of our career. And Iknow there are many of us who can
think back to a particular student andthink, you know, if that kid
didn't something didn't give, if theydidn't get some sort of major intervention,
they're going to be Maybe they arein jail, filent offender, maybe they're

(07:40):
serial killers. You know a lotof these people don't get caught. So
I'm not sure why it's I'm notsure why that it's not still a very
sensationalized issue because it affects every singlepart of our lives. And I think

(08:05):
that if you love children and youlove teaching and educating, that you want
to do what's best for that childno matter what. So the more we
know, the better we get.Another biological perspective traced violence and criminality to
a biochemical imbalance, both neurochemical imbalancesand non neurochemical imbalances. Now, also

(08:28):
in my family, we have aneurochemical imbalance that is hereditary, and some
of us have it and some ofus don't. My grandmothers all of her
sisters, but one has that orhad that neurochemical imbalance. They've all passed
away, and so the majority ofthem had a lifetime of mental health issues.

(08:50):
Several I think almost all of themexcept Sally, the youngest one,
had nervous breakdowns. And remember,if you've listened to there's a few specific
podcasts where I've talked in detail aboutwhat they used to do. You know,

(09:11):
you don't just go to the mentalinstitution like you do today, And
there's medication and there's things that theydo, all kinds of therapy, different
things that they do to help you. Back then, they actually used electroshock
therapy, and it was that itwas literally the kind that it's you know,

(09:31):
horribly painful and devastating to not onlythe mind of the person but the
body. So it was horrible.It was a horrible thing. Now,
I mean, they still do electorof shock therapy, but it's safe,
it's safer. But I mean,I can remember my grandfather never spoke of

(09:54):
it, never spoke of it.But my mother has consistently said part of
her issues, her nervousness, heranxiety, is because she grew up during
that time when her mother had anervous breakdown and she was not she was
not there, she wasn't present.She was literally in a mental institution or

(10:18):
a hospital setting for on a yearand they were allowed to visit once a
week and they had to look througha window into her room. They couldn't
actually go in and touch her,see her, hug her. So that
does something to a child, youknow, it really does. So neurochemical

(10:39):
imbalances are powerful, powerful, Andthen there are non neurochemical imbalances. For
example, a condition like hypoglacemia,which arises when the blood and sugar levels
fall. Most of us are veryaware of what that is, and the
sugar levels blood and sugar levels falldown, resulting in abnormal neurological functioning,

(11:01):
and it's been associated with anti socialand violent behaviors. So even something as
common as hypoglycemia. You know,my husband is a type two diabetic.
Well he's like borderline, but he'sstill treated as a diabetic. And if

(11:24):
his blood sugar drops, he can'tfunction. You can tell he is.
He can't think clearly, he's veryvery dizzy. He just has really bad
episodes like that. And I tendto do that as well sometimes if I
don't, if I'm not eating right. I think all of us may have

(11:46):
had some issues in our life.We can probably think back to where we
were really shaky and really nervous andvery anxious, and we knew that we
had to get some sugar, youknow. And you know, if you
try to do it the healthy way, you keep like those lostenges with you

(12:07):
that help raise your blood sugar.But you can do candy or whatever and
it works, you know, apepsi or a coke, whatever you can
do to counteract that. But didyou know it was associated with antisocial and
violent behaviors. You know, Ididn't know that. I didn't know that

(12:28):
there was a link there. Thiswas a fishbone in two thousand is who
presented this information. So for me, that's just really quite amazing. Aggressive
behavior has also been associated with theregular levels of the male sex hormones,
such as androgens, specifically testosterone,and that's not surprising for me. That's

(12:54):
not surprising. The more typically speaking, the more testosterone, the more aggressive.
And we have lots of men inthis world who have, you know,
a great deal of testosterone, andthey are you know, good normal
people. They're not they're not violentor anything, but I would probably call

(13:16):
them manly men, right. Theyhave a lot of facial hair, body
hair, They're very strong, theyare usually big. I mean, there's
a lot of different characteristics of someonewho has a lot of testosterone. I
mean, they use testosterone. Weightliftershave used that to help build muscles.

(13:39):
So if you have someone who hasany of these other characteristics in addition to
a high level of testosterone, youhave a greater chance of them having aggressive
behavior. Serial killers may be bornwith a need for greater stimulation as compared
to the average person Ramselin noted thatwith low dopamine levels, the person seeks

(14:01):
more stimulation and new avenues of reward. That's being susceptible to addictive and compulsive
pleasure seeking behaviors. We all knowsomeone like that who's constantly looking for that
next thrill, that next high.They just progressively get more and more.
The things they do are more andmore dangerous. You see these people who

(14:22):
like jump off of cliffs. Kevin'salways showing me, you know, these
videos of people jumping off these tremendouslytall high cliffs into a body of water,
and I just can't I can't figurethat out. And I also can't
figure out people who want to jumpout of an airplane, just the mere

(14:46):
thought of I'm going to go upas high as I possibly can, and
I'm going to jump out of aperfectly good airplane and then hopefully my shoot
comes out and I gently land onthe ground. It doesn't always happen that
way, So I don't know ifI'm willing to take that risk. I'm
not that big of a risk taker. My dopamine levels, I think are

(15:07):
fairly normal. I don't think Ihave to have a huge amount of stimulation
to enjoy myself or be happy.There's different levels of rewards for everybody,
right we talk about We've talked aboutthis in my class where some of us

(15:28):
are goal oriented, very goal oriented, and like me doing me working on
my podcast. I will encourage myselfto do that by saying, well,
as soon as you get this recorded, then you can go wrap Christmas presents,
which I enjoy doing. Or no, you're not going to go do

(15:50):
this. You're not going to godownstairs and make cookies until you finish this
work. So I'm goal oriented andit gives me a dopamine rush. You
know, yeay, I did it. You know, you feel good about
yourself. You're accomplishing things. Anytimewe have students doing homework, this is
how we brought it up in class. They were talking about how they would

(16:11):
say I'm not gonna I'm gonna goeat, but I'm not gonna eat until
after I finish my assignment, andso that really is the catalyst for them.
They want to they motivate themselves toget that work done, and then
they reward themselves by getting to eatdinner. And we know you don't want
to use food necessarily for a reward. But I'm telling you it's probably one

(16:36):
of the most effective ways to stimulatedopamine. So for some people, some
people don't, some people aren't interestedin that, but certainly I'm a foodie,
so I am. This combined withdysfunctional prefermal cortex. His primary function

(16:56):
is to regulate complex cognitive and behavioralfunction. Remember that prefrontal cortex, that
gray matter that we continuously talk aboutin these podcasts. When it's maldeformed,
when it's it's not developed as itshould. People who have a lot of

(17:18):
these issues that we're talking about havea much smaller frontal cortex, but you
can regrow it. That's entirely thepurpose of us discussing all of this.
What is it We need to do? What works best, what doesn't work,
what works with this type of person, what works with this type of
person. You know, it's alot, it's a lot, but it's

(17:40):
certainly worthwhile, and I think wehave the answers. We've just got to
put all of our information together.So someone that has the combineddysfunctional frontal cortex
may result in the increase in desireand reduction and control of pleasure seeking behaviors.
So there's an increase in the desireI've got to do this, I

(18:03):
want to do this, and thenreduction of control. I can't keep myself
from doing this, I can't stopmyself from doing it. I enjoy it
so much, I need it somuch. So you have this great desire
that keeps increasing and at the sametime a reduction in your ability to stop
yourself. That's you know, that'sa behavioral issue. We have a lot

(18:26):
of children in school in schools whocan't control their temper, who can't control
their They're just so easily stimulated asfar as they they get really excited,
very easily. It's hard to bringthem down once they get that high.
A lot of times it is aggressiveor maybe you've got someone that has ADHD

(18:48):
who get they get incredibly happy,like it, like crazy happy, and
they can't sit still and they're justover the top, and it's hard to
bring them down. You know,it's very hard to bring them down.
These type of behaviors results in acompulsive and addictive pattern of behaviors. That's

(19:12):
why we have serial killers. RightThey get excited about this idea that they
want to do, and then theygo through the whole process and whatever happens
that gets them all, you know, off on it, and then they
come down off of that high.And then several days later, several months

(19:34):
later, several years later, theyget that same build up of anxiety and
need and desire to do this,and then they just can't control themselves anymore.
They go do it, and thenthey come off that high. So
that's this cycle that we're looking athere, and that's true of most all

(19:56):
serial killers. That's the pattern thatwe're seeing. You see that there's a
desire and a need to fulfill thatdesire and the lack of control to stop
yourself from doing it. There's alot of things I'd like to do.
There's a lot of things I'd liketo do in this world, but I
can't and I know that, andI control myself. If you are a
religious person, if you're a spiritualperson, you know, we know,

(20:21):
if you believe in God, youknow, that's part of what helps control
us. We you know, wetry not to sein, although we know
we do every day, but thatis one of those one of those things
that helps us control ourselves. Youknow, not everyone can do that,
Not everyone has the ability to dothat, and it's very it's not something

(20:42):
we can just say, Oh,we just need to give them a pill
and they'll be fine. That's notthe case in many, many of our
situations. Research also suggests that lowlevels of saratogeneric Sarah tone in there and
oh my god, in this behaviousword serotonin urgic activity. Serotonin energic activity

(21:06):
indicates impulsivity and self destructive violence.Obviously, that means like a serotonin based
activity that indicates impulsivity. It's easierto say that than that big word,
while increased levels indicate aggression. Soif they have low levels of this serotonin,

(21:32):
it can indicate impulsivity and self destructiveviolence, but increase levels indicate aggression.
And I think that that's I thinkthat those overlap some because impulsivity,
self destruction, and aggression go handin hand. When you know this show

(21:52):
on TV called Snapped, that's whatyou have there. You have someone who's
impulsive, who doesn't think through theiractions. They're self destructive. I don't
care how it affects them. Theyjust move forward. And do you know
in this in the heat of themoment, and they're aggressive. They're aggressive.
So I think that that overlaps quitea bit. Heidi and Solomon stated

(22:15):
that men with low levels of monoamineoxidate oxidase a m AOA, an enzyme
involved in the breakdown of neuro epinephyrine, dopamine, and serotonin, are more
likely to be sentenced with a violentcrime by the time they reach twenty six
years of age as compared to menwith height MAOA activity. So that's something

(22:37):
that you could scream for. Youcould scream for that, now, I
mean, is there some bias attachedto that? Of course there is.
But we do screens all the time, different stuff. If you I feel

(22:59):
like, if we really wanted tohelp our children, instead of just guessing
or trying a million different things,you could literally do a screening to see
what levels of manoamine oxidase a theyhave in their system. And someone who
has, you know, someone whohas low levels of that, we can

(23:26):
say with pretty good accuracy that theywill be sentenced with violent crime by the
time they reach twenty six years ofage. How can we intercept that?
How do we stop that? Howdo we prevent that? We treat them
when they're young. We treat themwhen they're young before they reach that,
you know, age of twenty sixwhere they're in jail for a violent crime.

(23:52):
And that's what we do with everything, right, That's what we do
with our flu shots, our allof our shots that you know, COVID
vaccines, all that we're trying toprevent it from being worse than it would
be if we don't get those.I mean, it's it's part of our
everyday life. And why people getupset about that is I just don't understand.

(24:15):
But theorists have also speculated about geneticcomponents of criminal behavior and serial killing.
Madnig, Brennan, and Candle discoveredthat male adoptees whose biological fathers were
criminals and adoptive fathers were non criminalsdisplayed a higher rate of criminality compared to
male adoptees where both they're biological andadoptive fathers were non criminals. When both

(24:41):
the biological and adoptive fathers were criminals, rate of criminality was higher. Still.
More adoption studies provide evidence of howa combination of genetic and environmental risk
factors contribute toward individuals indulging in criminalbehavior. One such study found that if
a child's biological and adoptive parents areboth violent forty percent will end up being

(25:03):
criminals as compared to twelve point onepercent who will be criminals only because of
the presence of the genetic factor.So we are literally able to say with
a high level of confidence that thatjust the presence of the genetic factor gives

(25:27):
that some level of concern that you'regoing to have someone that participates in,
you know, in violent behavior.But we know for sure if a child's
biological and adoptive parents are both violent, that forty percent will end up being
criminals. That should terrify us aswell. That should terrify us. We

(25:51):
do not live in a We donot live in a world right now where
the average family has, you know, the father figure that to work and
cares for the family, takes careof the family, and the wife who
stays home to care for the children, or works a part time job,
works in the school, whatever.We just don't. That's not the norm

(26:14):
anymore. That is not the norm. There's many more single parent families,
and that causes a lot of issues. I know there are millions out there
who are single parents doing a wonderfuljob. But if your child has any
of these indicators, they are ata greater risk. They're at a greater
risk. No one's saying for sureit's gonna happen. Unfortunately, it's one

(26:37):
of those things we won't know untilit happens. But if we have these
markers, if we have these thingsthat tell us, Okay, this person
meets all of these things on thislist, like the aces, they meet
all of these things, they're ata higher risk than other people. And
it statistically it is absolutely accurate psychosocialperspectives. So research on the psychosocial issues

(27:08):
or psychosocial causes of serial killing pointsto the likelihood that childhood experiences, particularly
abuse, loneliness, and abandonment,lead serial killers to commit their crimes.
And abandonment, by the way,also includes children who were not attached to
the mother or other caregiver. Weneed that attachment. Mackie and Emmerman claimed

(27:36):
that the presence of a father ora father figure during childhood prevents or reduces
violent and aggressive behavior during adulthood.Homes Into Burger suggested that most serial killers
are born to parents out of marriage, presumably increasing the rate at which the
killers were raised without one of theirparents. Hickey found that among a group
of sixty two mile serial killers,forty eight percent faced some kind of rejection

(27:59):
by either parent or another important personin their life. And this may be
one of the most important things youever learn. It's sad to say,
you know, because we live ina world that's so easy to get a
divorce. We have to learn thatmarriage is constant work. We have to

(28:22):
learn that it's best for our childrenif we have parents that stay together and
are positive and you know, don'taren't you know, engaging in criminal activity,
that kind of thing, are ondrugs. I'm talking about someone who
is actually contributing to society in apositive way. I mean, I think

(28:45):
that's why therapy is so very importantfor our children, but also these parents.
You know, if you can coparent successfully and your children still feel
like they have a stable home lifeeven after a divorce, you are so
far ahead of the game. It'sit's crazy. And unfortunately, I'll tell

(29:07):
you, when you are working withyounger children, parents tend to be very
controlling when it comes to what happensto their young child. You know,
they want the they want the kidall week, you know long, and

(29:30):
the father only gets them two daysa week or on every other weekend.
Those kind of things, and I'vealways thought that was, you know,
quite unfair. They need that fatherfigure just as often in their life as
they need the mother. But thinkabout it, if we if we so
easily throw away a marriage when there'ssome chance that it could work, we

(29:56):
need to give it every opportunity wecan. If for and I know people
say, don't stay together for thechildren. I say, yes, stay
together for the children, but gethelp, get help. You know,
I think everybody deserves a second chance, maybe a third chance. You're talking

(30:17):
about something as important as the developmentof a child, and you know children
need both that male and female figure. I don't. I'm not interested really
in getting into the dynamics of manyof our many of our family dynamics that

(30:40):
we have today. We have somany. You know, you have two
mothers, two fathers. You havepeople who are non binary. We don't
know, really, we might knowas far as lesbians or gaze go.
There might be some research on that, how if at all the lack of

(31:07):
you know, the male or thefemale in their life affects them greatly.
That's something I need to look at. I think that's interesting, But because
I don't know enough about it,I don't really want to talk about it
right now. I'm saying, ingeneral, your heterose this is what the
majority of your research is going tobe looking at the heterosexual relationships. I

(31:33):
think that that would be another interestingpodcast, and so I may put that
on my list of things to research. But again, I don't know that
much about it. I don't knowthat there's been a ton of studies on
it, But if there have been, I am interested in knowing what that
says. You know, it canbe incredibly relevant, especially considering that we

(31:55):
have more we have more of course, what's the word alternative lifestyles then ever
before in our history. So howdoes that affect our children? What is

(32:17):
happening to them is are they perfectlyfine? You know, as long as
they have loving, caring people intheir life, are they perfectly fine.
I'm going to make a hypothesis thatI think, Yeah, if you've got
two men raising children and they bothlove each other and they have positive home
life, I can't imagine why thatwould be devastating to a child. I

(32:38):
don't think it would be same thingwith if they have two mothers. As
long as they love each other andthey care about the children and they're productive
members of society. There's no abuse, no neglect, all those things that
we know. I think that that'sfine. That's my hypothesis. And I

(33:00):
mean I've been around children who haveyou know, two fathers, two mothers,
and there the children are great.I mean, they have no I
can't think of any that I've evertaught, or observed or worked with who
had parents in a different you know, marriage situation who were particularly stood out

(33:25):
to me in any way. Sothat's my hypothesis. Hickey found that among
a group of sixty two male serialkillers that forty eight percent faced some kind
of rejection by either parent or anotherimportant person in life, and that rejection
is devastating. You have people whoare nine years old and they're still talking

(33:47):
about being rejected by their you know, father when they were two years old.
It never goes away, never goesaway, and there's always some damage.
But you know, I think wecan work together other and lessen the
effects of this damage. Apart fromrejection, other psychological factors such as childhood

(34:08):
humiliation, neglect, early adoptions,and abandonment during childhood have been found to
relate to serial murder. The threemen who are the target of this study.
We know Gary Ridgeway he was humiliatedby his mother, He was neglected,

(34:30):
he felt abandoned, but he reallystressed how humiliated that his mother made
him. And so I feel likehis mother is the one who set into
motion his desire to control, hisdesire to kill, have that ultimate control

(34:51):
over a person. I have noinsane that I believe his mother was a
major contributor in his decision to killpeople. Remember, he was married also
a couple of times, at leasttwo I know that I can remember all

(35:13):
off the top of my head.So he had relationships out outside of his
you know, serial killing. Heagain had that double life. But I'd
really blame his mother and probably someother environmental factors. He was a bed
wid for a long period of time, and she humiliated him about that consistently,

(35:37):
even when he was much much older. And so if you don't think
that those kind of words hurt,words are so painful, they can be.
Words can be what literally make youor break you as a person.
Because a lot of times we believewhat we constantly hear, and if you

(35:58):
hear all the time that you're stupidand you are disgusting and you're you know,
a horrible person, and no onewill ever love you. You'll never
get a woman, you'll never havea wife, You'll never have a husband.
When we hear that consistently enough,we believe it. So what we
the words that we put out intothis world should always be uplifting and positive

(36:23):
when we're dealing with children, whenwe're dealing with anybody, really, but
my focus in this particular case ischildren. I think we should be kind
to everybody because we don't know whatpeople are going through. Again, that
stems from empathy though. Right ifyou don't have empathy, you typically don't

(36:46):
care what's happening to another person.You are just more concerned with your emotions
and your feelings and your desires.So teaching empathy incredibly important. Research also
supports the notion that physical and psychologicalabuse contribute to the development of serial killing.

(37:07):
We know that clearly. In Luxembourg, in their study of more than
sixty serial killers, found that aprevalent part of serial killer's childhood consisted of
physical and or psychological abuse. Furtherresearch studying the impact of childhood abuse and
neglect on adults who became serial killersconcluded that adults who were emotionally, physically

(37:28):
and sexually abused during their childhood werethree times more likely than non abused adults
to act extremely violently during adulthood.Come on, people, this is how
important it is. I'm not sayingalso, I'm not saying that, Yeah,
we find these children here being abused, and you pull them out of

(37:50):
the home and you stick them infoster care. There's damage there as well.
But let me tell you there's agreater risk if we leave them with
that family where their emotion only physicallyand sexually abused. Nothing's good about this.
There's no scenario that's great here.But I think that we have to
determine what's best, what is goingto be in the best interest of our

(38:15):
children, and if it's removed fromthe home, then it's removed from the
home. And why the court systemwants to put a child back with that
parent that's abusive. I think onpaper it sounds good, but I think
in reality it's a bunch of crab. You know, I've told you my
brother and his wife. They havefoster children, they have children they've adopted,

(38:39):
and they are treated just like anyother child in their family. They're
loved, they're cared for, theyget to go, you know, have
experiences that normal families do, vacationsand fun things like that, And I
know that's not the case in somein some cases it's very different. But

(39:05):
certainly these children are better off ina home where they're loved and cared for
consistently than you know, back wherethey're from, where they were starved,
I didn't know where their next mealwas coming from. They were abused many
many different ways. Those type ofthings, well, I think, you
know, I think the court that'spart of my issue with the court system

(39:31):
in the early childhood or the childprotective services, you know, their missions
always to get them back into theirparents' home. I think that's that can
be very dangerous. Kesner and McHenrydiscovered evidence for the theory that parent child
attachments influenced violent behavior. Remember whenI mentioned attachment earlier, it's that attachment

(39:53):
theory. Their results showed that individualswho developed insecure and fearful att atachment styles
we are more likely to be violent. The childhood experiences of serial killers would
almost certainly lead to the development ofthese non secure attachment styles. It goes
hand in hand. These processes wouldlikely lead to difficulty in forming relationships and

(40:14):
to the development of loneliness in bothchildhood and adulthood. And when we say
loneliness, we're not talking we Mostof the time we think of loneliness as
being I and by myself in thishouse, no one's around me. I
don't even manage to talk to I'mlonely. There are many different ways you
can be lonely. You can bein a room full of people and still

(40:36):
be lonely. You can be withyour family and still be lonely. It's
psychological, so loneliness for me,very there's quite a few different definitions of
loneliness. If they felt rejected bytheir parents, they may never ever understand
anything other than loneliness. They don'tattach to anything. They don't attach to

(41:00):
anything. And I'm not saying theydon't get married or have relationships. They
do, but they're not successful.Many serial killers who did have lives,
normal lives outside of their serial killingend up divorced because you can't fake a
lot of this stuff. You can'tfake it and make it so it's going

(41:21):
to come out in the wash eventually. These processes would likely lead to difficulty
informing relationships and to the development ofloneliness. Loneliness experienced by most serial killers
can be counted as a contributing factorto the motivation of controlling victims. Gary
Ridgeway defining loneliness as a feeling anda state of separation from others and suggested

(41:47):
that there exists a link between lonelinessand violent and antisocial behavior. Based on
their case reports, they concluded thatserial killers who have experienced limited positive interactions
or have faced rejection, neglect,or abandonment have indulged in any social and
violent behaviors. The pattern of abuseand abandonment may also lead to the development

(42:09):
of mental illness whether be Buller andmcguinnis suggested a substantial relationship between mental disorders
and violent crime. Not surprised aboutthat Silva, Long and Ferrari proposal link
between autism spectrum disorder and serial killing. However, various follow up studies suggest

(42:30):
that people with ASD are not likelyand are maybe less likely to commit violent
crimes as compared to the general population, and a study suggested a new diagnosis
of criminal autistic psychopathy as a subcategoryof Asperger's syndrome, which is not even
called Asperger's syndrome anymore. But weknow someone who would maybe normally have an

(42:54):
Asperger's syndrome diagnosis. They're high functioning, high function high functioning autistic. I
mean, I've worked with a lotof children who are autistic, and I
think certainly they could. I thinkanybody has the potential to become a serial

(43:15):
killer if they're putting the right environment, or if they're born with a certain
you know that gene that if youbelieve that there's a gene, or they
have some sort of predisposition to violentbehavior. But I don't believe that just
because someone has autism anywhere on thatspectrum, that they're more likely to become

(43:37):
a serial killer. I just don'tbelieve that. Nonetheless, Fitzgerald suggested a
new diagnosis of the criminal autistic psychopathyas a subcategory of Asperger's. Weather Be
and others further proposed that schizophrenic's inabilityto identify emotional facial expressions, among many

(43:58):
other symptoms, influences social functioning,thus increasing the likelihood of criminal behaviors.
I'm going to pause here and talkabout something that's incredibly important when we're talking
about early childhood. Foundational skills,foundational knowledge. In our classrooms preservice teachers,
in our classrooms at higher ED.We talk a lot about attachment.

(44:21):
We talk a lot about infants andthe importance of that relationship between the mother
and father and the child. Obviously, the mother is that main attachment because
that child is born of that woman. So they should have the absolute tightest

(44:42):
bond of anyone else on this earthand it shouldn't change, but you know,
oftentimes it does. That's why wesee these issues. But there's many,
many studies. One of the mostpopular studies that we talk about,
I talk about every semester. It'sjust that it's just foundational is the the

(45:05):
blank Face Study. It's where theyhad several mothers, many MENI mothers,
and they would bring their infants inand they would be playing with that infant,
cooing, talking to them with thatbaby talk like we do, all
the things you would normally see amother interacting with their infant, and the

(45:27):
infant was responding, being very positiveand you know, giggling like they do
and cooing back and making faces butsmiling, you know, just a real
pleasant interaction. If you've ever playedwith a child, you know what I'm
talking about with an infant, andthen they just then they had the scientists

(45:47):
had the mother just completely stop makingany facial, no emotions on their face.
They just literally became staggered. Meant, and the longer that that parent
stayed stagnant, the more that childtried to get them to interact with them
again an infant people, So thatinfant was trying to again have that connection

(46:15):
with the mother by cooing and usingfacial expressions and you know, whatever sounds
they're making at that time, andthe mother was told not to respond to
any of that. And the longerthat went on, the more upset the
child became, and then they eventuallywould cry, they would become really unhappy

(46:37):
because they knew, even as aninfant that something was wrong. They knew
that they weren't getting positive interaction likethey were getting moments ago. And so,
you know, you think that they'reso young that they don't get it,
but people, they get it.You know, events are born with

(46:59):
lots and lots of skills, lotsof natural skills that you know, I
believe God gave them to survive.You know, they were born knowing how
to suck. They were born withsome numerical sense. They understand maybe not
the words one, two, three, four, five, but they do
understand objects. So you know,there's a lot of things that people some

(47:25):
people just don't know about. Infants. Powerful study, very powerful study,
and one that for me, isincredibly relevant to the development of a serial
killer. No attachment, no attachmentto anybody. It says three times more
likely, but I'm going to tellyou it's more than three times more likely.

(47:47):
I think if you have that lackof attachment, you don't have empathy.
There are so many other things thatyou just keep piling on, You
keep piling those characteristics onto that child, and what you have is the perfect
storm for a serial killer. That'show important that is. That's how important

(48:07):
it is. You will hear peopletalking about Look at Kelly Clarkson. Everybody
loves Kelly Clarkson, right. Weknow her experience with her father, who
abandoned them when she was young.She remembers that watching him walk away,

(48:28):
and it's even all these many yearslater, as successful as she is,
she still grieves. She still grievesabout it, and she did, though
have a positive relationship with her mother. Other people that you might see who
you know, people we see onTV here are six we think they're very

(48:50):
successful based on you know what societybased his success on, which would be
you know, stardom and money andin fluence, all those kind of things.
And they might say, you know, my grandmothers who inspired me to
do this, or my grandmother taughtme how to do this, and she
was the driving force in my life. If you watch the Food Network and

(49:14):
people are you know, doing thesecooking competitions, and we watch all of
them many of the time. Manytimes they'll say, I remember when I
was little on my grandmother would pulla chair up to the counter end I
would help her make biscuits or cookiesor whatever their family specialty was. And
it sticks with that child. Andthat's an attachment, that's a positive attachment.

(49:37):
So it doesn't necessarily have to bethe mother or father, but there
certainly has to be someone else inthat child's life that steps up and makes
that attachment. They have to beeverything to that child, you know.
And I mean if you had agood if you had good interactions with your
grandparents, then you know, grandparentsare so good. Grandparents are so loving

(50:02):
and caring and all encompassing. Theywould do anything in the world for you,
just like your mother or your father, right, And I've watched My
dissertation was on grandparents raising grandchildren andhow and that time, you know,
I did that in twenty fifteen.I started to study in twenty thirteen.

(50:27):
Back then, you didn't really seea lot of grandparents with cell phones and
email addresses and computers in their homes. So I was looking at how children
being raised in a grandparents household,how did it affect them? How did
it affect the grandparents because they didn'treally know how schools worked anymore. You

(50:51):
know, they didn't know that therewas math nots. They didn't know that
there's parent teacher conferences. All kindsof information has changed since they were in
school. And that's what I gotwhen I interviewed these grandparents. A lot
of them were really scared to gointo the school and try to figure out
what was going on because they feltlike they were so far removed from anybody

(51:14):
being in school that they'd never getit. And then you had you also
had at that time a huge growthof young people who had children when they
were young, and they were reallyyoung grandparents. I mean, it's very
common to be thirty five years oldand have grandchildren. There's people who were

(51:38):
in their twenties who have grandchildren,and that looks different than elderly grandparents we
think of typically we think of grandparentsas being elderly. Not the case.
So, you know, whoever canbe the champion for that child in their
life consistently, is who is themost it's important, who's going to make

(52:00):
the difference for them in their life? Sometimes it does as teachers, sometimes
we're that person. Sometimes we're thatperson who champions the child, but they
still go home. They're only withus so many hours a day, not
even three hundred and sixty five daysa year, one hundred and eighty days
a year. And it's really notone hundred and eighty because we have work

(52:20):
days and there's sick days and allkinds of stuff like that. So less
much less than one hundred and eightydays to influence that child, to give
them a positive experience, unconditional love, right in teaching empathy, showing them
that they're valuable, that they havevalue. That person is so important to

(52:47):
children. I mean literally, that'sthe difference between violent offenders and non violent
offenders and normal people. Right forme. That's so powerful. It's just
so powerful the attachment. If youdon't, if you don't walk away from

(53:08):
this podcast with anything else. Attachmentin infancy in early childhood is essential for
normal growth. I'm just gonna sayit. It is. It absolutely is,
and that attachment comes with many,many other things that are incredibly important

(53:31):
and necessary to have a normal childhoodand a normal adult life without violent offenses
such as empathy. So we weretaking that was weather Be when he was
talking about how schizophrenics typically have theinability to identify emotional facial expressions. In

(53:57):
their study, Whis and others foundthat individuals with both schizophrenia and high number
of numbers of arrests performed poorly onemotional recognition tests because of their inability to
recognize angry and fearful expressions. Rememberthat expressions facial expressions. How do you
read people? Therefore, individuals sufferingfrom such disorders, including ASDs, are

(54:22):
impaired in their social functioning, whichincreases their likelihood to indulge in criminally violent
behaviors. Another symptom of schizophrenia tobe kept in mind are the delusions.
These delusions may also play role inthe serial killing behavior. It does.
We know that people who are diagnosedas schizophrenic after the fact, you know

(54:44):
that that's what happens. Typically,you have people who are diagnosed as schizophrenic
after the fact, and there youknow they have anti social behaviors after the
fact. Well, duh, that'show it played out. You know.
Delusions someone some someone was telling me. Someone kept telling me to go kill
this person. Someone kept telling meI needed to do this. That's the

(55:06):
delusions that they say motivate them tocommit these violent crimes. Other disorders,
such as antisocial personality disorder or ASPD, narcissistic personality disorder or NPD, and
borderline personality disorder which is BPD havebeen linked to the development of serial killing

(55:28):
behavior. All of these things.A lot of times you'll have antisocial along
with narcissistic, or you'll have narcissisticand borderline personality disorder. You'll have a
combination, and sometimes you have allthree. Some of your worst, most
violent serial killers have all three ofthese. Antisocial is pretty much the underlying

(55:52):
diagnosis of pretty much any serial killer. They have some sort of antisocial personality
disorder. There's different categories of that, but I mean majority of all serial
killers have some sort of antisocial personalitydisorder, and then you can add in
these other things. Researchers of ELSalso established that serial killers are manipulative,

(56:15):
charming, but deceitful, impulsive,and lack empathy. And some of the
aforementioned traits are the symptoms of ASPDand related disorders. Yeah, so they
overlap. But yes, serial killersare manipulative. You have to be very
cunning, very smart to be manipulative. Charming, Ted Bundy, we're focusing

(56:39):
on Ted ted Bundy in this researchas well. But deceitful. You know,
he was charming to get his wayand then he immediately, you know,
would put handcuffs on the woman oncethey got in his Volkswagen. Impulse
impulsivity. A lot of times theydon't plan what's going on. Remember it's

(57:01):
that impulsiveness that they have. Anincrease in their impulsive behavior, a decrease
in their ability to stop it.And of course the big one for me
is the lack of empathy, whichI think stems from no attachment. A
study by Listening, Kosta and Huyerlinked borderline personality disorder to antisocial behaviors.

(57:24):
There's enough research where we can confidentlysay those three disorders overlap almost all the
time, almost all the time cognitiverehearsal in the role of fantasies, you
will have some people, some serialkillers and violent offenders, who talk about

(57:47):
that we're acting out of fantasy.A lot of them talk about they fantasized
about doing what they did for along period of time before they actually did
it. BTK. He had notebooksfull of his plans, how he wanted
to bind somebody, how he wantedto torture them. He planned this stuff

(58:10):
out, and it was for hima fantasy. And then he got to
the point where he could not controlhis desire. Remember, the desire increases
and the ability to control decreases.So that's when you know, you get

(58:30):
that perfect storm and they go andkill somebody and they live out those fantasies.
And he was so well prepared thathe was successful. All but once,
I think all but once. Ithink he had one victim that did
get away. Regardless of what thechildhood experiences of stress and trauma lead to
the development of a diagnosable mental disorder. Burgess Apartment Wrestler, Douglas and McCormick

(58:55):
proposed that unresolved stress feelings and theview of the world arising from experienced trauma
may cause a child to seek comfortin fantasies revolving around themes of domination and
control, leading to sexual violence stemmingfrom sexual and aggressive fantasies. You will
also see victims of sexual abuse whoare able to They say that they just

(59:20):
kind of shut off and go intotheir own world where they completely are ignoring
what's happening to them, and that'show the brain protects itself. It's not
necessarily a fantasy, but it's oneway that their body and their mind feels
that they can control what's happening tothem. So they over time, if

(59:42):
they're consistently abused, over time,they have fantasies of killing that person who's
abusing them, making someone suffer forwhat they've done to them. All of
those thoughts go go through their mind, and it is a matter of control.
I didn't have control over this partpart of my life, but by
gosh, I'm going to have controlover this part, and fantasies helped me

(01:00:05):
to, you know, be ableto cope. You know, it's I
just can't imagine how how, Idon't know children being in views like that,
it's just horrific. Similarly, Hickeyproposed that obsessive fantasies of torture,
control of a victim, and murderfunction as a coping strategy, and thus

(01:00:28):
the individual longs to act on it. Person suggested that murder fantasies stem from
some sort of conflict with someone andthat murder can serve as a solution to
certain problems. It is it isacting out that fantasy, acting out that
need and desire to be in control, and that's they get that huge rush

(01:00:50):
of dopamine and a feeling of contentmentand positivity that they haven't had before.
That's what that's that's what drives themto continue doing it. Eventually, however,
the fantasy is not enough to fulfillthe need. Thus, when serial
killers mature from their remote fantasies,their fantasies become a cognitive stage and ground
for actual crimes. Some fantasies includea cognitive rehearsal for sexual murder, but

(01:01:16):
because of its constant repetition, thefantasy's cognitive rehearsal power diminishes, and that
is when an individual seeks to acton them. This is the exact same
thing that happens to people when theywatch pornography. The first time someone watches
pornography and is interested in it,some people will repulse by it, and

(01:01:36):
that's fine. Other people are drawnto it and they like what they see
because they're getting this feeling, they'regetting this rush, this desire, and
they love it, and they continuewatching it and it just ups the ante.
They start out with just relatively nonviolentporn, and it will work.

(01:01:58):
It's what typically work its way upto, you know, horrible porn stories
and situations which allow them to liveout their fantasy by watching it on TV
or computer or whatever. Snuff filmswhich are completely illegal but happen. They
certainly happen where people actually die inthese in the films. Those are used

(01:02:22):
quite a bit by serial killers.But when that stops becoming exciting, they
become the predator. Same thing here, when the fantasy is not enough,
then they they mature from the remotefantasies to actual cognitive stage and ground for

(01:02:43):
actual crimes. For those who havean impaired prefrontal cortex, Courte good Lord,
prefrontal cortex and experience such fantasies repeatedly, it becomes Additionally, difficult to
control behaviors, and acting upon theirfantasy seems like an easy way out.
Wrestler Burgess and Douglas suggest that fantasycan be a contributing factor leading to serial

(01:03:07):
killing. Moreover, if the victimdoes not cooperate enough or the criminal act
is hindered because of unanticipated circumstances,the serial killers fantasy is unsatisfied, leading
him or her to develop a newand more violent fantasy in order to reach
the same level of satisfaction. Andthat is that constant drive, that constant

(01:03:29):
need. If they're interrupted in anyway, if it didn't go the way
they thought it was going to go, you know, they back up and
you know, readjust that fantasy andthen plan it so meticulously that they are
ensured they're not going to have issuesthat they want to fulfill that fantasy.

(01:03:52):
So and that's a good place tostop today. So many different things that
are that have to be present forsomeone to move from just a fantasy into
reality. And we see that allthe time. We see it all the

(01:04:14):
time. We're gonna have to dothis again. We're not even halfway through
this, so we'll do another podcaston this sometime this week. So be
looking out for that. I willgive any updates on the serial killer in
California. There'll be a lot moredetails come out, just like always,
like Brian Coburger, all of them. The longer, the longer things go,

(01:04:36):
the more information that you typically getbecause they're constantly being studied. So
we'll definitely talk about any news relatedto that and do another segment of this
master's Thesis. Hope you're enjoying it, Hope you have a great week,
and as always, be safe outthere.