Murder on the mind

Bonita Baruah / Jan 6, 2007, 23:38 IST

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Beast or mad man? What normal person would slaughter another human for the sheer pleasure of it? We get inside the mind of a serial killer.

For all outward appearances, they lead perfectly normal lives. And visibly, they may not be very different from you and me. But inside their world is a dark place, a twisted psyche where beastly impulses reign supreme over reason.
He may not be mentally deranged.
In fact, a serial killer may be a totally rational character who goes about methodically planning and executing murders, dismembering and decapitating victims lured and trapped with careful precision.
"You'll probably find some degree of mental instability (30-38% of psychopaths show abnormal brain wave patterns). But there are no 'monsters'," says Delhi-based psychoanalyst Madhu Sarin. Environmental factors can create psychopath/sociopaths as can biological 'defects', leading to psychological malfunctioning, she says.

In the 19th century, psychopaths were considered to be "morally insane". But experts now believe they are an "unfortunate fusion of interpersonal, biological and sociocultural disasters".
He is totally in control.
"Serial killers have certain common basic traits," says B N Chattoraj, criminologist, National Institute for Criminology and Forensic Sciences, Delhi.
They're loners, hedonistic, sadistic, clever and cunning. The modus operandi spot a target, follow him, study him, befriend or lure him and then trap him reflects their calculating behaviour, he says.
In fact, unlike mass murderers who lose control, serial killers seldom do. "They know how to manage their impulses so they can avoid detection. They can be charming and manipulative," says Dr Chattoraj.
Rajat Mitra, psychoanalyst at Swanchetan, an NGO which works with victims and perpetrators of crime, says he wouldn't put it past the Nithari killers bribing police around the area.
Psychopaths are also incapable of having meaningful relationships, viewing others as fodder for manipulation and exploitation. Victims are dehumanised into worthless objects in the murderer's mind.
"I'm the most cold-blooded sonofabitch you'll ever meet," said Ted Bundy, one of America's most feared killers. "I just liked to kill, I wanted to kill."
He leads a dual life.
Hypothetically, Nithari accused Moninder must have started in his twenties, says Dr Mitra. "The pattern didn't develop overnight." The fact that he led a 'normal' life studying in Bishop's Cotton, then St.
Stephen's, marrying, having a kid fits in perfectly, he says: Most lead dual lives, one macabre and gruesome and the other very charming, to cover it up and avoid identification.
He gets sexual pleasure from torture.
In the '70s, the Calcutta Slasher stalked crowded city buses, slitting women's arms with a blade. It just felt like a sting, and most would find out only after a while when blood started gushing out.
Experts who interrogated him after he was caught found that as a child he had watched his father regularly beat up his mother, not stopping until he drew blood. He admitted that he would watch his victims from a distance, and get sexually aroused.
This sexual thrill of seeing blood and victims screaming for mercy is something that spurs on most serial killers. Most serial killings are sexual crimes, where violence and sex merge. Usually, there is a paedophilia angle to it.
But all sexual perverts are not serial killers. Nor are all serial killings of a sexual nature. For example, there was no sexual angle to the killings of Charles Sobhraj, one of India's most infamous killers.
He rationalises his actions.
In their minds, they always have a perfectly rational excuse for doing what they do.
Henry Lee Lucas, who along with psychopath sidekick Ottis Toole, travelled the US raping, robbing, killing and mutilating people, blamed his upbringing; Jeffrey Dahmer, a young man from a good family who deviated into necrophilia and cannibalism, luring boys to his apartment to be murdered and maimed, said he was born with a "part" of him missing.
Santa Cruz killer Herbert Mullin blamed voices in his head. John Wayne Gacy, who hired young men to work in his contracting company, then raped and murdered them, boasted that the "worthless little queers and punks" deserved to die. 'Yorkshire Ripper' Peter Sutcliffe declared he was "cleaning up the streets" of human trash.
He has been abused or witnessed abuse as a child.
Here's some enlightening data, based on a study by the FBI, which has done extensive research on serial killers: 42% have gone through physical abuse, 74% are psychologically abused, 35% have witnessed severe sexual violence and 43% have been sexually abused.
Many were abandoned by their fathers as kids. To put it simply, psychologically if you've been killed (hurt), you want to take revenge, do to others what has been done to you. But it's a little more complex, says Sarin.
"The growth of the mind, the process whereby a person establishes a sense of identity, separating self from others, is a complicated process.
Usually, such people do not have a stable enough internal representation of themselves, so they do it externally: somewhere, a bizarre adaptation is taking place, where a person tries to achieve wholeness, maturation by having sex with children, killing them, cannibalising them.
Based on theories of the mind then, they are reaching an inner equilibrium through their acts."
Do genes play a part? According to a Washington School of Medicine survey, biological children of criminal parents are four times more likely to commit violent crimes even if adopted by law-abiding people.
But genetics does not tell the whole story; it only shows a predisposition. Environment can make or break the psychopathic personality, say experts.
He leaves a signature.
According to FBI, there's a pattern in the killings: a distinct method, which often reveals the motive. There's a minimum of three to four victims, with a 'cooling off' period in between.
The killer is usually a stranger to the victim, so the murders appear random. The murders reflect a sadistic need to dominate and are rarely "for profit" the motive is psychological, not material;
Killers often choose victims who are vulnerable (prostitutes, runaways, etc.), and operate in areas where they're most likely to find victims. The Nithari house, for instance, was conveniently located next to an illegal migrant colony, from where children going missing would hardly be taken seriously, say experts.
In fact, says Dr Mitra, most paedophiles/stalkers in India start in small towns and villages, where missing children are too easily forgotten. Emboldened, they then move on to bigger cities. "There is a misconception that serial killers are mostly found in the West.
It's just difficult to assess the extent of such crimes here because there is no documentation. Most killings are not connected, and missing children are not linked to paedophilia, serial killing, etc," says Dr Mitra.
Another myth is that it's only males. According to an American survey, 3-5% of men are sociopaths compared to less than 1% of women.
He usually shows 'red-flag' behaviour as a kid. Setting fires, torturing animals and bedwetting are some 'symptoms' they show as children. There's also a lot of violent and bloody fantasy: many develop a revulsion after testing them out, but for a few, it just reinforces fantasies, says Mitra.
Edmund Kemper who at 15 killed his grandparents, then went on to kill hitchhikers and ended up decapitating his mother admitted he harboured fantasies of killing his grandparents (his mother used to keep him locked in the basement while his grandparents bullied him).
He also wished everyone else in the world would die, and he fantasised about killing many.

End of Article

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