Serial Killer and His Fundy Family

[stacyf]

So this guy was discussed briefly over in the Mysteries thread on Chatter. I am from Alaska so I keep up with the news and have lots of friends I still chat with. Isreal Keyes is a serial killer who recently killed himself. He was the topic of discussion this last year because he kidnapped a young woman and raped her, he then dismembered her body and put her in a frozen lake. Well I was reading an article about his family and this article that her pastor is quoted in and I honestly do not understand the thinking of these people. Why does he need to have a funeral at a chapel? How do they blame his pure evil on his beliefs? If they are such wonderful Christians why didn't they raise a son who wasn't a serial killer? It's just so frustrating.

[NeonJungle]

Or on his lack of belief. I think it is easier sometimes for people to fall into a stereotype than accept that even though they may have done as good a job as a parent they believed they could, a kid can sometimes be a bad seed. To admit that there is indeed "evil" in the world means people can't run it through the filter of "God is in control."

[BravaAmica]

Perhaps someone else is better equipped to answer this question than myself but are psychopaths/serial killers created 100% by environment? How much of how a psychopath turns out is due to environment (how they're raised, abused or not, allowed to have opinions or not, good nutrition, adequate medical care...) and how much is due to how their brains are wired?

[ricky_ticky]

LE, it's a long-winded reply, but here's a link to Malcolm Gladwell's article *Damaged,* (published in the New Yorker Magazine.) It's about serial killers and murderers and the work of Dorothy Lewis, a psychiatrist who studies them. Lewis says, "I just don't believe people are born evil. To my mind, that is mindless. Forensic psychiatrists tend to buy into the notion of evil. I felt that that's no explanation. The deed itself is bizarre, grotesque. But it's not evil. To my mind, evil bespeaks conscious control over something. Serial murderers are not in that category. They are driven by forces beyond their control."

Lewis and her partner, neurologist Jonathan Pincus, "believe that the most vicious criminals are, overwhelmingly, people with some combination of abusive childhoods, brain injuries, and psychotic symptoms (in particular, paranoia), and that while each of these problems individually has no connection to criminality (most people who have been abused or have brain injuries or psychotic symptoms never end up harming anyone else), somehow these factors together create such terrifying synergy as to impede these individuals' ability to play by the rules of society."

The link to the full article, published 15 years ago but still a fascinating read, is here:

www.gladwell.com/1997/1997_02_24_a_damaged.htm

[BravaAmica]

Thank you so much!!!

[ricky_ticky]

Thank you so much!!!

No problem. Here's a more up-to-date article on Dr. Lewis:

yalemedicine.yale.edu/spring2007/features/feature/51689

where she is quoted saying:

“Evil is not a scientific term. It’s a religious term.â€

[tropaka]

They've now done studies that find very young children capable of empathy/sympathy etc (18 mos or so). There's so much evidence of commonalities between people who become violent adults or teens, but no proof of cause. There's probably much to be learned from studying the examples that don't come from the accepted backgrounds.