Murderous Minds by Dean Haycock Read Free Book Online Page A

assume is obvious: that all serial killers are psychopaths. He used Jeffrey Dahmer as an example.
    Dahmer sexually abused and killed seventeen young men and adults over a thirteen-year period ending in 1991. He also ate some of their body parts.
    “On some level,” Patrick said, “Dahmer’s compulsive behavior may have been driven by probably dopaminergic reward tendencies in a way that addicts are driven. The impulse is so strong that it almost engulfs them. Jeffrey Dahmer’s case is way over the top; you’ve got a typical case [of addiction] dressed in alcohol, and you’ve got Jeffrey Dahmer’s dressed in blood.” 11
    Park Dietz, who examined Dahmer, agrees that he was not a psychopath, although, he pointed out, many serial killers are indeed psychopaths. He doesn’t, however, agree with the suggestion that Dahmer’s problem could be traced to compulsive behavior.
    “Dahmer had several mental disorders, diagnosed by nearly all forensic evaluators who saw him,” Dietz wrote. “His inability to find a sexual partner who shared his interest in prolonged cuddling was a function of his personality disorder, which I believe I diagnosed as Schizotypal Personality Disorder.” 12
    Features of this disorder include social isolation and superstitious, odd beliefs. Dahmer’s sexual tastes reflected paraphilias, which, Dietz explained, “included necrophilia, what was once called ‘Pygmalionism’ (a taste for dolls and mannequins), and what I named ‘splanchnophlia’ (an attraction to the shiny membranes covering the viscera); for him, cannibalism was never erotic.” [Paraphilic behaviors entail extreme, dangerous, and abnormal sexual desires.]
    Dahmer was an alcoholic, a problem that impaired his judgment and made it more difficult for him to avoid getting caught. Of Dahmer’s disorders, Dietz regards only alcoholism as an addiction. “There are those who want to view paraphilias as an addiction, but I do not share their view. Paraphilias are more or less stable configurations of erotically arousing imagery and activities, probably learned in late childhood by the time of puberty,” the psychiatrist explained.
    In fact, apart from drinking, there is little in Dahmer’s behavior that qualifies as compulsive behavior, in Dietz’s view. “He did not regard his sexual desires, preferences, or behavior as senseless activities that he sought to stop or that relieved anxiety (which is the psychiatric concept ofcompulsion). Nor was I impressed with anything about his behavior—apart from drinking—that could be called impulsive or reflective of impulses any stronger than the sex drive of normal men his age.”
    “Did he seek rewards? Of course! Don’t we all?” Dietz summed up. “He found it rewarding to lie next to a man with nice biceps all night long, and he wanted one who wouldn’t leave him and wouldn’t rob him. If that’s dopamine at work, okay, but this doesn’t mean there was anything pathological about his dopaminergic system.” 13
    Psychiatrist Michael Stone is also skeptical of a link between serial killing and addiction. He points out that addiction is associated with physical withdrawal. He believes it is more likely that most serial killers have sexual urges combined with psychopathic traits, both of which are responsible for their behavior. 14
    What’s Left Behind
    At the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy meeting in Washington, D.C. in 2013, a young graduate student approached former FBI special agent and criminal profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole and told her very adamantly that many serial killers are not psychopaths. “Really?” O’Toole replied. “Interesting, because I worked on hundreds of these cases.” 15 The young student had not visited the scene of a single case, but she was nevertheless very certain that she was correct.
    O’Toole explained what it looks like in the trenches: “When we analyze a crime scene, we look at the pre-offense behavior, the crime scene