Example: bankruptcy

CHILD SERIAL MURDER-PSYCHODYNAMICS: …

CHILD SERIAL MURDER-PSYCHODYNAMICS: CLOSELY WATCHED SHADOWSRONALD TURCO, **Journal of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 29(2), 331 338, 2001 2001 The American Academy of PsychoanalysisOn September 4, 1989, the bodies of two young children were foundin a park in Vancouver, Washington. On October 24, the police in Port-land, Oregon, responded to the disappearance of a young CHILD in a publicpark. On November 1, Vancouver detectives were called to investigatethe nude body of a white 5-year-old male. This CHILD s body had beendumped in the woods, and police determined that this was the boy reportedmissing from the park in Portland. Police determined that all three chil-dren had been murdered. A multidimensional task force, which includedagents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and detectives fromWashington and Oregon, was assembled to investigate the murders, a stan-dard procedure in suspected SERIAL murder cases.

CHILD SERIAL MURDER-PSYCHODYNAMICS: CLOSELY WATCHED SHADOWS RONALD TURCO, M.D.* * Journal of The American Academy of …

Tags:

  Serial, Murder, Child, Child serial murder

Information

Domain:

Source:

Link to this page:

Please notify us if you found a problem with this document:

Other abuse

Transcription of CHILD SERIAL MURDER-PSYCHODYNAMICS: …

1 CHILD SERIAL MURDER-PSYCHODYNAMICS: CLOSELY WATCHED SHADOWSRONALD TURCO, **Journal of The American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 29(2), 331 338, 2001 2001 The American Academy of PsychoanalysisOn September 4, 1989, the bodies of two young children were foundin a park in Vancouver, Washington. On October 24, the police in Port-land, Oregon, responded to the disappearance of a young CHILD in a publicpark. On November 1, Vancouver detectives were called to investigatethe nude body of a white 5-year-old male. This CHILD s body had beendumped in the woods, and police determined that this was the boy reportedmissing from the park in Portland. Police determined that all three chil-dren had been murdered. A multidimensional task force, which includedagents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and detectives fromWashington and Oregon, was assembled to investigate the murders, a stan-dard procedure in suspected SERIAL murder cases.

2 I joined the task forceon November 7 and was asked to develop a psychological profile of theperpetrator. Together with the detectives and FBI agents, I examined crimescene photographs, autopsy photos, and reports, and consulted informa-tion we compiled regarding similar murders. The latter included the so-called demographic data that some police agencies keep. We also consid-ered the psychodynamic aspects of both the perpetrator and the crimescene, viewing the crimes and the scenes as a symptom of psychopathol-ogy. We considered the character structure of the AND BASISThis type of aggression, characteristic of Kernberg s description ofmalignant narcissism, should not be viewed as a disease but as an as-pect of personality structure and function (Fromm, 1973; Kemberg,1992).

3 The rewards of SERIAL murder are psychological, and the motiva-tions for the killer very meaningful. An understanding of the integra-tion of aggression within the personality is essential in comprehendingthe motivation of SERIAL killers. Liebert and I have previously noted thateven in the presence of severe psychopathology, the actual reasons forcommitting SERIAL murders are not obvious, and thus an examination of332 TURCOthe underlying psychopathology and personality of the murderer is es-sential in understanding the repetitive drive to kill (Liebert, 1985; Turco,1992; Yarvis, 1991).Liebert and I proposed that narcissistic and borderline conditionsprovide the clinical foundation for the understanding of the offender spersonality and behavior.

4 My focus has been to build a profile based onthe psychopathology of borderline and severe narcissistic pathology in the personalities of SERIAL murderers is an in-trinsic aspect of generating the motivation to murder . At least ten promi-nent theorists working on the problem of SERIAL murder have highlightedthe sadism, malignant narcissism, fantasies of power, and narcissisticinsults, along with the underlying sense of inferiority, present in serialkillers; control over others and a history of animal cruelty are also promi-nent characteristics of such individuals (Fromm, 1973; Gacono, 1992;Hickey, 1991; Lievert, 1985; Lowenstein, 1992; Marohn, 1987; McCarthy,1978; Palermo & Knudten, 1994; Stone, 1989; Turco, 1994.)

5 Holmes andDeBurger (1988) characterized SERIAL murderers as individuals with amotivation to exert total control and power over the victim. They notedthat the motivations are appreciated only by the murderer. In my opin-ion, the motivations may be appreciated by the killer at an emotionallevel, but they are not understood by PROFILEThe task force assembled for the Vancouver-Portland CHILD murdersmade 42 predictions regarding a typical offender of such crimes. Theseincluded that the killer would be a white male between 25 and 35 yearsold; a non-affiliated loner ( cardboard people ) who, if he had servedin the military, would have been discharged under less than honorableconditions or administratively without serving his full tour of duty.

6 Suchindividuals carefully assess the investigation and its progress, and mighttry to assist the police with the investigation. They tend to keep recordsof the crime, including a diary and newspaper clippings. They maintainsubstantial amounts of pornography and photograph the victims bothalive and dead. They have sexual relations with the victims alive and,depending on the organization of the perpetrator, dead. The exceptionto the sexual acting out involves the subgroup spree type of serialmurderer. Spree SERIAL killings involve four or more victims in a shorttime, with no sexual assault or ritualism and a high degree of random-ness in the selection of victims. The underlying psychopathology ofmalignant narcissism remains the WATCHED SHADOWS 333In the case of the Vancouver-Portland murders, consistent with dataderived from past experience and stored in data banks, we hypothesizedthat the suspect would have a late-model car and would be employed ata job with limited responsibility.

7 We predicted that the killer would keepa fetish, frequently a body part, a lock of hair, underclothing, or jew-elry. These souvenirs are later used by the perpetrator to masturbateto his fantasy reenactment of the murder , a form of eroticism that con-tinues long after the apprehension and incarceration of the predicted that the murders would continue and that molestationwould be accompanied by sexual mutilation, as is the pattern in suchcases. The perpetrator would likely select only male victims, possiblyviewing females as being defective. Control of the victim is alwaysthe primary motivator. During the investigation we discovered ligaturemarks on the neck and wrists of the 5-year-old CHILD who had also beensodomized INVESTIGATIONI nterviews with several hundred known CHILD molesters and childmurderers failed to convince the task force that we had a viable suspectin this group, and we began directing our attention to transients.

8 Issuesof prior mental health counseling, especially for violent or sexual crimes,as well as a criminal history of sexual offenses, were considered in theinvestigative process. We also hypothesized that the killer was not psy-chotic and would fit into the FBI classification of an organized serialmurderer (Burgess, Groth, Ressler, and Douglas, 1980, 1985; Crimescene, 1985).On November l3, 1989, a suspect was arrested by police officers inCamus, Washington, and charged with kidnapping in the first had tried to abduct a 6-year-old white male from a movie thereafter, I performed a videotaped interview of the suspect,during which time he confessed to murdering the three children, describ-ing in specific detail the sexual assault, mutilation, murder , and post-mortem sexual activity with the psychological profile we developed was consistent with the be-havior, description, and background of the apprehended suspect, and wasused as evidentiary material for the procurement of a search warrant, thussetting a precident in Washington State.

9 Although he had confessed to themurders, the suspect still had a right to refuse access to his apartment andcar. In this instance the judge ruled the profile sufficiently accurate toapply to the suspect in custody and granted a search TURCOIn the apartment we found the underclothing of the 5-year-old murderedboy neatly folded in the perpetrator s briefcase, numerous Polaroid photo-graphs of the CHILD tied to the bedposts, and an array of CHILD predicted, a diary highlighting specifics of the three murders, includ-ing comments on the investigation and plans for the future abduction anddissection of the next CHILD , was located in the clothes years before this investigation I participated in the largest crimi-nal investigation in Oregon s history.

10 Which resulted in the apprehen-sion and conviction of the so-called I-5 killer. The psychological pro-file developed in that case was similar to the CHILD SERIAL murder casewith three exceptions. The I-5 killer murdered adult women, and we con-sidered the mechanism of splitting, hypothesizing that the killer wouldmake a telephone call to a woman friend each time he murdered anotherwoman, thus perpetuating the good mother/bad mother logs seized at the time of arrest confirmed this development of a psychological profile involves the prepara-tion of a biographical sketch gathered from information at the crimescene, the personal habits and history of the perpetrator, the stored(known) demographic material, the autopsy reports, investigative in-terviews, and the psychodynamic considerations of known profile is then integrated with other available information, includ-ing suspect data.


Related search queries