Savage Spawn by Jonathan Kellerman

Author:Jonathan Kellerman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345463661
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

IX

It’s Both

From a practical standpoint, a combination of temperament and chaotic environment is by far the best predictor of dangerousness in children, just as it is in adults.

The strongest empirical support for the interaction between environmental and biological damage comes from studies of children and teenagers who’ve actually killed. Features found repeatedly in young murderers include language disorders suggestive of brain damage; a history of physical and sexual abuse; exposure to frequent, high-level, real-life episodes of extreme violence, primarily within the family; other indications of family chaos, most notably parental promiscuity, incarceration, and substance abuse; low IQ (90 or below); serious school problems; alcohol and drug abuse (mostly cocaine); and documented instances of head trauma. (I will examine later how Mitchell Johnson and Andrew Golden fit into this picture.)

A study of fourteen juveniles who committed sexual homicide—youths ranging from thirteen to seventeen years old who stalked, raped, stabbed, impaled, and mutilated their victims—revealed a similar set of precursors: violent, chaotic, abusive families; paternal abandonment or neglect; school problems and truancy; substance abuse; and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. What separated these youths from other killers, much as it distinguishes adult sexual psychopaths from other criminals, was an early preoccupation with violent erotic fantasies. Media violence did play a role in the behavior of two members of this tiny subgroup, but it appears to have been minimal: one young rapist-murderer with long-festering violent impulses reported being inspired by a video game (Dungeons and Dragons), and another linked his method, stabbing in the head, but not his fantasies, to the movie Rambo (13).

One contrast between these young lust-murderers and other precocious killers was their higher intelligence (mean group IQ was 101.4). This same “criminal intellectuality” is also found in many organized adult serial killers, many of whom tend to score above average on IQ tests. So these precocious lust-slayers may very well have been bush-league Ted Bundys who, fortunately for the rest of us, lacked the sophistication to avoid early capture.

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