Family Annihilators Fit a Terrible Pattern

The recent news story about Chris Watts, the Denver-area father accused of killing his pregnant wife and two daughters, is shocking and incomprehensible for most of us. But so-called "family annihilators" actually fit a pattern according to analysis of cases. First of all, the killer is almost always male: a son, father or brother. The killer is emotionally isolated, either because of the family's treatment (such as abuse), the killer's situation (such as financial failure or an affair) or mental illness. While, to the outside world, these killers may appear to be successful and devoted husbands, fathers or sons, the perpetrator is actually consumed with hatred, resentment, shame or a sense of failure, and the crime is usually planned rather than spontaneous, with a time chosen when the family is isolated and unsuspecting. Often, there have been experimental or lesser attacks before the final mayhem, such as unreported domestic violence or a suspicious home fire. The majority of annihilators commit suicide—but some attempt to cover up the crime and shift blame, as Watts did. British research has categorized the family annihilator into four types: the self-righteous killer who exacts revenge on the mother or spouse he blames for breakdown of the family; the disappointed killer who destroys the family he thinks has destroyed his vision of ideal family life, for example by not following religious or cultural customs; the anomic killer who sees his family only as an expression of his own success and status so that they are discarded with economic failure or disgrace; and the paranoid killer who perceives an external threat and wipes out the family in a twisted effort to "protect it." By the way, the most common month for family annihilation is August, so it's good we're coming to an end of this month! Some well-known mystery authors have taken on this disturbing topic. An example is Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, mistress of dark twists and unreliable narrators: Libby Day was seven when her mother and two sisters were murdered. She survived and famously testified that her 15-year-old brother, Ben, was the killer. Twenty-five years later, a group obsessed with notorious crimes hopes to discover details exonerating Ben and is willing to pay Libby to reconnect with the players from that night and report her findings. Libby’s search takes her right back where she started—on the run from a killer. Live to Tell by Lisa Gardner begins one warm summer night in a working-class Boston neighborhood with the brutal murders of four members of a family. The father—and possible suspect—is clinging to life in the ICU. A murder-suicide? Veteran police detective D. D. Warren is certain there are even more disturbing depths to the case. For more on this horrific trend in modern society, you can read Familicidal Hearts by sociologist Neil Websdale.

Mother's Day Lauds Bond With Deadly Breaks

In May, Mother's Day celebrates what most of us see as a sacred bond, natural and social, between mothers and children. But that bond is more tenuous than we like to think. A study in Forensic Science International looked at filicide cases (killing of a child by a parent) between 1976 and 2007 and found they occur about 500 times a year in the United States, with more than 40% of the murders committed by mothers. Cheryl Meyer, co-author of several books on the subject, said it's probable that a mother kills a child once every three days in the U.S. Filicide expert and forensic psychiatrist Phillip J. Resnick identifies five major reasons a mother might kill her child. One motive is misguided altruism--believing death is in the child's best interest, either based on the reality of a child's terminal illness or a conviction the child needs to be saved from a cruel world, especially if the parent intends to commit suicide. Of course, acute psychosis is another explanation, such as when a mother thinks her child is demon-possessed or obeys "voices." Sometimes the killer mom just wants to be rid of an unwanted child seen as a hindrance. Or perhaps the killing is the accidental result of cruel physical abuse or neglect. The least common motive is spousal revenge a la Medea: a mother killing her child to exact revenge on her spouse. Maternal filicide is a common theme in the true crime genre, and it has played a key role in well-known fiction works such as Toni Morrison's Beloved or Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island. In recent fiction, there's Veronique Olmi's haunting Beside the Sea, which captures the twisted altruism of a single mother who takes her beloved two sons on a last fun-filled trip to the seaside before freeing them from what she sees as an uncaring and dangerous world. Best-selling author Tami Hoag offers The Boy, in which detectives must solve the question of whether a mother, who ran panicked into the night after an alleged intruder killed her 7-year-old son, is suffering an unfathomable loss or is guilty of an unthinkable crime. Little Deaths by Emma Flint focuses on Ruth Malone, a single mother in 1965 Queens, NY, who works long hours as a cocktail waitress and insists she woke up to find her two small children missing. When their bodies are discovered, the lead detective concludes Malone is the killer, but a dogged tabloid reporter questions whether the unhappy mother is a killer, victim of circumstance or pawn of something more sinister. The Big Girls by Susanna Moore addresses both the destructive power of maternal instinct and our cult of celebrity by bringing together four characters at a women's prison: a woman serving a life sentence for murder of her children; the female chief of psychiatry; a male corrections desiring the psychiatrist, and an ambitious Hollywood starlet contacted by the convicted killer. For more on filicide in America, see https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/07/health/filicide-parents-killing-kids-stats-trnd/index.html

The 'Bad Seed' in Fact and Fiction

Psychopathic villains--manipulative, aggressive, remorseless and unemotional--abound in murder mysteries, but when those psychopaths are children, an element of horror enters. Remember Rhoda, the too-perfect little girl murderess in the 1954 novel The Bad Seed by William March? Or Kevin, a school massacre perpetrator, whose mother suspects his evil capacity long before his final horrific acts in Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. Agatha Christie's Crooked House also featured a deadly child in scheming 12-year-old Josephine Leonides, who kills her grandfather because he won't pay for ballet lessons--and almost gets away with it. Author Jonathan Kellerman, a clinical child psychologist who writes New York Times best-selling mysteries featuring psychologist sleuth Dr. Alex Delaware, gives support to fictional "bad seed" characterizations. He notes in his nonfiction Savage Spawn, inspired by the spate of 1997-1998 schoolyard shootings, that “psychopathic tendencies begin very early in life, as young as three, and they endure.” Though research shows psychopathy is 50% genetic, biology is not destiny for our complex human personalities, and nurture can guide nature. Budding pre-psychopaths can be tempered by a non-aggressive environment and by a parenting style that is neither too permissive nor too authoritarian while providing structure and limits, according to psychology experts. After all, children with psychopathic traits do not all become killers; many grow up to use the daring, charming and manipulative aspects of their personalities as successful business tycoons, political leaders or sports stars. Still, the fictional tales of young murderers are not just fantasy and are reinforced every year by headlines about preteen killers and school shootings. We need to be alert to signs in children that presage criminal acts--violence toward people or animals, lack of guilt or remorse, social isolation, defiance and sensation-seeking--and commit to timely intervention. For more on youthful violence prediction and intervention, see http://crimefeed.com/2016/01/predicting-violent-criminal-behavior-how-to-spot-the-warning-signs-intervene/

The Dark Attraction of Murderous Duos

Most murder mystery plots revolve around a single killer. Murderous partners are rarer in fiction and in real life, which is why they have a macabre fascination. In fact, as a 2014 Psychology Today article noted, more than a fifth of serial killers operate in teams, most involving two offenders. And these teams have a unique psychological dynamic: One member is invariably a dominant figure who manipulates a subordinate partner's youth, neediness, mental instability, or low intelligence, according to Eric W. Hickey, a forensic psychologist and the author of Serial Murderers and Their Victims, who has studied more than 500 serial killer teams. The dominant predator in a killing team maintains such psychological and even physical control that the partnership acquires greater emotional significance than any personal moral code that might prevent heinous acts, experts agree. These deadly partnerships are often sexual: Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate; Paul Bernardo and Karen Homolka; Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb. But it is the aberrant emotional glue that really counts; consider the father-son relationship of the 2002 D.C. sniper team of Muhammad and Malvo, or the same-sex peer bond of the teenage Columbine killers. So how do such murderous duos form? Gregg McCrary, a behavioral criminologist and former FBI agent, theorizes in the article: "There's radar, gaydar, and, maybe, mur-dar. It resembles the phenomenon wherein normal people meet and decide that they're going to get along, but with these couples, it takes a dark turn. They vector in on each other, sensing the excitement of a kindred spirit. It becomes electric." There's a dark law of attraction that leads to nightmares. For the complete Psychology Today article, including historical examples, read https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201406/partners-in-crime. For some more examples of famous killing teams, see http://listverse.com/2012/07/08/10-awful-serial-killer-teams/.