0:00

The following episode contains descriptions

0:02

of sexual violence that some

0:04

people may find disturbing. If

0:07

you would rather not hear this type of

0:09

content, please come back next week for a

0:12

new episode. Thank you. Last

0:15

summer, police in New York arrested

0:17

architect Rex Huerman and charged him with

0:19

a series of murders that took place

0:21

on Long Island between 1996 and 2011.

0:27

The arrest of the suspect in the

0:29

so-called Gilgo Beach killings appears to have

0:31

closed one of the more recent chapters

0:33

in the history of American serial killers.

0:36

From Jeffrey Dahmer to Ted Bundy

0:38

to Son of Sam, serial

0:40

killers have long inspired public

0:42

fear and public fascination. What,

0:45

we wonder, could drive someone to

0:48

commit such crimes? And

0:50

how do these people get away with murder for

0:52

so long? Today

0:54

we're going to talk with a forensic psychologist

0:56

who studies serial killing. We

0:58

will discuss what the research tells us

1:00

about serial murderers' motivations and methods. Are

1:03

they all psychopaths or sociopaths or

1:06

something else? What exactly

1:08

do those terms mean? Do serial

1:10

killers ever feel remorse for their actions?

1:13

How common is serial murder and

1:15

why do so many of us

1:18

find it so fascinating? Welcome

1:20

to Speaking of Psychology, the flagship

1:23

podcast of the American Psychological

1:25

Association that examines the links between

1:27

psychological science and everyday life.

1:30

I'm Kim Mills. My

1:35

guest today is Dr. Louis Schlesinger, a

1:37

professor of psychology at the John Jay

1:39

College of Criminal Justice in New York.

1:42

He has spent decades studying serial

1:44

murder and is the co-principal investigator

1:47

of a joint research project with

1:49

the FBI Behavioral Science Unit studying

1:52

sexual and serial murder, rape,

1:54

biased homicide, suicide by cop

1:56

and other extraordinary crimes. He

2:00

is a board-certified forensic psychologist and

2:02

an APA fellow and has published

2:04

many research articles and 10 books

2:07

on the topics of homicide,

2:09

sexual homicide, and criminal psychopathology.

2:12

Dr. Schlesinger, thank you for joining me today. Thank

2:15

you. Let's start with a

2:17

definition of the term. What constitutes

2:19

a serial killer and is there a

2:21

minimum number of such killings that one

2:23

has to commit to meet the definition?

2:26

Well, serial killer literally means killing

2:28

people in a series. Now,

2:31

when you speak about that, you

2:33

have to talk about what type

2:35

of serial killer you're referring to

2:37

because they're very, very different in

2:39

terms of how they behave, their

2:42

psychodynamics, what motivates them, and so

2:44

on. The type of serial killer

2:46

that we know most about and

2:48

that most people are interested in

2:51

is the serial sexual murderer

2:53

like the Boston Strangler, BTK,

2:57

Ted Bundy, Jack

3:00

the Ripper, and you mentioned the

3:02

Gilgo Beach guy more

3:04

recently. But there's other

3:06

types of individuals that kill in a

3:09

series. For example, there's contract killers that

3:11

would kill people for money. It is

3:13

a world of difference for someone who's

3:16

killing a series of people for money

3:18

versus someone killing it for sexual gratification.

3:21

There's the health care serial killers. Those

3:23

are people that go into a hospital,

3:25

for example, and kill a

3:27

number of people. Some are nurses, some

3:30

are physicians that do that. Again,

3:32

it's a very different type of

3:35

dynamic. And if you go

3:37

into any state prison or penitentiary in

3:39

the United States, you're going to find

3:42

a number of people throughout their criminal

3:44

career who have killed more than one

3:46

or two people during

3:48

a robbery, some sort of felony thing, and so

3:50

on. So we have to keep it separate.

3:53

Now what most people are interested

3:55

in, and the serial sexual murderers

3:57

that you referred to in the

3:59

introduction, Jeffrey Dahmer and BTK

4:01

and those sorts of things, are

4:03

the serial sexual murderers. And

4:07

so let me just talk about that and

4:09

define that a little bit so the audience

4:11

understands what we're referring to. Most

4:14

people can understand murder. Most people,

4:16

I don't have any problem understanding

4:19

that. But sexual murder is very

4:21

difficult for the average person to

4:23

wrap their arms around. And

4:25

so the question is, what's going on

4:28

with these people? Before

4:30

we could talk about what's going on in their mind,

4:32

we have to get a couple of definitions straight. Serial

4:35

sexual murder is not listed

4:37

as a paraphilia in any

4:39

of the diagnostic manuals. A

4:42

paraphilia being an abnormal sexual

4:44

arousal pattern like pedophilia, attraction

4:46

to children, fetishism, sexual

4:48

arousal to non-living objects and this

4:50

sort of thing. So it's not

4:52

listed in the diagnostic manual. And

4:55

it's also not defined in statute. Murder

4:58

is defined in statute, but serial

5:00

murder or serial sexual murder is

5:03

not. Also an important

5:05

point with respect to this and

5:08

many, many people get this wrong,

5:10

including non-clinical psychologists and sociologists and

5:12

so on, is there does not

5:14

have to be intercourse in order

5:17

for it to be sexual. Why?

5:19

Because the violence takes the place

5:21

of it. As a

5:24

matter of fact, in many, many of these

5:26

cases, there's no sexual penetration at

5:29

all. In addition to complicating the problem,

5:31

if that wasn't enough is, there's

5:33

no national crime statistics on the

5:36

number of serial sexual murders in

5:38

the United States and no country

5:40

keeps these statistics. Now, Canada, for

5:42

example, our neighbor to the North,

5:46

Used to keep statistics on serial

5:48

sexual murder, but their definition was

5:50

very different. It was killing someone

5:52

in the context of a sex

5:55

crime. So In other words, they

5:57

would commit a sex crime and

5:59

then kill. The object and so

6:01

they couldn't turn a man.

6:03

That's very, very different than

6:05

what. Killing someone for sexual

6:07

gratification on the Statistics Canada,

6:10

which is comparable to our

6:12

Uniform Crime Reports, no longer

6:14

categorizes sexual murder because I

6:16

spoke to them recently about

6:18

and they're just becomes too

6:20

complicated. So Serial sexual Murder.

6:22

This is somebody that is

6:24

going out and killing repetitive

6:26

late because the murder itself

6:28

is sexually gratifying. Let

6:30

me say a couple things about

6:33

human sexuality. First, On

6:35

one end of the continue, you

6:37

have heterosexuals are adults attracted to

6:40

members of the opposite sex? On

6:42

the other end of the continuum,

6:44

you could have homosexuals adults attracted

6:47

to members of the same sex.

6:49

But is that it? for human

6:51

sexuality? The answer is no. There's

6:54

many, many, many shades of grey

6:56

in between there. There's also add

6:58

normal sexual arousal patterns. As I

7:01

mentioned, pedophilia arousal. The children in

7:03

Santa feel. Yeah. sexual arousal. To

7:05

pre verbal incense keep ophelia

7:07

sexual arousal to pubescent adolescence.

7:10

And there's things like fetishism

7:12

in exhibitionism and these sorts

7:14

of things. In my view,

7:16

the best way to understand

7:19

serial sexual murder is another

7:21

power. ophelia, another abnormal sexual

7:23

arousal pattern. And specifically in

7:26

these cases, there's a fusion

7:28

of sex and aggression so

7:30

that the aggressive act itself

7:32

is or radha sized it.

7:35

Stimulating. And so people look at this

7:37

and say okay, murder. Understand

7:39

murders. I could even understand hatred of

7:42

women. For example, let's Kill women. But.

7:44

What they can understand, which is

7:46

very difficult to understand is what

7:49

they do at the crime scene

7:51

with these victims. is

7:53

a very often leave the victim

7:55

in a sexually degrading position with

7:57

foreign object insertions for example and

8:00

So why did they do it?

8:02

And the answer to that question

8:04

is, killing alone is not psychosexually

8:06

sufficient. So they have to go

8:09

above and beyond actually killing the

8:11

person to get complete sexual gratification.

8:13

And the sexual instinct itself is

8:16

very, very strong. That's how God

8:18

made us. So

8:21

for example, in order for a woman

8:23

to become pregnant, she had to run 20 miles. Most

8:26

of them would say, you run 20 miles. I

8:28

can't be bothered. There'd be no species. But

8:31

God was way too smart for that,

8:33

right? So in order for propagation of

8:35

the species, he made the sexual instinct

8:38

very, very strong. And so most

8:40

people have a sexual encounter. They don't

8:42

say, well, that's good. I'm gonna move

8:44

on to something else now. They wanna

8:46

do it again and again. And so

8:48

what you see is a compulsive, repetitive

8:51

aspect to serial sexual murder.

8:54

Let me ask you this though. What drives

8:56

people to become serial sexual killers? I mean,

8:58

how much do we really know about their

9:01

motivations and are there any common personality

9:03

traits? The answer is

9:06

it's not due to trauma. It's

9:08

not due to poor parenting. And

9:10

it's not an American phenomenon. Serial

9:13

sexual murder has been described

9:16

as far back as the 1800s. As

9:18

a matter of fact, the first

9:20

person to describe in a scientific

9:23

way in terms of case description

9:25

was a psychiatrist in Germany named

9:27

Richard von Kraft Ebbing. And his

9:29

classic book is titled Psychopathia Sexualis.

9:32

And there's a chapter in there

9:34

where he describes almost everything that

9:36

we know about sexual murder today

9:38

was described in 1886 by Kraft

9:40

Ebbing. Not

9:43

1986 in Quantico, Virginia, but 1886. And

9:49

so why did they do it? Again,

9:53

you find it in every country, in

9:56

every culture, from pre-modern times,

9:58

and there's no evidence. at

10:00

all that it's increasing. I did a study

10:02

on that actually, notwithstanding what you might hear

10:04

in the news. Now, why did they do

10:06

it? The best

10:09

understanding I think we have

10:11

at this point is that

10:14

it's a biopsychosocial phenomenon with,

10:16

in my view, a heavy

10:18

emphasis on neurobiology. Now, poor

10:21

parenting, traumatic events, none of

10:23

those things are helpful. That's

10:25

for sure. But the

10:27

number of people who've had

10:30

horrible childhoods, who've had terrible

10:32

parenting, who've been abused, they

10:34

don't go out become serial

10:36

sexual murderers. It's a very,

10:39

very small amount of

10:41

the population. And in order

10:43

for somebody to become a serial sexual

10:45

murderer, I believe many things

10:47

have to go wrong. For example,

10:49

I said neurobiological. Is it

10:52

hormonal? Is it chemical? Is

10:54

it electrical? Is it a combination

10:56

of those factors plus a head

10:58

injury plus trauma and poor parenting?

11:00

And I think yes. I think

11:02

the answer is yes. And

11:05

that's why it's very, very small, the

11:07

number of people that do it. It's

11:10

always been around and there's no

11:12

evidence that it's increasing. Now, you

11:14

hear different estimates. How many serial

11:16

killers are there roaming around the

11:18

country? The FBI has never

11:21

put out an official statement

11:23

with respect to that. It's basically unknown.

11:26

And I think unknowable,

11:30

actually. Let me just say one other

11:32

thing to answer your question specifically with

11:35

respect to our understanding of, you said,

11:37

personality traits and so on. Serial

11:41

sexual murder is very popularized. I mean, you

11:43

can't turn on one of the TV stations

11:45

every night. You're going to see a crime

11:47

documentary on this serial killer, that serial killer,

11:50

and so on. But if

11:52

you look at the peer-reviewed Publications

11:54

and scientific journals in the

11:56

past 20 years for popularized

11:58

mental disorder, Like. Bipolar.

12:01

Disorder: Ptsd Eating

12:04

Disorders. A. You

12:06

know, does popularize to. There's between

12:08

sixty and seventy five thousand articles

12:10

on each of those This orders.

12:13

Do you know how many peer

12:15

reviewed published articles there have been

12:17

a empirical study now of serial

12:19

sexual murder in the past twenty

12:21

years that you don't in? I

12:23

don't It's a tiny number yes,

12:26

is twenty to twenty one. And

12:28

how many of us did you

12:30

run on a number of sad

12:32

as it was Twenty One. But

12:34

my latest. Publication made a twenty

12:37

two just came out a couple

12:39

months ago on and so you

12:41

know it's hard to answer your

12:44

question definitive late. but I can

12:46

say this with respect of personality

12:48

traits that and as interesting as

12:50

well. There's generally two types of

12:53

individuals who commit sexual murder or

12:55

some do it in a very

12:57

plan fashion where they tried to

12:59

elude law enforcement. They're forensically aware

13:02

and they leave crime scenes that

13:04

are generally with. Out a lot

13:06

of physical evidence. If you look at

13:08

it visually, you'll see him as very

13:11

organized. The murder weapon is taken with

13:13

them with his strength if it's on

13:15

the gutter strangulation, for example, doubt. The

13:18

room itself is not all broken up

13:20

with furniture. There's no blood of the

13:22

offender or on the victim, and so,

13:25

er, that's one type of offender and

13:27

he usually does it. Or in the

13:29

series, which is so odd out now

13:31

there's another group that acts out more

13:34

spontaneously. Now why? it's because. The

13:36

underlying personality disturbance of that

13:38

group is much more disturbed.

13:40

If you look at people

13:42

that killed one or two

13:44

serial sexual mer and other

13:46

caught, these are people that

13:48

have borderline personality stews of

13:50

freeney up. his

13:52

own type of personality as

13:54

a severe personality disorder for

13:56

example of what what's the

13:58

problem the problem is that

14:00

That type of disorder, psychopathology,

14:02

mental disorder, does

14:04

not allow the person to inhibit

14:07

their impulses. So when they see,

14:09

for example, a victim that crosses

14:11

their path, they strike out. And

14:13

if you strike out impulsively, there

14:16

may be witnesses around, you leave

14:18

forensic evidence around, you didn't plan

14:20

on killing anybody, and you're apprehended

14:23

quickly. The other type has more

14:25

what's often called psychopathic traits, narcissistic

14:28

traits, and whatever personality

14:31

they have, it

14:33

doesn't disable them from planning.

14:35

You could be narcissistic, you

14:37

could be psychopathic, but

14:39

you can still plan and inhibit

14:41

your impulses, and that's what you

14:44

see in those sorts of cases.

14:46

And as a result, because they're

14:48

forensically aware and they can plan,

14:50

they can rack up a very

14:52

high number of victims, those are

14:54

the cases that the FBI usually

14:56

becomes involved in. Why?

14:59

Because the FBI's called in, you almost always

15:01

when it's a difficult to solve

15:03

case. Otherwise, if it's just one

15:05

murder or two, local law enforcement

15:07

can usually make the apprehension. So

15:10

you mentioned psychopathy, but I'm wondering

15:13

about sociopathy. I

15:15

mean, are these people sociopaths, psychopaths?

15:18

What's the difference? Can you be

15:20

one and not the other? Yeah,

15:22

yes. Let me talk about

15:25

three different terms, psychopathic personality, sociopathic,

15:27

and antisocial personality disorder, because they

15:29

get kind of mushed together, particularly

15:31

when you speak about these things

15:33

that people refer to and so

15:35

on. The only official diagnosis in

15:38

the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of

15:40

Mental Disorder, that's the manual that

15:42

psychologists, psychiatrists, and so on rely

15:44

on, is antisocial personality

15:46

disorder. That's been the official

15:48

diagnosis for years. Sociopathic

15:51

personality was in the manual back in the

15:54

1950s, but it has since been

15:56

eliminated. Interestingly, when

15:59

someone... About.

16:01

These sorts of things will always

16:03

say he's a psychopath. Jesus Like

16:05

right? Psychopath Rights Now psychopaths I

16:07

copy. Psychopathic personality is time honored.

16:09

It's been around since the eighteen

16:12

hundreds when some of the early

16:14

alien this which would that would

16:16

they called psychiatrists back in the

16:18

turn of the last century or

16:20

was called moral insanity, moral in

16:22

the silly and so on. And

16:24

it's A. It's always been in

16:26

the literature, it's been in the

16:29

psychiatric literature and spin in cycle

16:31

analytic literature. It's been in

16:33

psychological literature, but it's never

16:35

been an official diagnosis and

16:37

so. But what is generally

16:39

meant by psychopath is somebody.

16:42

Who outwardly appears normal. They

16:44

have one harvey collectively called

16:46

a Mass of sanity. They

16:48

can cover up the underlying

16:50

disturbance and the underlying disturbance

16:52

is a lack of emotional

16:54

attachment to other people. That's

16:56

what makes us human. We

16:58

have attachments to other people,

17:00

the psychopaths in general and

17:02

a clinically and sense does

17:05

not have that. the devoid

17:07

of that and so they

17:09

can cut off a person

17:11

just like that. So that

17:13

was of collect least conception and

17:15

it's used a lot now. Why

17:17

is that used in serial killing?

17:19

What? Why do you hear people

17:21

say is a psychopath is a

17:23

cyclist. Psychopathy does not make you

17:25

go out and kill people for

17:27

sexual gratification. Is there is none?

17:30

It doesn't. What it does do

17:32

is is determines how the murder

17:34

is carried out. So if you

17:36

have a psychopathic personality and you

17:38

also have a sexual arousal pattern

17:40

where there's a fusion of sex.

17:42

in aggression so that the aggressive

17:44

act itself is or radha sized

17:46

then you can plan your crime

17:48

and if you can plan your

17:50

crime and your forensically aware you

17:52

can elude law enforcement's and rack

17:55

up a high number of victims

17:57

and and that's the answer to

17:59

that is It's not causative. A

18:01

personality disorder does not cause anybody

18:03

to go out and kill women

18:05

to get sexual gratification. It determines

18:07

on how they go about doing

18:09

it. Now, that leads

18:11

to the question of remorse

18:13

or even regret. I mean, do

18:15

such people feel remorse? Do they

18:17

regret or are they only remorseful

18:20

when they get caught? Well, that's

18:22

a very difficult determination,

18:25

how you determine if somebody is remorseful or

18:27

not. If you see any old

18:29

criminal in prison, which I've been doing for

18:32

48 years now, almost all of

18:34

them, not everyone, but almost all of them will say,

18:36

oh, I never should have done it. I feel bad.

18:38

It's a terrible thing and so on. So

18:41

it's very difficult to determine. The

18:44

serial sexual murderer usually does

18:46

not feel any type of

18:48

remorse towards the victim himself.

18:52

And I keep saying himself because these are

18:54

99.99% men killing women, generally

18:56

speaking. So

19:02

no, these are people,

19:04

again, as Cleckley said, they're devoid

19:07

of human emotion. They

19:10

have trouble with empathy.

19:13

Interestingly enough, although they don't

19:16

have bonding to other people,

19:18

many people attach themselves to

19:20

the psychopath. And that's

19:22

why you see many psychopaths have

19:24

an entourage following them around, hangers

19:26

on and this type of thing.

19:29

Well, you know, I mentioned Rex

19:32

Huerman in my intro.

19:34

He was married. I mean, how

19:37

is that unusual for a serial

19:39

sexual killer to actually have a

19:42

marital relationship? No, that's not uncommon.

19:44

That's not uncommon for the serial

19:46

sexual murderer who plans his crimes

19:48

because he has the type of

19:51

personality that's generally speaking, not off-putting.

19:53

They look normal. They have a

19:55

mask of normality. They can speak.

19:57

They can engage. And so on.

20:00

on. The other type of sexual

20:02

murder, who's much more disturbed, very

20:04

often is not married. Any type

20:06

of sexual

20:09

involvement is often with a sex worker.

20:11

They very often live with a parent

20:13

and so on. But those individuals that

20:15

you see with a high number of

20:17

victims very often are married

20:19

or in a committed relationship at

20:21

the time. And the

20:23

partner, the wife, usually says

20:25

things like, I knew something

20:28

was odd about him or weird, but I

20:30

never dreamed that he would be going around

20:32

killing people. Now you say to yourself now

20:34

when you hear this, you say, oh, come

20:36

on, you live with this guy. This has

20:39

been reported from Kraft Ebbing's time back in

20:41

the 1800s. Because

20:43

how would you know, to think

20:45

that your partner is weird is one

20:48

thing, but to think that he's going

20:50

out killing people is such an alien

20:52

thought. And it's so remote.

20:54

And that's what so many of the

20:57

women say, who are subsequently

20:59

interviewed. Some serial

21:01

sexual murderers, like the

21:03

Boston Strangler, for example, was

21:06

generally speaking, a fairly good husband. And he

21:08

was a good parent. I mean, the children

21:10

of a lot of them said, you know,

21:12

my father is a fairly normal guy. He

21:14

did this, he did that, and

21:17

so on. Dennis Rader, BTK's

21:19

wife, had no idea at all. As a

21:21

matter of fact, the police who interacted with

21:24

her said she's just a very, very nice

21:26

person. And, you know, and

21:28

he raised a family and had a fairly

21:30

responsible position. So it's, this

21:33

is way more complicated,

21:37

this type of disorder, than,

21:39

for example, depression or PTSD,

21:42

and that sort of thing. This is very

21:44

complicated. And I know let

21:46

me say this a couple things.

21:49

The American people want their serial

21:51

killers to be evil geniuses, with

21:53

IQs of 180, who speak five

21:55

languages, including Aramaic, who are connoisseurs

21:58

of fine wine. election.

22:00

Nothing could be further from the

22:02

truth. Nothing could be further from

22:04

the truth. And even those

22:07

very few offenders who went to college, for

22:09

example, and had a degree, Bundy,

22:11

you mentioned the Gilgo Beach guy, and

22:14

so they really don't

22:16

use their intelligence as

22:18

far as I can determine in any really,

22:21

really productive way in carrying

22:23

out their murders. We

22:27

had the case up in the

22:29

Pacific Northwest of Gary Ridgway. They

22:31

called him the Green River Killer.

22:34

He eluded law enforcement for over 20 years. His IQ

22:36

was 83. And so now you say, now,

22:41

why is that? Well, I'll tell you a couple

22:43

of reasons. The hardest thing, let

22:45

me say it this way, the hardest thing for

22:47

a serial killer is the abduction. How do you

22:49

get a woman to go with you? That's

22:52

not so simple. And so that's why

22:54

you see sex workers are very often

22:56

targeted. Part of their job description is

22:58

to go with a stranger, have sex,

23:00

take your clothes off, usually in a

23:02

remote area. Also, if

23:05

a sex worker turns up dead, you

23:07

don't know who what her real identity

23:09

is. She's known on the street by

23:11

a street name. And she may have

23:13

been killed in New

23:15

York, but she could be from

23:17

Chicago or Florida or anywhere. So

23:19

it's very, very, very,

23:22

very difficult. And that's

23:24

why you see those those

23:26

women are targeted. So what

23:28

about female serial

23:30

killers? Are they sexual

23:33

serial killers, first of

23:35

all? And is their

23:37

profile similar to that of male

23:39

serial killers? Well, serial female serial

23:42

sexual murderers are generally non-existent. Now,

23:44

there was a woman in Florida,

23:46

Aileen Warnus, who killed a bunch

23:49

of men, but she was a

23:51

sex worker. She hated men. She

23:53

just killed men for the motivation

23:56

of just revenge or something

23:58

like that. And that was actually And a

24:01

paper published on that as well. Yes,

24:04

she killed in a series. So literally

24:07

she was a serial killer, but the

24:09

motivation was not sexual. Yeah,

24:13

it's really a different thing. And

24:15

again, keep in mind, in

24:17

the past 20 years, we only have

24:19

22 publications on this. And

24:21

so a lot of what you hear said

24:24

is coming from folklore

24:26

and silence of the lambs

24:29

and people repeating these

24:31

sorts of things, which can

24:33

be dangerous in an investigation.

24:37

Because serial sexual murderers,

24:39

those who read the newspapers and

24:42

follow the news, and they hear

24:44

somebody pontificating about this may change

24:46

their plan, may change their MO,

24:49

the method of operation.

24:51

We saw a good example of that

24:53

about 10 years ago, I think in

24:55

Washington, DC, we had the DC sniper,

24:57

who was a guy with a young,

24:59

I think 17 year old, juvenile

25:02

with him going around shooting people.

25:04

And there were people pontificating on

25:06

TV about the signature, the

25:08

signature. Now they got that from

25:10

the serial killer routine. And

25:14

then there was someone else talking about

25:16

geographic profiling and where they, and so

25:18

the next murder that weekend was 90

25:21

miles away was outside of the DC

25:23

area, which makes the investigation so

25:25

much more difficult. Now you got a

25:27

tri-state area, as opposed to a small

25:30

area. So these sorts of things really

25:33

don't help. But does

25:36

there tend to be a signature in these types

25:38

of serial sexual killings? I mean, part of the

25:40

reason that Son of Sam got caught, I mean,

25:42

there were a lot of reasons, but he did

25:44

keep looking for the same type of woman to

25:46

the point where women who lived in Brooklyn were

25:49

wearing blonde wigs, you know, that sort of thing.

25:52

So are there signatures? Oh, well, let

25:54

me say this. I did the only

25:56

research study, empirical study on ritual and

26:00

signature in serial sexual murder.

26:02

It was published in the Journal of the

26:04

American Academy of Psychiatry and Law back in

26:06

2010. And what

26:09

we found is, notwithstanding Silence of the

26:11

Lambs and Hannibal Lecter, who was talking

26:13

about putting a moth or butterfly in

26:15

the mouth of all these women, it's

26:18

way more complicated than that. They

26:21

do behave in ritualistic ways,

26:23

but not exact ways. And

26:26

let me say two things of our

26:29

study without getting into the weeds that

26:31

I think people will find interesting is,

26:33

one thing is that their behavior at

26:35

a crime scene tends to evolve. And

26:38

so the more comfort they have in

26:40

killing, the more elaborate their behavior

26:42

at a crime scene will become.

26:44

So initial torture becomes

26:46

much more elaborate torture

26:49

later on. But the most important finding

26:51

that we found is that in 70%

26:54

of the cases, a

26:58

serial killer does something with one

27:01

victim in a series that he

27:03

does not do with others in

27:05

a series. For example, if

27:07

they link five women in

27:10

a series together, they're linked for some reason,

27:12

and you look at the five women, four

27:15

of the bodies are just dumped with no

27:17

clothes on. But one body is

27:19

mutilated in some way, her breasts are cut

27:21

off, there's something shoved in or that type

27:23

of thing. You look at the average

27:26

homicide detective with 25 years of

27:28

experience, they're going to say that's

27:30

a different guy. Look at his

27:32

behavior, what he did with that

27:34

victim. That's not true. And you

27:36

would only know that if you

27:38

studied a high number of these

27:40

cases, which most don't. The

27:43

FBI does, I do, and there's

27:45

a couple of people in the country affiliated

27:47

with the FBI that studies these sorts of

27:50

things, but it's counterintuitive. And so we found

27:52

in 70% of

27:54

the cases, an offender will do something with

27:56

one victim that he did not do with

27:58

others in the series. So then

28:01

we ask the question, well, where does he do

28:03

it in the series? In the beginning, the middle,

28:05

or the end? We saw it in the end.

28:07

Once he gains more comfort, he'll

28:09

experiment at a crime scene and

28:12

do something different. Not true. One

28:14

third do it in the beginning, one third do it

28:16

in the middle, and one third do it in the

28:18

end. That's why you have

28:20

to do the research rather than just

28:23

rely on popular culture and this sort

28:25

of thing. But is

28:27

it even possible to come up with an

28:29

accurate profile? Because it sounds like that's what

28:31

you're trying to help with when

28:34

there are so few cases and there

28:36

is this level of variety. Yeah,

28:38

there is. And let me say

28:40

it this way. You

28:42

can come up with some sort

28:45

of quote unquote profile, but not

28:47

to go to court and link

28:49

those crimes

28:51

because there's no scientific evidence

28:53

that would pass the legal

28:55

standard for the admissibility of scientific

28:57

evidence, which is either called

29:00

the Frye standard, is it generally

29:02

accepted, or the Daubert standard, meaning

29:04

is it more than generally accepted?

29:06

Is it empirically supported, published

29:08

in peer review journals, and all the

29:10

rest? The point of the

29:13

Daubert standard is to keep junk

29:15

science out of the courtroom. And

29:17

so you can use a quote

29:19

unquote profile in an investigation, but

29:21

to go to court and say

29:23

this guy killed these

29:26

five people based on behavior,

29:28

there's only one study. It was

29:30

my study, basically, and that's just

29:33

not enough to meet the legal

29:35

standard. Earlier,

29:39

I think you indicated that there

29:41

may be some biosocial thing going

29:44

on with people who become serial

29:46

sexual killers. Has any

29:48

study been done into the brains

29:50

of these people to better understand

29:53

what is going on that's different?

29:56

The answer is nothing really definitive

29:58

at this point. of

30:00

reasons. There's so few cases, number one.

30:02

Number two, to study their brains, they're

30:04

going to have to get

30:06

their permission to become somewhat invasive. And a

30:09

lot of these guys are just not doing

30:11

that. There are some people

30:13

that are looking at CAT scans and

30:15

PET scans and MRIs and trying to

30:17

come up with something. But it's very,

30:19

very difficult because of the number of

30:21

cases. There just aren't that many cases

30:23

around. And there's not that many cases

30:26

accessible. As I mentioned before, if

30:28

you want to study PTSD, easy

30:30

to get cases. Go to a VA hospital.

30:32

You want to study alcoholism. Go to a

30:34

rehab center. You want to study bipolar disorder.

30:37

Go to a psychiatric hospital. You want to

30:39

study serial sexual murder. Where are you going

30:41

to get the cases? If you're not connected

30:43

with the FBI who has a national reach,

30:47

it's very, very, very difficult to do

30:49

this. And at John

30:51

Jay, we've had about a 20-year

30:53

relationship with the FBI Behavioral Analysis

30:56

Unit down in Quantico. And we're

30:58

continuing to do this research

31:01

and so on. I'll tell you one interesting finding

31:03

that was just published a couple of weeks ago

31:06

in the Journal of Forensic Sciences is

31:08

you would think that these

31:11

individuals would have a history of

31:13

sexual assault or rape in their

31:15

background. They don't. And

31:18

so I look very carefully

31:20

at these studies going

31:23

back to craft ebbing, even

31:25

craft ebbing, describe medical abnormalities,

31:27

family histories, prior arrests, all

31:29

sorts of characteristics, but didn't

31:32

describe one case of a

31:34

history of sexual assault or

31:36

rape. So we found,

31:39

in our cases, 26% of

31:43

the offenders have a history of sexual

31:45

assault or rape, which means that three-fourths

31:47

of them don't. But we found something

31:49

very important that will help in an

31:51

investigation. That is, If an

31:53

offender sexually penetrated a homicide victim

31:56

in their series, there's about an

31:58

80% chance. The had

32:00

a a likelihood of a conviction

32:02

in his rap sheet of sexual

32:05

assault rape that it helps enormously

32:07

is an. Because

32:09

other things that we know

32:11

of in the background of

32:13

serial sexual murders such as

32:16

on inappropriate maternal sexual conduct

32:18

in their upbringing, a sadistic

32:20

fantasy, animal cruelty, other types

32:22

of on or other types

32:24

of mental health disorders are

32:26

not going to be available

32:29

to an investigator. Investigation A

32:31

Once you get a suspect many

32:33

you can get to mental health

32:35

records and that might be available

32:37

then. But investigation, you only have

32:39

his rap sheets And so if

32:41

if if one in the series

32:43

is sexually penetrated, that's close to

32:45

an eighty percent likelihood. That.

32:47

He had started it is a sexual assault

32:49

is Rob seen it in A really helps

32:51

the investigation a lot. Too. Serious

32:54

sexual killers as a rule, desire

32:56

to become same as even as

32:58

the he to hide their identities

33:00

so that they can keep telling

33:02

me how much of a motivator

33:04

is that? Know that that's been

33:06

overhyped right? for us to forget

33:08

it's There's so much of this

33:10

is overhyped studies playing with the

33:12

police, He's toying with the investigation,

33:14

he sitting in his room and

33:16

you know, Rothys esses that's now.

33:18

they do not want to get

33:20

caught by very often. They will

33:22

do things that almost ensure. That

33:24

will get caught. Take for example Dennis

33:26

Rader the Bt a guy from Kansas

33:29

thirty years the cases where cold what

33:31

happened is a lawyer in the odd

33:33

topic area where he was up from

33:35

wrote a book on these cases at

33:38

a got some publicity and he wanted

33:40

to get credit in the sense in

33:42

his own twisted mind and so we

33:45

started communicating with the police and that

33:47

will almost ensures that you're going to

33:49

get caught and enter. In fact he

33:51

did get caught by and. large did

33:54

not want to get caught let me just

33:56

to spell one sort of miss that you

33:58

mentioned about it with on did on David

34:00

Berkowitz, the son of Sam, are they

34:02

targeting people with specific characteristics? That

34:05

came from the 70s, and particularly

34:07

the Ted Bundy investigation, because the

34:09

women that he killed in the

34:11

1970s when he was operative had

34:13

brown hair parted down the middle.

34:16

The problem with that is if

34:18

you go to a yearbook of

34:21

all co-eds who were in college

34:23

during the night, they all had

34:25

hair, long hair parted down the

34:28

middle. That was a very, very

34:30

popular hairstyle back then. Now, having

34:32

said that, there is a subgroup

34:34

of serial sexual murderers that will

34:37

target people based on specific physical

34:39

characteristics, but it's very, very rare.

34:42

Most of them, it's due to their

34:44

vulnerability, the victim's

34:46

vulnerability and their accessibility.

34:49

It may not be as obvious as

34:53

you might think. For example, yes,

34:57

certainly doing things like hitchhiking and leaving

34:59

a bar with a stranger, those are

35:01

all high-risk things that most women know

35:04

about. But if an individual

35:06

is fixated on a victim, obsessed

35:08

with her, a neighbor, for example,

35:10

and observes her when she

35:12

goes to work, when she comes home,

35:15

Wednesday night and Friday night, her boyfriend

35:17

stays over. Is he going to try

35:19

to abduct her on a Wednesday night

35:21

or Friday night? No, because there's a

35:23

male figure there. And so that

35:25

type of routine behavior pattern

35:29

unwittingly is a

35:31

vulnerability, and very few people think

35:33

about that as well. Is

35:36

it common for serial

35:38

sexual killers also to

35:40

be serial confessors? That is, to confess

35:42

to murders that they didn't commit? Let

35:45

me break it down this way. Yes,

35:48

there are some people that will

35:50

confess to murders that they didn't

35:52

commit to

35:54

gain notoriety and to gain a lot of

35:56

status in the institution. One of my cases,

35:58

there's not a serial. sexual murder,

36:00

but it's a very famous case that many

36:03

people are aware of, Richard Kuklinski, the Ice

36:05

Man. He was in the

36:07

New Jersey case, and I evaluated him when he

36:09

was apprehended back in the 1980s. I

36:13

never, he tells everyone he killed over 100 people.

36:15

He died a couple of years ago. I never

36:17

believed that. Where are all the dead people?

36:20

And when he's interviewed, it becomes more

36:22

and more elaborate, all these things that,

36:24

no, I never believed that at all.

36:28

But generally speaking, that's an aberration. I'll tell

36:30

you what we did. We

36:32

did a study, started to do a study

36:36

of confessions in

36:38

different types of crime. We know a

36:40

lot about false confessions. I mean, there's

36:42

been a lot of research. Many of

36:44

my colleagues at John Jay did some

36:46

of the seminal

36:49

research on false confessions. Saul

36:51

Cassin, my colleague there, and

36:53

others as well. So

36:56

we know a lot about that. But what about

36:58

confessions in general? Do we know

37:00

a lot about confessions? So we looked at

37:03

intimate partner homicides and how

37:05

they confess. And what

37:07

we found is they're not confessing to the police.

37:10

They're confessing to a family member. We

37:13

also found eight cases where they

37:15

confessed in a suicide note. So

37:18

the type of confession depends

37:20

upon the type of murder.

37:23

And what we started to do

37:25

is right before the pandemic started,

37:27

we looked at serial sexual murderers

37:29

and their confessions. And

37:32

the study was stopped in the

37:34

middle due to the pandemic. Our research is

37:36

now back in gear since

37:39

January of this year. But for almost

37:41

three years, it was shut down due

37:43

to the pandemic. We just couldn't do

37:45

anything. So we

37:47

started a study on serial killers

37:49

and how they confessed. And

37:51

what we found is 50% of them

37:53

don't confess. They say

37:55

to the police, you do what you gotta do, but I'm

37:57

not saying a word. sophisticated

38:01

offenders. And that

38:03

gives a little bit of insight into

38:05

what you just said. Now, a

38:07

lot of people have violent sexual

38:10

and non-sexual fantasies, but

38:12

they don't act on them.

38:14

Is there a precipitating factor

38:16

that drives these people to

38:18

actually finally act out on

38:20

what they've been fantasizing about?

38:23

Yes, in the general population,

38:25

I won't

38:27

say most, but many, many

38:30

people have very disturbed sexual

38:33

fantasies that they keep private

38:35

even to their partner because they're afraid if

38:38

they say to their partner, I want to do

38:40

this, she's going to say, what are you nuts?

38:42

You have to see a doctor. I'm not doing

38:44

that. What's the matter with you? So they keep

38:46

it very much to themselves. Same

38:49

with those individuals who fantasize

38:51

about killing women in this

38:53

type of way. The

38:55

number of people who

38:58

have these perverse fantasies

39:00

is much, much higher than those

39:03

who actually acted out. And so

39:06

why do some acted out? Well, I

39:08

can say this. What we do know

39:10

is that of those

39:12

who do act out, there's

39:14

usually some precipitant, some

39:16

sort of upsetting event such as the

39:19

loss of a relationship, which means a

39:21

lot to a male, the loss of

39:23

a job. Men usually get some level

39:26

of status from a job. In

39:28

so many ways, male psychology

39:31

is much more fragile than

39:33

women, for example, who a

39:35

job or whatever doesn't mean

39:37

all that much. And I've

39:39

had a case where the

39:41

guy began killing, started his

39:44

killing series when his girlfriend

39:46

became pregnant, that

39:48

upset him and so on. And so we

39:51

can say in many cases what

39:54

the precipitant is, but

39:56

definitely not in all cases. And again, This

39:59

requires. There's more research and

40:01

less hypothesizing and speculating and

40:03

pontificating based on science Elapse

40:05

of these are these sorts

40:08

of things: Aren't really

40:10

asked about Dna evidence which

40:12

has become quite prevalent than

40:14

and very, I'm. Effective

40:16

at this point, right? especially large

40:18

scale Dna. It's databases that's have

40:21

really changed the way the police

40:23

do their work. I'm how is

40:25

that changing the process of going

40:27

after serial sexual tillers, More Dna

40:29

evidence and not only sexual, serial,

40:32

sexual murder been all sorts of

40:34

crime is just to be some

40:36

enormously enormously helpful. Sure on you

40:38

know odd that this is hard

40:41

science and are you know is

40:43

is very very persuasive in court.

40:45

In fact, In many many

40:47

cases juries expect the here

40:49

dna and other forensic evidence

40:51

on you know although in

40:53

some cases you can get

40:55

dna evidence is very very

40:57

difficult out a case where

41:00

the victim was under water

41:02

for a year and course

41:04

you can't get dna evidence

41:06

of the from that are

41:08

unfortunately your jurors expected because

41:10

of the popularity of crime

41:12

shows in general the jurors

41:14

are very different today. Than

41:16

they were. Twenty or thirty years ago

41:18

on I had a case I remember

41:20

not that long ago where the jury

41:22

hum on a case and after that

41:24

who is all over. the judge who

41:26

had a good rapport with the jury

41:28

said. Well. What was the problem?

41:31

The evidence was overwhelming. Nascent. Well we

41:33

all thought he did it but there

41:35

was no luminol. Used luminol is a

41:37

spray that makes blood is and you

41:39

see it at all. The show was

41:41

right for was what do you think

41:43

the read stuff was coming out of

41:46

the dead person? That's blood. You don't

41:48

have to use Lou Rawls to determine

41:50

it was blood but they do in

41:52

the show was and salts. You know

41:54

you have to be very careful now

41:56

and jury selection. It's really up to

41:59

the judges. The. Way. adhere these jurors to

42:01

the extent that, will you listen to

42:03

what the judge is saying as opposed

42:05

to what you heard on TV? And

42:08

it's very, very hard to undo

42:10

something that you've heard so

42:13

many times before. Last

42:15

question, and I guess I'm going

42:17

to ask you to speculate a

42:19

little bit here. Why do so

42:21

many people, especially women, seem to

42:23

find serial sexual killers and killings

42:25

so morbidly fascinating? Well, yes. I

42:28

mean, they certainly do. And if you look at

42:30

the crime shows like ID Discovery, and I've done

42:33

so many of those, and I speak to the

42:35

producers, they say 80% of their

42:37

viewers are women. And in

42:39

my opinion, I think there's a number of different

42:41

factors. Number one, they tend to be the victim

42:44

of these cases. And they

42:46

want to learn how not to become

42:48

a victim, because so many of these

42:50

guys, particularly the guys that they feature

42:52

on the crime shows, look so normal

42:55

and behave so normally. That's

42:58

one reason. The other reason is, I think

43:00

women, for example, more than men, are

43:04

psychologically more interested

43:06

in the complexity of

43:09

the inner workings of the human mind,

43:11

as opposed to a guy. For example, in

43:14

jury selection, you have one of these

43:16

cases of someone going around and mutilating

43:19

women. Many guys will

43:21

say, kill him. He's

43:23

not a person. Whereas

43:26

a woman may be more empathetic, maybe

43:28

more understanding, make sure to try to

43:30

understand his background and this sort of

43:32

thing. So I mean, those are two

43:35

speculative answers as to

43:38

why women become involved

43:41

in this. I'll say one other thing as

43:43

a closing thing to answer your question, and

43:45

a little bit different. The

43:48

death of a child of one of

43:50

these people is devastating for

43:53

not only the family members,

43:56

but the community and

43:58

even the country. in highly

44:00

publicized cases. And

44:02

I've had the opportunity over the years to

44:05

speak to family members who lost a child

44:07

and talk about the

44:09

difference between men and women. It, in

44:12

my experience, it particularly seems to affect

44:14

fathers more than mothers. I mean,

44:16

they're just so devastated. And I remember one father

44:18

said to me, I'll never forget it. He

44:20

said to me, if my

44:23

daughter died of cancer or

44:25

my daughter died in a horrible car

44:27

accident, that's one thing, these things happen.

44:30

But my daughter died because some guy

44:32

got sexual gratification, killing it. He said,

44:35

I can't wrap my head around that.

44:37

I just can't go

44:39

on with that type of thought. And

44:42

it's a very, very disturbing thought.

44:45

It just really, really is. And

44:47

you just can't help but feel

44:49

such empathy for people and

44:52

to spur us all on to try

44:54

to unravel this as best we can.

44:56

Also, in terms of preventing this, when

44:59

we see some red flags like

45:01

sexual burglaries and repetitive fire

45:04

setting and these sorts of

45:06

things, what kind of interventions

45:08

can we have from a

45:10

mental health perspective to intervene

45:12

and try to prevent the

45:15

development of these sorts of cases? Dr.

45:17

Schlesinger, I want to thank you for joining

45:19

me today. This has been absolutely fascinating. Thank

45:22

you. Thank you.

45:24

You can find previous episodes

45:26

of Speaking of Psychology on

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speakingofpsychologyatapa.org. Speaking

45:47

of Psychology is produced by Lee Weinemann. Our

45:49

sound editor is Chris Condayan. Thank you for

45:52

listening To the American

45:54

Psychological Association. I'm Kim Mills. He

46:02

was a

46:04

lot. And

46:07

the more. Or.