With my history (having a father who was a 100% passive and very successful man until his wife, a malignant narcissist, physically attacked him and he responded by beating her to death … later to have a giant brain cyst discovered on his frontal lobes in the areas responsible for impulse control, stimulus-bound aggressive, and decision-making), the minute I hear about perpetrators of violent crimes having had brain traumas, I look there for the reason they did what they did. Fortunately for these offenders, thanks to my father’s dream team of lawyers, people in that situation can now have their brain scans entered into court as evidence in their guilt/innocence phase. I wrote about it in my book Full Frontal Murder Memoir. If you Google “Herbert Weinstein brain” you can see his MRI and PET scan. Seeing these images made me understand how my own father could murder the woman he loved. Sadly, if he has never been physically attacked, he probably never would have murdered and many people’s biggest tragedy would not have occurred. So when you hear “he had head trauma or traumatic brain injury” in the description of a defendant, take a closer look.
I linked your book in one of the comments below for someone that wondered about the extent of impact of head injuries and organic illness on behavior, in terms of Ramirez's history.
I think head injuries and organic illness such as Ramirez having epilepsy that was possibly brought on by extensive physical abuse, is very informative to violent behavior. I imagine that there would be interesting findings if focusing on serial killers, and head injury histories.
Thank you for linking. I totally agree about investigating and focusing on head/brain injuries when it comes to serial killers. There have also been very compelling cases for a variety of other crimes. A well-liked and respected teacher with no deviant history started going into his stepdaughter’s bathroom to watch her shower and was found to have amassed a ton of porn, etc. The night before he was to be sentenced for his sexual predation against his stepdaughter, he got a horrible headache and went to the emergency room. A walnut-sized tumor was found in his brain. It was removed and he went back to his old and acceptable behavior and sentenced to some sort of rehab. After several months, his behavior toward the staff became highly sexually inappropriate. Turned out the tumor had grown back. It was removed again and he has behaved normally ever since. Whenever a crime seems totally uncharacteristic of someone, the brain is the first place to look for a reason why.
There is another book that highlights my father’s case but also the Long case and the brain tumor guy and a lot of others. It’s called: The Brain Defense-Murder in Manhattan and the Dawn of Neuroscience in America’s Courtrooms by Kevin Davis. He uses my father’s case (Murder in Manhattan) as the main story but gets into a lot of other very intriguing stories and professional medical and legal opinions.
Thank you and No. If you look at his image (Google "Herbert Weinstein brain") you will see the size of it. BTW, the way they make the images flips and reverses it so the problem area looks like the right rear but it is the left frontal. His neurologist said he would most likely die on the operating table and if he didn't, he could easily become a vegetable or so messed up his life wouldn't be worth living. Of course many in the media claimed he "refuse to have it removed" as though he was somehow faking it, but the truth is the doctor gave him this explanation and never even offered to try to do it because it was so risky. My father was 65 at the time of the murder and had never been anything but passive his entire life. He was responding to a very aggressive physical attack (she tried to scratch his eyes out) by my stepmother. He had no obvious symptoms, but in retrospect, I realized why his behavior was so unusual for my whole life. You can reach my book for all the details.
Incredibly, he functioned extremely well in many ways...was very successful in business and life. The problem with the criminal justice system and people with brain problems like his is that there is no good place to put them. My father's lawyers told him he would be better off going to prison than be found not guilt by reason of mental disease or defect ("insanity") because they don't just let you walk...the judge sends you to a state psych ward and if you have ever seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, you know that's worse than prison, especially for a highly intelligent man. They can keep you there forever. With prison, you get an end date.
He actually had a lot of the traits associated with psychopathy: no empathy, no anxiety, not concerned with what other people thought of him, etc. but he was a very kind and generous man. He had a code of conduct which I outline in the book as his "Weinstein Wisdom." He believed in doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do; he never lied (except for a couple of minutes after the murder but he came back to himself and told the truth), and it took me years to put everything together. That is why I wrote the book. My email address is in there if you want to ask question while you are reading.
It's possible that there's something heritable in serial killers so that's pretty interesting and something I didn't know. I can almost understand the judge feeling sorry for Ted Bundy though, that's almost as anticlimactic end to a career as the death of Shaka Zulu
I think that you may be correct about that. A long time ago someone made an argument for serial killing having to do with an overactive part of the hunter brain that didn't evolve properly. It was a super interesting theory, but I can't find it anymore. I was going to include it in this answer, but wasn't able to.
Just read your post above about Serial Killers and really enjoyed it!
I was pleased to see you had used a passage from one of my comments I’d previously made about Bundy ie him having poor self-esteem and being a covert narcissist.
I’ve since opened a Quora space page entitled ‘Serial Killers and their Psychopathology.’
It has a 2-part post I wrote on Ted Bundy. Part 1 describes a specific murder he committed ie the murder of Laura Aime and Part 2 is an assessment of his psychopathology, during the time period this murder took place. This was triggered by his covert narcissism, and caused his compartmentalised malignant rage to manifest towards this specific female.
I’ll include links to part 1 and part 2 in the comments above - as you may well find these to be of interest!
A good question, and if I were to imagine it through the lens of NPD, I would suggest that they were still objects of affection for him, and removing them from the stage of his life wasn't something he was ready to do. Kemper saved his mother (the object of his rage) for last, after his spree if I recall correctly. Bundy had a spree as well, so maybe he was caught before he could reach that conclusion. However, that is just conjecture on my part, and I don't think that Kemper is a malignant narcissist, so his unfolding might have been different.
I agree that your 1st 2 examples would not be psycopaths based on the information presented.
I'm not sure about the 2nd 2 however. I'm not sure that having head trauma would rule psycopathy out. Or child abuse, as I'm sure that a psychopath could be abused.
Also psycopathy could be genetic, so maybe and maybe not.
As far as defecating goes, yes it's likely someone could do that for the reason you started, it's also possible that it was done to mark territory, like many animals do.
So without knowing much about either serial killer, I'm not sure they can be ruled out based on the information presented. Is there more about their psychological profiles somewhere?
The second serial killer was Dahmer, who specifically has diagnoses that rule psychopathy out, BPD. You cannot have BPD and be a psychopath.
If you are speaking about Ramirez, there is nothing indicating psychopathy, but many things that make it impossible to consider. You cannot consider psychopathy in anyone that has had head injuries, especially in youth. It makes it impossible to know what the brain would have done if it had not suffered such.
Also, Ramirez had intense emotions, not muted ones. There is nothing supporting a diagnosis of psychopathy, but many things ruling it out.
Bobby Joe Long you excluded sure to the fact the he had head injuries? Which just means you wouldn't be able to know if he was a psychopath or not because his injuries may be the cause of his behavior?
No, I excluded him because his behavior came directly after, and was caused by the head injuries. Frontal lobe trauma changes how people act dramatically. There is a great book about this, written by one of the readers here, Joni West.
The book is called:
"Full Frontal Murder Memoir: A Daughter Reveals the True Story Behind the Shocking Crime That Went From Tabloid to Textbook and Will Change the Way You See Blame and Brains"
that is about exactly how head injuries and organic illness can induce behaviors that were never there prior. It seems the most relevant thing to investigate in regards to serial killing is head injuries at a young age.
He never struck me that way either, but I actually wrote up a theory as to why people found him so good looking at the time.
What made Bundy popular is that he came to notice during a very specific time, the serial killer golden age so to speak. Where serial killers were a fascination of the public, and the behavioral analysis unit was just getting on its feet. This meant that there was research into these people for the first time, and they achieved a sort of celebrity status. It wasn’t only Bundy though. Have a look;
The Son of Sam, The Golden State Killer (EAR/ONS), the Night Stalker, the Hillside Stranglers, the Atlanta Child Murderer, Ted Bundy, the BTK Killer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, the Freeway Killers, Dean Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley, the Zodiac Killer, the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murderer, the Zebra Murderers...
If you look at a lot of these people, they weren’t an attractive bunch. Bundy does stand out among them in terms of physique. He may not in general, but comparatively, he is an improvement in terms of aesthetics.
With my history (having a father who was a 100% passive and very successful man until his wife, a malignant narcissist, physically attacked him and he responded by beating her to death … later to have a giant brain cyst discovered on his frontal lobes in the areas responsible for impulse control, stimulus-bound aggressive, and decision-making), the minute I hear about perpetrators of violent crimes having had brain traumas, I look there for the reason they did what they did. Fortunately for these offenders, thanks to my father’s dream team of lawyers, people in that situation can now have their brain scans entered into court as evidence in their guilt/innocence phase. I wrote about it in my book Full Frontal Murder Memoir. If you Google “Herbert Weinstein brain” you can see his MRI and PET scan. Seeing these images made me understand how my own father could murder the woman he loved. Sadly, if he has never been physically attacked, he probably never would have murdered and many people’s biggest tragedy would not have occurred. So when you hear “he had head trauma or traumatic brain injury” in the description of a defendant, take a closer look.
I linked your book in one of the comments below for someone that wondered about the extent of impact of head injuries and organic illness on behavior, in terms of Ramirez's history.
I think head injuries and organic illness such as Ramirez having epilepsy that was possibly brought on by extensive physical abuse, is very informative to violent behavior. I imagine that there would be interesting findings if focusing on serial killers, and head injury histories.
Thank you for linking. I totally agree about investigating and focusing on head/brain injuries when it comes to serial killers. There have also been very compelling cases for a variety of other crimes. A well-liked and respected teacher with no deviant history started going into his stepdaughter’s bathroom to watch her shower and was found to have amassed a ton of porn, etc. The night before he was to be sentenced for his sexual predation against his stepdaughter, he got a horrible headache and went to the emergency room. A walnut-sized tumor was found in his brain. It was removed and he went back to his old and acceptable behavior and sentenced to some sort of rehab. After several months, his behavior toward the staff became highly sexually inappropriate. Turned out the tumor had grown back. It was removed again and he has behaved normally ever since. Whenever a crime seems totally uncharacteristic of someone, the brain is the first place to look for a reason why.
It's absolutely fascinating
There is another book that highlights my father’s case but also the Long case and the brain tumor guy and a lot of others. It’s called: The Brain Defense-Murder in Manhattan and the Dawn of Neuroscience in America’s Courtrooms by Kevin Davis. He uses my father’s case (Murder in Manhattan) as the main story but gets into a lot of other very intriguing stories and professional medical and legal opinions.
I am going to get buried under this reading list that keeps piling up on me.
I'm sorry for your loss. I believe science will be used more and more in the future for this. Was he able to get the tumor removed?
Thank you and No. If you look at his image (Google "Herbert Weinstein brain") you will see the size of it. BTW, the way they make the images flips and reverses it so the problem area looks like the right rear but it is the left frontal. His neurologist said he would most likely die on the operating table and if he didn't, he could easily become a vegetable or so messed up his life wouldn't be worth living. Of course many in the media claimed he "refuse to have it removed" as though he was somehow faking it, but the truth is the doctor gave him this explanation and never even offered to try to do it because it was so risky. My father was 65 at the time of the murder and had never been anything but passive his entire life. He was responding to a very aggressive physical attack (she tried to scratch his eyes out) by my stepmother. He had no obvious symptoms, but in retrospect, I realized why his behavior was so unusual for my whole life. You can reach my book for all the details.
That thing was huge, makes me wonder how he could function at all. Personally I don't think he should have been sentenced at all .
Incredibly, he functioned extremely well in many ways...was very successful in business and life. The problem with the criminal justice system and people with brain problems like his is that there is no good place to put them. My father's lawyers told him he would be better off going to prison than be found not guilt by reason of mental disease or defect ("insanity") because they don't just let you walk...the judge sends you to a state psych ward and if you have ever seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, you know that's worse than prison, especially for a highly intelligent man. They can keep you there forever. With prison, you get an end date.
I understand. That's yet another system that really needs to be addressed.
Thank you, I'll do that.
He actually had a lot of the traits associated with psychopathy: no empathy, no anxiety, not concerned with what other people thought of him, etc. but he was a very kind and generous man. He had a code of conduct which I outline in the book as his "Weinstein Wisdom." He believed in doing the right thing because it was the right thing to do; he never lied (except for a couple of minutes after the murder but he came back to himself and told the truth), and it took me years to put everything together. That is why I wrote the book. My email address is in there if you want to ask question while you are reading.
Interesting, thank you.
It's possible that there's something heritable in serial killers so that's pretty interesting and something I didn't know. I can almost understand the judge feeling sorry for Ted Bundy though, that's almost as anticlimactic end to a career as the death of Shaka Zulu
I think that you may be correct about that. A long time ago someone made an argument for serial killing having to do with an overactive part of the hunter brain that didn't evolve properly. It was a super interesting theory, but I can't find it anymore. I was going to include it in this answer, but wasn't able to.
Interesting idea that!. Buŕ shame they can't just hunt deer etc.
Indeed, that would be more productive.
Is it in the book "On Killing"?
I don't think so. This seemed to be a theory that this person came up with on their own.
Hi Athena, please check comments at the end of the thread for both my explanation for the link and Part 1 of my Ted Bundy post. Thanks!
Part 2 - Ted Bundy- The Laura Aime Murder
https://serialkillersandtheirpsychopathology.quora.com/Ted-Bundy-The-Laura-Aime-Murder-Lehi-Utah-October-31st-1974-Part-2-The-psychopathology-of-Ted-Bundy-in-Septembe?ch=17&oid=61862918&share=bb7fd12f&srid=uRgvo6&target_type=post
Part 1 - ‘Ted Bundy - The Laura Aime Murder.’
https://serialkillersandtheirpsychopathology.quora.com/Ted-Bundy-The-Laura-Aime-Murder-Lehi-Utah-October-31st-1974-Part-1-Background-Murder-Updated-02-02-22-New-p?ch=17&oid=60193569&share=1d5fecfa&srid=uRgvo6&target_type=post
Hey Athena,
Just read your post above about Serial Killers and really enjoyed it!
I was pleased to see you had used a passage from one of my comments I’d previously made about Bundy ie him having poor self-esteem and being a covert narcissist.
I’ve since opened a Quora space page entitled ‘Serial Killers and their Psychopathology.’
It has a 2-part post I wrote on Ted Bundy. Part 1 describes a specific murder he committed ie the murder of Laura Aime and Part 2 is an assessment of his psychopathology, during the time period this murder took place. This was triggered by his covert narcissism, and caused his compartmentalised malignant rage to manifest towards this specific female.
I’ll include links to part 1 and part 2 in the comments above - as you may well find these to be of interest!
Ooo, thank you Martin. This should be enjoyable.
I wonder why Ted Bundy's longtime girlfriend (and her daughter) were never his targets, even when his girlfriend broke up with him.
He murdered women both when he was in a relationship with her, and when he wasn't.
A good question, and if I were to imagine it through the lens of NPD, I would suggest that they were still objects of affection for him, and removing them from the stage of his life wasn't something he was ready to do. Kemper saved his mother (the object of his rage) for last, after his spree if I recall correctly. Bundy had a spree as well, so maybe he was caught before he could reach that conclusion. However, that is just conjecture on my part, and I don't think that Kemper is a malignant narcissist, so his unfolding might have been different.
All important information, thank you for putting it out there, as always, it matters. But not really my thing.
I agree that your 1st 2 examples would not be psycopaths based on the information presented.
I'm not sure about the 2nd 2 however. I'm not sure that having head trauma would rule psycopathy out. Or child abuse, as I'm sure that a psychopath could be abused.
Also psycopathy could be genetic, so maybe and maybe not.
As far as defecating goes, yes it's likely someone could do that for the reason you started, it's also possible that it was done to mark territory, like many animals do.
So without knowing much about either serial killer, I'm not sure they can be ruled out based on the information presented. Is there more about their psychological profiles somewhere?
The second serial killer was Dahmer, who specifically has diagnoses that rule psychopathy out, BPD. You cannot have BPD and be a psychopath.
If you are speaking about Ramirez, there is nothing indicating psychopathy, but many things that make it impossible to consider. You cannot consider psychopathy in anyone that has had head injuries, especially in youth. It makes it impossible to know what the brain would have done if it had not suffered such.
Also, Ramirez had intense emotions, not muted ones. There is nothing supporting a diagnosis of psychopathy, but many things ruling it out.
Bobby Joe Long you excluded sure to the fact the he had head injuries? Which just means you wouldn't be able to know if he was a psychopath or not because his injuries may be the cause of his behavior?
No, I excluded him because his behavior came directly after, and was caused by the head injuries. Frontal lobe trauma changes how people act dramatically. There is a great book about this, written by one of the readers here, Joni West.
The book is called:
"Full Frontal Murder Memoir: A Daughter Reveals the True Story Behind the Shocking Crime That Went From Tabloid to Textbook and Will Change the Way You See Blame and Brains"
https://www.amazon.com/Full-Frontal-Murder-Memoir-Daughter-ebook/dp/B08ZMHR21C
that is about exactly how head injuries and organic illness can induce behaviors that were never there prior. It seems the most relevant thing to investigate in regards to serial killing is head injuries at a young age.
Cool. I'll check it out, thank you.
You are quite welcome
Here's a link to the new York times article..
Herbert Weinstein
No not Dahmer, the last 2 Ramirez being one, so ok I can see how he wouldn't qualify as a psychopath, that helps, thank you.
I think i have heard of him. It is very interesting how head injuries or brain tumors can completely change how a person functions.
Oh yes, I definitely have heard of him. That one is a fascinating case.
He never struck me that way either, but I actually wrote up a theory as to why people found him so good looking at the time.
What made Bundy popular is that he came to notice during a very specific time, the serial killer golden age so to speak. Where serial killers were a fascination of the public, and the behavioral analysis unit was just getting on its feet. This meant that there was research into these people for the first time, and they achieved a sort of celebrity status. It wasn’t only Bundy though. Have a look;
The Son of Sam, The Golden State Killer (EAR/ONS), the Night Stalker, the Hillside Stranglers, the Atlanta Child Murderer, Ted Bundy, the BTK Killer, Henry Lee Lucas, John Wayne Gacy, the Freeway Killers, Dean Corll and Elmer Wayne Henley, the Zodiac Killer, the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murderer, the Zebra Murderers...
If you look at a lot of these people, they weren’t an attractive bunch. Bundy does stand out among them in terms of physique. He may not in general, but comparatively, he is an improvement in terms of aesthetics.