Speaking of Psychology: Understanding the mind of a serial killer, with Louis Schlesinger, PhD

Summary

在这段引人入胜的播客访谈中，Kim Mills与法医心理学家Dr. Lewis Schlesinger深入探讨了连环性谋杀犯的世界。Dr. Schlesinger是纽约约翰杰刑事司法学院的心理学教授，也是与FBI行为科学部门联合研究项目的共同首席研究员，他分享了关于连环杀手的动机、方法以及他们是否感到悔恨的见解。他指出，连环杀手的行为并非由创伤或不良的家庭教育引起，而是一个复杂的生物-心理-社会现象，其中神经生物学因素占有重要地位。此外，他还讨论了连环杀手的个性特征，包括精神病性和反社会人格障碍的区别，以及他们与社会的连接。Dr. Schlesinger还强调了DNA证据在解决此类案件中的重要性，并提出了为何公众特别是女性对这类犯罪如此着迷的几种可能原因。

Takeaways

• 🚨 **定义与分类**：连环杀手（serial killer）字面上意味着连续杀人，但根据动机和行为的不同，可以分为多种类型，如性犯罪连环杀手、雇佣杀手、医疗连环杀手等。
• 🔍 **性犯罪连环杀手**：这类杀手以性动机杀人，如波士顿扼杀者、BTK杀手、泰德·邦迪等，他们的行为与性满足有关。
• 🧐 **心理动态**：性犯罪连环杀手的行为与性满足有关，暴力行为取代了性交，成为他们性满足的一部分。
• 📉 **统计数据缺失**：目前没有关于美国连环性谋杀案的官方统计数据，这使得对这一现象的研究和理解变得复杂。
• 🧬 **生物学因素**：性犯罪连环杀手的行为可能与生物学因素有关，如荷尔蒙、化学物质、电信号等，以及可能的头部损伤或创伤。
• 👥 **人际关系**：性犯罪连环杀手通常缺乏与他人的正常情感联系，他们可能在外表上看起来正常，但内心缺乏对他人的依恋。
• 🤔 **动机理解**：尽管连环杀手的行为令人难以理解，但他们的行为可能与多种因素有关，包括神经生物学、心理社会因素等。
• 🚫 **法律与科学**：目前没有足够的科学研究支持将连环杀手的行为模式作为法庭上确定犯罪嫌疑人的依据。
• 🧵 **DNA证据**：DNA证据在犯罪侦查中变得越来越重要，尤其是在性犯罪连环杀手案件中，可以提供确凿的证据。
• 🚫 **虚假供述**：有些犯罪者可能会虚假供述未犯的罪行以获得名声或在监狱中的地位，但这种情况并不常见。
• 🤝 **公众兴趣**：人们对连环杀手的迷恋可能源于多种因素，包括对受害者的同情、对犯罪心理的好奇以及对防止成为受害者的渴望。

Q & A

什么是连环杀手？

连环杀手字面上意味着连续杀人。根据上下文，连环杀手可以分为多种类型，其中最广为人知的是连环性谋杀犯，例如波士顿扼杀者、BTK、泰德·邦迪、开膛手杰克等。此外，还有合同杀手、医疗连环杀手等，他们的动机和行为模式各不相同。

性谋杀是否需要性交才能被定义？

不需要。性谋杀中的暴力行为取代了性交，成为性满足的来源。在许多案件中，实际上并没有性侵犯发生。

为什么连环性谋杀者会重复犯罪？

连环性谋杀者的行为具有强迫性和重复性，因为性本能非常强大，他们需要超越实际杀害行为本身，以获得完全的性满足。

连环性谋杀者的动机是什么？

他们的动机并不是由于创伤或不良的家庭教育，而是一个生物-心理-社会现象，作者认为神经生物学因素占主导。

连环杀手是否感到悔恨？

连环性谋杀者通常对受害者没有感到任何类型的悔恨，他们通常缺乏对他人的同理心。

精神病态和反社会人格障碍之间有什么区别？

反社会人格障碍是《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》中唯一正式的诊断。精神病态是一个历史悠久的术语，指的是外表看起来正常但缺乏对他人情感依恋的人。

女性连环杀手是否也以性谋杀为主？

女性连环性谋杀者几乎不存在。女性连环杀手的案例非常罕见，且她们的动机通常不是性。

连环杀手是否希望因自己的罪行而出名？

连环杀手通常不希望被抓，但有时他们的行为几乎确保了他们最终会被抓获。他们对名声的追求被过分夸大了。

DNA证据如何改变了追查连环性谋杀者的过程？

DNA证据在所有类型的犯罪中都极为有用，是硬科学，具有很大的说服力。但并非所有案件都能获得DNA证据，有时这可能很困难。

为什么人们，特别是女性，对连环性谋杀者如此着迷？

女性可能对这些案件感兴趣，因为她们可能是这些案件的受害者，她们想了解如何不成为受害者。此外，女性可能比男性更对人类心理的复杂性感兴趣。

连环杀手的行为特征或签名是什么？

连环杀手的行为可能表现出仪式化的特征，但并非完全一致。研究发现，在70%的案件中，连环杀手会对系列中的一个受害者做出与其他受害者不同的事情。

连环杀手是否倾向于针对具有特定特征的受害者？

大多数连环杀手会因为受害者的脆弱性和易接近性而选择目标，而不是基于特定的身体特征。

Outlines

00:00

🚨 节目内容警告及引言

节目开始时，主持人Kim提出了一个内容警告，指出接下来的节目包含性暴力的描述，可能会让某些观众感到不适。她建议对此内容敏感的听众跳过这一集。接着，引出了去年夏天纽约警方逮捕了一名建筑师Rex Heuermann，并指控他涉嫌一系列发生在1996年至2011年长岛的谋杀案。这一逮捕标志着美国连环杀手历史的一个章节的结束。节目将与法医心理学家Dr. Lewis Schlesinger讨论连环杀手的动机和方法，以及他们是精神病患者、反社会人格者，还是其他类型的人。

05:00

🔍 连环杀手的定义与分类

Dr. Schlesinger解释了“连环杀手”一词的含义，并指出不同类型的连环杀手在行为、心理动力学和动机方面存在很大差异。他详细讨论了连环性谋杀犯的特点，包括他们的行为可能不涉及性交，而是以暴力代替性行为。他还提到，目前没有关于连环性谋杀的国家犯罪统计数据，并且解释了性连环谋杀与为了性犯罪而杀人的不同。

10:02

🧬 连环性谋杀犯的动机与成因

Dr. Schlesinger讨论了连环性谋杀犯的动机，指出这并不是由于创伤或不良的家庭教育，也不是一种美国特有的现象。他认为连环性谋杀是一种生物-心理-社会现象，但更强调神经生物学因素。他提到，尽管许多人经历了不幸的童年，但并不是所有人都会变成连环性谋杀犯。此外，他提到了关于连环杀手数量的不同估计，以及FBI通常只在难以解决的案件中介入。

15:04

🧛 心理特征与连环杀手的关系

Dr. Schlesinger讨论了心理病态和反社会人格障碍在连环杀手中的作用。他解释了心理变态、社会病态和反社会人格障碍的区别，并指出这些特征并不直接导致连环杀手去杀人，而是影响他们实施谋杀的方式。他还提到，连环性谋杀犯通常不会对受害者感到悔恨，并且他们往往能够吸引追随者。

20:06

🎎 连环杀手的人际关系

尽管连环杀手通常缺乏对他人的依恋，但Dr. Schlesinger指出，有些连环杀手在犯罪时确实处于婚姻或稳定的伴侣关系中。他提到，这些杀手的伴侣通常对他们的犯罪行为一无所知，并感到震惊。他还指出，公众对连环杀手的刻板印象——他们是非常聪明、多语言、品味高雅的人——与现实相去甚远。

25:07

🚫 女性连环杀手与性犯罪

Dr. Schlesinger指出，女性连环性谋杀犯几乎不存在。他提到了Aileen Warnes的案例，她杀害了许多男性，但动机并非性满足。他还提到，过去20年中，关于连环性谋杀的同行评审发表的文章非常少，因此许多关于连环杀手的信息来自民间传说和媒体的描述，这可能会对调查工作造成干扰。

30:08

🔗 连环杀手的行为特征与演变

Dr. Schlesinger讨论了他在2010年发表的一项关于连环性谋杀中仪式和签名行为的研究。他指出，连环杀手的行为在犯罪现场会随着时间而演变，而且他们通常会在一个受害者身上做一些与其他受害者不同的事情。这项研究结果对于犯罪调查具有重要意义，因为它揭示了连环杀手行为的复杂性。

35:08

⚖️ 连环杀手的法庭画像与动机

Dr. Schlesinger提到，尽管可以根据连环杀手的行为制作出某种“画像”，但这种画像并不足以在法庭上用作科学证据。他还讨论了连环杀手是否真的想要出名，以及他们是否会因为特定的触发因素而开始行动。他指出，连环杀手通常不会为了获得名声而冒险与警方沟通，这种行为几乎确保了他们最终会被抓住。

40:10

🧵 DNA证据在犯罪侦查中的应用

Dr. Schlesinger讨论了DNA证据在犯罪侦查中的重要性，尤其是在缺乏明显证据的情况下。他提到，尽管DNA证据在法庭上非常有说服力，但在某些情况下，如受害者尸体在水中浸泡过久，可能无法获得DNA证据。他还提到了现代陪审团对法医证据的期望，以及这对法庭审判的影响。

45:10

🤔 公众对连环杀手的迷恋

节目的最后，Dr. Schlesinger探讨了为什么许多人，特别是女性，对连环杀手和谋杀案件感到病态的迷恋。他认为这可能与女性对人类心理复杂性的天然好奇心有关。他还提到，连环杀手的受害者通常是女性，她们可能希望通过了解这些案件来学习如何避免成为受害者。此外，他强调了家庭和社区对这类犯罪的反应，以及这些犯罪对家庭成员，尤其是父亲的影响。

📢 节目结束与联系方式

节目结束时，主持人Kim感谢Dr. Schlesinger的参与，并邀请听众在网站、Apple、Spotify、YouTube或任何播客平台上收听“Speaking of Psychology”节目的其他集数。她还鼓励听众订阅并留下评论，如果对将来的播客有任何评论或建议，可以通过电子邮件与节目团队联系。

Keywords

💡连环杀手

连环杀手是指在一系列事件中杀害多人的个体。在视频中，连环杀手被细分为多种类型，其中最引人关注的一种是以性动机为杀人目的的连环性谋杀者，例如波士顿扼杀者、BTK杀手、泰德·邦迪等。这些个体的行为、心理动态和动机各不相同，但他们共同的特点是重复杀人的行为。

💡性谋杀

性谋杀是一种特殊的谋杀形式，其中谋杀行为本身给予凶手性满足。视频里提到，性谋杀并不需要性交发生，因为暴力行为本身就取代了性行为，成为性满足的来源。这种谋杀方式在连环性谋杀者中尤为常见。

💡犯罪心理学

犯罪心理学是心理学的一个分支，专注于研究犯罪行为背后的心理机制。视频中，法医心理学家路易斯·施莱辛格博士讨论了他对连环性谋杀者的研究，包括他们的动机、方法以及他们是否感到悔恨。

💡精神病学诊断

精神病学诊断是用于识别和分类心理健康状况的专业术语。视频中提到，性谋杀并未被列为诊断手册中的性偏离类型，这表明性谋杀作为一种行为，并没有被正式认定为一种精神疾病。

💡心理变态

心理变态通常指缺乏对他人情感联系的个体，他们可能表面上看起来正常，但内在缺乏与他人的联系。视频中讨论了心理变态个体如何能够在没有情感联系的情况下进行有计划的犯罪行为。

💡反社会人格障碍

反社会人格障碍是一种正式的精神病学诊断，指的是一种长期的漠视或侵犯他人权利的行为模式。视频中提到，尽管连环杀手可能表现出反社会行为，但反社会人格障碍并不是导致连环性谋杀的直接原因。

💡悔恨与后悔

悔恨与后悔是个体对于其行为的负面情感反应。视频中探讨了连环性谋杀者是否对他们的行为感到悔恨，以及这种情感反应的复杂性。

💡性偏离

性偏离是指性兴趣或性行为的异常模式，如恋童癖或恋物癖。视频中指出，性谋杀虽然具有性偏离的特征，但并不被列为正式的性偏离类型。

💡法医心理学

法医心理学是心理学的一个分支，涉及法律问题的心理学分析。视频中的嘉宾是一位法医心理学家，他与FBI行为科学部门合作，研究性谋杀和连环谋杀等犯罪行为。

💡犯罪签名

犯罪签名是指犯罪者在犯罪过程中留下的特定行为模式，这些模式可能对案件的侦破提供线索。视频中提到，连环杀手的行为在犯罪现场可能会随着时间变得更加复杂，但他们的行为并不总是一致的。

💡DNA证据

DNA证据是通过分析个体的遗传物质来确定其身份的一种法医技术。视频中讨论了DNA证据在解决连环性谋杀案件中的重要性，以及它在法庭上的说服力。

Highlights

节目包含了对性暴力的描述，可能会引起一些人的不适，提醒听众谨慎收听。

纽约警方逮捕了建筑师Rex Heuermann，并指控他涉嫌1996年至2011年间在长岛发生的一系列谋杀案。

节目讨论了连环杀手的动机和方法，以及他们是否都是精神病患者或反社会者，以及这些术语的具体含义。

连环杀手是否真的对他们的行为感到悔恨，以及连环谋杀有多普遍。

Dr. Lewis Schlesinger，一位在纽约John J. College of Criminal Justice的心理学教授，分享了他在研究连环谋杀方面的数十年经验。

连环杀手的定义及其类型，包括性犯罪连环杀手和其他以系列杀人的个体。

性谋杀并未被列为异常性唤起模式(paraphilia)，且与性行为无必然联系，因为暴力本身可能成为性满足的替代。

没有国家犯罪统计数据显示美国连环性谋杀的数量，也没有国家保留这些统计数据。

性谋杀连环杀手的行为是出于性满足，而非单纯的杀戮。

连环性谋杀的动机并非源于创伤或不良的家庭教育，而是一个生物-心理-社会现象。

连环杀手的两种类型：一种是有计划的犯罪，另一种是更冲动和机会主义的犯罪。

连环杀手的人格特征，包括精神病患者、反社会者和自恋者的特点。

连环杀手是否真的感到悔恨，以及他们是否只在被捕时才感到悔恨。

连环杀手的婚姻和家庭生活，以及他们的伴侣通常对他们的犯罪行为一无所知。

女性连环杀手的罕见性，以及她们的犯罪动机通常与性无关。

连环杀手的行为特征（signature）和仪式行为，以及它们在犯罪现场的演变。

创建连环杀手的准确档案是非常困难的，因为案件数量有限，且存在很大的多样性。

对连环杀手大脑的研究尚未得出明确结论，部分原因是这些案件的数量有限。

DNA证据和大规模DNA数据库在追踪连环性杀手方面发挥了重要作用。

连环杀手并不普遍渴望成名，尽管他们需要隐藏自己的身份以继续杀戮。

连环杀手是否会承认他们没有犯下的谋杀案，以及这种行为的心理动机。

许多人有暴力、性和非性幻想，但不会付诸行动，是什么触发因素导致某些人最终将幻想变为现实。

为什么许多人，特别是女性，对连环杀手和谋杀感到病态的迷恋。

Transcripts

- [Kim] The following episode contains

descriptions of sexual violence

that some people may find disturbing.

If you would rather not hear this type of content,

please come back next week for a new episode.

Thank you.

Last summer, police in New York arrested

architect Rex Heuermann

and charged him with a series of murders

that took place on Long Island between 1996 and 2011.

The arrest of the suspect

in the so-called Gilgo Beach Killings

appears to have closed one of the more recent chapters

in the history of American serial killers,

From Jeffrey Dahmer, to Ted Bundy, to Son of Sam,

serial killers have long inspired public fear

and public fascination.

What we wonder could drive someone to commit such crimes,

and how do these people get away with murder for so long?

Today we're going to talk with a forensic psychologist

who study serial killing.

We will discuss what the research

tells us about serial murderers, motivations and methods.

Are they all psychopaths or sociopaths, or something else?

What exactly do those terms mean?

Do serial killers ever feel remorse for their actions?

How common is serial murder,

and why do so many of us find it so fascinating?

Welcome to "Speaking of Psychology," the flagship podcast

of the American Psychological Association

that examines the links

between psychological science and everyday life.

I'm Kim Mills.

(soft music)

My guest today is Dr. Lewis Schlesinger,

a professor of psychology

at the John J. College of Criminal Justice in New York.

He has spent decades studying serial murder

and is the co-principal investigator

of a joint research project

with the FBI Behavioral Science Unit,

studying sexual and serial murder, rape,

bias homicide, suicide by COP

and other extraordinary crimes.

He is a board certified forensic psychologist

and an APA fellow, and has published many research articles

and 10 books on the topics of homicide, sexual homicide,

and criminal psychopathology.

Dr. Schlesinger, thank you for joining me today.

- [Louis] Thank you.

- [Kim] Let's start with a definition of the term,

what constitutes a serial killer

and is there a minimum number of such killings

that one has to commit to meet the definition?

- [Louis] Well, serial killer

literally means killing people in a series.

Now, when you speak about that,

you have to talk about what type of serial killer

you're referring to,

because they're very, very different

in terms of how they behave,

they're psychodynamics, what motivates them, and so on.

The type of serial killer that we know most about,

and that what most people are interested in,

is the serial sexual murderer, like the Boston Strangler,

BTK, Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper,

and you mentioned the Gilgo Beach guy more recently.

But there's other types of individuals

that kill in a series.

For example, there's contract killers

that would kill people for money.

It is a world of difference

for someone who's killing a series of people for money

versus someone killing it for sexual gratification.

There's the healthcare serial killers.

Those are people that go into a hospital, for example,

and kill a a number of people.

Some are nurses, some are physicians that do that.

Again, it's a very different type of dynamic.

And if you go into any state prison

or penitentiary in the United States,

you're gonna find a number of people

throughout their criminal career

who have killed more than one or two people

during a robbery, some sort of felony thing, and so on.

So we have to keep it separate.

Now, what most people are interested in,

and the serial sexual murderers

that you refer to in the introduction,

Jeffrey Dahmer and BTK,

and those sorts of things are the serial sexual murderers.

And so let me just talk about that

and define that a little bit so the audience understands

what we're referring to.

Most people can understand murder.

Most people, I don't have any problem understanding that,

but sexual murder is very difficult for the average person

to wrap their arms around.

And so the question is, what's going on with these people?

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

we have to get a couple of definitions straight.

Serial sexual murder

is not listed as a paraphilia

in any of the diagnostic manuals.

A paraphilia being an abnormal sexual arousal pattern

like pedophilia, attraction to children,

fetishism, sexual arousal to non-living objects,

and this sort of thing.

So it's not listed in a diagnostic manual,

and it's also not defined in statute.

The murder is defined in statute,

but serial murder or serial sexual murder is not.

Also an important point with respect to this,

and many, many people get this wrong,

including nonclinical psychologists and sociologists

and so on, is there does not have to be intercourse

in order for it to be sexual.

Why? Because the violence takes the place of it.

As a matter of fact, in many, many of these cases,

there's no sexual penetration at all.

In addition to complicating the problem,

if that wasn't enough is,

there's no national crime statistics

on the number of serial sexual murders in the United States,

and no country keeps these statistics.

Now, Canada, for example, our neighbor to the north

used to keep statistics on serial sexual murder,

but their definition was very different.

It was killing someone in the context of a sex crime.

In other words, they would commit a sex crime

and then kill the victim so that they couldn't turn him in.

That's very, very different than what killing someone

for sexual gratification.

Statistics Canada, which is comparable

to our uniform crime reports,

no longer categorizes sexual murder.

'Cause I spoke to them recently about it,

and it just becomes too complicated.

So, serial sexual murder, this is somebody that is going out

and killing repetitively

because the murder itself is sexually gratifying.

Let me say a couple things about human sexuality first.

On one end of the continuum, you have heterosexuals,

adults attracted to members of the opposite sex.

On the other end of the continuum,

you could have homosexuals,

adults attracted to members of the same sex.

But is that it for human sexuality? The answer is no.

There's many, many, many shades of gray.

In between there,

there's also abnormal sexual arousal patterns,

as I mentioned, pedophilia, arousal to children,

infantophilia, sexual arousal to preverbal infants,

hemophilia, sexual arousal to pubescent adolescents.

And there's things like fetishism

and exhibitionism and these sorts of things.

In my view, the best way to understand serial sexual murder

is another paraphilia,

another abnormal sexual arousal pattern.

And specifically in these cases,

there's a fusion of sex and aggression,

so that the aggressive act itself is eroticized.

It's stimulating.

And so people look at this and say, okay, murder,

understand murder.

I could even understand hatred of women, for example.

Let's kill women.

But what they can understand,

which is very difficult to understand,

is what they do at the crime scene with these victims.

They very often leave the victim in a sexually degrading

position with foreign object insertions, for example.

And so why do they do it?

And the answer to that question is,

killing alone is not psychosexually sufficient.

So they have to go above

and beyond actually killing the person

to get complete sexual gratification.

And the sexual instinct itself is very, very strong.

That's how God made us.

So for example, in order for a woman to become pregnant,

she had to run 20 miles.

Most women would say, you run 20 miles.

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

But God was way too smart for that, right?

So in order for propagation of the species,

he made the sexual instinct very, very strong.

And so most people have sexual encounter.

They don't say, well, that's good.

I'm gonna move on to something else now.

They wanna do it again and again.

And so what you see is a compulsive repetitive aspect

to serial sexual murder.

- [Kim] Let me ask you this though.

What drives people to become serial sexual killers?

I mean, how much do we really know about their motivations

and are there any common personality traits?

- [Louis] The answer is it's not due to trauma,

it's not due to poor parenting,

and it's not an American phenomenon.

Serial sexual murder has been described

as far back as the 1800s.

As a matter of fact, the first person

to describe in a scientific way

in terms of case description

was a psychiatrist in Germany

named Richard von Krafft-Ebing.

And his classic book is titled "Psychopathic Sexualis."

And there's a chapter in there

where he describes almost everything

that we know about sexual murder today was described in 1886

by Krafft-Ebbing, not 1986 in Quantico, Virginia.

But 1886.

And so, why did they do it?

Again, you find it in every country,

in every culture from pre-modern times,

and there's no evidence at all that it's increasing.

I did a study on that actually, notwithstanding

what you might hear in the news.

Now, why do they do it?

The best understanding I think we have at this point,

is that it's a biopsy psychosocial phenomenon with a,

in my view, a heavy emphasis on neurobiology.

Now, poor parenting, traumatic events,

none of those things are helpful, that's for sure.

But the number of people who've had horrible childhoods,

who've had terrible parenting, who've been abused,

they don't go out, become serial sexual murderers.

It's a very, very small amount of the population.

And in order for somebody to become a serial sexual murder,

I believe many things have to go wrong.

For example, I said neurobiological, is it hormonal?

Is it chemical? Is it electrical?

Is it a combination of those factors plus a head injury,

plus trauma and poor parenting?

And I think yes, I think the answer is yes.

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

the number of people that do it, it's always been around

and there's no evidence that it's increasing.

Now you hear different estimates.

How many serial killers

are there roaming around the country?

The FBI has never put out

an official statement with respect to that.

It's basically unknown and I think unknowable actually.

Let me just say one other thing

to answer your question specifically,

with respect to our understanding

of, you said personality traits and so on.

If you look, serial sexual murder is very popularized.

I mean, you can't turn on one of the TV stations

every night on one of them

you're gonna see a crime documentary on this serial killer,

that serial killer and so on.

But if you look at the peer review publications

in scientific journals in the past 20 years,

for popularized mental disorders like, bipolar disorder,

PTSD, eating disorders, you know, those are popularized too.

There's between 60 and 75,000 articles

on each of those disorders.

Do you know how many peer reviewed published articles

there have been empirical study now

of serial sexual murder in the past 20 years?

No, you don't.

- [Kim] I don't, it's a tiny number. Yes.

- [Louis] 22. 22.

- [Kim] And how many of those did you write?

- [Louis] A number?

It was 21, but my latest publication made it 22

just came out a couple months ago.

And so, you know, it's hard

to answer your question definitively,

but I can say this with respect to personality traits.

And that's interesting as well.

There's generally two types of individuals

who commit sexual murder.

Some do it in a very planned fashion

where they try to allude law enforcement,

they're forensically aware,

and they leave crime scenes that are generally

without a lot of physical evidence.

If you look at it visually,

you'll see him as very organized.

The murder weapon is taken with them.

If it's a ligature strangulation, for example.

The room itself is not all broken up with furniture.

There's no blood of the offender on the victim.

And so that's one type of offender.

And he usually does it in a series which is thought out.

Now there's another group

that acts out more spontaneously.

Now why?

It's because the underlying personality disturbance

of that group is much more disturbed.

If you look at people that kill one or two

serial sexual murder, and then they're caught,

these are people that have borderline personality,

schizophrenia, schizotypical personality,

that's a severe personality disorder, for example.

What the problem?

The problem is that type of disorder,

psychopathology mental disorder,

does not allow the person to inhibit their impulses.

So when they see, for example,

a victim that crosses their path, they strike out.

And if you strike out impulsively,

there may be witnesses around,

you leave forensic evidence around,

you didn't plan on killing anybody,

and you're apprehended quickly.

The other type has more what's often called

psychopathic traits, narcissistic traits,

and whatever personality they have,

it doesn't disable them from planning.

You could be narcissistic, you could be psychopathic,

but you can still plan and inhibit your impulses.

And that's what you see in those sorts of cases.

And as a result, because they're forensically aware

and they can plan,

they can rack up a very high number of victims.

Those are the cases that the FBI

usually becomes involved in.

Why? Because the FBI's called in,

almost always, when it's a difficult to solve case.

Otherwise, if it's just one murder or two,

local law enforcement can usually make the apprehension.

- [Kim] So you mentioned psychopathy,

but I'm wondering about sociopathy.

I mean, are these people sociopath, psychopaths,

what's the difference? Can you be one and not the other?

- [Louis] Yes. Let me talk about three different terms.

Psychopathic personality, sociopathic

and antisocial personality disorder.

'Cause they get kind of mushed together.

Particularly when you speak about these things

and people refer to it and so on.

The only official diagnosis

in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual

of Mental Disorders,

that's the manual that psychologists psychiatrists

and so on, rely on, is antisocial personality disorder.

That's been the official diagnosis for years.

Sociopathic personality was in the manual back in the 1950s,

but it has since been eliminated.

Interestingly, when someone pontificates

about these sorts of things,

they'll always say he's a psychopath.

He's a psychopath.

Right now, psychopath, psychopathic personality

is time honored.

It's been around since the 1800s,

when some of the early alienists,

what they called psychiatrists

back in the turn of the last century

was called moral insanity,

moral indisility and so on.

And it's always been in the literature,

it's been in the psychiatric literature,

it's been in the psychoanalytic literature,

it's been in the psychological literature,

but it's never been an official diagnosis.

And so, but what is generally meant

by psychopath is somebody

who outwardly appears normal.

They have what Hervy Cleckley called a mask of sanity.

They can cover up the underlying disturbance.

And the underlying disturbance

is a lack of emotional attachment to other people.

That's what makes us human.

We have attachments to other people.

The psychopath in a general, in a click sense

does not have that, they're devoid of that.

And so they can cut off a person just like that.

So that was a click Lee's conception, and it's used a lot.

Now, why is it used in serial killing?

Why do you hear people say he's a psychopath?

Psychopathy does not make you go out

and kill people for sexual gratification.

It doesn't.

What it does do is it determines

how the murder is carried out.

So if you have a psychopathic personality

and you also have a sexual arousal pattern

where there's a fusion of sex and aggression,

so that the aggressive act itself is eroticized,

then you can plan your crime.

And if you can plan your crime.

and you're forensically aware,

you can allude law enforcement

and rack up a high number of victims.

And that's the answer to that. It's not causative.

A personality disorder does not cause anybody

to go out and kill women to get sexual gratification.

It determines on how they go about doing it.

- [Kim] Now, that leads to the question of remorse

or even regret.

I mean, do such people feel remorse?

Do they regret or are they only

remorseful when they get caught?

- [Louis] Well, that's a very difficult determination,

how you determine if somebody is remorseful or not.

Now, if you see any old criminal in prison,

which I've been doing for 48 years now,

almost all of 'em, not everyone,

but almost all of 'em will say,

"Oh, I, I never should have done it.

I feel bad. A aha. Terrible thing." And so on.

So it's very difficult to determine.

The serial sexual murderer usually

does not feel any type of remorse

towards the victim himself.

And I keep saying himself because these are 99.99% men

killing women, generally speaking.

So no, these are people, again, as collectively said,

they're devoid of human emotion.

They have trouble with empathy.

Interestingly enough,

although they don't have bonding to other people,

many people attach themselves to the psychopath.

And that's why you see many psychopaths have an entourage

following them around, hangers on and this type of thing.

- [Kim] Well, you know,

I mentioned Rex Rex Heuermann in my intro.

He was married.

I mean, how is that unusual for a serial sexual killer

to actually have a marital relationship?

- [Louis] No, that's not uncommon.

That's not uncommon for the serial sexual murder

who plans his crimes

because he has the type of personality

that's generally speaking, not off putting,

they look normal.

They have a mask of normality.

They can speak, they can engage and so on.

The other type of sexual murder who's much more disturbed,

very often is not married.

Any type of, you know, sexual involvement.

It's often with a sex worker.

They very often live with a parent and so on.

But those individuals

that you see with a high number of victims,

very often are married

or in a committed relationship at the time.

And the partner, the wife usually says things like,

"I knew something was odd about him or weird,

but I never dreamed

that he would be going around killing people."

Now, you say to yourself, now when you hear this,

you say, "Ah, come on, you live with this guy."

This has been reported from Krafft-Ebing's time

back in the 1800s.

Because how would you know,

to think that your partner is weird is one thing,

but to think that he's going out killing people

is such an alien thought, and it's so remote,

and that's what so many of the women say

who are subsequently interviewed.

Some serial sexual murderers,

like the Boston Strangler for example,

was generally speaking, a fairly good husband.

And he was a good parent.

I mean, the children of a lot of 'em said, you know,

my father is a fairly normal guy.

He did this, he did that, and so on.

Dennis Rader, BTK's wife had no idea at all.

As a matter of fact, the police who interacted with her

said, she's just a very, very nice person.

And he raised a family

and had a fairly responsible position.

So this is way more complicated,

this type of disorder than, for example,

depression or PTSD and that sort of thing.

This is very complicated

and I know that, well, lemme say this a couple things.

The American people want their serial killers

to be evil geniuses with IQs of 180

who speak five languages, including Aramaic,

who are connoisseurs of fine wine like Hannibal Lecter.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

And even those very few offenders who went to college,

for example, and became, had a degree, Bundy,

you mentioned the Gilgo beach guy and so on,

they really don't use their intelligence

as far as I can determine

in any really, really productive way

in carrying out their murders.

Because we had the case up in the Pacific Northwest

of Gary Ridgway, they called him the Green River Killer.

You know, he alluded law enforcement for over 20 years.

His IQ was 83.

And so now you say no, why is that?

Well, I'll tell you a couple of reasons.

The hardest thing, lemme say it this way,

the hardest thing for a serial killer is the abduction.

How do you get a woman to go with you?

That's not so simple.

And so that's why you see sex workers

are very often targeted.

Part of their job description is to go with a stranger,

have sex, take your clothes off, usually in a remote area.

Also, if a sex worker turns up dead,

you don't know what her real identity is.

She's known on the street by a street name

and she may have been killed in New York,

but she could be from Chicago, or Florida, or anywhere.

So it's very, very, very, very difficult.

And that's why you see those women are targeted.

- [Kim] So what about female serial killers?

Are they sexual serial killers, first of all?

And is their profile similar to that of male serial killers?

- [Louis] Well, female serial sexual murderers

are generally non-existent.

Now, there was a woman in Florida, Aileen Warnes

who killed a bunch of men, but she was a sex worker.

She hated men, she just killed men for the motivation

of just revenge or something like that.

And that was actually studied

and a paper published on that as well.

Yes, she killed in a series.

So literally she was a serial killer,

but the motivation was not sexual.

Yeah, it's really a different thing.

And again, keep in mind, in the past 20 years,

we only have 22 publications on this.

And so a lot of what you hear said

is coming from folklore and silence of the lambs

and people repeating these sorts of things,

which can be dangerous in an investigation

because serial sexual murderers,

those who read the newspapers and follow the news

and they hear somebody pontificating about this,

may change their plan, may change their MO,

the method of operation.

We saw a good example of that about 10 years ago, I think,

in Washington DC, we had the DC Sniper,

who was a guy with a young, I think 17-year-old juvenile

with him going around shooting people.

And there were people pontificating on TV

about the signature.

The signature.

Now they got that from the serial killer routine.

And then there was someone else talking about

geographic profiling and where they...

And so the next murder that weekend was 90 miles away,

was outside of the DC area,

which makes the investigation so much more difficult.

Now you got a tri-state area

as opposed to a small area.

So these sorts of things real, really don't help.

- [Kim] But there tends to be a signature

in these types of serial sexual killings.

I mean, part of the reason that Son of Sam got caught,

I mean, there were a lot of reasons,

but he did keep looking for the same type of woman

to the point where women who lived in Brooklyn

were wearing blonde wigs, you know,

that sort of thing.

So are there signatures?

- [Louis] Oh, well, let me, let me say this.

I did the only research study,

empirical study on ritual and signature

in serial sexual murder.

It was published in the Journal of the American Academy

of Psychiatry and Law back in 2010.

And what we found is notwithstanding

"Silence of the Lambs" and "Hannibal Lecter,"

who was talking about putting a moth

or butterfly in the mouth of all these women,

it's way more complicated than that.

They do behave in ritualistic ways, but not exact ways.

And let me say two things

of our study without getting into the weeds

that I think people will find interesting is,

one thing is,

that their behavior at a crime scene tends to evolve.

And so the more comfort they have in killing,

the more elaborate their behavior at a crime scene

will become.

So initial torture becomes much more elaborate torture

later on.

But the most important finding that we found is,

that in 70% of the cases,

a serial killer does something with one victim in a series

that he does not do with others in a series.

For example, if they link five women in a series together,

they're linked for some reason.

And you look at the five women,

four of the bodies are just dumped with no clothes on,

but one body is the mutilated in some way.

Her breasts are cut off,

there's something shoved in or that type of thing.

You look at the average homicide detective

with 25 years of experience,

they're gonna say, that's a different guy.

Look at his behavior, what he did with that victim.

That's not true.

And you would only know that

if you studied a high number of these cases,

which most don't of the FBI does, I do.

And there's a couple of people in the country

affiliated with the FBI that studies these sorts of things,

but it's counterintuitive.

And so we found in 70% of the cases,

and offender will do something with one victim

that he did not do with others in the series.

So then we asked the question,

"Well, where does he do it in the series?

In the beginning, the middle or the end?"

We thought in the end, once he gains more comfort,

he'll experiment at a crime scene

and do something different, not true.

One third do it in the beginning,

one third do it in the middle,

and one third do it in the end.

That's why you have to do the research

rather than just rely on popular culture

and this sort of thing.

- [Kim] But is it even possible to come up

with an accurate profile?

'Cause it sounds like that's what you're trying to help with

when there are so few cases

and there is this level of variety.

- [Louis] Yeah, there is, and let me say it this way,

you can come up with some sort of quote unquote profile,

but not to go to court and link those crimes

because there's no scientific evidence

that would pass the legal standard

for the admissibility of scientific evidence,

which is either called the fry standard.

Is it generally accepted

or the Daubert standard,

meaning is it more than generally accepted?

Is it empirically supported,

published in peer reviewed journals and all the rest?

The point of the Daubert standard

is to keep junk science out of the courtroom.

And so you can use a quote unquote profile

in an investigation, but to go to court

and say, this guy killed these five people

based on behavior, there's only one study

is my study, basically.

And that's just not enough to meet the legal standard.

- [Kim] Earlier, I think you indicated

that there may some biosocial thing going on

with people who become serial sexual killers.

Has any study been done into the brains of these people

to better understand what is going on that's different?

- [Louis] The answer is nothing really definitive

at this point for a number of reasons.

There's so few cases, number one,

number two, to study their brains,

you're gonna have to get their permission

to become somewhat invasive,

and a lot of these guys are just not doing that.

There are some people that are looking at CAT scans

and PET scans, and MRIs

and trying to come up with something,

but it's very, very difficult

because of the number of cases.

There just aren't that many cases around,

and there's not that many cases accessible.

As I mentioned before, if you wanna study PTSD,

easy to get cases, go to a VA hospital,

you wanna study alcoholism, go to a rehab center,

you wanna study bipolar disorder,

go to a psychiatric hospital,

you wanna study serial sexual murder,

where are you gonna get the cases?

If you're not connected with the FBI

who has a national reach,

it's very, very, very difficult to do this.

And at John Jay, we've had about a 20 year relationship

with the FBI behavioral analysis unit down in Quantico,

and we're continuing to do this research and so on.

I'll tell you one interesting finding

that was just published a couple of weeks ago

in the Journal of Forensic Sciences

is you would think that these individuals

would have a history of sexual assault

or rape in their background.

They don't.

And so I looked very carefully at these studies

going back to Krafft-Ebing,

even Krafft-Ebing described medical abnormalities,

family histories, prior arrests,

all sorts of characteristics,

but didn't describe one case of a history

of sexual assault or rape.

So we found in our cases,

26% of the offenders have a history of sexual assault,

which means that three fourths of them don't.

But we found something very important

that will help in an investigation.

That is, if an offender sexually penetrated

a homicide victim in their series,

there's about an 80% chance he had a likelihood

of a conviction in his rap sheet of sexual assault rape.

That helps enormously in an investigation.

Because other things that we know in the background

of serial sexual murders,

such as inappropriate maternal sexual conduct

in their upbringing, a sadistic fantasy,

animal cruelty,

other types of mental health disorders

are not gonna be available to an investigator

in an investigation.

Once you get a suspect,

then you can get to mental health records,

and that might be available then.

But an investigation, you only have his rap sheet.

And so, if one in the series is sexually penetrated,

that's close to an 80% likelihood

that he had a sexual assault in his rap sheet.

And it really helps the investigation a lot.

- [Kim] Do serial sexual killers as a rule,

desire to become famous

even as they need to hide their identity

so that they can keep killing,

I mean, how much of a motivator is that?

- [Louis] No, that, that's been overhyped

right from the beginning.

There's so much of this is overhyped,

that he's playing with the police,

he's toying with the investigation,

he's sitting in his room and, you know, rolling his hands.

No, they do not wanna get caught,

but very often they will do things

that almost ensure that they'll get caught.

Take for example, Dennis Rader, the BTA guy from Kansas,

30 years, the cases were cold.

What happened is a lawyer in the Topeka area

where he was from, wrote a book on these cases

and it got some publicity

and he wanted to get credit in a sense,

in his own twisted mind.

And so he started communicating with the police

and that will almost ensure that you're gonna get caught.

And in fact, he did get caught.

By and large did not wanna get caught.

Let me just dispel one sort of myth that you mentioned about

with David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam.

Are they targeting people with specific characteristics?

That came from the '70s

and particularly the head Ted Bundy investigation

because the women that he killed in the 1970s

when he was operative,

had brown hair parted down the middle.

The the problem with that is if you go to a yearbook

of all co-eds who were in college during the nine,

they all had hair, long hair parted down the middle.

That was a very, very popular hairstyle back then.

And so, no. Now having said that,

there is a subgroup of serial sexual murderers

that will target people based on

specific physical characteristics, but it's very, very rare.

Most of them, it's due to their vulnerability,

the victim's vulnerability and their accessibility.

And it may not be as obvious as you might think,

for example, yes,

certainly doing things like hitchhiking

and leaving a bar with a stranger.

Those are all high risk things that most women know about.

But, if an individual is fixated on a victim

obsessed with her, a neighbor, for example,

and observes her when she goes to work,

when she comes home Wednesday night

and Friday night, her boyfriend stays over,

is he gonna try to abduct her on a Wednesday night,

or Friday night?

No, because there's a male figure there.

And so that type of routine behavior pattern

unwittingly, is a vulnerability.

And very few people think about that as well.

- [Kim] Is it common for serial sexual killers

also to be serial confessors that is to confess to murders

that they didn't commit?

- [Louis] Let me break it down this way.

Yes, there are some people that will confess to murders

that they didn't commit to gain notoriety,

and to gain a lot of status in the institution.

One of my cases is not a serial sexual murder,

but it's a very famous case that many people are aware of.

Richard Kuklinski, the Iceman, he is a New Jersey case,

and I evaluated him

when he was apprehended back in the 1980s.

He tells everyone he killed over 100 people,

he died a couple of years ago. I never believe that.

Where are all the dead people?

And when he is interviewed,

it becomes more and more elaborate,

all these things that no, I never believe that at all.

But generally speaking, that's an aberration.

I'll tell you what we did,

we did a study, started to do a study

of confessions in different types of crime.

We know a lot about false confessions.

I mean, there's been a lot of research.

Many of my colleagues at John Jay

did some of the seminal research on false confessions.

Saul Casson, my colleague there and others as well.

So we know a lot about that.

But what about confessions in general?

Do we know a lot about confessions?

So we looked at intimate partner homicides

and how they confess,

and what we found is they're not confessing to the police,

they're confessing to a family member.

We also found eight cases

where they confessed in a suicide note.

So the type of confession depends upon the type of murder.

And what we started to do

is right before the pandemic started,

we looked at serial sexual murderers and their confessions,

and the study was stopped in the middle due to the pandemic.

Our research is now back in gear since January of this year,

but for almost three years it was shut down

due to the pandemic.

We just couldn't do anything.

So we started a study on serial killers

and how they confessed

and what we found is 50% of them don't confess.

They say to the police, you do what you gotta do,

but I'm not saying a word.

They're sophisticated offenders.

And that gives a little bit of insight

into what you just said.

- [Kim] Now, a lot of people have violent, sexual

and non-sexual fantasies, but they don't act on them.

Is there a precipitating factor that drives these people

to actually finally act out

on what they've been fantasizing about?

- [Louis] Yes. In the general population,

I won't say most, but many, many people

have very disturbed sexual fantasies

that they keep private even to their partner

because they're afraid

if they say to their partner, I wanna do this,

she's gonna say, "What are you nuts?

You have to see a doctor.

I'm not, I'm not doing that.

What's the matter with you?"

So they keep it very much to themselves.

Same with those individuals

who fantasize about killing women in this type of way.

The number of people

who have these perverse fantasies

is much, much higher than those who actually acted out.

And so why do some act it out?

Well, I can say this.

What we do know is, that of those who do act out,

there's usually some precipitant,

some sort of upsetting event,

such as the loss of a relationship,

which means a lot to a male, the loss of a job.

Men usually get some level of status from a job.

In so many ways,

male psychology is much more fragile than women,

for example, who a job

for whatever doesn't mean all that much.

And I've had a case where the guy began killing,

he started his killing series

when his girlfriend became pregnant,

that upset him and so on.

And so we can say in many cases

what the precipitant is, but definitely not in all cases.

And again, this requires more research

and less hypothesizing and speculating

and pontificating based on silence and lamps

and these other sorts of things.

- [Kim] Let me ask you about DNA evidence,

which has become quite prevalent

and very effective at this point.

Especially large scale DNA databases

that have really changed the way that police do their work.

How is that changing the process of going

after serial sexual killers?

- [Louis] Well, DNA evidence

and not only sexual serial sexual murder,

but in all sorts of crime is just could become

enormously, enormously helpful.

You know that this is hard science

and you know, it's very, very persuasive in court.

In fact, in many many cases, juries expect to hear DNA

and other forensic evidence, you know,

although in some cases you can't get DNA evidence.

It's very, very difficult.

I had a case where the victim was underwater for a year,

and of course you can't get DNA evidence from that.

Unfortunately, jurors expect it.

Because of the popularity of crime shows in general,

the jurors are very different today

than they were 20 or 30 years ago.

I had a case I remember not that long ago

where the jury hung on a case,

and after it was all over,

the judge who had a good rapport with the jury said,

"Well, what was the problem?

The evidence was overwhelming."

And they said, "Well, we all thought he did it,

but there was no luminol used."

Luminol is a spray that makes blood,

and you see it in all the shows.

Well, what do you think the red stuff was

coming out of the dead person?

That's blood.

You don't have to use luminol to determine it was blood,

but they do in the shows.

And so, you know, you have to be very careful now

in jury selection that's really up to the judges,

to voir dire these jurors to the extent

that will you listen to what the judge is saying

as opposed to what you heard on TV.

And it's very, very hard to undo something that you've heard

so many times before.

- [Kim] Last question, and I guess I'm gonna ask you

to speculate a little bit here, why do so many people,

especially women, seem to find serial sexual killers

and killing so morbidly fascinating?

- [Louis] Well, yes, I mean, they certainly do.

And if you look at the crime shows, like ID discovery

and I've done so many of those

and I speak to the producers,

they say 80% of their viewers are women.

And in my opinion,

I think it's a number of different factors.

Number one, they tend to be the victim of these cases,

and they wanna learn how not to become a victim

because so many of these guys, particularly the guys

that they feature on the crime shows look so normal,

and behave so normally. That's one reason.

The other reason is, I think women, for example,

more than men, are psychologically

more interested in the complexity of the inner workings

of the human mind as opposed to a guy.

For example, in jury selection,

you have one of these cases of someone going around

and mutilating women, many guys will say kill him.

He's not a person,

and whereas a woman may be more empathetic,

maybe more understanding,

make sure to try to understand his background

and this sort of thing.

So I mean, those are two speculative answers

as to why women become, you know, involved in this.

I'll say one other thing as a closing thing

to answer your question a little bit different.

The death of a child of one of these people is devastating

for not only the family members, but the community

and even the country in highly publicized cases.

And I've had the opportunity over the years

to speak to family members who lost a child,

and in particular talk about

the difference between men and women.

In my experience, it particularly seems

to affect fathers more than mothers.

I mean, they're just so devastated.

And I remember one father said to me, I'll never forget it,

he said to me, "You know, if my daughter died of cancer

or my daughter died in a horrible car accident,

that's one thing.

These things happen.

But my daughter died

because some guy got sexual gratification killing."

He said, "I can't wrap my head around that.

I just can't go on with that type of thought."

And it's a very, very disturbing thought.

It just really, really is.

And you just can't help but feel such empathy for people

and to spur us all on to try to unravel this as best we can.

Also, in terms of preventing this, you know,

when we see some red flags like sexual burglaries,

and repetitive fire setting

and these sorts of things,

what kind of interventions can we have

from a mental health perspective

to intervene and try to prevent

the development of these sorts of cases?

- [Kim] Dr. Schlesinger,

I wanna thank you for joining me today.

This has been absolutely fascinating. Thank you.

- [Louis] Thank you.

- [Kim] You can find previous episodes

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"Speaking of Psychology" is produced by Lea Winerman.

Our sound editor is Chris Condayan.

Thank you for listening.

The American Psychological Association,

I'm Kim Mills.

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