Here are some notes from one of symposium panels I attended several years ago.

• America has an obsession with crime.
• Bad guys give definition to the good guy. The worst the bad guy, the better the good guy seems.
• Murder by a celebrity promotes a fascination, primarily because of the motivations of the murderer.
• Wesley Dodd: two murders were trial events to see if he could do it. When caught he wanted to die as soon as possible. (Washington, upper Idaho, Oregon). He was not psychotic, was not physically or sexually abused, nor brain-damaged. Motivations were explainable by normal psychological principles.
• Gangs: members are absolutely devoted. Will die for their gang. Will avenge attacks. Don’t expect to live long. They don’t feel like they belong in the family or homes. They want an identity. The gang gives them closeness with their fellow gang members. Substance abuse is not only part of the context but is part of the identity. Eliminate the signs, the colors, the symbols, they lose their identity. Their violence is part of their identity. Individually they will not usually commit violence.
• Charles Manson: cult leader (David Koresh, Irvil LeBarron, Lafferty brothers). Manson’s mother was often institutionalized. He went through many placement programs. He did not have a dramatic personality as a child. As he got older certain leader qualities began to appear. He told one of his followers to kill himself, and the men chose to do so during sex, asking his partner to inform him just before her climax she did not relate it as sick later on, but described it very matter-of-factly. Manson isolated his people in the desert and had them play games, essentially be in children. They would do activities together, forming the sense of family. The women of the group would go into town and collected garbage for food. As people in town turned against them, but it only enhance a sense of identity. Goal of leadership after the world ‘ended’ and the ‘blacks took over’. Even after they were caught and he was imprisoned, his followers were still willing to do whatever he said.
• David Koresh: Women, who ran out of the burning building, fought off FBI rescuer and ran back into die. Her bond was stronger than her will to live. For him to die if they did not was unthinkable for them. A large number of such followers feel unhappy and guilty about surviving the mass death such as this, even years later.
• It isn’t the childhood that causes these individuals to go bad. It is the result of adult experience that shows they can get away with their crimes.

More notes on this topic will be provided in next week’s blog. Have something to add in your own writing or experience? Please share it in the comment section of this blog. Thanks.