Re this story.
Killer: Shooting teens was like spilling milk - Army vet remains indifferent to killing 3 young Michigan swimmers
He makes no excuses and refuses to be contrite or apologize for his actions. Is he a crazed sociopath or simply an a person being utterly honest about how he feels.
Er, why would those two be in conflict? Perhaps he’s being honest about being a sociopath.
That’s what it looks like to me, too.
That’s what I would say as well. I’m no doctor, but complete lack of remorse over senseless, random murder is pretty much textbook sociopathy.
What I find interesting is his remorse for the sexual assault but not the murder. He’s definitely showing a kind of reduced affect for both crimes. The guy is clearly neurologically ill, but he also seems exceptionally honest for a sociopath.
He’s right about one thing.
If I remember correctly, sociopaths will sometimes show some measure of shame towards some aspects of their crimes, if not much overall. Towards the end of his life, Ted Bundy showed some shame for the necrophilia he committed, if not much for the killings themselves.
I work with a sociopath, and they wll apologize if there is something in it for them. His typical apology is “I’m sorry if I offended you” or “I’m sorry if you took that the wrong way.” He never says “I’m sorry” without clarifying it.
Bundy was hoping to avoid the death penalty by admitting to his crimes and implying there were more that that police didn’t know about.
Yes, absolutely. I don’t mean to say that he felt shame because he felt that it was wrong, but shame because it didn’t jibe with the way he wanted people to view him, more like it injured his sense of pride and vanity, kind of like the shame he felt over growing up poor. Towards the end he spoke freely about most details of his crimes, but the necrophilia had to be dragged out of him. I don’t think it was a shame or guilt over it in the sense we would think of it; rather, more like the feeling we’d feel about having somebody else watch us go to the bathroom. They guy in the story might express apparant “remorse” over the sexual assault and not the murders only because he doesn’t mind being thought of as a murderer, but it injures his vanity to be thought of as a rapist.
Richard Allen Davis admitted to killing Polly Klaus, but said he didn’t molest her after she said to him “Don’t do me like my daddy does.”
I’m just a child killer; I ain’t no child molester like Mr. Klaus :eek:
Why is his veteran status relevant to the story, to the point that it even needs to be noted in the headline? Seems like every story about this clown goes to great pains to say he was an Army veteran.
Sure he was - for five years. He got out in 1994 and never deployed overseas. He never saw combat. The fact that he was in the Army at one time is far less important than the fact that he was an unemployed bum now.
The army may have trained him in use of a rifle, and maybe he joined with killing on his mind, given he found it so easy. Also, it drums up prurient interest to think that someone supposedly disciplined could ‘snap’ - echoes of John Rambo, etc.
Most soldiers aren’t murderers, nor are most ‘unemployed bums’.
In the article, this sociopath also expresses regret for committing sexual assault the day before the murders.
Um, he lives in the UP. This area is much like where I grew up in Pennsylvania, and you don’t wait until you join the Army before you learn to shoot as a general rule.
Is being a “sociopath” a neurological/physical illness of some sort, or is it merely a label we use to describe people who fit that pattern of behavior?
What I’m asking is… did he kill because he was a sociopath, or is he a sociopath because he killed?
The formal psychiatric term for sociopathy is “Antisocial Personality Disorder”, so it is considered a form of mental illness. However, it is also true that it is diagnosed solely based on behavior patterns; AFAIK there is no known biological marker which reliably differentiates these people from normals. Specifically, one has to show a “pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others”. So the diagnosis could certainly be applied to people whose behavior is much less extreme than this, and not even necessarily illegal.
Although I am a psychiatrist, I am not (thank God) this guy’s psychiatrist, and cannot formally diagnose him based on a news clipping. However, I would be VERY surprised if he did not meet APD criteria, and he has almost certainly done so for a long time prior to committing these acts.