According to the National Kidney Foundation, 3% of children are bed wetters at 12 years of age. The percentage of serial killers in the population is a small fraction of that.
Here’s some of what the Foundation has to say on the subject:
Earlier studies showed that certain food allergies, especially to wheat, milk, and citrus seem to increase the likelihood of bedwetting, especially if the child eats these foods before bedtime.
To All:
It’s the presence of the TRIAD which is indicative of the problem child. Like so many “mental” problems of yesteryear, many more things are determined to be caused by imbalance of the chemical neurotransmitters of the brain.
ADD is one of the neurotransmitter problems. It takes a lot of tinkering to get the dose of medication right on the money to help an ADD child. You’re also faced with the fact the kid is GROWING, and then when hormone changes enter the picture, POW.
Chronic bedwetting is also a neurotransmitter problem. Some anti-depressants work for children, others may find a prescriptioin nosespray to be effective.
Now I don’t know if fire-setting and cruelty to animals is a neurotransmitter problem, but the main thing is to be AWARE of the potential.
F’rinstance: my son has ADD, so I know about all the medication-juggling that needs to be done. In addition, ADD is a family problem, on his Daddy’s side of the family. I’ve seen what relatives have gone through, and I was quick to get help when the symptoms appeared. Unfortunately, fire-setting has also appeared in the family, so when my son seemed to show an inordinate interest in fires, matches, lighters, etc, I immediately took him to the local fire station, which has an EXCELLENT fire-prevention intervention for children who may like to play with matches. The intervention specialist told me, “You have a problem here, he LIKES it too much.” We handled it by taking the problem to the physician who was already prescribing medication for the ADD.
The bed-wetting resolved. He didn’t set any more fires. And I was EXTREMELY vigiliant in observing his behavior around our family pets. If I would have had ANY indication of the third leg of the triangle, I would have insisted on hospitalization.
FYI, he’s a very normal, girl-crazy, food-craving, sleep-addicted, computer-hogging, nag-mom-and-dad-cuz-he-wants-to-DRIVE teen.
IMHO, bedwetters aren’t going to be serial killers. Fire-starters aren’t going to be serial killers (although they may take up arson as a hobby, LOL). But if you have a kid doing those two things, and he suddenly starts cutting up the family kitty-cat, DO SOMETHING BEFORE he becomes a serial killer.
~VOW
Having read Douglas’ books, I don’t think he was saying that serial killers are a result of those three behaviors. He is saying, as has been pointed out above, that those behaviors were common in the childhoods of people who turned out to be serial killers. I tend to think that they all speak to the control issues already mentioned.
RR
I know this was just a ‘funny’, but it does touch on a very important point when we’re discussing these kinds of stats.
Evidence that Specific Group people exhibit traits X Y and Z is not evidence that people who exhibit these traits belong to this Specific Group. The correlation may work in one direction without working in the other direction. All top tennis players have a right foot and a nose. But there are lots of people with a right foot and a nose who aren’t top tennis players.
Likewise with common ‘traits’ of serial killers.
The second important point, of course, is that even valid correlation has nothing whatsoever to do with cause. Let’s suppose for a moment that the correlation between serial killers and youthful cruelty to animals is valid (something which I think is far from proved). Big freaking deal. I’ll bet every last one of them also ate potatoes as a kid and had seen at least one Disney character by the time they were 10. So what? So nothing.
It’s all very well for academics to find things for themselves to do, and compile these kinds of stats (otherwise they’d have to do something weird all day, like work for a living). I just wish they would remember to put a small sticker on the front of the research that says “All of which tells us diddly squat”.
The presence of the homicidal triad in an individual does not mean that individual will become a serial killer. The homicidal triad is now such a part of the popular mythology of the serial killer that it’s taken as fact, when it seems that in earlier literature it was more of an observation. And making such an observation is really quite useless from a law enforcement/jurisprudential perspective. The information with which the homicidal triad was created and theorized came from a group of individuals who, if we are to believe profilers and the like, are extremely skilled at deception and telling folks exactly what they want to hear in the interest of playing games with them (I don’t want to debate the truth of this notion; will it suffice to say that this is a common enough perception or characteristic of serial killer behavior?); in other words, the informant cannot even be trusted to provide a truthful answer. What strikes me as so inconsequential about things like the homicidal triad couched as something to look out for is that there’s no solution posed to it. Say you found 5-year-old little Mikey in the backyard, eviscerating a garden snake over a small fire while his urine-stained pajamas enter the rinse cycle in the washing machine; what’s a parent to do? I don’t know of any theories of managing such behavior and preventing a serial killer from evolving when the homicidal triad emerges; thus I agree with you, ianzin, when you say “all of which tells us diddly squat.”
To Brondicon:
Your Mikey scenario cracked me up; it sounds more like the kid was performing a ‘Survivors’ imitation than exhibiting the triad behavior.
Now, if Mikey had a bedwetting problem that existed no matter what you did (and you didn’t bug hell out of the poor kid), plus he burned down your house PLUS the neighborhood population of cats was dwindling abnormally, then I’d worry.
In my eyes, as I tried to explain in my post, INTERVENTION should be explored. Rather than waiting to see if Mikey does turn up on “America’s Most Wanted” in fifteen years, why not have the family doctor check out his waterworks, to see if he’s got some MEDICAL problem, and also haul his little heinie to the fire station to get some “Scared Straight” tactics?
And I’d say if he’s torturing cats, you got a problem child whether he wets the bed or not.
~VOW
Part of VOW’s post;
I think the most important part of this statement is the “-ing”. I’d venture that most kids (boys, anyway), at some point in their lives, has harmed an animal or set a fire. The significent thing is does the behavior continue, and what is the childs reaction to the experience.
I surely wouldn’t dismiss Mikey’s behavior as “diddly squat”. Not if it were habitual, and not if the kid showed no remorse.
Peace,
mangeorge
One reason I get so concerned about the whole “profiling” industry is because of the way in which it’s intruding into people’s every day lives.
In a way, it has for a long time. Your insurance premiums are calculated on actuarial tables and actuaries use statistics in a very specific kind of way to assign you to broad risk categories.
The problem arises when statistics collected for a given purposes or in a specific context are extrapolated to other situations. We should probably all being going nuts about pre-employment profiling and yet it’s becoming more and more common.
One really, really important aspect of criminal profiling is that you generally check the databases looking for known offenders with certain attributes - ie, these attributes are significantly strong enough in these individuals to have come to some kind of official notice in the past.
I know that everyone reads about the cases in which profiling seems to have been the key to finding a perpetrator, but you aren’t likely to read about the cases in which the original profile generated was total at odds with the person ultimately found to be responsible for the crime.
At best, profiling can give you a starting point when you have none - as can DNA evidence - but neither ever can, or ever should, replace good old-fashioned on the ground police work. It’s just too easy to create the model first and look for someone who fits it and become blinded to other possibilities.
We don’t know what the X factor is in serial killing (there are sure as heck a lot more kids out there who hurt animals, lit fires and wet the bed than have ever gone on to become serial killers) - we don’t even know if there is a factor X. We’re looking for patterns which might allows us to predict this behaviour, but those patterns might simply not exist.
If we conducted a study on attributes shared by Nobel Prize winners we could probably generate a “triad” of some sort which could be interpreted as a predictor - it doesn’t mean that model would have any valid application in the real world.
I unfortunately have suffered all three dispositions as defined by the MacDonald Triad. Obsessions with fire, abused as a child, both sexually and socially. And I used to abuse animals. I would say first off I was born and about 1.5 years after I was born my younger brother was born 3 months premature. My parents were constantly focused on my brother with the medical problems. When i was about 5 men in black suits came into my home and interrogated me and all my siblings because there was a man who was molesting kids in the neighborhood including my three older sibling and possibly myself. I only remember two incidences where i was possibly molested. My brain could have blocked the traumatic events out. The man responsible was found guilty and gets out in 2016. I am now 27. I abused animals (im not proud of anything I have done) all the way up until a couple years ago. I was obsessed with fire and quite often made napalm and watched it burn until it went out. In fact I still love fire and fire works as well as guns. I have never committed an act of violence against mankind. I used to wet the bed frequently as a child and i believe the last time I wet the bed was age 25 but had gone years since the last time i wet the bed at age 15. I was also diagnosed with LD and saw numerous counsellors and shrinks as well as help with my LD. Ive taken the iq test recently and scored a 140. According to the MacDonald Triad i should be the next serial killer. However I have matured and when i have seen red I still had the constraints to not lash out and violently harm anybody. I forgive my parents for the unintended abuse by not giving me enough attention and focusing on my health problematic brother and have made leaps and bounds in personal progress to be the man my father has said he is proud of. I don’t believe in the MacDonald Triad or triangle. I am living walking proof that someone who did suffer from all three and occasionally suffer from the bed wetting and love of fire can prove the MacDonald three wrong. This is only scratching the surface as to what I have done and am not proud of. It is very painful for me to bring up so i only bring up that which I can bare.