There have been several threads that I’ve seen here that have suggested that there is some link between childhood bed-wetting and becoming a serial killer as an adult. Where did this belief originate?
I’m not sure if they mean that all bed-wetters become killers, or that all killers used to wet the bed. What evidence is there to support this claim?
Thanks.
The only mention I have seen of it is the so-called “homicidal triad”. Criminologists claim that a large majority of serial killers and sociopaths display three common behaviors early in life.
Everything I’ve seen states that all three behaviors must be present to be indicative of anything. I’ve never seen the claim that bedwetting alone is significant.
Wheww!! Only 2 out of 3. (Try and guess which ones, I think you’ll be pleasently surprised 
)
most of this information comes from interviews by forensic psychologists with serial killers and their relatives and childhood acquaintances. There are also some journalists who have done similar interviews. It’s estimated that as many as 60% of serial killers had bedwetting problems past adolescence. bedwetting is so common in multiople murderers that it’s part of the “triad” of serial killing, along with pyromania and animal torture.
My brother did all three.
Not so much the firestarting. He did some but not as much as some other kids I knew.
Good thing I don’t talk to him anymore.
I think there’s one missing factor; most serial killers were the victims of child abuse.
But the fact that someone started fires, wet the bed, tortured animals, and was abused does not make someone a killer. It’s a one-way correlation.
I knew about the pyromania and animal abuse, but I had never heard about bed-wetting. Anybody know of any theories as to what the bedwetting stems from or signifies? I mean, the fire/torture thing suggests a penchant for death and destruction, but the whole bedwetting thing doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
I seem to recall reading somewhere - sorry, no cite to hand - that it has something to do with rejecting authority.
Parents trying to teach you how to be a grown up an you resent them getting on your case, so you defy them by wetting the bed?
Dunno if that makes it conscious and willful defiance or if it is subconscious defiance.
I suspect that those things are symptoms of emotional problems. That is not to say that they couldn’t also be symptoms of something else (ie you wet the bed because of some bladder disfunction instead of some developmental issue).
I think it also goes a little beyond mere playing with fireworks or teasing the fat kid in gym class.
The problem I have with the “psychopathic triad” is that to me, it looks like a monad. If a kid is torturing animals, I’m going to be worried, no matter what else he does. If I was looking at a kid who liked ice cream, avoided homework, and tortured animals, I’d be worried about that, too.
It’s not useful to say that x% of psychopaths show a certain trait, unless you also have the figure for how many in the general populace also show that trait (and preferably, error bars for both). From all I’ve heard, bedwetting is not an uncommon behaviour, and I’ve yet to meet a teenage boy who doesn’t like starting fires (possibly teenage girls, too, but I haven’t gone on as many campouts with girls, so I can’t say).
And there’s no such thing as a one-way correlation. If psychopaths are more likely than the general population to show trait X, then people who show trait X are more likely than the general population to be psychopathic.
That’s right. Serial murder is 10% fire, bedwetting, animal torture, and abuse, and 90% perspiration.
The homicidal triad doesn’t refer to bedwetting at an age when its common, starting fires at a campout, or occasionally teasing the fat kid. It refers to bedwetting past puberty (when it is very uncommon), setting socially unacceptable fires just to watch them burn ( it’s socially acceptable to set a campfire or light a fireplace just to watch it burn. Not true for setting a dumpster , car or building on fire to watch it burn.) and threats or physical cruelty to other children or animals. It doesn’t apply to everyone who could be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (which need not involve violence) or even all killers.
You’re right that torturing other children or animals is a cause for concern in itself. But I’m not so sure that the other two behaviors are seen as concerns in themselves, although they probably should be.
As for numbers, I found this at http://www.geocities.com/drkjohnson1/v1i2.html#Partello
Equally true, nearly all serial killers have served in the US Armed Forces. (The exceptions are the gay ones, who probably wouldn’t have been allowed in the service anyway.)
So we can say serving in the Armed Forces leads to serial killing?
Nonsense! All these after-the-fact groupings are a known logical fallicy.
This would only be meaningful if it could be used predictively. If you could identify via common characteristics a restricted group where the majority of them turned out to be serial killers. But, for example, there are thousands of bed-wetters, thousands of children abused every year, etc., but we only have 1 or 2 serial killers in any year.
Well, if I met a kid who wet the bed until the age of 16, liked to set stuff on fire, beat animals, was abused, and whose life ambition was to go into the armed forces, I’d keep an eye on him.
–Hijack-- According to Mind Hunter by John Douglas, nearly all serial killers at some point WANT to serve in either the armed forces or the police department. After all, they are often looking to prove their control and dominance, and what better way than training to arrest/kill people. Fortunately, most of them never make it past the Psych tests.
That is all.
No, there definitely is some kind of link. Obviously as you (and I and everyone else here) has noted it’s not a one to one correlation. But even a one way link is meaningful.
To use the example you gave (although personally I’d never heard of it) if 20% of the general population served in the armed forces and 70% of serial killers served in the Armed Forces than there’s almost certainly more than random chance at work. Especially if you adjust for other factors like gender, race, age, economic background, etc and still see such an abnormal correlation.
And this information can be used predictively. To give another example, every President of the United States has been white, a man, a Christian, and has not been an only child. So I can with strong statistical evidence predict that the person who gets elected President in 2008 will be a white male Christian with a brother or sister. The fact that the majority of white male Christians with a brother or sister are not going to be elected President doesn’t refute the evidence.