The Anatomy of Evil

by Michael H. Stone

  ADVANCE PRAISE FOR THE ANATOMY OF EVIL

  "The fluid, articulate style of this studious yet accessible volume attests to the impressive breadth and depth of Dr. Stone's knowledge about the people who've committed the world's most evil acts. Using psychology, religion, philosophy, and neuroscience, he dissects this complex concept in the form of case study and presents a concise and profound analysis. A great read for scholars and laypeople alike. You won't forget these stories! It's everything you ever wanted to know about evil but were too afraid to ask."

  -Dr. Katherine Ramsland, professor of forensic psychology and chair of social sciences, DeSales University; author of Inside the Minds of Serial Killers and The Human Predator

  "Only a person of Dr. Stone's stature could address so complex an issue. For years he has led the effort to better understand the perverse depth of the most heinous of criminal minds. This book sheds a bright light on the darkness of those same minds."

  -Roy Hazelwood, FBI (ret.)

  "In this fascinating and compelling work, Dr. Michael Stone leads the way on a dark and irresistible journey. Down each path and around every corner the Face of Evil is ever changing-everything from the fresh `innocent' faces of the seemingly benign Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo ... to the malicious and haunting faces of Charles Manson and Richard `Night Stalker' Ramirez.... Powerful and riveting!"

  -Carol Rothgeb-Stokes, author of Hometown Killer and No One Can Hurt Him Anymore

  "Dr. Stone's groundbreaking work is a must read for everyone involved in the criminal justice system, and for everyone else who wants to better understand the concept of evil and those to whom it applies."

  -Peter Davidson, journalist and true crime author

  The ANATOMY of

  EVIL

  The ANATOMY of

  EVIL

  MICHAEL H. STONE, MD

  for Ben Carey and for Meg

  CONTENTS

  Introduction 9

  Chapter One Evil in Peacetime 27

  Chapter Two Crimes of Impulse: 53 Murders of Jealousy and Rage

  Chapter Three Other Crimes of Impulse: 85 Emphasis on Antisocial Persons

  Chapter Four Murder on Purpose: 115 The Psychopathic Schemers

  Chapter Five Spree and Mass Murder: 141 Evil by the Numbers

  Chapter Six The Psychopath Hard at Work 165

  Chapter Seven Serial Killers and Torturers 195

  Chapter Eight The Family at its Worst 243

  Chapter Nine Science Looks at Evil 285

  Final Thoughts 331

  Afterword by Dr Otto F Kernberg 357

  Acknowledgments 361

  Notes 363

  Index 405

  INTRODUCTION

  Canto III, 11. 3-9

  Per me si va nella citta dolente Per me si va nell' eterno dolore Per me si va tra la perduta gente Giustizia mosse it mio alto Fattore; Fecetni la divina potestate, La somma sapienza e `1 primo amore. Dinanzi a inc non fuor cose create Se non etterne, ed io etterno duro. Lasciate ogee speranza, voi ch'intrate.

  Through me the way to the grieving city, through me the way into eternal sorrow, through inc the way among the lost people. Justice moved my high Maker; divine power made me, highest wisdom and primal love. Before inc were no things created except eternal ones, and I endure eternal. Give up all hope, ye who enter.

  Tr.: Robert M. Durling

  The Divine Comedy of Dante, vol. 1: Inferno New York: Oxford University Press, 1996

  he aim of this book is to understand evil. To demystify evil altogether would be much too ambitious a task. I am committed, however, to the belief that we can make sense of a good portion of what goes by the name of evil, though there will remain areas that will continue to baffle us. We can assume that those territories on the grand map of evil will, through scientific inquiry, be rendered smaller with each succeeding generation.

  Along the path of our investigation, there will be several high hurdles to clear. We need, for example, to reach an acceptable definition of evil. The question must be addressed: who, if anyone, is qualified to make judgments about evil? There is also the problem of how to agree upon the legitimate domain within which evil can meaningfully be said to exist. If evil emerges as a legitimate topic for discussion, as I believe it is, are there important differences between what is considered evil in times of war or group conflict and what we may regard as evil committed by individuals in peacetime?

  DEFINING EVIL

  There is a close connection between our ideas about evil as an abstract concept and the religious sources in which these ideas are rooted. The very term itself occurs some 604 times in the Bible (Old and New Testaments together) but covers a wide array of human failings and crimesfrom seemingly minor acts, like touching creatures that crawl, to abominations like incest and murder. There are lengthy lists of evils to be found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, including those embodied in the Ten Commandments. In the New Testament we find another such list in Paul's Epistle to the Galatians.) There, Paul inveighs against fifteen wrongful attitudes and behaviors: among them jealousy, debauchery, selfishness; religious acts such as idolatry and heresy; and also acts associated with violence: hatred and murder. In the Bible "evil" is equated with "wrong" or "bad" and is not limited as a label to be reserved for the worst of the bad or wrong actions to which we are prone. This same global use of evil is found in the Koran as well.' The third-century Persian prophet Mania (from whom Manichaeism is derived), divided human experience, as had Zoroaster4 before him, into Good and Bad. Zoroaster ascribed Good and Bad to two twin gods representing these influences: a god of light and the good (Ahura Mazda), and a god of darkness and the bad or evil (Ahriman). Buddhism emphasizes, besides lust as a primary sin, a tripartite concept that gives special weight to anger, greed, and foolishness.5

  Religion has played a powerful role in shaping our ideas about evil. Many insist that discussion of the subject is legitimate only when put forward either by religious leaders-whether the clergy or professors of theology-or else by philosophers. Philosophers are the other group to whom we have ceded over the centuries the privilege of instructing us on matters of good and evil. Meanwhile, one will search in vain for a useful working definition from the earlier of these sources. There are, however, a few contemporary philosophers, most notably Susan Neiman, who have contributed importantly to the problems inherent in creating a useful definition.6 Neiman states, in fact, that her book will not offer a definition, nor does she think an intrinsic property of evil can be defined, though she adds that to call something evil is a way of marking the fact that "it shatters our trust in the world."7 Similarly controversial: how to draw the line where the "very bad" ends and the "truly evil" begins.

  There might be near-universal agreement about the opposite ends-the somewhat bad (slapping one's child) and the extremity of evil (Auschwitz in wartime; raping a child, in peacetime), as Delbanco mentions'-but there will always be a gray zone in the middle, where opinion is far from unanimous. Further on, Neiman helps us distinguish between natural versus moral evil, reminding us that earthquakes and floods had been seen in the past as natural evils, often inflicted upon us by a deity as a punishment for our sins. Moral evils are those that we ourselves initiate. Since most of us no longer consider natural disasters as stemming from divine retribution, if we speak of them as "evil," we are doing so metaphorically. This book concerns only the evil acts for which we are alone responsible-the moral evils. Religious doctrines converge in holding us responsible in this sphere, as conveyed in the Koran, where it is written: "Whatever benefit comes to you, o Man, it is from Allah, and whatever misfortune befalls you, it is from yourself."9 Passages like that, also found in the Old and New Testaments, situate evil in us, where it admittedly
belongs, but do not further define its nature or boundaries.

  Brian Masters, who wrote an excellent biography of the serial killer Dennis Nilsen, is no stranger to the concept-and the enigma-of evil.lo Evil, for him, is "an occult word meaning little more in reality than conduct which is so bad that it is better left unexamined.""

  It would be convenient if we could at least define "absolute evil" and if we could answer the equally elusive question: can one be born "evil"? Answers to such questions would be comforting to philosophers and to the legal community. But the answer to the first question is not to be found, and the second answer is simply "no."" To define and describe absolute evil would require, it seems to me, a universal agreement among people of good will-philosophers, theologians, medicolegal experts, and people in ordinary life-as to what the characteristics of this extreme phenomenon might actually be. One would like to think that the death camps of Auschwitz or one of the other twentieth-century genocides would earn this kind of unanimity, but we know that there remain groups here and there who think differently. Perhaps the rape and murder of a child would serve as our high-water mark for an absolute evil. And for 99 percent of us that probably would fit, but there is still that 1 percent who would differ. To be "born evil" could only mean that some infant, crippled by a perverse twist of the genetic code, would grow up, in no matter how loving, harmonious, and even prosperous a family, to commit acts, repetitively and undeterrably, that the community regarded as evil. This would be the "vicious mole of nature" that Hamlet spoke of to Horatio, cited by Masters in his persuasive argument that "good and bad are coexistent and part of one another, and harmony emerges from the correct and decent balance between the two."13 Born evil? I know of no such person, even in the annals of crime or in the biographies of despots. The answer here is no.

  So far, this may seem like an exercise in futility-we cannot define evil in a useful way or even establish a meaningful hierarchy or scale of evil acts. But before I share with you my working definition of evil and my approach to measuring evil, I need to say something about what it means to make judgments of this sort in the first place.

  MAKING JUDGMENTS ABOUT EVIL

  Some people feel strongly that no one has the right to make judgments about evil. Religious people in particular hold to the view that God is the final, perhaps the only rightful, arbiter of such decisions. Since He does not speak to us directly, many religious people are willing to make the compromise, allowing for clergymen, God's earthly representatives, to make such judgments. Philosophers, because of their wisdom, and especially those far in the past, have also been privileged in this regard. Within Christianity, Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas were doubly privileged, since they were men of holy orders in addition to being philosophers. In Judaism, certain revered rabbis like Maimonides occupy almost as hallowed a place in making such decisions. In Islam, the word of Mohammed, as Allah's prophet, enjoys more than respect: it has the force of law.

  People raised in a humanistic but not-so-religious a tradition may give more weight to the opinions of philosophers than of clergymen. It is rare, however, for either leaders of the various faiths or secular philosophers to get down to actual cases. What we are left with are guidelines and prescriptive comments, such as the generalities of St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians or the outlines for good and bad behaviors in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Detailed clinical descriptions of individuals-what we would consider case histories-are seldom found before the late eighteenth century, except in the biographies of kings and aristocrats.14

  Another complicating factor lies in the different tone of the Old and New Testaments. Although God is still the Final judge in both, in the Old Testament, men of blameless lives are accorded the privilege of making judgments. "In righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbors"as we are told in Leviticus." The prophet Ezekiel strikes a more ominous note in his diatribe against what he saw as the sinfulness of Israel in his day: "Now is the end come upon thee [land of Israel] and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thy abominations."16 ("Recompense" here means to pronounce sentence or to penalize, not to repay someone a debt.) The tone is not as harsh in the New Testament. In fact, we find Jesus saying: "Judge not that ye be not judged,"17 adding a little further on: "And why beholdest the mote in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"18

  Writing as a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, I face another high hurdle. Psychiatrists are taught not to make moral judgments about their patients. This cautionary note is sounded even more emphatically in psychoanalysis. The early generation of psychoanalysts recognized, however, that people who habitually violated societal norms were not good candidates for their method of treatment. Freud had said a hundred years ago, for example, that if one were to benefit from psychoanalysis, it was essential to have a good character. As a method of understanding the inner workings of people, irrespective of their moral standing, psychoanalysis retains its usefulness. In subsequent generations, a few psychoanalysts did begin to work with delinquent adolescents, modifying their treatment methods so as to encourage the development of "prosocial" habits that would replace the earlier antisocial habits. Other forms of therapy might still prove effective for patients of a more questionable character. The physician's model of offering treatment to all, while withholding judgment, is no less honored in psychiatry than in medicine in general. But psychiatrists, in their other role as ordinary citizens, make moral judgments all the time, the same as everyone else. Men committing rape or serial sexual homicide seldom make it to the analyst's couch. Such men avoid self-revelation and generally commit their acts unburdened by the shame or guilt that would propel someone else to seek psychiatric help. Psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, reading about such individuals in the newspapers or hearing about them on the television, certainly make moral judgments: "Those were atrocious things to do," or perhaps even, "That was an evil act."

  As for this kind of shift between a doctor's professional versus public self, I am reminded of some incidents in New York's Bellevue Hospital half a century ago. One incident concerns a police van that had brought a prisoner to the parking lot within view of the unit where I was working as an intern. When let out of the van, the prisoner, his arms and legs bound in chains, tried to escape, hopping as best he could away from the van. The police shot the man in the back. That was their job: to prevent escape. Thus immobilized, he was carried straightway to the emergency ward just on the other side of the parking lot. There, the surgeons immediately began stanching the bleeding and extracting the bullets. That was their job: to save the man's life, never mind that he was a prisoner. Some time later, I was working in that emergency ward, where an alcoholic man, drifting in and out of consciousness, was getting care for a nasty cut on the palm of his hand. Whenever the man was unconscious, the surgeon was busy stitching up the large wound. Whenever the man awoke for a bit, he would hurl vehement curses and racial epithets at the surgeonwho paused momentarily in his efforts until the man became stuporous again. This back-and-forth routine continued a few times until the stitching was completed. It would have been unethical for the physician to have refused to treat the man because of his insulting behavior.

  In the face of all the religious injunctions and moral constraints against making judgments about evil, what is a psychiatrist writing on this subject to do? How might I extricate myself from the ethical quicksand that grips whoever enters this territory? The way out, I believe, is to be found by turning to the public. People in everyday life, as it turns out-including authors of books on crime, journalists, commentators in the media-all use the word evil quite frequently and freely, in describing certain varieties of violent crime and certain perpetrators of these crimes. And they-or, rather, we-do so without much attention to the supernatural, metaphysical, ineffable, "occult" overtones with which the term is otherwise so loaded. And in their reactions to violent crimes of a particularly depraved natu
re, clergymen, philosophers, judges, attorneys, psychiatrists, and other physicians, reacting as private citizens to the events of the day, also speak of evil, and do so with great regularity.

  It is on this general usage that I base my own impressions about evil. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said: "The meaning of a word is its usage.'" Well and good. So besides the (maddeningly vague) use of evil in religion and philosophy, there is also the often quite specific use of the term, authorized, as it were, by the public in everyday speech. Reminiscent of the Hungarian saying, "If three people call you a horse, buy a saddle!" if a judge, journalist, and the public concur that a particular crime was evil-well, then, it was evil. For that establishes the meaning of evil-down here on earth. If we can accept this as a working definition of the concept, we need not feel so self-conscious in calling certain acts "evil," as though we had intruded upon a space reserved for the clergy.

  As I will show in more detail in the first chapter, this is the approach I will rely on in my discussion of evil. Further, I hope to show that certain acts of violence or otherwise hurtful actions are seen as underlying this notion of evil-to a greater extent than other not-quite-so-dreadful actions. This makes the fashioning of a scale for capturing these community-based distinctions at least a thinkable enterprise-one that is worthy of scientific inquiry. And these community-based distinctions, legitimate as they appear in the here and now, are not necessarily permanent or eternal.

  CULTURE AND ERA

  Because a community is an organic entity that grows, changes, and evolves over time, prevailing opinions about what is or is not evil are subject to modifications from one geographic setting and from one historical period to another. Perhaps the closest we come to a universal is murder-regarded as wrongful (by definition) and often enough as evil across all cultures and in all eras. With rape, in contrast, the story is different. The position of women was hardly the same in the times of the Old Testament as it is now in the "developed" countries. Wherever women cease to be men's property or chattel, attitudes toward rape undergo corresponding changes. There wasn't a separate word for rape in the Old Testament, but there are references to forced sex. Fine dis tinctions were drawn. If a man forced sex on a betrothed virgin in the field, she was considered blameless. If she cried and there was none to save her, the man was put to death. But if a man forced sex on a virgin that was not betrothed, then the man must pay fifty shekels (about a third of a year's wages) to her father and must marry her-without the possibility of divorce.20 Presumably the sex was not consensual (this was three thousand years before the Pill and Women's Liberation, after all), so the girl was in effect compelled to marry her rapist, without much thought being given to her feelings in the matter. What we now view as a big evil was in that era and culture a relatively small evil.