The Anatomy of Evil

by Michael H. Stone

  The violent crimes committed by certain psychotic persons are often so bizarre as to elicit the label of evil even more readily than some of the (far more common) violent crimes committed by psychopathsespecially serial killers and wife murderers who take great pains to evade detection. Tossing your father's head out the window to make sure it does not get "reattached" and result in still more cruel behavior from your father is quite crazy. The public's first reaction is completely understandable. It is when closer acquaintance with the offender's illness becomes possible, after psychiatric examination, that the public becomes aware that the act was evil, but the offenderthough perhaps still dangerous-was not so evil. The psychotic killer, for example, is often driven by fear and is not rational. To that extent he is less "evil" than is the rational and calculating psychopath who harms others not out of fear but out of self-aggrandizement or the quest for thrills.

  An even greater problem than the premature or ill-advised release of certain mentally ill patients is the premature release of certain offenders in our prisons. Prisoners greatly outnumber the mentally ill. In my records of serial killers, fully a fourth have been, through carelessness or improper evaluation, released into the community after having been incarcerated for rape or murder or both. In rare instances (as in the case of David Paul Brown/Nathaniel Bar-Jonah), pressure was brought from the outside despite the grave warnings issued by the hospital or prison staff. Premature release of a serial killer often results in the subsequent murder of a dozen, or even many dozens of victims. Since the mentally ill seldom murder in such numbers, the consequences of releasing a psychopath who has committed a rape-murder are much more serious. Let us focus on seven of the more well-known serial killers for the moment, following their premature or otherwise unwarranted release from prison for serious violent sexual crimes: William Bonin, Ted Bundy, Gary Heidnick, Ed Kemper, Clifford Olson, Derrick Todd Lee, and Jack Unterweger. All went on to rape and murder at least an additional 107 victims.

  One of the most egregious examples of the unwarranted release of a prisoner is that of serial killer Arthur Shawcross.34 Described as "diabolical" and "evil" by his schoolmates, Shawcross came from a working-class family in Watertown, New York. Humiliated and physically abused by his mother, he also suffered at least six serious head injuries with prolonged unconsciousness during his early years. A moody, friendless outcast in school, he was kept back three grades, dropping out when he was seventeen. He showed the "triad" of prolonged bed-wetting, fire setting, and animal torture-setting dogs and cats on fire, tying up cats and hurling them into the river, and pounding squirrels and chipmunks flat. At twenty-two, he went to Vietnam, where he boasted of fantastical exploits ("beheading mama-sans and nailing their heads to trees, as a warning to the Vietcong"), when in fact he never saw combat. Back in the United States, he raped and killed a boy and a girl back in his hometown and was given a lengthy sentence at Greenhaven prison. Inexperienced social workers and staff considered him "no longer dangerous," and after serving twelve years he was given an undeserved release by the governor of New York in 1984. A few years later, prostitutes in Rochester, New York, began disappearing-at least eleven that we know of. All were the victims of Arthur Shawcross, who, until his death in 2008, had been serving a life sentence (with no possibility of parole) at a different facility. Psychiatrists during his earlier incarcerations had assessed him (accurately) as a schizoid psychopath; their warnings about his dangerousness went unheeded. Shawcross was the embodiment of just about every risk factor mentioned in this book. A neuroscientist's nightmare, he was genetically disadvantaged, of below-average intelligence, brutalized, hypersexual, rageful, brain damaged, violent, and psychopathic-with all the callousness, grandiosity, deviousness, and lack of compassion that go to make up that personality configuration.

  The two rape-murders when he was twenty-seven should have been enough to ensure a life in prison. Because sexual crimes tend to be repeated, men committing rape, especially if followed by murder, require much stricter treatment by the courts than was given to Shawcross or the dozens of other serial killers who, having been given a "second chance," used it to add to their list of victims.

  A still more shocking example concerns serial killer Joseph Duncan, mentioned above. After a long series of rapes and murders of young boys, he was released as a "sex offender" (rather than as a "sex predator") thanks to a lax prison system. Reoffending shortly afterward (sexually groping a six-year-old boy), he manipulated a friend into putting up bail money-and then skipped bail. A month later, Duncan kidnapped a boy and a girl, after killing their mother, brother, and the mother's fiance. Taking them from Idaho to Montana, he raped and tortured them for two months, making a video of the torture, and finally killing the nineyear-old boy. The sister managed to escape further abuse when Duncan was apprehended with her while in a convenience store. Convicting Duncan in 2008 in Idaho, the jury recommended the death penalty. Because the public's reaction to the torture and murder of children is stronger than its reaction to the murder of prostitutes, Duncan's case embodies evil to an even greater extent than does Shawcross's. Most have forgotten that Shawcross got his start by killing two children. In the words of the grandmother of the last boy Duncan tortured and killed, "I see nothing but an evil, empty, cold-hearted shell."35 Both Shawcross and Duncan meet criteria for Category 22 on my scale; unlike Shawcross, Duncan came from a good home, was not abused, was very bright, and did not show the triad-though he did wet the bed until age thirteen. The factors behind his psychopathy seem attributable more to nature than to nurture. But it was the inappropriate release from prison that allowed both these sex offenders to continue their violent careers-their violence actually escalated in the postrelease years.

  Mass murder is a different matter. Those responsible for mass murder, such as the men discussed in chapter 5-though typically paranoid, disagreeable men like Thomas Hamilton, Seung-Hui Cho, and George Hennard-usually explode into violence without much warning. Since mass murder is all but impossible without guns, better gun control might reduce this form of evil. In the United States, with two guns for every three people, it is quixotic even to think of such a solution, though we might at least aim toward making AK-47s and other repeat weapons less available. They are not instruments for hunting, after all; they are meant for killing people. A shocking case came to light recently: Quentin Patrick, an ex-convict in South Carolina somehow mistook for a robber a twelve-year-old boy who was trick-or-treating on Halloween night and rang his doorbell. Patrick, who, as an ex-convict shouldn't have had a gun in the first place, shot thirty rounds into the boy with his AK-47, killing him instantly.36

  In chapter 9 there were illustrations of how alcohol and drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine can paralyze the "braking system" in persons contemplating acts of violence. It is an exercise in futility to aim at the eradication of the coca crop in Bolivia or the poppy crop in Afghanistan. "Meth" is home-grown in clandestine labs all around the United States. Cocaine and methamphetamine are, in effect, double evils, since they often ruin the lives of those addicted to them (leading them to turn to prostitution, robbery, and worse to maintain their habit), as well as the lives of those who are killed by the addicts during a violent crime. We would also have to include the lives lost to serial killers who prime themselves with such drugs before committing their murders. As a species, we evolved with brain wiring that makes us fear snakes, scorpions, spiders, and crocodiles. We cannot wait for evolution to solve the much more dangerous gun and drug problems. This becomes a task for the educational system. Since parents cannot always be relied on to instill the proper fear of these potential instruments of death and destruction, the schools should play a larger role in making children aware of the dangers. We do try to "hardwire" moral values (the Golden Rule) and survival values (cross the street on the green light) into young children. It would be good if we could add avoidance of drugs to the list of survival values.

  People summoned to jury duty are routinely taught how
our AngloAmerican justice system evolved from one of trial by fire or of draconian sentences for even minor offenses to a much fairer system based on the supposition of innocence until proven guilty. Sentencing was assigned in accordance with the seriousness of the offense; when an offender's time was served, his debt to society was paid. Our system offers justice to many but has proven at times inadequate when faced with certain repeat offenders, especially those with psychopathic personalities. Many such offenders know how to earn "time off for good behavior," and then resume their violent careers immediately upon release. Clifford Olson, currently residing in Vancouver's Supermax prison for the serial murder of eleven children, was asked by a journalist what he would do if he were ever released. Olson replied, "I'd take up where I left off," adding, when asked if he felt remorse toward the families, "If I gave a shit about the parents, I wouldn't have killed the kids."37

  The Canadian system is such that eligibility for parole is considered every two years even in a case like Olson's; a life sentence tends to mean only twenty-five years; a murderer can apply for early release after fifteen years.38 Olson's is not a debt that can ever be repaid, no matter the time he serves: he has put society on notice that he remains as dangerous as the day he was first incarcerated. This, and cases like this, argue for a justice system that is flexible enough to pay greater attention to the likelihood of continued dangerousness than to statutes stemming from earlier times, when some of the crimes most closely associated with the concept of evil (like serial sexual homicide) were scarcely known or rarely encountered.

  The Olson case and those like it point the way to something we actually have in our power to do: reduce the amount of evil in society. If we accept that evil equates with criminal acts that shock and horrify us-the central thesis in this book-then evil will always be with us. We cannot change heredity. We cannot eliminate head injury, mental illness, and drug abuse. But if we hone our skills in spotting dangerousness, and make sure that those whom we deem most dangerous remain separated from society either permanently or for very long periods, then the most dangerous offenders, once apprehended, will be less free to repeat their crimes. This is especially so with violent psychopathic offenders, in whom the likelihood of rehabilitation and redemption is vanishingly small. Olson, for example, before he embarked at age forty on his career of serial sexual homicide of some eleven children, had been jailed and released and jailed and released several dozens of times for assault, animal torture, armed robbery, and the like. There was a lot of handwriting on the wall. The courts could have intervened and seen to it that his career-and the careers of many like him-were thwarted at the earliest stage.

  Getting to know certain violent criminals through personal interviews and as their lives unfold over time can teach us another important-and more hopeful-point. Some persons regarded as evil early in their criminal careers do turn out to be capable of redemption as they mature over the years. We saw this in the example of Archie McCafferty (chapter 5). Despite the tumultuousness of his earlier years, he emerged as a man capable of compassion and a measure of remorse; his personality was clearly antisocial at first but lacked the psychopathic traits of utter callousness, conning, and the other extreme narcissistic traits. Early appearances to the contrary, he turned out to be salvageable. An even more compelling example is that of Billy Wayne Sinclair, mentioned in chapter 1.39 Sinclair committed a murder during an armed robbery but proved himself in prison to be a man of strong moral values. He was the "whistleblower" who exposed the corruption of the parole system in his prison. As I learned from him, the relatives of the victim will never forgive him. Though their sentiments are understandable, their hardheartedness is, I believe, misplaced: Billy Wayne Sinclair, now in his sixties, is clearly a redeemed man, an upright citizen, and a credit to the community.

  Arthur Shawcross, who should never have been released, was-and went on to kill a dozen more people; Billy Sinclair, who should have been released after a reduced sentence, nearly died in the electric chair and was fated to die of old age in prison, until, nearing sixty, he finally was released. The system is not perfect. We need to pay more attention to the subtleties of personality, becoming more restrictive with the psychopathic killers and more liberal with the nonpsychopathic prisoners who begin to show genuine signs of remorse, reform, and redemption. Redemption is not a possibility for all. Redemption is akin in the spiritual sense to what salvageability is in the realm of treatment. Essential ingredients would be remorse, a capacity for guilt, and some ability to make the transition from contempt to compassion for the kinds of persons one formerly singled out to victimize. Those who have made a career out of systematic torture-Theresa Knorr, David Parker Ray, David Paul Brown, Robert Berdella'40 Mike DeBardeleben, Belgium's pedophile torturer Marc Dutroux, Spain's Francisco Montes-lacked those ingredients. Some (Brown, Berdella, Montes) had never established a friendship, let alone an intimate relationship, with anyone their whole life. All were at the far end of the scale (22) and were beyond redemption. Some had their humanity knocked out of them by extreme parental cruelty (Berdella, DeBardeleben); we can at least sympathize with the dehumanizing forces to which they were exposed in their earliest days. Others had decent parents and arrived at their inhumanity via less obvious routes.

  But even among the torturers are some in whom we can spot islands of humanity, qualities that allow us to sympathize; they behaved monstrously at times, but, in line with Slavenka Drakulic's understanding, they were not simply "monsters." Ian Brady, mentioned briefly in chapter 1, is a case in point. For years, this man, who recorded the screams of the children he strangled in the English moor country, was my exemplar of the worst human being ever-in peacetime, that is. This was until I learned of the considerably worse tortures to which Leonard Lake and David Parker Ray subjected their victims. But Brady, one of the most intelligent and literate of the serial killers, wrote me a letter not long ago, now that he has spent some forty years in prison, in which he reminisced about the gourmet restaurants and delicatessens he enjoyed during his visits to the United States (before the murders). Brady has refused to eat these past few years and is kept alive by force-feeding through a stomach tube. He asked me for a map of the places he had visited in the United States, adding wistfully that, as he has no present nor future any longer, he has only the past. Prevented these past two-thirds of his seventy years from committing more of the vicious acts of the first third, these islands of humanity have become a bit more visible in this otherwise intensely narcissistic man. These islands are visible, if we peer long enough and hard enough, in a fair number of the men and women whose acts in peacetime reached the level of evil. More often this will be the case with those in the lower categories of the scale; occasionally, even with a serial killer who was not given to torture. This was something I learned only when I began to make personal acquaintance with a fair number of these otherwise "monstrous" killers. Getting to know murderers committing evil acts allows for distinctions one cannot draw from books alone. Actually this thought condensed in my mind only recently. The idea came in the form of a dream I had on August 17, 2008:

  I'm home with another man: an elderly, rather diminutive man dressed in a pajama-like outfit. We are trying to get the old man to talk about his past. He seemed to be on a pass from prison where he had been interred because he had been a serial killer. The man is very reticent to talk about his childhood, though he mentions that he was raised by his mother, since his father had absconded from the family. I go to the dining room at one point. The old man follows and gets into conversation with my wife, who, quite unafraid, chats with him in her usual amiable way. I feel nervous, wondering, what if he reverts to his old ways, what with all the knives in the dining room drawers? But he remains harmless, and moments later answers his cell phone-and begins crying. He mutters something in Russian. I ask him, in Russian, "Shto slucheelos?"-What happened? He indicates that some woman he had been fond of had just rejected him. I feel sorry for him.

  Shortl
y before the dream, I had been reading a letter that a former serial killer, Dennis Nilsen (mentioned in chapter 7), had sent me from the prison where he has been for the past twenty-five years. He closed his letter with a poem he had written that touched on his lifelong and intense loneliness. Nilsen had been raised mainly by his mother and her father, whose death was the traumatic event of Nilsen's early years. Here is a portion of his poem:

  His letter put me in mind of what my mentor in forensic psychiatry, Dr. Charles Smith, once said about evil: there are no evil people, only evil acts. I believe what he meant was that there are no people who shock us with their acts of violence and harm throughout the whole of their lives. He is largely right, but not entirely right. Many of the serial killers and other murderers I came to know around the country had been languishing in prison for a very long time. Capture having abbreviated their careers in evil, their human feelings had been able, in several of them, to rise to the surface. These were mostly the men and women who had led "double lives." They had friends, lovers, mates, but they sneaked off at odd hours to commit atrocious acts. This was true of Dennis Nilsen, Ian Brady, Dennis Rader, Tommy Lynn Sells, Sante Kimes, and Gary Ridgway. But then there were those-the exceptions that proved Dr. Smith's rule-who had no remorse, no redeeming features, no possibility of cure, persons in whom the propensity for evil was pervasive and without end. Here I think of David Paul Brown/Nathaniel Bar Jonah, Ed Sexton, Dale Pierre, Phil Skipper, Charles Manson, Mike DeBardeleben, and Angels of Death such as Dr. Harold Shipman and Dr. Michael Swango.