Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior

by Robert I. Simon

  4. Deviant

  The thinking of persons who ultimately explode into violent acts is usually quite different from that of most people. It is odd and extreme. Although such thinking may result from an overt mental disorder, it may also be a manifestation of an eccentric and deviant personality. For instance, the Canadian killer Marc Lepine saw women as the source of all his troubles and wrote that “feminists have always had a talent for enraging me.” Low self-esteem and blaming others for one’s problems dominate the thoughts of many persons who commit workplace violence. This is deviant thinking, no less so than the thoughts of the white supremacist who killed a plastic surgeon for creating “ersatz Aryans,” or Gian Luigi Ferri’s invectives against the Food and Drug Administration concerning the food additive MSG. Such individuals often have an arsenal of weapons stashed at home, for defense against the dangers they perceive based on their crank conspiratorial theories.

  5. Distant

  With a few rare exceptions, workplace killers are loners. Their lack of meaningful contact with other human beings is almost always a symptom of underlying mental and emotional difficulties. Moreover, the scarcity of human contact removes from these loners a potentially critical brake on their aberrant thinking and behavior. People who are regularly in touch with others are more likely to check their thoughts and perceptions with them and to use the feedback to keep themselves within the bounds of normality. Those who are out of touch with people are more likely to become even further out of touch.

  6. Dangerous

  Like rattlesnakes, people who commit workplace violence usually give warning: they communicate their threats, either overtly or covertly. They do so regularly, over time, escalating the warnings to the point that when the carnage erupts, few who knew them are surprised by it. Potential workplace killers often are fascinated by firearms. Many of them have had military training, or own firearms and are known to be proficient in their use. Some have a history of prior violence that is contained in their criminal or military records. Thomas McIlvane, who killed four fellow postal workers, had been thrown out of the Marine Corps for running over a fellow Marine’s car with a tank. The best predictor of future violence is past violence.

  7. Disrupted Relationships

  Most workplace killers are alienated from their families. Many are divorced. Few have any meaningful relationships. The smoldering rage and hatred resulting from wrecked marital and familial relations can erupt into violence in another arena: the workplace. James Edward Pough’s wife walked out of their marriage a few months before his car was repossessed by General Motors Acceptance Corporation. He later went on a rampage against the offices of the financing agency, murdering eight employees and a patron.

  8. Dyscontrol

  Temper tantrums, violent outbursts, and run-ins with the law are commonly found in the background of some perpetrators of workplace violence. The ex-Marine McIlvane had been disciplined for fighting with postal patrons and for cursing out a supervisor. In such men, the ability to control their violent outbursts is clearly deficient. They seek to resolve conflicts through actions, not through words. And neurological disorders or brain injuries can loosen whatever control they do have. The beginning of loss of control may be signaled by the perpetrator who speaks louder than usual, is easily startled, and becomes increasingly impatient and irritable.

  9. Drugs and Alcohol

  The use and abuse of drugs and alcohol are well known disinhibitors of violent impulses. Like brain injuries or neurological disorders, they loosen control over violent propensities that the individual may have, leading to outbursts of uncontrollable behavior. Generally, too, people who abuse such substances are found to have underlying personality disorders. Individuals with borderline and antisocial personalities are capable of committing violent acts, and are rendered more so by using drugs and alcohol. Postal worker John Taylor’s alcohol consumption was known to have increased before his rampage. It likely fueled his unfounded suspicions that he was going to be set up and made to appear as though he was unlawfully accepting money on his mail route.

  A small subset of workplace killings are unplanned. Some individuals, intoxicated on drugs, commit murders outside of work and then go to the workplace and kill again. Ramon Salcido stayed out much of one night drinking and taking drugs. Early the next morning, he took his daughters, ages 1, 2, and 4, to a county dump and cut their throats. Somehow, the youngest child survived. Salcido then drove to his inlaws’ house, where he killed his mother-in-law and her two children. He returned home and killed his wife. Salcido then drove to the winery in Sonoma, California, where he worked. There he killed one employee and wounded another.

  10. Down and Out

  Employees who turn violent in the workplace are at the end of their emotional, personal, and financial ropes. Consumed with rage, they feel they have nothing to lose by going on a rampage. They see this as a final opportunity to turn the tables on coworkers and superiors who had once appeared to them invulnerable and to force these tormentors to experience vulnerability. Most workplace killers are in their thirties or forties and have failed to meet their occupational goals. Also, over the course of their working years they have accumulated personal and job setbacks to the point that they feel they are at a dead end. Joseph Wesbecker, described in the next section, fit this description. It takes time, augmented by bad experiences, to make a workplace killer.

  Three Life and Death Histories

  In the backgrounds of Gian Luigi Ferri, Joseph Wesbecker, and Patrick Henry Sherrill, many of the behavioral aspects of the workplace killer listed in Table 6–1 can be observed.

  When Ferri’s carnage at Pettit and Martin was over, his ex-wife could not believe that her former husband could have been the perpetrator because “the man I married hated violence.” Nor could one of Ferri’s former assistants at his failed mortgage company, who said, “You don’t expect that from someone you know, no matter how lonely and sad and miserable he is.”

  Ferri immigrated to the United States in 1964. He studied biology and psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, from which he received a bachelor’s degree. Thereafter, he worked as a mental health counselor for the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services. He married and divorced quickly. After his divorce, Ferri did volunteer work for the televangelist Reverend Terry ColeWhittaker, a former Mrs. California. He adopted her slogan, “Prosperity, Your Divine Right,” but prosperity did not shine on him. He was involved in a failed Midwestern trailer park venture and got legal counsel from Pettit and Martin. Not satisfied with their work, he eventually turned to another law firm and won a million-dollar settlement.

  Ferri tried other ventures, all of which went under. He slid into financial decline. At work in his own firm, he displayed an explosive temper. His former assistant later noted that Ferri did not know such basic things as the procedure for verifying bank deposits. Ferri found himself unable to pay the rent on his one-bedroom apartment, where he lived alone. He received a notice that gave him 2 weeks to pay the money he owed or be evicted.

  Although he had won a million dollars in his lawsuit, Ferri continued to harbor resentment against the legal system. It was that resentment that he focused on Pettit and Martin. When his rampage was over, a four-page letter was found on his body. Part of it said, “I spent the last 13 years trying to find legal recourse and to get back on my feet, only to find a wall of silence and corruption from the legal community.” He also blamed the food additive MSG for having nearly killed him on three occasions. Later, a videotape was found that showed him, weeks before the carnage, taking target practice in the Mojave desert.

  Joseph Wesbecker, unlike Ferri, had been previously known as a violent person. When the emotionally disabled employee showed up unexpectedly at the Standard Gravure Corporation in Louisville, Kentucky, his recent history of violent tendencies and mental disturbances was well known to management. For the past 13 months he had been considered disabled and was on disability pay at
60% of his annual salary.

  Wesbecker had begun working for Standard Gravure 20 years earlier. In the company, which prints Sunday supplements and inserts for newspapers, he had been very well liked by coworkers. However, his “nice-guy” image had begun to change with the onset of emotional problems and a divorce. Coworkers became worried when he began to read Soldier of Fortune magazine and when he let them know he had ordered through the mail an Uzi semiautomatic weapon.

  Wesbecker went to management and requested a less demanding position because of his mental and emotional troubles. He became very agitated because he had been assigned to work on equipment that caused him extreme stress. Wesbecker believed that fumes from a chemical used in the printing plant were causing his physical ailments. A doctor’s report supported the request, and although Standard Gravure rejected it, the company did put him on disability. Wesbecker felt that the employer had inflicted a gross injustice upon him, considering his long years of service. Coworkers noted that his emotional problems seemed to get worse after that happened. Wesbecker clashed with management and openly complained to his union and to coworkers that he was being treated unfairly. Union officials learned from him that he was bitter toward the owner and CEO of Standard Gravure, as well as toward certain supervisors in the pressroom. He was worried that his disability benefits would end and that he would be left with nothing.

  Wesbecker tried to commit suicide three times, and was, in the opinion of coworkers, becoming more paranoid each day. He was taking the antidepressant medication Prozac (fluoxetine). During the year he was on disability, Wesbecker made threats that he would get even with Standard Gravure. So it was no surprise to some coworkers when one morning he entered the plant carrying an AK-47 semiautomatic assault rifle, two MAC 11 semiautomatic pistols, a 9-mm semiautomatic pistol, and a .38-caliber revolver with assorted ammunition and began shooting. Within a few minutes, he had killed 8 people, wounded 14 others, and taken his own life. In the lawsuit that followed, a jury found that Prozac did not cause the violence. Patrick Henry Sherrill was a 44-year-old part-time mailman in Edmond, Oklahoma. He had held his job for only 16 months, and during that time he had been suspended twice, once for failing to deliver mail and being rude to patrons, and a second time for spraying a dog with Mace. Coworkers thought him a total incompetent, unable to even find the local Wal-Mart. In fact, he was a strange and lonely man. He had no personal ties. He had never married. After his mother died, he had lived practically as a recluse in her house. As though to underscore his solitariness, he rode around Edmond, alone, on a bicycle built for two. He was viewed by coworkers as a very angry, surly person, whose best mood still revealed a dark sullenness. Neighbors reported him to the police for peeking in their windows and for spying on them with a telescope. Later on, a friend from his high school days would recall that Sherrill had confided to him a deep fear of becoming mentally ill, as his father had done in middle age. Sherrill was also overly sensitive about his premature baldness. He had a shooting range in his home. His interests were limited to the military, pornography, and his ham-radio hobby.

  An ex-Marine, Sherrill was an expert marksman, with an excellent record as a member of the local National Guard marksmanship team. He boasted of having been in Vietnam, although in actuality he had never left Camp Lejeune, North Carolina during his tour of duty. He had received an honorable discharge from the Marines. Sherrill spent the next 20 years drifting from job to job, never spending more than 9 or 10 months at any of them, before being hired at the Edmond post office. At home he kept military uniforms, marksmanship medals, Soldier of Fortune magazines, and a pamphlet entitled, “Dying: The Greatest Adventure of My Life—A Family Doctor Tells His Story.”

  On the day that Sherrill was rebuked at the post office for poor performance, he left in a rage. The next morning at 6:30 A.M., he clocked in, then drew out of his mailbag two .45-caliber automatic pistols and 100 rounds of ammunition that he had signed out from the National Guard’s armory. Within 15 minutes, he had shot to death 14 postal workers and injured 6 others before killing himself.

  Workplace Violence: Causes or Triggers?

  The availability of sophisticated, rapid-firing guns has been suggested as one major cause of workplace violence because these weapons permit the killing of large numbers of people in a short period of time, as occurred at Columbine and Virginia Tech. However, practiced marksmen such as Gang Lu can kill people as quickly and efficiently with single-shot weapons as George Hennard did with his semiautomatics at Luby’s Cafeteria. Forensic psychiatrist Park Elliot Dietz believes that the problem is not guns but movies that “star” guns. His message is that guns do not kill but television and movies do. Mass murderers, he believes, take their inspiration from the mass media. Unlike serial killers, who elaborate their own deviant fantasies and carry them out, mass murderers do not have much imagination. In the instance of workplace killers, life imitates entertainment.

  Before going on his rampage, Gang Lu left a typed statement for the media to find and print. It read, in part,

  My favorite movies include No Way Out, Die Hard, Indiana Jones, and Clint Eastwood’s movies where a single cowboy fights against a group of incorporated bad guys who pick on little guys at their will or cover up each other’s ass. I believe in the right of people to own firearms…. Even today, privately owned guns are the only practical way for individuals/minority to protect themselves against the oppression from the evil organizations/majority who actually control the government and legal system. Private guns make every person equal…. They also make it possible for an individual to fight against a conspired/incorporated organization such as Mafia or Dirty University officials.

  Violent movies and television programs may contribute to the violence potential of certain children. The reality of murder scenes—the terrible carnage, the awful suffering, the hideous aftermath for survivors and families of victims—is not and cannot be realistically portrayed by the entertainment media. Thus, a vital feedback mechanism to inhibit aggression is absent in dramatizations of violent acts. Individuals particularly at risk of being overly influenced by media representations of violence are those who have been abused physically and psychologically. They have felt helpless, terrorized, and angry as a result of their abuse. By identifying with the perpetrators of violence, they are able to temporarily ease their sense of terrifying vulnerability. They replay such depictions over and over because they have been traumatized. After chronic exposure to violent programs, identification with violent protagonists can become an entrenched defense against their own chronic fears and feelings of helplessness. Because all children must deal in varying degrees with feelings of fear, powerlessness, and dependency, no child is really immune from the adverse influences of violence as portrayed in the media.

  More than 2,000 studies of the popular media and violent acts show a correlation, if not an absolute causal linkage, between television violence and aggression. I have no doubt that what we put into our minds strongly influences what comes out. But exclusive focus on popular media as the cause of upsurging violence in America ignores other important factors. Changing parenting styles that permit children to watch violent programs, the great increase in divorce rates that produce more single-parent households, escalating drug and alcohol use, the availability of guns, the collapse of urban communities, child abuse, and domestic violence—to name just a few—are other important contributors to violence.

  Stanton E. Samenow, a clinical psychologist and the author of Inside the Criminal Mind, holds that television never made a criminal out of anyone. He thinks that emotional violence is rooted in the American tradition of personal liberty and individualism. It is this ethic that gives to a small group of people with deviant worldviews the freedom to violently act out their visions. Samenow cites the observation that these individuals are incapable of recognizing they are the agents of their own problems. They are unable to understand what Shakespeare’s Brutus was told in Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus,
is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

  Robert K. Ressler, former FBI agent and head of the consulting firm Forensic Behavioral Services, observes that 40 years ago, when people reached their boiling point, they had a nervous breakdown. Today, the aggrieved individual may pick up a weapon and “get even.”

  On a different scale, I have treated patients who have destroyed multiple relationships because of an inability to tolerate their feelings of self-hate without projecting them onto others. It is very difficult for many of these patients to hold such feelings long enough to be able to examine them in therapy.

  Unfortunately, the tendency to direct violence toward others is being facilitated by the availability of firepower capable of carrying out such actions on a mass scale. Roger Depue, former head of the FB I’s Behavioral Science Unit, notes that for years many commentators have been telling the public that the problems of individuals are caused by society. This, in effect, produces for certain individuals an excuse and a rationale for attacking society. Some perpetrators are quite open in stating that they want to strike back and to hurt as many people as they can, no matter who those people are. John Douglas, the former Unit Chief of the FB I’s Behavioral Science Investigative Support Unit, states that violent individuals, having failed in their lives, take their own lives after a murderous incident (or have others kill them) because they cannot face the likelihood of being convicted and going to jail—of failing again.

  Forensic psychiatrist Park Elliot Dietz has learned through interviews that killing does not exorcise the killer’s psychological demons. He states that “those who kill out of paranoia are shocked to learn that killing does not relieve their symptoms.” He believes wider circulation given to this notion may deter potential copycat killers.