Deja Raconte

the interior minefield of mens rea

Keep on as much as you like. Trust in the murmur’s inexhaustibility.

- Andre Breton

In jazz every musician, despite the instrument, needs to think like a drummer. Years later, I have come to believe that in investigative psychology every profiler needs to think like a sniper. The mezzo aphorism stands somewhat undefeated in the prevalent zeitgeist of criminal profiling. The inexact scientist - if I falter into the ignorantly codified terminology used to describe us - actually borrows two exact skills from the marksman: 1. fidelity to object 2. focus on reconnaissance.

At the confluence of these two tenets we find the tao of Motive. 

On a January morning in Tecumseh of 1960, a 30 something man strikes his mother hard across the face, bringing to close an extended argument about whether he should or should not move back home to fend for her. He later claims that he realised the folly of his action and tried to obstruct the fall midway to no avail. It is only after he sees her seemingly lifeless body on the floor he becomes fully cognizant of the fact that he is in possession of a knife and she has been sliced through. He later proceeds to sexually assault the dead body but in his interrogation claims a distaste for “dead sex”. Fact is, she was not dead in the moment and his half sister later finds their mother partially alive in a crimson tarn. The woman dies eventually and the son is arrested.  His original sentence is for a period of 40 years, the deemed punishment for matricide. He tries to kill himself on at least two occasions while inside, serves a decade’s worth of his sentence and is eventually released due to an overcrowded penitentiary. His name is Henry Lee Lucas and he goes on to murder 213 people that we are aware of. He also consistently ranks in the top 10 amongst the most prolific serial killers from North America. 

Henry Lee Lucas was raised by a pair of truant alcoholics who brewed their own version of moonshine whiskey in a log cabin and subjected their kids to violent abuse as well as abject neglect. Henry indulged in episodes of zoosadism and bestiality as a pre teen which possibly fermented his maladapted sexual appetite; the culmination resulted in his raping a girl at the age of 15 and strangling another a few years later. Young boys do not often grow out of their sexual proclivities, if anything, they grow into them. Lucas’s childhood reads like chapters for emotional and physical mistreatment’s vade mecum. If we sample the social process theory for serial murderers, the excessively abusive environment he was raised in more than contributed to misshaping the psychodymanic structures that blurred his ability to construe action and consequence as a single chain not disparate identities. It is often said that those who are tortured turn out be fine torturers. Lucas is a testament to this; his killings were brutal, maniacal and devoid of any evident remorse. 

Henry Lee Lucas furthered his compendium of crime by bandying with a submissive partner whose 12 year old niece he had continually sexually abused. This man, Otis Toole, claimed an equally eviscerated past with episodes of abuse as early as 5 years old. Behaviorally, he served as Lucas’s Other since he experienced deep set sexual solecism and consistently felt guilty about what he claimed *a homosexual orientation*. Their partnership bears fruition since Lucas is domineering while Toole is servile; their bond sealed through confidence in murder. Studying their individual profiles renders to light the daedal latticework of behaviors exhibited by murdering confidants. The pair fuses into an omnious singularity and jagged edges in each’s psychopathology invite jambing in as well as sharpening from the other’s psychic equipment. Lucas’s anger is externalised as a teenager; he brutalises animals and exerts release in torture of others. Toole internalises the violence, indulges in self mutilation and seeks refuge in satanism: the idea of an external entity that controls and redirects his actions. In this, Toole displays penchance for a forced weight to direct his own sociopathy and finds in Lucas a more tangible version of the Satan he subjugated to as a teenager. Toole searches for agency, Lucas for acquistion and their menacing togetherness becomes the solemn respite that either deign seek from their macabre past and criminal present.

In fact, conjoint, the two satisfy all the three criteria for the Macdonald triad. They are two distinct murderers who function as a single entity right down to the vagaries within their catalogues of behaviours and motives. This is the puzzle and the savage parable. How does this unification come about? To employ a simplistic term - Motive. If seeking a more elaborate device to explore then, Nature of the Motive.

Urged by the directions of their motives, serial killers usually spread themselves out in the following common categories -

Vigilante - They are encouraged by an inner mission for self delivered justice. The acuteness of homicidal intent is embowered under the auspice of social amelioration. They possess impeccable conviction in the “positivity” of their action. E.g. - eliminating prostitutes, junkies, homeless people. Driven by an overwhelming messianic complex and a need to actualise their intent and experience emotional satisfaction from it. Motive can be triangulated to religious, political and/or psychosocial. The act is cold and usually does not hold as much meaning as the idea and overall execution of it; a sense of nobility is feigned and the motive is justified as necessary in the face of lackadasical attitudes of the larger social institution. Snowtown’s Bunting possibly operated under the pernicious mindset of a murderous vanguard.

Power Seeker - Usually placed in what they consider to be rather emasculating situations in real life, they seek to establish control over the state of affairs by way of murder. Killing is the ultimate balancing act: a sense of equilibrium restored. They feel incapacitated by their lived realm, explicit violence allows - in what they perceive to be a fairly tangible way - to scale up their otherwise moot status. The fear in the victim alleviates their own fears of incompetency in other arenas of life. The victim begs, grovels, placates, cries; power is relinquinshed and the killer feels complete. The motive is governed by suction of power from the victim to the killer hence the kill is prolonged and often theatrical. Power killers need to feel a sense of superiority over the victim, gagging and tying are signatures that underline the exhibition of this motive. There can be instances of necrophilia and stowing of the corpse for future gratification. Sexually assaulting the victims can be a precusor to the actual murder. Usually of a high intelligence, they are excellent at manipulating their victims and in fact are usually familiar with their victims prior to murder. The victims might even place some amount of trust in them. They seek specific demographics and usually the cycle of murders oscilllates at an increasing frequency because each kill serves to satisfy the need for power only in so much as it evokes the need for more extensive and expansive power. In short, each kill prepare for a springboard at an even higher altitude. Charles Manson, a textbook exemplar of power seeker serial killer managed to amplify his excessive want for power by plying others with his ideology and convincing them to do his bidding. Lucas seeks power in some parts and in others what he seeks is defined below.

Hedonistic - Killing ushers in a sense of novelty and pleasure. The need to kill is wrapped in a sense of agile thrill, a sensory stimulation. Marquis De Sade wrote - “Lust’s passion will be served; it demands, it militates, it tyrannizes.” It could discern itself as evocation of lust or even a very debased form of love and in certain cases a sense of material benefit, access to certain lifestyle inaccessible to the killer on their own. The category has inherent sub categories because the nature of hedonistic killing in itself is riddled with pinpricks of behavioral inconsistencies. On the whole, maximum torture pre and post mortem is evident. Killing takes on a whole life of its own and it beats to existence a new, exciting world devoid of the mundane ritualism of day to day living. They consider the idea of murder equivalent to a construct of an objet d’art. They like to take their time, indulge their fantasies and carve out meticulous routines. Jeffrey Dahmer sought the thrill of murder  even after the death of his victims. This was coupled with a his need for control [ which fits in with the former heading ] to the extreme where he attempted trepanation on some of half dead victims and tried to turn them into “robo zombies”. 

The categories aren’t mutually exclusive always as we see in the cases of Dahmer, Lucas or even Bundy.

Motive demands means, it dictates the turn of key for every crime. It is the soil in which the method of the crime or its MO lays its onyx root. A vigilante would kill in cold blood with least interest in the victim but great regard for the reason for killing, a power seeker needs audience with the victim in order to feed the desire for authority. A hedonistic killer would expend time and energy on elaborte fantasy protocols. 

Motive is the sharp article in the attic that unravels the whole strength of a killer’s persona and psychopathology like a loose sweater. Grasping the motive indicates that we are inching closer to identifying the imbalance, unlocking the sunken chamber within the criminal’s mind. 

This is where the motifs about snipers materialise like slight apparitions on a window pane. 

Fidelity to object - All attempts at profiling must tally to arrive at the necessary quotient of the motive. Every aspect of unraveling a crime has to be honest in its dedication to the motive. A sniper needs sufficient patience till the target is steadied. A sniper needs the requisite knowledge of angles to aim from, needs to study the premise and the plot before pushing the trigger. These are lessons to be fortified for a profiler. Hold vast reserves of patience because the motive will not automatically fall within the viewing range. Connect the dots backwards, seek to establish motive before all. A sharpshooter does not aim from the hip but cultivates a trained, object-focussed eye.

Focus on reconnaisance - What is visible is limiting, what is unavailable for immediate evaluation shrouds more pointed clues. Extend, explore, excavate. As a profiler, do not trust the obvious entirely, learn to walk beyond what seems easily conclusive. If the chains link with an effortless cinch, there is something awry. A sniper learns to test and grade the environment in which they operate. A profiler should seek the same evalutionary method. A mental recce serves to ascertain or debunk your intial theories. Understand and strengthen your case, find the iceberg beneath eye level. 

They say Jazz is imprecise music. Its offkey at times, in rhythm at others. The cadence jumps all over the room and asks the performer to chase its impish steps. Sometimes its smoky and sometimes neat with a crisp geometry of lines and moods. Imperfect in structure, more instinctual and yet the arrangement somehow organises itself to reveal the finest compositions in modern music. Building a profile can take the shape of composing a Jazz song; you labor to define while retaining an appreciation for how inchoate the path to this definition can be. 

The only difference is, as opposed to Jazz and Coltrane, here you play with your eyes open. 

  1. hereshe posted this