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Suicide in Mass Murderers and Serial Killers

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Suicide in Mass Murderers and Serial Killers Suicidology Online 2010; 1:19-27. ISSN 2078-5488 Review Suicide in Mass Murderers and Serial Killers David Lester The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, USA Submitted to SOL: 18th February 2010; accepted: 1st March 2010; published 3rd March 2010 Abstract: Research carried out by the author on suicide in mass murderers and serial killers is reviewed. The incidence of suicide in rampage murderers (34.7%) is much higher than in serial killers (4.4%). Whereas all of the suicides in mass murderers occurred during attempts to arrest them, 52% of the suicides in the serial killers occurred after arrest. Case studies are presented, and suggestions made for future research. Copyrights belong to the Author(s). Suicidology Online (SOL) is a peer-reviewed open-access journal conforming to the Budapest Open Access Initiative. *Murder followed by suicide is not an April 3, 2009: uncommon event, and several research reports have Binghamton, New York appeared on the topic. For example, Palermo, et al. Jiverly Wong, aged 41, a Vietnamese immigrant, kills 13 (1997) found that typical murder-suicide in the immigrants and wounds 4 others at a community center, and Midwest of America was a white man, murdering a then commits suicide. spouse, with a gun in the home. In England, Milroy (1993) reported that 5% to 10% of murderers April 30, 2009: committed suicide. Most were men killing spouses, Baku, Azerbaijan with men killing children second in frequency. Farda Gadyrov, a Georgian citizen, enters the Azerbaijan Shooting was the most common method. Similar State Oil Academy, kills 12 and injures 13 before turning patterns have been observed in Canada (Cooper & his gun on himself. Eaves, 1996) and Japan (Kominato, et al., 1997). Mass murder has become quite common in There are many categories of mass homicide, recent years, from workers at post offices “going including familicides (in which a person slaughters postal” to school children killing their peers in school. other members of his or her family), terrorists such as Data from the United States indicate that the Timothy McVeigh who killed 168 people at the percentage of homicides with more than one victim Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma city increased over the period from 1976 to 1996 from on April 19th, 1995 (Michel & Herbeck, 2001), and 3.0% to 4.5% (Lester, 2002). Indeed, Lester (2004) those who simply “run amok,” such as Martin Bryant recently called mass homicide “the scourge of the who killed 35 people and wounded over 30 others at 21st Century”. Port Arthur, Australia, on April 29th, 1996 (Cantor, Examples are easy to find. Here are three Sheehan, Alpers, & Mullen, 1999). cases from recent media reports: Holmes and Holmes (1992) classified mass killers into five types: Disciples (killers following a March 11, 2009: charismatic leader), family annihilators (those killing Winnenden, Baden-Württemberg, Germany their families), pseudocommandos (those acting like Tim Kretschmer, aged 17, a former student, enters the soldiers), disgruntled employees, and set-and-run Albertville-Realschule and kills 9 students and a teacher, killers (setting a death trap and leaving, such as flees and kills 3 others before committing suicide when poisoning food containers or over-the-counter confronted by police. medications). It has been difficult to study several of these categories of mass murderers because no one David Lester, Ph.D. has developed a comprehensive list of murderers Distinguished Professor of Psychology falling into the groups. The only category studied The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey hitherto has been the pseudocommandos (also known Pomona, NJ 08240-0195 USA as rampage murders). Tel: +1 609-652-4254 In a preliminary study of mass murderers, Email: [email protected] Lester, Stack, Schmidtke, Schaller and Müller (2004) examined 143 incidents of mass murder committed by Parts of this article have been presented in Würzburg (Germany) in 144 men and one woman reported in the Frankfurter June 2009 as a talk in celebration of Prof. Dr. Armin Schmidtke’s Allgemeine Zeitung between January 1, 1993 and career. August 31, 2002. They found that the death toll was 19 Suicidology Online 2010; 1:19-27. ISSN 2078-5488 significantly higher for those murderers who incidents and the number wounded were moderately committed suicide (an average of 5.6 victims) than associated (Pearson r = .50, two tailed p < .001), and for those killed by police officers (4.2 victims) or the correlates of these two measures of deadliness captured (3.1 victims). Mass murders in Europe (2.8 were similar. Fifty-six of the killers were captured, 7 victims) and the Americas (2.8 victims) had fewer were killed by the police and one by a civilian, and 34 victims than mass murders committed elsewhere in completed suicide at the time of the act (that is, within the world (6.3 victims)1. The number of victims was a few hours of the first killing and before capture). not associated with the year of the event, the sex or For all three measures of deadlines (the number age of the murderer, the number of offenders, or killed, the number wounded, and the total number of whether strangers, friends or family were the victims. victims), the acts of rampage killing became less Lester, Stack, Schmidtke, Schaller and deadly in recent years, and were more deadly if the Müller (2005) studied 100 rampage homicides since killer had had shown an interest in guns and had 1949, listed in an article on rampage murders in the parents who were divorced. Several variables were United States published in the New York Times in the associated with two of the measures of deadlines: year 2000. They sought to explore two facets of the killing significant others, prior evidence of violence in sample (the outcome and the deadliness) and two the killer, paranoia and suspiciousness, and prior questions: (1) what are the differences between those service in the military. rampage killers who completed suicide at the time of The deadliness of the rampage homicides the act and those who were captured, and (2) whether was also associated with the outcome. Those killers any of the characteristics of the rampage killers were who were killed by the police were more deadly than associated with the deadliness of the rampage. those who killed themselves who, in turn, were more Several attempts were made to obtain the deadly than those who surrendered or who were data set that the New York Times reported as having captured. Overall, those killed by police killed and collected. The requests were rejected. Since access to wounded an average of 18.3 victims, those who this purported data set was refused, data were committed suicide had 10.1 victims, and those who collected on each of the 100 rampage homicide surrendered or were captured had 6.9 victims. These incidents using searches of the Internet (from differences were also found separately for the number www.google.com and other search engines) and the killed (8.1, 4.8, and 3.2, respectively) and the number electronic data-base provided by Lexis-Nexis. For wounded (10.1, 5.3, and 3.8, respectively). some killers, information was easily available. For Since only seven individuals were killed by example, Charles Whitman who killed 16 and the police, the analysis of outcome compared the 56 wounded 31 on August 1st, 1966, on the University who surrendered or were captured with the 34 who of Texas campus, has a full-length biography completed suicide. Only a few significant differences available (Lavergne, 1997), while others had only a emerged. Suicide as an outcome was less likely if the paragraph or two available from the Internet (such as killers were adolescents or diagnosed as Drew Cade who killed one and wounded two in a schizophrenic and more likely if the killer had friction supermarket in Pennsylvania on June 20th, 1997). with co-workers or the killings took place at work. The reports were coded for characteristics of These results are of interest because they the rampage and of the killer. Characteristics (such as suggest that it may be possible to create a marital status) were coded when the information was classification of rampage killers as well as profiles of available, and lack of information was coded as the different types of killers. However, the results of missing data. On the other hand, characteristics such this study were limited because of the lack of detailed as prior psychiatric care and interest in guns were information on many of the rampage killers. The coded as present if mentioned and absent if not study had to rely primarily on newspaper reports and mentioned in the reports. websites maintained by individuals interested in mass The 98 incidents with a single perpetrator murder. Thus, information for many of the variables took place from 1949 to 1999, with 90% taking place in the study was not available, and absence of a in the period 1980-1999. The age of the 98 killers mention of a characteristic (such as interest in guns) ranged from 14 to 70 with an average age of 34. was coded as “absent” whereas it may instead not There were 93 men and 5 women. It was noticeable have occurred to the newspaper reporter to ask about that fewer of these incidents took place on Saturdays this characteristic. Reports in the press and online or Sundays (an average of only 4.5% each day) may also be limited in accuracy (or validity). For compared to weekdays (an average of 17.8% each cases in which several alternative reports exist, the day). This is in contrast to homicide in general in the reliability of the information (i.e., does it appear in United States for which the incidence is higher on several independent reports) could be checked.
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