In this article, I will talk about serial killers that are frequently encountered in action and detective genres. If you have watched enough TV series/movies or read books in these genres, it may have drawn your attention that almost all serial killers have similar characteristics. They are brutal, cold, and insensitive killers who choose their victims according to certain criteria, like to play with the police, and leave messages or even signatures at the crime scene for this purpose. Unfortunately, there are many examples of such people not only in fiction but also in real life.
In the scenarios that I have come across so far, the focus has been on solving the cases by investigating the murderers' styles of committing murders and the signs they left behind. But a TV series called Mouse made me look at things from a different perspective. If you've watched the series, you already know what I'm talking about. If you haven't watched it, I must warn you that you are about to encounter SPOILERS.
The series already has a different perspective from other serial killer series by starting with a doctor's speech about his research on the psychopath gene in its first episode. Throughout the series, people who carry the psychopathy gene, which they describe as hunters, and their actions are mentioned. And even at the beginning of the series, it leaves the viewer in the dilemma of whether you would still want to give birth if you knew your baby had a murderer gene. One of the biggest factors in the emergence of this dilemma was that not every individual with this gene was a murderer and even the possibility of growing up as a gifted child.
Let me first focus on the gene in question, leaving this dilemma and moral questions for later. Is there such a thing as the psychopath gene, and would anyone who has it become a murderer? And I'm going to try to research one of the biggest surprises of the series, brain transplant, and whether a bad or good gene can be transplanted.
So let's start by understanding what exactly psychopathy is. Psychopathy is a serious illness that goes far beyond the phrase we sometimes use jokingly "are you a psycho”. However, it is very difficult to detect these people as outside observers, especially in adulthood, because they seem perfectly normal and healthy. Perhaps this is why these people are not even considered to be ill.
By definition, psychopathy is a disorder characterized by simple emotional responses, poor empathy, inability to control impulses, and propensity for antisocial behavior. Psychiatrist Philippe Pinel coined the phrase manie sans délire, "madness without delirium", to describe this disease more than 200 years ago. Many studies show that the relatively permanent developmental characteristics that trigger psychopathy begin to appear before the age of 10.
Psychopathy is characterized by diagnostic features such as physical attractiveness, high intelligence, poor judgment and failure to learn from experience, morbid egocentrism and inability to love anyone, lack of conscience and shame, impulsivity, excessive self-esteem, lying, manipulative behaviors, lack of self-control, random cross-sex relationships, childhood crimes, and diversity in crime. As a result of these criteria, the picture of the psychopath is drawn as a cold, heartless, and inhuman being.
What information do we have about the physiology of the disease?
You know that our emotional state and thoughts are realized by electrical transmissions in our brain. The structures we call neurons form a network like electrical wires in our brain and exchange information with each other. Some chemicals called neurotransmitters are released that help establish this connection between neurons or other cells where information is desired to be carried. After these chemicals do their job and activate a series of reactions, we no longer need them to stimulate the nerves, they need to be stopped. The structures we call enzymes to play a role in the breakdown of chemicals and stopping their effects at this stage.
Let me now come to why these reactions are important for us. There are neurotransmitters in our brain called serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine (adrenaline), and norepinephrine (noradrenaline), which control our mood, emotions, sleep patterns, and appetite. The MAO-A (monoaminoxidase A) enzyme produced by a gene called MAOA is responsible for the destruction of these neurotransmitters.
.jpg "Psychopath Gene")
A rare genetic disease caused by the mutation of MAOA causes MAOA deficiency and leads to excessive accumulation of these neurotransmitters in monoamine structure. Excess monoamine neurotransmitters cause impulsive behaviors such as sleep disorders, emotional instability, and violence, known as Brunner's syndrome.
In a study, Brunner syndrome, which is a rare disease, is observed in only five of the males in a family, while the probability of MAOA-L, another more common genetic condition associated with the same gene, constitutes 40% of the population. And here is one of the most important genetic disorders that cause the psychopathy state we are talking about. But, why?
There can be various forms of genes in humans that cause different levels of enzymatic activity. People carrying the low-activity form (MAOA-L) of the MAOA gene have lower enzyme activity, while those carrying the high-activity form (MAOA-H) show greater enzymatic activity. For this reason, MAOA-L has been associated with increased levels of aggression and violence.
Brain scans of people with the MAOA-L gene have shown that their limbic systems, which are responsible for emotion, behavior, and long-term memory, are smaller. In this study, it was determined that the amygdala region responsible for processing emotions in the brain of the group carrying the MAOA-L gene was overactive and the people in this group were less successful in controlling their emotional impulses.
However, there is still a need for a trigger for violence in MAOA-L carriers. Studies reveal that this trigger may be childhood maltreatment.
If psychopathy is a disease, can’t we find any superficial evidence to explore the possibility that a person is a psychopath? Canadian psychologist Robert Hare designed the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) test, which includes 20 symptoms that can be used to identify psychopathy.
1. Fluent talkativeness / Superficial charm.
2. Egocentrism / Great sense of self-worth.
3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom.
4. Pathological lying.
5. Cunning / Manipulative.
6. Lack of remorse and guilt.
7. Emotionally shallow.
8. Apathetic / Lack of empathy.
9. Parasitic lifestyle.
10. Poor behavioral control.
11. Sexual promiscuity.
12. Early behavior problems.
13. Lack of realistic long-term goals.
14. Impulsivity.
15. Irresponsibility.
16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions.
17. Manu short-term marital relationships.
18. Juvenile delinquency.
19. Revocation of conditional release.
20. Versatility in crime.
Of course, we cannot directly diagnose someone as a psychopath just because two or three items on this list are matching. A person with this gene and with a triggered tendency to violence will provide almost all items on the list.
In addition, although not included in this list, it can be observed that psychopaths do not show a startle reflex in the face of frightening and shocking events or pictures (like a decapitated corpse).
Because of their violent tendencies and inability to control their impulses, psychopaths are very common in murder crimes. In addition, as stated in the "psychopathy checklist", these people can easily manipulate people because they have good speaking skills and impressive appearance. These features cause psychopaths to appear frequently in fraud crimes.
Let's examine a few real examples of psychopaths.
One of the most notorious murderers, Jack the Ripper, aka the Leather Apron, killed at least five women and dismembered their bodies in an unusual way in 1888, causing great fear in London. The criminal was never caught or identified, and Jack the Ripper remains one of the most notorious criminals in Britain and the world.
Allegedly, a series of letters were sent by the killer to the London Metropolitan Police Service (commonly known as Scotland Yard), mocking officers about their gruesome activities, and speculating about future murders. The nickname Jack the Ripper comes from a letter published at the time of the attacks.
Jack the Ripper is a typical psychopath if we accept that Jack the Ripper brutally smashed his victims as an indication of his lack of empathy and callousness, and the fact that he was too disguised to be caught even though he played with the police by writing letters about his murders, his cunning, lying skills, and perhaps his manipulative ability to hide that he was a murderer.
One of America's first serial killers, Herman Webster Mudgett, known as H.H. Holmes, was also a con man. Holmes is believed to have killed close to 200 people. Holmes had killed many of his victims in the house he had specifically built, which would later become the Murder Castel.
As a medical student at the University of Michigan, H.H Holmes defrauded insurance companies by stealing cadavers. Moving to Chicago in 1885, Holmes got a job at a pharmacy and began to use changed his famous pseudonym, Dr. Henry H. Holmes. He eventually takes over the business, later alleged to have killed the original owner of the business.
Holmes builds an elaborate building with rooms to sleep in and many small rooms where he tortures and kills his victims. There is also a boarding floor where he can burn the corpses or destroy them in different ways, and there are hidden chutes that make it easier to transport the corpses there. Holmes was captured in 1894 and hanged two years later.
So you see, Holmes is one of those examples of psychopaths with a sick mind who can't control his impulses and goes beyond to build a Castel just for murder purposes.
Richard Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker, is an American serial killer who killed 14 people and tortured up to two dozen others. After suffering from epilepsy as a child, he became a heavy drug user and became interested in satanism.
When Ramirez was 13, he witnessed his cousin kill his own wife. He dropped out of school in the 9th grade and was arrested in 1977 for possession of marijuana. His first known murder to initiate serial killings was 79-year-old Jennie Vincow, whose home he broke into for robbery in 1984. He was arrested in 1985 after his last victim, who he forced to swear her love for satan, gave detailed information about his attacker. He died of cancer in 2013.
If we look at the fact that he received love letters from his fans despite all the murders he committed, we can give Ramirez as a clear example of the dangerous attractiveness of psychopaths.
The Zodiac Killer is a serial killer accused of multiple murders in San Francisco but never caught. The self-proclaimed Zodiac Killer was directly linked to at least five murders in California between 1968 and 1969 and was thought to be responsible for more.
In 1969, the same handwritten letters with no return address were sent to three newspapers. The letters began with the sentence, “Dear editor: I was the murderer of 2 teenagers in Lake Herman last summer,” and contained details about the Zodiac Killer's murders that only the killer would know. The killer was threatening further attacks if the letters were not published on the first page.
Each letter was capped with the symbol of a crossed circle, which would later become known as the symbol of the Zodiac Killer. Each letter also contained a three-part code that it claimed contained information about the identity of the killer.
A few days later, high school teacher Donald Harden and his wife, Bettye, cracked the code. “I like killing people because it's so much fun. It's more fun than killing wild animals in the forest because man is the most dangerous animal,” he wrote.
Psychopathic killers' approach that mocks the investigation and playing games with the police by sending passwords is a result of their narcissistic characteristics, and the Zodiac Killer is a good example of this.
There are dozens of serial killers that can be counted, but crimes committed by psychopaths are not only murders, of course. I mentioned that fraud is one of the types of crime in which psychopaths are most active. Let's look at two examples of fraudsters who allegedly have psychopathic traits.
Elizabeth Homes was the founder of the company Theranos, which was once valued at 9 million. Using the Edison test with a few drops of blood, Theranos promised that diseases such as cancer and diabetes could be diagnosed in a short time without the need for needles.
But in 2015, the inside started to come out, and within a year it was revealed that Holmes was a fraud. The technology she promised didn't work, and in 2018 the company collapsed.
Prosecutors alleged that Holmes knowingly misled patients about the tests and greatly exaggerated the company's performance against its financial backers.
There was talk that Holmes had some psychopathic features. The first of these features was the ability to make prolonged eye contact. Although this behavior made a person feel like he was the only person in the world, it was also quite menacing.
Besides her looks, her tone of voice also added to her impressiveness. Holmes used an unnaturally deep tone of voice. It is thought that this tone of voice creates a more authoritative effect on the listener.
Studies have also revealed that psychopaths mostly exhibit a controlled speaking attitude. The tones remain stable throughout the speech and do not contain any emotional fluctuations. It is predictable that psychopaths with manipulative features, who are known as good speakers, prefer this tone of voice. Elizabeth Holmes seems to be an example of these traits.
Another example of a swindler I will give is Russian immigrant Anna Sorokin, who introduced herself as Anna Delvey, a wealthy German heiress, who entered New York society and defrauded luxury hotels and banks for thousands of dollars. Anna Sorokin has expressed no regrets after being sentenced to 4 to 12 years in prison. Here is another example of psychopaths who are known not to show remorse.
Is it inevitable to be a psychopath?
Well, was it impossible for these people to have a good, crime-free life just because they had this gene? Didn't they have a choice but to become a murderer or a swindler because of a single gene? Of course not… Now I'm going to share with you the story of a doctor who accidentally found out that he had the brain of a psychopath but never turned into a psychopath.
James Fallon, a neuroscientist, was checking brain scans of family members while researching Alzheimer's. While simultaneously reviewing brain scans of murderous psychopaths for a side study, one of the scans was mistaken for the wrong group. In this way, he discovered that his own brain scan mirrored the psychopathic brain.
After learning he had a psychopath's brain, Fallon scanned the family tree and spoke to experts, colleagues, relatives, and friends about whether his behavior matched that of a psychopath.
Neither his parents had said that they had never voiced against him how strange Fallon had been from some period of his youth. Growing up, people around him said that he could become a gang or mafia head in the future. Some families forbade their children to befriend Fallon. To everyone's surprise, Fallon had grown up as a family man, a successful and well-employed individual, without ever going to jail.
Had Fallon been raised in an abusive environment, his mutated genes known as the "warrior gene" could have made him an aggressive, low-empathy, and emotionally reactive psychopath. But obviously, like Fallon, being raised in a very positive environment helps offset the negative effects of these genes. This brings us back to the suggestion I mentioned earlier that a trigger might be needed for the psychopathy gene to be active.
Can't there be a good gene that causes kindness, while there is a bad gene that causes violence? Why not?
Oxytocin and vasopressin are two hormones that, when released in the brain, activate emotions such as love and generosity. According to a study led by psychologist Michel Poulin at the University of Buffalo, if you have different versions of these hormone-specific receptors, you may be more likely to be a good person than people who have only one version. However, the researchers say how social or anti-social one becomes is influenced by one's upbringing and experience.
"We're not saying we found a gene for goodness, but we did find a gene that contributes," Poulin said. “The interesting thing is that it only contributes if people have certain feelings about the world around them,” he says.
In other words, just as in the psychopathic gene, the conditions of being raised in the kindness gene make a great contribution to directing the behavior of the person in the future.
If we look at the sum of the information we have obtained, the individual carrying the psychopathic gene may seem like a kind of time bomb for society, but with the right treatment, moral behaviors can be instilled and individuals can be kept away from crime. But isn’t there anything we can do for an already triggered psychopath? Or is it not possible to develop a treatment method from the very beginning that will alleviate the concerns of the parents?
If we go back to the series I mentioned at the beginning (ATTENTION! ANOTHER SPOILER), the character who became a psychopath as a result of the transplantation of a part of the brain began to have good character traits and became conscientious. According to this fiction, can a brain transplant be considered a treatment method?
Or, is there a way to replace the idea of a brain transplant, which is not so perfect, with gene transplantation, or a way to modify existing genes?
Brain transplantation is a very challenging procedure. It is very complex and sensitive due to connecting blood vessels, the possibility of neurons dying if the brain is deprived of oxygen during the transfer, and the possibility that the body does not accept the transplanted brain and develops an immune response. For this reason, there is no definite information or research on what changes will occur in the character of a person after transplantation.
.jpg "Is it inevitable to be a psychopath?")
On the other hand, there is another application called "gene therapy", which I think will be more effective in solving the problem related to our subject. Because the psychopathy gene we mentioned is actually a mutated gene, gene therapy aims to replace or correct damaged disease-causing genes.
With gene therapy, the damaged gene can be corrected in three different ways. The first is replacing the disease-causing gene with a healthy copy, the second is inactivating the damaged gene, and the third is transferring a gene to treat the damaged gene.
That is, the application of gene therapy to inactivate or correct the MAOA-L gene, which is the low activity form of the MAOA gene, maybe a method for treating individuals who are likely to develop psychopathy. Or, the transfer of a gene that will help diversify the receptors of hormones such as oxytocin and vasopressin can be used as a treatment to suppress the aggression of these people and strengthen their goodness.
Not all murderers in the world are psychopaths. Not every person carrying the psychopath gene is a murderer. However, it is a fact that people with psychopathic genes are more likely to turn into killers than those with healthy genes. Since the fact that they have such a tendency does not mean that they will commit any crime, my answer to the dilemma question that the series Mouse poses to the audience would be to give gene carriers a chance to live. However, if a test system is developed to determine whether babies are carriers of such a gene, I think they should be treated before it's too late, rather than leaving the findings alone. I believe that families should receive training on how to approach children and that children should be treated with gene therapy or other methods that may be found in the future.
We may not be able to choose which genes we will be born with or which genes a baby will be born with, but it is in our hands to take precautions or treat them. Of course, it is not a precaution to be taken by taking away the right to live of someone whose life we are not sure about yet.
What do you think about this? How should we approach this disease as a society?
See also this;
Resources
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4321752/#R71
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/hidden-suffering-psychopath
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933872/
http://www.minddisorders.com/Flu-Inv/Hare-Psychopathy-Checklist.html#ixzz7FgrlXiSf
https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/jack-the-ripper
https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/hh-holmes
https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/richard-ramirez
https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/zodiac-killer
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58336998
https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/elizabeth-holmes-used-psychopathic-body-language-on-her-employees-and-investors
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/nyregion/anna-delvey-sorokin.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/life-as-a-nonviolent-psychopath-2014-1
https://www.livescience.com/19580-niceness-dna-scientists-find.html
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/cellular-gene-therapy-products/what-gene-therapy
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