and then to murder.
But can we suggest that any of the names from this hall of infamy were born to kill? Maybe yes, maybe no. With the exception of Myra Hindley and the Washington Snipers we can say, with more than a degree of certainty, that there was within each of them a latent predisposition to commit multiple murders.
It is a long-established fact that the structure and quality of family interaction is an important part of a child’s development, especially in the way the child itself perceives family members. According to the FBI: ‘For children growing up, the quality of their attachments to parents and to other members of the family is most important as to how these children, as adults, relate to and value other members of society. Essentially, these early life attachments (sometimes called bonding) translate into a map of how a child will perceive situations outside the family.’
For some time we have known that human development results from the dynamic interplay of nature and nurture. From birth, we grow and learn because our biology is programmed to do so and because our social and physical environment provides stimulation.
During the first three or four years of life – the formative years – children experience the world in a more complete way than children of any other age. Their brains take in the external world through its system of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. This means that infant social, emotional, cognitive, physical and language development are stimulated during multisensory experiences. Infants and toddlers need the opportunity to participate in a world filled with stimulating sights, sounds and people.
Unfortunately, early development does not always proceed in a way that encourages child curiosity, creativity and self-confidence. For some children, early experiences are neither supportive nor predictable. The synapses that develop in the brain may be created in response to chronic stress, or other types of abuse and neglect. When children are vulnerable to these risks, problematic early experiences can lead to poor outcomes. For example, some children are born with the tendency to be irritable, impulsive and insensitive to emotions in others. When these child characteristics combine with adult care-giving that is withdrawn and neglectful, childrens’ brains can wire up in ways that may result in unsympathetic child behaviour. When these child characteristics combine with adult care-giving that is angry and abusive, childrens’ brains can wire in ways that result in violent and overly aggressive child behaviour. If the home environment teaches children to expect danger instead of security, then poor outcomes may occur, as this book will show. In these cases, how do nature and nurture contribute to early brain development?
More recent research tells us that early exposure to violence and other forms of unpredictable stress, as experienced by many of the killers featured in this book, can cause the brain to operate on a fast track. Such over activity of the connections between the brain’s axons and dendrites, combined with child vulnerability, can increase the risk of later problems with self-control. Some adults who are violent and overly aggressive experienced erratic and unresponsive care in early life.
Adult depression can also interfere with infant brain activity. When parents suffer from untreated depression they may fail to respond sensitively to infant cries or smiles. Adult emotional unavailability is linked with poor infant emotional expression. Infants with depressed caregivers do not receive the type of cognitive and emotional stimulation that encourages positive early brain development, because they learn to ‘mirror’ the mood swings and negative anxieties expressed by the parents.
IN OUR GENES?
In today’s more enlightened times, social scientists increasingly appreciate the extent of the interactions that take place between nature and nurture. They have discovered that the presence of genes does not, by itself, ensure that a particular trait will be manifested because genes require the proper environments for innate tendencies to be fully expressed. These ‘proper environments’ consist not only of natural surroundings but also of individuals’ social and symbolic milieus.
Simply put, there may well be a faulty gene inbred amongst millions of us; but for the better part of the time it remains latent, ring-fenced by a happy childhood based on a solid family upbringing.
Recently, it has been revealed by British scientists in a study of 3,687 pairs of seven-year-old twins that there are strong genetic roots for poor behaviour in children who also showed signs of psychopathic traits, such as lack of remorse or understanding for the feelings of others. This research, carried out at King’s College London, also points to environmental factors, such as social and family background, as the chief cause of antisocial activity among a larger group of badly behaved children. Dr Essi Viding, of the college’s Institute of Psychiatry, who led the study, said it suggested that much teenage antisocial behaviour has its origins earlier in life and that efforts to prevent it need to begin at a young age. Writing in The Times in May 2005, Science Correspondent Mark Henderson put things more succinctly when he wrote: ‘Some yobs are born; others are made.’
Even when children have a genetic predisposition to such problems, they are likely to respond to environmental triggers that could be reduced by early intervention. Research led by Temi Moffitt, one of the King’s College team members, has established that boys with a particular version of a gene called MAOA are more likely to grow into antisocial adults, but only if they are also maltreated as children.
In his findings published in The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry in May 2005, Dr Viding investigated children classed by their teachers as among the most antisocial and disruptive 10 per cent, and split them into two groups. One of the groups showed psychopathic or ‘callous-unemotional’ traits, such as a lack of empathy and guilt, while the other group did not.
In the callous-unemotional group, antisocial behaviour was about 81 per cent heritable – meaning that four-fifths of the differences between them and the general population appear to be explained by genetic factors. Genetic influence on antisocial behaviour in the other, larger group was much lower – heritability was about 30 per cent, with the remaining variability explained by environmental factors.
The research carried out in London has also been supported by the findings of an international team of researchers that followed a group of 1,037 children born in 1972 in Dunedin, New Zealand. Their study focused on the MAOA gene that produces an enzyme that is important in breaking down neurotransmitters linked with mood, aggression and pleasure. This particular gene comes in a strong and a weak variant. The study found that 85 per cent of the male children who had the weak variant of the MAOA gene and who were abused while growing up exhibited criminal or antisocial behaviour. This was a rate nine times greater than was found among similarly-situated males with the strong version of the gene.
An excellent example of a serial killer who had this weak variant of MAOA influence is Michael Ross. Executed in Connecticut on 13 May 2005, Michael became a sado-sexual psychopath who raped and murdered eight women, including two schoolgirls. I affirm that Michael was most certainly wrongly ‘wired-up’ in the hypothalamic region of the limbic system, the most primitive and important part of the brain. The hypothalamus serves the body tissues by attempting to maintain its metabolic equilibrium and providing a mechanism for the immediate discharge of tensions. It appears to act like an on/off sensor, on the one hand seeking or maintaining the experience of pleasure and, on the other, escaping or avoiding the experience of pain or unpleasantness.
If, for example, the hypothalamus experiences pleasure, be it from satisfying a craving for chocolate, drugs or sex – even the need for sadistic sexual murder – it will switch on ‘reward’ feelings so that the person continues engaging in the activity. If it begins to feel displeasure, it will turn off the reward switch. But, if the switch jams halfway, so to speak, the limbic urge goes unmet, and the individual will experience depression, anger or even homicidal rage.
This
