The Mind of a Killer: Case Study of a Murderer

Another paper from Abnormal Psychology course, films on demand were part of the on-line classroom.

Source:  Blackboard Learn; Films on Demand; The Mind of a Killer: Case Study of a Murderer

Joel Rifkin committed his first murder at age 30, on the second anniversary of his father’s suicide.  He doesn’t know how many times he hit his young female victim in the head with a metal object, he just kept beating her until he “basically got tired of swinging it” and that he had “no idea how many times that was”.  From 1989 to 1993, Joel murdered 17 women.  After Joel was pulled over by police in 1993 for a missing license plate, the body of the seventeenth young woman was discovered.  Hours later, the police had his confession.  Serving his sentence of over 200 years in prison, Joel poses the question of whether he is brain damaged or just plain evil.  The video explores the possible explanations for his behavior.   

Joel Rifkin was adopted in 1959, and according to his mother “was a very sweet and friendly kid”.  He was raised in a family with plenty of love and support, he loved to be read to and was always interested in learning.  He did, however, have dyslexia and was physically uncoordinated.  The trouble for Joel was at school, where he was socially awkward; a trait that may have contributed to the brutal bullying he suffered throughout his entire school career.  The target of pranks and physical attacks, Joel never defended himself because “if you defend yourself, you got really decked.”  “Over the years, scientists have found that many killers were taunted as children raising the general question, ‘Can constant humiliation and abuse lead to violence?’”  Perhaps these environmental factors contributed to Joel’s violent behavior.

This theory has been tested using the aggressive behavior of hamsters to study how abuse may lead to violence. In one experiment, a young hamster is put in the cage of a bigger, older hamster; in the video you can see how the older hamster bullies the younger hamster and how the constant threat changed the young hamster’s behavior toward similarly aged/sized hamsters (submissive).  But the most disturbing part of the experiment was the implications to human behavior when the ridiculed hamster, as an adult, was more aggressive than normal to smaller, weaker hamsters, ruthlessly attacking them.  One explanation for this was a chemical reaction in the hamster brain, with vasopressin and serotonin.  In the bullied hamster, the brain was sensitive to vasopressin (the chemical that tells the body to fight) and was numb to serotonin (the peace making chemical).  This combination sets the stage for a brain that does not have a ‘check and balance’ system for violence.  Studies of primates are even more disturbing, showing that emotional abuse is just as damaging.  This is a possible explanation for Joel Rifkin’s violent behavior.

In 1994, Joel Rifkin’s defense lawyer ordered brain scans and MRI’s of Joel’s brain; both scans were interpreted as being a ‘normal’ brain.   IQ tests revealed that Joel was above average to superior (120) which is probably why he was able to kill so many times without being caught. Joel did, however, have difficulty with tests that challenged his ability to follow instructions while ignoring conflicting information or “difficulty inhibiting a motor response even though he knew it was incorrect”.  This was an indication that Joel’s brain “did not function properly”, however the official diagnosis in 1994 was ‘moderate dysfunction in the frontal systems‘ ruling out the ‘diminished capacity defense’ and ‘reduced penalty’ (discussed more later).  As it relates,  chapter 10 of the text states that “poor functioning in the frontal lobe and other areas important for emotion as one of the many neurochemical features of personality disorders” (pg 296).

Further exploring the brain activity in the frontal lobe, the video discussed a study where the brain scans of 41 regular subjects and 41 murderers were compared; the scans of the murderer’s brains show little or no frontal lobe activity.  This may indicate a genetic connection - a brain with frontal lobe dysfunction is a brain vulnerable to violence.  This is because the frontal lobe is responsible for mediating, moderating, and regulating behavior; it “provides judgment” and “keeps us from acting on violent/aggressive impulses”.  Dysfunction of the frontal lobe may cause problems with impulse control making it difficult to stop a motor responses despite the desire to do so.  The video used railroad worker Phineas Gage as an example of the connection between compulsive aggressive behavior and damage or dysfunction of the frontal lobe.  After surviving an impalement to the front lobe of his brain by a metal rod, Phineas was a very different person.  While he was a pleasant man before the injury, he was violent and short tempered afterward.  

Studies of brain scans of killers also reveal that some who did not suffer childhood abuse/maltreatment still show little or no frontal lobe activity, indicating that there may be a biological cause for violence.  The video briefly explored whether a biological cause for murder, such as frontal lobe dysfunction, should be used as a courtroom defense.  The ‘diminished capacity defense’ is used to try to get criminal charges reduced or to avoid the death penalty.  Brain scans in the courtroom are considered by some to be less subjective than the testimony of a psychiatrist and help juries and others understand why a person did what they did (not necessarily to get them off of being punished for a crime).  Critics argue that brain scans are the latest ‘junk science’, and even some juries are skeptical as indicated by some court rulings.  Additionally, brain scans have the potential to be used by employers or insurance companies to discriminate or used by majority groups or governments for genocide, therefore it is incumbent upon the consumer to scrutinize research on the brain as it relates to violence.  We are urged to remember that the brain is still “largely a mystery,” “it has 10 billion individual cells”and there is no  ‘murder spot’ (one specific area that causes violence).

I cannot conclude this report without mentioning Joel’s mother, who seemed to me to be too ‘matter of fact’ about the murders and even still lives in the house where the murders occurred.  On one hand her reaction/coping mechanism seems healthy; she said she would go crazy if she thought about it for any length of time, but “what are you gonna do?”   She demonstrated a “general lack of emotional expression” and disconnection from the murders (Ch 10, pg 285) that I would not expect to see from the mother of a man who killed 17 women at the family home.  

As the video turns once again to Joel Rifkin, he still just just wants to understand what is different about him; how was he able to commit these crimes with no feeling or remorse.  He wants to be able to explain his behavior and possibly prevent it in the future. The film focuses on both the environmental factors of his life (bullying) and the biological factor of his frontal lobe dysfunction; both appear to have contributed to Joel’s inability to control his violent impulses.  At the end of the video, Joel is asked whether he would kill again should he be released from prison to which he responds, “I didn’t think I’d kill again after the first one.”

*All quotes are from the video unless otherwise noted.