Trenton Base Commander Williams pleads guilty to 88 charges including two murders (Part 3)

Found it here.

Doug please re-post the update to the existing thread.

[PDF] [url=http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBUQFjAA&url=http%3A%... Killers With Military Experience: Applying Learning Theory to Serial Murder[/url]

Quote:

The general theory of social learning, as formulated by Burgess and Akers
(1966), was applied to show how the military provided a social group through
which potential or future serial killers learn the skills and neutralization tech-
niques of killing. Grossman’s (1996) research in the military on the psychology of
killing supports the idea that murder, like other forms of crime and deviant behav-
ior, can be learned. Although researchers have used social learning theory to sup-
port crime and deviant behavior, Hale (1993) was the first scholar who attempted
to apply learning theory to serial murder.

Like other variables previously considered in the study of serial murder, mili-
tary experience is not present in all cases. Therefore, the military may be just one
social group that provides the serial killer with the associations and reinforce-
ments necessary to learn how to kill. However, future serial killers may be
attracted to military service for this reason. As the study of serial murder remains a
new area of research, future studies might examine this relationship further.

[url=http://www.rense.com/general31/serial.htm]Military training links string of serial killers[/url]

Quote:

Drawing on interviews, published personal accounts and academic studies, Grossman investigates the psychology of killing in combat. Stressing that human beings have a powerful, innate resistance to the taking of life, he examines the techniques developed by the military to overcome that aversion. His provocative study focuses in particular on the Vietnam war, revealing how the American soldier was "enabled to kill to a far greater degree than any other soldier in history." Grossman argues that the breakdown of American society, combined with the pervasive violence in the media and interactive video games, is conditioning our children to kill in a manner siimilar to the army's conditioning of soldiers: "We are reaching that stage of desensitization at which the infliction of pain and suffering has become a source of entertainment: vicarious pleasure rather than revulsion. We are learning to kill, and we are learning to like it." Grossman, a professor of military science at Arkansas State University, has written a study of relevance to a society of escalating violence.

Publishers Weekly review of On Killing, by Dave Grossman

Quote:

Grossman (psychology, West Point) presents three important hypotheses: 1) That humans possess the reluctance to kill their own kind; 2) that this reluctance can be systematically broken down by use of standard conditioning techniques; and 3) that the reaction of "normal" (e.g., non-psychopathic) soliders to having killed in close combat can be best understood as a series of "stages" similar to the ubiquitous Kubler-Ross stages of reaction to life-threatening disease. While some of the evidence to support his theories have been previously presented by military historians (most notably, John Keegan), this systematic examination of the individual soldier's behavior, like all good scientific theory making, leads to a series of useful explanations for a variety of phenomena, such as the high rate of post traumatic stress disorders among Vietnam veterans, why the rate of aggravated assault continues to climb, and why civilian populations that have endured heavy bombing in warfare do not have high incidents of mental illness. This important book deserves a wide readership. Essential for all libraries serving military personnel or veterans, including most public libraries.

Library Review journal of same

Getting back to (former Colonel) Russel Williams, although he may have had the potential to become a serial killer, he was convicted of two murders.

writer wrote:

The Boston Strangler was a serial murderer. What was Timothy McVeigh? He murdered many all at once. Did he simply "snap"?

Yes, quite possibly, he might have had an emotional breakdown.

Although his bombing was preplanned/premeditated.

To me, it was a case of a disgruntled person who may have suffered from PTSD who also got in with the wrong group of people.

Although the following link is not directly related to the Russel Williams case, it is related generally to PTSD and domestic violence perpetrated by current and former military persons and the role overprescribing prescription drugs may play in this:

http://www.alternet.org/health/148444/are_we_giving_our_soldiers_drugs_t...

If its a series of 2 or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone then the DC killer is but mcveigh is not

Yup and the good colonel is a serial killer

[url=http://blogs.denverpost.com/coldcases/2009/02/15/serial-killersoldier-su... killer/soldier suspect in strangling[/url]

[url=http://www.crimezzz.net/serialkiller_news/G/GALAN_alfredo.php]Spanish serial killer gets 142 years[/url]

[url=http://www.mynorthwest.com/category/local_news_articles/20100927/Soldier... accused of murder faces possible court-martial[/url]

[url=http://mynorthwest.com/category/local_news_articles/20100913/Attorney:-L... Lewis-McChord soldier almost a serial killer[/url]

[url=http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2010/01/06/966048]Soldier accused in Touma killing won't face execution[/url]

[url=http://www.mahalo.com/cesar-armando-laurean]Cesar Armando Laurean[/url]

[url=http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/10/01/afghanistan.killings.fa... Frustrated in trying to raise alarm about soldiers[/url]

writer wrote:

Both murderers served in the Gulf War, not as a result of the draft.

What's important is not whether they were drafted but the fact that they served in the military.

Frmrsldr, for this discussion, what matters to me is that they served in a male-dominating, male-privileging, violence-loving, other-izing bully / discipline / dissociative / compulsive / routinized testosterone cesspit of an environment, which exists within the larger misogynistic, dominating, oppressive culture we all endure. Some might have killed in combat. Some might have just been trained to kill in combat. All were taught the techniques that make it easier to break through a natural and common human aversion to killing other humans, particularly by dehumanizing both the soldier and the target.

That is trauma enough in my books. This is the power of the portrait drawn in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. The horror of Vietnam is contextualized by the first half of the film: the horror, humiliation, enemy creation and women-hating hammered into the trainees at the base.

A serial killer is a person who commits "a series of 2 or more murders, committed as separate events" [1] or murders three or more people[2][3] over a period of more than 30 days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.[4][5], depending on the definition used. Often, a sexual element is involved with the killings. The murders may have been attempted or completed in a similar fashion and the victims may have had something in common; for example, occupation, race, appearance, sex, or age group.

Serial killers are not the same as mass murderers, who commit multiple murders at one time; nor are they spree killers, who commit murders in two or more locations with virtually no break in between. Coinage of the English term serial killer is commonly attributed to former FBI Special Agent Robert Ressler in the 1970s.[6][7] The concept had been described earlier, e.g. by German police inspector Ernst Gennat coining the same term in 1930.[8] Author Ann Rule postulates in her 2004 book Kiss Me, Kill Me that the English-language credit for coining the term "serial killer" goes to LAPD detective Pierce Brooks, mastermind of the ViCAP system.

The "military theory" can be included as to why serial murderers kill. Looking deeper into some serial murderer's pasts reveals that some have served in the military or other such fields. According to Castle and Hensley, 7% of the serial killers studied had military experience.

7%? Im guessing that means more that they use the skills they learn to move their plans forward which would include military skills as well as anything else (like auto mechanic skills for the DC sniper so he could modify his vehicle)

Presumably, rates of serial killers among the general population should be very, very high in countries with compulsory military service.

Are they?  As I understand it, the countries with the highest rates of serial killers are the U.S., Britain and Germany.

I get the funny feeling that rather than looking at a bunch of evidence that military experience leads to murdering, this started with a wish to link murdering to the military, and the evidence is whatever hodgepodge can be found to support that.

Quote:

Yes, McVeigh would be a mass murderer.

Exactly. Both serial killers and mass murderers kill more than one person, but beyond that, the mindsets are almost nothing alike.

If you want to look for patterns, note that both serial killers and mass murderers are almost always white. There have been exceptions, but statistically, those exceptions are anomalies.

Quote:

Snert, there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. Psychologist long ago established that exposure to catastrophic violence such as that of combat leads to PTSD which is a serious causes of abberant psychological states and increased violent behaviour.

Fair enough. Except it's my understanding that Williams never saw combat.

Also, I think the thesis is that military training, independent of combat duty, "teaches you to kill".

I stand corrected, BTW, with regard to Muhammad. He was a serial killer, and in his case, his military service clearly -- not just coincidentally -- played into that.

why is this  3 edition not in the feminist forum as were the other 2 before it?

could we have it moved please.

thank you

Cueball, I linked to commentary of On Killing earlier. But hey, it's so fun just ignoring such research and sticking to the line that evidence is "just random" after making the stupendously silly claim that no evidence of a relationship between military experience and serial killing can be found online.

Yes. Its an excellent book. Though I am not sure about the stuff about the culture of violence and video games and so on, but the rest was pretty convincing. Not really hard to figure out that if the armies business is to train people to lose their inhibition to commit intra-species killing that the people they train will have less inhibitions about committing intra-species killing.

This reminds me of the vigorous attempts to prove that Michael Bryant's amateur boxing days similarly made him a callous, stone-cold killa.  Again, working backwards from the existing belief to the smattering of links that "prove" it.

"I think photos of the Colonel in military uniform explained his predatory behaviour a lot more than cross-dressing photos." — Andrew Brett

Nobody deserves the death penalty.

Normally I can't stand Rosie DiManno's swooning -at -the- sight -of- boy-cops -n -athletes prose. But today she surprised the hell out of me. Nice to see her and Mallick doing an (overly gentle) callout of the media's constant emphasis on lurid details. If people have links to bloggers doing any media analysis I'd appreciate seeing them.

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/article/879365--dimanno-lurid-details-distract-from-real-issues

Thanks, Catchfire.