Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior

by Robert I. Simon

  Police examination of the scene reveals no skid marks from his car. No other vehicles were involved in the crash. It could not be established that there were any pre-crash mechanical problems with his car. An autopsy finds equivocal evidence that he had had an acute heart attack. No suicide note is found. The death certificate states that the cause of death is natural. The workers’ compensation insurance carrier, however, conducts its own investigation and concludes that the death was a suicide. It refuses to pay out on his policy.

  The forensic psychiatrist retained by the family of the deceased, and charged with the task of performing a psychological autopsy, does not automatically accept the death certificate finding, nor does she reject it. Death certificates frequently do not address the matter of suicidal intent or lack of it. The death certificate is a document whose purpose is to provide vital statistical data. It is not based on the totality of evidence that may later become available. The forensic psychiatrist cannot simply accept the postmortem finding of a possible heart attack either, because it is not in keeping with the weight of the other evidence. For instance, it was discovered that shortly before his death, the deceased had put all of his affairs in order.

  The forensic psychiatrist’s examination of the chairman’s life reveals a man who was very disciplined and who rarely acted impulsively. He led a quiet life, had conservative habits and tastes. No history of alcohol abuse, drug abuse, or gambling was present. Family, financial stability, and occupational success and gratification are no longer protective factors against suicide.

  The workers’ compensation law in the deceased’s state reads that the insurer could refuse to pay compensation “if the injury or death resulted from the person’s intent to injure or kill himself.” The forensic psychiatrist concludes that despite the absence of evidence of a mental disorder such as depression or psychosis, the preponderance of the available evidence (more likely than not) showed that the chairman had intended to kill himself, in a suicide staged as an accident, to provide financially for his family. The chairman’s conception or motive for killing himself was likely the result of his declining financial status and the perception that further decline would produce dire consequences for his family. His plan was to cause his death through a staged accident and thereby enable his family to cash in on his large insurance policy. Execution of the plan of suicide was carried out by crashing the car into the bridge. The three conditions required to find intent to suicide were thus met. The forensic psychiatrist presented her findings to the family. They discharged her and decided to seek another expert opinion.

  In the matter of conception or motive, there are suicides that are not motivated or not intended. Some people who suffer from brain disorders may be considered unable to conceive or to have a motive for suicide, but they occasionally randomly or impulsively kill themselves—or others. Trauma to the head or drug and alcohol intoxication can cause acute brain dysfunction accompanied by the unleashing of violence. The resulting acts, even when directed against the impaired person, may not meet the legal criteria for intent to commit suicide, in part because it is so obvious that the other two conditions, planning and execution, have not been met.

  Certain “suicides” are also just as clearly not intended, although they involve no physical brain disorder. For example, a person may plan a suicide gesture. The motivation may show the intent is only a cry for help or the desire to manipulate a situation or another person, but, through miscalculation, the suicide gesture may result in death. Miscalculations also occur in other kinds of death that initially may appear to be suicides, such as in autoerotic asphyxia. This is an attempt by young men to enhance sexual pleasure by decreasing the flow of oxygen to the brain. If miscalculated, it can result in death by hanging, even though the real motive was only to produce a heightened sexual experience while masturbating.

  Planning (Intent)

  One can conceive the idea of suicide but fail in the intent or planning of it. Persons driven by impulse, by psychosis that produces a break with reality, or by intoxicants may have lost the ability to plan a violent act, even though they have thought about it for some time. The event may still happen, however, even if it is not actually planned. Intoxicants may destabilize the person and prematurely precipitate a violent act. For example, consider this case:

  A 33-year-old minor league baseball player harbors a grudge against a former major league coach. The player has often been heard by other players to threaten physical harm to that coach, who he feels has thwarted the player’s major league career. One evening, while intoxicated with alcohol and cocaine, he takes a baseball bat and bludgeons to death a different person, the coach of an opposing minor league team, and then fatally shoots himself.

  Citing the intentional-injury clause of the player’s team liability insurance, the carrier disallows payment to the deceased coach’s family. Litigation follows. The forensic psychiatrist conducts interviews with players from both teams, which reveal that the murdered coach was liked and admired by the player who killed him. Postmortem blood analysis of the player reveals the presence of cocaine and a blood alcohol level of 0.23 (intoxicated).

  In this case, forensic psychiatric analysis reached the conclusion that the player’s toxic mental state, brought on by cocaine and alcohol, had caused the release of a violent act against an unintended victim. This indicated the inability to plan. The murder-suicide, then, was unintended; it was, instead, an impulsive act.

  Another case illustrates a different cause for failure of intent:

  A 28-year-old depressed, devoutly religious woman, a week after the birth of her first child, awakes to intense command auditory hallucinations. She writes a note to her husband: “God commanded me this morning to bring myself and the baby to Him immediately. God said we will not die but live forever. I must obey God. I know you will understand.” Leaving the note for her husband, she gathers their child in her arms and jumps from the 18th-story apartment.

  Forensic psychiatric examination reveals that the woman had a stable personality prior to the birth of the child, but that a severe psychotic depression emerged after childbirth. The suicide note clearly indicates an acute postpartum psychosis. Having a newborn child was not a protective factor against suicide in this instance, as it is in many others. The psychiatrist reports to the court that in this instance, the planning phase of suicide was nonexistent because the woman heard the auditory hallucinations that compelled her to act immediately. Such command hallucinations can be extremely powerful psychotic symptoms that can force action in the here and now. Another factor that affects the psychiatrist’s understanding of the case is that women who intend suicide often do not use a method of suicide that will leave them disfigured. They choose a method that does not involve smashing themselves on the ground. This testimony is challenged by the opposing expert as not having any scientific merit. The court rules that the deceased did not intend suicide because when she jumped, she did not want or expect to die.

  Execution (Act)

  An individual may be able to conceive and to plan a violent act, but the way in which the violence is manifested may indicate impairment of the individual’s capacity to execute. Unintentional death, bizarre actions, and the inability to delay or to control behavior are strong indicators of the presence of severe psychiatric disorder. Consider the following case:

  A divorced rancher squanders his inheritance, runs into financial difficulties, and is in danger of losing his ranch. His older brother, by contrast, has invested his portion of the inheritance wisely and has accumulated considerable wealth. The two have had a falling out. The wealthy brother refuses to lend money to the rancher brother. The rancher conceives the idea of killing the brother’s beloved wife and then shooting himself. This is no idle fantasy, for the rancher has been in frequent fights throughout his life and has a reputation for violence.

  The rancher waits until the brother is out of town on business and sets out to do the deed. He drinks three martinis before he go
es. He also leaves a note detailing his intentions. The note contains rambling comments about past grievances against the brother but also mentions “the good times” with him. The rancher hopes that he will change his mind about killing the sister-in-law before he arrives at her home. On his way to kill his sister-in-law, the rancher is involved in a minor automobile accident. An altercation develops. The rancher shoots and kills the other driver, and then kills himself.

  The estate of the slain driver brings a claim against the rancher’s excess liability insurance policy. This policy contains an exclusionary provision, which denies coverage for bodily injury or property damage “intentionally” caused by, or at the direction of, the insured.

  The forensic psychiatrist interviews friends, acquaintances, and employees of the deceased rancher. He also culls the available records. The rancher’s history of intense envy and ambivalent feelings toward his brother are revealed, as are his spendthrift and impulsive-spending ways. School, military, and police records demonstrate years of alcohol intoxication and fights. His blood-alcohol content at the time of death was 0.15 (intoxicated). Few, if any, protective factors against suicide existed, especially abstinence from alcohol.

  The psychiatrist concludes that the rancher had the mental capacity to conceive and plan a violent act but lacked the capacity to execute the plan in the way that he had intended. As the rancher drove to his sister-in-law’s house, the psychiatrist testified, his envy and rage were so great that the minor accident and altercation in which he was involved, combined with the alcohol that he had ingested, ignited the violence prematurely toward an unintended victim and himself.

  The court decides to apply a narrow view of intent and makes a determination that the murder-suicide was the result of the altercation that came out of the accident. The court ruled that the rancher had known that he was firing a gun at the other driver and had wished to bring about a fatal result. The ambivalent feelings expressed in the note, the court opined, meant that the deceased might have changed his mind about his original target. The court’s decision, therefore, was to uphold the injury exclusion clause of the policy and to deny payment to the family of the deceased driver of the second car.

  Is Every Suicide a Murder?

  As the various cases in this chapter make clear, the forensic psychiatrist’s role in the retrospective assessment of lethal acts is a difficult and arduous task. It is also one in which the psychiatrist’s judgment is not the final word. The law is pragmatic. It only requires testimony of “reasonable medical certainty,” but reaching any sort of certainty is often hard to do. The evidence is often conflicting, and it is up to the court to decide what weight to give to each part of it. Moreover, the legal determination of whether a suicide occurred may depend heavily on criteria of intent applied by the courts. Ultimately, psychological interpretation of the web of facts and fantasy surrounding a mysterious death is an art based on a science, and art is a subjective undertaking. It is left to the courts to make the legal determination of suicide, accident, or murder.

  In the world of the psychiatrist, distinctions are not and cannot be clear-cut. Violent rage reactions can change direction in a second. A person’s murderous rage that erupts against someone else may, at the very last moment, be turned upon himself. Conversely, at the last second, a person who intends suicide may turn murderous rage outward and kill someone else. Or both things may happen: after committing a murder, and as part of the same violent act, the murderer may turn the same murderous impulse against himself or herself.

  Many years ago, Karl Menninger, the famous American psychoanalyst, observed that almost every suicide is a murder. The recognition that murderous rage can go either way—directed outward or inward—is critically important in assessing the last mental stage in suicide and in murder. Suicide is often attempted or completed among a welter of unclear, confusing, and ambivalent feelings. In fact, only one thing about suicide is clear: the intent to kill oneself is hardly ever absolute.

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  Messianic Madness

  Killer Cults to Holy Warriors

  From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.

  —Diderot

  On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 members of an alQaeda suicide group board four passenger planes in three American cities. They have been told by their leader, Mohammed Atta, “The sky smiles, my young son,” an expression of joy in death. Shortly, the cult members will hijack the airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center towers in New York, into the Pentagon in northern Virginia, and into a field in western Pennsylvania, killing themselves, hundreds of other passengers on the planes, and more than 3,000 people in the targeted buildings.

  At Ranch Apocalypse, near Waco, Texas, the self-proclaimed messiah David Koresh gathers cult members from Israel, Jamaica, Great Britain, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as from the United States. He tells them no one will survive the coming battle, that it will be Armageddon. In Jonestown, Guyana, the Reverend Jim Jones calls his flock together over the loudspeaker for their last communion and tells them, “We’re going to meet in another place,” which they all understand to be heaven. At Rancho Santa Fe, California, the leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult Marshall Herff Applewhite claims to be “King Do,” the same celestial spirit that once occupied Christ. He convinces 39 members to commit suicide by drinking a cocktail of vodka and

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  tranquilizers; they believe their deaths will bring them passage to a UFO trailing the Hale-Bopp comet. And in three separate incidents spanning several years, as many as 69 burned bodies of members of the mysterious Order of the Solar Temple are found, some having been murdered and others having committed suicide, in three locations in Quebec and Switzerland. Members of the international doomsday cult, thought to still be in existence, with fewer than 1,000 members, believe that ritualized suicide leads to rebirth on a planet called Sirius.

  Armageddon in Texas

  The Branch Davidians began with the visionary prophecies of a defrocked Seventh-Day Adventist minister, Bulgarian-born Victor Houteff. He declared that he had been appointed by God to “cleanse” the denominations of false believers. There were an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Branch Davidians in the United States, some of whom followed David Koresh when the group split off. Those in the Waco sect included a Harvard-schooled lawyer, a nurse, a carpenter, and a computer expert.

  Koresh had the ability to captivate his audience with a soft voice and a soothing Texas drawl. His marathon sermons frequently went on for 15 hours at a time. He had long preached the prophecy of Apocalypse Now: most of his sermons were drawn from the Book of Revelations, which contains the terrifying Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the forerunners of the Last Judgment. Koresh claimed that he could open the “seven seals” on the scroll in God’s hand, a scroll that prophecies the calamities that will precede the apocalypse.

  On February 28, 1993, officers of the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) first tried to enter the Davidian Mount Carmel compound near Waco, Texas, or Ranch Apocalypse, as it had been named by Koresh. They planned to arrest Koresh for illegal possession of automatic firearms and explosives. Their search warrant permitted the ATF agents to look for grenades, explosive devices, machine guns, and military assault rifles. The armed Davidians opened fire, killing four ATF agents and wounding sixteen others. Six cult members died in that confrontation, and many were wounded, including Koresh.

  There followed weeks of frustrating negotiations between the Davidians and the federal authorities. During this time, families who had members within the cult compound, as well as former cult members, warned the authorities that the group was preparing for a final confrontation and were prepared to commit mass suicide. As the siege wore on toward the end of its second month, Koresh became increasingly erratic in his behavior, speaking constantly about the end of the world. In prolonged Bible study sessions, Koresh would make odd biblical interpretations and ramble in an incoherent manner. He was convinced that the ATF h
ad infiltrated his group and was out to get him. He was ready, with enough arms to supply a small army, in a well-fortified compound with a fail-safe bunker.

  On April 19, 1993, after a 51-day siege by the FBI and other federal authorities, agents using specially equipped tanks burst holes into the walls of the Mount Carmel compound, flooding it with a nonlethal, disabling gas. Within a short while, the compound burned to the ground, consuming an estimated 82 Branch Davidians, including Koresh and a number of children. Nineteen of the Davidians (including Koresh) were reported to have gunshot wounds, some selfinflicted. There was strong evidence that the fires had been deliberately set by the cult members. Later, criminal indictments would charge that in early April, several weeks before the government’s assault, Koresh and his lieutenant, Steve Schneider, had decided to burn down the compound. At the trial of surviving Branch Davidians, one witness testified that Koresh had planned mass suicide.

  Lethal Communion in Guyana

  On November 18, 1978, the Reverend James Warren Jones summoned the more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana, to their last communion in the central pavilion, where he told them that they all must die. “If you love me as much as I love you,” Jones said, “we must all die or be destroyed from outside.” Learning that Armageddon was at hand, mothers cuddled their children and asked, “What have they done?” On Jones’s order, the medical team brought out the “holy wine,” a battered tub containing a concoction of strawberry-flavored Kool-Aid and cyanide. As guards armed with guns and bows and arrows stood at the fringe of the crowd, ready to shoot anyone who tried to escape, Jones commanded that the babies be brought up first. Then the older children came together and followed his orders, lining up to accept their communion cups of poison. Parents and older folks followed. The “white night” mass suicide pact had been practiced many times before. As they stood in the gathering darkness, each person was given a small glass of red liquid. They were told by Jones that death would come in 45 minutes. The last communion was no rehearsal. Cult members were told that they would die today but be resurrected tomorrow. Some families came forward voluntarily. When some resisted, guards snatched babies from resisting mothers, holding them up so that “nurses” could spray cyanide down the babies’ throats with hypodermic syringes. Sticking a gun into the ribs of a mother who would not stop clutching her 1-year-old son, a guard shouted, “You dumb bitch. You better do it or we’re going to shoot your ass off.” Tears running down her face, she injected the cyanide mix herself into the baby’s mouth. Almost immediately, the child began to convulse and scream. An old man who resisted violently was knocked to the ground, his jaws pried open and cyanide poured down his throat. All the while, Jones was on the loudspeaker, exhorting his flock. “There is great dignity to dying,” he called out. “It is a great demonstration for everyone to die.”