Chapter 7
Why would a grown man or woman shoot little children in an elementary school? What makes young adults commit attacks at colleges they do not attend? What motivates men in their twenties and thirties to return to schools they attended years earlier and gun down people they do not know? The shooters presented in this chapter are perhaps the hardest to understand because of their lack of connection to the schools they attacked. This chapter explores the lives of ten perpetrators I call aberrant adult shooters. The eleventh case in this chapter does not resemble the others but was aberrant in terms of the setting where his rampage occurred.
YOUNG ADULTS WHO ATTACKED COLLEGES
THEY DID NOT ATTEND
Marc Lépine
“I have decided to send the feminists, who have always
ruined my life, to their Maker.”
Date: December 6, 1989
Age: 25
School: École Polytechnique
Location: Montreal, Canada
Killed: 14
Wounded: 14
Outcome: Suicide
Marc Lépine hated his father—and with reason. Liess Gharbi was controlling and bad-tempered. He frequently swatted his wife, son, and daughter on the back of the head.[1] He once struck Lépine in the face so hard that the marks lasted a week, after which Mrs. Lépine filed for divorce and the family separated into two households.[2]
Lépine’s sister, Nadia, was three years younger but more assertive and dominant. She taunted him and put him down in front of his friends. When she saw him kiss a girl, she burst out laughing, and he felt humiliated. When he didn’t have a girlfriend, she made fun of him and called him “gay.”[3] When Lépine was twelve or thirteen years old he was so enraged by Nadia that he made a mock grave for her in the backyard, with her name and photograph on the gravestone.[4] Mrs. Lépine commented, “I thought it was strange behavior. . . . But Marc was different than other boys.”[5]
As an adolescent and young adult, Lépine was extremely shy, anxious, and socially awkward. A couple of male friends noted that he was socially immature—at age twenty he seemed much younger. His behavior struck people as strange—perhaps he laughed too loud or argued too much.[6] Mrs. Lépine described him as “enigmatic” and said some of his behavior “just wasn’t normal.”[7] One abnormality was that he was “a fervent admirer of Adolf Hitler.”[8]
Although intelligent, Lépine pursued a circuitous route through college, taking courses in one field, switching to another field, failing classes, and dropping out of courses. He had a series of menial jobs that never lasted long. His goal was to attend the École Polytechnique and become an engineer; he applied to the school twice and was rejected both times. He also tried to join the military but was rejected there, too.[9]
Lépine became obsessed with feminists, and in his suicide note he blamed them for ruining his life.[10] His note expressed particular contempt for women in the military. During his rampage, he shouted, “You’re women, you’re going to be engineers. You’re all a bunch of feminists. . . . And I hate feminists!”[11] His belief that feminists ruined his life was paranoid.
Not only was Lépine paranoid, but a friend of his recalled “in the early 1980s” when “Marc was taking a computer-programming course in the downtown building where I worked. One day I came upon him in a crowded elevator. I scarcely recognized him; he seemed completely out of it and was mumbling what sounded like German words. And then, right there in the midst of all those office workers, he raised his right arm in a Nazi salute. I could have died! Everyone stared at him as though he was nuts.”[12] This behavior suggests psychosis.
Lépine’s rage and contempt were directed at three groups of women: police officers, soldiers, and engineers. Why them? These women were functioning in traditionally male roles, two of them being roles that he had pursued and failed to achieve. He was rejected by the military, and he was rejected by École Polytechnique where he had aspired to study engineering. He didn’t commit mass murder at a mall, restaurant, or a randomly chosen street corner. He committed murder at the school that rejected him, where women were succeeding in the career he aspired to. His rampage was most likely an attempt to destroy threats to his identity as a male.
* * *
Though he was not diagnosed while alive, Lépine appears to have had schizotypal personality disorder: his mother and friends found him to be odd and enigmatic, and he had the delusion that feminists had ruined his life. Also, he was a bright young man but ended up not working, not attending school, and with virtually no social life. This lack of accomplishment is common among schizotypals. Like other psychotic shooters, Lépine was attracted to Nazism. He apparently had a severely damaged masculine identity and resented women who outperformed him.
Jillian Robbins
“When I woke up that day, I decided I was going to die.”
Date: September 17, 1996
Age: 19
School: Pennsylvania State
University
Location: University Park, PA
Killed: 1
Wounded: 1
Outcome: Overpowered.
In prison
When Jillian Robbins was eleven years old, she told her mother, “I want to die.” Mrs. Robbins could not understand her daughter’s depression: “She had always been happy and wonderful and bouncy and never cried and just nothing but joy. . . . And something started changing in early puberty.”[13]
The family faced several upheavals over the years. Robbins was five when her parents divorced. A few years later her mother remarried, then divorced again. Then she married her second husband a second time, but again they divorced.[14] Robbins’s father also remarried. Though these changes were presumably stressful for Robbins, there is no evidence of parental alcoholism, child abuse, or other traumas.
Robbins bounced back and forth between her parents’ homes during adolescence.[15] Her mother attended a graduate program at Penn State in University Park, Pennsylvania, and then worked there as an administrator. When Mrs. Robbins relocated to the university’s Harrisburg campus, her daughter stayed back at University Park. Robbins’s father, whom she reportedly idolized, was an administrator for the army reserve.[16]
Apparently following in her father’s footsteps, Robbins joined the army reserve as a junior in high school. She attended basic training in the summer of 1994 but dropped out of high school. Then, because she did not have sufficient high school credits, the army reserve kicked her out.[17]
Robbins worked at a diner, and at eighteen she married a coworker she had not known for long. After six months, she moved out.[18] No details about the marriage have come to light. The following summer, she had an inpatient stay in a psychiatric hospital.[19]
Though Robbins found a new boyfriend, the relationship was unstable. On September 16, 1996, they had a big fight.[20] The next morning, Robbins took the rifle her father had given her to the Penn State campus and opened fire. She killed one person and wounded another. Two other students were nearly hit; they found bullet fragments in their backpacks.[21] A student wrestled Robbins to the ground before she could shoot anyone else.
What was wrong with Robbins? She had a long history of depression and psychiatric hospitalizations and had attempted suicide several weeks before the shooting.[22] She also had symptoms of schizophrenia. Robbins reported that as early as tenth grade she had both auditory and visual hallucinations. She heard voices and saw “tall, dark people with dark coats and no eyes.” She said, “I could not handle the stresses of life. I could not handle the hallucinations, the delusions any more.”[23] The nature of her delusions remains unknown. Her peers observed her oddness. A coworker said, “Everybody that worked there said the same thing: She did act strange and weird.”[24] She was given the nickname “Crazy Jill.”[25]
The district attorney sought a plea agreement to avoid a trial that would allow Robbins to enter an insanity plea. He commented, “It was a solid claim for an insanity defense.”[26] Insanity pleas are rarely successful; for the district attorney to admit that Robbins had a solid claim suggests there was compelling evidence that she was psychotic.
But why did she shoot college students? Robbins could not explain this, saying she just wanted to die. Friends reported, however, that she did not like “preppy” people.[27] Perhaps as a high school dropout she envied college students.
* * *
Jillian Robbins and Brenda Spencer had several things in common. They both had fathers who served in the military and gave them rifles as gifts. Both were expert sharpshooters—Spencer trained by her father, Robbins by the army. Both had parents who worked in universities. Both were described as tomboys with no interest in traditional femininity. Also, both sets of parents were divorced. They differed significantly, however, in personality. Spencer was fully grounded in reality, upbeat and fun-loving, and found sadistic pleasure in killing; Robbins was depressed, suicidal, and psychotic.
Kimveer Gill
“Let the blood flow, Let the streets run red with blood,
Blood of mine enemies.”
Date: September 13, 2006
Age: 25
School: Dawson College
Location: Montreal, Canada
Killed: 1
Wounded: 19
Outcome: Hit by police
gunfire. Suicide
At age twenty-five, Kimveer Gill was not in school, had no job, didn’t hang out with friends, and wasn’t dating. He stayed in his room, played video games, and posted messages on VampireFreaks.com. He had not always been like this.
Gill had been a normal child who was “quiet, nice, sensitive and generous.”[28] At age nine he received a certificate for outstanding effort at school and the following year was given a Citizenship Award.[29] He enjoyed playing floor hockey, basketball, and tennis. In sixth grade, his goal was to become a lawyer and “make people go to jail.”[30] He received certificates of merit for good conduct two consecutive years in high school. Gill was a well-liked boy who was not ostracized or bullied. As a classmate stated, “He wasn’t a guy that got picked on, not at all—who picks on a tall, big guy who could kick your ass if you picked on him?”[31] Despite his size, Gill was repeatedly described as gentle.
Gill attended Vanier College with several high school friends. After one semester, however, he dropped out and joined the Canadian Army. Just one month later, he was “honorably released.” This reportedly could mean he didn’t meet the military’s standards, left voluntarily, or was discharged due to medical reasons. His mother said he left because he missed home. Two of Gill’s fellow recruits, however, said he was discharged because he didn’t meet military standards of behavior.[32]
Gill found work but was laid off in 2001. This reportedly was a serious blow. He then had several odd jobs and took six months of coursework in industrial drafting at Rosemont Technology Centre. His friends noted that Gill was not moving ahead in life as they were, commenting that it seemed like he was mentally still in high school.[33] (Marc Lépine’s friends had made essentially the same observation about him.)
Through his early twenties, Gill did not progress academically, occupationally, or socially. He began to drink. He increasingly isolated himself. He also began spending more time with an old friend, Rajiv Rajan. According to Mrs. Gill, “Rajiv said that it was very easy to manipulate Kimveer because he’s too honest and too trusting.”[34] This raises the question of what Rajan was manipulating Gill to do.
Rajan’s influence is important, because in January 2006 he and Gill took photographs of themselves posing with one of Gill’s firearms—the same one Gill later used at Dawson College. In fact, after Gill’s rampage, Rajan reportedly vowed to follow in Gill’s footsteps by carrying out another school shooting.[35] Whether the two men discussed committing a rampage attack is unknown, but it would not be surprising.
As 2006 progressed, Gill became increasingly isolated. A neighbor commented, “He never had friends with him. He was always alone.”[36] Gill’s mother noticed he was becoming more and more withdrawn.[37]
Gill posted messages and information about himself on VampireFreaks.com, where he expressed admiration for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and imitated Harris’s writing. For example, Harris liked to write “Ich bin Gott,” German for I am God. Gill also wrote “Ich bin Gott” and “I am God.”[38] Gill’s postings suggest he had delusions of grandeur. He wrote,
Stop praying to your imaginary gods little monkeys
Because I’m the only god you need to pray to
I AM GOD.[39]
On September 10, just three days before his rampage, Gill wrote, “God, you humans are so inferior.”[40] He also appears to have been paranoid. For example, though he was not under surveillance, Gill believed the police were watching him. He wrote, “I wonder why my household has been under surveillance by law enforcement for six years now?”[41]
Gill’s online writings said nothing about his impending attack. It is perhaps noteworthy, however, that three days before his attack he wrote of the video game Postal, “I want them to make a game so realistic that it looks and feels like it’s actually happening. . . . You gotta bring Postal into the mainstream. I want more people to see what I see. . . . Postal Dude was sad before he became angry and psychotic. . . . He was normal, but the world made him the way he became.”[42] This suggests Gill identified with “Postal dude.”
Why did he attack Dawson College? Gill had never attended the school, or even applied to it.[43] Why did he attack people at a college he had no connection to? Gill may have had the same feelings as Lépine toward students in college—that they were living the life he wanted to live. He could have chosen anywhere, but he chose a college. The kind of school he could have—perhaps felt he should have—been attending. The kind of school he started but left. It apparently was an attack against people who were doing what he was not—moving ahead in life.
Envy is a powerful force. Of those with higher status than he, Gill wrote, “Why does society applaud jocks? I don’t understand. They are the worse kind of people on earth. And the preps are no better, they think they are better than others………..but they’re not.”[44] Gill, in the lonely isolation of his room, viewed jocks and preps as society’s favorites. But he, like other envious shooters, found a way to elevate himself: “I love guns. I really do. The great equalizer.”[45]
* * *
Kimveer Gill was not diagnosed as psychotic during his lifetime, but his online postings suggest both paranoid delusions and delusions of grandeur. Whereas many psychotic shooters struggled socially and emotionally throughout their lives, Gill was a high-functioning young man all the way through high school. He appeared to be destined for success until he reached early adulthood. Whereas Lépine apparently had schizotypal personality disorder, Gill appears to have had adult-onset schizophrenia. Within a few years, this bright, capable young man collapsed into a nonfunctioning, isolated loner.
Besides his psychosis, Gill may have had peer support for his attack through his friend Rajiv Rajan. His attack was perhaps primarily driven by envy, which may have been particularly strong because his father was a college professor who wanted him to continue his education.[46] This may explain why Gill chose to attack a college rather than any other setting. He was gunning down those who were succeeding in the area in which he had not only failed himself but failed his family.
COMMENTS
These three shooters—Lépine, Robbins, and Gill—had several things in common. First, they were all psychotic. In addition, they were all within the age range of traditional undergraduate or graduate students—twenty-five, nineteen, and twenty-five, respectively. They all had at least one immigrant parent—Lépine’s father from Algeria, Robbins’s mother from Finland, Gill’s mother and father from India. They all had family members who served in the military, they all had military aspirations of their own, and they all failed in these aspirations. Robbins and Gill had family members involved in higher education, and if we count Lépine’s mother, who had been a university student, so did he. Also, none of them were attending college or had completed a degree. Thus, they all failed in both their military careers and their educations.
ADULTS WHO ATTACKED SCHOOLS THEY
HAD ATTENDED YEARS BEFORE
Patrick Purdy
“I guess I’m just not good enough.”
Date: January 17, 1989
Age: 24
School: Cleveland Elementary
School
Location: Stockton, CA
Killed: 5
Wounded: 31
Outcome: Suicide
Patrick Purdy came from a broken home, lived on the streets of Los Angeles as a teenager, started prostituting himself to men when he was somewhere between thirteen and fifteen, became an alcoholic and drug addict, and drifted around the country, going from job to job.[47]
Purdy’s parents separated after his father threatened his mother with a gun.[48] The parents divorced, and his father abandoned the family. Purdy’s mother married and divorced three times. She struggled with alcoholism, and several charges of neglect were filed against her.[49] A neighbor recalled that in winter, Purdy and his siblings “wouldn’t have jackets on. It would be cold. They were locked out of the house. No kind of supervision, no guidance.”[50] According to one report, his mother threatened to kill Purdy.[51]
When Purdy was nine, he and his siblings were removed from the home. At some point he returned to his mother’s care, but she kicked him out of the house when he was thirteen after he hit her. He lived on the streets, staying with whomever he could find, and spent some time with his father. When he was fifteen, he said he hated his mother and “could chop her head off.”[52] He called her a “bitch, liar, thief, asshole, witch, cruel, torturer, mean, low down, evil, black whore, child abuser, inflicter of cruel and unusual punishment.”[53] He said he “preferred living under bridges, eating off garbage dumpsters, and prostituting myself to living with the slave driver mother dearest.”[54]
Purdy drifted between Florida, Oregon, and Connecticut, picking up jobs when he could, never lasting long in one position. Substance abuse was likely his biggest obstacle to staying employed. He was alcoholic from the age of twelve and used “LSD and other hallucinogens, modeling glue, PCP, amphetamines, heroin, and cocaine.”[55] Despite his chronic substance use, Purdy was clean and sober when he carried out his attack.
At fifteen, Purdy was arrested for soliciting sex from an undercover police officer. He went on to be arrested many times for drugs, traffic violations, vandalism, attempted theft, and other charges.
Purdy complained that people taunted him because he was gay. He was often depressed and at thirteen attempted suicide by overdosing on drugs and alcohol. When he reported this during a disability evaluation, the psychologist got the impression that Purdy saw himself as failure in everything, even suicide. He demonstrated self-awareness, commenting, “I have never been able to get along with others or act in a socially appropriate manner.”[56] At twenty-three, he was living out of his car, feeling “lonely and unloved.”[57]
Near the end of his life, Purdy became prejudiced toward Southeast Asians, a group that had moved into his hometown in significant numbers since he was a child. It was also reported, however, that he didn’t like whites and hated authorities. On the day of his attack, he wore a flakjacket on which he had written “Freedom,” “PLO,” “Hezbollah,” and “Death to the Great Satin [sic].”[58] The Great Satan was the United States. Purdy had also drawn an American flag inside a circle with a slash through the flag. He apparently hated both the United States and immigrants.
Why did he attack Cleveland Elementary? He attended the school from kindergarten through third grade. In the intervening years, the student population had become 70 percent Asian. Maybe he choose that school as a way to express his opposition to “foreigners” coming to this country and taking jobs away from him, which had been one of his complaints. Alternatively, because of the misery and trauma he experienced as a child, perhaps he was envious of the happy children he saw playing at recess. A third possibility is that the attack served as misplaced revenge for having been teased by rich kids at that school, or perhaps envy that the Asian students had nicer clothes than he did.[59]
Purdy apparently considered attacking other schools before deciding on Cleveland Elementary. He was seen stalking a local middle school and a high school shortly before his attack. Maybe he chose Cleveland Elementary because he felt too inadequate to successfully attack teenagers, deciding instead to unleash his rage on the most vulnerable students he could find.
Though Purdy committed his rampage alone, he and his half-brother, Albert, had often talked about killing people, usually police officers. A few days before the attack, they discussed killing people. When Purdy said, “Let’s do it,” Albert told him, “You’re not ready,” and added, “they’re not worth it.”[60] It is unclear who “they” referred to—cops, children, or some other targets. A month after Purdy’s attack, Albert was arrested for possessing explosive devices. What he intended to do with them remains unknown.
* * *
Patrick Purdy was a traumatized shooter. He had a highly dysfunctional and violent family that physically and emotionally abused him. He was kicked out of his home at age thirteen and lived on the streets where he experienced sexual abuse in the form of homosexual prostitution with men. Aside from this, we have no idea what other traumas may have occurred while Purdy was on his own. Being homeless in Los Angeles exposed Purdy to danger at a very young age, and he may have experienced any number of hardships.
Also, Purdy resembled other traumatized shooters in having a peer (his half-brother) who supported his violent intentions. He also had a family role model for the misuse of firearms in his father, who threatened Purdy’s mother with a gun. No other traumatized shooter had a history of severe substance abuse as long as Purdy’s. He also differed from most traumatized shooters in having political beliefs that may have influenced his attack.
Bruco Eastwood
“They have me suffering, alive but in pain.”
Date: February 23, 2010
Age: 32
School: Deer Creek
Middle School
Location: Littleton, CO
Killed: 0
Wounded: 2
Outcome: Prison
By the time Bruco Eastwood shot two students at his former middle school, he was severely psychotic. He not only heard voices talking to him but also engaged in loud conversations and arguments with them, even in front of his father.[61] Sometimes Eastwood threw punches and kicks at nonexistent enemies.[62] During his trial, “Eastwood occasionally made gestures during the hearing, appearing to grab invisible objects around his head and torso, throwing them over his shoulder or to his side.”[63]
Eastwood also had multiple delusions. He believed there were “mutants or transformers that were taking over his body.”[64] He also believed that creatures stole food from his stomach and that a Nielsen Ratings box attached to his television was projecting voices into his head.[65] Besides his psychotic symptoms, Eastwood had a long history of violent behavior, alcoholism, and arrests.[66]
Not much is known about Eastwood’s childhood. His father was Apache, and his mother was Irish.[67] His parents separated and eventually divorced,[68] with Eastwood living with his mother. The separation occurred when Eastwood was approximately twelve years old—about the time that he attended Deer Creek Middle School. Eastwood reportedly did not have a good time at Deer Creek;[69] he was poor and resented the richer kids who allegedly picked on him.[70]
Five years before his attack, Eastwood lost his job at a grocery store and went to live with his father, where he helped out on the ranch.[71] He never graduated from high school but worked on getting his GED for two years, in the end failing to pass the test.[72] He had a lifelong dream of being an astronaut but never came close to achieving it.[73]
The day of his attack, Eastwood entered the school, said he was a former student, talked with a couple of teachers, and then left.[74] He opened fire outside the school, wounding two students before being tackled by a teacher and held until the police arrived.[75]
* * *
Eastwood was a psychotic shooter with a long history of hallucinations and delusions. His psychosis was significant enough that he was found not guilty by reason of insanity.[76] He reportedly sought revenge for his alleged mistreatment at the school, but shooting kids who hadn’t even been born when he attended Deer Creek was not revenge. Why commit such an attack twenty years later? Perhaps his failure to obtain his GED resulted in resentment toward other students who presumably would succeed where he had failed. Also, his psychosis was severe, and he may have had hallucinations or delusions that drove him to violence.
Wellington de Oliveira
“Our fight is against cruel, cowardly people.”
Date: April 7, 2011
Age: 23
School: Tasso de Silveira
Municipal School
Location: Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil
Killed: 12
Wounded: 12
Outcome: Suicide
Wellington de Oliveira was adopted from a schizophrenic woman. His mental health issues were severe, and a psychiatrist concluded (after the shooting) that de Oliveira was schizophrenic as well.[77] De Oliveira committed his attack at the school he had attended from 1999 to 2002. He was twenty-three years old at the time he gunned down children twelve to fifteen years of age.[78]
De Oliveira’s adoptive siblings said, “He was very alone, absent, closed up”[79] and never had friends.[80] When there was a party in the house, he stayed in his bedroom. He watched other kids play soccer but did not join in. When directed to participate in group projects at school, de Oliveira refused and asked to work independently.[81]
According to peers and teachers, “he was routinely bullied at school, rejected and taunted by girls in class, and forced to endure ‘constant humiliation’ including being thrown into a school garbage can.”[82] Because he walked with a limp, peers taunted him and nicknamed him “Swing.”
When the World Trade Center was destroyed on September 11, 2001, de Oliveira became fascinated with terrorists. He studied terrorist attacks and began calling himself “Bomberman,” meaning a suicide bomber. He said that someday he would blow up his school.[83] His nickname was reportedly “Al Qaeda.”[84] De Oliveira talked about imitating the attack on the World Trade Center by crashing a plane into the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.[85]
De Oliveira’s mental health deteriorated in the last few years of his life. His adoptive father died in 2008; eight months before the attack, his adoptive mother died.[86] She apparently had been the only person with whom he had any meaningful connection. After this, he withdrew even more. He’d held the same job since 2008, but when assigned new responsibilities requiring more social interaction than he could manage, he quit. Shortly before the attack his appearance and behavior changed; he became disheveled and said strange things.[87] His sister said that his comments often made no sense,[88] suggesting disorganized thoughts, which are symptomatic of schizophrenia.
His interest in Muslim terrorists led him to study Islam. He talked to his sister about Islam and read the Quran four hours a day.[89] He grew a beard and told people he was Osama bin Laden.[90] Besides bin Laden, his heroes were Seung Hui Cho, whom he referred to as “a brother,” and a Brazilian named Edmar Aparecido Freitas, who in 2003 had shot eight people at his former school.[91] Like Cho, de Oliveira framed his attack within an ideology that justified his violence. He said, “Our fight is against cruel, cowardly people who take advantage of the kindness, the innocence, the weakness of people who are incapable of defending themselves.”[92] As with Cho, however, there was no connection between his ideology and his actions. Instead of acting on behalf of the weak and the innocent, he murdered them.
De Oliveira left an odd suicide note in which he wrote, “You should first know that the impure cannot touch me without gloves, only the chaste or those who lost their chastity after marriage and were not involved in adultery can touch me without gloves . . . nothing impure can have direct contact with a virgin without his permission.”[93]
His preoccupation with sexual purity is reminiscent of Alvaro Castillo’s obsession with lust, sin, and sexuality. Castillo wanted to die a virgin and avoid the sinfulness of sex. One of the students who survived the attack said that de Oliveira singled out girls for killing.[94] In fact, ten of the twelve fatalities were girls. Perhaps his focus on killing girls was related to his bizarre ideas about sex.
* * *
Wellington de Oliveira presented with multiple symptoms of schizophrenia: severely impaired social functioning, poor grooming, strange talk, bizarre preoccupations, and a grandiose delusion of himself as the defender of the weak, even as he killed them. He had role models for violence and an ideology that supported his action. The bullying he endured may have been worse than that endured by any other psychotic shooter.
Adam Lanza
“. . . . . . . . .”
Date: December 14, 2012
Age: 20
School: Sandy Hook
Elementary School
Location: Newtown, CT
Killed: 27
Wounded: 2
Outcome: Suicide
Though Adam Lanza was bright, he struggled with profound impairments all his life. He barely functioned socially, rarely spoke, could not tolerate being touched, and had periods of total withdrawal in which he became unresponsive. He was hypersensitive to light and sound, and yet he had a blunted sense of pain.[95] Lanza struggled emotionally in academic settings and as a young adult wondered why he was “such a loser.”[96]
Lanza’s parents separated in 2001, when he was nine years old. He lived with his mother and maintained contact with his father until 2010. At that point, Mr. Lanza had reportedly begun seeing another woman, and Lanza cut off contact with both his father and older brother.[97]
Lanza’s uncle served in the military and then as a police officer.[98] Lanza admired him and was obsessed with the military. He covered the walls of his basement with military posters and played military video games for hours.[99] He even wanted to join the marines. Though his mother took him target shooting, she dissuaded him from applying to the military.[100] Why did he want to join the marines? Perhaps because that would transform him from a nobody into a somebody. As described by reporter Matthew Lysiak, Lanza created an alter ego as his online persona: “The skinny and frail teenager chose to create an imposing, bulky, muscle-bound soldier dressed in desert camouflage.”[101] No one can argue with the manliness of a marine.
Perhaps Lanza’s need to feel powerful was also behind his interest in Satanism. A classmate said Lanza created a Satanic website with “the word Devil on it in red Gothic-style letters against a black background. It gave me the chills.”[102] Lanza was also fascinated by mass murderers.[103] A search of his home revealed a remarkable spreadsheet, seven feet by four feet, covered in nine-point type, with Lanza’s collection of data about five hundred mass murderers.[104]
Lanza was not merely shy—he struck people as very odd. One person recalled, “There was a weirdness about him.”[105] Another said, “I don’t even think withdrawn is the right word. Removed.”[106] Someone else stated, “He was like a ghost.”[107]
In 2005, Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder.[108] This is a “pervasive developmental disorder” (PDD), which is in the same category that includes autism. Though Lanza’s symptoms could be accounted for by a PDD, they could also indicate schizophrenia. Alternatively, perhaps as a child he was on the autistic spectrum but as an adult went on to develop schizophrenia. His mother suspected that he wasn’t simply autistic, wondering “whether her son had outgrown what had previously been diagnosed as borderline autism into something much more extreme.”[109] Similarly, Lanza’s father questioned the diagnosis of Asperger’s: “I was thinking it [the Asperger’s diagnosis] could mask schizophrenia.”[110]
As a child, Lanza played the saxophone, performed in theater, and was active in a technology club at school. As he grew older, however, he withdrew from these activities, and his functioning declined.[111] This deterioration, as well as his profound social impairment and inability to converse, suggest schizophrenia. Schizophrenics often have “poverty of speech,” meaning they fail to engage in normal conversation and may barely speak at all. Lanza’s periods of withdrawal and nonresponsiveness may have been catatonic episodes. He also had blunted or flattened emotions, which is another symptom of schizophrenia. A former classmate commented, “If you looked at him, you couldn’t see any emotions going through his head.”[112]
Schizophrenia may also account for his sensory-integration problems: “Perceptual dysfunction is the most invariant feature of the early stage of schizophrenia.”[113] As one schizophrenic commented, “noises all seem to be louder to me than they were before. It’s as if someone had turned up the volume.”[114] Another person said, “My eyes became markedly oversensitive to light. Ordinary colors appeared much too bright, and sunlight seemed dazzling in intensity.”[115] The sense of touch can also be distorted: “It was terrible to be touched. . . . Once a nurse tried to cut my nails. The touch was such that I tried to bite her.”[116] Not only Lanza’s devastating social inhibition but also his sensory sensitivity and his inability to tolerate being touched were consistent with schizophrenia. The lack of pain sensation is also found in schizophrenia.[117]
It is not known if Lanza had hallucinations as an adult, though as a child he smelled odors that were not present.[118] Perceiving nonexistent smells constitutes what are called olfactory hallucinations. There is no clear evidence of delusions. An elementary-school peer remembered that Lanza talked about aliens;[119] whether or not this was a result of psychosis is unknown. Andrew Wurst, a psychotic shooter, believed he was an alien and had other delusions about aliens; the same may have been true of Lanza.
Like other young-adult psychotic shooters, Lanza had essentially withdrawn from life. He was twenty years old, living at home with no friends or significant other, without a job, and without pursuing his education. His world had largely shrunk to a room where he played video games and watched movies.
* * *
Lanza shared significant similarities with Seung Hui Cho. Both were profoundly awkward in social situations. Both demonstrated poverty of speech and flattened affect. Neither could tolerate being touched. Each felt like “a loser.” The main difference between the two is that Cho’s manifesto gives us solid evidence of his delusions of grandeur and persecution.
Without such a document from Lanza, how do we make sense of his attack? He may have sought “revenge” for mistreatment at Sandy Hook, but there is no consensus regarding how much he was picked on. In addition, Lanza “indicated that he loved the school,”[120] his family remembered his years there as “the best times of his life,”[121] and his father stated, “Adam loved Sandy Hook.”[122]
People have speculated that perhaps he was jealous of the students his mother volunteered with at the school. Another possibility is that he felt so impotent that he sought out the only targets he believed he could handle—first graders.
Yet another possibility has to do with Lanza’s enigmatic sexuality. His computer contained “materials regarding the topic of pedophilia and advocating for rights for pedophiles.”[123] He also owned a script and a movie that portrayed sexual relationships between children and adults. Was Lanza sexually attracted to children? Was his attack driven by sexual frustration, killing those he desired but could not have?
Even stranger still, Lanza’s computer contained two fictional pieces about having to defend himself against babies who were attacking him. Did he have paranoid delusions about babies and children? Did Lanza murder children as an act of self-defense? As early as fifth grade, Lanza cowrote a story about a murderous character who said, “I like hurting people. . . . Especially children.”[124]
COMMENTS
Patrick Purdy, Wellington de Oliveira, Bruco Eastwood, and Adam Lanza came from a variety of backgrounds. Three of them were psychotic, with only Purdy being traumatized. No shooter in this group was psychopathic. The attacks at their former schools may have been driven by envy, misplaced revenge for harassment, sexual issues, or psychosis.
ADULTS WHO ATTACKED ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
TO WHICH THEY HAD NO CONNECTION
Laurie Dann
“You don’t have to change your phone number. . . .
That won’t stop me from killing you.”
Date: May 20, 1988
Age: 30
School: Hubbard Woods
Elementary
Location: Winnetka, IL
Killed: 1
Wounded: 6
Outcome: Attempted to
escape. Took hostages in
house. Surrounded by police.
Suicide
Laurie Dann was an injustice collector. She remembered every slight, every rejection, and every time anybody hurt her and was determined to get revenge. She was also psychotic, sometimes to the point of catatonia. She would sit and stare at nothing or engage in meaningless, repetitive behaviors for hours. She wore the same clothes for days without regard for hygiene and did some very strange things.[125]
Though my discussion of psychosis has focused on hallucinations and delusions, another symptom is relevant in this case: grossly disorganized behavior. This refers to behavior that is flagrantly socially inappropriate or simply bizarre. This describes Dann’s behavior—but not always.
In fact, when Dann was not psychotic, she was highly calculating, resourceful, and methodical in getting back at people. She also relished her revenge with sadistic glee. The story of Laurie Dann is so strange and packed with dramatic incidents that perhaps more than any other shooter this brief summary can only suggest her complexity.
Dann was born into a prosperous and intact yet emotionally barren family. As a child she was extremely small, unattractive, and odd—“a reticent, funny-looking little girl with an oversized nose and sailboat ears. . . . The kids accepted her, for the most part, but it sometimes bothered them that she almost never smiled and every so often would fix them with a blank stare that seemed to come from a million miles away.”[126] Dann had surgery on her ears at age ten and on her nose between tenth and eleventh grades. After the surgery, she was considered attractive.
As a teenager, Dann violated rules and social norms. She cheated in school, cheated on her time card at work, and cheated on her boyfriend. She told elaborate lies about herself, claiming college degrees she didn’t have and falsifying her employment history. When she did get jobs, they never lasted long. Her behavior was strange, inappropriate, and unreliable.
Dann also developed behaviors that appear to be symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder but may have been delusional. While walking outdoors she sometimes had to touch every telephone pole and avoid cracks in the sidewalks. She was so afraid of germs that she was unable to open a door or use silverware with her bare hands. After she was married, her thinking became very strange. Of her husband she once said, “I’m afraid if I close the cabinets in the kitchen he’s going to stop loving me.”[127]
Dann also demonstrated an unusual combination of personality traits. She dated a boy for a couple of months in high school. When he ended the relationship, “she hated him for it. He was surprised that such a mousy girl was capable of showing such intense contempt with just her eyes.”[128] The combination of “mousy” and “contemptuous” seems like a contradiction, but it expresses Dann’s desperate insecurity and towering rage when thwarted.
After marrying Russell Dann, her behavior became increasingly strange: “She began scattering trash throughout the house and leaving money in the oven and the freezer, canned food in the dishwasher, and makeup in the microwave.”[129] Her husband tried to take things in stride, but after several years he decided to end the marriage. Dann had been dumped by boyfriends, dropped by friends, and fired from jobs, and though she was bitter, she was able to go on. The loss of her husband, however, was a loss she could not endure. She was determined to make him suffer.
Once, after Dann had moved out, Russell was talking on the telephone and heard a suspicious noise. He searched the house and “found Laurie, who was supposedly living with her parents, crouched in a pile of birdseed in her old closet, huddled up to the cordless telephone.”[130] She had broken into the house, waited for Russell to be on the telephone, and listened in so she could find out his plans and torment him.
She fabricated a police report that Russell had stuck a knife into her vagina. She broke into his house again, and while he was in bed she stabbed him with an ice pick and escaped. Not content with torturing Russell, Dann began harassing an old boyfriend. She called the man’s wife and claimed she was carrying the man’s baby. She sent a letter to the hospital where he worked and accused him of raping her. When he moved and got an unlisted number, Dann located him, found out his new number, and continued her harassment.
Interspersed with her vengeance seeking were periods of grossly disorganized behavior. When Dann lived on campus at Northwestern University she broke into other people’s rooms, stole things, and hoarded raw meat. University staff decided to investigate: “When they opened up the refrigerator they reeled at the ghoulish sight and smell of thick, dripping cuts of spoiled meat stuffed into every corner.”[131] After Dann was kicked out of the room, the maintenance supervisor “found garbage in all the cabinets about the kitchen sink. Her bed was so badly damaged by urine that he had to toss both the mattress and the platform board into the dumpster. He also saw urine stains on several spots on the carpet.”[132]
After leaving Northwestern University, Dann enrolled at the University of Wisconsin. One day she was found in a stairwell “totally nude, opening and slamming the fire door.”[133] Her room was in deplorable condition: “They found a stinking hovel, a toilet filled with excrement, a carpet soaked with urine, garbage everywhere.”[134]
Besides harassing her ex-husband and former boyfriends, she began calling other people at all hours and hanging up as soon as they answered. She did this with many families who had hired her as a babysitter and then stopped using her after they found she had stolen from them, vandalized their home, or was simply too weird.
Eventually, however, she switched from hanging up to making death threats. She called her former boyfriend and told his wife, “You don’t have to change your phone number. . . . That won’t stop me from killing you. And you might as well take your little baby and throw him in the garbage can.”[135]
She threatened not only people who had hurt her but also people whom she apparently envied. She saw an article about a ten-year-old boy named Jim who had won a spelling bee, called the boy’s mother, and said, “I just wanted you to know that I’m going to kill Jim today.”[136] She was not really going to kill Jim—she just enjoyed making happy people suffer. Years before she had told her therapist that she envied happy families.[137]
Laurie Dann planned one grand day of vengeance on May 20, 1988. She stole arsenic and made poisoned Rice Krispies treats and poisoned juice containers. She mailed the poisoned items to some people and dropped them off at other people’s homes. She drove to the home of Marian Rushe, whose five children Dann had babysat. With the mother’s permission, she picked up two of the kids under the pretense of taking them out for a special day. While in her car, she gave them poisoned milk to drink. She drove to Lavinia Elementary, where she lit a bag of chemicals to set the building aflame. She then brought the children home and used gasoline to start a fire, intending to burn down their house and kill the mother and children.
Dann then went to Hubbard Woods Elementary, apparently because two of the Rushe children were students there. They, however, were on a field trip that day. Dann got inside the school and shot six children, ages six to eight years old. She also tried to burn this school down. She left the school, apparently expecting to escape. She ended up leaving her car, fleeing on foot, entering a home, and holding hostages while police surrounded the house. She shot one of the hostages and eventually killed herself. It was a rampage of staggering proportions. By one analysis, “If she had been successful in all she wanted to do on May 20, she would have fatally poisoned at least fifty people, shot to death at least a dozen school children, incinerated three members of the Rushe family in their home, and burned down two schools with 440 children inside.”[138] As it happened, no one died of poisoning, none of the fires killed anybody, and the only shooting death was one six-year-old boy. This was indeed tragic, but thankfully the massive loss of life Dann planned did not occur.
* * *
Laurie Dann differed from all other school shooters in her multifaceted plans for vengeance against such a wide variety of people. She was a case of contradictions. She was insecure and mousy but capable of frightening rage. She would not touch a doorknob but left raw meat rotting, wore the same clothes for weeks, urinated on herself, and left feces in the toilet. She had periods in which she rode elevators for hours in a stupor-like state but could be ruthlessly efficient in seeking vengeance.
Dann had elements of both psychotic and psychopathic shooters. She was not diagnosed as psychotic while alive, and the variability of her functioning makes a specific diagnosis difficult. Her social awkwardness, insecurity, and odd behavior suggest schizotypal personality disorder, yet her grossly disorganized behavior and apparently catatonic states suggest schizophrenia. Evidence of psychopathy includes her chronic lying and deception, her disregard for rules and laws, her incredible lack of empathy, and her sadistic delight in making others suffer.
Her most striking personality trait, however, was her masochistic obsession with her own victimization. She accumulated a lifetime of injustices, never forgot them, let them fester, and, ultimately, sought to kill those she believed had wronged her.
Perhaps envy was at the core of her behavior. She enjoyed tormenting a spelling-bee champion’s mother. Why? She envied people who were happy, people who were successful, people who were everything she wasn’t. She did not have a happy family life as a child and failed at establishing her own family, which appears to be why she wanted to kill the Rushe family. Unlike so many families for whom she babysat, they did not fire her. Why, then, did she single them out for destruction? Apparently, because they were a happy family. This was something she could not abide. This aspect of psychopathy has been called primitive envy and is defined as “the wish to destroy that which one most desires.”[139]
Dann had features of the covetous psychopath. Such people feel “deprived of their rightful level of love, support, or material rewards”; in response, “they are driven by envy and a desire for retribution.”[140] Such a person becomes obsessed with what she doesn’t have and wants to take from others. Though she sometimes stole property, what Dann most tried to steal was people’s happiness and sense of security—two things that were markedly absent from her life. Covetous psychopaths commit “acts of theft or destruction” in attempts to “compensate themselves for the emptiness of their own lives, dismissing with smug entitlement their violations of the social order.”[141]
Dann presented with both psychotic and psychopathic features, a powerful blend of masochism and sadism, and a hatred born of envy.
James Wilson
“Would you live in a house with thirty bodies buried under it?”
Date: September 26, 1988
Age: 19
School: Oakland Elementary
School
Location: Greenwood, SC
Killed: 2
Wounded: 9
Outcome: Surrendered.
Prison
On June 6, 1988, People magazine published an article about Laurie Dann’s bizarre day of vengeance.[142] A young man named James Wilson read the article and was so fascinated that he tore it out and read it daily for four months.[143] Then he went on his own rampage. Afterward he said of Dann, “I could understand where she was coming from. I think I may have copied her.”[144]
Wilson’s father was a violent man. He beat his son with a belt, hit him in the head with a can and a shoe, and repeatedly threatened to shoot him.[145] His mother and grandparents reportedly abused him as well. Family instability was nothing new: “Wilson was born into a family with an alarmingly high prevalence of mental illness, at least four generations of recorded psychiatric hospitalizations, violence, and drug abuse.”[146]
Wilson was also mistreated at school. He reportedly was ridiculed for being overweight as well as for the way he dressed.[147] This harassment haunted Wilson. After his attack, he said, “I was thinking about all my experiences at school.”[148]
During adolescence, Wilson became psychotic.[149] His grandmother reported that he once believed a candle was a bomb and yelled at her to throw it away. Wilson had other paranoid thoughts, including a vague belief that people were out to get him. In addition, he had auditory hallucinations, “hearing voices that were telling him to go into the school and shoot people.”[150] Prior to the attack, his grandmother saw Wilson talking to people who were not present.
Rather than taking him for professional treatment, Wilson’s family responded to his behavior problems by giving him various relatives’ medication. He was dosed with “sedatives, painkillers, antidepressants, and antipsychotic drugs.”[151] His behavior deteriorated, however, and he was hospitalized seven times from ages fourteen through eighteen.
Wilson did not have much of a social life. He dated a young woman he had met in a psychiatric hospital, but this relationship ended several months before his attack.[152] He also engaged in prostitution with a forty-two-year-old man, trading sex for drugs.[153]
Wilson was fascinated by true-crime stories. The night before his attack, he was reading a biography of John Wayne Gacy, who had killed at least thirty-three men and boys and buried many of them under his house. The next morning, Wilson asked his grandmother, “Would you live in a house with thirty bodies buried under it?”[154] Then he left for his rampage. For unknown reasons, Wilson did not attack a school he had attended but, rather, Oakland Elementary, a school with which he had no connection.[155]
In prison, Wilson’s functioning deteriorated dramatically. He “shaved off all his head and body hair, telling his attorneys that this was so that he could receive ‘special thoughts.’”[156] His ability to maintain basic hygiene vanished. He urinated and defecated in his clothes and “lost all but one of his teeth because he let them rot.”[157]
* * *
James Wilson, like Laurie Dann, had features of two types of school shooters. In his case, however, the types were traumatized and psychotic. He had a long history of abuse by multiple family members. Though his psychosis was recognized by family members prior to his attack, he does not appear to have been diagnosed until he was in prison. He had paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations and ultimately descended into a state of grossly disorganized behavior.
In addition, he apparently was influenced by Laurie Dann’s rampage and possibly other criminals, such as John Wayne Gacy. And like several other traumatized shooters, he had an older male role model in the family for the misuse of firearms—his father, who repeatedly threatened to kill him with a gun.
Thomas Hamilton
“I turn to you as a last resort and am appealing for some
kind of intervention in the hope that I may be able
to regain my self-esteem in society.”
Date: March 13, 1996
Age: 43
School: Dunblane Primary
School
Location: Dunblane, Scotland
Killed: 17
Wounded: 15
Outcome: Suicide
Thomas Hamilton was obsessed with young boys. For over fifteen years, he ran clubs and summer camps for boys ages seven to eleven. He insisted they wear black swim trunks and took thousands of photographs of them. When parents learned about this and other aspects of the camps, there were complaints, suspicions, and investigations. No criminal acts were uncovered, however, so no charges were ever pressed against Hamilton. Nonetheless, people were uneasy.[158]
Hamilton’s parents had divorced shortly after his birth, and he and his mother moved in with her parents. Her parents officially adopted Hamilton, and for some reason he was raised to believe that his grandparents were his biological parents and his mother was his sister.[159] If, and when, he found out about this remains unknown. He apparently went through his school years and classes at a technical college without incident. He opened a do-it-yourself shop for home-improvement projects that ran for thirteen years. He was then unemployed and received government benefits.
In 1973 Hamilton was briefly involved with the official Scouting association of Scotland. Due to complaints about his poor leadership, though, the association asked him to resign. This led to two decades of acrimonious retaliation by Hamilton. He became convinced that there was a conspiracy between the Scouts and the police to discredit him. He fought back by filing grievances against the people in these organizations he believed had wronged him.
Starting in 1981 he organized overnight camps and boys’ clubs that he largely ran single-handedly. There were complaints about poor planning, lack of supplies, and inadequate accommodations. More disturbing, he was known to hit the children, sometimes with his hand, sometimes with a wooden spoon. He forced them into activities they didn’t want to do. When a child who had nearly drowned earlier in his life refused to jump from a boat into the lake, Hamilton pushed the boy into the water and later defended this as an appropriate way to help the boy overcome his fear. The child, however, was terrified.[160]
Hamilton was criticized as being too controlling and militaristic. He refused to let the boys call or write to their parents, claiming that such contact only made their homesickness worse. He reportedly was domineering and “seemed to enjoy pushing the boys about.”[161] One woman commented, “He was in his glory when he got a child crying.”[162]
Though some boys seemed to enjoy the camp activities, others felt uncomfortable and fearful and thought Hamilton was weird. He made videos of the boys taking deep breaths in their bathing suits, with “an overconcentration on parts of the boys’ bodies, especially the naked upper parts along with long lingering shots of the area between the waist and the knees.”[163]
Hamilton became defensive when people questioned his tactics and reportedly never admitted to making a mistake. He apparently had a grandiose sense of himself as an expert who knew more about children than anyone else. He harassed parents with letters and telephone calls when they withdrew their sons from his programs.
Though there was widespread concern that Hamilton was a pedophile, no one ever came forward as a victim. The closest was one boy who reported that Hamilton sat next to him and “rubbed him on the inside of the leg”[164] and asked about his interest in joining the club.
Hamilton had a long history of dishonesty. His advertisements about his programs were often misleading regarding activities, staff, and facilities. He sometimes claimed to have a group of adults as an advisory committee to his camps, but became evasive when questioned about them. He also told people that the photographs he took of the kids would be passed along to his contacts in professional soccer and could lead to careers as athletes.[165] Hamilton had no such contacts. One person said of Hamilton, “It is my opinion he is a scheming, devious, and deceitful individual who is not to be trusted.”[166]
Hamilton made many people uncomfortable. One person said, “He just made my skin creep.”[167] Others noted that his manner of speech was odd: “He unnerved me quite a bit. . . . He spoke very slowly, very clearly, precisely, but with no emotion or expression . . . there was just nothing, nothing in there.”[168] Another witness stated that Hamilton “never sort of looked you in the eye.”[169] He had a restricted range of emotion: “He didn’t laugh at anything.”[170] He reportedly was nervous around adults and particularly uncomfortable with women. He had no close friends, he did not date, and he had no occupation apart from his one-man clubs and camps.
Though his conversation typically was mundane, on rare occasions he talked about ghosts and paranormal experiences. He believed the house he grew up in was haunted and described what sound like hallucinations: “He said that he would wake up to feel very cold and could see something at the bottom of his bed. He said that it made noises.”[171]
When interviewed about his complaints against the Scouts, Hamilton continued to insist he was the victim of a smear campaign. A casual acquaintance noticed that for seven or eight years Hamilton’s conversation had been “all one way . . . he was antipolice, he was antiestablishment, he was anti- the education authority, he seemed anti- anybody who opposed his views on how the clubs should be run.”[172]
Hamilton’s campaign against the authorities culminated in his letter to Queen Elizabeth, in which he stated, “I turn to you as a last resort and am appealing for some kind of intervention in the hope that I may be able to regain my self-esteem in society.”[173] It must be noted that although he complained for years about being mistreated by the police and the Scouts, he had never been charged with any crime and his camps and clubs had never been shut down.
On March 13, 1996, Hamilton committed a horrible attack at Dunblane Primary School, shooting primarily five-year-old children, along with several teachers. He killed seventeen people and wounded fifteen, devastating the community and sending shock waves through the United Kingdom.
Why did he attack Dunblane Primary? Though he had rented space in other local schools for his boys’ clubs, he had never used this school. Hamilton was convinced, perhaps accurately, that teachers at Dunblane Primary had warned students against enrolling in his programs. He wrote in a letter, “At Dunblane Primary School where teachers have contaminated all of the older boys with this poison even former cleaners and dinner ladies have been told by teachers at school that I am a pervert.”[174] The same letter, however, noted that such warnings were given to students at “primary schools across the Region.”[175] Even if teachers had warned children to avoid Hamilton, why shoot the children rather than the teachers?
Hamilton left no message as to his motive. Perhaps he sought to cause the maximum suffering by killing the community’s children. Alternatively, perhaps he felt so feeble that he targeted the easiest targets he could find, like a cowardly bully who feels tough when he beats up someone half his size.
As for the timing of the attack, his club enrollment had dwindled; in fact, only one boy had signed up for one club. Hamilton was in debt. He had no friends or life partner. Whatever the reason, he meticulously planned and prepared for a rampage, carrying it out with ruthless efficiency.
* * *
Thomas Hamilton was never diagnosed. He appears, however, to have had schizotypal personality disorder. He was a strikingly odd person who gave people “the creeps,” was socially awkward, suspicious, and paranoid, avoided eye contact, and had a strange manner of speaking. He demonstrated no sense of humor, had a limited range of emotional expression, was uncomfortable with adults, and had no close friends or intimate relationships. He believed in ghosts, sensed their presence, and reported paranormal experiences, which is common among schizotypals. He also had the paranoid delusion that the Scouts and the police conspired to defame and discredit him.
What distinguishes Hamilton from nonviolent schizotypals? Like Laurie Dann, he was remarkably masochistic. He perseverated for years about minor incidents. In this respect he resembled the targeted college shooters who had longstanding grievances against people in their departments. The difference is that Hamilton did not target Scout members or the police but, rather, five-year-old children who had nothing to do with his grievances.
One other trait is significant here: Hamilton gave people the impression that he enjoyed dominating the children in his camps and clubs. He liked to “lord it over them” and engaged in harsh discipline. He reportedly was “in his glory” when he made children cry. These incidents reveal a sadistic pleasure in having power over others. Hamilton had other psychopathic features: an inflated sense of self, a pattern of deceptive behavior, lack of empathy, preoccupation with being a victim, and a resentment of authority. Like Laurie Dann, he exhibited a combination of two of the types of school shooters: psychotic and psychopathic.
Several subtypes of psychopathy seem relevant in understanding Hamilton. One is the disingenuous psychopath. This is someone who tries to maintain a facade of friendliness but is highly deceptive and manipulative. This psychopath has shallow relationships and cannot admit wrongdoing, projecting blame on others. When challenged or crossed, he is easily angered, and “when the thin veneer of sociability is eroded, there may be momentary upsurges of abuse and rage.”[176]
This aspect of his behavior also suggests the reputation-defending antisocial personality. People with this subtype “react with great intensity when their status and capabilities are questioned.”[177] Neither of these subtypes, however, captures his sadistic streak. This is perhaps best understood as the enforcing sadist. This refers to people in positions of authority who derive satisfaction from controlling and punishing others. As noted by Millon, “Power has gone to their heads. Many begin to dehumanize their victims.”[178]
COMMENTS
The attacks by Laurie Dann, James Wilson, and Thomas Hamilton are perhaps the hardest to comprehend. They all gunned down young children at schools with which they had no connection. Notably, they all had features of two types of shooters; no other aberrant adult shooters fit two types. Among the aberrant shooters, those with the most aberrant attacks were the most aberrant people.
Dann and Hamilton resemble the college shooters who engaged in targeted attacks. They had long-standing grievances that built up over years. They also had psychopathic traits, as did all of the targeted college shooters. They differed from these shooters, however, in that the people they shot had nothing to do with their grievances. Wilson differs from Dann and Hamilton not only because of his traumatic history but also because he was the only one to have a role model for murder—his primary role model was Dann, though his interest in serial killers may also have influenced him.
ADULT WHOSE ATTACK WAS IN AN
ATYPICAL EDUCATIONAL SETTING
Jiverly Wong
“I am Jiverly Wong shooting the people.”
Date: April 3, 2009
Age: 41
School: American Civic
Association
Location: Binghamton, NY
Killed: 13
Wounded: 4
Outcome: Suicide
Jiverly Wong killed thirteen people, wounded four, and killed himself at the immigration center of the American Civic Association in Binghamton, New York.[179] At first glance, this may not seem like a school shooting, but Wong had taken English classes at the center and returned to his classroom for his attack. Despite the fact that Wong killed as many people as Harris and Klebold at Columbine, his attack has received little attention.
Wong came from Vietnam with his parents and siblings in 1990; he was twenty-two at the time.[180] He had a harder time adjusting to this country than other family members. His siblings learned English and established themselves, but Wong struggled with the language and had a series of low-level jobs. He lived alternately in the Los Angeles area and in Binghamton, and had at least five encounters with the police over the years. These involved passing a bad check, driving an uninspected vehicle, and other minor violations.[181]
While living in California, Wong married, but he kept this secret from most people, including his family. He and his wife separated in 2005 and divorced in 2006. There were varying reports regarding whether or not Wong had any children. One article declared there were no children;[182] a different article quoted a former colleague who said Wong told him he had a daughter;[183] a third article reported that Wong often talked about his wife and kids having left him.[184]
Wong returned to the Binghamton area in 2007 and moved in with his parents. He worked at a Shop-Vac factory but still struggled with English. He enrolled in an English class at the American Civic Association in January 2009 but stopped attending in early March.[185]
Wong was an unusually reclusive and silent man. According to his father, he had no friends and barely spoke to anyone in the family, spending much of his time in his room.[186] Outside of the home, however, he spoke to people about his love of firearms. It appears that his primary activity was going to shooting ranges. He also talked about shooting politicians,[187] hating America, and killing the president.[188] His obsessive talk about guns and killing led coworkers to joke that Wong “would come in mad one day and shoot people,”[189] though his family was not even aware that he had guns or went shooting.[190]
Wong’s withdrawal became even more severe two weeks before his attack. “Wong stopped eating dinner, stopped watching television, and rarely emerged from behind his bedroom door.”[191] On March 18, 2009, he wrote a letter to a local television news show complaining of harassment by police and indicating his homicidal and suicidal thoughts. The letter, however, was not mailed until April 3—the day of his rampage.[192]
Though never diagnosed, Wong appears to have been schizophrenic. His family members had their only glimpse of his psychosis several months after arriving in the United States. Wong told his father that people were trying to kill him; he pointed in front of him and said, “They’re in front of me and trying to capture me.”[193] Wong’s father said that this was the only time he was concerned about his son’s sanity.
Wong’s suicide letter revealed paranoid delusions regarding police. He accused them of tampering with things in his home, keeping him under surveillance, spreading rumors about him, making him lose his job, trying to cause him to have a collision while driving, breaking into his room thirteen times, stealing money from him, and more.[194]
As to why Wong attacked the American Civic Association, we can only speculate. As with Marc Lépine, Kimveer Gill, and Steven Kazmierczak, perhaps Wong’s attack was essentially symbolic. He, who had lived in this country nearly twenty years, attended an English-language class with recent immigrants. They were learning the language and preparing to move on with their lives; after twenty years, he was back where he had started, and going nowhere. The other immigrants represented the success he would never achieve. He felt like a failure and lashed out against those he assumed would succeed.
* * *
Jiverly Wong was a psychotic shooter. He differed from the other aberrant adult shooters in that he was an immigrant and thus struggled not only with schizophrenia but also with acculturation. Whereas Patrick Purdy had generalized anti-American and anti-immigrant attitudes, Wong talked about killing the president and other politicians. Unlike Purdy, however, Wong’s political ideas appear to have had no connection to his rampage.
1.
Monique Lépine and Harold Gagné, Aftermath: The Mother of Marc Lépine Tells the Story of Her Life before and after the Montreal Massacre, trans. Diana Halfpenny (Toronto: Viking, 2008), 156.
2.
Lépine and Gagné, Aftermath, 54.
3.
Lépine and Gagné, Aftermath, 62–63, 135, 154, 193.
4.
Lépine and Gagné, Aftermath, 151–52.
5.
Kate Fillion, “Maclean’s Interview: Monique Lépine; Monique Lépine Talks with Kate Fillion about Shame, Guilt, and Living with the Fact that Her Son Killed 14 Women,” Maclean’s, November 3, 2008, http://www.macleans.ca/general/monique-lepine/.
6.
Lépine and Gagné, Aftermath, 31.
7.
Fillion, “Maclean’s Interview.”
8.
Lépine and Gagné, Aftermath, 32.
9.
Greg Weston and Jack Aubry, “The Montreal Massacre,” Ottawa Citizen, February 8, 1990, available online at http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/features/rapidfire/story.html?id=bd7367a7-1f49-4c5d-949d-7e5a85941b40.
10.
Marc Lépine, “Marc Lépine’s Suicide Note,” presumed December 6, 1989, available online at http://www.schoolshooters.info.
11.
“The Montreal Massacre,” Guardian (UK), September 15, 2006, http://www.theguardian.com/g2/story/0,,1872900,00.html.
12.
Lépine and Gagné, Aftermath, 158–59.
13.
Vicki Cheng, “Robbins’ Mother Struggles to Comprehend HUB Shooting,” Centre Daily Times (central Pennsylvania), August 24, 1997.
14.
Vicki Cheng, “Who Is Jillian Robbins?” Centre Daily Times (central Pennsylvania), October 13, 1996.
15.
Cheng, “Who Is Jillian Robbins?”
16.
Cheng, “Who Is Jillian Robbins?”
17.
Cheng, “Robbins’ Mother Struggles.”
18.
Cheng, “Who Is Jillian Robbins?”
19.
Cheng, “Robbins’ Mother Struggles.”
20.
Jim MacKinnon, “Friends, Co-workers Recall Friendly, Artistic Robbins,” Centre Daily Times (central Pennsylvania), September 19, 1996.
21.
Jim MacKinnon, “Police Detail New Findings,” Centre Daily Times (central Pennsylvania), September, 24, 1996.
22.
Cheng, “Who Is Jillian Robbins?”
23.
Tom Gibb, “Shooter in 1996 Penn State Killing Recounts Her Past,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 25, 2003, http://old.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030225sniper0225p3.asp.
24.
MacKinnon, “Friends, Co-workers.”
25.
Cheng, “Who Is Jillian Robbins?”
26.
Mark Parfitt, “Robbins’ Case Closed,” Daily Collegian (Penn State University), June 11, 1998, http://m.collegian.psu.edu/archives/article_a1f69d68-0727-5027-bc38-0ed15a6db836.html?mode=jqm.
27.
Cheng, “Who Is Jillian Robbins?”
28.
“Who Was Kimveer Gill? (Part 1),” Gazette (Montreal), September 4, 2008, http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/story.html?id=c7b3f15e-9cdd-4e52-8d86-c1d59e6cff0b&k=40661.
29.
“Who Was Kimveer Gill? (Part 2),” Gazette (Montreal), September 4, 2008, http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/story.html?id=d1933b65-8a0c-454f-bff0-9e072f8918b5&p=1.
30.
“Who Was Kimveer Gill? (Part 2).”
31.
“A Killer’s Dark Mind,” National Post, September 15, 2006, http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=70ca42a5-f979-446f-a9c3-61949f44c737&k=38269.
32.
“Who Was Kimveer Gill? (Part 2).”
33.
“Who Was Kimveer Gill? (Part 3),” Gazette (Montreal), September 4, 2008, http://www2.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/saturdayextra/story.html?id=a8279d1a-e4a1-43ae-95eb-44281d49c7ef&p=3.
34.
“Who Was Kimveer Gill? (Part 3).”
35.
“Dawson Shooter’s Friend Arrested for Threats,” CTV, October 21, 2006, http://atlantictest.ctv.ca/servlet/an/plocal/CTVNews/20061021/dawsonshooter_friend_061021/20061021/?hub=WinnipegHome.
36.
“Blog Paints Chilling Portrait of ‘Angel of Death,’” CTV, September 14, 2006, http://ctestp.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20060914/gill_profile_060914?hub=WinnipegHome.
37.
“Who Was Kimveer Gill? (Part 1).”
38.
Kimveer Gill, “Kimveer Gill Online,” February 21, 2006, 11–13; and July 28, 2006, 27–28; available online at http://www.schoolshooters.info.
39.
Gill, “Kimveer Gill Online,” July 28, 2006, 27–28.
40.
Gill, “Kimveer Gill Online,” July 28, 2006, 27–28.
41.
Gill, “Kimveer Gill Online,” February 15, 2006, 10–11; February 19, 2006, 11; and September 10, 2006, 45–47.
42.
Gill, “Kimveer Gill Online,” September 10, 2006, 45–47.
43.
“College Shooter Gill Obsessed with Guns,” CBC News, September 15, 2006, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/college-shooter-gill-obsessed-with-guns-1.589809.
44.
Gill, “Kimveer Gill Online,” January 18, 2006, 5–6.
45.
Gill, “Kimveer Gill Online,” March 15, 2006, 14–15.
46.
“Who Was Kimveer Gill? (Part 3).”
47.
Nelson Kempsky, Gary A. Binkerd, Phil Yee, Allen Benitez, and Richard Yarvis, “A Report to Attorney General John K. Van de Kamp on Patrick Edward Purdy and the Cleveland School Killings” (California: Department of Justice, 1989), available online at http://www.schoolshooters.info. Unless otherwise noted, the information on Purdy in this chapter is from this source.
48.
Gary Blonston, “From Quiet, Unhappy Child to Mass Killer,” San Jose Mercury News, January 19, 1989, 1A.
49.
Carl Ingram and Robert A. Jones, “Gunman Had Attended School He Assaulted but Motive Remains Unclear in Attack,” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1989, 1, http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-19/news/mn-1465_1_school-records.
50.
Roger Phillips, “Purdy Recalled as Bigot and ‘Sick, Sick Man,” Record (San Joaquin), January 19, 2009, available online at http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090118/A_NEWS/901170304/-1/A_SPECIAL0252.
51.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 50.
52.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 64.
53.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 76.
54.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 76.
55.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 41.
56.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 76.
57.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 75.
58.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 10.
59.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 41.
60.
Kempsky et al., “A Report to Attorney General,” 10.
61.
Catherine Tsai and P. Solomon Banda, “Police: Colorado Gunman Entered the School Earlier,” Associated Press, February 25, 2010, available online at http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2010/feb/25/police-colorado-gunman-entered-school-earlier/.
62.
Kirk Mitchell, “Suspect’s Dad Laments Lack of Mental-Health Care,” Denver Post, February 28, 2010, http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14485435.
63.
Emile Hallez, “Eastwood Reportedly Spoke of Resentments against School,” Columbine Courier, May 17, 2010, http://www.columbinecourier.com/content/eastwood-reportedly-spoke-resentments-against-school.
64.
“Bruco Eastwood, Colorado School Shooter, Has Already Filled Maximum Sentence, Will Not Serve Time in Prison,” Huffington Post, October 5, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/bruco-strong-eagle-eastwo_3_n_996869.html.
65.
Michael Roberts, “Bruco Eastwood Found Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity in Deer Creek Middle School Shooting,” Westword, October 6, 2011, http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/10/bruco_eastwood_insane_deer_creek_middle_school.php.
66.
Mike McPhee, Kirk Mitchell, and Karen Auge, “Son Cursed at Imaginary People in Room,” Denver Post, February 25, 2010, http://www.denverpost.com/crime/ci_14466291?source=pkg.
67.
Tsai and Banda, “Police: Colorado Gunman.”
68.
Adam Chodak, “Shooting Suspect’s Father Says Son Sought Help,” 9news.com, February 24, 2010, http://archive.9news.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=133397&catid=222.
69.
Hallez, “Eastwood Reportedly Spoke.”
70.
Roberts, “Bruco Eastwood Found Not Guilty.”
71.
Tsai and Banda, “Police: Colorado Gunman.”
72.
McPhee, Mitchell, and Auge, “Son Cursed.”
73.
Edecio Martinez, “Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood: Colo. Middle School Shooting Suspect Hears Voices, Used My Gun, Dad Says,” CBS News, February 24, 2010, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bruco-strongeagle-eastwood-colo-middle-school-shooting-suspect-hears-voices-used-my-gun-dad-says/.
74.
Tsai and Banda, “Police: Colorado Gunman.”
75.
Emile Hallez, “Eastwood Charged with 4 Attempted-Murder Counts in Deer Creek Shootings,” Columbine Courier, March 15, 2010, http://www.columbinecourier.com/content/eastwood-charged-4-attempted-murder-counts-deer-creek-shootings.
76.
“Bruco Eastwood, Colorado School Shooter.”
77.
Bradley Brooks, “Brazil School Shooting Massacre Opens Up Debate on Bullying,” Associated Press, April 16, 2011.
78.
Marco Sibaja, “Brazilians Bury Children Killed in School Massacre as Calls for Stricter Gun Control Laws Heat Up,” Associated Press, April 9, 2011, available online at http://www.stalbertgazette.com/article/GB/20110408/CP01/304089910/-1/sag08/children-begged-for-mercy-as-gunman-turned-former-school-into-bloody&template=cpArt.
79.
“Brazilian School Shooter Wellington Oliveira Rambled about Plans in Video,” Associated Press, April 14, 2011, available online at http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/brazilian-school-shooter-wellington-oliveira-rambled-plans-video-article-1.109857.
80.
“In Brazil, from Bullied Student to Cold-Blooded Killer,” Haveeru Daily, April 9, 2011, http://www.haveeru.com.mv/english/details/35247.
81.
Clarissa Monteagudo, Guilherme Amado, and Herculano Barreto Filho, “Realengo: Conheça em Detalhes quem era e como Vivia Wellington Menezes de Oliveira,” Globo, April 8, 2011, http://extra.globo.com/casos-de-policia/realengo-conheca-em-detalhes-quem-era-como-vivia-wellington-menezes-de-oliveira-1539375.html.
82.
“In Brazil, From Bullied Student.”
83.
Monteagudo, Amado, and Filho, “Realengo.”
84.
Bruno Rousso, “Autor de Massacre em Escola era Fissurado em Terrorismo e Conhecido como Al Qaeda, diz Amigo,” noticias.r7.com, April 7, 2011, http://noticias.r7.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticias/fissurado-em-terrorismo-autor-de-massacre-em-escola-era-conhecido-como-al-qaeda-20110407.html.
85.
“Em Nova Carta, Atirador Tenta Usar Bullying para Justificar Crime,” Globo, April 14, 2011.
86.
“In Brazil, From Bullied Student.”
87.
“In Brazil, From Bullied Student.”
88.
Monteagudo, Amado, and Filho, “Realengo.”
89.
“Manuscritos de Atirador Mostram Fixação por Terrorismo,” Globo, April 10, 2011, http://g1.globo.com/Tragedia-em-Realengo/noticia/2011/04/manuscritos-de-atirador-mostram-fixacao-por-terrorismo.html.
90.
Monteagudo, Amado, and Filho, “Realengo.”
91.
Juliana Barbassa, “Video, Texts of Brazil School Shooter Show Anger,” Associated Press, April 15, 2011, available online at http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/3409/video-texts-of-brazil-school-shooter-show-anger.
92.
“Brazilian School Shooter.”
93.
Wellington de Oliveira, “Wellington de Oliveira’s Suicide Note,” trans. unknown, presumed April 7, 2011, available online at http://www.schoolshooters.info.
94.
Tom Phillips, “Rio School Shooting: First Three Funerals Held for Victims,” Guardian (UK), April 8, 2011, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/08/rio-school-shooting-funerals.
95.
Alaine Griffin and Josh Kovner, “Raising Adam Lanza,” Hartford Courant, February 17, 2013, http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/newtown-sandy-hook-school-shooting/hc-raising-adam-lanza-20130217,0,3344563,print.story.
96.
Andrew Solomon, “The Reckoning: The Father of the Sandy Hook Killer Searches for Answers,” New Yorker, March 17, 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2014/03/17/140317fa_fact_solomon?currentPage=all.
97.
Kim Murphy, “Hairstylist Remembers Adam Lanza: ‘I Thought He Couldn’t Speak,’” Los Angeles Times, December 20, 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/20/nation/la-na-nn-hairstylist-adam-lanza-20121220.
98.
Griffin and Kovner, “Raising Adam Lanza.”
99.
Barney Henderson, “Connecticut School Massacre: Adam Lanza ‘Spent Hours Playing Call of Duty,’” Telegraph (UK), December 18, 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9752141/Connecticut-school-massacre-Adam-Lanza-spent-hours-playing-Call-Of-Duty.html.
100.
Erik Ortiz, “Newtown Gunman Adam Lanza May Have Wanted to Join Marines or Other Military,” New York Daily News, December 20, 2012, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/adam-lanza-wanted-join-marines-article-1.1224217.
101.
Matthew Lysiak, Newtown: An American Tragedy (New York: Gallery, 2013), 56.
102.
Pete Samson, “Mom Loves Those Kids More than Me: Mother ‘Wanted Killer Son Put in Home,’” Sun (UK), December 20, 2012, http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4706448/adam-lanza-flipped-mum-psychiatric-home-plans.html.
103.
Dave Altimari, Edmund H. Mahony, and Jon Lender, “Adam Lanza Researched Mass Murderers, Sources Say,” Hartford Courant, March 13, 2013, http://articles.courant.com/2013-03-13/news/hc-newtown-lanza-mass-murderers-20130313_1_adam-lanza-nancy-lanza-mary-scherlach.
104.
“Adam Lanza Kept Spreadsheet of Murderers for Years before Newtown Shooting: Report,” Huffington Post, March 18, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/18/adam-lanza-spreadsheet_n_2901377.html.
105.
Griffin and Kovner, “Raising Adam Lanza.”
106.
Murphy, “Hairstylist Remembers.”
107.
Matthew Lysiak, “Inside the Mind of Newtown Killer Adam Lanza,” New York Daily News, December 19, 2012, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/exclusive-mind-newtown-killer-article-1.1223612.
108.
Stephen J. Sedensky, “Report of the State’s Attorney for the Judicial District of Danbury on the Shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and 36 Yogananda Street, Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012” (Connecticut: Office of the State’s Attorney, Division of Criminal Justice, November 25, 2013), 34, http://www.ct.gov/csao/lib/csao/Sandy_Hook_Final_Report.pdf.
109.
Lysiak, Newtown, 23.
110.
Solomon, “The Reckoning.”
111.
Lysiak, Newtown, 43, 48.
112.
David Halbfinger, “A Gunman, Recalled as Intelligent and Shy, Who Left Few Footprints in Life,” New York Times, December 14, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/nyregion/adam-lanza-an-enigma-who-is-now-identified-as-a-mass-killer.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0&pagewanted=all.
113.
E. Fuller Torrey, Surviving Schizophrenia: A Manual for Families, Patients, and Providers, Fifth Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), 4.
114.
Torrey, Surviving Schizophrenia, 5.
115.
Torrey, Surviving Schizophrenia, 7.
116.
Torrey, Surviving Schizophrenia, 9.
117.
Torrey, Surviving Schizophrenia, 12.
118.
Sedensky, “Report of the State’s Attorney,” 34.
119.
Halbfinger, “A Gunman, Recalled.”
120.
Sedensky, “Report of the State’s Attorney,” 33.
121.
Lysiak, Newtown, 36.
122.
Solomon, “The Reckoning.”
123.
Sedensky, “Report of the State’s Attorney,” 27.
124.
Solomon, “The Reckoning.”
125.
Joel Kaplan, George Papajohn, and Eric Zorn, Murder of Innocence: The Tragic Life and Final Rampage of Laurie Dann, “The Schoolhouse Killer” (New York: Warner Books, 1990). All the information on Dann in this chapter is from this source.
126.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 9.
127.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 48–49.
128.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 13.
129.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 62, 67.
130.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 76–77.
131.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 136.
132.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 142.
133.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 200.
134.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 200.
135.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 184.
136.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 186.
137.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 56.
138.
Kaplan, Papajohn, and Zorn, Murder of Innocence, 298.
139.
Nancy McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnosis: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford, 2011), 165.
140.
Theodore Millon and Roger Davis, “Ten Subtypes of Psychopathy,” in Psychopathy; Antisocial, Criminal, and Violent Behavior, ed. Theodore Millon et al., 164 (New York: Guilford, 1998).
141.
Millon and Davis, “Ten Subtypes,” 164.
142.
Montgomery Brower, Bonnie Bell, Dennis Breo, Jody Brott, Judy Hevrdejs, Barbara Kleban Mills, Civia Tamarkin, and Justin Greenberg, “Mad Enough to Kill,” People, June 6, 1988, http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20099121,00.html.
143.
“Second Victim Dies after School Shooting Incident,” New York Times, September 30, 1988, http://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/30/us/second-victim-dies-after-school-shooting-incident.html.
144.
Richard Greer, “Shooting Suspect Kept Thinking of Own Unhappy School Days,” Houston Chronicle, September 30, 1988, A7.
145.
Wilson v. Ozmint, United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit, No. 03-3 (CA-02-2030-0-10BD), (2004), 18–19.
146.
Emily C. Paavola, “Mental Disability and the Death Penalty: Why South Carolina Should Ban the Execution of the Severely Mentally Disabled,” report by the Center for Capital Litigation Columbia, SC: Center for Capital Litigation, 2009), 13.
147.
“Second Victim Dies.”
148.
Greer, “Shooting Suspect,” A7.
149.
Paavola, “Mental Disability,” 13.
150.
Olivia Fecteau, “Proving Mental Illness in Legal System Is like ‘Trying to Prove the Sun Sets,’ Says Blume,” Chronicle Online (Cornell University), February 25, 2011, http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/02/case-sheds-light-due-process-mentally-impaired.
151.
International Secretariat Amnesty International, “United States of America: The Execution of Mentally Ill Offenders; Summary Report,” (New York: Amnesty International, January 31, 2006), 31.
152.
Greer, “Shooting Suspect,” A7.
153.
Wilson v. Ozmint, 19.
154.
Greer, “Shooting Suspect,” A7.
155.
Kara Gormley, “18 Years on Death Row: Background of a Killer,” WISTV.com, November 14, 2006, http://www.wistv.com/story/5679368/18-years-on-death-row-background-of-a-killer.
156.
International Secretariat Amnesty International, “United States of America,” 32.
157.
International Secretariat Amnesty International, “United States of America,” 35.
158.
Lord Cullen, “The Public Inquiry into the Shootings at Dunblane Primary School on 13 March 1996” (Scotland: The Stationery Office, October 16, 1996), available online at https://www.ssaa.org.au/research/1996/1996-10-16_public-inquiry-dunblane-lord-cullen.pdf. Unless otherwise noted, the information on Hamilton in this chapter is from this source.
159.
Cullen, “The Public Inquiry,” 20.
160.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of Proceedings at the Public Inquiry into Incident at Dunblane Primary School on 13th March, 1996” (Stirling, Scotland: Tribunals of Inquiry, May 29, 1996), 735 (see note), available online at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/158868/0043149.pdf. The pagination of the transcript is erroneous; hence, the page numbers cited here and in subsequent notes for this source refer to the pages of the PDF file itself.
161.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 855.
162.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 784.
163.
Cullen, “The Public Inquiry,” 24.
164.
Cullen, “The Public Inquiry,” 25.
165.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 1,118.
166.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 1,637.
167.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 449.
168.
Cullen, “The Public Inquiry,” 55.
169.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 275.
170.
Cullen, “The Public Inquiry,” 48.
171.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 1,208.
172.
Cullen, “The Public Inquiry,” 47.
173.
Cullen, “The Public Inquiry,” 54.
174.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 2,016.
175.
Tribunals of Inquiry, “Transcripts of the Proceedings,” 2,016.
176.
Millon and Davis, “Ten Subtypes,” 163.
177.
Theodore Millon, Disorders of Personality: DSM-IV and Beyond, 2nd ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996), 452.
178.
Millon, Disorders of Personality, 490.
179.
Ngoc Huynh, “Jiverly Wong’s Father: What Prompted Mass Killing in Binghamton Remains a Mystery,” Post-Standard (central New York), April 13, 2009, available online at http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/jiverly_wongs_father_our_son_w.html.
180.
Manny Fernandez and Nate Schweber, “Binghamton Killer Kept His Fury Private,” New York Times, April 12, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/nyregion/12binghamton.html?scp=1&sq=Until+a+Sudden,+Final+Barrage&st=nyt&_r=0.
181.
Fernandez and Schweber, “Binghamton Killer.”
182.
Fernandez and Schweber, “Binghamton Killer.”
183.
Ray Rivera and Nate Schweber, “Before Killings, Hints of Plans and Grievance,” New York Times, April 5, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/nyregion/05suspect.html.
184.
Joe Kemp, Matthew Lysiak, and Corky Siemaszko, “Who Is Jiverly Voong aka Jiverly Wong? Conflicting Picture of Binghamton Gunman Emerges,” New York Daily News, April 4, 2009, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/jiverly-voong-aka-jiverly-wong-conflicting-picture-binghamton-gunman-emerges-article-1.359248.
185.
Fernandez and Schweber, “Binghamton Killer.”
186.
Huynh, “Jiverly Wong’s Father.”
187.
Rivera and Schweber, “Before Killings.”
188.
Kemp, Lysiak, and Siemaszko, “Who Is Jiverly Voong.”
189.
Kemp, Lysiak, and Siemaszko, “Who Is Jiverly Voong.”
190.
Huynh, “Jiverly Wong’s Father.”
191.
Huynh, “Jiverly Wong’s Father.”
192.
Jiverly Wong, “Jiverly Wong’s Suicide Note,” transcription, March 18, 2009, available online at http://www.schoolshooters.info.
193.
Huynh, “Jiverly Wong’s Father.”
194.
Wong, “Jiverly Wong’s Suicide Note.”