Mass Slayers Guilt Feelings Rationalized

by Houston (AP)

A clinical phycologist said Friday mass murderers often rationalize their actions and avoid all guilt feelings so that one murder can quickly lead to a long series of killings. Conscience or feelings of guilt are almost nonexistent (among mass murderers),” said Dr. Jerry Brown of the Baylor College of Medicine. “They almost rarely have consciences, and they have developed ways of ignoring or alleviating guilt feelings.” Brown, who often works with police concerning the psychology of criminals, said the actions of mass murders and other perverted criminals are not really unlike less repugnant acts committed by “normal” people.

I think everyone has to rationalize or compartmentalize activities which may be considered repulsive or abhorrent to a large segment of society,” he said. “The old saying that ‘when you’ve done it once or twice, the rest come easy’ is true.” Elmer Wayne Henley, 17, and David Brooks. 18, both of Houston admitted their connection Friday with the murders of as many as 30 young boys. The pair told of torture and sexual relations with the youths. The youths were then killed, and their bodies buried at three sites across South Texas.

Henley also confessed killing Dean Arnold Corll, 33, early Wednesday. Henley and Brooks said they procured the young boys for Corll’s perverted pleasure. Brown said there were differing theories on the motivation for mass murders. You can’t group mass murders or the motivation into one kind of category,” he said. Psychiatrists agree that sadism or unusual sexual patterns tend to be linked with mass murder tendencies especially in the minds of the public. But he said the murder act was not always the ultimate end in sex related deaths.

He said a possible motivation for mass murder, especially in the case of a homosexual killing, would be to protect homosexual activities, as a means of concealing repugnant activities.” On the other hand, there could be an extremely complex and pathological motivation on the part of this individual to include the act of murder,” he said. “The actual murder was the syndrome of homosexuality, sexual abuse and eventual homicide which essentially must be carried out. They all add up, you don’t have one without the other.”