It seems to me that marriage dissolution, particularly afer a long marriage (I mean that as more than say, 10 years) would be a suitable field to study.

It is now more common than war or childhood abuse.

It has Unique elements:

the Deliberate and Known betrayal by loved ones;

Rejection from a life fully experienced, introspectively, cognitively and emotionally;

Abandonment from the same;

Assistance and Encouragemet to cruelty from society;

Enforcement with cruelty by Authorities;

Continuation;

Punitive Financial Damage despite Innocence.

It is a life and mind affecting HORROR.

It is more than possible, IMO, that if this had happened, he would never have said anything about it. Shame and misplaced guilt (regarding the hypothetical rape that is, not his own acts) could easily have led him to conceal it even when on trial.

There are many stages of life, Denise, that are ‘crucial’. It is only in the last hundred years or so that we have latched onto the effects of ‘externals’ on the internals of the soul. We have fixated on early childhhood and largely ignore what happens to mature, intact and balanced minds and souls with later damages.

There does seem to be some (largely speculative) persuasive ‘conventional wisdom’ linking early (pre-cognitive age) abandonment to an inability to love later on. Or at least, to love as we approve. It is part of that now convention that the brain has ‘plastic’ periods where events can alter or predispose its architecture. I say speculative because it has not actually been seen. No one has ‘examined’ the brains of three-month old babies and compared them with themselves later as thirty year olds who fail to love – let alone kill.>>

(Denise) What comes earliest is important because what is learned later on is built upon it. Did you read my article on the notorious Handcuff Man? I think it’s quite possible that in the earliest part of his life, the infancy before he was adopted, he was not regularly cuddled or cooed to and that this early deprivation may have meant that the connections forming normal empathy were not put in place in his brain.

amfortas: But it does not need a ‘plastic’ period to alter key architectural modes of the brain. Intense training can do it in adulrhood. ( I would hazard that a pilot’s brain after ten years of flying has altered significantly. Or an orchestral musician for that matter).>>

(Denise) We agree.

While the 15% serial killer figure startles, there are the other 85% not explained by adoption. Abandonment and rejection in later life may also have a devastating effect. Maybe even produce such rage as to produce one-off killers from otherwise mild and warm people.>>

(Denise) Indeed, serial murder can’t be entirely explained by adoption — even when the murderers are adoptees. However, when a population is so over-represented in serial murder, it is likely there is a special problem there.

amfortas: We live in a modern world where men, the majority of convicted criminals, are routinely rejected and abandoned, often with extreme cruelty and with the connivance of ‘Authorities’. Most men are ordinarily good. They work hard, they love, they sacrifice their dreams for the reality of their wives and children. Their souls generally exhibit its inner dignity and wholesomeness. But with easy abandon, so many of these ordinary, rounded men get speared in the back by the ones they love.

You have told us a little about yourself from time to time. The events in your life. The interactions, deeply affecting interactions, with people in close loving realtionships with you. You let it dribble out. Some have been very painful. I wonder, sometimes what affect those mattters had on the Denise you let us see. I haven’t read of you running amok with a knife. Yet.

(Denise) No, I haven’t run amok with a knife and am probably less likely to than the average person. However, I am severely disabled by the traumas I suffered growing up and continue to be disabled.

There does seem to be some (largely speculative) persuasive ‘conventional wisdom’ linking early (pre-cognitive age) abandonment to an inability to love later on. Or at least, to love as we approve. It is part of that now convention that the brain has ‘plastic’ periods where events can alter or predispose its architecture. I say speculative because it has not actually been seen. No one has ‘examined’ the brains of three-month old babies and compared them with themselves later as thirty year olds who fail to love – let alone kill.

But it does not need a ‘plastic’ period to alter key architectural modes of the brain. Intense training can do it in adulrhood. ( I would hazard that a pilot’s brain after ten years of flying has altered significantly. Or an orchestral musician for that matter).

While the 15% serial killer figure startles, there are the other 85% not explained by adoption. Abandonment and rejection in later life may also have a devastating effect. Maybe even produce such rage as to produce one-off killers from otherwise mild and warm people.

We live in a modern world where men, the majority of convicted criminals, are routinely rejected and abandoned, often with extreme cruelty and with the connivance of ‘Authorities’. Most men are ordinarily good. They work hard, they love, they sacrifice their dreams for the reality of their wives and children. Their souls generally exhibit its inner dignity and wholesomeness. But with easy abandon, so many of these ordinary, rounded men get speared in the back by the ones they love.

You have told us a little about yourself from time to time. The events in your life. The interactions, deeply affecting interactions, with people in close loving realtionships with you. You let it dribble out. Some have been very painful. I wonder, sometimes what affect those mattters had on the Denise you let us see. I haven’t read of you running amok with a knife. Yet.

Let me tell you of a man I know quite well.

Consider a man who loves deeply, who has devoted 20 years to his wife and to raising his children with care. He loves them all. They are the centre of his life. All that he does has them at the ‘motive’. His brain has ‘altered’ in response to their continued presence and centrality in his ‘being’.

Then after half a life, an entire adult life to that point, he is ‘dismissed’. Dispossessed. Slandered and calumnied. By those he loves.

It is likely to result in a rage that can barely be contained. But he manages to. he is ‘disciplined’ enough to manage.

Then after ‘healing’ somewhat, after a long time, he tries again and loves again. He adores his new wife. He takes in her children. And loves them. He works twice as hard to ensure he appreciates her much better than the last time – for that’s what he was told as he was thrown on the street the last time.

And again it happens. Rejected, abandoned.

Let us throw in a sprinkling of PAS and the daughter he loves refuses to speak to him. For years.

He is the common denominator, he tells himself. Used to taking responsibilty he blames himself. He sees himself as bad. The rage now is overwhelming. Directed inward as much as outward. But the discipline enables him to become a recluse from the world. It prevents him from taking up a gun and slaughtering.

There but for the Grace……

Finding similarities between killers doesn’t really do anything, as I can show you millions of normal people with the same characteristics. Wonderful people who were abused, or even worse. Like me for example.

I, myself am an awesome father, with wonderful children, from grown up down to toddlers. And, yes, adopted. They will grow up well. I expect it, and they love me for it. As a great man once said – Children will rise to the level of expectations for them. (And just for your info, I think I’ve spanked three or four times over the years.)