Are there autistic serial killers or only psychopathic ones?

Post Reply New Topic

I just ask this out of curiosity.

One of my last interests is serial killers. I know what autism is because my brother has it and I have it in an undiagnosed form, and I think most people with autism wouldn't be able to do this. What I notice is that almost all of them seemed to have psychopathy. I know that the majority of autistic people aren't criminals, although a very tiny percentage commits crimes, what I wonder about already for a long time is if there are known any cases of people with autism, because it seems like this doesn't occur, but I wonder if there are any cases known of serial killers who are most likely to be autistic, obviously weren't psychopaths and may have had autism or did have certain problems or were diagnosed with autism.

The only one which I can think of:

- Ted Kaczinsky

All the others I read about are obviously psychopaths because of, for instance, their manipulative behaviour.

Last edited by ProvokesThinking on 03 Jan 2013, 9:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ted Kaczynski was diagnosed with Schizophrenia

Researcher Silva theorized that Ted Kaczynski [and Jeffrey Dahmer] showed signs of Asperger's Disorder, though that's an educated guess (they weren't evaluated in person by the team).

Last edited by Dillogic on 03 Jan 2013, 9:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Autism and psychopathy can coexist in rare cases - neither prevents against having the other. My guess is an autistic serial killer most likely has both conditions, simply because almost all serial killers are psychopaths.

Incidentally, I heard somewhere that the small proportion of non-psychopathic serial killers most often have a psychotic disorder (such as schizophrenia). Although violence is actually pretty uncommon in psychotic patients, in rare cases a psychosis can make a person kill.

There are some people in my family who might have a combination of autism and psychopathy.

It would be pretty difficult for a diagnosed autistic to also be a diagnosed sociopath, because of the common belief that sociopaths are very social and superficially charming. Not that being autistic and a sociopath are impossible.

I guess if there's a difference between a sociopath and a psychopath, this spiel would still apply.

Sometimes i swear I'm on the border of psychopathy, because i think of disturbing ways to kill people at times mostly when I'm angry and i like to play mind games to learn about human psychology (my very NT mum taught me emotional manipulation skills which she thought would help me understand NTs better) but the difference is i know it is wrong and bad and that there are many reasons i shouldn't kill people when they piss me off i also feel bad when i hurt people that i love and it makes me sad and i want to make them feel better

This is the same case for most people with Aspergers, what I wonder about is if there exist people with Aspergers who are autistic but don't have these feelings.

I think that the serial killer Nilsen might be autistic, he was a very lonely man acting strange in his home videos, one comment said that he was obviously autistic, I think that it might be possible, since they say that he was very self-centered. Most psychopaths instead of act self-centered act like they care for other people, while they don't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTQWehzhBXU

To say there is no autistic serial killers is a very stupid and general things to say. Anyone is capable of becoming a serial killer, being autistic does not make a person immune from becoming a serial killer. Any one of us, human beings, could be the next serial killer. Martin Bryant was a mass murderer who was austitic.

That's not evidence of psychopathic tendencies.

Most psychopaths have no real urge to kill people. Psychopathic serial killers presumably do, but the majority of psychopaths are not killers. (About 30% of a typical prison population consists of psychopaths, and there are also some who have never gotten into legal trouble).

Psychopathy is not about feeling something that most people don't feel, it's about not feeling something most people feel. Specifically, the defining feature of psychopathy is lack of emotional empathy - an emotional response to the suffering of another person. As a result, although individual psychopaths differ regarding whether they enjoy causing suffering or simply are mostly indifferent to it, by definition psychopaths don't find suffering in others particularly unpleasant. (If it adversely affects them, such as making them slower to do what the psychopath wants they can get annoyed, but not an empathetic reaction.)

A person with subclinical psychopathic tendencies would therefore be someone who does feel emotional empathy, but not very intensely. Maybe they're only capable of caring about someone who is emotionally close to them, or someone who is very severely distressed. (Richard Kuklinsky, a psychopathic hitman, apparently felt a vague inkling of empathy when watching videos of the most brutal murders he committed.)

The most thorough evaluation of Bryant that I have seen pointed out that he had substance abuse problems, and substance abuse tends to be a fairly strong predictor for possible violence.

Also, anyone cannot become a serial killer. It's one thing to say that anyone could do something horrible, but anyone cannot become a serial killer. That requires multiple premeditated killings and actively preying on people in order to kill them. That is not something I think most people are capable of.

Autism does not play a factor in violence, and anyone who kills multiple people is psychopathic by definition. Whether a serial killer is autistic or not, is irrelevant.

Actually, this isn't true. Not everyone who kills multiple people is a psychopath. The definition of psychopathy does not mandate killing at all, and killing doesn't make someone a psychopath.

That's sort of like saying that if you flap your hands, you must be autistic.

So, what would you call someone who shamelessly murders multiple people, with no empathy or remorse, and with absolutely no regard for human life whatsoever? If not a psychopath, then what? Is there even a word?

The two psychosis disorders aren't about empathy per se, but delusion; Delusion disorder and schizophrenia. Having subconscious false worldviews is sometimes the basis for homicidal thoughts.

You might be thinking of psychopath as narcisstic personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder... Those are the pure 'affective empathy' disorders... But they aren't psychopaths. It doesn't hurt for a serial killer to lack empathy, but it's not enough on its own... They have well defined self preservation instincts.

The malmö shooter from 2009-2010?
Haven't read at lot about him as it doesn't have my interest, but he has aspergers...

If you google his name and aspergers you will find at lot - mainly in Swedish though...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009–2010_Malmö_shootings