Experts in forensic psychiatry are trying to figure out what is wrong with the shooter
NEW YORK - Unless James Holmes chooses to say why he went on the lethal shooting spree he is accused of in a Colorado movie theatre last Friday, the analyses offered by forensic psychiatrists, based on their study of other mass murders, may be as close as we get.
From what is known of the attack and his life so far, experts say Holmes was probably not suffering from as serious a mental illness as Jared Loughner, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after killing six people in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011.
"People want to believe that someone who does something like this must be floridly psychotic," said Louis Schlesinger, professor of forensic psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who has studied mass killers since the 1970s.
"They think, 'ah, he's mentally ill; now I understand'. It makes people feel they and people they know would never behave this way."
The scarier prospect is that Holmes's psychological illness was more common, less severe, and not easily detectable.
As experts in forensic psychiatry try to figure out from afar what is wrong with Holmes, they are focusing on three details of the shooting: The targets were strangers to the killer, not colleagues or acquaintances; the shooter did not commit suicide or invite his own death at the hands of police; and Holmes warned authorities about his booby-trapped apartment before the explosives he rigged killed anyone.
Murdering 12 strangers and shooting dozens more points to a generalised paranoia and rage against the world rather than a specific grudge, forensic psychiatrists say.
"Most mass murderers kill specific people for specific reasons," said criminologist James Alan Fox of Northeastern University, who with colleague Jack Levin has studied every mass murder in the US since the early 1980s.
"They kill the bosses who fired them, the professors who wronged them. These are revenge killings."
One of the many mass murderers who fit this profile is Nathan Dunlap, who killed four employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora in December 1993, after he was fired and reportedly felt his boss had "made a fool" of him.
Holmes was in the process of withdrawing from the University of Colorado's graduate programme in neuroscience, which has prompted speculation that academic failure might have played into his motives. But he did not target either professors or fellow students. - Reuters
Batman suspect no easy fit for killer profile
Experts in forensic psychiatry are trying to figure out what is wrong with the shooter
NEW YORK - Unless James Holmes chooses to say why he went on the lethal shooting spree he is accused of in a Colorado movie theatre last Friday, the analyses offered by forensic psychiatrists, based on their study of other mass murders, may be as close as we get.
From what is known of the attack and his life so far, experts say Holmes was probably not suffering from as serious a mental illness as Jared Loughner, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after killing six people in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011.
"People want to believe that someone who does something like this must be floridly psychotic," said Louis Schlesinger, professor of forensic psychology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, who has studied mass killers since the 1970s.
"They think, 'ah, he's mentally ill; now I understand'. It makes people feel they and people they know would never behave this way."
The scarier prospect is that Holmes's psychological illness was more common, less severe, and not easily detectable.
As experts in forensic psychiatry try to figure out from afar what is wrong with Holmes, they are focusing on three details of the shooting: The targets were strangers to the killer, not colleagues or acquaintances; the shooter did not commit suicide or invite his own death at the hands of police; and Holmes warned authorities about his booby-trapped apartment before the explosives he rigged killed anyone.
Murdering 12 strangers and shooting dozens more points to a generalised paranoia and rage against the world rather than a specific grudge, forensic psychiatrists say.
"Most mass murderers kill specific people for specific reasons," said criminologist James Alan Fox of Northeastern University, who with colleague Jack Levin has studied every mass murder in the US since the early 1980s.
"They kill the bosses who fired them, the professors who wronged them. These are revenge killings."
One of the many mass murderers who fit this profile is Nathan Dunlap, who killed four employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora in December 1993, after he was fired and reportedly felt his boss had "made a fool" of him.
Holmes was in the process of withdrawing from the University of Colorado's graduate programme in neuroscience, which has prompted speculation that academic failure might have played into his motives. But he did not target either professors or fellow students. - Reuters
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