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Insight: Warning signs on the road to violence
28 April 2007 by Peter Aldhous
Magazine issue 2601.
In the wake of the carnage wrought on the campus of Virginia Tech by Cho Seung-Hui, the obvious question has emerged from the shock and grief: why were warning signs missed?
Much has been made of Cho's bizarre behaviour and his stalking of female students. Violent passages from his creative writing and the threatening video clips sent to NBC News have been subject to intense scrutiny. What insights do they provide into the mind of America's worst mass murderer and might this tragedy have been avoided?
If anyone has answers, it is Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist at the University of California, San Diego, who has studied 30 adults and 34 adolescents who committed mass murder in North America between 1949 and 1999 (Behavioral Sciences and the Law, vol 22, p 291). Meloy's team faced some obstacles in trying to understand their psychological state. Two-thirds of the adults committed suicide or were shot by police. "You're doing psychological autopsies," Meloy notes. And while most of the adolescents survived, access to their medical records was limited.
For other types of violent crime, statistical tools called actuarial risk assessments can make predictions about the likelihood of certain individuals committing a crime by recording aspects of their behaviour and circumstances. But there are no such tools for mass murder, says Meloy. "It's too rare an event." Still, his research shows that mass killers follow characteristic patterns as they move towards committing their heinous act. "You can identify the pathways to violence," says Meloy.
Mass killers tend to be socially isolated and resentful individuals. They often have narcissistic or antisocial personality traits - although it is unclear whether those in Meloy's sample had a diagnosable personality disorder. Mass killers often also suffer from major depression or have paranoid symptoms. This is significant because there are drugs to treat these conditions, which potentially could turn a troubled individual away from the path to violence. Paranoia may be linked to psychoses such as schizophrenia, and this correlates with a higher number of victims.
Cho fitted this profile well, having paranoid fantasies about "rich kids". But he was unusual in one respect: at 23, he had passed late adolescence, the first age peak for mass killers; adult mass murderers tend to be in their late thirties. While Meloy does not attach much significance to the rage expressed by Cho in his creative writing, he says that Cho's stalking was worrying, as many stalkers go on to commit acts of violence. Meloy also suggests paying particular attention to concerns expressed by peers.
Some colleges do pay attention to such signs. Kris Mohandie runs Operational Consulting International in Pasadena, California, a firm that helps colleges pick up such warning signs. He sets up teams that include faculty members, campus law enforcement, mental health professionals and legal advisers. If there are channels to report worrying behaviour, such teams can reduce the risks, even if it is not possible to keep a student in hospital. For instance, students might be allowed to attend classes only if they undergo psychiatric treatment. "I can tell you that these things are being averted all the time," Mohandie says.
Cho's final weeks were typical of mass killers, and may have provided a final red flag. As the act of violence nears, such individuals often develop a "warrior mentality" and become obsessed with weapons. Images sent to NBC show Cho posing with his guns, his hair shorn into a military buzz cut. The fact that Cho calmly mailed this package between two bouts of carnage also reveals a common misconception about mass murderers - that they are driven by uncontrollable rage and "snap". While a scarring event often serves as a trigger, says Meloy, the killings are carried out with a cool head.