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Brain Injury and Serial Murder

Some researchers theorize that serial killers have brain damage or other biological abnormalities that contribute to their actions. Damage to areas like the frontal lobe, the hypothalamus and the limbic system can contribute to extreme aggression, loss of control, loss of judgment and violence. Henry Lee Lucas, who was convicted of 11 murders, was shown to have extreme brain damage in these areas, probably the result of childhood abuse, malnutrition and alcoholism. Arthur Shawcross, another 11-time serial killer, was found to have had several brain injuries, including two skull fractures. While in prison, he suffered from headaches and often blacked out. Bobby Joe Long, convicted of nine murders, stated at one point, “After I’m dead, they’re going to open up my head and find that just like we’ve been saying a part of my brain is black and dry and dead”.

Brain Injury and Serial Murder

Some researchers theorize that serial killers have brain damage or other biological abnormalities that contribute to their actions. Damage to areas like the frontal lobe, the hypothalamus and the limbic system can contribute to extreme aggression, loss of control, loss of judgment and violence. Henry Lee Lucas, who was convicted of 11 murders, was shown to have extreme brain damage in these areas, probably the result of childhood abuse, malnutrition and alcoholism. Arthur Shawcross, another 11-time serial killer, was found to have had several brain injuries, including two skull fractures. While in prison, he suffered from headaches and often blacked out. Bobby Joe Long, convicted of nine murders, stated at one point, “After I’m dead, they’re going to open up my head and find that just like we’ve been saying a part of my brain is black and dry and dead”.

Alien Hand Syndrome

A neurological disorder in which the person’s afflicted hand appears to take on a mind of its own. 

Alien hand syndrome is best documented in cases where a person has had the two hemispheres of their brain surgically separated, a procedure sometimes used to relieve the symptoms of extreme cases of epilepsy. It also occurs in some cases after other brain surgery, strokes, or infections.

Albert Fish - Childhood Brain Injury

Albert Fish reportedly had a history of having sustained a severe frontal lobe brain injury. At the age of seven he had a severe fall off a cherry tree which caused a head injury from which he would have permanent problems with, such as headaches and dizzy spells. After his fall he began to display many violent tendencies, including an interest in sadomasochistic activities. At the age of twenty he killed his fist victim, a twelve-year-old neighbor whom he cannibalized. 

Hemispatial neglect, is a neuropsychological condition in which, after damage to one hemisphere of the brain, a deficit in attention to and awareness of one side of space is observed. Hemispatial neglect is very commonly on the opposite side of the damaged hemisphere, but instances of same sided neglect have been reported.

Although most strikingly affecting visual perception (‘visual neglect’), neglect in other forms of perception can also be found, either alone, or in combination with visual neglect. A patient with neglect behaves as if one side of sensory space is nonexistent; although they can still walk and turn around to either sides. A patient with neglect might fail to eat the food on the one half of their plate, even though they complain of being hungry. If someone with neglect is asked to draw a clock, their drawing might show only the numbers 12 and 1 to 6, the other side being distorted or left blank. Neglect patients may also ignore one side of their body, shaving or adding make-up only to the non-neglected side.

Aphasias

Aphasia is a class of language disorders, ranging from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak. They can often develop from and/or be a sign of stroke, brain injury, tumor, infection, or dementia.The type of aphasia can signal which area of the brain is affected.

Some types of aphasias are:

• Broca’s aphasia - an expressive aphasia, arising from damage to the area of the brain called Broca’s area - speech is difficult to initiate, non-fluent and appears labored. A sentence such as “I went to the hospital” would likely appear to take great effort to produce, and may sounds like “I…ah…went…ah….to….ah….the….ah….hospital”
• Wernicke’s aphasia - a receptive aphasia indicating damage to the area of the brain known as Wernicke’s area - though the person can put words together fine and have normal intonation and sound to their speech, it will not make sense - they may use words that do not exist, or produce “word salad”, which is stringing together a bunch of words in a way that do not make sense. While they are speaking like this, they will have normal intonation in their speech and their words will flow together normally. They may say something like “Cat talk the under book”. Curiously, they maintain the ability to sing or recite something memorized.
• Global aphasia - is the result of a large area of damage resulting in a combination of Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia

These disorders are different that Dysarthria, which is a motor speech disorder, in which the muscles of the mouth and tongue do not function properly.