Autstic teen said to have murdered 4 in New Jersey

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Scott Kologi, an autistic 16-year-old, is accused in the New Year’s Eve massacre of his mother, father, sister, and a family friend, who were shot to death with a semi-automatic rifle in Long Branch, New Jersey.

Although Scott Kologi, due to his young age, has not yet been named by authorities, the suspect’s identity was given in local and national media accounts.

It was a bloodbath. The murder of almost an entire family brings to mind literary lore like In Cold Blood, but, in this case, authorities say the autistic teenager turned a semi-automatic rifle on the three family members and a woman who was his grandfather’s partner. The motive is not yet clear. What is known is that, by the end of the evening, half of the six-member Kologi family was dead, and a fourth accused in the slayings.

Jalen Walls, a family friend, told NJ.com that the Kologis’ 16-year-old son “required special assistance and was cared for by his mother. The teen did not attend the same public schools as his brother and sister.”

“But he was fully functional and comprehended what we were saying,” said Walls, 18, to the New Jersey newspaper. The husband of the boy’s grandmother told The Daily News that the teenager had autism. There were no previous reports of domestic troubles at the family’s home.

The boy is accused of four counts of first-degree murder and is being held in a juvenile detention facility, according to NBC New York. He’s accused of killing his father, Steven Kologi, 44; mother, Linda Kologi, 42; sister Brittany Kologi, 18; and Mary Schultz, 70, a family friend who, according to NBC, lived in the house with the Kologi family.

Joe Rios, a family friend, told The New York Post that Scott Kologi was “the nicest kid in the world.”

“He came to watch the softball games with Linda and he was always smiling. This is totally out of the blue,” Rios told The Post, adding, “This is not something I ever thought this young boy would do. I don’t know what happened. He was not a violent kid. He was always smiling

Prosecutors have not revealed many of the grisly details. “MCPO running an ongoing homicide investigation with 4 dead in Long Branch. No threat to the public as it is believed to be an isolated domestic incident. More to follow stay tuned,” the Monmouth prosecutor wrote. According to The New York Post, the suspect’s weapon, a “Century Arms semiautomatic rifle — which was legally registered to a resident in the home — was seized.”

The entire family was not massacred: One of the boy’s brothers and grandfather were unharmed after the bloodbath, according to The New York Daily News. “The grandfather of the suspect as well as the brother of the suspect thankfully left the home,” Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said.

The grandfather, Adrian Kologi, was dating Schultz, one of the victims.

A bankruptcy from 2009 indicated that the family struggled with financial troubles over the years. The father, at that time, had worked as a mail carrier for 10 years, and the mother was unemployed. The parents reported minimal assets beyond the family home and a couple of Honda Accords. However, after the slayings, Scott’s brother, Steven Kologi Jr., wrote a tribute to his parents on Instagram, praising them for always
providing for their children.

Despite his young age, the gravity of the homicides could lead to an adult charge. “The 16-year-old gunman will be charged as an adult later Monday with four counts of murder as well as one count of possession of a weapon for unlawful purposes”

Five months before Steven and Linda Kologi were shot and killed, allegedly by their teen son, a bank tried to notify the couple they were facing foreclosure on their Long Branch home.

On Dec. 18, lawyers filed paperwork to take the next step, declaring the Kologis in default.

Public records paint a picture of parents dealing with financial hardship in recent years. Yet family members and friends say the duo didn't allow those woes to prevent them from helping others, or doting on their children.

Records from the Monmouth County clerk's office say that in early August, the Kologis were notified of a pending foreclosure on their home. A 25-year-old man at 637 Wall St. accepted notice of the proceeding, according to court documents.

December, lawyers for Ocwen Loan Services asked a judge to declare the Kologis in default on a mortgage from 2006, an effort to move forward in the foreclosure process.

Steven and Linda Kologi purchased 635 and 637 Wall Street in 2002 for $160,000, records show. They had multiple mortgages on the property over the years, documents show.

The couple had filed for bankruptcy in 2009, listing a monthly income mostly from Steven Kologi's job as a mailman, a post he'd held for a decade.

The 42-page federal bankruptcy filing also shows the family's steep debt: The couple owed more than $72,000 on credit cards and had a $15,000 lease on a Honda Civic.

Breaking News: "White, Neurotypical USA Males Most Likely To Be Mass Murderers, Study Finds"

You won't see that headline any time soon of course. I made it up.

The way the title of the news report of this thread is framed, because AS is involved, is a perfect example of the dehumanisation that most ASD people face every day in one way or another. Expect sideways looks if today if you are an AS teen male in a gun-owning family, you have been branded again as one of "them".

I have never seen a headline where I live that frames ASD people as mass murderers, I hope the USA virus of dehumanising, double standard reporting like that never happens here.

After the Aramoana massacre, our worst mass shooting, in 1990, the government passed new laws in response. There have been no mass murders in the years since then. A similar event in the same decade happened in Australia five years later, and their government responded as we had done, and they have had no more since AFAIK. Amongst the measures both countries took was the banning of semi-automatic weapons.

That's sounds like a good argument for gun control.

Breaking News: "White, Neurotypical USA Males Most Likely To Be Mass Murderers, Study Finds"

You won't see that headline any time soon of course. I made it up.

Sorry if I caused you confusion - I wasn't disapproving of your title, which was merely quoting the media trope. You were being accurate in that, my point was the double standards of the media, and it is that which dismays me, the endless stigmatisation of an out group, and titles like that reinforce the unfairness and othering which is a constant feature in the coverage of these tragic events.

As to the cause, the secret functioning of the family (any family) is by definition never on show to the outside world, and most families successfully present the "shiny surface" only. Who can ever really know what happened or why in terms of the reason/s. All we can know with absolute certainty is the means, and how many tragedies will it take to create the will to change..

Nearly a week after a Long Branch teen said to have autism allegedly shot and killed his mother, father, sister and a family friend, a host of critical questions remain unanswered.

Among them: What happened inside the family’s modest brick home on Wall Street leading up to the shootings, which took place minutes before the stroke of midnight ushered in the new year?

And what about the alleged murder weapon, described as a semiautomatic AK-style rifle? Whose rifle was it, and how did the boy accused of the shooting, 16-year-old Scott Kologi, get a hold of

Few answers have been forthcoming after a judge barred the press from covering the juvenile court hearing and another judge issued a gag order to prevent lawyers from talking about the case. But one answer may never be known, even to Scott Kologi himself and his surviving relatives: What role, if any, did autism play?

It’s a complex, emotionally charged question, one that has surfaced in the aftermath of other mass shootings by individuals who had exhibited anti-social, autistic-like behavior.

Two years after Sandy Hook, a study published in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior added to the controversy.

The researchers examined the cases of 239 killers who had murdered at least three people since 1985 and found that 28 percent of them had “definite, highly probable or possible” autism. Among them was Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. While Dahmer was never clinically diagnosed with autism, “evidence exists to suggest he displayed numerous indications of Asperger syndrome,” the study said.

The study met with a fierce backlash from critics who faulted the study’s methodology and speculative conclusions.

“The issue is simple: correlation does not imply causation,” John Elder Robison, who has Asperger’s, wrote in the magazine Psychology Today.

“The group of serial killers and mass murderers had other common traits, too, but the authors did not see fit to mention them in the same light,” he continued. “For example: Almost all serial killers and mass murderers are male. Should we be scared of males just because most murderers are male?”

Because Scott Kologi is a juvenile, authorities have not even publicly disclosed his identity, and have declined to comment on his health history. Several friends of the Kologi family and the partner of the boy’s grandmother, however, have told reporters that the teen has some form of autism, a disorder characterized by difficulty communicating and interacting socially.

In addition, in June, the boy’s mother, Linda Kologi, posted a comment on the Facebook page of the Hawkswood School, a private school in Eatontown that specializes in the education and treatment of children with autism and other disabilities.

“Hawkswood school and staff are amazing! So glad my son has such a wonderful, caring environment to learn and grow in,” read the post.

The school’s principal, Andrew Orefice, said he “could not confirm or deny a student’s attendance at the school,” citing a federal law that protects the privacy of special education students. The state-approved tuition for the school is about $75,000 per year, which is paid by the child's home school district.

Neighbors told the Asbury Park Press that Scott Kologi was home-schooled by his mother, but Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni said he was enrolled in a school, declining to name it.

Although Scott Kologi’s specific diagnosis and his state of mind at the time of the shootings may become a key factor in determining his legal culpability, the implication that autism might have played any role at all in the quadruple homicides is deeply upsetting to many people, especially those who have been diagnosed with some form of the disorder, as well as their families and friends.

A recent review of two decades’ worth of research looking into the relationship between autism and violent acts supports that view.

Published last year by the Harvard School of Psychiatry, the study said there was no conclusive evidence that individuals with autism are more violent than those without the disorder.

That finding conforms with what Catherine Lord has observed in her research, based on a longitudinal study of 200 people with autism.

Few of the individuals in the study group have ever had any kind of interaction with law enforcement, she noted. Even the rate of more minor violations, like speeding and parking tickets, are less than in the general population.

“They are less likely to commit any kind of crime than anyone else,” said Lord, a clinical psychologist who heads the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain in White Plains, New York.

Like autism itself, though, the exact relationship between autism and violence is one that researchers still don’t fully understand.

An inability to communicate – in some cases, even to speak at all – is extremely frustrating. That frustration is not readily understood by people who can easily express their feelings.

Such frustrations often fuel the negative behaviors associated with more severe autism, including hand biting, head banging and other repetitive habits. It can also lead to depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide. Behavioral therapies seek to unravel the root causes of these actions and teach other ways of addressing them.

Individuals with autism who struggle with these problems more typically hurt themselves, not others, but that’s not always the case.

One study of 1,380 children with autism, ages 4 to 17, found that 56 percent were behaving aggressively toward their caregivers, and 68 percent had done so in the past. A smaller number, one in three, were behaving aggressively toward non-caregivers.

But is it really autism that’s responsible?

A major complication in studying the behaviors of autistic individuals is that autism usually isn’t the only condition they have.

Typically, there’s something else, such as anxiety, depression, oppositional defiant disorder, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD.) A study by researchers at King’s College London found that 70 percent of their young autistic subjects had at least one other disorder, while 41 percent had two or more.

The same study that found no conclusive link between autism and violence also urged more research into how these other additional conditions may contribute to violent acts.

To make matters more complex, many people with autism are taking a cocktail of medications to treat these other conditions, often prescribed by different doctors.

What’s more, additional drugs are sometimes prescribed to treat the side effects of those medications, further raising the chances of a dangerous interaction.

Some, or none, of these issues may have come into play in Scott Kologi’s case. But one thing is clear, said JaLynn Prince, who has an adult son with autism: The answers to what happened inside his home that night aren’t known.

To suggest that someone is dangerous because they’re autistic unjustly stigmatizes some 3 million Americans on the autism spectrum who contribute positively to their families and communities, she said.

“That’s my takeaway from this,” Prince said, “to look at the individual, rather than the diagnosis, because there may be contributing factors”.

The researchers examined the cases of 239 killers who had murdered at least three people since 1985 and found that 28 percent of them had “definite, highly probable or possible” autism. Among them was Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. While Dahmer was never clinically diagnosed with autism, “evidence exists to suggest he displayed numerous indications of Asperger syndrome,” the study said.

I couldn't be bothered to read the whole thing because trying to blame murder on autism is revolting. If his autism makes him go out and kill people, he should be locked up in a institution so he can't hurt anyone nor have access to guns. You don't need guns to kill.




Funny how they say how Dahmar had possible autism but yet he seemed to have very good social skills to lure his victims to his home same as how Ten Bundy was able to charm women and get their trust to lure them.

Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews (PRISMA) guidelines (Liberati et al., 2009), internet-based bibliographic databases were searched to access studies/books (published and in progress) which involved serial killers, violent crime, psychopathy (or narcissistic personality disorder), and Autistic Spectrum Disorders. The following databases were searched: Web of Knowledge and PsycINFO. We also examined book chapters, whole books and electronic documents available locally, and through the United Kingdom's inter-library loan system.

The search was limited to human populations and the English language. Duplicates were excluded prior to the retrieval of references. Abstracts for each reference were obtained and screened using the following criteria:

The search terms that were entered in the two databases were: (autis* [AND] Serial killer*); ‘serial killer’; (Psychopathy [AND] Autis*); (Murder [AND] Autis*); (Killers [AND] Autis*); (‘Brain injury’ [AND] ‘serial killer’); (‘Violent crime’ [AND] ‘asperger’); (‘mordare’); (‘narciss*’ [AND] ‘Asperger’); (‘mass killing*’ [OR] ‘mass murder*’). Search criteria entered in the two databases (PsycINFO and Web of Knowledge) were identical.

Inclusion criteria:

1. Human study population
2. Covers the behavior of mass/serial killers and/or autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).
3. Covers any association between mass/serial killers and brain injury.
4 Covers any relation between violent crime/criminal behavior and ASDs.
5. Covers the distinction/overlap between (either behavioral or neurological) narcissistic personality disorder and ASDs.
6. Covers the distinction/overlap (either behavioral or neurological) between psychopathy and ASDs.

Because the peer-reviewed literature was so limited, we paid particular attention to additional sources of literature. These included online articles; newspaper articles; court transcripts and in particular two comprehensive online resources: (1) http://murderpedia.org/ (The Encyclopedia of Murderers) which has 5410 entries, and (2) http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Serial%2 ... iption.htm, a Serial Killer Information Centre headed by Dr. Mike Aamodt at the Department of Psychology, Radford University, Radford, VA, United States of America. The serial killer information center was created to provide students, researchers, and the media with accurate data on serial killers. The project began in 1992 and data are added and revised on a continual basis. To date, the Radford Serial Killer Database contains data on 2750 serial killers with online access to information on 196 of these killers.

Killers were only included in the analysis if they were apprehended after 1985. We chose this cut-off point because there has been a dramatic increase in the recognition of ASD (Mesibov, Fuentes, Prior, & Wing, 2006). Killers were also only included if they had killed more than three people (Dietz, 1986). A large proportion of the literature found in the PRISMA search on mass murderers and serial killers did not discuss whether the individual had received a diagnosis of ASD or had sustained a head injury. Additional searches were, therefore, carried out on all 404 killers that were found (106 included in the results and 82 apprehended after 1985 that had no evidence of head injury or ASD). Detailed case summaries were written on each killer and these are available from the first author on request. The name of the killer was entered into the search engine ‘Google’ followed by ‘AND’ and each of the following search terms were explored separately: ‘brain’; ‘head injury’; ‘asperger’; ‘autis*’ and, in some cases, ‘murder’ if the name alone was failing to produce relevant sites. In these searches, numerous resources were examined in detail including court transcripts; newspaper articles and other online resources. For each search, a minimum of five resources, specifically chosen for their relevance, were examined. In total (after screening for relevance by title and abstract), 490 articles/books were examined in detail for reference to ASD in killers and/head injury.

The case of Jeffrey Dahmer provides an excellent case study of a serial killer who is highly likely to have had ASD in addition to experiencing psychosocial stressors during childhood. 3.2. Case study: Jeffrey Dahmer

The case of Jeffrey Dahmer provides an excellent case study of a serial killer who is highly likely to have had ASD in addition to experiencing psychosocial stressors during childhood. Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991, with the majority of these occurring between 1987 and 1991. Dahmer's murders involved rape, dismemberment, necrophilia, and cannibalism. He made crude attempts to lobotomize some of his victims by injecting muriatic acid into their brains (Bennett, 1993). At the time of his arrest, the remains of 11 of his guests, including 4 severed and refrigerated human heads, and 7 skulls, were found on his premises (Nichols, 2006). While Dahmer was not clinically assessed and diagnosed with an ASD, there is overwhelming evidence (both peer reviewed and in a plethora of books specifically about this serial killer) to suggest that he displayed numerous indications of Asperger syndrome which is why we have chosen to discuss this as an example of a serial killer with ASD and psychosocial stressors. Silva et al. (2002a, 2002b, 2002c) argue that he suffered from a form of high-functioning ASD psychopathology, namely Asperger's disorder which is also suggested by Strubel (2007) who emphasized Dahmer's social skills deficits (however, see Nichols, 2006). Dahmer was also unattached during childhood and failed to bond with anyone (Egger, 1998). Further, he was known to lack reciprocal social interaction, a situation that was closely linked to his inability to make close friendships with his peers (Davis, 1991), and he was a loner as a child (Palermo, 2008, chap. 6). His teacher noted that he was shy and rigid, unhappy, and did not make friends easily (Carlin, 2011). Friends regarded him as odd and bizarre (Martens & Palermo, 2005). He had difficulty with nonverbal communication, such as a dearth of facial expression, and his unusual gaze which were also consistent with nonverbal social deficits often encountered in individuals with ASD (specifically Asperger syndrome) (Volkmar & Klin, 2000), a finding that was noted since early childhood (Dahmer, 1994; Masters, 1993). Lionel Dahmer described his son a having body posture that made him appear rigid, unusual in the straightness of his body with a sense that the knees were locked and the feet dragging stiffly (Dahmer, 1994; Tithecott, 1997). This general bodily awkwardness or ‘mechanical’ type of body posture is often found in individuals with ASD (Ghaziuddin & Butler, 1998). The symptoms of ASD tend to be recognized at age three or shortly thereafter (Volkmar & Klin, 2000), which is consistent with the report by Dahmer's father, who noted symptoms (i.e., unusual rigid body kinetics) at about four years (Dahmer, 1994). ASD also tends to be associated with the tendency for repetitive thinking and behaviors (APA, 2000) which were also found in Dahmer who exhibited persistent interests in human bodies, bodily sounds, and their component parts. He also spoke in flat monotone which is also a common feature of ASD (Masters, 1993).