Serial killers and/or Criminal Psychologists w/ Asperger's?

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Not exactly news, but I just watched a video biography of the serial murderer Jeff Dahmer.
From a lot of the way they described him he sounds very aspie: Social outcast, unusual obsessions, acting out in public, etc.
However, the professor in the class in which we watched the video remarked that Jeff Dahmer had nearly all of the traits of Antisocial Personality Disorder.
This got me thinking about the many, many overlaps between Asperger's and Anti-Social Personality Disorder. This in turn led me to think that the best criminal psychologists would be people with Asperger's, not only because they would be fully dedicated to their work, but because they are able to identify with and relate to the mind of a sociopath based on many of their own thoughts, hopes, dreams and experiences.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Link, coverage, news maybe that would help....

Yeah, I guess there could be a better forum section this could be moved to.

I'll admit, I've been thinking about this topic and have noticed some consistencies myself.

John Hinckley, Jr. (the guy that almost assassinated Ronald Reagen,) was/is absolutely obsessed with actress Jodie Foster. Sounds a lot like an Aspie, special interest.

I don't think Dahmer was a psychopath/sociopath because he seemed to have genuine emotions. He was really, really mentally disturbed, although not insane by the standards of the law in the US. I don't really know what he is but it's interesting. There was an interview with him and his father that I saw about a year ago on TV. I thought it was fascinating so I'd totally recommend it to anyone who's interested.

He might be. It's not that rare a disorder, so it wouldn't surprise me if at least one serial killer had AS.

That said, I wouldn't make too big a deal of this.. There are enough public 'AS experts' out there who like to mention AS in connection with murder in lectures and talks without us helping them along.

I'm sorry, but I can't think of a single similarity between AS and antisocial personality disorder. Care to elaborate?

I think some of it has to do with how you are raised.....

From memory and correct me if I am wrong, but Jeffrey Dahmer had suffered quite extensive abuse at the hands of his mother. Hence, his hatred of women......

If AS is present, then any further abuse of the person or environment that that person relies on to be secure, safe and without fear, is magnified x1000. And it will have huge consequences for that person in how they behave and how they think.

I think you can have both AS and Anti-social PD.......one can overlap onto the other. Lets face it, fear is the foundation of all violence and hatred.

This is complete conjecture and only a personal observation, but it seems that people with AS who have relatively decent childhoods or are paid alot of care and attention MAY function better as adults. Better self esteem, good support networks and so on, despite whatever they may experience with the negatives of AS........but add to that tenuous grasp, a violent and abusive childhood and well, the outcomes would not be favourable.

Strange you should speak of Criminal Psychologists.......in high school I had considered Forensic Psychiatry as a profession. Maybe I had some unconscious sympathies with violent people, and what their motivations were.......and since being termed a "psychopath with anti-social behavioral problems" as an young adult, I am glad I never pursued it. I also had a violent and strange childhood. I also have AS.

So, who knows? I was lucky.......despite my deep failings as a human being, I did understand consequence, felt deep remorse and loved deeply........its just that nobody knew it and nobody asked me and I wasn't able to articulate it.

Mics

Jeffrey Dahmer can only fit the criteria for AS-PD and Autism in the public stereotypical way, but I doubt he would fit them in the clinical sense. And they are only similar to people who are uneducated about the clinical definitions of these disorders, but are very different despite some superficial overlap.

He was able to sweet talk his victims to his house and on several occasions including being caught with a nude drugged out victim, he was able to sweet talk his way out of the situation to a COP. Such ability would be rare, (not impossible, but rare) for someone with Autism.

I think the public have a false stereotypical view of mental and psychiatric disorders like a "Big Bad Wolf" or "Drooling Fool" type of way, and this stereotypical view is very far from how these disorders manifest for the bulk of the population afflicted.

I blame this however on psychologists. It is they who have sliced and dice traits from different populations in order to create a view that fits there theoretical approach to these conditions, but the reality is very different. Most people do not fit into these nice theoretical viewpoints, and the public's perception is very bias and incorrect.

If he really had that much social savvy, there's no way he's on the spectrum. I think someone with antisocial personality disorder and autism wouldn't use that strategy; it wouldn't be playing to his strengths.

Both ASPD and autism are relatively common, so naturally there will be a few antisocial autistics out there. Fewer, apparently, than neurotypicals (at least by the statistic that autistic people commit fewer crimes, probably because most crimes are interpersonal in nature and involve unfamiliar situations, two things that autistics wouldn't be drawn to). Autism/ASPD exists just because there's nothing about either one that excludes the other.

If ASPD and autism co-exist, I would expect to see someone who commits crimes that don't require social savvy. A thief, maybe; a violent individual who physically hurts others; possibly a white-collar criminal like an embezzler or computer criminal. A serial killer with autism would be very unlikely to con people into making themselves vulnerable--he'd probably just ambush and use physical strength to control his victims. It's just not in the autistic skillset to go and sweet-talk people into your car.

That said, if there are over a hundred known serial killers (and there are probably several times that many), one or two on the spectrum shouldn't surprise anybody. There are, naturally, also some very altruistic autistic people; but of course they don't make near the media splash that an autistic serial killer would.

Um...Jeffrey Dahmner showed no evidence of hating women. He was a homosexual if that's what you mean, but that wasn't caused by abuse. His parents were neglectful but not truly abusive, and he killed men that he slept with because he was lonely and he could keep their corpses with him and then he wasn't alone anymore and they wouldn't run away from him. His dream was to have a living person who was incapacitated and would always stay with him, and he tried to do this by pouring chemicals into a couple of men's brains but this killed them. He engaged in cannibalism because that was one way he would always have a piece of the men with him. Attachment to other people=not psychopathy, and he didn't hate women or men or anything like that. Seriously mentally disturbed but it's hard to say what he had.

Dahmer had allot of things. I don't think autism was one of them.

No. I don't relate to murder and cannibalism at all.

I just did a Google search, and apparently a few papers have been published that speculate that Dahmer did have Asperger's.

*sigh* I suppose for every Einstein and Spielberg, there'll be an infamous autistic. It's inevitable, just by the odds, but I just hope people don't assume that because one serial killer is autistic, that autism somehow caused it. It's as bad as assuming that the existence of a black killer means that black people are violent.

I am going to stir the pot to be a jerk!

I have read that the Virginia tech massacre killer was suspected of being autistic. He had selective mutism, obsessions, and social misunderstandings.

An aspie can have a natural childlike charm and an innocent/naive demeanor that gets people's guard down. One doesn't have to be socially skilled to pull it off. An awkward/innocent/childlike charm coupled with an aura of naivety would make no one suspect a thing. Few would consider that person a threat upon meeting.