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precedes the killing can be concealed. But sometimes there are cultural and religious practices towards children that may be condoned or even encouraged in other societies, but which constitute criminal offences in the UK, and which, in extremis, can lead to fatalities. Female genital mutilation (FGM) – which affects 200 million women and girls around the world, according to the Five Foundation – is an example of this. In the UK it is illegal, with Richard Taylor: I'd have to say it's a relatively common offence, probably similar numbers to psychotic homicide, but those child victims are very unlikely to be killed by a stranger. I mean, those are the cases that get massive media attention; child abduction, homicide. So it's a surprisingly common scenario, the killing of a child by a parent, particularly the mother. Published in the journal Brain Imaging and Behavior, the new study relied on structural MRI scans of the brains of men incarcerated in New Mexico and Wisconsin, which the researchers had obtained through previous studies. As a regular visitor, I knew the atmosphere on the unit was completely unpredictable; it could at times be eerily quiet, but frequently I had arrived in the “seg” to a cacophony of screams, shouts, howls and shuddering bangs that were made all the more unnerving by the sources of the noise being out of sight. The only opportunity for the residents of the bleak, single-occupancy cells to interact face to face with their fellow inmates was during their brief allotted time for exercise in individual caged pods running outside half the length of the building.
On the contrary, my view is that such stereotypes are broken down by sympathetically examining real-life cases while emphasising their rarity. The diagnosis of schizophrenia relies in part on the identification of psychotic experiences such as delusional beliefs or hallucinatory voices. It comes as a surprise to many that these experiences are not uncommon among the general population. Seb spoke of a jump from this early feeling of ambiguity and nebulous threat to the arrival of certainty. An idea came to him that helped resolve his confusion about the reality of the world around him (including his mother’s identity) and to him it was consistent with his conspiratorial feelings. But while this idea – that his mother had been replaced by an imposter – matched his reality, it was out of kilter with everyone else’s. And so, instead of rejecting the idea, Seb interpreted others’ actions in a way that supported this idea. The belief that his mother’s replacement was part of a wider plot gave meaning to his experiences and he selected evidence consistent with that meaning. In reaction to a loss of the sense of familiarity that had previously accompanied the visual image of his mother, Seb accepted a coherent yet false narrative.Harold’s case might seem exceptional now but, in reality, it could be just the tip of the criminal psychology iceberg. actions. She seemed disconnected from any feelings towards the dead baby, as if it had never existed in the first place. But on the whole, very open, talked about the offence, talked about how he was feeling afterwards, which was essentially chilled-out about it. He was completely unconcerned about the effect on the victim, even laughing. And that's obviously disturbing. But, you know, first of all, I was learning a lot about the case and about him, but also learning about the way his mind works and the way he reacts to awful things he's done.
The Mind of a Murderer is a fascinating exploration into the psyche of killers, as well as a unique insight into the life and mind of the doctor who treats them. For fans of Unnatural Causes, The Examined Life and All That Remains. You can imagine the outrage of the police officers who’d conducted this search, believing it to be abduction, only to find that the mother had disposed of the baby herself. She was not psychotic, but the pregnancy had been unplanned and unwanted – she was immature and isolated and suffering At the core of most motives for violence are assumptions about the intentions of others. Seb believed that a sinister collective was intent on keeping his mother hidden against her will.unexplained symptoms. When the child had been admitted to a paediatric ward for observation, Tamara had tampered with the drip, causing a life-threatening infection by contamination of the infusion, and putting her child in intensive care. Next Tamara suffered an apparent seizure in police custody and was transferred to the Mayday emergency room. Sana Qadar: It also has to be said that while around 10% of homicides might be committed by a person with psychotic illness, only a small fraction of people with psychotic illness will ever commit homicide. They are far more likely to be a victim of violence than a perpetrator. We know from brain scans on both humans and other primates that recognising other people relies heavily on facial images, and involves a number of different brain pathways. Disruption in this neural network can interfere with a person’s ability to recognise the face of a familiar person, a condition that is known as prosopagnosia, literally meaning “face ignorance”. James Blair, an American researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health, as suggested that the neurobiology of the brain explains the reduced 'moral reasoning' in psychopaths. The amygdala, a part of the brain deep in the temporal lobe, has been shown in research to be a key structure in the processing of memory, decision-making and emotional responses, such as disgust, fear, anxiety and aggression. In psychopaths the amygdala fails to send the correct signals to the decision-making brain structures ... But this does not explain everything, we need to understand how life experiences may provide a link between brain and behaviour. Dr. Michelle Ward heads to death row to find out whether Willie Trottie committed a crime of passion or acted in self-defense when he gunned down his ex-girlfriend and her brother. View Details
Examining brain scans of more than 800 incarcerated men, new research co-authored by a leading University of Chicago neuroscientist found that individuals who had committed or attempted homicide had reduced gray matter when compared to those involved in other offenses. Those reductions were especially apparent in regions of the brain associated with emotional processing, behavioral control and social cognition. In addition to Decety and Kiehl, other researchers on the study include first author Ashly Sajous-Turner, a University of New Mexico post-baccalaureate scholar; and Michael Koenigs of the University of Wisconsin.
Sana Qadar: And because of their nature, they're the kinds of murders that make up a sizable chunk of Dr Taylor's work.
Dr. Michelle Wards tries to get inside the mind of death row inmate Travis Runnels who slit his supervisor's throat while behind bars. View Details Archival audio: There are terrible gaps in our system. There are not enough acute beds, and there's not enough services provided. Richard Taylor: I only really fully learned the story whilst writing this book and family members were opening up about it. And obviously, I got their permission to say as much as I have said in the book, that this was a psychosis, this was a postpartum psychosis where she essentially lost touch with reality, although, like the case of Stella North that we talked about, it wasn't totally straightforward, but she ended up initially in prison custody at a women's prison, Holloway, where I later ended up working. And I think my decision to take up the post at Holloway may have been influenced by this family story, a sort of curiosity. Again, it wasn't something I was consciously thinking about when I took up that job. But she ended up in psychiatric hospital and had a range of treatments. She ended up having psychosurgery, which is pretty extreme and no longer used. And so her story helps illustrate the whole issue of infanticide, but it also tells us a little bit about the history of psychiatry and how treatments have changed. A 2017 study found that, in patients with lesion-induced antisocial behaviour, the brain damage was located in areas that were part of the brain’s moral decision-making network. ( 1) A later study looked at a large group of over 800 incarcerated male criminals and found that those who had committed homicide showed markedly decreased grey matter – nerve cell tissue – in the frontal cortex, the part of the brain often associated with rational thinking and suppression of instinctive or compulsive behaviour. ( 4) After graduating in medicine from University College London Richard went to work in the emergency room of a London teaching hospital. While dealing with major trauma, cardiac arrests and the walking wounded Richard found himself drawn to the narrative behind the clinical cases. Not so much how do we surgically remove a six-inch nail? Rather why did the patient hammer it into their own skull in the first place?Sana Qadar: That's Dr Richard Taylor, forensic psychiatrist and author of the book, The Mind of a Murderer.
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