Earlier this month, one of those true crime television shows featured an old school friend of mine, Leland Hale (old-timers at Plymouth might remember him and his family). No, he wasn't a serial killer, but back in 1991, he teamed up with Walter Gilmour to tell the story of Robert Hansen in the book Butcher Baker. Lee's brother came up with the title because Hansen was a baker by trade and a serial killer by avocation. If you do a google search for "Butcher Baker", you will find many later books with the same title along with articles referring to Hanson as the Butcher Baker. But Lee's, and Alaska State Trooper Gilmour's, book was the first to tell the story, a story that just won't die (unlike Hansen's 17 known victims).
I don't usually read true crime books or watch true crime documentaries, but if someone I know has written the book, I make an exception. And when someone I know tells me that there will be a television program featuring the story of a man she used to date.... This man had an unfortunate habit of becoming involved with women who ended up missing. Of course, he became a person of interest to the police, but without any trace of the women, alive or dead, they didn't have much of a case. He eventually moved to another country where he was interviewed for the TV program. What a smug man he was. He made a token show of innocence, but mainly claimed that the police had nothing on him because there were no bodies. I got the impression that he was very proud of having gotten away with something. As for my friend, what did she think? She was convinced that he was guilty, that he was evil, but her main recollection of him was that he was the most boring man she had ever dated.
What is it about serial killers that fascinate people? I imagine there are some very unsavory reasons, but for most people it is more a question of what causes someone to commit such horrific crimes. We try to understand. Did the killer have a difficult childhood marked by neglect and abuse? Often, but not everyone who suffered in that way ends up as a sociopath. Was the killer just born evil? In The Anatomy of Evil by psychiatrist Michael H. Stone, the author "traces two salient personality traits that run the gamut from those who commit crimes of passion to perpetrators of the worst crimes—sadistic torture and murder. One trait is narcissism, as exhibited in people who are so self-centered that they have little or no ability to care about their victims. The other is aggression, the use of power over another person to inflict humiliation, suffering, and death. Stone then turns to the various factors that, singly or intertwined, contribute to pushing certain people over the edge into committing heinous crimes. They include heredity, adverse environments, violence-prone cultures, mental illness or brain injury, and abuse of mind-altering drugs. All are considered in the search for the root causes of evil behavior" (from the publisher). The author also discusses how an understanding of the causes of evil will affect the justice system. Are evil people rehabilitable?
Remember Ted Bundy? He killed at least thirty young women in Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Utah and Florida. I remember the fear in Seattle as he targeted his victims back in the 1970s, playing on their sympathies by pretending to have a broken arm. "Could you help me?", and they did. it is hard to understand that kind of evil.
Bundy has become a media darling, the subject of countless books, television series, documentaries, a feature film. The executive producer of "20/20", David Sloan, said: "This story continues to fascinate, like so many appalling crimes, because it poses such a burning question: How could a good looking, incredibly intelligent, seemingly all-American young man be capable of such horror?" Of course we are curious, but true crime writer, Rebecca Morris, warns "There's a danger in romanticizing him and mythologizing him. Lost in all the Ted Bundy myth and charisma is how vicious his crimes were."
When, after nine years in Florida State Prison, he was put to death by the state, there was a media circus. People were thronging the streets near the prison. Some decrying capital punishment, others celebrating and making tasteless jokes about frying. He was a human being, but he was unrepentant and he was evil. The minister at the church I belonged to may have upset some in the congregation, but preaching on Bundy's execution, he said that there are some people that we cannot help. Their evil is beyond our ability to deal with. We give them back to God.
The anatomy of evil / Stone, Michael H., 364.3 STO
The evidential argument from evil / 214 HOW
Evil and suffering / 291.2 NEU
The heart of man, its genius for good and evil. Fromm, Erich, 216 FRO
Moral clarity : a guide for grown-up idealists / Neiman, Susan. 170 NEI
The moral landscape : how science can determine human values / Harris, Sam, 171.2 HAR
When religion becomes evil/ Kimball, Charles 291.2118 KIM