S/o petito laundry tragedy- are murderers mentally ill?

chick567

Fri, Oct 22 2021, 9:15 am

amother [ Steelblue ] wrote:

Only people struggling with their mental health commit murder, whether they are Jewish, frum, or nonjewish.

That’s quite a claim. Are you really saying that anyone who murders must be mentally ill ?
Do you believe evil exists?
If a person is mentally ill can they be held responsible for their crime?
Many people have mental illness and would never kill someone. Isn’t it insulting to claim that a murderer must be mentally ill?

SixOfWands

Fri, Oct 22 2021, 9:19 am

chick567 wrote:

I didn't write that.

What do you mean by mentally ill?

The legal "doesn't understand the difference between right and wrong" or "could not control their acts"? Then no, not every murderer is mentally ill.

But I do believe that anyone who would purposely take the life of another has a few screws loose. That the natural state of being is kindness, and that evil is a form of mental aberration.

LovesHashem

Fri, Oct 22 2021, 9:21 am

People are born with goodness, if someone is evil or wants to hurt others it's abnormal, and show they are struggling with their mental health.

There's actually 2 terms psychopath, and sociopath which describe 2 types of people who struggle with empathy and can lead them to do evil things. They are both mental issues.

meiravit

Fri, Oct 22 2021, 9:34 am

I always wondered about this.

For the sake of this discussion, let's leave out any killing based on real or perceived self-defense (like shooting someone you think was gonna rob your house or hurt you.) This also excludes mentally ill, extremely paranoid people who think someone will hurt them even if it's totally not true.

I think many people who murder are mentally ill. But then the question is how much bechira do they have?

Anyone have any insight? And can we leave this discussion intellectual, and not get personal or political, as many threads on Imamother do?

I definitely think that a sociopath who murders someone will get less onesh than, say, If I, who grew up in a nice family with love, financial security, education, and reasonable mental health, would just kill someone. But are they really completely not responsible?

It puzzles me.

Any mental health professionals want to chime in?
(If you're a frum female sociopath on Ima, feel free to chime in too!)

FranticFrummie

Fri, Oct 22 2021, 9:44 am

Bipolar, Generalized Anxiety, Panic Disorder. Quite well medicated, thank you, and under a doctor's care. Yes, I have bechira. I am self aware enough to know that I must take care of myself in order to be a good member of society, and a good Jew.

Psychopaths and sociopaths are also self aware. They know exactly what they are doing, but the lack of empathy means that they really don't care. Murder doesn't bother them in the least.

Then there are people who have psychotic episodes. This means a complete break from any sort of reality. You thought the person was actually a tiger, and it was coming to eat you. That kind of thing.

"Not guilty by reason of insanity" is a VERY high bar to cross. You have to prove to several top psychologists that you don't know right from wrong, up from down, or what planet you are on.

If you are deemed insane, you will be sent to a prison psychiatric hospital, where you can be held indefinitely, until the doctors are convinced that you are no longer a threat to yourself or others. A sane person could get a 20 year sentence for murder, but a truly insane person could be institutionalized for life. It's not an easy way out - it's forced medication, restraints, and a lot of daily boredom. Not to mention being stuck on the same ward with people who are just as psychotic as you are.

I used to read the blog of a woman who was a nurse in a prison psych ward, and I had to stop because her stories, while sometimes funny, were mostly terrifying. Something as simple as making sure the door clicks shut behind you could mean the difference between life and death.

tigerwife

Fri, Oct 22 2021, 10:29 am

There is mental illness and there is also social conditioning and culture.
Don’t tell me thousands of Nazis were mentally ill. No, not the Nazis on the battlegrounds fighting for their lives- the ones in the concentration camps.
Until pretty recent times, maybe a century or two ago, dueling to the death was normal, over issues such as slighted pride or a woman. These people weren’t mentally ill. This was socially acceptable.
I agree that there is something severely wrong with serial killers mentally. Normal people cannot even stomach thinking of what they can do.
Killing in self defense invisibly doesn’t fall under this category.
But I also believe in certain conditions, a mentally healthy person can end up murdering another person- not “for fun”, but due to complicated circumstances (fear, complicated relationships, a fit of anger). I also think that once the first murder is done, it isn’t as difficult to kill again.
I surprise myself that I have so many thoughts on this subject. 🤔

vintagebknyc

Fri, Oct 22 2021, 4:45 pm

zaq wrote:

Some murderers are mentally ill. Others are simply evil.
Ultra-liberals will have you believe that the very fact that a person wants to kill someone is evidence of mental illness.
Baloney. Evil exists.

Ultra liberal here. Wholly disagree, respectfully. Some people with mental illness are killers, most are not. Even Jeffrey Dahmer was deemed sane by the court.

ora_43

Sat, Oct 23 2021, 1:49 pm

Most murders are committed out of simple self-interest.

It's just that it's the ones that don't seem to make sense that make the news. Look at this thread, it's a spinoff of the whole Petito case, which has been all over the news for how many weeks now? 99% of the attention goes to the 1% of murders that seem to come out of nowhere.

In the meantime, how many drug dealers murdered rival drug dealers? How many gang members shot someone in a fight over territory, or in a revenge killing?

I haven't actually looked at the numbers, but my sense is that the overwhelming majority of murders are 'business' murders. IE murder for profit, one way or the other. And second most common is simple rage.

If the idea is that emotionally healthy people don't go around killing people - that I can agree with. But murder isn't usually caused by proper mental illness, either.

Living Princess

Sat, Oct 23 2021, 2:13 pm

I think we all know that not all murderers are mentally ill. Think of the mafia and how many people have been murdered through organized crime - who kill for money, revenge, and to protect themselves. Think of gangs who murder on a daily basis. People kill out of hatred, jealousy, and lust. Many of these murders we don't hear about. We hear about the "exciting" ones like Petito and perhaps they have emotional challenges but that's not necessarily mental illness.