Speaker 1: Hi, I'm doctor Shiloh.
Speaker 2: And I'm doctor Scott.
Speaker 1: And this is La Not So Confidential, the forensic psychology
Speaker 1: and True crime podcast.
Speaker 2: Each episode we explore the intersection of psychology, the criminal
Speaker 2: justice system, and entertainment.
Speaker 1: Today our episode is on the forensic psychtopic of peakerism.
Speaker 2: Hey, folks, welcome back, and just a reminder that we
Speaker 2: made a big announcement about wrapping up the show coming
Speaker 2: up soon in October of twenty twenty five. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it feels a bit surreal to have it out there
Speaker 2: after eight years, but we are still excited for the
Speaker 2: material that's coming out in the next two and a
Speaker 2: half months as well as our legacy.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, definitely, And we just wanted to say with
Speaker 1: the announcement, your sweet messages and emails are still coming
Speaker 1: in obviously as people catch up too, and they are
Speaker 1: just absolutely warming our hearts. And we're so grateful for
Speaker 1: the new listeners who are coming in and that continue
Speaker 1: to subscribe each month. We just wanted to just say
Speaker 1: thank you. Even if we haven't responded to every email
Speaker 1: or DM or what have you. I've had some in person.
Speaker 1: I ran into some people at a training this week
Speaker 1: that were like what I haven't gotten to that yet.
Speaker 1: I'm a few weeks behind and delivered the news in
Speaker 1: person and just some lovely feedback that we would have
Speaker 1: never gotten. So we also want to thank everyone for
Speaker 1: another great walking tour in July. It was a blast.
Speaker 1: Even though you and I have done that to our
Speaker 1: multiple times now, it just one is amazing. Just you
Speaker 1: can't get any better than that, But obviously being with
Speaker 1: a new group of people and old friends makes it
Speaker 1: that much more special. So with our last episode the
Speaker 1: Forensic psych one was episode two ten and that was
Speaker 1: titled Echoes of Salem, Modern witch Hunts and the Courts.
Speaker 1: This one hit a lot of topics, a lot of
Speaker 1: cases that involve moral panic and politically charged moves in
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system that has fortunately moved somewhat in
Speaker 1: the right direction, but as we found out in that episode,
Speaker 1: is still very susceptible to a backslide from time to time.
Speaker 2: Episode two eleven was a conversation with our wonderful best friends,
Speaker 2: criminologist doctor Amy Schlossberg and doctor Megan Sachs about how
Speaker 2: media intersects with motivates and fuels crime in this day
Speaker 2: and age, and then we dropped you a bonus episode
Speaker 2: of our chat with retired FBI special agent Catherine Schweit
Speaker 2: about her new book, Women Who Talked to the Dead.
Speaker 2: This book tells a remarkable story of two female investigators
Speaker 2: who set out to give names to the nameless victims
Speaker 2: buried in Potter's Field.
Speaker 1: Well, this feels full circle in a way, back to
Speaker 1: our roots of topics here. Yeah, you know, I can't
Speaker 1: go too long with I'll talk about paraphilia, you know that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we're we're circling back to this topic of
Speaker 1: sexual paraphilias and offending behaviors, which is representative of that
Speaker 1: heavenly cesspool of an internship where we met. Those those
Speaker 1: were the days oh.
Speaker 2: So long ago and so long ago that I can
Speaker 2: now be a lot more frank with some of the
Speaker 2: things that we experience which are hilarious and gross. You
Speaker 2: know what, we have to talk about these more in
Speaker 2: our shrink craps. We really like, we're going to keep
Speaker 2: generating shrink craps off and on. But I have two
Speaker 2: words for you, shared bathroom hand lotion.
Speaker 3: Oh my, there you go.
Speaker 2: That's not two words, those two descriptors, but bathroom and
Speaker 2: hand lotion will tell a story, folks, it's like so
Speaker 2: hilarious and so gross.
Speaker 1: And tell me again this is like insight. Sorry everyone,
Speaker 1: but tell me you didn't think exactly of that when
Speaker 1: we were on our tour and he was talking about
Speaker 1: the Jurgen's handlotion factory.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay, Chris of c LA in a Day
Speaker 2: has a connection to like a Jurgens factory. Okay, So
Speaker 2: we're going to leave it at that, But promo for
Speaker 2: CLA today when you can, folks, for sure. Anyway, back
Speaker 2: to our topic for today, This specific paraphilia called peakerism
Speaker 2: has been on our list of topics to cover for
Speaker 2: a while now, and it's sort of making the rounds
Speaker 2: again recently with the resolution of the Idaho four case
Speaker 2: in the past month or so. And we're going to
Speaker 2: have a separate conversation in a shrink wrap and probably
Speaker 2: behind the couch in the next couple of months. But
Speaker 2: let's get into the research before we explore that particular
Speaker 2: area to see if it even fits into this incident
Speaker 2: or not. So trigger warnings as usual, we're going to
Speaker 2: be talking about sexual offending themes, murder, especially with edged
Speaker 2: weapons and stabbing. This is a dark one, folks. So
Speaker 2: again we all know the stats on trigger warnings apparently
Speaker 2: don't do anything, but we care about you and we
Speaker 2: want you to care about yourself, So be careful and
Speaker 2: have that pause button ready if it gets too descriptive
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, And we will have another trigger warning towards
Speaker 1: the end today just because we're going to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more descriptive in a case that we want
Speaker 1: to do a little bit of banter and analysis on.
Speaker 1: But with that, when people are asked to imagine the
Speaker 1: most terrifying way to die, one method that comes up
Speaker 1: again and again is being stabbed. And it's not hard
Speaker 1: to understand why. I mean, stabbing is very up close
Speaker 1: and personal. It's brutally intimate and deeply violent. Unlike a gunshot,
Speaker 1: which can happen at a distance and be over in
Speaker 1: an instant, a stabbing really forces the victim into intimate
Speaker 1: contact with their attacker. It's face to face. There's no space,
Speaker 1: no time, no chance to mentally prepare. In a lot
Speaker 1: of cases, and victims often see the weapon feel repeated thrusts,
Speaker 1: are overwhelmed by really the sheer physicality of it all.
Speaker 1: This type of violence feels very chaotic, it's raw, it's emotional,
Speaker 1: and that really taps into a lot of our most
Speaker 1: primal fears, and research backs this up and surveys people
Speaker 1: rank stabbing along with burning and drowning among the most
Speaker 1: feared forms of death. A UK study even found it
Speaker 1: was second to only being shot at by close range.
Speaker 2: So why is it so high on the fear scale.
Speaker 2: It's the suffering, whether real or imagined, and most people
Speaker 2: believe rightly so that being stabbed is painful. It's slow,
Speaker 2: it's messy, even a fatal wound may not cause immediate unconsciousness,
Speaker 2: and so of course their psychological trauma right there, and
Speaker 2: you're sitting with the reality of this action that can
Speaker 2: take you out quickly or slowly, So that's really big,
Speaker 2: it's massive. Survivors of knife attacks frequently describe the sensation
Speaker 2: of helplessness, panic, disbelief that such a violent thing is
Speaker 2: actually happening to them. And then there's also what stabbing
Speaker 2: often represents, rage, control and intimate betrayal. It's not uncommon
Speaker 2: in domestic violence cases where the emotions are really high
Speaker 2: and the weapon is like whatever's closest, which is often
Speaker 2: a kitchen knife. You know, just picture any horror movie
Speaker 2: in the last thirty years.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Unlike shooting, stabbing requires repeated action and then that is
Speaker 2: often driven by complete dumps of adrenaline into the system
Speaker 2: or just raw emotion. It's not just about killing. It's
Speaker 2: about this unrelenting domination or punishment.
Speaker 1: And in terms of friends at considerations, this is where
Speaker 1: behaviors like overkill come into play. You know, when we're
Speaker 1: looking at dozens of stab wounds, that tells us something
Speaker 1: about the killer, perhaps about the motive, and sometimes about
Speaker 1: the relationship to the victim. So yes, people fear being stabbed,
Speaker 1: and for really good reason. It's why later in our
Speaker 1: entertainment section, why movies play on this over and over
Speaker 1: and over again. It's a form of violence that's not
Speaker 1: only deadly and painful, but it really shows the most
Speaker 1: horrifying side of what humans are capable of.
Speaker 2: Pigorism, however, is a form of sexual sadism and a
Speaker 2: paraphilic disorder that's characterized by a sexual fixation on penetrating
Speaker 2: another person's skin with sharp objects such as needles, knives,
Speaker 2: or other instruments, and the goal there is achieving intense
Speaker 2: sexual arousal or sexual gratification. So this compulsion often involves
Speaker 2: targeting specific areas like the breasts, the buttocks, the groin,
Speaker 2: and it's generally accompanied by arousal from the victim's pain, fear,
Speaker 2: or their physical reaction. In extreme cases, the acts may
Speaker 2: cause serious injury or death. So the theory here is
Speaker 2: that the behavior symbolically mirrors sexual penetration, making it a
Speaker 2: violent and pathological expression of both dominance and sexual desire.
Speaker 2: And the term peakerism was coined in the nineteen twenties
Speaker 2: by Wilhelm Stikle. However, it was explored prior to that,
Speaker 2: back in eighteen eighty six, when he had written about
Speaker 2: the concept with this particular statement quote when the injury
Speaker 2: of the victim of lust and sight of the victim's
Speaker 2: blood are a delight and pleasure. So Kraft Ebbing expanded
Speaker 2: in his nineteen sixty five seminal work Psychopathia Sexualitis by
Speaker 2: stating that sexual gratification is not achieved through rape or
Speaker 2: sexual assault, but rather by aspects of the murder itself,
Speaker 2: and he states where sexual violation is omitted and the
Speaker 2: sadistic crime alone becomes the equivalent of coitus.
Speaker 1: Just in case this is anyone's first time listening to
Speaker 1: us cover a paraphilia or a paraphilic disorder. Let's just
Speaker 1: quickly review that criteria. So generally, a paraphilia involves sexual
Speaker 1: arousal to deviant or bizarre images or activities. Deviant in
Speaker 1: this case meaning it tends to be harmful or involving
Speaker 1: a non consenting partner, and often it's criminal if it
Speaker 1: is acted upon, or in the case of the bizarreness,
Speaker 1: meaning there is sort of a rare theme to it.
Speaker 1: Statistically that it's generally something we don't find when we're
Speaker 1: looking at the wide variety of people's sexual interests. These
Speaker 1: intense urges have to last for at least six months,
Speaker 1: so we're not just talking about one fleeting thought of
Speaker 1: something bizarre or weird or rare. And it needs to
Speaker 1: cause significant distress to the person's life. So this can
Speaker 1: be psychologically, this could be interpersonally, maybe occupationally, or just
Speaker 1: in a myriad of other ways that it is now
Speaker 1: interrupting and being distressful to them. Multiple paraphilia can be
Speaker 1: present with one person and as a lot of you
Speaker 1: have heard us say before, they actually often travel in threes.
Speaker 1: But there is going to be a dominant one and
Speaker 1: sometimes dominant doesn't mean that like it's the strongest, but
Speaker 1: it might just be the one that they have thus
Speaker 1: far acted out on and may continue to act out
Speaker 1: on the others. But usually it's the one that brings
Speaker 1: attention to them or they get arrested for it or
Speaker 1: something like that. So fantasy is also a key component
Speaker 1: to paraphilias. Before any acting out, there are intense urges
Speaker 1: and fantasies that are utilized as arousal material for masturbation,
Speaker 1: and then there might be some planning or rehearsal stages
Speaker 1: that are attempts to sort of satiate the urge before
Speaker 1: any acting out happens, especially if it's something that's illegal
Speaker 1: or going to cause harm. And if that person is
Speaker 1: afraid of those things aka actually has a conscience and
Speaker 1: maybe is not fully psychopathic, they might do some of
Speaker 1: those things, you know, sort of in lieu of to
Speaker 1: see if it helps satiate the urges. And while we
Speaker 1: really can't talk about a violent paraphilia such as peakirism
Speaker 1: with out mentioning the obvious overlap with sexual sadism, we
Speaker 1: just wanted to mention that here sexual sadism disorder is
Speaker 1: one of the main paraphilic disorders listed in the DSM,
Speaker 1: and it is characterized by taking sexual pleasure from humiliation, fear,
Speaker 1: or another form of mental harm to a person. So
Speaker 1: sadistic acts include restraint such as ropes, chains, handcuffs, as
Speaker 1: well as imprisonment as well as behaviors against that person
Speaker 1: in terms of causing harm that could be biting, whipping, beating.
Speaker 1: Of course, can these acts be consensual, yes, and in
Speaker 1: those cases there is not likely any distress being caused
Speaker 1: that can't be resolved, as people kind of find their
Speaker 1: way into that lifestyle safely. So in fact, many who
Speaker 1: engage in BDSM or kink within the context of romantic
Speaker 1: relationships report that it actually brings them closer to their partners,
Speaker 1: and this is mainly due to these increased feelings of
Speaker 1: trust that result from setting and respecting boundaries, as well
Speaker 1: as the emotional safety that comes from being able to
Speaker 1: explore some of these less conventional sexual interests without judgment.
Speaker 1: So we just wanted to make sure we we got
Speaker 1: that in here to not pathologize these behaviors that are
Speaker 1: being utilized safely.
Speaker 2: Clearly, because consent and good judgment are just key to
Speaker 2: healthy sexuality. But when someone repeatedly practices these type of
Speaker 2: statistic sexual acts without consent from their partners, or when
Speaker 2: sadistic fantasies or behaviors cause social, professional, or other functional
Speaker 2: problems within an individual's life, sexual sadism disorder may be diagnosed,
Speaker 2: and when we look at the broader population of sexual offenders,
Speaker 2: only about two to five percent of them would actually
Speaker 2: meet criteria for sexual sadism, and the majority, which is
Speaker 2: eighty seven percent of sexual sadists who do offend, do
Speaker 2: so against other adults. Very important to remember. So when
Speaker 2: combined with traits of antisocial personality disorder like poor impulse control, dishonesty,
Speaker 2: lack of empathy, and remorse, sexual sadism can especially be dangerous.
Speaker 2: Some researchers like to distinguish between sex murders and lust murders,
Speaker 2: so let's break down those two terms. Where in sex
Speaker 2: murderers kill their victims to silence them out of fear
Speaker 2: of being caught or retribution right, and then lust murderers
Speaker 2: kill as part of the completion of the sexual fantasy.
Speaker 2: A lust murder may perform various sexual acts before, during,
Speaker 2: and after the victim is killed, and the rape being
Speaker 2: just one of the part of the sexual ritual or
Speaker 2: acting out right.
Speaker 1: So typologies of serial sexual murders include visionary, so this
Speaker 1: is where there is psychosis and perhaps command hallucinations on board.
Speaker 1: We also have mission orient so they believe it is
Speaker 1: their mission to rid society of certain groups of people.
Speaker 1: We also have hedonistic. These are your thrill seekers who
Speaker 1: derive satisfaction from the kill itself. And then the power
Speaker 1: and control typology, where the primary source of pleasure is
Speaker 1: the killer's ability to control and exert power over a
Speaker 1: helpless victim. Some of the cognitive distortions of sexual status
Speaker 1: include justifications that they tell themselves, like this person is bad,
Speaker 1: this person is evil, sick, or perverted. They are deserving this.
Speaker 1: That's definitely some mental gymnastics. Okay, now that we laid
Speaker 1: that foundation, let's get back on track to explore pikerism specifically.
Speaker 1: There's not the data on peakerism that there is with
Speaker 1: other more well researched type of paraphilic disorders, but you
Speaker 1: might come to expect that with something that it is
Speaker 1: more rare. So yeah, I guess there's not that much.
Speaker 1: There was actually more than I thought there was going
Speaker 1: to be. Hence the reason there's an entire episode. It
Speaker 1: was good enough to formulate a full episode, and I
Speaker 1: think you guys will find that this is really interesting
Speaker 1: and you know where this can go even further is
Speaker 1: still definitely to be explored. In that I was able
Speaker 1: to find an entire book chapter on the subject by
Speaker 1: doctor Devere D. Woods, a former police officer who became
Speaker 1: a criminologist. Was like, who is this guy? I need
Speaker 1: to look him up. He ended up advancing to the
Speaker 1: position of criminology department chair at Indiana State University by
Speaker 1: the time he had authored this chapter, which is pretty
Speaker 1: cool and it's.
Speaker 2: Very important to note here this book is twenty years old. However,
Speaker 2: doctor Woods's background is really important in this particular chapter
Speaker 2: that we're utilizing because as someone who was once a
Speaker 2: crime scene investigator, as a sworn officer, and then a criminologist,
Speaker 2: you can really feel how much importance he puts on
Speaker 2: interpreting crime scene artifacts and the wounds to the victim.
Speaker 2: So he advocates that it's not enough for an investigator
Speaker 2: to just shake their head at the excess of amount
Speaker 2: of wounds and talk about how senseless it seems, but
Speaker 2: to actually take the time to try and understand the
Speaker 2: motivation for those mutilating wounds, which in turn could eventually
Speaker 2: assist in identifying the perpetrator.
Speaker 1: So what he's really focused on in this book chapter
Speaker 1: is peakerism as a signature behavior. Gosh, this really feels
Speaker 1: like we're hitting all the greatest hits of you know,
Speaker 1: forensic psychotopics that people love. It's really going back to
Speaker 1: that notion of mo versus signature behaviors during the time
Speaker 1: that the crime is being committed. So investigators have been
Speaker 1: trained over the years to consider modus operandi or MO,
Speaker 1: the MO being the perpetrator's method of operation, Right, what
Speaker 1: crimes do they engage in and how do they go
Speaker 1: about accomplishing them. So, while each MO is unique in
Speaker 1: its details, it usually falls within a typical range of
Speaker 1: behaviors for a specific type of crime. That means, while
Speaker 1: you know, sort of the small stuff the small action
Speaker 1: might vary, the overall approach to the crime tends to
Speaker 1: be pretty consistent, especially across similar type crimes. Right, so,
Speaker 1: property crimes, crimes against people, thefts, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Investigators use these patterns not only to link crimes together,
Speaker 1: but to also connect them to potential suspects now think
Speaker 1: of an MO like a criminal's craftsmanship. Right. It can
Speaker 1: reflect the offender's personal habits and preferences, or even the
Speaker 1: level of experience that they are bringing to the table.
Speaker 1: In fact, the MO is often based on what has
Speaker 1: worked for them in the past. If a certain method
Speaker 1: gets the result that they want and lets them get
Speaker 1: away with it, they're likely going to use it again.
Speaker 2: So most experts agree that a criminal's mom stays fairly
Speaker 2: stable over time, and that might be due to superstition
Speaker 2: or a lack of creativity. But others who examined emos
Speaker 2: believe that consistency has more to do with human nature
Speaker 2: because we tend to repeat behavior that has been successful.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's just sort of Okham's razor. It's the
Speaker 2: most sensible understanding for a conundrum like that, right. But
Speaker 2: here's the important part. Emos can and do evolve, and
Speaker 2: as offenders gain experience, they adapt, they learn what works better,
Speaker 2: what's more efficient, or even how to throw off law enforcement.
Speaker 2: And that is really a phenomenon in today's world with
Speaker 2: the advent of forensics files. Forensics files has now been
Speaker 2: on for decades and newer versions and it really does
Speaker 2: become sort of like a primer learning environment for criminals, like, oh,
Speaker 2: I got to watch for that particular thing, got to
Speaker 2: make sure I wear a mask in gloves, right, So
Speaker 2: these techniques in these perpetrators might shift based on trial
Speaker 2: and error, or because they're trying to be more emotionally satisfied,
Speaker 2: or just to avoid getting caught, and so that evolution
Speaker 2: can continue across their entire criminal career, especially as circumstances change.
Speaker 2: For example, if their motive or opportunity shifts, then their
Speaker 2: approach might shift as well. No, two crimes are committed
Speaker 2: under exactly the same conditions, and that affects the way
Speaker 2: the crime is carried out. Now, It's also worth noting
Speaker 2: that most investigators won't ever encounter a true serial homicide case,
Speaker 2: despite all the shows that are on that like just
Speaker 2: sort of there's a serial killer on every corner, right,
Speaker 2: So those investigators may naturally treat each incident as a
Speaker 2: one off. Without clear signs that the crimes are connected,
Speaker 2: it can be easy to miss the larger pattern.
Speaker 1: Definitely, So doctor Woods notes that quote. While the mo
Speaker 1: reflects the perpetrator's creativity and experience, a signature reflects his personality. Quote, So,
Speaker 1: in other words, a signature is the thing the perpetrator
Speaker 1: does to make the crime meaningful to him. FBI profiler
Speaker 1: John Douglas added that it's what gives the perpetrator quote,
Speaker 1: emotional satisfaction. Doctor Eric Hickey, who was the dean of
Speaker 1: my graduate program, noted in his book on serial killers,
Speaker 1: that signatures are the offender's calling card and that he
Speaker 1: is psychologically compelled to leave this behind. It's not the
Speaker 1: means he uses to complete the offense, but it's this
Speaker 1: calling card aspect. Doctor Hickey added, quote. Signatures include verbal, sexual,
Speaker 1: and physical acts. Therefore, the signature is essential to the
Speaker 1: perpetrator's satisfaction of the crime. Additional researchers have also come
Speaker 1: to the determination that, unlike MO, a killer signature is
Speaker 1: fairly consistent or static because it's based in the perpetrator's fantasies,
Speaker 1: so it is much more difficult for him to change
Speaker 1: his signature than his MO. Douglas, Brandell, and Keppel have
Speaker 1: all determined that the psychological core of the signature really
Speaker 1: does not change, but it could evolve over time. Signatures
Speaker 1: are especially important to consider, and murders perpetrated by serial
Speaker 1: offenders would states that he considered signature killers as a
Speaker 1: subcategory of serial killers who leave these unusual pieces of
Speaker 1: evidence of their psychological makeup at the crime scene, and
Speaker 1: therefore giving emphasis to signatures is especially helpful in behavioral
Speaker 1: profiling and serial linkage of crimes.
Speaker 2: Signature killers can perform bizarre or symbolic behaviors like posing
Speaker 2: the body, inserting foreign objects, or taking souvenirs from the victim,
Speaker 2: and in some rare cases fewer than one percent of
Speaker 2: these types of murders, these acts involve specific forms of
Speaker 2: sexual activity with the deceased, which can offer really profound
Speaker 2: insights into that particular offender's fantasy life, and detectives who
Speaker 2: recognize and understand these signatures often have a better chance
Speaker 2: at connecting cases and then catching the serial offenders as
Speaker 2: compared to those who rely solely on traditional investigative techniques.
Speaker 2: It seems like a lot of the more dramatic criminal
Speaker 2: procedural shows love the idea of these signature killers despite
Speaker 2: their low statistical occurrence. So note what we're saying here. Yes,
Speaker 2: there's a low occurrence of this happening, but we also
Speaker 2: need to emphasize that there needs to be somebody that's
Speaker 2: willing to look at the big picture to pick up
Speaker 2: on these factors. Not all homicides are created equal, especially
Speaker 2: those where knives are involved. In many serial murders, the
Speaker 2: act itself is surprisingly quick, often fueled by adrenaline, impulsivity,
Speaker 2: and many times in today's world, substance use. Novice offenders
Speaker 2: can often be really shocked at how easily a blade
Speaker 2: can end a life, or they can also be frustrated
Speaker 2: about how resilient and fighting back a victim can offer,
Speaker 2: right requiring multiple utilitarian strikes. These wounds are functional, intended
Speaker 2: solely to kill and nothing more. Once death is achieved,
Speaker 2: the act is then complete. And this is so important
Speaker 2: for investigators because, as Brickin and his compatriots research for
Speaker 2: two thousand and six indicate, as paraphilic offenders those who
Speaker 2: are sexually aroused by the infliction of this behavior upon others,
Speaker 2: a single pickarist homicide is most likely to be followed
Speaker 2: by others.
Speaker 1: I know we're laying a lot of foundation, I promise
Speaker 1: you guys, we are going to narrow in on peekerism
Speaker 1: in a moment. But this is all really necessary, especially
Speaker 1: when it comes to some case analysis. And we also
Speaker 1: if you go back into our resources, there are wonderful
Speaker 1: studies that just do case analysis for peakerism that you
Speaker 1: guys can go on to read as well. But then
Speaker 1: there are killings that go far beyond what's necessary to
Speaker 1: end a life. Right, So, in cases of overkill, the
Speaker 1: number of stab wounds, sometimes dozens or even over one hundred,
Speaker 1: far exceed what is needed to end a life. This
Speaker 1: level of violence is not only physically demanding, but I
Speaker 1: think really psychologically revealing as well. It signals that something
Speaker 1: deeper is at play. Hair the killer isn't just trying
Speaker 1: to extinguish life. They are expressing rage, loss of control,
Speaker 1: or an intense emotional drive that extends beyond the act
Speaker 1: of murder itself. Research and case studies suggest that stabbing
Speaker 1: requires greater emotional investment than gun usage. The act, as
Speaker 1: we've said before, is more physically intimate, which may reflect
Speaker 1: deeper psychological motivations again on that spectrum of anger and
Speaker 1: rage and revenge or sexualize violence in some offenders. And
Speaker 1: as we're kind of talking about today, before we talk
Speaker 1: more about overkill, just a little bit more on murders
Speaker 1: perpetrated with knives. Stats from the US indicate that knife
Speaker 1: homicides are more likely to occur between people who know
Speaker 1: each other, family members, intimate partners, or acquaintances, as compared
Speaker 1: to gun related killings, which more frequently involves strangers or
Speaker 1: are associated with gang activity. A significant portion of knife
Speaker 1: homicides are linked to domestic violence, and in these cases
Speaker 1: the weapon is often just readily available in the home,
Speaker 1: used impulsively during a heated conflict. Most knife homicide offenders
Speaker 1: are male, and the incidents often involve alcohol or drug use.
Speaker 1: So while firearm homicides have spiked in recent years, knife
Speaker 1: related killings have remained relatively stable in the US.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about overkill in these cases, which is notable
Speaker 2: when stabbing is involved, but it's not necessarily compatible with pekearism.
Speaker 2: So overkill refers to the excessive and repeated infliction of
Speaker 2: injuries so extreme that the actual act of murder almost
Speaker 2: becomes secondary to the violence itself. These aren't just wounds
Speaker 2: to cause death, hence the link to the signature of
Speaker 2: the crime as we spoke about earlier. These are wounds
Speaker 2: that go far beyond They're often involving multiple methods of
Speaker 2: killing or such intense trauma that the victim is virtually unrecognizable,
Speaker 2: so what drives this kind of brutality? And in many cases,
Speaker 2: the killer doesn't stop after the victim is dead. Researchers,
Speaker 2: Spits Wrestler, and Couple have written extensively on how the
Speaker 2: violence continues, sometimes until the killer feels a sense of
Speaker 2: control or reassurance about their own power. This is especially
Speaker 2: evident when the face is targeted. They suggest that excessive
Speaker 2: injuries to the face often signal a deep personal rage.
Speaker 2: It's not just about ending life, it's about erasing an identity.
Speaker 2: Destroying the face means destroying the person, psychologically dehumanizing them.
Speaker 1: Sometimes this can also suggest a prior relationship. The victim
Speaker 1: might have been someone the killer knew intimately, or perhaps
Speaker 1: symbolized someone from the killer's past. In that way, the
Speaker 1: crime becomes more than just murder, right it becomes almost
Speaker 1: this emotional obliteration of this person. Overkill is especially notable
Speaker 1: in cases with strong emotional underpinnings, such as jealousy or betrayal.
Speaker 1: Overkill then becomes a psychological fingerprint. In this case, it
Speaker 1: tells investigators and forensic psychologists not just how someone was killed,
Speaker 1: but perhaps why, and often that why then reveals this
Speaker 1: complete storm of rage and resentment and unresolved trauma. And
Speaker 1: just a note from the research. So back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, Robert Wrestler and his colleagues at the FBI
Speaker 1: Behavioral Now Unit found evidence of mutilation and overkill in
Speaker 1: many of the sexual homicides that they collected data on
Speaker 1: for their bodies of work, including Wrestler's book Who Fights Monsters,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure many of you have read, so you know,
Speaker 1: I know, we referenced doctor Wood's chapter being from twenty
Speaker 1: years ago. A lot of the foundational work to what
Speaker 1: we're talking about today is back from those early Bau days.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean we're talking like nineteen ninety two
Speaker 1: is where some of this is also coming from. However,
Speaker 1: in some of the literature, you will see a term
Speaker 1: adopted from the media's coverage of such crimes when it
Speaker 1: comes to overkill behaviors with knives, and that is they
Speaker 1: use the term ripper murders, not my favorite term that
Speaker 1: they've ever come up with. These killings are in the
Speaker 1: context of homicide that involve a knife or a similar
Speaker 1: sharp instrument and the infliction of numerous excessive stabbing or
Speaker 1: slashing wounds to the victim and have been reported all
Speaker 1: around the world, so UK, Russia, Caribbean, China, and the US.
Speaker 1: The term, although we don't love it, it comes from
Speaker 1: the media. It is represented in the literature. Some of
Speaker 1: these academic articles and some of the research that focuses
Speaker 1: on ripper murders includes not only behaviors with dozens of
Speaker 1: stab wounds, but they've also gone a little further and
Speaker 1: looked at completed or attempted decapitations in some cases, and
Speaker 1: then also disembowlment, which have been just ways in which
Speaker 1: bodies have been additionally desecrated with sharp edged weapons.
Speaker 2: So back when doctor Wood's book chapter was written twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, pikorism was just emerging as a concept from
Speaker 2: these landmark efforts to profile serial murder crime scenes. And again,
Speaker 2: pickerism is essentially the cutting and stabbing for sexual pleasure.
Speaker 2: Doctor Eric Hickey notes that the peaker in most cases
Speaker 2: achieves sexual orgasm by stabbing his victim. Kapln Burns took
Speaker 2: this step further and opining that even though it sounds contradictory,
Speaker 2: pikeriism behaviors are acts to achieve satisfaction, not to cause death.
Speaker 2: Of course, death is often the result. And if we
Speaker 2: go all the way back to good old doctor Freud, well,
Speaker 2: of course he wasn't shy to bring up the phallic
Speaker 2: nature of edged weapons, and this continues to be an
Speaker 2: important part of the conversation about the psychology of the Peachrist.
Speaker 2: If we look at this ven diagram, there is the
Speaker 2: sexual sadism element, the power and control element, perhaps with
Speaker 2: specific rage or jealousy, and then the penetrative nature of
Speaker 2: using the knife to symbolize a violent sexual act. These
Speaker 2: three points are really vital in their overlapp to understand.
Speaker 1: So essentially, penile satisfaction is transferred to the cutting instrument,
Speaker 1: and in some cases researchers believe that mutilation can be
Speaker 1: somewhat of I'm using heavy air quotes here for play
Speaker 1: to the killer's sexual gratification. There have even been cases
Speaker 1: where the offender was unable to perform sexually then stabs
Speaker 1: the victim, the penetrated power again sort of manifesting itself
Speaker 1: in the knife in this case. There are other examples
Speaker 1: where the relationship between the knife and the penis is
Speaker 1: one of mutual exclusivity. For example, in our resources, there
Speaker 1: was a case study of an offender who had actually
Speaker 1: started interfacing with his victim, became aroused and was kind
Speaker 1: of confused by this and then couldn't decide how he
Speaker 1: was then going to move forward with killing her. The
Speaker 1: same offender in another one of his crimes, ended up
Speaker 1: masturbating over a victim after striking her with a hammer,
Speaker 1: not using any penetrated object at all. He didn't use
Speaker 1: a knife in this case. So when these cases are
Speaker 1: really examined closely, it's not so black and white. And again,
Speaker 1: you know, I think this speaks to the evolution of
Speaker 1: mo especially when you know with victims, you're talking about
Speaker 1: another person that could throw off, you know, whatever the
Speaker 1: best laid plan is. So we do see these big differences,
Speaker 1: and it can be really subtle to link some of
Speaker 1: these together and even go a step further to say,
Speaker 1: you know, this is peakeerism at work. Care Kepel and
Speaker 1: Bearns noted that for some killers, it no longer matters
Speaker 1: if the victim is still alive. The perpetrator's sexual urges
Speaker 1: can be expressed in post mortem mutilation and other types
Speaker 1: of cutting exploration. There have even been cases where some
Speaker 1: killers return to the crime scene to derive further satisfaction
Speaker 1: by inflicting more cutting on their victims' bodies.
Speaker 2: Therefore, identifying pikorism from a single stab wound is highly
Speaker 2: challenging unless the offender describes the intent and their sexual
Speaker 2: motivations for the act. Investigators instead should be relying on
Speaker 2: observing patterns such as the number, the placement, and the
Speaker 2: grouping of stab or mutilation wounds, and use this information
Speaker 2: to determine whether or not an attack reflects peakorist behavior.
Speaker 2: Although peakorism often targets sexual or intimate areas, a high
Speaker 2: volume of wounds or wounds to other regions may obscure
Speaker 2: this intent, So investigators have to acknowledge that both peakorism
Speaker 2: and over kill involve mutilation, but they stem from different motivations. Again,
Speaker 2: overkill is driven by intense emotional release, typically rage or frustration,
Speaker 2: and results in excessive, chaotic violence meant to obliterate the victim.
Speaker 2: In contrast, pechorism is controlled and deliberate, with wounds serving
Speaker 2: as a means of sexual gratification. The injuries, often focused
Speaker 2: on erogenos zones, may then be patterned and inflicted before
Speaker 2: or after death, So understanding these distinctions is really essential
Speaker 2: for accurate behavioral assessment in violent crime. Still, this does
Speaker 2: not mean that overkill and pechorism are mutually exclusive, and
Speaker 2: that there does not need to be an insistence that
Speaker 2: investigators must distinguish between the two. A killer can have
Speaker 2: pent up rage and also can connect sexual satisfaction through
Speaker 2: the violence perpetrated by an edged weapon.
Speaker 1: In terms of the crime scene and evidence of obvious
Speaker 1: sexual activity which lead to the determination of this being pikerism,
Speaker 1: it actually might not be so obvious either. Pikeerism for
Speaker 1: some offenders is a key component of achieving sexual gratification,
Speaker 1: but that gratification doesn't always occur at the crime scene,
Speaker 1: so in several cases, the mutilation itself kind of serves
Speaker 1: as that precursor to later arousal. These individuals often leave
Speaker 1: the crime scene and then engage in their sexual release privately,
Speaker 1: sometimes hours later again through fantasy or masturbation, or then
Speaker 1: it becomes kind of fuel for future fantasy even as
Speaker 1: the days and the weeks go by, and in between killings,
Speaker 1: if they go on to complete more. As a result,
Speaker 1: there's often no physical evidence of sexual activity like semen
Speaker 1: or signs of rape left at the scene, and Understanding
Speaker 1: this delayed connection between violence and gratification is crucial when
Speaker 1: interpreting certain types of sexually motivated crimes.
Speaker 2: So we focused a lot on the investigative portion of
Speaker 2: the crime seen analysis and the offender motivation. But why
Speaker 2: is this important for clinicians? Well, Accurately identifying pikeorism is
Speaker 2: essential to ensure appropriate treatment planning in cases involving this
Speaker 2: particular paraphilic disorder, especially when tied to serious charges like homicide.
Speaker 2: Failing to recognize that their sexual motivation involved can lead
Speaker 2: to unmet treatment needs. So proper identification not only supports
Speaker 2: individual rehabilitation, but also it then strengthens the case for
Speaker 2: developing and expanding specialized treatment programs to address paraphilic behaviors
Speaker 2: like peakeerism. So, even as rare as it is, it
Speaker 2: can be treated to some extent, but it has to
Speaker 2: be noticed, even though it's like we're saying, very rare,
Speaker 2: small percentage. Just because it's a low incidence of this
Speaker 2: particular thing that manifests doesn't mean it's any less important,
Speaker 2: and in some cases it may be even more important.
Speaker 2: In the potential for violent and treatment for paraphilic disorders
Speaker 2: is complex. I mean this just right down to the
Speaker 2: ground works. It is complex because it has to be
Speaker 2: tailored to the individual's risk, their behavior, and their willingness
Speaker 2: to engage in treatment. Seriously, it's so important. If you
Speaker 2: can't get engagement, you're not getting anywhere. The focus is
Speaker 2: going to be not just on suppressing urges, but on
Speaker 2: building safer and more adaptive behaviors while managing risk to
Speaker 2: the community and the others around them. Right, So treatment
Speaker 2: has to prioritize public safety, I mean especially, this is
Speaker 2: what Broadactter Shiloh and I together is working in a
Speaker 2: forensic setting and a clinic where the bigger overarching goal
Speaker 2: was to protect the community with these people that had
Speaker 2: a potential for sexual violence against others. But it also
Speaker 2: the treatment planning has to emphasize violence risk assessment and
Speaker 2: that individual's psychological probe file. So comprehensive risk assessments are essential,
Speaker 2: and we as clinicians have to consistently and continually evaluate
Speaker 2: for co occurring mental health conditions because it is very
Speaker 2: rare that any of these things exist completely in a vacuum.
Speaker 2: There may be the presence of other paraphilias, and whether
Speaker 2: the individuals urges after completion are distressing or gratifying, either
Speaker 2: a prodromal leading up to it or post act. And
Speaker 2: when I say co occurring, I want to really primarily
Speaker 2: emphasize the presence of psychosis because that is a whole
Speaker 2: different bubble out there. This is not a psychopath, this
Speaker 2: is not a pure antisocial, this is not a rage killing.
Speaker 2: Psychosis is on a whole different level of comprehension and
Speaker 2: understanding and treatment planning right now. Another one that is
Speaker 2: very predominant in today's world is the comorbid existence of
Speaker 2: serious addiction, particularly with substances like amphetamine and methamphetamine, and
Speaker 2: that can cause non organic psychotic episodes with like serious
Speaker 2: chronic use. Time and time again, we will get exposed
Speaker 2: to information about crimes that occurred almost out of nowhere,
Speaker 2: where the background on the perpetrator is this is not
Speaker 2: the person I knew. They're good people, but she's a
Speaker 2: meth addict or he's a meth addict and they've been
Speaker 2: on a six month run. Because that is how powerful
Speaker 2: and destructive those medications. They literally can change the wiring
Speaker 2: in the brain after that much exposure. So going back
Speaker 2: to the output of treatment, it can involve cognitive behavioral
Speaker 2: therapy that focuses on deviant arousal impulse control and really
Speaker 2: importantly relapse prevention, along with possible use of anti android
Speaker 2: in medication or even SSRIs to reduce sexual preoccupation. Although
Speaker 2: look just very clearly here for anyone listening now or
Speaker 2: ten years in the future, medications are not a singular option.
Speaker 2: It gets promoted in the media, it gets promoted by
Speaker 2: I will say even this. I'll just go out on
Speaker 2: the smaller law enforcement agencies that are not quite so
Speaker 2: up to the latest research. We'll say, let's chemically castratum
Speaker 2: and that's going to fix everything. It really doesn't. And
Speaker 2: of course there are legal considerations like mandate reporting and
Speaker 2: treatment within specified forensic or secure settings such as the
Speaker 2: ones that doctor Shiloh and I worked in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. Just to go back to your point
Speaker 1: about co occurring disorders and sort of weading those out,
Speaker 1: I'll give a very quick brief example. One of the
Speaker 1: sexual status I worked with was a female sex offender,
Speaker 1: and you know, she was coming out of prison and
Speaker 1: coming back into the community, and when she had committed
Speaker 1: her offenses had been under the influence of meth and
Speaker 1: had quite a serious addiction problem. But in you know,
Speaker 1: as we're going through this, I'm thinking, like, good clinical
Speaker 1: interviewing is so important because we then were able to
Speaker 1: go back before she had even acted out and before
Speaker 1: she was under the influence of drugs, and there were
Speaker 1: still those fantasies and urges of sexual sadism prior to
Speaker 1: all that. So I was able to say, yes, she
Speaker 1: is a sexual status. This wasn't like a result of
Speaker 1: some methed out craziness.
Speaker 2: Right, you got a great history, You went in depth
Speaker 2: and got all that information.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's looking at timing of things, which can be
Speaker 1: really muddy, especially if you have a bad historian giving
Speaker 1: you the information or they just don't remember right different
Speaker 1: times of when things started happening for them.
Speaker 2: I was going to jump into just briefly. There was
Speaker 2: another case that was really famous back in the day,
Speaker 2: and I believe her name Becaus has Sought the cough.
Speaker 2: I didn't prepare the note for this for today's outline,
Speaker 2: but I think it was Carla Fay Tucker in Texas
Speaker 2: and she was on like a meth binge with the
Speaker 2: boyfriend and brutally, brutally murdered a couple in their home
Speaker 2: using an act using the point end of an acts,
Speaker 2: I believe, And she even testified in Core that like
Speaker 2: she was so overwhelmed by the amount of substance that
Speaker 2: was in her that she got a satisfaction from it.
Speaker 2: But to my knowledge, there was no history at all
Speaker 2: of her ever having a history of engaging in sadistic acts.
Speaker 2: So again another testament to just how brutal methamphetamine can
Speaker 2: wreck a system.
Speaker 1: Definitely, And I don't think that I spelled it out
Speaker 1: when we talked about perophilia criteria, but I mean these
Speaker 1: are really pervasive. I mean, these are sexual interests that
Speaker 1: have probably been there since puberty and adolescence and is
Speaker 1: you know, sexual interests are forming. So if the person
Speaker 1: is not afraid to disclose it or there's not that
Speaker 1: shame behind it, if the history is there, it should
Speaker 1: go back pretty far. So just to dial down a
Speaker 1: little bit on that last point that you made regarding treatment,
Speaker 1: and this was so much of the work that you
Speaker 1: and I did in our internship site, what I went
Speaker 1: on to do for many years where we're focusing on
Speaker 1: those whose paraphilia is clearly a factor in there offending behavior.
Speaker 1: So generally treatment, yes, is going to consist of psychotherapy,
Speaker 1: primarily cognitive behavioral therapy, where the goal is to help
Speaker 1: individuals recognize, understand, and then manage those deviant sexual thoughts
Speaker 1: and behaviors. A lot of the techniques that we relied
Speaker 1: on heavily were cognitive restructuring, so you're challenging the mental gymnastics,
Speaker 1: the distorted beliefs about sex, about power, about consent. There's
Speaker 1: then behavioral interventions, so reducing the deviant arousal through techniques
Speaker 1: like adversion therapy is something that is definitely used. Still,
Speaker 1: masturbatory satiation is something that is not really used anymore.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the like, Hey, I'm going to have
Speaker 1: you smoke that whole pack cigarette, so you don't like
Speaker 1: cigarettes anymore. Yeah, that's pretty much been ruled out. But
Speaker 1: what we would do is we would work on building
Speaker 1: appropriate fantasies for them to then have sexual gratification with,
Speaker 1: so they didn't go back to the old version, which
Speaker 1: was deviant or illegal if they were acted out on it.
Speaker 1: But we could go to something that is still sexually satisfactory,
Speaker 1: but maybe involving an eighteen or nineteen year old rather
Speaker 1: than someone younger or not including violence to still get
Speaker 1: their sexual urges met. And then this all kind of
Speaker 1: has a through line of relapse prevention, which really comes
Speaker 1: from addiction methods for working with folks who are trying
Speaker 1: to remain in recovery and remain sober. And this is
Speaker 1: again all about identifying triggers, finding intervention points, building coping strategies,
Speaker 1: and looking at all of the factors that come into
Speaker 1: play to avoid acting on these urges. Lastly, I would say,
Speaker 1: you know, training is probably a pretty strong word, but
Speaker 1: like empathy, training, trying to build empathy in folks is
Speaker 1: something that again was kind of a through line, and
Speaker 1: we touched on it as much as possible in treatment
Speaker 1: because that's one of those factors and for some folks
Speaker 1: can be there or it cannot and maybe there is
Speaker 1: no and do all the training in the world and
Speaker 1: those connections aren't being made in the brain.
Speaker 2: So there are also some pharmacological treatments, particularly the ones
Speaker 2: that I was speaking about early. These are used certainly
Speaker 2: with individuals that are at a high risk of offending
Speaker 2: or of reoffending, and one of the go tos is,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's kind of ironic. So a selective serotonin
Speaker 2: reuptake inhibitor an SSRI or an s NRI, which is
Speaker 2: a similar medication that works on norepinephrin. These medications are
Speaker 2: very commonly and very successfully used to treat depression and
Speaker 2: anxiety in run of the mill treatment for those disorders
Speaker 2: through a psychiatrist. Usually, I usually highly recommend that you
Speaker 2: don't get your psychiatric medications from just a regular family
Speaker 2: doctor because they don't have the specialized training that's required.
Speaker 2: But as a side effect, one of the main side
Speaker 2: effects for SSRIs is that it's really hard to sometimes
Speaker 2: even get an erection and it's very difficult to reach
Speaker 2: climat So they found this as a useful tool to
Speaker 2: reduce obsessive sexual thoughts, compulsivity, and anxiety that are common
Speaker 2: for cases that are involving voyeurism, exhibitionism, and fetishism. But
Speaker 2: the word is still out actually on whether or not
Speaker 2: those consistently work. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. I
Speaker 2: don't want to say silver bullet here, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: work that way. And then, of course the anti androgens
Speaker 2: that lower testosterone levels in order to reduce libido, and
Speaker 2: those are often using cases of metaphilic disorder or severe
Speaker 2: sexual aggression. The problem is with the anti androgens is
Speaker 2: that you can lower the testosterone level, So it's going
Speaker 2: to affect the ability to have an erection, the ability
Speaker 2: to climax. It doesn't necessarily address the motivational drive if
Speaker 2: the motivational drive is to hurt other people. So let's
Speaker 2: just again emphasize that these are not one size fits
Speaker 2: all approaches. And we know that these drug treatments don't
Speaker 2: prevent crimes because sexual crimes can be completed with body
Speaker 2: parts other than the genitals. Many of you sent us
Speaker 2: a recent news story out of Italy where they're moving
Speaker 2: towards legalizing chemical castration for rapist and pedophilic offenders, and
Speaker 2: god knows, I love Italy, I dream of living there.
Speaker 2: But that is actually pretty archaic because it can be
Speaker 2: effective for those who are also participating in psychotherapy and
Speaker 2: who want to change and are highly motivated, but it
Speaker 2: is not a fixed by itself. And it feels very
Speaker 2: odd because Italy can be really ahead of the game
Speaker 2: in many medical areas of research, but this is one
Speaker 2: where a question it.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, but yeah it was. Many people sent
Speaker 1: that to us, probably because they've heard us talk about
Speaker 1: this before, right, and they were like what do you think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another key part to treatment of sexual offending behavior for
Speaker 1: those with para fetia or paraphilic disorders is just this
Speaker 1: multidisciplinary and risk based approach. So this means treatment involves
Speaker 1: collaboration among the treating clinicians, psychiatrists you know usually that
Speaker 1: are part of their parole or probation agency, perhaps medical doctors,
Speaker 1: and the criminal justice professionals like the probation officers and
Speaker 1: parole agents who are monitoring them. So in these cases,
Speaker 1: treatment is guided by risk level. So again doing entire
Speaker 1: risk assessments, looking at their history and looking at risk level,
Speaker 1: we're not predicting human behavior, but assessing risk. We Also
Speaker 1: part of this is motivation and insight of the individual. Again,
Speaker 1: how engaged are they going to be? Do they want
Speaker 1: to change? And then you know sort of the legal
Speaker 1: forensic involvement. What is is their treatment court mandated at
Speaker 1: this point? Are their polygraphs going to be used? How
Speaker 1: often do they have to come? And then what does
Speaker 1: the clinician actually recommend. Sometimes those can be in conflict
Speaker 1: with each other, but all of that is what goes
Speaker 1: into this risk based approach. In California we called it
Speaker 1: the containment model. So we had the clinician. Like if
Speaker 1: you think of it as a triangle with the offender
Speaker 1: in the middle. At one tip of the triangle you
Speaker 1: have the clinician and treatment. At another tip you have
Speaker 1: probation or parole, the monitoring. And the last point was
Speaker 1: for here in California, was that polygraph. It was kind
Speaker 1: of that other catch all piece that helped the monitoring
Speaker 1: and us to kind of see where this person was
Speaker 1: at as we were monitoring them in the community.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's kind of wrap up the research here.
Speaker 2: In conclusion, after looking at all of this fascinating, interesting
Speaker 2: but limited research, a few things continue to stand out significantly.
Speaker 2: Not all offenders who commit overkill our peakorus, and not
Speaker 2: all peakerists are homicidal. However, an overkill is a common
Speaker 2: feature in peakarist killings, which can mislead investigators into attributing
Speaker 2: the violence solely to rage rather than sexual motivation, and
Speaker 2: because of this, it's critical for investigators to consider the
Speaker 2: possibility of peekerism in cases of extreme mutilation, especially when
Speaker 2: the wounds are targeted at sexual organs or accompanied by
Speaker 2: victim posing clothing removal or signs of torture. I know
Speaker 2: that sounds like we're just getting so into such wild
Speaker 2: specific areas, but it's really important to build out a
Speaker 2: profound body of research to understand a whole host of
Speaker 2: other types of crimes. It sounds like that's just focusing
Speaker 2: on one thing, but as anybody who's interested in research understands,
Speaker 2: it lends to a larger body of understanding of sexual motivations,
Speaker 2: particularly when it comes to violence. Right, So recognizing these
Speaker 2: patterns can help link cases a lot more efficiently and
Speaker 2: in the future prevent further victimization. Like doctor Shawley was saying,
Speaker 2: risk assessment does not promise that you're going to be
Speaker 2: able to stop something, but it absolutely can make a
Speaker 2: huge difference in preventing these types of crimes. And for
Speaker 2: clinicians understanding that a homicide may have an underlying sexual component,
Speaker 2: particularly when the offender conceals or can't express it, it's
Speaker 2: essential for appropriate assessment and treatment planning. I forgot to
Speaker 2: ask you. I know this is a totally old show,
Speaker 2: but did you watch The Fall?
Speaker 1: Oh God, one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's so good. It's so good, but so good
Speaker 2: and so unrealistic in some ways, And like in episode one,
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're thinking way back, it's probably even
Speaker 2: close to a decade now. Jillian Anderson. I'll literally watch
Speaker 2: her silently reading a phone book. I think she's just
Speaker 2: a fascinating actress and she just gets better and better
Speaker 2: and better.
Speaker 1: Right, she gets more gorgeous too. Every not fair?
Speaker 2: Not fair? And what's the name of the actor that
Speaker 2: went on to be Shades of Gray? He has like
Speaker 2: the best beard in the Fall. So, I mean, for
Speaker 2: anybody who hasn't seen it, I'm sure everybody's listening has
Speaker 2: seen it. But he plays a I think he's a
Speaker 2: social worker. He's some kind of mental health clinician, and
Speaker 2: he's seen doing you're introduced to him doing a couple's
Speaker 2: therapy session with a very contentious couple, and he's drawing
Speaker 2: a pornographic drawing of the woman sitting across from him. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is so so ridiculously unrealistic. And the way I'm
Speaker 2: tying to this to what we just talked about is that, again,
Speaker 2: it's really important to understand motivations, but it's also important
Speaker 2: to put this in a bigger framework within the true
Speaker 2: crime milieu, is that there are some things that really
Speaker 2: just don't happen. We do have brutal examples of murders
Speaker 2: like the recent Idaho four Like that's just a brutal,
Speaker 2: horrible issue, and hopefully with time and research we'll understand
Speaker 2: more about that perpetrator motivations. But the media's creation of
Speaker 2: these particular characters can be really misleading, and that's why specific,
Speaker 2: drilled down, microscopic, minutial oriented research is so important. I
Speaker 2: know that's a wild connection, but it's stuck with me
Speaker 2: as I was reading through this, not because that character
Speaker 2: in The Fall is a peekarist, but because he's almost
Speaker 2: like a superman in a way as some of these
Speaker 2: serial killers and offenders are portrayed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, his name is Jamie Dornan. I don't
Speaker 1: want to just objectify him. I want to give him
Speaker 1: a name.
Speaker 2: Yes here, he's also wildly funny. I've seen him on
Speaker 2: I've seen him on British talk shows and he's really funny.
Speaker 1: Well, I just again want to note that there are
Speaker 1: some very good case analyses of specific cases in our resources.
Speaker 1: So again, if you'd like to dive into that sort
Speaker 1: of thing more deeply, you will find those on our website.
Speaker 2: Yes, so for some of the cases to consider for today.
Speaker 2: When we look at historical accounts of pagarism, the London
Speaker 2: Monster is pretty much most often references for one of
Speaker 2: the earliest documented cases.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, And we pulled some of the analysis for
Speaker 1: this case from doctor Catherine Watson, who basically has my
Speaker 1: dream job. She's a historian of forensic medicine and crime
Speaker 1: in Britain at Oxford University. Mike, and your name's doctor Watson.
Speaker 1: Are you like real? But it's funny because there's a
Speaker 1: YouTube video and we'll link it. She's like, Hey, couple
Speaker 1: murder with sex and people are going to want to
Speaker 1: know all about it all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean, look, that is actually a very
Speaker 2: Freudian statement because Freud was all about the drive to
Speaker 2: live and the drive to destroy, drive to live being
Speaker 2: intimately related to the sexual act, and then death being annihilation.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was high on cocaine, but he came
Speaker 2: up with some really good ideas. But isn't that interesting
Speaker 2: because she's making a statement about that when we link
Speaker 2: these two things together, we are almost magnetically drawn to it. So,
Speaker 2: you know, when crimes have these elements, especially with female
Speaker 2: victims and the absolute bizarre nature of the acts, it's
Speaker 2: going to get media attention, which is why we still
Speaker 2: talk about this particular case from the late seventeen hundreds.
Speaker 2: So let me set it up for you. Between seventeen
Speaker 2: eighty eight and seventeen ninety, London was paralyzed by fear.
Speaker 2: Dozens of women reported being attacked in the streets by
Speaker 2: a man who would approach them, shout obscenities, and then
Speaker 2: stab or prick them, usually in the buttocks or thighs
Speaker 2: with sharp instruments like pins, blades, or spikes. These were
Speaker 2: not just isolated incidents, and total over fifty attacks were reported,
Speaker 2: often in public areas like Saint James's and the Strand,
Speaker 2: places where middle and upper class women were out invisible.
Speaker 2: Sometimes the attack are offered flowers to distract the victims.
Speaker 2: Other times he'd slash their clothing without even touching them.
Speaker 2: There are even reports that, aside from using a knife,
Speaker 2: he would prick women with a spike protruding from his knee.
Speaker 2: That is some real planning.
Speaker 1: That's terrifying. Let's pause there for a second. So do
Speaker 1: we think this sounds like peakerism so far? Even though,
Speaker 1: of course you know, back in the seventeen hundreds, there
Speaker 1: wasn't really any psychological framework to understand this. What about
Speaker 1: these types of the text where they're being stabbed? What
Speaker 1: do you think?
Speaker 2: Okay, just you know, I am familiar with this, and
Speaker 2: there have been some other podcasts, historical podcasts that I've
Speaker 2: talked about this, but you know, sort of moving away
Speaker 2: from those particular sets of information. Based on what we
Speaker 2: boiled down and presented as an intro today, I would
Speaker 2: say that, yes, it is peakerism, but it also is
Speaker 2: clearly some psychosis. And if it's true, if the information
Speaker 2: I've got is true, I do think that there's psychosis
Speaker 2: there because of the shouting of obscenities.
Speaker 1: Now, interesting, is.
Speaker 2: The shouting of obscenities a way to distract the victim?
Speaker 2: It could be you could startle someone and they freeze, right,
Speaker 2: so a defense mechanism that's one of the f's. Yeah, fon, fly, flee,
Speaker 2: all of that, right, So yelling at somebody is going
Speaker 2: to startle them. I mean, now, that could be that
Speaker 2: if he did go so far as to have something,
Speaker 2: you know, mounted on his knee, like a spike, that
Speaker 2: indicates some real planning. But the slashing of clothes could
Speaker 2: also be either impulsive or an expression of him again
Speaker 2: trying to startle people. But I'm leaning towards psychosis. It's
Speaker 2: like something psychosis and definitely a paraphelia, like this person
Speaker 2: was a repeat offender and he was successful at it,
Speaker 2: so he was continuing to do it right.
Speaker 1: No, totally. I think the sexual sort of screaming sexual
Speaker 1: things at them, along with the cursing kind of gives
Speaker 1: me pause to think, like, okay, this is sexually motivated,
Speaker 1: as well as slashing of the buttocks and the thighs,
Speaker 1: which you know would have been very scandalous back then.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not like they have to go straight
Speaker 1: for the genitalia, considering like the time period. I'm also
Speaker 1: showing you right now on our screen this crazy illustration
Speaker 1: that of course everybody was paralyzed by fear as the
Speaker 1: media was reporting this, and I'll put this up on
Speaker 1: our social media of their depiction of the London Monster
Speaker 1: running around the streets in the UK back then.
Speaker 2: But I'll also comment on that illustration that it's set
Speaker 2: up frightening and yet sexually titillating.
Speaker 1: Totally.
Speaker 3: I'm missing it.
Speaker 2: Definitely meant and this is something let me also provide
Speaker 2: a framework that it's really important to remember that during
Speaker 2: that time, you know, for a good solid one hundred
Speaker 2: and twenty five years, there was a lot in so
Speaker 2: called modern society that could drive you crazy. I mean,
Speaker 2: there was exposure to toxic chemicals everywhere, wallpapers, clothing dies,
Speaker 2: like we're just laden with lead and with arsenic and
Speaker 2: what is it? I'm trying to think what I think it's.
Speaker 2: Was it mercury fumes that like when we use the
Speaker 2: term mad hatter, you know people mad hatter like makers
Speaker 2: of hats at that time did go crazy because the
Speaker 2: chemicals they used for the felt just give them brain damage.
Speaker 1: And in women's makeup back then too, horrible things in that.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that even makes me think of this
Speaker 2: influencer that was on like I think it was two
Speaker 2: years ago and she was quote unquote recreating traditional Egyptian eyeshadow,
Speaker 2: and so she's on there talking about, yes, it's the
Speaker 2: Cleopatra used ground malakite, and she's shown putting malakite powder
Speaker 2: on her eyelids and all these people are screaming that's poisonous,
Speaker 2: Like you can't do you can't even put malakite in
Speaker 2: water and then have it you know ingestin if you do,
Speaker 2: that's losing yourself. So anyway, just another chocolate up dumb humans.
Speaker 2: How are we even alive? Right?
Speaker 3: Truly?
Speaker 2: So anyway, what did follow this was another phenomenon that
Speaker 2: we covered, a full blown moral panic and women during
Speaker 2: the time for this monster and wearing protective padding under
Speaker 2: their dresses. Men formed vigilante patrols to protect the streets,
Speaker 2: and newspapers media at the time fed the fire, dubbing
Speaker 2: this anonymous attacker as the London Monster.
Speaker 1: And because he reportedly only attacked young, beautiful and well
Speaker 1: dressed women, at one point women started faking attacks to
Speaker 1: show that they too were still young and beautiful and desirable.
Speaker 1: What a just crazy psychological, sociological twist in all of this.
Speaker 2: Right so well, and that relates to a couple of
Speaker 2: other cases that we talked about false victimization, right yes, So, Eventually,
Speaker 2: a man named Reinick Williams, who was a twenty three
Speaker 2: year old perfume clerk, was arrested and charged after being
Speaker 2: identified by one of the alleged victims. But here's where
Speaker 2: it gets murky. The evidence was super shaky, and some
Speaker 2: historians argue that he was likely wrongfully accused. He professed
Speaker 2: his innocence throughout the trial, but the attacks stopped after
Speaker 2: his arrest, and many victims asserted that he did not
Speaker 2: match the description. Williams was convicted and served six years
Speaker 2: in prison.
Speaker 1: So interesting that the legacy of the London Monster lives
Speaker 1: on in true crime lore. In fact, some historians believe
Speaker 1: this case helped shape the public psyche in ways that
Speaker 1: paved the road for the future serial killer narratives, like
Speaker 1: that of the White Chapel Murders, which was almost a
Speaker 1: century later after the London Monster. So doctor Watson given
Speaker 1: the caveat that Williams may not even have been the
Speaker 1: London Monster, I think fulfills really similarly to us. The
Speaker 1: sexual language and cursing at the women, paired with the
Speaker 1: attacks on the buttocks and the legs, lens to the
Speaker 1: offender possibly having a paraphilic disorder, maybe even consistent with Peakerism.
Speaker 1: She points out, however, that after his release, Williams got married,
Speaker 1: he went on to have a family, He never offended again,
Speaker 1: making it tough to believe that he would have just
Speaker 1: stopped the behavior without any additional intervention. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know one of those interventions being treatment which they
Speaker 1: probably didn't know how to treat except to throw some
Speaker 1: away or I don't even know if they're doing lobotomies
Speaker 1: at that time or how they would have done that.
Speaker 1: But she's like, hmm, I don't think it was him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then how do we not give a little
Speaker 2: more time to the Whitechapel murders. And this is one
Speaker 2: of the cases in which the mo and the signature
Speaker 2: were analyzed quite well by Kapeln Burns in two thousand
Speaker 2: and five, So for reference, the White Chapel murders refer
Speaker 2: to this series of brutal killings that took place in
Speaker 2: the Whitechapel district of East London between eighteen eighty eight
Speaker 2: and eighteen ninety one. It was a total of eleven women,
Speaker 2: most of whom were impoverished and struggling with alcohol misuse.
Speaker 2: They were murdered under very horrific circumstances. The most infamous
Speaker 2: of these cases are what are referred to as the
Speaker 2: five canonical victims, Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride,
Speaker 2: Catherine Edos and Mary Jane Kelly, who were killed between
Speaker 2: August and November of eighteen eighty eight. These murders were
Speaker 2: marked by throat slashing, abdominal mutilation, and in some cases
Speaker 2: organ removal. The extreme violence and the distinctive pattern of
Speaker 2: these killings led investigators and the public to believe that
Speaker 2: they were the work of a single individual, soon dubbed
Speaker 2: Jack the Ripper, though the killer was never identified, and
Speaker 2: of course the case remains one of the most notorious
Speaker 2: unsolved serial murder investigations in criminal history. Now after careful
Speaker 2: case analysis, they characterized Jack the Ripper not as a
Speaker 2: traditional sexually motivated killer driven by acts like rape, but
Speaker 2: rather as someone who achieved sexual gratification through a secondary mechanism,
Speaker 2: specifically that mechanism being stabbing and mutilation. They assert that
Speaker 2: his use of a knife to penetrate and dominate his
Speaker 2: victims reflects an eroticized expression of power and control consistent
Speaker 2: with Peakerism. Their analysis highlights several hallmarks of peakarist homicide
Speaker 2: present in the White Chapel murders, incapacitation and control of victims,
Speaker 2: overkill injuries, display and posing of the bodies, escalation and violence,
Speaker 2: and deliberate planning of attacks. They believe that these behaviors
Speaker 2: suggest that the sexual component of the crimes was embedded
Speaker 2: in the violence itself, not in the physical sexual contact,
Speaker 2: aligning the offender's methods with key indicators of pikerism and
Speaker 2: homicidal behavior.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to jump way forward to another case
Speaker 1: and turning two more recent times. In one of the
Speaker 1: more bizarre and disturbing cases of targeted violence, a man
Speaker 1: named Johnny piment Well pleaded guilty to a string of
Speaker 1: assaults in Fairfax County, Virginia, where he used an exact
Speaker 1: o knife to slash the buttocks of unsuspecting women in
Speaker 1: public shopping spaces. So The assaults began in early twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: taking place in retail stores and malls across the county.
Speaker 1: Pim Intel would typically distract his victims by knocking clothings
Speaker 1: off the racks, and as the women turned or bent down,
Speaker 1: he would inflict quick, precise slashes to their buttocks, often
Speaker 1: so subtly that the victims didn't even immediately recognize what
Speaker 1: had happened, and in total, nine women were victimized. Many
Speaker 1: believed that they had simply brushed against a hangar, or
Speaker 1: maybe they felt a mile pinch. It wasn't until they
Speaker 1: discovered slashed clothing and in some cases bleeding wounds that
Speaker 1: they realized they had been assaulted. In several instances, it
Speaker 1: took days or even weeks for victims to connect their
Speaker 1: experience to the larger pattern of attacks on other women
Speaker 1: once news of the incidents started to become public. Pimentel
Speaker 1: was a former day laborer originally from Peru. He was
Speaker 1: arrested in early twenty twelve near a shopping mall in Lima, Peru,
Speaker 1: and then later extradited to the United States. He ultimately
Speaker 1: pleaded guilty to four counts of malicious wounding and two
Speaker 1: counts of unlawful wounding. Though sentenced to twenty years, the
Speaker 1: judge ended up suspending all but seven years of that term,
Speaker 1: and while no victims sustained life threatening injuries, the attacks,
Speaker 1: of course, sparked fear and confusion in the community, particularly
Speaker 1: because of their seemingly random nature and the highly specific
Speaker 1: targeting of a private part of the body. These assaults
Speaker 1: raised questions about sexual violence, humiliation, and how quickly calculated
Speaker 1: attacks like this can escalate if they're left unchecked. So,
Speaker 1: you know, this one's very different from the serial killer
Speaker 1: focus of this episode, but I actually think more in
Speaker 1: common with the London Monster case than not, but I
Speaker 1: think I think it can potentially still kind of fit
Speaker 1: the bill if the simple criteria is met for a
Speaker 1: paraphilic disorder, which we don't know. We don't have a
Speaker 1: psych evaluation for this guy or anything, but certainly the
Speaker 1: behaviors would pique my interest in that sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be interesting to see if they ever did
Speaker 2: any substantive evaluation of him. That's a really fascinating case,
Speaker 2: especially given this is a person from another culture and
Speaker 2: from another country, and is there a previous mental health history.
Speaker 2: It'd be fascinating to know that our next case, of
Speaker 2: course is a really major one, especially right now. The
Speaker 2: Idaho four and on November thirteenth, twenty twenty two, four
Speaker 2: University of Idaho students were found fatally stabbed an off
Speaker 2: campus rental home in Moscow, Idaho. The victims were Kaylee
Speaker 2: Gonzalvez age twenty one, Madison Mogan age twenty one, Xena
Speaker 2: Kernodle h twenty and Ethan Chapin H twenty All four
Speaker 2: were attacked in the early morning hours while sleeping. The
Speaker 2: case drew national attention to the brutality the killings. I
Speaker 2: remember it like it was literally yesterday. It was so
Speaker 2: huge and the lack of an immediate suspect this just
Speaker 2: absolutely affected the close knit nature of this small college town.
Speaker 2: After an intense investigation, Brian Cooberger, a twenty eight year
Speaker 2: old criminology PhD student at near My Washington State University,
Speaker 2: was arrested on December thirtieth, twenty twenty two. He was
Speaker 2: charged with four counts of first degree murder and one
Speaker 2: count of felony burglary. Investigators linked him to the crime
Speaker 2: through a combination of DNA evidence, cell phone records, and
Speaker 2: surveillance footage. Last month, he pled guilty to all counts
Speaker 2: to avoid the death penalty.
Speaker 1: So again, this is where I want to insert another
Speaker 1: trigger warning. We're going to talk about some details of
Speaker 1: the wounds in this case, for us to have a
Speaker 1: little bit of conversation about whether or not you know
Speaker 1: what we think this. Is it overkill, is it peakerism?
Speaker 1: What have you? So, if you want to skip ahead,
Speaker 1: please do so. All four victims were stabbed multiple times,
Speaker 1: primarily in the chest and upper body, some most likely
Speaker 1: while asleep in their beds. At least one other was
Speaker 1: awake when confronted. We are now just starting to get
Speaker 1: more information, and I'm sure plenty more will probably come
Speaker 1: out after this episode airs, so please know this is
Speaker 1: just a moment in time. We're recording this on August second,
Speaker 1: where some information has started to come out from families
Speaker 1: or from documents that have been released now that he
Speaker 1: has been sentenced. So corner Kathy Mabbott confirmed that their
Speaker 1: wounds were extensive caused by a large, non serrated fixed
Speaker 1: blade knife, consistent in size and shape with a k
Speaker 1: bar knife, though the weapon itself has not been recovered.
Speaker 1: Ethan Chapin's fatal wounds severed major vessels under his clavicle,
Speaker 1: the neck, and high chest area. Xana Kernodle endured over
Speaker 1: fifty stab wounds, many defensive, really indicating a struggle. Her
Speaker 1: fatal injuries included penetrations to the lung and to the heart,
Speaker 1: while Kayleie Gonzalvez suffered over twenty stab wounds, including injuries
Speaker 1: to her lung, liver, and again that clavical region. Her
Speaker 1: body was described as being nearly unrecognizable there was so
Speaker 1: much injury. Madison Mogen sustained similar injuries, again to lung's liver,
Speaker 1: and was found with the knife sheath beside her bed,
Speaker 1: which later was determined that that's where Coburger's DNA was found.
Speaker 1: So there were no signs of sexual assault. Victims were
Speaker 1: neither tied, gagged, or bound in any way. The scene
Speaker 1: showed significant blood spatter and cast off patterns, especially in
Speaker 1: the rooms where the bodies were found. The wounds were
Speaker 1: extensive and brutal, with signs of struggle and at least
Speaker 1: two of the cases, and there was no evidence that
Speaker 1: indicated a sexual motive, no signs of assault. Again, binding
Speaker 1: was not there, groping or any indications of masturbatory behavior
Speaker 1: at the scene. So with that, that is the end
Speaker 1: of you know, the description of the wounds there. What
Speaker 1: do we think? What do we think about overkill? Let's
Speaker 1: just talk about overkill at first. Thoughts.
Speaker 2: I have a number of thoughts, and I want to
Speaker 2: be very clear here that while both of us are
Speaker 2: subject matter experts and a lot of areas related and
Speaker 2: in forensic psychology, like we've had some real specialized training.
Speaker 2: You know, this is just an opinion based on I
Speaker 2: would still say very limited information. And I guess the
Speaker 2: problem I have with overkill, Yeah, I mean it's brutal,
Speaker 2: I mean it's just absolutely brutal, and my heart goes
Speaker 2: out to the families as we even discuss this. But
Speaker 2: when we talk about overkill, my question is did he
Speaker 2: anticipate the situation he was walking into?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Here it is is what I'm doing, is I'm leaning
Speaker 2: towards intent. There is the possibility that he absolutely intended
Speaker 2: to go in and just create a massacre that he
Speaker 2: thought he would be able to cover, or because he
Speaker 2: made some rudimentary and very poorly planned efforts to cover
Speaker 2: his tracks, they were really poorly Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because he's like an idiot, he's not a genius.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he's certainly not the genius that he thinks
Speaker 2: he is, and he really thinks highly of himself. The
Speaker 2: thing that does sort of lean me more towards overkill
Speaker 2: versus out of control are two different things. For me,
Speaker 2: I felt like he really lost control, Like he got
Speaker 2: himself into a narrative that quickly completely got out of control,
Speaker 2: especially with the leaving of that kind of evidence at
Speaker 2: the site. So I don't think so I wonder even
Speaker 2: so much. I mean, I think it does have a
Speaker 2: sexual motivation angle that needs to be further know. When
Speaker 2: he starts talking and he will eventually he'll start talking.
Speaker 1: I just have a lot of feelings about that. I think, oh,
Speaker 1: because of his ego one thousand percent, he's sitting back
Speaker 1: and waiting to see who will come knocking to evaluate
Speaker 1: him or write a book or whatever. My reaction that
Speaker 1: you saw on my face was because it's probably going
Speaker 1: to take an equally large ego for that person to
Speaker 1: be like, I want to be the one to write
Speaker 1: the book, and that's me talking about our peers. I think, honestly,
Speaker 1: we should let him sit behind bars and not give
Speaker 1: a shit about him anymore, which tugs at the piece
Speaker 1: of me and what we've talked about in this episode
Speaker 1: of like the need to study these things to keep
Speaker 1: the community safe in the future. But I agree with
Speaker 1: the judge who said we need to have mister Coberger's
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes of fame be done. But I'm sorry, there's
Speaker 1: going to be someone in our industry, in our field
Speaker 1: that cannot wait to get in there.
Speaker 2: Oh. Sure, they're already writing letters to him right now.
Speaker 2: And of course there's been a lot of talk about
Speaker 2: Coburger's efforts at dominating the conversation. But then again, this
Speaker 2: just gets sort of frittered down in media because you
Speaker 2: see a headline of Coburg attempted to dominate the conversation
Speaker 2: during his interrogation with cops, and then you realize that
Speaker 2: the person who's making the commentary was not one of
Speaker 2: the cops that was involved. It was somebody that was retired.
Speaker 2: And that's now what their job is. Their job is
Speaker 2: to be a talking head. And I'm one of those
Speaker 2: talking heads. You are one of those talking heads, right,
Speaker 2: So we're getting very meta here, and I agree that
Speaker 2: there's a part of me that wants more information, and
Speaker 2: then part of it was like, are we really going
Speaker 2: to get anything of value from this person? I don't
Speaker 2: think that it is fascinating. One of the interesting things
Speaker 2: that I think is important to look at is a
Speaker 2: share from one of the women that connected with him
Speaker 2: on a dating site and had the conversations with him
Speaker 2: via text as they're getting to know each other, and
Speaker 2: he just goes off the rail because he's like disinhibited
Speaker 2: because he's behind the screen of his phone or his computer,
Speaker 2: and he starts talking about like, first it's horror movies,
Speaker 2: and then it's like crime and serial killers and what
Speaker 2: do you think about this? Almost as if he was
Speaker 2: trying to find someone that was going to be his
Speaker 2: bridge to intimacy, was to find a woman who shared
Speaker 2: these things. I would not be so surprised if and
Speaker 2: again let's let him rot, but if it comes out
Speaker 2: that he was actually trying to find a partner to
Speaker 2: do these things with, that's.
Speaker 1: An interesting hypothesis. So in terms of overkill, I think
Speaker 1: there's actually way more evidence for that than peakerism so far. Again,
Speaker 1: I think a lot about him is about power and control.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a very strict vegan for a long time,
Speaker 1: he lost a lot of weight. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of areas with outliers like his heroin use, where he
Speaker 1: has really tried to be in much control of himself.
Speaker 1: I think it is very rage based. I think there
Speaker 1: is betrayal, jealousy, all of those themes being taken out
Speaker 1: on these victims. And again I also default back to
Speaker 1: what you're saying, like, did he think to one person
Speaker 1: was going to be there who maybe he targeted and
Speaker 1: then there were four right? Or he thought everyone would
Speaker 1: be asleep and now somebody is still awake. So could
Speaker 1: that play into how he then had to complete the
Speaker 1: crime rather than how he wanted to. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think there's just again, if we go back to
Speaker 1: the wounds as well. You know, we're talking fifty stab
Speaker 1: wounds with one victim. We're talking statements being made like
Speaker 1: them being unrecognizable. That can certainly be overkill peakrism. I
Speaker 1: just I need to know more, right, I'm not making
Speaker 1: that leap at this point.
Speaker 2: Although I think that the knife held a lot of
Speaker 2: significance for him, I do think I don't think necessarily peakerism,
Speaker 2: but there is something about that knife. I think that
Speaker 2: he fetishized that particular knife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're right. You know, something else that
Speaker 1: I've kind of heard explored or like if this was
Speaker 1: in fact a crime with some sexual undertones, is the
Speaker 1: type of quote unquote rough porn on his laptop. So
Speaker 1: the information that we have about that, which I thought
Speaker 1: was interesting and notable, but I want to also put
Speaker 1: that into context for people, there was non consensual or
Speaker 1: coercive themes. So investigator found internet searches around the time
Speaker 1: of the martyrs that included some keywords like forced, drugged,
Speaker 1: passed out, sleeping, suggesting here, you know, some interest in
Speaker 1: non consensual or unconscious victims and then there was also
Speaker 1: some other visual content on his phone, which were images
Speaker 1: of women in bikinis like that he had taken, including
Speaker 1: photos of female students at Washington State University and the
Speaker 1: University of Idaho. I think it's an interesting like voyeurism
Speaker 1: aspect there with that specifically, definitely feels like there's this
Speaker 1: sort of like outside looking in theme to this guy,
Speaker 1: which again could promote the jealousy and that sort of thing. However,
Speaker 1: I will say those search terms on the computer not
Speaker 1: uncommon for men to have, those not uncommon in regular,
Speaker 1: non deviant pornographic use, and not indicative of a sexually
Speaker 1: motivated crime. Taken alone, right, it would want more.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you saying that. I really appreciate you pointing
Speaker 2: that out because several cases that I have been involved
Speaker 2: with with accusations of terrible things, clearly guilty, some clearly
Speaker 2: not guilty. This is one of the things that prosecutors
Speaker 2: always want to go to. Yeah, and I'm always like
Speaker 2: sitting there rolling my eyes because I go, dude, give
Speaker 2: me your phone for five minutes. I'm going to find
Speaker 2: every single thing like this that you've been Let me
Speaker 2: look at your Instagram feed you know, like, who are
Speaker 2: you following? It's it's just another manifestation of Western American culture,
Speaker 2: puritanical view on sexuality, you know, and which only makes
Speaker 2: it worse when you like make it as something dark.
Speaker 2: So why they don't have problems with porn in some
Speaker 2: areas of the world is because they're very open and
Speaker 2: progressive about sexuality.
Speaker 1: I'll point to one more piece of surge and you
Speaker 1: guys can google this and it'll come up in you know,
Speaker 1: even like pop culture type articles. But the research consistently
Speaker 1: shows that when you look at people's like top ten
Speaker 1: themes of porn that they go to. For men, some
Speaker 1: sort of forced type of interaction is a very common
Speaker 1: fantasy or theme, and for women, being forced or having
Speaker 1: a non consensual encounter is actually pretty high on a
Speaker 1: fantasy list. So again, these are just fantasies. This doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's a paraphilic disorder, doesn't mean it's causing them distress,
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean this is what they want in real life.
Speaker 1: You know this again, like I know, I'm dipping my
Speaker 1: toe into something that is a way bigger conversation. A
Speaker 1: book that we've referenced a lot of times, a billion
Speaker 1: wicked thoughts is phenomenal in just like mathematicians, breaking down
Speaker 1: the type of pornography that people consume is super super interesting.
Speaker 1: But again I will say alone, this does not make
Speaker 1: me say, oh my gosh, Coberger was absolutely sexually motivated
Speaker 1: because of the content on his phone or his computer.
Speaker 2: So just quickly, folks, I know there's still a lot
Speaker 2: of talk about does he fit the sort of profile
Speaker 2: of an inceell And look, as more as info comes out,
Speaker 2: we can certainly look at the factors. Maybe there is
Speaker 2: something to look at that, but we don't have enough
Speaker 2: information or time today to analyze that. But we'll jump
Speaker 2: on a Patreon shrink wrap in the next month and
Speaker 2: a half or so ms more information comes out, and
Speaker 2: I think there's going to be a lot more information
Speaker 2: that continues to come out about him. Certainly, you know
Speaker 2: you're hitting on those control issues with diet and there's
Speaker 2: just a lot there that we can work with. That's
Speaker 2: very interesting, although again we don't want to give this
Speaker 2: person too much attention, but it is fascinating sure, all.
Speaker 1: Right, So turning to our media entertainment portion here, there's
Speaker 1: many ways we can talk about this section. You have documentary,
Speaker 1: some end list on some of these cases that we've
Speaker 1: talked about, like if we're talking about White Chapel murders,
Speaker 1: but then you also have the fictional slasher films right that,
Speaker 1: by the very genre title could fit the bill here.
Speaker 1: But really nothing we could think of or find like
Speaker 1: truly fit Peakerism. It also feels a little weird after
Speaker 1: I just like gushed and recommended the Fear Street series
Speaker 1: last month when we were talking about Salem witch Trials,
Speaker 1: but it was tough to find something that would be
Speaker 1: perfectly clued into our title today.
Speaker 2: Well. Interesting, there is a nexus between the concept of
Speaker 2: Peakerism and the Salem witch Trials in that one of
Speaker 2: the defining evaluations for whether or not someone was a
Speaker 2: witch was to find a blemish on the skin, like
Speaker 2: a birthmark or a milk and to prick it with
Speaker 2: a pen, and if they did not feel any pain,
Speaker 2: that was an indication that they were a witch. But
Speaker 2: of course there were already bad actors at that time
Speaker 2: using collapsible needles, so it would be a handle with
Speaker 2: the needle on a spring, so any kind of pressure
Speaker 2: would make it go back. This is not so much entertainment,
Speaker 2: but this is media and it unfortunately is largely forgotten.
Speaker 2: This is particularly of a I am interested in because
Speaker 2: my dissertation was on sexual practices during the age of HIV.
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like today the age of HIV
Speaker 2: has been capped because there are really successful treatments for
Speaker 2: over ninety nine percent of the people who have been
Speaker 2: exposed to HIV. But for those of you who don't remember,
Speaker 2: if you're my age and you do remember, or you're younger,
Speaker 2: there was an absolute fear of getting pricked with bloody needles,
Speaker 2: and it was backed up by an actual safety risk
Speaker 2: like hospital and medical protocols changed very rapidly, and there
Speaker 2: was an absolute rise in blood exposure phobias that many
Speaker 2: clinicians had to treat. There were all these sort of
Speaker 2: sensationalistic stories about blood spattered razor blades being glued to
Speaker 2: the interior of payphone change returns, which I know is
Speaker 2: an archaic idea that they're like the SAP phone, Oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, but that you would get poked on a subway,
Speaker 2: And there were these reports that never really came to
Speaker 2: fruition about whether or not someone that was exposed, but
Speaker 2: the fear was really there. And then but back to
Speaker 2: media and your idea of slasher films. You know the
Speaker 2: movie Cycle, which is a wonderful classic R move that
Speaker 2: that could work. That would work as well.
Speaker 1: If we hypothesize he was getting sexual gratification out of it, right, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think mommy just wanted him to do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe that's the case. I would recommend done. I
Speaker 1: would definitely recommend the Yorkshire Ripper documentary. It was excellent.
Speaker 1: It highlighted the outrage of the women in the community
Speaker 1: and how they empowered themselves during the hunt for the offender.
Speaker 1: This documentary came out in twenty twenty on Netflix and
Speaker 1: it's just called The Ripper. It's a four part series.
Speaker 2: Really really good, especially focusing on how the ripper used
Speaker 2: it as a way to sexually assault women by saying,
Speaker 2: oh let me walk you home, me say, and then
Speaker 2: they took advantage of women.
Speaker 3: Just horrible.
Speaker 2: Now, there's also a documentary called Our Knife Crime Crisis,
Speaker 2: which is presented by Idris Elba and the BBC that
Speaker 2: focuses solely on the rise of edged weapons attacks in
Speaker 2: the UK. It looks fantastic. Can't find a place to
Speaker 2: watch it yet. I'm sure it'll be released more broadly soon.
Speaker 2: That is a real phenomenon in the UK.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sure is. I could find the trailer, but
Speaker 1: I could not find the rest of the documentary as
Speaker 1: hard as I looked. All right, So as we finish
Speaker 1: up here, I do just want to give a shout
Speaker 1: out to the Eves Droppin' podcast. They are out of
Speaker 1: the UK, so as part of you know, when I'm
Speaker 1: looking for quite a rare topic, sometimes what I will
Speaker 1: do is search the term. So in this case, I
Speaker 1: searched peakrism in my podcast player and they were literally
Speaker 1: the only show that came up as a result. They
Speaker 1: are this cheeky gossip pod with two girlfriends who cover
Speaker 1: weird shit, some true crime, just some generally like fun stuff.
Speaker 1: So I reached out to them on social media and
Speaker 1: I was like, thank you for helping with our research.
Speaker 1: You were like literally the only ones that came up
Speaker 1: when I looked at this, and they I listened to
Speaker 1: their episode. They talked about some cases that had this,
Speaker 1: They talked a bit about the London Monster. So please
Speaker 1: go give them a listen. They're really fun and sweet
Speaker 1: and they gave us a shout out after I had
Speaker 1: reached out to them.
Speaker 2: Oh, cool. So, folks, here you go. Just two more
Speaker 2: forensics like episodes to go before we close the doors
Speaker 2: on this particular venture of ours. We always leave a
Speaker 2: window open. You'll see us. We'll be answering emails, we'll
Speaker 2: be talking head interviews on shows and stuff. Our last
Speaker 2: live Behind the Couch featured a conversation we had with
Speaker 2: the detective who specializes in medical child abuse crimes, so
Speaker 2: please look for that in a couple of weeks. It's
Speaker 2: really really good. And our final Behind the Couch will
Speaker 2: be on Saturday, August thirtieth with Dark City Podcasts, So
Speaker 2: please mark your calendars and come hang out with us
Speaker 2: for a live last show.
Speaker 1: Oo yeah, the countdowns on. It is all right everyone.
Speaker 1: We will see you next time on La Not So Confidential.
Speaker 3: Bye bye, folks, We.
Speaker 1: Sincerely thank you for spending some time with us today.
Speaker 1: La Not So Confidential is part of Alienist Entertainment and
Speaker 1: the crawl Space Media Network. Each episode is hosted, produced,
Speaker 1: written by Doctor Scott and Doctor Shiloh. Our post production,
Speaker 1: editing and sweetening magic is handled by the multi talented
Speaker 1: Jason Usrie of ear Cult Productions.
Speaker 2: Our theme music entitled Cool Vibes Film Noir is composed
Speaker 2: and performed by the talented Kevin McLoud. He graciously allows
Speaker 2: us to use his music via a Creative Commons attribution license.
Speaker 2: Please check out all of Kevin's amazing work on YouTube.
Speaker 1: All of the resources for each episode can be found
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Speaker 1: confidential dot com. You can find us on blue Sky
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Speaker 1: inquiries and bookings are scheduled at Alienist Entertainment at gmail
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Speaker 2: Once a month, we go live on YouTube on a
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Speaker 2: to join our interactive broadcast entitled Behind the Couch, where
Speaker 2: we interview guests on a number of psych criminal justice
Speaker 2: and true crime topic.
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