A Psychopath Is A Psychopath : Choices and Consequences

"There is no question he has a very highly developed concept of the rule-nature of the wrongfulness of this. The problem is his comprehension of the real, horrific impact that something like this would have on other people."

"Which I really, honestly, like, whatever I say in this evidence, I don't think he understands that."

"He is stuck at an early developmental stage of the development of moral judgement. He understands the rules, he can articulate the rules, he has a very sophisticated understanding of the rules."

"It was in that environment [shadowy corners of the Internet] that he conceived of what he ultimately did. He was saturated in horrible material ... it became for him one of his areas of real focus and so it was something he spent a lot of time looking at and thinking about and ruminating on and, I don't doubt, that in the absence of this sort of thing, this would not have happened."

"He doesn't have any emotional connection -- he doesn't experience remorse, he doesn't experience regret, but he also doesn't experience sadism. It doesn't feel to him like he is great now, it is just nothing."

"I hate to bring this up, but it really has the dissociative quality of someone who is playing a video game. That really is the flavour of how he completely and dispassionately talked about all of this. It is as abstract as killing people in a video game, which is a horrific thing for me."

Dr.Alexander Westphal, psychiatrist, autism specialist, Yale School of Medicine

"[If Minassian has a clear understanding of the physical consequences of his actions], what is it he doesn't get?" 

"I don't think that's the measure of it, though [that Minassian appears incapable of fully appreciating the impact of his actions]. If he kills a person who is alone in the world with no friends and no relatives and nobody to mourn his loss, it is nevertheless a murder."

"I don't know that to understand that you've committed murder and what its consequences are you have to envision how many people will be upset about it."

Justice Anne Molloy, Ontario Superior Court

 

At the ongoing trial for Alek Minassian, 28, diagnosed as a child with autism, considered to be high-functioning,  and never known to exhibit violent tendencies, but who was charged with ten counts of murder and 16 counts of attempted murder for having deliberately driven a rented van through a busy sidewalk in Toronto in 2018 for the express purpose of hitting as many people as he possibly could, the mental state attributed to him at the time of the atrocity is front and centre. 

The man freely agrees that his intention was to kill people, but  he has pleaded not guilty, insisting that his autism had been in the way of his complete understanding of the outcome of his actions and their seriousness. He is asking to be found not criminally responsible for having planned the carnage by renting a van and setting out to drive it onto a busy intersection on a beautiful day in Toronto when people were out enjoying the sun, doing their shopping, and generally appreciating life.

Dr. Westphal is a forensic psychiatrist who specializes in autism, a professor at Yale University. He was hired by Minassian's legal team for an expert opinion on the man's mental state which propelled him to attack defenceless people and target them for death. He holds that the autistic man had a distorted view of reality, to the degree that he suffered delusions, generally recognized as the basis for legal defence of not criminally responsible for reasons of mental disorder, similar to psychosis, while at the same time attesting that people with autism are by and large not violent.

Excerpts of video interviews that Dr.Westphal undertook with Minassian were shown to the court, where Minassian recounted his attack in detail, speaking matter-of-factly, referring to the initial group of those he hit with the vehicle at speed as "the first batch". Of another group of victims, he said "I hit them all in a line", referring further to some of his victims recalled as "an old lady", a "man crossing the road", seemingly detached, merely describing something he had witnessed, as though it was not he who was the cause of the destruction and bloodshed.

 

Alek Minassian, screengrab of the booking video. Photo by Toronto Police Service

Minassian expressed personal outrage only when it was suggested that he might be viewed as a "bully" for choosing to inflict such deadly violence on vulnerable people. A suggestion that caused him to erupt loudly with a heated disclaimer: "I'm not a bully. I hate bullies, how could anyone think that!" A statement that seems consistent with Dr. Westphal's assertion that though 28 years of age and a high-function person with autism, Minassian labours with a childlike conception of morality.

What appears not in dispute is that Alek Minassian immersed himself in the dark areas of the Internet where he became obsessed with school shooters and mass murderers, fringe sub-culture and black humour and death. Where delivering death is lightly regarded as an assault on humanity, and the deliverance of death seems to be a venerated topic. He was absorbed with online forums dedicated to the ideology of 'incel'; the 'involuntarily celibate', a marginal subculture of angry men furious about their incapacity to attract women's sexual interest.

"My personal opinion is that, I accept that autism spectrum disorder, including high-functioning autism spectrum disorder, is a significant mental disorder. I don’t believe it reaches the impact that psychosis does." 

"To get to the type of impact on the operating mind that I’m used to, you need to be psychotic. So I can’t get my head around how this would impact on a person’s operating mind to the person that would get them into Section 16 [the section of the Criminal Code that lays out the criteria for being found not criminally responsible]."

"[Based on the assessment done by himself and his team, Minassian is not a psychopath, which would include being manipulative and showing a] callous lack of empathy, [and does not have narcissistic personality disorder or depression]." 

Dr.John Bradford, professor of forensic psychiatry, (retired), head, Division of Forensic Psychiatry Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa.

"I would have probably still gone ahead with it and made sure I would have died instead of being arrested [on another attempt, and be more selective in targeting, seeking out female victims between the ages of 18 and 30, for] sensationalism [to add to his killing spree] narrative [making it more interesting and memorable]."

"[Female victims would be more] consistent [with his incel story, something he would get a] pat on the back [for from people on the Internet]."

"I’m not sure if I would or not [attempt an another act of mass murder if  he were to be released]. I would certainly think about it. I’m not sure if I would actually go through with it or not." 

"I would be hoping to achieve maybe just like another recognition of it or the fact that there is another kill count." 

"[A website tracks] score cards [for mass killers noting their] kill count versus their survivor count."

"Let’s say they kill 20 people and then there was 100 percent all 20 people he intended to kill died, that would be a very high score, especially because of the number of killings." 

"Now that would basically be the purpose of the kill count."

Alek MInassian, post-carnage interview with Toronto Police Service

 

Looking After HimHerself

"You [Khaled Farhan] are assessed as a low to low-end of moderate risk for both general and violence recidivism [as a violent predator and murderer]."
Parole board

Karina Janveau. n.a.

The new politically correct way of referring to males claiming their wish to be regarded as females is to refer to them as 'she'. And so, Khaled Farhan, a violently abusive male who murdered a vulnerable young woman and then left her corpse to fester until neighbours reported a repugnant odour and he was forced into action, completed his despicable act of violence and murder by mutilation and dismemberment. The mutilation refers to his having stabbed his victim repeatedly even after her death. The dismemberment was his method of ridding himself of incriminating evidence of his crime.

In 2000, the now-46-year-old was found guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Karina Janveau, then 24 years old. She was a young woman with a troubled background; the child of divorced parents, a young woman with very special needs whose mother committed suicide at Christmas. Karina Janveau suffered with a partially paralyzed leg and arm, and she had developed a drug habit. Those who knew her described her as generous, a loving individual.

A vulnerable young woman, ready to love anyone who needed it, she obviously chose the wrong man. Their relationship was fraught with physical violence. She was often beaten by her love-partner. The fact that she was physically impaired and unable to defend herself obviously made little difference to the man who abused her in life and debased her life with no conscience. And after he took her life he continued his abuse on her lifeless corpse.

Now this man has won parole, and anticipates his future as quiet and uneventful. His parole conditions mandate that he live at a halfway house, abstain from alcohol and drugs and routinely report relationships that may develop. Khaled Farhan who legally changed his name to Zahra Farhan informed the parole board 'she' has "no intention of being in a relationship"; her intention is to 'focus on herself'. As though as a male he never did just that.

Since being granted parole, he has been living at a halfway house since January with a six-month day parole to aid in reintegration into society. It's entirely debatable how 'integrated' he was in society to begin with; most people in civilized society don't murder others in a paroxysm of drug-induced rage; though society does have its psychopaths not all of whom would stoop to committing such bestial acts as he did.

During his trial, while describing placing the corpse of Karina Janveau -- with whom he had lived for a year as a 'devoted couple' -- in the bathtub of their apartment as he set about dismembering her he demonstrated not a whit of remorse. Now, years later, there have been other changes for this man aside from claiming to be a woman; he is sight-impaired and plans to have a Seeing Eye dog aid him. His plans also include helping the blind and transgender community.

What a transformation! From a ragingly psychotic murder and butchering of a corpse, this conscienceless man has become a 'woman', with aspirations to becoming a humanitarian aid worker. And the welfare of a dog trained to be a working dog is in this man-cum-woman's hands. How the parole board found that this sinkhole of vicious depravity represents a low risk to society is troubling, indeed.

Once he had completed his gruesome task of dismembering the woman he was supposed to have cared for, he disposed of half here remains in a dumpster close to their apartment and the other half in a duffel bag left a few hundred metres distant in a field by railway tracks in Gatineau, Quebec. He appeared on local television as a concerned husband pleading for information and help in finding his common-law spouse.

He had informed police that the young woman had gone on a camping trip with a dangerous drug dealer. It didn't take long for police to arrest him in the wake of a building superintendent making the grisly discovery of discarded body parts in a dumpster. Sgt. Guylaine Larose was one of the first Gatineau police officers on the scene. She was transfixed at the sight of the decomposed, bloody body parts.

In those body parts she recognized the remains of her younger sister. Afterward, the distraught police officer was unable to work but she did show up faithfully each day of the six-week trial that found her sister's killer guilty and sent him to prison. That was her only comfort, hearing the guilty verdict. But, she said, in an interview, her sister's murder returned to haunt her day and night, and she later killed herself at home with the use of her service revolver.

The murderer was placed in a men's prison where he spent time in solitary confinement; prison files revealing he had sent sexually inappropriate letters to guards. Then he expressed fear that he would become a casualty of other prisoners once he expressed his status as a trans woman. Prison authorities placed him in a woman's prison thereafter. And he is described constantly as 'she'; an entirely other person, a weak and vulnerable woman anxious to do good for others.

Khaled Farhan holds a picture of his then-missing girlfriend Karina Janveau shortly before he was arrested and charged with killing her. Aaron Sands/Postmedia

Mourning Humanity

"[Sutherland Springs is the kind of place where] everybody knows everybody."

"This is a small, Christian town, a very small community. Everybody's united. Everybody's so close to everybody."

"I can feel the pain everybody's going through. There's so much hurt for a small town."

Gloria Rodriguez Ximenez, Sutherland Springs resident, vigil for First Baptist Church victims

"[The resident] briefed me quickly on what had just happened and said we had to get him, and so that's what I did [gave chase as the shooter drove off and called police]."

"[The shooter] eventually lost control on his own and went off into the ditch [in Guadalupe County]."

"The gentleman that was with me got out and rested his rifle on my hood and kept it aimed at him [shooter], telling him to get out. There was no movement, there was none of that. I just know his brake lights were going on and off, so he might've been unconscious from the crash or something like that. I'm not sure."

Johnnie Langendorff, truck driver, casually passing through Sutherland Springs

First Baptist Church; investigators work at the scene of the mass shooting. CNN

Who in the world doesn't know that a deranged psychopath marched into a church in a small town in Texas and in a seven-minute shooting spree shot 26 people dead, wounding another 20. Virtually all the souls that happened to be in that church of close-knit families and neighbours on Sunday morning. He was evidently hoping that the mother of his second wife, a regular church-goer, would be present. She was not there that morning, but her mother, the psychotic shooter's wife's grandmother was, and she is among the 26 dead.

This man never hesitated as he aimed his rifle at the rows of worshippers, deliberately and with intended lethal malice. In the process he killed ten women, seven men, eight children and an unborn fetus who died along with its mother. Of the children the youngest was one year old, while the oldest of the parishioners killed in this abhorrent slaughter was 77. And then the killer fled. But not before a neighbour attempted to confront him with his own firearm, shooting him twice, but not preventing him from reaching his vehicle and driving off.

That neighbour, Stephen Willeford, stopped another man just driving through in a truck, quickly apprised him of what had occurred and then both men sped off after the fleeing killer, witness to his vehicle swerving off eventually into a ditch. Where it appeared Devin Kelley shot himself dead. He had meant to escape, to save himself and salvage an unsalvageable life. At age 26 he had experienced much, and none of it creditable as a human being. Dishonourably discharged from the U.S. Air force for conduct unbecoming any decent person.

He had beaten his first wife and her son, been accused of cruelty to animals, threatened his commanding officers, escaped from a mental institution where he was placed while awaiting court martial. And shockingly, the air force authorities who should have routinely informed civil authorities of this man's record in criminality failed to do so, enabling him to pass security checks for employment and most alarming of all, to legally obtain firearms.

The year he served incarcerated for criminal offences alone should have disqualified him from purchasing weapons. But he was armed with an assault rifle when he entered the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs with magazines capable of holding over 400 rounds of ammunition. Little wonder his assault within the little church victimizing peaceful congregants at prayer was so devastatingly lethal.

None of the databases operated by the FBI reflected caution respecting this man and his criminal record. It appears that criminal cases registered with the military are not routinely as they are expected to be, reported to the FBI. He was himself an irregular attendee at the church he had targeted. One the pastor would much have preferred he not attend, considering him to be a potential threat, a man of obvious bad character.

Little would he have known of the horror awaiting his church and his congregants whom he considered to be 'family', much less that he and his wife would lose their 14-year-old daughter to the malevolent hatred of this psychopathic killer.

 

 

 

A Hateful Crime, Likely Not A Hate Crime

"[CAIR is representing Nabra's family and] will monitor the development of the investigation to ensure a thorough examination of any possible bias aspects of the case."
Lena Masri, national litigation director, Council on American-Islamic Relations

"You can't just say, 'Oh, he didn't say anything against Islam, so no hate crime'."

"[This crime happened amid an] unprecedented rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes nationwide."

"We've been doing this for a lot of years, and there are not always overt statements of bias made during the crime."

"But we firmly believe that many of these crimes would not have occurred at all if the victims were not perceived as being Muslim."

Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman, CAIR 

"Nothing indicates that the crime was motivated by hate or bias. Everyone looks at this crime and thinks that because the victims were participating in activities at a mosque, they assume that's what it was."
"It seems like a guy got enraged and just went after the victim who was closest to him."
Tawny Wright, spokeswoman, Fairfax Police Department

A motorist in Fairfax, Virginia has been accused and arrested and he will stand trial for the brutal murder of a young Muslim woman, 17-year-old Nabra Hassanen. She had been walking with a group of other young people when an enraged man driving a vehicle came across the group riding bicycles, walking, talking together companionably. The girls in the group were wearing traditional Muslim robes and head scarves.

Image via YouTube -- Nabra Hassanen

They were together in the early morning hours after attending the late-night Ramadan service at one of the largest mosques in the United States, the ADAMS Center. After their initial encounter, the motorist, a 22-year-old man from El Salvador whose presence in the United States is suspected as being illegal, came across the group again in a parking lot. An exchange of vituperative words took place, and the man began to chase the group of young people, holding a baseball bat.

They scattered and ran off rather than confront a man who was obviously in the throes of a psychotic rage. Nabra Hassanen appears to have been slower than her companions, and the man, now being held on a second-degree murder charge for whom no bail will be available, caught up to her, shoved her in his vehicle and drove off with her.

I wasn't  until later on Sunday that police discovered the girl's battered body beside a pond. An autopsy will determine whether she had been raped. Police are adamant to this point that they are investigating a crime of 'road rage'. No evidence exists that they can determine at this time that a hate crime was committed.

The accused, Darwin Martinez Torres, most certainly committed a heinous crime. His psychopathic rage was directed against the young people whose presence, for his own reasons, infuriated him. He was driven by his inner demons to pursue the young people with murderous intent. His intention bore atrocious fruit when he caught and abducted Nabra Hassanen. It was an odious crime.

A hate crime? Perhaps not so. In the latest statistics, the demographic most targeted for hate crimes is the LGBT community, followed by Jews, Blacks, Muslims, Latinos and Whites in descending order. There is, in addition, a sizeable gap between all of the demographics, but what is clear is that Jews, targeted mostly by Muslim incitement far more than by the far right, have been victimized by hate crimes in excess of Muslims.

Among the many Muslim community members that came out to pay their respects to Nabra Hassanen at her Wednesday funeral, her family and the Muslim community in mourning (understandably in shock) have been non-Muslims in the neighbourhood, among them members of the local Jewish community and synagogue-attendees.

CAIR's campaign to have this awful crime declared a hate crime against Muslims is yet another attempt on their part to portray the Muslim community as being under siege, to counter-weight the reality that Islamist fundamentalists are turning the world upside-down in their murderous rampage, with their declaration that Islam demands jihad.

Holding Psychopaths To Account

"If he was here right now, I would say to him: 'I didn't really know you, but I heard you were a good person, a kind person ... and I'm sorry I shot you. You were not a target.'"
"I'm sorry I ruined your life and took your daughter away. All she wanted to do was help students."
"I'm sorry for ruining your life that day. You weren't someone who was a target."
Unnamed teenager, killer of four, La Loche Reserve, Saskatchewan

The young man who injured seven people after having killed four others in a high school in northern Saskatchewan stood in court and apologized to the families of those he had murdered in January of 2016. He has pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder. In one instance, before he entered the school he shot to death two teen-age brothers whom he knew well and had good relations with.

Dwayne Fontaine, 17, pleaded with his killer: "I don't want to die", but he was shot 11 times, twice in the head, while his brother Drayden, 13, was shot twice.The killer, himself 17 at the time he murdered four people, then left the  house and went on to the high school, on his way posting an online message: "Just killed 2 ppl", "Bout to shoot up the school". After his arrest, he was interviewed on a number of occasions by a neuro-psychologist who said he is no closer to understanding what motivated the psychotic outbreak than he was at the first interview.

Dr. Monty Nelson testified that the teen had a 58 IQ, below average intelligence, and that "thinking quickly was a major difficulty", for the young man. The court heard as well that a defence psychiatrist advised that the teen exhibits symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, has an intellectual disability, major depressive disorder and displays fetal alcohol syndrome signs. All of which conditions are not entirely rare within the aboriginal community, but which do not generate wholesale reactions of the kind that this teen treated his community to.

Substitute teacher Charlene Klyne lost her eyesight as a result of the teen's having shot her through a window while she sat in her classroom. It will be of little comfort to her to have heard that he is now "sorry for ruining" her life. Needless to say, she will live with post-traumatic syndrome and cope with sightlessness for the rest of her life. The killer strode the school hallways with a raised shotgun, students and staff scattering in terror before him.

Teacher Adam Wood managed to call 911 before he was shot in the torso and then again while he lay on the ground then transported to hospital where he was declared dead. Teacher's aide Marie Janvier ran to get help for Charlene Klyne and was shot dead. As for the two brothers who the teen shot mercilessly to death though they were friends of his, he has expressed the knowledge that the mother of the two boys has forgiven him. "I know she knows I am sorry for what I did", he said in court.

Well, that's all right, then.

This is not a teenager as some in the community had originally suggested, who was teased and bullied. He himself informed the neuro-psychologist that he had never felt bullied, he simply felt no connection to people. And that places him squarely in the community of psychopaths. This was a sentencing hearing. The judge will not decide yet what kind of sentence to pronounce since she is awaiting a Gladue report.

The purpose of a Gladue report is to give especial consideration to aboriginals who commit crimes, to take into account their background, to determine whether circumstances in the background warrant lighter punishments of their crimes. No doubt that report will dwell on the low IQ resulting from fetal alcohol syndrome and other issues relating to aboriginal disadvantages in the greater Canadian community.

A case is being weighed in Ottawa, concurrent with this one, though there is no connection between the two. This is a young man, Peter Herauf, who stabbed a 30-year-old woman who had taken a gram of marijuana from him  without paying for it. He reacted by pulling a six-inch hunting knife and stabbing her in the back, fatally. Justice Ann Alder hearing the case, feels the killer is truly remorseful.

His background is not entirely dissimilar to that of the aboriginal youth's. He was adopted by a university professor after he was left an orphan at a young age. He suffered brain damage from smoke inhalation when his mother and a sibling were killed in a housefire. His father was killed in a car accident. He suffers from a cognitive deficit which led to "immaturity, impulsivity and lack of judgement."

But he has been sentenced on a plea of manslaughter to 14 years in prison, considered to be "a fair and fit sentence in these circumstances", according to his defence lawyer who also said that the length of time of his incarceration "is in no way a reflection of the life lost." Some degree of dissonance here, is there not?

Distinguished by Good Behaviour

"I think your parents would be rather proud of you."

"You’ve indicated through your conduct over the last 8 1/2 years [since her conviction on three counts of first-degree murder] you have a desire to atone for what you did."

"Clearly you cannot undo the past, you can only live each day with the knowledge that you can control how you behave."

"The probation officer indicates that [she] has remained positive through the supervision."

"The probation officer has no concerns regarding [her] peer group, or how she spends her free time."

"[She has shown] a maturity and level of insight beyond her age."

Justice Scott Brooker, Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, Medicine Hat, Alberta

"[I agree that [J.R.] has become the woman her parents hoped she’d be]."

"I think she has, I think that based on the information that we’ve heard in court throughout the process that she has made huge gains and huge rehabilitative progress from where she was to where she is today."

Defence lawyer Katherin Beyak

 .

"She certainly was given a four-phase plan and according to all the treatment providers followed all four of the phases, all of the conditions that were set out by the judge."

"I’m not an expert on rehabilitation, I’m satisfied she followed the rules the judge gave her, but time will tell. There’s no question that she ... wasn’t fully invested in her own rehabilitation, that’s what all the reports say, and I accept that."

"I think we talked earlier in the sentence about baby steps, because the crime itself was so heinous, right, so it took a long time to figure out if she could comply and how she could comply."
Medicine Hat chief Crown prosecutor Ramona Robins

firsttoknow.com    Jasmine Richardson Murdered Her Parents & Brother with Help from 'Werewolf' Boyfriend

Amazing. It is well known to psychiatrists how skilled psychopaths are in convincing others that they are perfectly normal in all respects as integrated members of society. If, by chance, they have somehow distinguished themselves as behaving radically differently from most people for whom the social contract of human decency and regard for the well-being of others surfaces, their ability to manipulate perceptions of themselves knows no equal.

As for this now-young woman's parents -- dead by her urging and connivance -- being proud of the woman she has become, one can only say this is taking liberties with one's imagination. Known only as "J.K." to protect her identity at age twelve under the Young Offender's Act, she resented her parents' interference in her life and couldn't wait to have them dead. And nor would she spare her little brother, witness to the atrocity.

Her parents had a problem child in J.K., to say the very least. A young girl who had her own ideas of how she would live her life, and those ideas didn't include her parents' concern for her well-being. They were not prepared to countenance the company she kept, much less her boyfriend, eleven years her senior, a slow-witted low-life whom she wound around her little finger to convince among other things, that he was obliged to murder her parents.

Both she and her boyfriend, John Steinke, were found guilty of first-degree murder in the April 2006 killing in her parents' home. She committed herself to stabbing her eight-year-old brother when she failed to succeed in strangling him. And there was then no one who had witnessed the barbarity that she had planned and consummated between herself and her lover. She graduated with flying colours from an Intensive Rehabilitative Custody and Supervision review.

And now she is free to carry on her life in public as of Saturday. Her identity remains shielded and all records related to her youth convictions will be sealed after five years. The then-grade 7 girl, even then -- particularly then -- a skilled manipulator, found the seamy side of life more to her liking than the conventional life her parents had planned for their daughter. And this judge feels that her parents looking down from heaven at their daughter's progress would feel parental pride?

Back then just after the murders had taken place and police arrived at the blood-spattered family home with its grisly scene of three mutilated victims, they were convinced an abduction had also taken place, a young girl had been kidnapped and was missing, her parents and brother dead. Wrong, oh so wrong. She and her lover were celebrating their audacious success in removing the irritating protest against their relationship by parents who had no idea their deaths were summarily sealed through their daughter's exercise of her free spirit.

They arrived at the apartment of a friend, had sex, and partied, alcohol freely flowing, in the company of their friends some of whom surely must have been skeptical of their assertions, in witnessing the conscience-free abandon with which the two lovers disported themselves. They were arrested soon afterward. The girl's parents, an autopsy established, had been stabbed repeatedly, the father with 24 wounds, the mother a dozen. The failed attempt to choke her little brother led J.K. to stab her brother four times and he died of a gash to his throat.

And while the now-22-year-old woman is free to resume her new, untrammelled life, her partner in the murder of her family remains imprisoned to serve his life sentence without opportunity for parole for 25 years.

Explaining Evil

"If she had admitted [her role] and if she had told the truth, then it would have been much better for our conscience, our pain, our satisfaction."
"The way she behaved, we're very, very mad about it. It doesn't seem right, she's not a good girl, she doesn't deserve any help."
"It is very painful, but there's nothing too much we can do about it anymore."
Mukand Pallan, 86, grieving grandfather, Victoria, British Columbia

"I was fifteen years old. I was a child. I'm not that child any more."
"I was only thinking of myself. I pushed her in. It's like almost I just thought ... it would just carry the problem away."
"She was unconscious. I didn't need to hold her head under water. There would have been no point."
Kelly Ellard, 33, Parole board hearing, May 2016

Kelly Ellard was found guilty of second-degree murder in April 2005 in her third trial, but the jury's verdict was overturned by an appeal court. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)

Every society has them. Psychopaths with a complete disregard for the harm they do to others. People with an inbred inability to feel compassion or care, people without conscience who act as they wish to, irrespective of the consequences. These are people capable of great harm to society, but skilled in appearing normal, and quite capable of saying the things they know others want to hear, to enable them to exonerate themselves from blame.

Absent social conscience, harbouring an attitude of entitlement, these are the people who embark on truly horrific atrocities; they are the dread serial killers discovered to have brought terror and death and sentenced to life imprisonment through the justice system. Sometimes they are not adult yet when they perform their dread atrocities. They do not suddenly become psychopathic on reaching adulthood; their pathology is with them from birth.

Kelly Ellard is one of those. And her victim, a 14-year-old girl who was desperate to be included in the social circle that Kelly Ellard queened, lost her life because she tried too hard to be accepted.
Two decades ago, that 14-year-old, Reena Virk, was an awkward, vulnerable girl anxious for social acceptance. She appeared where others of her age group had no wish to see her.

Reena Virk's body was found eight days after she was swarmed and beaten on Nov. 14, 1997. (CBC)

One evening she brought herself to where a group of teens were drinking and smoking pot not far from their high school. Her presence enraged some among the group and they swarmed and beat her while she pleaded to be let free. She ran across a bridge to escape the beating, and as she did Kelly Ellard and another teen, Warren Glowatsky followed her. And here, in a creek running under the bridge she lost her life.

An autopsy ascertained that the young girl's brain was swollen from the vicious beating she had sustained. She had taken some 18 forceful body blows. Her body was found adrift in a local inlet and her death was attributed to drowning. Both Kelly Ellard and Wayne Glowatski were found guilty of second-degree murder.

At the age of 15, a popular girl in her social circle, envied and admired by the 14-year-old, Kelly Ellard had smashed Reena Virk's head against a tree and followed that up by holding the girl's head under water until there were no more evident movements from the girl she attacked. Seeking parole and speaking before a hearing, the adult Ellard described a situation that was horrifying in its brutality.

She also said that while Matt Glowatski had been drunk he at least thought they should flag down a car for  help, but she refused. She manipulated the young man, admitting to the parole board he would not have made the choice to have Reena Virk drown; that was already known when the trials took place, and the young man who had been a reluctant partner to murder was given full parole in 2010.

When Ellard was living in a halfway house in 2004, awaiting a retrial, she had been charged with assault causing bodily harm to an older woman in New Westminster, British Columbia. Court documents testified that she was a belligerent, abusive inmate. She experienced psychotic outbursts and was anything but a model prisoner.

 Even her parole officer discouraged the board at the parole hearing from granting day parole for this unregenerate psychopath. Her substance abuse and her propensity to deflect blame for her actions on others were cited as reason enough. The board was impressed that she finally accepted responsibility for the murder, yet her obvious sense of entitlement counter-balanced that favourable reception.

"It's not speaking from your heart. It's speaking from what is most strategic and beneficial to  you", charged one of the board members. Which is precisely what psychopaths do, in reaction to a justice system that holds them to account for their crimes; attempt to manipulate the situation to make it appear that they are capable of functioning as normal people.

The other, 'normal' teens who were present that dreadful night have much to answer for in their own actions. Those who helped to beat the 14-year-old who wanted to be just like them, and those who did nothing to help the girl, assuming that among them were those who were simply 'bystanders'.                                                                                                                                       

Hate-Exhaustion

"They're very prevalent in a number of communities. They're very unpredictable. You don't know when they're going to lash out."
Barbara Perry, criminology professor, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

"We see the right-wing extremism movement rear its ugly head once in a while, but it just doesn't really gain the same traction as Islamic extremists."
Ryan Scrivens, Ph.D student,  Simon Fraser University, British Columbia

"One officer voiced his concern about websites that urged its audience to 'kill the Aboriginals, kill the Jews, kill the blacks, kill the gays'."
"[More concerning yet some far right groups have joined outlaw biker  gangs who] share similar subcultural characteristics, such as slang, language, dress and a propensity for violence."
Study by Barbara Perry and Ryan Scrivens

In undertaking their study which has been published in the journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Perry and Scrivens interviewed law enforcement agents, community activists and as well current and former members of hate groups to arrive at their conclusions. They looked through court records and media reports and ended up with a comprehensive view of the far-right movement in Canada.

About 100 right-wing extremist groups were identified through their  study, ranging from "three-man wrecking crews" to more populous groups of die-hard haters, active in recent years. They discovered that these groups are prevalent primarily in Quebec, western Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Some of their numbers have taken part in  acts of violence at random, others in targeted attacks.

Those targeted  are Muslims, Jews, people of colour, aboriginals and LGBTQ people.

One incident the researchers focused on was the fatal shooting of an Edmonton hate-crimes officer last year as he engaged in serving an arrest warrant on Norman Raddatz, suspected of anti-Semitic bullying of a family. The June 2014 Moncton, N.B. shooting deaths of three members of the RCMP by Justin Bourque was also examined in the study, where his social media trail was replete with messages pf pro-gun and anti-authority support.

"Right-wing extremist circles appear to be fragmented and primarily pose a threat to public order, and not to national security", advised a spokesperson for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service which does not view their presence as a high priority they must address.  Police agencies have put together special teams tasked with monitoring such groups to enable their response to hate crimes.

It is their presence online, however that helps them spread their message. Just as it does the Islamist jihadi movement.

There exists as well a white power music scenario where Quebec appears to focus on skinhead music while Alberta presents as a black metal hotbed.

The public imagines the extreme right to be the purview of tattooed, raging young white males who view a pluralist society as anathema, where their opportunities for advancement are strictured in deference to preferential treatment given to  visible minorities, lack of personal success and opportunity representing a 'reason' for their angry hatred.

The Canadian Armed Forces has been infiltrated by the presence of those who  espouse and exhibit racism, though a military spokesperson noted that racist behaviour is not tolerated within the military since "such attitudes are totally incompatible with the military ethos and with effective military service."

Conflict between  gangs is a common trope. Petty criminal gangs often view one another as competitors from whom their turf must be protected. Neo-Nazi groups also engage in conflict between themselves,  negotiating violently for status and power, according to the study. One security figure quoted by the study noted: "They hate so much and so many that they start to hate one another".

Some of the interviewees evidently left the impression that it was irritating and fatiguing to have to justify racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic propensities, leading to the conclusion that "hating" quite simply "was exhausting". Oh dear.

Superhuman Strength and Courage

"You can't sleep or even close your eyes, forget about it. And whatever you take to stop it, nothing can stop it."
"I felt like I own the world high. Like I have a power nobody has. A really nice feeling." 
Lebanese users

"So the brigade leader came and told us, 'This pill gives you energy, try it. So we took it the first time. We felt physically fit. And if there were ten people in front of you, you could catch them and kill them."
"You're awake all the time. You don't have any problems, you don't even think about sleeping, you don't think to leave the checkpoint."
"It gives you great courage and power. If the leader told you to go break into a military barracks, I will break in with a brave heart and without any feeling of fear at all -- you're not even tired."
ex-Syrian fighter

"Syrian government forces and rebel groups each say the other uses Captagon to endure protracted engagements without sleep, while clinicians say ordinary Syrians are increasingly experimenting with the pills, which sell for between $5 and $20," 
"The breakdown of state infrastructure, weakening of borders and proliferation of armed groups during the ... battle for control of Syria, has transformed the country from a stopover into a major production site." 
Reuters

A drug control officer in the central city of Homs informed Reuters that he had observed the effects of Captagon on protesters and fighters who had been held for questioning.

"We would beat them, and they wouldn't feel the pain. Many of them would laugh while we were dealing them heavy blows. We would leave the prisoners for about 48 hours without questioning them while the effects of Captagon wore off, and then interrogation would become easier."

Captagon pills are displayed along with a cup containing cocaine at an office of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, Anti-Narcotics Division, in Beirut in 2010. (Joseph Eid/AFP/Getty Images/File)

There's a new weapon being used in Syria, and although it's a chemical by derivation, it does not resemble the other chemicals that the Syrian regime is using in its efforts to destroy its enemies, chemicals of mass destruction, like chlorine gas the regime commonly loads into its barrel bombs for a double-whammy when Syrian citizens of the Sunni variety get hit by government forces. On the other hand, this chemical is also destructive, known to be addictive and capable of breaking down the human body eventually.

Many who have been introduced to it on the battlefield had no idea what it was; could have been caffeine pills to keep them awake, as far as they might have been concerned. But it did work; not only did it keep them awake, but it gave them the courage of their leader's convictions, and it made them feel strong and impervious to harm; it made them temporarily immortal. And that chemical is an amphetamine; the original synthetic drug known as fenethylline: Captagon.

It produces an intense feeling of euphoria, enabling fighters to remain without sleep for days on end as they kill in the line of their duty to the regime, with reckless abandon. The drug, according to one secular ex-Syrian fighter, is perfectly suited for the battlefield, giving soldiers the gift of superhuman energy and the kind of 'courage' that comes with awareness oblivion. The drug has been available in the West since the 1960s, given medically to people suffering from hyperactivity, narcolepsy and depression. Its addictive power eventually led most countries to ban it.

Most countries. It's widely available and has been for years in Saudi Arabia where it sees its largest consumer base. Saudi Arabia is responsible for using great amounts of the chemical; in 2010 about seven tons ended up in the country, representing a full third of the world's supply of the stuff. Estimations are that 40,000 to 50,000 Saudis take to drug treatment each year. Now, production of Captagon is growing in Syria which itself has long been a heavily trafficked highway for drugs, from Europe to the Persian Gulf states.

It's cheap, and it's easy to produce and the materials to do so are perfectly legal. The drug in its finished state can be had for less than $20 per tablet. Cheaper than grenades, rifles, ammunition, and hugely useful to the purpose at hand. It's a must-have for al-Qaeda veterans, Iraqi insurgents, Arab jihadists and Western volunteers, fuelling the incendiary attractiveness of vicious hatreds in Syria and Iraq. The black market economy takes in hundreds of millions annually, attracting new fighters to the conflict, ensuring that the fight goes on.

Psychosis? all to the good, given the brutality of the conflict. Brain damage? those looking in from the outside might contend the drug couldn't possibly inflict any more damage than those using it already suffer through genetic inheritance. "You're talkative, you don't sleep, you don't eat, you're energetic", explained Ramzi Haddad, a Lebanese psychiatrist, describing the stimulant effects of the drug.


"My theory is that Captagon still retains the veneer of medical respectability,” Justin Thomas, an assistant professor of psychology and psychotherapy at the UAE’s Zayed University and author of "Psychological Well-Being in the Gulf States," told Voice Of America in 2010. "It may not be viewed as a drug or narcotic because it is not associated with smoking or injecting." And the additional bonus is that it is so perfectly designed to make killing machines out of those already prepared to conduct themselves like killing machines.

Casting Out Demons

"Now she'll be in a situation where for the last portion of her sentence, she'll be living as a normal individual in society."
"We'll be able to tell and see that this sentence has in fact done what it's supposed to do, which is reintegrate her and prepare her to live a real life in the real world."
Katherin Beyak, lawyer for Canada's youngest multiple killer

"It's another positive report. In fact, all the reports I've received since I imposed this sentence a number of years ago were positive."
"The risk level, according to the reports, remains low and, in fact, her score measures at the lower end of the lowest level."
Justice Scott Brooker, Alberta

"I would like to express my gratitude towards the court and my team for all of the support I've received."
J.R. patricide, fratricide

Police outside the house in 2006 where "J.R." helped her 23-year-old boyfriend, Jeremy Allan Steinke, murder her Medicine Hat parents and eight year-old brother. Archive / Calgary Herald

"I think it’s the great unknown, isn’t it. She’s definitely followed all of the rules. She’s participated in therapy, she’s done everything that’s been asked of her but when there’s no further sentence and no further consequence, I’m not sure what will happen. I hope that this has been a successful rehabilitative process. I hope that. But, I don’t know."
Chief Crown prosecutor Ramona Robins

She was twelve, he was twenty-three. It isn't just a decade difference in age that's involved, it's the presumed and obvious maturity gap between a pre-teen and a young adult. In this particular case, however, it seems that the adult was no less mature than the emerging teen. The girl's petulant anger at her parents who failed to approve of her intimate relationship with the young man led her to plot with that young man to punish her parents.

The punishment that ensued was brutal and final. Although the boyfriend, Jeremy Allan Steinke, 23 at the time, claims he had meant to put fear into the girl's parents, he ended up brutally stabbing them to death. The girl's little brother, eight at the time, wasn't killed by her boyfriend. The twelve-year-old had decided that her brother should also die, so she set about herself, to kill him.

The gruesome murders took place at midnight, in Medicine Hat, Alberta, in April of 2006. After the murders the two went off to spend time with friends. Jasmine Richardson was convicted, in 2007, on three counts of first-degree murder, as a juvenile. And sentenced to ten years of incarceration. During that time she received psychiatric treatment followed by four and a half years of community conditional supervision.

At trial, police officers and other witnesses became emotional as they recalled seeing the body of the small boy, found on his bed with a deep slash to his throat, his eyes and mouth wide open. Stuffed animals and a toy light sabre spattered with the boy's blood could be seen lying next to his body. CBC News

Her boyfriend was sentenced to an adult 25 years' imprisonment without parole. Serving an open custody sentence in a group home in Calgary since 2010, she has been permitted escorted trips to therapy, shopping malls and banks to acquaint her with ordinary social and personal tasks. Her gradual reintegration back to society is anticipated by 2016.

In 2007 psychiatric pre-sentencing reports portrayed her as afflicted with oppositional defiance disorder and conduct disorder. Two 'disorders' which many parents would snort derisively that describes their relationship with their own children. Who would never in their wildest nightmares imagine behaving in the malignantly vicious manner that this girl did toward her oppositional parents and little brother.

She was diagnosed pre-therapy with dependency issues, anxiety and depression, prone to immature problem-solving and wishful fantasies; all of which appear to be descriptives common to many, if not most adolescents growing into their teens and pre-adulthood. A year later, the girl was reported to be improving with therapy, even while the Crown stated that her interpretation of the crime appeared "troubling".

Her identity continues to be protected by law She is now 21 years of age, and being prepared to live "as a normal individual in society", her sentence running out in nine months. This girl is a violent psychopath, and it's hard to imagine she can have been 'cured' of tendencies she may have been born with, and practised with blood-curdling insouciance. Manipulative wiles are known to be a specialty of psychopaths.

After murdering her three family members, she and her boyfriend enjoyed celebratory sex, then went on to party with friends, before being arrested the following day. On Thursday, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Scott Brooker eliminated her weekday curfew; her weekend curfew had already been eliminated in 2014. She lives without supervision.

All Is Forgiven

"If you think you could be my prince charming, send me a detailed letter with at least two photos. Only those I deem compatible will receive a response. Serious enquiries only please. All unsolicited mail will be discarded."
Luka Magnotta, psychotic megalomaniac, convicted murderer, Archambault Penitentiary

"It wasn't shocking that he didn't provide those details [that he tortured, murdered and dismembered a man, sending his body parts to politicians after producing a video of the atrocity and posting it online]."
"Some inmates don't, for whatever reason. With Luka Magnotta, he quite possibly could've just forgotten to put that in. Or maybe he was under the impression that the world knows what he was convicted of, and just didn't find it necessary to fill in that blank."
"There was a lot of negative publicity -- a lot of people were not happy that he was on there. I treated Luka Magnotta no differently than any other inmate." 
"People can go on [my website] and if they're not familiar with somebody such as Luka Magnotta, they can just go onto the computer and Google these people and find out what they're in jail for anyways."
Melissa Fazzina, founder, Canadian Inmates Connect Incorporated, online dating service

"Thank you for your service [Ms. Fazzina] I found what I was looking for."
Luka Magnotta

"I do feel very bad for these families. Obviously with every inmate, it doesn't matter who it is, there's gonna be some sort of victim. I feel horrible for their loss and what they've gone through. But the bottom line is that this is a human right that these inmates are entitled to, they have a right to communicate through written letters with people on the outside. To me, it's all or nothing when it comes to these rights."
"Just like with any site that's out there for people to correspond or meet people, you have to be careful. You know that you're communicating with a federal inmate. You have to be careful. There are vulnerable women out there, but there's also inmates that are also vulnerable, too."
Melissa Fazzina, Toronto 

There are two spiders spinning their webs here. One is the unspeakably malignant murderer who flaunted his atrocity and anticipated he would be much admired for having become a celebrity figure. And, amazingly, he proved to be right. His celebrity has brought him acclaim from those living on the margins of society. Presumably, sexual deviants like himself, psychopaths for whom the suffering of others is irrelevant; he has garnered an enthusiastic following.

And then there are those who provide the opportunity for such sociopathic monsters to make connection with others who find them irresistible. Ms. Fazzina is no less a spider spinning a web to entice and entrap the unwary than is Magnotta. Magnotta makes no pretensions that he is the way he is for his own gratification. Ms. Fazzina portrays herself as someone sensitive to the needs of those like Magnotta.

And through her enablement he has presumably found someone "loyal, preferably educated, financially and emotionally stable for a long-term committed relationship". Touching, if it were not so dreadful. Through the auspices of her website she hosted the opportunity for this man whom she refuses to sit in judgement of, to get on with his tawdry life of self-aggrandizement and sexual gratification, despite the horrible death he imposed on an unsuspecting university student.

In satisfying this man's needs, Ms. Fazzina has added to the unspeakable anguish of Jun Lin's family. And just incidentally diminished her own stature as a decent human being.

Community Support

"For us, it makes it particularly difficult that the only victim from Montabaur is suspected to have caused this tragedy, this crash -- although this has not been finally confirmed, but a lot is indicating that -- and we have to face this."
"The co-pilot, the family belong to our community, and we stand by this, and we embrace them and will not hide this, and want to support the family in particular."
Pastor Michael Dietrich, Lutheran Church, Montabaur

A police car waits in front of the house of the family of Andreas Lubitz in Montabaur, Germany, Friday, March 27, 2015. Lubitz was the co-pilot on the Germanwings plane that crashed with 150 people on board on Tuesday in the French Alps. (AP Photo Frank Augstein)

Radar tapes indicate that Flight 9525 climbed normally after departure from Barcelona-El Prat Airport to the cruising altitude assigned it at 38,000 feet, a routine flight and a routine elevation that it maintained for a few minutes before a slight course correction. And then, suddenly, a steep but controlled descent took place of just over eight minutes duration. And then, that controlled descent resulted in the plane disintegrating with all aboard flying into biologically minute bits on impact with a mountain in the French Alps.

That precipitous, unauthorized descent was initiated, under the co-pilot's control after he had been given the temporary control of the flight cabin as the pilot stepped outside for a moment to relieve himself in the lavatory. Presumably, he had completed his mission before he fully realized that his co-pilot had plans other than the planned landing he had briefed him with before leaving the cockpit momentarily.

So when he returned and inputted the code to open the cockpit door, he understood it had been deliberately bolted from within. And then began his frantic pleading for entry. Obviously, the conversation picked up by the flight recorder of the verbal exchange between the two men at the landing briefing when Andreas Lubitz responded to Captain Sonderheimer on the Dusseldorf landing with "Hopefully" and "We'll see", wasn't taken seriously by the captain.

Perhaps an off-day for his co-pilot? Well, he was right. It was an off-day, and Andreas Lubitz presumably had plenty of those off-days. Enough so that various medical professionals examining his state of mind gave him a number of notes to be handed to his employers excusing him from work duty on a number of occasions. Including that fateful off-day. When he chose to aim the Airbus 320 into a mountain last Tuesday, taking 150 unwilling people to an early death.

A view of the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, Monday, March 30, 2015. European investigators are focusing on the psychological state of a 27-year-old German co-pilot who prosecutors say deliberately flew a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people into a mountain, a French police official said Monday. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, Pool)

According to the German newspaper Bild Am Sonntag, details from the recording transcript demonstrate that Mr. Lubitz had a predetermined plan; that his off-day hadn't been the result of a spontaneous decision, but one that had been hatched much earlier in time. The hour and a half recording has Mr. Lubitz suggesting that Captain Sonderheimer absent himself from the cockpit to relieve himself, and he would take over controls.

And he did just that. Mr. Lubitz said "You can go now", and Mr. Sonderheimer responded "You can take over". And this is precisely what Mr. Lubitz did. He took over, and it was final. That simple transaction sealed the fate of 150 people and one plane. No reentry for the pilot, no intervention possible to rescue 150 people from death. A mountain is an immovable object.

A plane's aluminum skin is relatively fragile, and certainly human beings are even more fragile, given to falling apart when high speed slams them against an immovable object.

Rescue workers work at the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, Monday, March 30, 2015. European investigators are focusing on the psychological state of a 27-year-old German co-pilot who prosecutors say deliberately flew a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people into a mountain, a French police official said Monday. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, Pool)

Death, at least, was instant. No one suffered more than a few minutes of blazing apprehension and deadly fear. Days later, investigators gathered evidence in the co-pilot's Dusseldorf rented flat validating that he suffered from serious mental health problems. Psychiatric medication and additional evidence he was suffering "severe burn-out syndrome", was taken away from the flat.

That, on the psychological side; on the physical side serious problems with his eyesight leading to a 30% loss of vision. A makeshift road is being built through impassable mountain terrain so four-wheel-drive vehicles can be enabled to reach the crash site; far more efficient than the current access only by helicopter where DNA samples have been collected from almost half of the victims.

Gendarme Bruno Hermignies stands by a bulldozer clearing a path to the crash site near Seyne-les-Alpes, France, Monday, March 30, 2015. European investigators are focusing on the psychological state of a 27-year-old German co-pilot who prosecutors say deliberately flew a Germanwings plane carrying 150 people into a mountain, a French police official said Monday. (AP Photo/Claude Paris, Pool)

Well, of course human rights laws in Germany take the protective preservation of private information very seriously. Which, Lufthansa hints, made it difficult for them to obtain the information that might be required to understand that one of their young new pilots might be problematical from the standpoint of reliability and passenger safety. Nonsense, of course.

Amazing; the country that once distinguished itself as a genocidal war monger embroiling much of the world in a cataclysmic conflict and destroying half of the globe's Jews, has become a human-rights defender of outstanding principle; defending the mentally disadvantage at the expense of the greater public; how much more noble in atonement can they become?