Pomeroy, the 14 year old Psychopath

Despite the fact that many killers are generally characterized as middle aged men, there are few that defy this stereotype. For example, the story of Jesse Pomeroy, a young 14 year old boy from the Dorchester Bay, Boston area. Pomeroy who was connected to the murder of four year old Horace Millen in April 1874 had been previously reprimanded and sent to a special reform school two years earlier. The question is what exactly drives a young boy like Pomeroy to commit such crimes? According to http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/psychopath/1.html, “These children have a character disturbance. They devalue others and lack a sense of morality... In the research, these children are regarded as "fledgling psychopaths" who will become increasingly more dangerous as they get older. They might not become killers but they will learn how to manipulate, deceive and exploit others for their own gain. It is generally believed that they have failed to develop affectional bonds that allow them to empathize with another's pain. What they have developed are traits of arrogance, dishonesty, narcissism, shamelessness, and callousness… traits like fearlessness, aggressiveness, and sensation seeking, all of which contribute to antisocial behavior...” It is clear that children that lack affectional relationships with people in general not only parents will develop into a world where they don’t love anyone and don’t feel loved at all. The fact that they develop into such an isolated atmosphere plays a significant role in their later actions of killing others and failing to empathize with their pain. As regarded by the article, Pomeroy displayed the characteristics of dishonesty after he “pleaded innocence by way of insanity.”(Press 116) Pomeroy, later admitting to the crimes he committed which he chronicled in an autobiography, denied being conscious of his actions. After pleading innocence he is convicted and sentenced to death Also, he displayed “aggressiveness”, another characteristic of a child “psychopath” in the killings themselves. In the murder of Horace Millen for example, Pomeroy cut Millen’s throat and stabbed him no fewer then 15 times. Five weeks previous he had also killed nine year old Katie Curran who was found buried in the cellar of a shop. Even though the book did not mention any relationship between Pomeroy and his parents, it can be assumed that since he did show signs a child psychopath, he may have been abused by his parents or neglected. In the end, Pomeroy was sentenced to solitary confinement until his was 54 then sentenced to prison till his death on September 29, 1932.

The World's Worst Murders

What type of killers exists in the world we live in today?

In The Worlds Worst Murders by Alva Press, different stories contain varying methods and characters involved in killings. For example, the story the Sadistic Romeo Neville Heath the killer Neville George Clevely Heath, a suave and charming man who roamed the streets of London went on a sadistic streak. In the summer of 1946, his perversion turned him into a lady killer. In May 1946, Heath took advantage of the masochistic tendencies of 32 year old Ocelot Margie. Margie was looking for “men to satisfy her craving for bondage and flagellation.” (Press 54) After this brief meeting between Heath and Ocelot, Heath phoned Ocelot and arranged for another meeting on June 20th. At 6:00 PM the next day, a chambermaid entered Room 4 at the Pembridge Court Hotel where both had selected to meet and discovered a most gruesome scene. “The two single beds were bloodied and disordered. And in one of them lay the lifeless body of Ocelot Margie. She was naked, her ankles bound tightly together with a handkerchief. Her face and chin were bruised, as if someone had used intense force to hold her mouth closed. There were 17 criss-cross slash marks on her face, front and back. Her breasts had been badly bitten. And she had been bleeding profusely from the vagina.” (Press 54) This lady killer used his charm and wit to take advantage of many women, not only Ocelot Margie and kill them with his aggressive and violent manners.

On the other hand, The Heartless Husband Johann Hoch, the story of Johann Otto Hoch who had at least 24 wives in 15 years used another method to kill his victims. Born to the name Johann Schmidt in 1862, Hoch emigrated from Germany at 25 leaving his wife and three children behind. In April 1895, he married a woman from Wheeling, West Virginia using the name Jacob Huff and three months killed her. Unlike Neville Heath who used his charm and good looks to lure women in, Hoch used the desire of marriage. This can be seen when the “diabolical ‘Bluebeard’ even proposed to his sister-in-law over the deathbed of his wife, who was dying from a massive dose of arsenic.”(Press 60) Also we can see that Heath wanted to kill for his own perverted pleasures while Hoch on the other hand wanted to pilfer money from the dead “wives” he killed. Also, Hoch used arsenic to kill his victims which was discovered when the sister of one of his ex-wives had the body exhumed and medical examiners found enough arsenic to kill a dozen women. While Hoch used arsenic to kill his victims, Neville Heath used masochism to murder his women. As the New York Times says, "was hanged in the county jail at 1:34 o'clock this afternoon for poisoning his wife, Marie Welcker Hoch. His last utterance carried the assertion that he was innocent of the crime" and as the novel states, Hoch's last words were "you see, boys, I don't look like a monster, now do I?"(Press 61)

What drives a killer?

As I read through the book Murder in Amsterdam, I realized that the novel was more involved with the history of the Dutch then the actual killer, Mohammed Bouyeri himself. The novel seems to drift off from the topic of the mind of a killer but certain pages did have information of his feelings and actions during the crime.

What motivates a person to kill? What motivate a person to kill are emotions of hate, resentment, fear and greed. The motivation of hatred pertains to the novel Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma. Mohammed Bouyeri, a twenty six year old Moroccan-Dutchman murdered Theo van Gogh in November of 2004. After he violently killed Theo van Gogh, Bouyeri stabbed an “open letter” into his chest with a knife. Bouyeri’s letter was addressed to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali born Dutch politician. Ayaan Hirsi Alli and Theo joined to create a film called Submission dramatizing what Hirsi Alli saw as Islamic abuse. “Bouyeri’s letter was addressed to Hirsi Ali, as a heretic who had rebelled against her childhood faith and become a willing tool of “Zionists and crusaders.” She was called a “soldier of evil” who had “turned her back on the Truth.” She was “a liar” who would “smash herself to pieces on Islam.” (Buruma, 5) In this quote from the novel, Bouyeri’s intentions of killing Van Gogh, was out of hate for Hirsi Alli. Hirsi Ali was a Muslim of Africa. In her position, now being considered an ex-Muslim, Bouyeri found it offensive that she would betray her culture. He hated her for depicting the Koran as a source of violent abuse in her movie, Submission. Bouyeri’s hate for Hirsi Ali pushed him to kill Theo van Gogh who aided her spreading the truth is abuse within Islam. Basically, Theo was primary killed because of association. In the end, it was Bouyeris resentment an hate towards Hirsi Alli that motivated him to kill Theo van Gogh