Reflections on the Virginia Tech School Tragedy

Since the Virginia Tech School tragedy in which the young South Korean student Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 innocent men and women and then killed himself, I have been asked many questions by my friends and colleagues who know that as a psychiatrist I have worked in psychiatric hospitals and looked after men and women who had committed crimes because of their mental illness. They are also aware that I have written a book The Myth of the Chosen One about the psychology of serial killers and mass murderers based on my interview with Javed Iqbal Moghal, who was convicted of killing one hundred children in Lahore, Pakistan. Their questions made me reflect and in this article I will touch upon a few aspects of that horrible tragedy.


THE STIGMA OF MENTAL ILLNESS

Cho belonged to a South Korean family who came to America when he was a young boy. One of the South Korean psychiatrists interviewed on CNN stated that in the South Korean community, as in many other Asian communities, mental illness carries a stigma. Many families not only feel embarrassed when they have a member suffering from mental illness, but also are also reluctant to get help for emotional problems until the individual becomes so sick and psychotic that they become suicidal or violent.


INVOLUNTARY ADMISSION

When people asked me why Cho was not admitted to the hospital after he was assessed by mental health professionals, I shared with them that different states in America, like different provinces in Canada, might have variations in their mental health laws governing involuntary admission. In Canada a psychiatrist can sign a Form One for involuntary admission to a psychiatric hospital if the person

…suffers from mental illness
and
…is danger to self or others because of that mental illness.

In some provinces, being a danger to animals or property or inability to look after oneself are also considered acceptable reasons for involuntary admission. I would not be surprised if Cho had not shared his plans for killing people with the professional who interviewed him. That professional may not have realized the seriousness of the situation; otherwise Cho would have been admitted to the local psychiatric hospital.


CREATIVE WRITINGS

One of the English literature professors at Virginia Tech shared with a CNN interviewer that she felt uncomfortable reading Cho’s plays as they contained violent scenes. It is never easy to assess creative writings from a psychiatric point of view as they might be symbolic and the writer might have no intention of acting on them.


VIOLENT FILMS AND VIDEOS

Many psychiatrists and psychologists wonder about the role violent television images play on the psyche of murderers. Some oppose giving children guns as toys and are in favour of banning violent images on television. They feel that such images gradually desensitize the viewers and encourage violent ideas and plans. There was a controversy as to whether Cho’s videos should be aired on national television. The families of the victims were quite disturbed by those images and felt that television stations acted upon the murderer’s wishes for fame and negative attention. The only television station that refused to show the images was Canada’s CBC as they felt that they glorified the murder and might have negative effects on young people. I am of the opinion that we need to differentiate between programs that sensationalize and glorify violence and those that try to understand, deter and treat it.


DID CHO SUFFER FROM MENTAL ILLNESS?

There is no doubt in my mind that Cho had serious emotional problems from early childhood. His introverted and withdrawn personality and stalking girls on the campus reflected his psychological problems but it is not clear whether he suffered from schizophrenia or manic depressive illness. Most patients who are suffering from acute psychosis are usually quite disorganized. Cho seemed to be very calculating—he planned his actions to the point that he mailed his package of writings and videos from the post office between the first and second round of killings. When we review the biographies of serial killers and mass murderers we find that most of them exhibit a psychopathic personality disorder, meaning that they have no conscience and are able to commit cold-blooded murderers. Many of them grew up in violent families and communities and were physically, emotionally or sexually abused.


RELATIONSHIP TO WAR

Of all the experts that I listened to on television, the one that stood out was Elliott Leyton from Newfoundland, the author of Hunting Humans. He suggested that there might be a relationship between war, mass murder and serial killing. He wondered whether images of war gradually desensitize people to violence so that it becomes easier for them to act on their violent fantasies.


KILLING STRANGERS

The psychology of serial killers and mass murderers is quite different from that of one-time murderers who kill their enemy in the heat of passion and know that enemy intimately. The hallmark of modern serial killers and mass murderers is that they kill innocent strangers. The psychiatrist Lunde has made it clear that “the most important single contrast between mass murderers and murderers of a single person is their relationship to victims, the former killing strangers, the later killing intimates.”


THE ISSUE OF REVENGE

In his book Leyton highlights how revenge plays a role in understanding the psychology of serial killers. Cho also harboured longstanding anger, resentment and bitterness towards the rich and privileged, and he felt tormented on the campus by other people for various reasons.

In Leyton’s book he discusses Mark Essex, an American, who was raised in a middle class family and loved by his parents. He wanted to become a minister. During his stay in the navy, he faced a lot of prejudice and discrimination and was called “nigger”. When he finally turned against white people, he killed nine and injured ten more by setting fire to a hotel.

But the revenge of serial killers and mass murderers is generalized. Rather than hurting or killing the person who hurt them, they generalize their revengeful feelings to an entire group, whether women or whites or blacks or some other group. Edmund Kemper III wanted to hurt rich people, members of the upper class, as he believed he had suffered being poor. Mark Essex’s goal was to kill white people, as he believed he suffered racial discrimination. James Huberty targeted Hispanic people, shooting people indiscriminately in a McDonald’s restaurant in California, blaming them for his unemployment. Hatred towards women seems a common theme with many serial killers. Killers like Albert Desalvo and Theodor Bundy sexually abused women, used them as objects of lust and then killed them. In them, hatred towards women was very deep rooted.

From a psychological point of view, for serial killers and mass murderers a human being becomes an abstraction, a symbol, and a metaphor. They kill for the sake of killing. They turn killing into a destructive art and their hearts turn into stone. A musical group sang

Once that you’ve decided on a killing
First you make a stone of your heart
And if you find that your hands are still willing
You can turn murder into art

(“Synchronicity” by The Police 1983)

After interviewing mass murderer Javed Iqbal Moghal in 2000 in his death cell in Kot Lukhpat Jail in Lahore Pakistan, I reviewed the literature on serial killers and mass murderers and was shocked to find that America had the highest rate of serial killers in the world.

Steve Egger wrote, “America produces proportionately more of these killers than any other nation on earth.” And Elliot Layton stated, “…their numbers do continue to grow at a disturbing rate; until the 1960s they were anomalies who appeared perhaps once a decade, but by the 1980s, one was spawned virtually each month. Today, according to unofficial US Justice Department estimates, there may be as many as one hundred multiple murderers killing in America, stealing the lives of thousands.”

It is fascinating to observe the evolution of American society over the last century. One can see the best and the worst of the whole world in United States of America. People from all over the world have been trying to immigrate to America, as though it were the modern “promised land”. In this land of eminent scientists, avant-garde artists and Oscar award winning actors and directors, we also see the worst serial killers and mass murderers. For some their dreams come true and for others they turn into violent nightmares.

Mental health professionals who have worked in psychiatric hospitals have found that serial killers or mass murderers who suffer from mental illnesses might respond over time to the right medications and therapy. However, those with a psychopathic personality disorder with no conscience usually spend many years in prison, as both the legal system and the mental health system are ill equipped to cope with them. They are very difficult to treat.

The Virginia Tech School tragedy is the tip of the iceberg. It highlights the mental state not only of the murderer and the community but also of all of humanity. It is sad that in the 21st century we are living in a violent world where human life is unsafe not only on the battleground but also in homes, schools and universities. The Middle Eastern student who made the video with his cell phone on the campus that morning told Larry King that he had left the Middle East and come to America because of such violence and now he was seeing the same violence in America.