Compulsion to Kill

COMPULSION

TO KILL

Stephen C. Challis

Revised Edition

2024

Authors Note

The Human brain is a complex organ, more sophisticated than the most powerful computer in existence.  With it, we think, reason, love, hate, and problem solve.  Some of us wrestle with the wonders of science and the workings of the universe, some on the best way to feed themselves and their family in the coming days.  But when that brain starts to malfunction, then the results can be catastrophic.  This book takes you into the dark recesses of the mind of those who commit mass murder against the most vulnerable members of our society, our children.  What makes a seemingly normal, gifted teenager turn into a robotic killing machine? 

In this book, we will delve into the minds of pure evil, Adam Lanza, Jared Lee Loughner, Thomas Hamilton, James Holmes, and Andrew Kehoe. As for gun control, we have another problem.  At Sandy Hook, the killer, Adam Lanza, used guns he did not own.  He took them from his dead mother and used her car to get to the School where he performed the assault.  As at Dunblane, his victims were children in the first and second grade.  Reports showed he had an addiction to violent video games, was unpopular at school, and possibly had mental issues.  It is fair to say that he fits the same psychological profile as the other subjects in this book. 

No doubt, everyone will have ideas as to how we proceed.  As happened after Dunblane, many are clamoring for more gun-laws and even an outright ban.  But those same people have no credible response as to how to keep guns from people who are lawbreakers. 

Until we are prepared to protect our children while at school with real workable solutions, as opposed to political rhetoric, we will continue to have other Sandy Hooks, but the problem is wider than that.  What about the politically motivated killer or the religious zealot, and those who expect to die and are likely to kill themselves to avoid capture, as we saw in California and Nevada?  In this book, I do not claim to have the answers, but I have displayed the problem as it is.  Based on the widely accepted premise that until we recognize there is a problem, we cannot hope to tackle it. 

Stephen C. Challis

Table of Contents

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Introduction

Chapter 1 - The Bath Massacre 1927

Chapter 2 - The Pseudo Commando

Chapter 3 - Inside the Mind of the Killers

Chapter 4 - Medical Diagnosis

Chapter 5 - The Role of the Media

Chapter 6 - Mass killings in Europe

Chapter 7 - So Why Wasn’t Anything Done?

Chapter 8 - So What Can Be Done?

PART 2  Other Motivations to Commit Murder

PART 3  The Rise of the Domestic Terrorist

Forward

Compulsion to Kill

Forward by Robert M. Ekes, M.A.

When we hear of an atrocity such as a mass murder in a mall, or a theater, or of someone’s murderous rampage against children in a school, it affects us all.  We recoil in shock, disbelief, horror, and with many questions.  What exactly happened?  How did it happen?  How was it allowed to happen?  And most importantly, what can be done to stop it from happening again?

In my own 25 year career as a clinical mental health therapist and consultant, I treated many children, adolescents, and adults.  I have been struck by the level of aggression and violence displayed by some people and I made efforts to study and research the origins of such aggressive behavior.  Some of the research findings seem like common sense, yet I am frequently dismayed that they don’t appear to be recognized or utilized.

Upon reading Compulsion to Kill, I was gratified to see that Stephen Challis is also aware of the research that I had seen in my own reviews of the professional literature.  He discusses the findings and their significance.  Mr. Challis also presents much more valuable information that we need to know as we search for answers and for antidotes to shocking violence that we see in our headlines.

Stephen Challis is uniquely qualified to present the information to us.  He resides in Kentucky, USA and he is very aware of the American concerns regarding violence and firearms.  He discusses some events that I am sure many of us were not even aware of.

Mr. Challis’ 21-year career as a police officer in the United Kingdom gives him the perspective to tell us about incidents in Europe and elsewhere that we commonly are not aware of.  He is aware of other countries’ firearms policies and their results, which many of us do not know.  His law enforcement career perhaps contributes to his accessible style of writing that is clear, concise, factual, logical and very readable.

This book examines a number of significant mass murder incidents through history both in this country and in other countries.  It presents the facts on how much violence we do experience as a culture and how this has changed over time.  It explores the professional thinking about the mental health issues, motivations, and the personality traits of those who perpetrate mass murder. It acknowledges the complexities of trying to address those mental health issues.  Also discussed is the role of the media in the public’s perception of these tragedies and of firearms.  It discusses some of the effects that the media and entertainment can have on the perpetrators themselves. 

The book presents and evaluates some of the efforts that have been made around the world to address the problem of gun violence.  Included is a discussion of the rate of gun ownership in 169 different countries, including the USA, and how this correlates with incidents of gun homicide.  Most importantly, this book discusses things that can be done to address the risk of murderous violence.  This is, after all, what we all want when we address this subject. 

The information presented in this book is information that you need to know.  As the political rhetoric escalates like it does after every horrific incident, the same questions are asked:  What will stop this?  Is armed security or gun bans the answer?  The discussion of gun violence is frequently a single pointed discussion about the guns and often not about the violence, which is, after all, what it is really all about.  The discussions are often emotional and they are sometimes conducted without important relevant information. 

In ‘Compulsion to Kill’, the information that may be omitted by those who are promoting one or another viewpoint is available to you.  This important book can help us understand and be productive participants in the discussion of how to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from the atrocity of violence.

Robert M. Ekes, M.A., MSW, LCSW

Kentucky Licensed Clinical Social Worker 

Winchester, Kentucky 2013

Dedication

To all the victims that have perished by the hands of those that have a Compulsion to Kill.

Introduction

When I published the first edition of Compulsion to Kill in 2013, it quickly became one of my best sellers.  With help, no doubt, to being listed as a recommended read at several collages in Kentucky for criminal justice courses.  It also sold well with educators and even parents who were becoming increasingly concerned about the encroachment of social media and computer games on their children’s lives. 

But these influences are not just confined to the young American high school student.  The growth of the internet has had a profound effect on our society, both here and worldwide.  In this revised edition, I have included a new section that covers this phenomenon.

When there is a horrific incident in the country, or for that matter, anywhere in the world where numerous lives are lost as a result of the seemingly mindless act of one or two individuals; there is an inevitably of an outcry that something must be done.  If the killer or killers used a gun, then the clamor is for more gun control.  If no guns were used, then the demand is for some other law blame switches to the school; the background, the lack of supervision.  We hear of warning signs being ignored, of social conditions and restriction.  It appears blame is usually leveled anywhere but at the perpetrator. 

In fact, the likeliest persons to commit these crimes, according to domestic statistics, fall into one predictable group.  They're 95% male, and 98% are black or white - not a big surprise, since over 87% of the population is made up of those two races.  If the killers' profiles are all cut from the same cloth, then why is it that their crimes are not?  The best known, or at least, most lurid of the mass killers in recent history are Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jared Loughner, and James Holmes.  These are the archetypal serial murderers, the killers whose crimes defy comprehension.  Their crimes often play out over decades.  In most cases, people who commit such murders are driven by a dark, often sexual pleasure, and while remorse is often associated with the acts, which may account for the long lapses that can occur between them.  Those twinges of conscience are quickly overcome by the impulse to kill again.  There appears to be a charge, and a thrill associated with these murders.

That does not seem to be the case with a mass murderer who kills immediately.  Few people who are able to observe a killer such as Jeffery Dahmer at work and survive to testify about it.  But plenty of people present at shootings like those at Virginia Tech (2007), Columbine High School (1999), and Aurora (2012), who made it out alive.  They were able to describe the killer's demeanor as the shooting was taking place.  These accounts do not profile a person who is thrilled by, or even much enjoying, what they are doing.