Psychological Personality Profile of the Killer of the boy in the box

Friday, February 25, 2000

Without several hours of clinical interview with the perpetrator of this crime and a complete battery of psychological tests, any profile is bound to be tentative. However, when an act such as this happens everyone is shocked. They try to figure out just how something like this can occur.

Clearly this was done by someone who was deeply troubled and consumed with rage. Rage is an emotion born of deep hurt, pain, and self-hate. This crime was committed, therefore, by someone who felt a great deal of shame, which is a feeling of 'not being good enough.' That self- loathing often becomes righteous and then gets projected outward, many times 'spilling' onto innocent people around them. The person often tries to repress these feelings until, finally, they just explode.

After the explosion, they often feel deep regret, which might account for the meticulous cleaning and grooming of the body of the child. It is even possible that this was a highly concrete and fundamentally religious person who felt that they were doing God's work.

Therefore, it is possible that the person is highly delusional even though probably not clinically psychotic.

Often a person like this is really taking out the anger they feel for themselves on the victim without any clear idea of what makes them so enraged. It leaves the rest of us bewildered and deeply perplexed by such a senseless and brutal act. The amazing thing is that this dynamic happens, to a certain extent, with most people, but in a much less dramatic and less abusive way. We often take out our anger and shame for ourselves on others by more verbal means rather than physical actions.

I certainly thought a family member might have been involved, although strangers who are really twisted (and full of shame and rage) can do these kind of things, too, looking at the victim as part of their 'extended family' if their boundaries are poor enough.

We wish to thank Dr. Jef Gazley M.S. for giving us this insight into what kind of personality could commit this crime.