Beautiful Malice

James, Rebecca. Beautiful Malice: A Novel. New York: Bantam, 2010. Print.

I read the book Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James.  The book revolves around the character Katherine Patterson.  Who has moved to a new city, changed her name and enrolled in a new school, all to escape her past.  Before the incident, Katherine had it all.  She was popular in school, had many friends, went to parties and had a boyfriend.  She even went by the name Katie.  The incident that occurred happened at a party that Katie was at.  Her sister, Rachel, who was only 12 begged Katie to let her come to the party.  Little did Katie know what was going to happen next.  Rachel ended up in a car with four unknown boys; she was completely drunk.  Since Katie was also drunk she need to find a ride home for her and Rachel.  Katie accepts the offer from the unknown boys to drive them home because her efforts to get Rachel to stand and walk are denied.  The ride home goes horribly wrong.  The boys drugged Rachel, drove the girls out in the middle of nowhere.  The leader locks Katie in a shed, but she finds a way to escape only to find the boys raping her sister.  Afraid that they will do the same to her, Katie runs to the nearest source of light for help.  Rachel ends up dead.  The media coverage of the case is unbearable.  To escape the media and try and forget her past, Katie changes her name to Katherine Patterson, moves to a new city, and enrolls in a new school.  While at the school she ends up becoming friends with the most popular girl in school, Alice.  But this relationship with Alice proves to be nothing but deadly, with twists and turns that even I didn't see coming. 

I absolutely loved this book!  My sister recommended that I read it because she said that it was good.  This book is a really good intro to my topic about psychology because this book is very psychological.  The fact that Katherine blames herself for her sisters murder makes for a compelling and haunting story.  I loved how the author picked such a rateable topic that many teenagers may be going through; it may not be as traumatic as murder but still a traumatic event in their life.  The interesting character in the story though is Alice.  In the beginning she is the popular girl, very outgoing and charismatic.  But Katherine soon finds out that Alice is a manipulative bitch.  Yet despite all that Alice has put Katherine through, she still deems Alice her friend.  Until Alice starts harassing her with things about the incident with Rachel.  Alice is an interesting person to observe because she exhibits many different behaviors.  This is how the book relates to my project about criminal profiling and forensic psychology; I want to know what compels people to do certain things and in the end of the book you find out what Alices' motives were.  Making the story that much creepier and engaging. 

Inside the Mind of a Sadistic Serial Rapist and Criminal

Video:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5ILlOXzVTg

In this Youtube video, retired FBI agent Peter Smerick talks about what it's like to be a criminal profiler.  He discusses how important criminal profiling can be in apprehending a criminal.  Criminal profiling was very prominent in the apprehension of the notorious James Mitchell DeBardelben.  He was known as "The Mall Passer." He was wanted by the secret service because he was counterfeiting twenty dollar bills.  What he would do was go from mall to mall and buy cheap items that only costed him around 2-3 dollars.  He would pay with the fake twenties and receive real money in return.  He was eventually apprehended, but was also charged with multiple other offenses like rape, kidnapping, and bank robbing.  He was active over an 18-year span.  Towards the end of the video is when we learn about why DeBardelben did what he did.  Smerick talks about how some of the women that he raped and murdered resembled his mother.  Smerick then makes the connection that DeBardelben must have had hated feelings towards his mother.

When I was watching this video and they mentioned James Mitchell DeBardelben as "The Mall Passer" I immediately recognized the name from my non-fiction book.  In my book, they only talked about him counterfeiting the money, not the fact that he also raped women.  I guess it just goes to show you that people can change who they are, and what they are into.  Peter Smerick mentioned in the video that many killers will change what they do because they aren't getting the same release or feeling out of it.  Which I think applies to everyone.  If you aren't that into playing basketball, then you aren't going to want to play it anymore, and so maybe you try playing a different sport.  We all go through phases, and some people just take them to the extreme.  

Inside the Mind of a Sadistic Serial Rapist and Criminal. Prod. Youtube. Perf. Peter Smerick. YouTube. YouTube, 14 July 2011. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Exploring the Mind of a Killer

Video:
 http://www.ted.com/talks/jim_fallon_exploring_the_mind_of_a_killer.html

This TED talk discussed the mind's of killers.  Jim Fallon gave this talk about the minds of killers, and talked about how he analyzes the brains of psychopaths along with brains of normal people; the people don't tell him what kind of brain he is looking at.  Three of the things he has noticed while looking at these brains is the interaction of genes, brain damage and the environment, and how all three of these things tie together.  The timing of when each of these things occurs is how you end up with a psychopathic killer.  He goes on to explain how all the brains that belonged to murderer's and serial killers all had damage to their orbital cortex, and contained the major violence gene called MAO-A.  This gene is sex-linked and is usually passed on by the mother to her off-spring.  Fallon also states how childhood experiences contribute a lot to the environment component.

I found this TED talk very informational.  It is always good to hear the biological understanding of what makes a psychopath a psychopath.  I agree with Fallon on how timing is everything, because when you are younger you encode traumatic situations a lot differently than an adult would.  And with the MAO-A violence gene, I was watching a CSI: episode and this serial killer was on trial and the killers lawyer was trying to blame the murders he committed on the fact that he had this MAO-A violence gene.  But it also turned out that one of the characters working for the crime lab also has that violence gene and he went on the stand and said how you can still have the gene and not kill people.  Overall this was a very good TED talk and it is full of good scientific information.

Exploring the Mind of a Killer. Prod. TED Talks. Perf. Jim Fallon. TED: Ideas worth Spreading. TED Conferences, LLC, Feb. 2009. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Psychology of Evil

Video:
 http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html

This TED talk was about evil.  The talk was given by Philip Zimbardo who discussed how easy it is for nice people to turn evil.  He uses the examples of what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison and shares the results of his own 1971 Stanford Prison Study.  In both cases the people conformed to the roles they were in, causing them to make choices that aren't socially acceptable.  Zimbardo ends his talk by talking about how easy it is to be a hero, and how anyone can do it.

I found this TED talk very engaging.  Especially since Philip Zimbardo was giving the talk because he experienced this happen first hand.  It is crazy to think that people can conform to certain roles in society and act in certain ways to play out those roles.  You try and say to yourself that you would never do something like that, but how do you know for sure.  If you were in a situation like that of the prison study or the Iraqi prison you too may fall into the conformity of the situation at hand.

The Psychology of Evil. Prod. TED Talks. Perf. Philip Zimbardo. TED: Ideas worth Spreading. TED  Conferences, LLC, Feb. 2008. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Serial Killer Poses as Nurse

Podcast:
 http://www.npr.org/2013/04/15/177029738/pretending-to-be-a-good-nurse-serial-killer-targeted-patients

In New Jersey, an arrested hospital nurse named Charlie Cullen was suspected of injecting patients with lethal doses of a variety of medications.  Cullen turned out to be a serial killer, murdering possibly hundreds of people in nine different hospitals over a 16 year period.  A journalist by the name of Charles Graeber spent six years investigating the Cullen case.  Graeber wrote the book, The Good Nurse, where he pieces together the elements of Cullen's story.  During the podcast, the host has Charles Graeber as a guest on his show, and they talk about his book and all the different facts Graeber learned about Cullen.  They also talked about why he may have done the things he did by referencing his hard childhood. 

This podcast was very interesting.  I found it very enjoyable to listen too and it kept me engaged.  The information that is talked about really helps my project about why people kill and what is going on in killers heads.  They really get into the psychological part of Charlie Cullen and I think that is a good thing.  Even though he was a serial killer, they reference how good of a nurse he was because he was a serial killer.  He would take risks and do the things that others wouldn't because they were afraid of failure.  I read an article that I posted about how serial killers may be working right along side the rest of us and this real life event supports that claim. 

Graeber, Charles. "Pretending To Be A 'Good Nurse' Serial Killer Targeted Patients." Audio blog post. NPR. NPR, 15 Apr. 2013. Web. 19 Apr. 2013.

Criminal Profiling Lecture

Lecture:
 Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQFcjHb6JjM
 Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwcuR_5-V_Q
 Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVZmS51fdWU
 Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_1fy15TqZs
 Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3N_8wP7uls

This lecture that I found on Youtube is about criminal profiling.  Since the lecture is broken up into parts I while summarize what Eric Silk talks about in each segment.  In Part 1, he starts off the presentation by talking about the orgins of profiling and goes through the first systematic profile done by James Brussel of George Metesky.  In Part 2, Silk talks about the BSU (Behavioral Science Unit).  Recommends two books to read.  This is were he gets into the definitions of profiling; there are four different definitions that he talks about.  He ends the part by sharing a personal story about profiling.  In Part 3 you learn about Modus Operandi, or most widely known as MO or mode of operation.  Eric Silk tells another story related to MO.  Then he goes on to talk about the signature aspects to a crime.  The different signatures done by the criminals and how that helps create a profile.  In Part 4 you learn about the three different crime scene categories: organized, disorganized and a mix of both.  In Part 5, he talks about polygraphs, lie detector tests and hypnosis.  That concludes his lecture on criminal profiling. 

I found this lecture particularly interesting.  A lot of the content Silk talked about, is covered in the non-fiction book I'm reading.  But that isn't a bad thing because while watching this lecture you get to hear a lot of stories that are related to what he is teaching.  It was really funny how the first thing Silk talks about is how there is no such job as a profiler.  It is a made up profession for TV.  What a profiler does is limitament but the actual job title doesn't exist.  My favorite part would have to be Part 3, because that is when you learn about why a criminal does what he does.  It is the more psychological way of figuring out who the criminals are.  You get to know who they are on a deeper level and understand them.    

PSYC 2450 Criminal Profiling 2-1. Dir. Eric Silk. Perf. Eric Silk. Youtube. Youtube, 23 May 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.
PSYC 2450 Criminal Profiling 2-2. Dir. Eric Silk. Perf. Eric Silk. Youtube. Youtube, 24 May 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.
PSYC 2450 Criminal Profiling 2-3. Dir. Eric Silk. Perf. Eric Silk. Youtube. Youtube, 24 May 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.
PSYC 2450 Criminal Profiling 2-4. Dir. Eric Silk. Perf. Eric Silk. Youtube. Youtube, 24 May 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.
PSYC 2450 Criminal Profiling 2-5. Dir. Eric Silk. Perf. Eric Silk. Youtube. Youtube, 24 May 2011. Web. 15 Apr. 2013.

What is Considered Normal?

Reisz, Matthew. "Culture: The Subject of Murder." Times Higher Education. N.p., 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 10 Apr. 2013.

This article was written very differently than all my other articles.  The article talked about how society's prejudices, spoken and unspoken, have influenced how we perceive people's actions.  In the early part of the article, the author talks about being normal and what we perceive as normal.  We just assume that people who kill others aren't normal because.... Because why?  People have been calling people murderers for a long time, so our society has just grown up with knowing what is normal and what isn't.  The article discusses how the different stereotypes we have know, were around a long time ago.  Back then, people who killed children were the lowest of the low.  And today those people still are.  The basis of this article is to reveal that culture also has an impact on criminals and their behavior.

This article was written at a very high level, so there were many words that I had to look up.  But for the most part this article was very, very good.  It went about crime differently than all my other articles.  The author looked at societies prejudices and how that was linked to criminals and their behavior.  It was refreshing to read something different.  The article made me stop and think a few times because I had never thought about the topic that way before.  Overall the article was very well-written and I would recommend it.