Genesee River Killer | Arthur Shawcross | Mental Health & Personality

welcome to my scientifically informed insider look at mental health topics if you find this video to be interesting or helpful please like it and subscribe to my channel hello this is dr. grande today's question asks what can analyze the mental health and personality factors that may be at work in the author Shawcross case he's also known as the Genesee River killer Arthur Shawcross was a serial killer who was active in the state of New York in 1972 and then again in 1988 and 1989 just a reminder I'm not diagnosing any blame this video only speculating about what could be happening in a situation like this so first a look at author's background then the timeline of the crimes moved to the trial and then the mental health and personality factors so starting with the background we see that Arthur was born in Kittery Maine on June 6 1945 he was one month premature it was later theorized that he had XYY syndrome so he had an extra Y chromosome most people with this condition have normal intelligence but their intelligence is often lower than that of their siblings author would be the oldest of four siblings authors mother moved to Watertown New York as his father finished his time with the military at age five Arthur was still using baby talk and he had frequent bedwetting and nightmares at age six he started running away from home in school the teachers characterized him as lazy he was aggressive and would bully other children he started talking to imaginary friends at age seven and by age eight he was isolated in school and was referred to as odd in third grade at age nine his grades started to suffer he had earned A's and B's up till that point now we see around this time he also sustained a head injury he was hit in the head with a stone he required hospitalization and stitches he experienced numbness as a result of this for years and had a permanent knot on his head not long after this he sustained another head injury and he was hospitalized but he was released shortly thereafter because they determined that he was okay his mother discovered that author's father had another wife and son in Australia right that newse could certainly cause tension in a marriage author had to repeat fourth grade during this time he was buoyed and he was still bullying younger children his levels of aggression increased and he began stealing an intelligence test given to him at this time revealed an IQ of 86 so one standard deviation would be 15 points so he's almost one standard deviation below the mean a few years after his arrest he was tested again at age 48 and he had a score of 95 page 13 his family moved to Brownsville New York when Arthur was 15 he failed the eighth grade at this point we see all three elements of the Macdonald triad at one time so this is the idea that there are certain characteristics that point to psychopathy we see that he was still wetting the bed he started torturing small animals and he started setting fires those three elements are the Macdonald triad in addition his level of violence increased even more and he continued to use baby talk at age 16 he sustained another head injury he was knocked unconscious for several hours he spent 4 days in the hospital his criminality escalated to burglary he would drop out of high school at 17 and at age 18 he was arrested for breaking into a Sears store he was sentenced to 18 months of probation at this point he sustained yet another head injury after being hit with a sledgehammer he has a really dangerous life here again he was knocked unconscious for several hours now he was married in 1964 his wife divorced him in 1965 because he was violent he relinquished paternal rights to a son it was a year and a half old Arthur was arrested again at age 20 he physically attacked a 13 year old for hitting his car with a snowball he received six months probation for this crime mental health professionals who evaluated him said that he had emotionally unstable personality he was drafted into the Army in 1966 at first he didn't do well in that environment but eventually he seemed to calm down a bit he sustained another head injury there by falling off of a 40-foot ladder in September 1967 he married his second wife the next month he would go to Vietnam and serve as a supply parts specialist he claimed to have been a one-man patrol in Vietnam and that he killed 39 combatants and also murdered women it turns out that none of that was true he completed one tour and was discharged from the Army in 1969 not long after this he physically attacked his second wife and they divorced shortly after that around the same time he set a fire at a paper mill and at a cheese company in December 1969 he was convicted of arson and sentenced to five years in prison he was paroled from prison less than two years later because he saved the life of a prison official during a riot he moved to Watertown New York after this in April 1972 he married for the third time May 7 1972 he murdered and sexually assaulted a ten year old male Jack Blake about five months later he did the same thing to an eight year old female karenann Hill police could not tie him to the Blake murder but a police dog led the authorities right to his house from where Hills body was found he was also seen with Hill right before her death he was arrested in October of 1972 but the police couldn't get a high-quality confession so they are a little unsure about their case the prosecutor let Arthur plead to manslaughter if he confessed to both crimes he did that and he received an indeterminate sentence with a maximum of 25 years in prison while in prison he divorced his third wife he was physically violent toward other inmates and he refused mental health treatment at least initially in prison the mental health professionals characterized Arthur as a schizoid psychopath after 14 years in prison the parole board was not comfortable releasing him any mental health clinicians thought he was dangerous even still he was paroled in April of 1987 because of the types of crimes he had committed his parole officer had difficulty finding him a place to live there was a lot of outrage in the community he ended up moving Arthur quite a few times because of this and he ended up in Rochester New York with his new girlfriend Rose Wally by the end of 1987 Arthur then 42 was already having affair with a 56 year old woman named Clara Neil do the problems finding him a place to live the authorities decided to seal his criminal record later all and we see this becomes a significant problem now moving to March 15 1988 Arthur murders a prostitute named Dorothy Blackburn he dumps her body in the Genesee River July 8 1988 he murders a 28 year old female Anna Stefan over 1 year later on July 29 1989 he murders a former housekeeper 59 year-old Dorothy Keller Arthur and Rose get married in 1989 they invited a lot of people to the wedding reception but only two people showed up so here we see a real disconnect Arthur didn't understand what other people thought of him he didn't realize that because of his past crimes that might discourage people from wanting to attend his wedding because of this lack of understanding he was probably angry when people didn't show up he didn't understand why they would not like him Arthur would kill nine more times in 1989 once in September twice in October 3 times in November and three times in December so here we see a pattern of escalation the first murder in November was a 22 year old female named Maria Welch she was found with dirt and leaves in her throat just like what was seen in the Karen and Hill case the eight year old that he killed 1972 if his criminal records had not been sealed the police could have identified him after this murder so that would have probably closed this case a lot sooner and save lives his second to last murder victim was a 34 year old female named June Cicero he killed her on December 18 he left her body on top of the ice under a bridge in January 1990 a police helicopter spotted Arthur parked on that bridge he had returned to visit that body as he did with several other victims Arthur was arrested a few days later now moving to his trial after his arrest Arthur confessed so the trial really became about his mental health his defense asserted that Arthur did not know the difference between right and wrong amazingly there were mental health professionals who believed Arthur they thought that his combination of the XYY syndrome a brain abnormality his traumatic experiences when he was young and his alleged combat experience in Vietnam made him not responsible for the murders they went so far as to say that had some sort of partial seizure disorder which meant that when he was under stress he would completely black out commit these murders and then he would return to normal so conveniently he wouldn't remember any of the crimes he had committed he would simply come out of the seizure and see this dead body next to him not knowing how it got there now instead of calling the police at this point Arthur hides the body and visits the body repeatedly and then he goes that again and puts himself in the same circumstance and this happens eleven different times and at no point during this time period did he think maybe I shouldn't be going out anymore clearly he fabricated this whole idea of the blackout and it's genuinely frightening that the mental health professionals believe this story they also attempted to hypnotize him and it seems fairly clear that he manipulated them through that process as well fabricating stories of mistreatment when he was young that could not be corroborated the jury was not impressed with this defense they found Arthur guilty of 10 counts of second-degree murder after deliberating for just a half-hour he was sentenced to 250 years in prison a few months later he went to face trial for a murder that happened in different County but he pled guilty and was sentenced to life in prison for that murder July 10 1997 Arthur now 52 married Claire and Neal 66 he had an affair with her at the end of 1987 as I mentioned before when asked about the marriage Clara said it was nice and all it took ten years to make the grade but I finally did it I didn't know there was a way to have standards that are somehow less than having no standards at all it's like some type of anti standard this type of mentality is consistent with somebody being offered a job at $20 an hour and saying no I'll pay you $20 an hour to work here and if the working conditions are hazardous I'll pay you 25 we also see that Arthur had a daughter they know about she established a relationship with him when he was in prison and she made certain that her children had a relationship with him Arthur Shawcross died of cardiac arrest on November 10 2008 he was 63 years old now moving to the mental health and personality factors Arthur's behavior seems to align pretty well with antisocial personality disorder we see all seven symptom criteria are met criminality pathological lying impulsivity aggression a disregard for safety irresponsibility and a lack of remorse he also had symptoms of conduct disorder before the age of 15 which is another requirement for that disorder his behavior aligns closely with secondary psychopathy in addition to its already covered under antisocial personality he also had a parasitic lifestyle a lack of long-term goals and excitement-seeking his behavior featured enough primary psychopathy characteristics to allow him to manipulate people for example when he managed to talk his way out of jail also from primary psychopathy he had pathological lying a lack of empathy and a failure to accept responsibility the lying really stood out with Arthur it seems as though he lied whenever he talked it's likely he lied about many of the experiences he had when he was a child he lied about his time in Vietnam and he made up stories to justify why he felt he had to kill each of his victims for example he said one victim tried to steal his wallet another wouldn't stop talking one attacked him and a few made fun of him this making up stories part really points to vulnerable narcissism he didn't want to be judged as a typical serial killer he wanted to be judged as somebody who was justified in killing he experienced a lot of shame could not tolerate criticism and like being the center of attention now we see in an interview he did he wouldn't talk about the 1972 murse he avoided that topic completely probably because it deviated from this narrative he was trying to portray I think the same thing happened when he discussed how he was spotted that day on the bridge by the helicopter people are supposed to believe that he was just standing there with his pants down on that bridge randomly he completely forgot that he killed somebody and put their body under that bridge he just couldn't admit that he went back to visit that body this again connected with typical serial killer behavior and he didn't want people seeing him that way this is really just more evidence that his manipulation skills are very basic but because there are those who will believe anything he was still able to deceive quite a few people now earlier I mentioned that mental health professionals had used the word schizoid to describe Arthur they said schizoid psychopath and I think this is a little confusing I'm not sure what they were seeing to label him schizoid people have schizoid personality are loners they don't want sexual contact with other people they don't maintain friends they kind of say to themselves and usually they're fairly diligent and their work they tend to choose occupations where they can stay isolated but again usually they do a good job I don't really see Arthur's personality as aligning with schizoid personality pathology I think antisocial explains his behavior much better maybe when he was in prison again because he didn't talk to those professionals too much they just thought okay he's trying to remain isolated he wants to say to himself and they label him as schizoid very rarely do we see people with schizoid personality becoming serial killers this isn't common at all so this is interesting how they kind of put that in there but I don't think it really ties to the personality that he had Arthur pretty much checked every box that one would expect with the serial killer he had psychopathy he had a history of head injuries sexual dysfunction all three behaviors in the Macdonald triad he was aggressive when he was young including being a bully and he had poor relationships with women it's really not surprising he went on to murder 13 people it's a tragedy that law enforcement wasn't able to stop him sooner and it was a tragedy that the mental health professionals could not keep him in prison for longer so we see a lot of mistakes here that were made that allowed him to go on and commit these crimes I know whenever I talk about true crime cases there will be a variety of opinions please put any opinions and thoughts in the comment section they always generate an interesting dialogue as always I hope you found my analysis of this topic to be interesting thanks for watching

Channel: Dr. Todd Grande

Views: 61,642

Keywords: Arthur shawcross, genesee river killer, Rochester, serial killer, five-factor model, antisocial personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, factor 1 psychopathy, factor 2 psychopathy, sociopathy, grandiose narcissism, mental health, counseling

Id: dMkG2u9YdzQ

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2020