Summary Of The Documentary 'Child Of Rage'

A man by the name of Jeffery Dohmer would drill holes in to the heads of young men and then fill it with sulfuric acid in an attempt to create a zombie like person. He did this in order to fulfill his fantasy, one where the men he was attracted to would never leave him. He did not do it out of anger or revenge but because he had an over-powering desire to do so. Many before Dohmer such as Theodor Bundy and Albert De Silva acted on desire and impulse as well. This led many researches such as scientists, criminologists and psychologists to try and put together pieces of the puzzle. They wanted to discover the reason behind what led these serial killers to commit such heinous murders and why they’ve become such violent human beings. This brought scientists to two possible thoughts, were serial killers born with a predetermined gene that creates a tendency towards homicidal thoughts or do they become murders from growing up in unusual circumstances as children? This led to many studies that try to find answers by figuring out whether it is nurture or nature that creates these psychokillers.
Although it is important to

understand what makes killers such vicious individuals, it is also important to know what defines a serial killer and what makes them so different from homicidal killers. A major difference between the two is motive. It begs the question, “what motivates each to kill?” Homicidal kills usually occur under special and personal circumstances such as financial gain or financial difficulties, dispute between family members, a quarrel between partners or gang violence. For these type of killers, there is a cause, one that wouldn’t necessarily promote them to kill again.
“A psychokiller, I should make clear, is not a regular murderer. A murderer has a vendetta, a nice specific personal thing against his victim” (Corin 188). Serial killers aren’t like homicidal murderers, unlike them, serial killers possess an instinctual tendency to kill, one that is filled with drive and desire to satisfy their urges. According to James Alan Fox, serial killers have a need to fulfill their fantasies that involve sexual desires that are far from normal. This leads them to choose complete strangers as their victims. Grover Godwin, a man who profiles serial killers found through his own research which include FBI records that 90% of victims of a serial killer are complete strangers, 3% are acquaintances and 1% are family members (Fox 105). This makes it extremely difficult to apprehend a serial killer. It makes it much harder for investigators to hunt down murderers when there isn’t a link between the killer and the victim.
According to Berit Brogaard D.M.Sci., Ph.D, serial killers can be born with a gene that determines whether or not the person is a psychopath. A Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart, declared, based on their research that 60% of psychopaths have inherited the mental disorders. I talk about psychopaths because many serial killers are psychopaths although this does not mean that all psychopaths are serial killers.
A study by the University of Wisconsin, Madison which was led by Dr. Richard Davidson looks further into this when they use medical testing such as a brain scan to further access the differences psychopaths have compared to a normal scan. What they found is that there is a decrease in the connection between the amygdala and a subcortical structure in a psychopathic criminal’s brain. This part of the brain that they have low activity in, processes negative stimuli and the ventromedial prefontal cortex. So when this region is acting with low sufficiency, it means that the person will not have any strong negative emotions when they are embarrassed for example. This is associated with what defines psychopaths and it makes a lot of sense. When someone does something bad for example and is called out on it in an embarrassing way it has an effect on a non-psychopathic person which may lead them to feeling angry, feeling nervous or feeling bad. But in the case of psychopaths, they feel very little emotionally, which in turn makes them respond differently. Psychopaths can feel physical pain but cannot feel emotional pain even if it is directed towards them. The study was compiled of 500 people’s brain scan, some of which were convicted with murder. They were compared to people who were considered normal. Results found that murderers who were aggressive and had an antisocial disorder showed different, distinct brain activity compared to normal people. The study suggests that it may be possible that serial killers have a genetic makeup that caused them to be violent in a way that led to murder. The brain scan revealed something different in the orbital frontal cortex, the anterior cingulated cortex and the amygdale. These areas are responsible for violent emotions, fear and distress.
The scans showed in the case of normal individuals that the orbital frontal cortex kept them in control of their impulses and the amygdale controls how they react to fear, it also showed that the anterior cingulated cortex was better when dealing with a problem. But in the case of serial killers, the orbital frontal cortex along with the anterior cingulated cortex either wasn’t there or was barely active and the amygdale that controls how fearful an individual is stayed at the same level or higher than normal individuals.
Brain scans show a possibility that a serial killer genetic makeup may exist, but does that make impossible that the environment in which they grew up in had no significant role in what they have become? Many still argue about this, scientists believing that serial killers are genetically inclined while many criminologists and psychologists still believe it to be due to the environment in which the child was raised.
According Jeffrey Dohmer’s father, Jeffrey was "Very exuberant, he liked to wrestle, liked to run around, ham it up for the camera and he liked to play with kids and get together with them.” Jeffrey seemed to come from a healthy middle class family. It wasn’t until after several moves and his parents’ marriage falling apart did Jeffrey retreat socially making him more withdrawn. It was during this age of about 14 that Dahmer retreated to the woods where he would play with animal carcasses. He also, at this point realized he was attracted to men which his family’s faith considered it to be wrong. It was believed that Dahmer was born and appeared to be emotionally stable and caring which changed as he got older under environmental conditions. The characteristics that….
Can children with early serial tendencies be rehabilitated? Can they be saved?
The documentary called “Child of Rage” gives a ray of hope for abused children’s recovery.

The documentary films the therapy sessions of a girl Beth. Beth is a girl who, along with her younger brother was adopted at 16 months old by a pastor and his wife. A few months after the children’s adoption, the pastor and his wife started to notice odd behaviors from their children. By the age of 6 Beth, who exhibited nightmares would constantly torment her brother using physical and sexual abuse. In the documentary, Beth openly talks about how she would not only like to hurt her brother but she would like to kill him along with her parents. By that age Beth would hurt the house pet, kill baby birds of a tree near their home and masturbate constantly. It was later revealed, through the dreams she’d been having, the level of abuse she endured as a

child.
In Beth’s dream, her birth biological father would molest and rape her. She was a year old and for Beth, this caused distress and an attachment disorder…….