News

Questions arise as details unfold into the tragic mass killing at Virginia Tech University.

Is it possible to predict who will become a killer?

Can we ever understand the motivation?

Are such horrible incidents becoming more commonplace?

Dr. Elliott Leyton, a Canadian authority on multiple murderers, was online on Tuesday to answer these questions and others. The forum was set up as a question-and-answer session, not one of our regular one-hour live discussions.

Answers from Dr. Leyton appear below.

Dr. Leyton is professor emeritus in forensic anthropology at Memorial University in Newfoundland, past president of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association and the author of five books on murder, the best known of which is Hunting Humans: The Rise of the Modern Multiple Murderer, published by McClelland and Stewart.

Editor's Note: We will follow the same general rules for this Q&A session as for our regular live discussions.

globeandmail.com editors will read and allow or reject each question/comment. Comments/questions may be edited for length or clarity. HTML is not allowed. We will not publish questions/comments that include personal attacks on participants in these discussions, that make false or unsubstantiated allegations, that purport to quote people or reports where the purported quote or fact cannot be easily verified, or questions/comments that include vulgar language or libellous statements. Preference will be given to readers who submit questions/comments using their full name and home town, rather than a pseudonym.

Some Guy from Canada writes: Are we looking at the growth in a new category of spree killers (i.e younger, premeditated, whose plans are well organized and executed)?

Dr. Elliott Leyton:Dear Some Guy: It is too early to tell if this is an entirely new category. We have certainly seen in recent years a surprisingly large number of younger spree killers, but the idea that "something just snapped" inside them and they started killing is incorrect. The vast majority of spree and serial killers have been nursing their grudges for long periods, fantasizing about what they should do in response to their frustrations, and working out plans for vengeance, often in sickening detail. When I was visiting the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, they showed me some of the future killers' notebooks. I wish they hadn't.

Emma Hawthorne from Canada writes: Hi Dr. Leyton: I would like to know whether keeping the identity of the shooter out of the media, at least for six months or so, would discourage future shooters? If no future shooter could count on a big media splash being left behind, would they be less inclined to carry out such a crime?

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Hi Emma Hawthorne: It is interesting that you raise this because it is something I myself have brooded about for a very long time, and I think you are right. We turn these killers into celebrities when we splash them in the media, thus courting emulation by younger vulnerable persons. Perhaps one good way of minimizing this is that we discuss them without names so they cannot be turned into heroes; while at the same time, we very much discuss the names and lives of the victims, thus humanizing them.

Indeed, if I had had my druthers, I would rewrite all my murder books to remove the names of all the killers.

Aman Hayer from Calgary, writes: Schools Shootings remain quite rare in Europe, yet in Canada and the United States they are becoming an increasingly common phenomenon. Gun Crime in general is lower in Europe than it is in Canada and the United States. What do you think explains the difference between Canada, the United State and Europe?

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Dear Aman Hayer: I'm not sure I would agree with you that school shootings are "quite rare in Europe." Indeed, I can recall a half dozen such incidents in France and Germany in the last few years.

I would pose your question slightly differently. Homicide in general (by gun or any other means) is lower in Europe and in Canada (the rates are remarkably similar) than it is in the United States, Russia, Argentina, and much of Latin America. How did Canada manage to maintain a low western European rate, while most of the nations south of the border have increasingly extravagant rates?

Daniella M from Canada writes: The details that seem to be emerging surrounding this recent tragedy suggest that the killer may have killed his girlfriend first and then proceeded to kill strangers. Is this a common occurrence? What about the initial murder of someone known would make someone emboldened to murder strangers? What kind of psychological leap is this?

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Dear Daniella M: It is very common among mass killers to first kill their intimates (wives, children, girlfriends) and then begin their spree of mass murder. The German Rampage Killer Wagner explained his personal reasons for doing so as he sat in the hospital for the criminally insane. He said he wanted to spare his wife and children any embarrassment or persecution for the many murders he was about to commit.

Other killers, like Whitman in the University of Texas Tower, seem to want to obliterate everything and everyone they hate, and they seem to make no distinctions between intimate family members and complete strangers who to him "represent" the institution he despises. Jack Levin and Jamie Fox talked about this effect in some detail when discussing the many murders in U.S. post offices, and remarked that in a sense the killer is "trying to kill the post office."

Anne Choy from Toronto writes: Dr. Leyton, do you feel that it will become more commonplace to have such violent incidents, because of disaffected youth/adults? Isn't it too simplistic when some people suggest video games are the problem? Millions of people play video games, but only a small percentage would go as far as to harm another human being, so why does this seem to happen more often, and are there any 'predictors' that would help people to know when to ask for help, for themselves, for their friends, or their families? Thank you!

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Dear Anne Choy: You are quite right to say that it is too simplistic to blame one aspect of society, like video games, as the root of this problem. In my generation the "Big Explanation For Bad Teens" was the existence of violent comic books. Later it was porn. Then drugs. But the evidence on all these things is extremely inconclusive.

Scholars have sought for many decades for reliable predictors to single out people who are about to kill and thus stop them. So far, we do not have any such achievements, and even if we did, civil rights legislation would probably make it impossible to enforce.

We have also struggled for decades to determine why one individual will react to a negative stimulus while hundreds of thousands exposed to the same stimulus would never harm a person.

Close friends and families, however, have an opportunity that no one else has to observe the intimacies of someone's deterioration. When the family is very concerned, they have an obligation to report it to the authorities and seek medical attention before something awful happens.

Chimp Anze from Mississauga writes: We are teaching our kids how to hunt and kill, evertime they play these video games. Companies that make these games of carnage should be brought to task.

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Dear Chimp Anze (sorry, but I love these names): The previous reader also asked about video games. I have not personally viewed any of the worst of them, but several theorists, including Bob Ratner at UBC, believe that items like this - including serial killer playing cards - while not necessarily being in themselves responsible for any single violent act, but taken together they contribute to an atmosphere of desensitization, in which developing disturbed adolescents come to think of violence as a kind of sexual sport.

Frankly, I think we should all be taken to task for every cruelty we have perpetrated, for every hour of poor parenting, for every rotten thing each of us has done at one time or another in our lives.

John Meech from Delta, B.C. writes: How can we recognize the type of person who might act in this way to attach so many innocent persons on our campuses?

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Hello John: Unfortunately, we cannot recognize the type of person who might act in this way, not in any reliable fashion at least. We can, however, monitor closely people who threaten to do harm to others and consider excluding them from campuses.

Greg Williams from Waterloo writes: My thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families. I'm curious, why are the people that commit these atrocities not afraid to take their own life in the process? Is their ability to commit such horrible acts of violence towards others facilitated by their knowledge that they are ready and willing to take their own life immediately afterwards? Or are 'the ability/desire to kill others' and 'the ability/desire to kill oneself' simply separate parts of the makeup of a sociopathic individual?

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Dear Greg: I don't think that there is any evidence that a sociopathic individual is any more prone to suicide than the rest of us. But these kinds of mass or rampage killers are people who have decided to commit suicide, but in doing so to kill as many as possible of the people (or the institution, or the social class, or the religion, or the race, etc.) whom they feel has driven them to suicide. In this sense then, the killings are the suicide note.

Sean O'Brien from Halifax writes: While it would appear to be possible to work out reoccurring patterns in modern multiple murderers (and respective incidents) that may help to form an understanding of the shooters 'profile,' is it possible to apply those understandings to society in order to try and locate possible future multiple murderers? Recognizing the limits of this psycho-analytical approach, do we not run the risk of creating some sort of modernized version of a 'witch hunt?'

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Dear Sean: You raise an entirely legitimate and important question, and it is precisely this conundrum (legal and ethical) that restricts attempts to do more in this area.

Shelly Fernandes from Canada writes: My question is how often is mental illness believed to play a role in mass murders, and which mental illnesses in particular.

Dr. Elliott Leyton: In general, Shelly, legal mental illness plays a role in perhaps 4 per cent of homicides. But when we look into your question, we immediately run into definitional problems. Surely at an ethical level, anyone who wants to kill someone is 'mentally ill.' Yet many of these killers do not display any other of the scientific characteristics of mental illness than this bizarre desire to kill. it's very tricky.

The Last Privateer from Halifax writes: Is gun control the best solution to prevent these catastrophes in the first place? I understand the old saying - guns don't kill people, people kill people - but you simply can't kill as many people with a knife or machete. I see a gun as a planning tool as well as a tool used for execution. If guns became exceptions instead of rules in our society we could more easily prevent their misuse.

Dr. Elliott Leyton: This is an old argument, Last Privateer, but when England & Wales recently essentially abolished private firearms, the proportion of gun crimes increased significantly. In addition, good luck to anyone trying to hunt down the hundreds of millions of privately owned firearms in North America.

By the way, the 800,000 tutsi and hutu victims of the genocide in Rwanda were killed primarily with knives and machetes. And if you want to kill a lot of people but don't have a gun, there are many other ways to do it: derail a train, start a fire, drive a pickup truck into a school yard or shopping concourse, make a bomb. So all that happens is that the cause of the murder changes.

Cynthia C from Toronto writes: I have noticed that the many shooters (including this one and Dawson College) come from cultures where mental illness and counselling are so hush-hush that people don't generally seek help. Many people from these cultures also believe that depression and mental illness are Western, middle-class 'inventions' (including many from my culture) even if they do not come from poor, marginalized groups. Why is it so difficult to give them help, and is there a way to let people know that counselling isn't really such a bad thing?

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Dear Cynthia C. This is a very interesting issue that I blush to say I have never considered - are many of the shooters from cultures where mental illness and counselling are taboo. This is a question demanding much more thought and research. Thank you for it. Speaking personally, I am from a culture where a hangnail would be treated by a doctor, and a broken toaster would drive you to a psychiatrist.

A D from Toronto writes: It's clear that people on the edge like this have a number of common characteristics - lonely, reclusive, often feeling like outsiders. What can campus communities do to make sure no one feels like an outsider, or that those who do are intervened with so they don't take it out violently? Is it naive to think many of these people could be helped if someone intervened sooner?

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Dear A.D.: You put your finger on a fundamental issue. Loners, reclusive and alienated outsiders. I suspect campus communities could do a great deal more than they presently do (i.e., nothing) to make people integrate more quickly, but it would leave it up to the psychologists (and yourself) to suggest ways in which this could be done.

Phil Gardner from Nanaimo writes: I am a school counsellor in Nanaimo, B.C. I sometimes hear people diminishing the importance of being vigilant to making interventions for younger students (Grades 4 to 6) in the school system who may come from very dysfunctional homes, seem detached from their social environment, and demonstrate alot of anger/rage in their interactions with peers and adults.

I am wondering what the expert would say about this. Is it time we were as vigilant with this younger student population as we are with older students?

Dr. Elliott Leyton: Hello Mr Gardner: You are very insightful, sir. One of the greatest European criminologists, a man whose research team studied the same children over a generation, emphasized that 'violence begins in the nursery.' It is only among the very young that we have a real chance of helping children from very dysfunctional homes, and I think we should be very vigilant here, and offer as many services as possible.

Sasha Nagy, globeandmail.com: Thanks Dr. Leyton for your insights on this very difficult topic. That's all the time we have for this Q&A today.

Dr. Elliott Leyton: It was fun, and most of the questions were very thoughtful. Thank you for them.