- Weak father and domineering mother
- Record of previous offences, including voyeurism and burglary
- Adjustment problems in school and the military
- Difficulty with females
- Believes that his victims desire what he does to them
- Fantasies influenced by sadomasochistic pornography
- If married, he degrades his wife and experiments with her
- Cagey and intelligent
- Likely to be a police buff
- May stalk the victims to relive the experience
His previous life was revised by the police it seemed that Douglas was not far of. He had committed various crimes. He never had an ongoing relationship with any one. He believed he was domineering, had many relationships and his childhood was not how it should have been. DeBardeleben was born on March 20, 1940 in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was the middle child. His father was an army officer ith a bad temper. DeBardeleben had a strange love-hate relationship with his mother, she was an alcoholic who frequently disciplined him. In his early teens he began to beat her.
DeBardeleben married five times (one of which had dissociated identity disorder). His first marriage, when he was nineteen lasted only three weeks. He then began to steal cars. He soon after married again, had a child but this did not last either. He moved in with his parents short after. His third wife had a hard time living with him as he assaulted her to get her to participate in his elaborate frauds. She later gave statements saying that DeBardeleben thought he was God.
But his fourth wife, Caryn who was only 18, left a deep impression. He was thirty, and subjected her to complete humiliation. He controlled her completely. She, too, was forced to take part in his fraud schemes, same as his next wife. Both of these women were subjected to different forms of humiliation and degrading, and both were left scarred after he was out of their lives. His hatred for his fourth wife Caryn in was so severe that he often mentioned her to his rape victims before turning to murder.
Biological theories used to offer explanations of James Mitchell DeBardeleben’ s criminal behaviour.
Physical type body shape theories.
Cesare Lombroso was a psychologist who produced a study regarding the characteristics of criminals. He believed those who commit crimes are born criminal and that all criminals’ posses the same characteristics:
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large , forward projection of jaw, low sloping
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high , flattened or upturned nose
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handle-shaped
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large , very prominent in appearance
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hawk-like or fleshy
- hard shifty eyes, scanty beard or baldness
- insensitivity to pain, long arms
James DeBardeleben
- Chromosomes abnormalities
XYY males demonstrate a considerably higher frequency of antisocial behaviour in adolescence and adulthood and of criminal convictions, but multiple regression analysis demonstrated this to be arbitrated mostly through subordinate intelligence. A property offence comprises the majority of offences in all groups. The XXY men have not to show an improvement in the rate of criminal convictions. It is probable that this apparently negative result relates to the relatively small numbers of cases and therefore low power of this study.
- Genetic inheritance and criminality
This comes back to Lombroso as he believed criminals were genetically dissimilar from non criminals. He also suggested that this difference can be seen physically:
- cold,
- glassy,
- blood shot eyes,
- curly abundant hair,
- strong jaws,
- long ears
- thin lips”
This concerned murderers; he had various theories like this for different criminals to differentiate them from non criminals.
Goring 1913 suggested genetic inheritance was the key to criminals. For example to have low intelligence. The use of twins is used in order to compare rates, and separate influence of genes.
*Monozygotic twins
These are twins which are identical
*Dizygotic twins
Non Identical
Monozygotic twins are siblings whose genotypes are replica of each other. They are mainly probable the best statistic of whether biology influences traits and psychopathology in human beings. Such as, if one twin has black eyes, then the other twin has black eyes as well; this notion of identical genes would preferably allocate itself toward the phenotypes of performance and behaviour of identical twins.
- Psychological explanation
Psychiatric explanation for criminals is given to be that a person not in his/her right mind is capable of anything. They cannot only harm themselves but also cause harm to others. James Mitchell DeBardeleben was insecure in his sex life as well as with him self. He showed signs of being mentally unfit.
- He was unable to adjust at home and at school.
- His weakness was women as he felt uncomfortable around them.
- His victims were made to make him feel better about himself which shows signs of insecurity and depression.
Between 1948 and 1988 a twin study of psychosis was carried out. The duration of there life criminal and psychiatric histories were observed in a repeated series of 280 individuals of twin birth with a diagnosis of foremost functional psychosis who were seen and monitored at the Maudsley Hospital.
210 co-twins, 35% of whom had a parallel diagnosis, were determined and monitored over the same time. In the absence of consistent general-population co-twins were used as case controls of approximation for lifetime conviction rates. Between the 220 complete pairs, considerably more pro bands (25.7%) than co-twins (14.0%) were found guilty, even though there was no evidence for an independent genetic basis for criminal behaviour.
The study did prove criminal conviction was considerably connected to psychiatric diagnosis. There were unambiguous patterns of offending, mainly between the schizophrenic men, who to were considerably more often convicted (48.6%) than the men with emotional psychosis (19.4%), and possibly to obtain a prison sentence. At their earliest conviction the schizophrenic patients were younger of the mean age 22.6 years v. 30.8 years, and they had committed more violent crimes than the affective group. Over all in both diagnostic groups, ages at first psychiatric contact and first sentenced were highly concurrent.
Those who commit petty crimes are known to have low intelligence. Psychopaths for example are known to have a high IQ and are able to plot schemes and develop their skills. Below are examples of studies and results produced on IQ of those who have been known to commit a crime. In the case of James Mitchell DeBardeleben, he had an IQ of 130. He started out committing minor crimes but eventually became a sadistic rapist, who tortured and used manipulation and blackmail as a way of not becoming caught. He was also smart enough not to carry out the tortures at home; in fact he used a run down warehouse, cellar. Below are studies which analyzed intelligence to crime.
Terrie Moffitt and colleagues carried out a study of 4,552 Danish men which were born at the end of World War II. They analyzed intelligence test scores composed by the Danish army and criminal records which were extracted from the Danish National Police Register. Those whom committed two or more illegal offenses by age twenty had IQ scores on average a full standard deviation below non offenders, and IQ and criminal offenses were considerably and negatively correlated at r = -.19.
Donald Lynam and colleagues did a study of 430 seventh-grade boys in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There IQ was measured and self-reported contribution in delinquent acts. Boys which committed severe delinquent acts, breaking and entering, or selling drugs, scored 8–10 IQ points lower than boys who did not. IQ scores and delinquency were correlated at r = -.22, with the correlation among verbal IQ and delinquency being much potent than the correlation with performance IQ (r = -.33 versus -.06).