Biggest psychopath in history?

Higher

Wanderer2010 wrote: »

Bertie Ahern

Its been said multiple times already and isn't even funny anyway.

steddyeddy

Odysseus wrote: »

The benefits of a classical education?:)

I did an elective in ancient rome in college ha ha. I found it very interesting.

orestes

Just being a vicious murdering bastard doesn't make somebody a psychopath. Actually, most vicious murdering bastards aren't even psychopaths at all, and most psychopaths aren't violent at all.

Psychopaty is a personality disorder which isn't even recognised officially by the psychiatric field (anti-social personality disorder is in the DSM but only focuses on behaviour, psychopathy diagnosis requires personality criteria aswell), although psychopaty diagnoses are useful in identifying possible repeat offenders as psychopaths are unable to learn from their mistakes and tend to repeat the same patterns of behaviour. Most psychopaths are not violent and are not insane in the generally understood meaning of what people think when they think of when they think "crazy person" - they aren't delusional or psychotic. They are more likely to be con-artists or businessmen than murderers.

Odysseus

orestes wrote: »

Just being a vicious murdering bastard doesn't make somebody a psychopath. Actually, most vicious murdering bastards aren't even psychopaths at all, and most psychopaths aren't violent at all.

Psychopaty is a personality disorder which isn't even recognised officially by the psychiatric field (anti-social personality disorder is in the DSM but only focuses on behaviour, psychopathy diagnosis requires personality criteria aswell), although psychopaty diagnoses are useful in identifying possible repeat offenders as psychopaths are unable to learn from their mistakes and tend to repeat the same patterns of behaviour. Most psychopaths are not violent and are not insane in the generally understood meaning of what people think when they think of when they think "crazy person" - they aren't delusional or psychotic. They are more likely to be con-artists or businessmen than murderers.

Excellent post, people often run riot with that term, or worse see it as interchangable with psychotic disorders.

Odysseus

steddyeddy wrote: »

I did an elective in ancient rome in college ha ha. I found it very interesting.

I perfer Greek history myself, well I would between my handle here and my profession. Though both are really interesting. I must dig out some Euripides for over the Christmas

GalwayGuy2

The guy he let stay at his house got up the next morning and made breakfast to say thank you. He went to Gacys room to wake him up but he still had the kitchen knife in his hand. Gacy thought he was being attacked and jumped up and stabbed the guy to death.
When he was caught and told his story, he said he orgasmed when he killed him and that was when he realised he enjoyed killing. And it all started from there.
Crazy stuff.

Hmm, I read that first kill story I while ago and I thought there was something dodgy about it. why tell the truth about the orgasm, but why lie lying about the whole innocent breakfast thing?

El Guapo!

GalwayGuy2 wrote: »

Hmm, I read that first kill story I while ago and I thought there was something dodgy about it. why tell the truth about the orgasm, but why lie lying about the whole innocent breakfast thing?

Why makes you think he was lying about that?

dodderangler

Sorry if this is cheating but I googled a bit and found a bloke called Albert Hamilton fish
Look him up
Pretty psychotic bloke
Paedofile , Canibal etc
Pretty sick ba5tard

GalwayGuy2

Why makes you think he was lying about that?

Someone who'd orgasm while killing someone would probably, subconsciously or consciously, fantasize about killing someone, or hurting people. I don't believe that there was this latent kink within him that just awoke when he killed someone, and to "altruistically" bring some one home with that mind set's a bit dodgy.
I think all serial-killers have a control thing, so maybe he came onto him and killed him in a rage. He'd rather not have people know that he was rejected, and maybe there's a bit of "I'm the victim, not the murdered people" going on in his head.
That's just my rather rambling suspicion, but something about the way it was told seemed a bit off (mind you I read it from Wikipedia, so maybe it was put in badly)

Madam_X

orestes wrote: »

Most psychopaths are not violent and are not insane in the generally understood meaning of what people think when they think of when they think "crazy person" - they aren't delusional or psychotic. They are more likely to be con-artists or businessmen than murderers.

Yeh was watching a programme about Ian Brady the other night - a diagnosed psychopath - and my friend and I concluded the traits he possessed would be those of a highly successful business/salesperson.

clairefontaine

orestes wrote: »

Just being a vicious murdering bastard doesn't make somebody a psychopath. Actually, most vicious murdering bastards aren't even psychopaths at all, and most psychopaths aren't violent at all.

Psychopaty is a personality disorder which isn't even recognised officially by the psychiatric field (anti-social personality disorder is in the DSM but only focuses on behaviour, psychopathy diagnosis requires personality criteria aswell), although psychopaty diagnoses are useful in identifying possible repeat offenders as psychopaths are unable to learn from their mistakes and tend to repeat the same patterns of behaviour. Most psychopaths are not violent and are not insane in the generally understood meaning of what people think when they think of when they think "crazy person" - they aren't delusional or psychotic. They are more likely to be con-artists or businessmen than murderers.

Why can't someone just be evil? Do bad deeds always have to be down to a mental illness or personality disorder? And does it add to the stigma of mental illness when cruelty is attributed to mental or personality disorders?

On the other hand calling someone evil or sick doesn't really help get down to the bottom of it does it?

orestes

clairefontaine wrote: »

Why can't someone just be evil? Do bad deeds always have to be down to a mental illness or personality disorder? And does it add to the stigma of mental illness when cruelty is attributed to mental or personality disorders?

On the other hand calling someone evil or sick doesn't really help get down to the bottom of it does it?

Where did I say some people can't just be evil? What I said was that people doing evil things are not necessarily psychopaths.

A "psychopath" is a person diagnosed as fitting a specific set of criteria which cover actions, attitudes, emotions, personal relationships, ability to function in society, and others. Violence or causing others harm is nowhere in the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy, although some psychopaths do happen to be violent. There is no necessary link between psychopathy and harming others.

dodderangler

clairefontaine wrote: »

Why can't someone just be evil? Do bad deeds always have to be down to a mental illness or personality disorder? And does it add to the stigma of mental illness when cruelty is attributed to mental or personality disorders?

On the other hand calling someone evil or sick doesn't really help get down to the bottom of it does it?

Your right in a way but there'd Be a huge difference between being evil and being twisted
Killin millions is pure evil
Torturing someone and taking them apart bit by bit is just twisted

Madam_X

dodderangler wrote: »

Your right in a way but there'd Be a huge difference between being evil and being twisted
Killin millions is pure evil
Torturing someone and taking them apart bit by bit is just twisted

They're both evil and twisted surely. This difference you speak about is just a belief you personally hold.

Capt'n Midnight

Francisco Solano López

up to 90% of male population of Paraguay died in the Paraguayan War

IIRC one in three members of the his army were allowed to execute anyone up to the rank of captain on suspected treason

dodderangler

Madam_X wrote: »

They're both evil and twisted surely. This difference you speak about is just a belief you personally hold.

Yes

Arawn

Madam_X wrote: »

Yeh was watching a programme about Ian Brady the other night - a diagnosed psychopath - and my friend and I concluded the traits he possessed would be those of a highly successful business/salesperson.

I remember reading about a guy who interviewed a load of hugely successful guys and the end result was that they had the traits of psychos.

One guy uused to guy companies and sell them for profit and literally make ghost towns out of places in America, never showed any remorse or anything for what he did

Scruffles

Confab wrote: »

OP mixed up psychopathic and psychotic, so I stopped reading. There's a vast yawning chasm of difference between the two. Besides, non-violent psychopaths (the majority) can do far more harm in the long run.

indeed,though its not a reason to stop reading as majority of people who do mix them up do so through forgetfulness as they sound very familiar or lack of understanding between them both.

am diagnosed with pyschosis and even when was going through very severe episodes woud never choose to do the things that criminal pyschopaths do, theyre nothing like each other apart from the fact the names sound similar and get mixed up easily.

as for the original question...although there is no question that people such as hitler had the widest reign of terror,from own view the dnepropetrovsk boys- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepropetrovsk_maniacs
are vile scum of the earth for what they did to animals and a man who had only just beaten cancer but was left disabled by it,they also murdered other people but did not put them through the same torture...absolutely disgusting filth.

albert fish- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Fish
woud be another one,he deliberately picked out vulnerable victims such as disabled people and kids,he was a sadist who stuck loads of needles in himself and whipped his flesh with a 'cat o nine tails'.
very unusual background worth a read anyone who is interested in this stuff.

if anyone wants to understand pyschopathy in a person who isnt a criminal [well,he is an ex crim of fraud] check out sam vankin on youtube,he is diagnosed with both narcisistic pd and anti social pd and there are some good documentaries he has done about it [they focus mostly on the narc side but interesting none the less].

>edit.
just noticed doddleranger has mentioned albert fish to.

Odysseus

clairefontaine wrote: »

Why can't someone just be evil? Do bad deeds always have to be down to a mental illness or personality disorder? And does it add to the stigma of mental illness when cruelty is attributed to mental or personality disorders?

On the other hand calling someone evil or sick doesn't really help get down to the bottom of it does it?

It comes down to the second part of your text for me.

Does evil even exist? How can we measure it? Even say if it is present in a subject? Where did this evil originate in that particular subject?

I'm not saying the Hares psychopathic checklist is perfect but it does attempt to capture something. Classifying someone as evil tells us nothing about the subject.

Not all people who kill are mentally ill or classed as psychopaths; however, with the few I have met there was something present, which in turn explained [not condoned] why the person was that way; and why they acted as they did. It is important for treatment and rehab purposes that we try to understand these acts.

I certainly don't see it as stigma of being mentally ill; that really depends on how that person views mentally ill people. When threads like this come up I generally end up posting something about the difference between a psychosis and those who are classified as being a psychopath, as their generally is some confusion between the two by the general public.

gcgirl

Nidge for grassing Darren

Ulysses Gaze

Josef Mengele

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

Chun Li

Richard Kuklinski 'The Iceman'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski

ArtyM

Chun Li wrote: »

Richard Kuklinski 'The Iceman'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski

There are a whole series of interviews on YouTube with him where he talks about some of his killings.
It is incredibly unnerving to see someone describe acts of true visciousness without showing so much as a shred of emotion.
He even throws the odd joke or funny anecdote in from time to time, which really helps you warm to him - not.

newmug

I think there are far more psychopaths in business and politics than anyone will ever realise. People who manipulate the price of food, medicine, resources all for money. Greedy, greedy money. They are the real baxtards.

Chun Li

ArtyM wrote: »

There are a whole series of interviews on YouTube with him where he talks about some of his killings.
It is incredibly unnerving to see someone describe acts of true visciousness without showing so much as a shred of emotion.
He even throws the odd joke or funny anecdote in from time to time, which really helps you warm to him - not.

Yeh sent chills up my spine watching them, supposed to be releasing a film on his life next year too.

clairefontaine

orestes wrote: »

Where did I say some people can't just be evil? What I said was that people doing evil things are not necessarily psychopaths.

A "psychopath" is a person diagnosed as fitting a specific set of criteria which cover actions, attitudes, emotions, personal relationships, ability to function in society, and others. Violence or causing others harm is nowhere in the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy, although some psychopaths do happen to be violent. There is no necessary link between psychopathy and harming others.

You didn't say it. I was just asking as a general comment on the topic.

Means Of Escape

PEDRO LOPEZ
The beast of Columbia

eclipses any psychopath in History

Google the nutcase

Lawlesz

Chun Li wrote: »

Richard Kuklinski 'The Iceman'

This guy. Don't know about him being one of the worst of all time, but he's pretty fvucked up. I read the book some years ago, by, I think, Philip Carlo? some of the stories would turn your stomach. The one in particular of a father who hired Kuklinski to kill the man who raped his daughter. He told Kuklinski he wanted the guy to suffer. So Kuklinski beat him, tied him up, then smeared his skin in mince meat and left him lying in a disused mine for the rats to eat him. He then left a camera which was activated with movement and left the guy there to basically be eaten alive. He went back a few days later and took the video to the girls father as proof he had suffered. He claims to have killed close to 300 people, even abducting homeless people to try out different methods of torture, as 'nobody would miss them'. Some of the guys involved in the mafia at the time have talked down some of his stories though, so its never been confirmed if Kuklinski actually carried out all he owned up to.

Tom_Cruise

Jeremy Clarkson

PhlegmyMoses

Lawlesz wrote: »

This guy. Don't know about him being one of the worst of all time, but he's pretty fvucked up. I read the book some years ago, by, I think, Philip Carlo? some of the stories would turn your stomach. The one in particular of a father who hired Kuklinski to kill the man who raped his daughter. He told Kuklinski he wanted the guy to suffer. So Kuklinski beat him, tied him up, then smeared his skin in mince meat and left him lying in a disused mine for the rats to eat him. He then left a camera which was activated with movement and left the guy there to basically be eaten alive. He went back a few days later and took the video to the girls father as proof he had suffered. He claims to have killed close to 300 people, even abducting homeless people to try out different methods of torture, as 'nobody would miss them'. Some of the guys involved in the mafia at the time have talked down some of his stories though, so its never been confirmed if Kuklinski actually carried out all he owned up to.

He was clearly a narcissist so he probably embellished some of his stories. Scary man. The only time he shows remorse or empathy is when his own family is brought up. In the interviews he is like a wounded animal when it's brought up, making guttural noises trying to suppress his feelings about what he put them through.

0066ad

General Butt Naked. A Liberian warlord, estimated to have killed 20,000 people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Butt_Naked

Never heard of Albert Fish till today, what a sadistic fcuk he was.

Lightbulb Sun

Shiro Ishii of Unit 731 fame. The Japanese were just horribly sadistic and evil in the past, worse than the Nazis.

admiralofthefleet

currently joseph ratzinger, but all the evil animal popes before him

caligula was another

WumBuster

realies wrote: »

Is any person who kills/murder people psychopaths ? what about eamon dunne who was alleged to have over 12/13 people murdered here ?

He would be a perfect example of a psychopath.Apparently he was soft spoken, educated and of a completely normal demeanour.You would never think talking to him he would be capable of such horrific actions. And no, not everyone who kills is a psychopath.If anything all these gangland murders that happen are because of weak, mentally ill or mentally challenged individuals being manipulated into doing so by psychopaths such as Dunne, etc.

EdenHazard

eric harris, one of the shooters from colombine, i read all about it and that guy i think would have killed thousands if he got the chance, like the saying goes some people just wanna see the world burn. he was one such person.

Psychologists say he was too far gone, beyond help. Probably would have tried to carry out a major domestic terrorist attack had he had left Colombine, got a job and got enough money to fund such an attack. Pretty crazy for what seemed like a normal teenager from a small town in Colorado.

TheBegotten

I read a very interesting novel there called "To Probe A Beating Heart". Once you get past the over-romanticised notion of the irish clan, the whole description of how he extracted the killings was interesting. I reckon it was based off Kuklinski.

RhubarbCrumble

me bolly wrote: »

ED GEIN

The film "Psycho" was actually based on Ed Gein, as was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

Gein had a low IQ (as did Green River killer Gary Ridgeway), but a lot of Gein's problems were more likely to have been caused by his mother.

Interestingly Ted Bundy had a high IQ, as did Jeffrey Dahmer.

Qualitymark

RhubarbCrumble wrote: »

The film "Psycho" was actually based on Ed Gein, as was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

Gein had a low IQ (as did Green River killer Gary Ridgeway), but a lot of Gein's problems were more likely to have been caused by his mother.

Interestingly Ted Bundy had a high IQ, as did Jeffrey Dahmer.

But of course. It's always the mammy's fault when men kill people. </irony>

0066ad

0066ad wrote: »

General Butt Naked. A Liberian warlord, estimated to have killed 20,000 people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Butt_Naked

Never heard of Albert Fish till today, what a sadistic fcuk he was.

I wonder how many people he had killed for laughing at his name.

eyeroad yearowl one

niallo27 wrote: »

A bird i used to live with from tyrone, she used to put toilet tissue in the keyhole of the bathroom door because she thought we were trying to look in at her. She wasnt even good looking.

Hmmmm.........how did you manage to find that none out? ...Just happened to notice it on a routine keyhole cleanliness visual check eh?

DEFTLEFTHAND

EdenHazard wrote: »

eric harris, one of the shooters from colombine, i read all about it and that guy i think would have killed thousands if he got the chance, like the saying goes some people just wanna see the world burn. he was one such person.

Psychologists say he was too far gone, beyond help. Probably would have tried to carry out a major domestic terrorist attack had he had left Colombine, got a job and got enough money to fund such an attack. Pretty crazy for what seemed like a normal teenager from a small town in Colorado.

I read a book about Columbine years ago by a friend of the boys, yeah Harris was certainly a very disturbed individual. His partner in the massacre Dylan Klebold was suffering from deep depression and they think that their personalities created the perfect storm, a psychopath and a lonely depressive angry at the world. It was also suggested that Harris manipulated Klebold to a certain extent.

EdenHazard

Yeah that's exactly it. Is that the guy Brooks Brown book? In a way I'd like to read it but I always felt he goes along a bit too much with the high school drama. He needs to grow up, I read one line where apparently Dylan and him got mud on some kids jacket and they were forced to clean it off with a toothbrush..Oh the humanity!

As if they had their reasons because they weren't the top dogs in the school. They had loads of friends, but it seems they weren't with the ones that mattered(especially in Harris's case) I mean I just don't believe they were relentlessly bullied(there's conflicting opinions about this) and if Harris was a psychopath then he probably initiated confrontation with these 'jocks' which caused them to retaliate.
I'm not saying he's apologetic but I get the impression its full of 'yeah but at Colombine the jocks rained supreme' undertones.

Galwayguy35

Don't know if they have been mentioned previously but Fred and Rose West were bad to the bone IMO.

Talk To Frank

Craig David?

the purple tin

Years ago I watched an interview with a total sicko serial killer from the US. He looked just like Garth from Waynes World and I wouldn't even describe him as human.
He was boasting about all his murders including how he killed his brother when he was 9 years old and made it look like an accident.

Azure_sky

Jehovah.

Da Shins Kelly

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Yeah I remember reading about that. Isn't it strange that some women are attracted to this type of person, is it the bad boy image or what?

I think some people are just attracted to danger, like the idea of someone who lives on the edge, but they could also fancy someone like Ted Bundy while keeping him at an arm's length. I'm not sure many of them, if any, would genuinely want to go out with him or have any kind of real relationship with him. They just like the idea of a dangerous individual. It's kinda like people who write and have "friendships" of a kind with serial killers in prison. They can talk to them and have a fairly distant relationship without having to get too close. Also, Bundy didn't look like the whole idea that people have in their minds about murderers. He was attractive, articulate, clearly very intelligent and had status. He didn't look or act (on the surface) like a creepy weirdo, quite the opposite in fact.

Bundy would definitely be the first person I think of when I think of psychopaths. A psycho through and through. Also Ian Brady has been diagnosed as a psychopath and refuses any treatment at all, including medication that may curb his suicidal tendencies. He keeps trying to kill himself unsuccessfully and has said that he will only reveal the burial spot of the only victim who hasn't been found when he is granted the right to die, which will obviously never happen. Pretty selfish.

deadman1972

As a matter of interest do any of ye here have any actual experience of what a psychopath is or are ye just reading from texts? A psychopath does not necessarily have to be an ax murderer or the like,could be just joe soap down the street;)

Jimminy Mc Fukhead

deadman1972 wrote: »

As a matter of interest do any of ye here have any actual experience of what a psychopath is

I saw a documentary about a book.

Da Shins Kelly

deadman1972 wrote: »

As a matter of interest do any of ye here have any actual experience of what a psychopath is or are ye just reading from texts? A psychopath does not necessarily have to be an ax murderer or the like,could be just joe soap down the street;)

I'm fairly sure that's already been mentioned in the thread. Of course being a psychopath isn't always going to be a murderer.