During the past week our airwaves, televisions and newspapers have been taken over by the shocking news of Derrick Bird, a 52 year old taxi driver from Cumbria, who went on a three hour killing rampage. Derrick Bird murdered 12 people and injured 11 before shooting himself.
It’s reported that he called people over to his car and then shot them and others he just shot for no apparent reason.
The last people to see Bird before he embarked on his killing spree were his neighbours Neil and his wife Carol. They have said that he arrived at their door ‘zombie like’. He sat down with them and expressed his concerns about his £60,000 tax debt. He feared going to prison. The Mirror have reported that Neil and Carol said ‘He just wasn’t himself at all. He was bothered to bits about getting locked up…’ ‘He kept saying, ‘I’m going down for a long time.’
He was known as a “nice guy” to many people but reports are now saying that Bird self harmed for years, had money problems and indulged in flings with prostitutes.
This horrific story prompts me to ask why do these “nice guys” turn violent, leaving even their wives and sons and daughters shocked that they could even be capable of these crimes? In the case of Derrick Bird was it similar to the story of Charles Starkweather?
Charles Starkweather was an American killer. He murdered eleven people while he was on a road trip with his 14 year old girlfriend in 1958. He was sentenced to death and she was sentenced to life. Unlike Bird, Starkweather had killed before. He killed his girlfriends mother and father and strangled their two year old daughter. He and his young girlfriend buried the bodies behind the house and stayed in the house turning people away with a note on the door that read ‘Stay a way every body is sick with the flue.’ The grandmother became suspicious and called the police but the couple had fled and set out on their killing spree by then.
Notorious American killers seem to become glorified over the years. Stephen King was influenced by reading about the Starkweather killing spree and Bruce Springsteen wrote the song ‘Nebraska’ about the murders. He finishes with the line ‘They wanted to know why I did what I did/Well sir I guess there’s just a meanness in this world.’
Does Springsteen have a point here? Does everyone have ‘a meanness’ inside of them that could steer them in the direction of evil, given the right conditions?
The most notorious man to go on a killing spree is Martin Bryant. As a child he was quiet and mannerly but in his later years as a teenager he was disruptive, rebellious, distant and unemotional. He was also the victim of bullying at school. He was suspended and he was psychologically assessed when he tortured animals. His behaviour improved but he was still causing problems when he returned to school.
As an adult he befriended a wealthy eccentric heiress named Helen Harvey. They spent a fortune on cars together. When Bryant was reassessed for his pension a note on it read “…Martin tells me he would like to go around shooting people. It would be unsafe to let Martin out of his parents control.”
Martin Bryant killed 35 people at the Port Arthur site in Australia on 28th April 1996.He is serving 35 life sentances with no chance of parol.
It’s unclear exactly why he committed this crime but it appears it was for attention and he was angry that he was socially isolated. It’s reported that he told his neighbour “I’ll do something that will make everyone remember me”.
Bryant was a wealthy and a lonely man he was also fond of alcohol. If he had a history of violence and comments such as the above then why wasn’t he watched more carefully or mentally assessed again? Dr.Zimbardo studies why seemingly good natured people turn evil almost suddenly.
Dr. Zimbardo is an internationally recognised scholar, educator and researcher. He has written many psychological books including ‘The Lucifer Effect: Understanding how good people turn evil’. The book is based on an experiment Dr. Zimbardo conducted In 1971 called the ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’. It asked the question ‘What happens when you put good people in an evil place?’ The experiment was to take place over two weeks. It included 24 normal college guys who were either prison guards or prisoners. The experiment was cut short after just 6 days due to the effects it was having on college students. Dr.Zimbardo has said “The guards began to use their power to dominate, to control, and ultimately, to crush the prisoners. So that meant that within 36 hours one of these normal healthy kids had an emotional break down, and the same thing happened on days 3, 4 and 5.’
Dr.Zimbardo found that anybody can succumb to evil when the right conditions are present. I hope the conditions are never present. We’ve all said at some point when we’re angry ‘I’m going to kill you.’ Weather it’s jokingly or more serious I’d like to think that the majority of us would never do anything like what we’ve seen in the past week or so.
The first of the funerals for the victims of Derrick Bird take place within the next week. Condolences are with the victims.
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