"The FBI estimates 500 serial killers currently in the U.S; about 30 or 16% have been identified as adoptees. Since adoptees represent only 2-3% (5-10-million) of the general population, 16% that are serial killers is an overrepresentation compared to the general population."
But is it true?
What is the original source?
What is the original source?
Does the 16% include step parent adoptees i.e. Ted Bundy?
What is the truth?
AND...what does it mean if it is true?
What, if anything, does it say about adoptees?
AND...what does it mean if it is true?
What, if anything, does it say about adoptees?
There are also lists of so-called adopted serial killers, that include murderers and multiple murders that would not fit the definition of a serial killer. Also included in the list that is circulating is an adopted man born and raised in Germany.
In addition to step-parent adoptions, also listed was Thomas Hamilton, who was raised by grandparents and told his mother was his sister and Jane Toppan ("Angel of Death") who was not legally adopted.
Additionally, Joel Norris, a criminologist, and author of Serial Killers, says "many serial murderers were raised by adoptive parents or caretakers both within or outside of their biological families . . " (pg. 189). James Fox, another top criminologist has also written about this, and Dr. Sarnoff Mednick has done extensive research in Denmark, documenting the correlation between criminality and adoption (in general, not specifically re: serial killers).
Eliminating all but legal non-related stranger adoptions, and eliminating murderers and multiple murders (but not serial) the list whittles down to these six adopted persons who are classified convicted serial US serial killers:
1. BERKOWITZ, David (“Son of Sam” & “The 44-Caliber Killer”) adopted son of Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz. Plead guilty to killing 6 people.
2. BIANCHI, Kenneth, The Hillside Strangler. Adopted at three months by Frances Scioliono and her husband Nicholas Bianchi in Rochester, NY. Plead guilty to 10 murders.
3. MUNRO, James, 18. Adopted by the Munros when he was about a year old. Accomplice in 44 murders.
4. RIFKIN, Joel, 34. Adopted by Ben and Jeanne Rifkin at three weeks of age. Confessed to killing at least 17 women.
5. STANO, Gerald Eugene, 27. Adopted. Killed an estimated 80 women.
6. WUORNOS, Aileen Carol Pittman. Legally adopted Keith and Aileen on March 18, 1960. Five death sentences
Wikipedia lists 115 US serial killers - not the 500 in the original quote, which perhaps is worldwide (?). The list above thus represents approximately twice the 2-3% of adoptees in the population.
Thus claims that adoptees are over-represented among serial killers is valid. Although others have published the yet unproven FBI 16% quote, in The Dark Side of Adoption I state the fact that adoptees are over-represented among serial killers, as proven herein.
It's a shame the FBI-16% quote and several inaccurate lists of alleged adopted serial killers are too easily found on the internet. It is important that we check our sources and document our facts lest we discredit ourselves.
Make no mistake that pointing this out in no way implies that adoptees are dangerous anymore than all males or all white men who represent almost all serial killers, are! It does not pathologize adoptees, or make any generalization about them. It is of importance only for those who promote adoption to consider that adoption in and of itself - the underlying feelings of abandonment that every adoption is built upon - are part of the complex equation of heredity and environment that create these killers, recognizing that it is virtually impossible to sort out all causal factors.
Noting this disproportion brings attention to the fact that adoption is a risk factor, as it is in suicide which is also multi-causal.
UPDATE: What does it all mean? What, if anything does it say about adoptees?
If my son's math is correct:
2-3% of the general population is adopted, and among serial killers 5.2% are adopted.
From this you can conclude that knowing someone is a serial killer increases the odds that they were adopted (from 2-3% to 5.2%). But your asking about the converse: what are the chances of any adoptee being a serial killer.
Based on conditional probability (and the information you provided) I would have to say that knowing someone is adopted increases the probability that they are a serial killer by a factor of 1.7 to 2.6.
That is because the probability that someone is a serial killer given that they are adopted is equal to the probability that they are a serial killer (unknown) times the probability that they are adopted
given that they are a serial killer (5.2%), divided by the probability that they are adopted (2-3%).
Or in other words knowing that someone is adopted increases the probability that they are a serial killer by a factor of 1.7 to 2.6.
Sooo, there you have it! An adopted person is approximately 1.7 to 2.6 percent more likely than a non-adopted person to become a serial killer! I wouldn't loose sleep over it!
And let us not forget that it takes the perfect storm combination of environmental factors and heredity. The person has to have some psychological psychotic disorder AND would also have to experience some abuse likely in his adoptive home for it all to gel together and create a monster who kills for fun.
ADDENDUM 7/7/11 - As an aside, BJ Lifton on Page 103 of The Journey of the Adopted Self states "adoptive sons are more likely than natural ones to murder their parents." Lifton goes on to state that "an estimated 15 to 20 to 1, adoptees over nonadoptees." Her source is the criminal attorney Paul Mones who defended a dozen adoptees who killed one or both adoptive parents, in the prior two years alone! Mones authored When a Child Kills: Abused Children Who Kill Their Parents.
What Does it All Mean?
Some adoptee are very upset about these statistics. They want to call them false. They fear it makes people suspicious of adoptees. The truth is that even people who have no idea and have never heard these statistics will still look at an adopted person and wonder if they are not, as one recently discovered, that he is the son of Charles Manson.
The fact that adoptees are 1-2 percent more likely to become serial killers is nebulous in and of itself. But when combined with the fact that adoptees are also over-represented in all mental health and youth facilities, and that adoption is considered a risk factor in suicide...not to mention Mones findings regarding parenticide. When we take it all together we must at the least QUESTION the human experiment we call adoption.
4 comments:
To continue with this proclamation is irresponsible.
I feel obligated to supply details on the people you've referenced here to protect typical adopted people from being stereotyped and stigmatized. I've spent considerable time this morning researching all these people and I supply the following as accurate to the best of my knowledge.
Munro is a mentally challenged accomplice of William Bonin, a man raised by his terribly abusive biological parents ending up in juvenile hall by the age of 8.
Bianchi was also part of a murderous team with his adoptive cousin who was not adopted . Bianchi's amom was a nutcase.
Berkowitz had serious psychological issues most likely exacerbated by the lies told him to regarding his adoption, the circumstance of his adoption and the death of his amom.
"Gerald Stano was born in Schenectady, New York. His given name at birth was Paul. His birth surname has never been made public. His natural mother neglected him to such an extent that when she finally gave him up for adoption when he was six months old, county doctors declared him unadoptable because he was functioning at what they described as "an animalistic level". He was eventually adopted, however, by Norma Stano, a nurse, who renamed him Gerald Eugene Stano"
Rifkin appears to possibly be a late discovery adoptee of unknown parents with a high IQ but dyslexic and who was a victim of bullying and lost his father to suicide.
"Aileen Wuornos was born Aileen Pittman in Rochester, Michigan, on February 29, 1956. Her teenage parents separated months before she was born, father Leo Pittman moving on to serve time in Kansas and Michigan mental hospitals as a deranged child-molester. Mother Diane recalls Aileen and her older brother Keith as crying, unhappy babies, and their racket prompted her to leave them with her parents in early 1960. On March 18 of that year, maternal grandparents Lauri and Britta Wuornos legally adopted the children as their own. Aileens childhood showed little improvement from there. At age six, she suffered scarring facial burns while she and Keith were setting fires with lighter fluid. Aileen later told police that she had sex with Keith at an early age, but acquaintances doubt the story and Keith is unable to speak for himself, having died of throat cancer in 1976. At any rate, Aileen was clearly having sex with someone, for she turned up pregnant in her fourteenth year, delivering her son at a Detroit maternity home on March 23, 1971. Grandmother Britta died on July 7, and while her death was blamed on liver failure, Diane Pratt suspected her father of murder, claiming he threatened to kill Aileen and Keith if they were not removed from his home. In fact, they became wards of the court, Aileen soon dropping out of school to work the streets full-time, earning her way as a teenage hooker, drifting across country as the spirit moved her."
What Aileen ended up being like should surprise nobody and to use her as an example of a typical adoptee who just became a serial killer is absurd.
Seems you may not have read my concluding two paragraphs:
"Make no mistake that pointing this out in no way implies that adoptees are dangerous anymore than all males or all white men who represent almost all serial killers, are! It does not pathologize adoptees, or make any generalization about them. It is of importance only for those who promote adoption to consider that adoption in and of itself - the underlying feelings of abandonment that every adoption is built upon - are part of the complex equation of heredity and environment that create these killers, recognizing that it is virtually impossible to sort out all causal factors.
"Noting this disproportion brings attention to the fact that adoption is a risk factor, as it is in suicide which is also multi-causal."
Here's another one:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178304/James-Holmes-Gunman-used-police-evidence-bags-hand-puppets-mother-admits-feared-disturbed-years.html
Yes, James Holmes MAY be yet another. Awaiting confirmation.
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