On Friday, Feb. 23, 2001 the Continuing Medical Education committee headed by Steve Crawford, MD hosted its first movie night at the Arundel Mills Muvico. Robert Ressler, a former FBI special investigator and expert on serial killers, spoke before a large audience. A private screening of Hannibal was held for members after the talk. The event was so popular that MPS quickly filled the 150-person limit.

Mr. Ressler has over 30 years of experience investigating serial killers and sexual homicides. The character of the FBI investigator, Jack Crawford, in Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal was based on the real life experiences of Robert Ressler. Mr. Ressler stated in his talk that the serial killer, Ed Gein, was the basis for the character of both Norman Bates of Psycho and Hannibal Lector in Hannibal. Mr. Gein was a 57-year-old with schizophrenia who lived with both parents in rural Wisconsin. After his parents’ natural deaths, he continued to live in the family home and began killing women. The house was in disarray except for an area in his mother’s room. He killed women, made masks of their skin and hair, wore the masks with his mother’s clothes and committed cannibalism.

Mr. Ressler briefly discussed many other serial killers including Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson and Ted Bundy. In addition, he recently investigated the homicide of Jon Benet Ramsey.

Mr. Ressler believes that killers are “made” not “born.” He doesn’t believe in the concept of a “bad seed”. He states that one always finds emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse in the families. The vast majority are Caucasian and there are no female serial killers. Often the father is absent during the boy’s development from ages 8 to12. Mr. Ressler does not believe that serial killers can be rehabilitated, as the best predictor for future violence is a history of past violence.

Many questions about the nature of serial killers went unanswered, in part due to the limited scope of the lecture. Mr. Ressler did note that although some killers have high IQs, their academic and career achievements are usually very low compared to their intellectual abilities. Mr. Ressler stated that one very bright killer read the DSM (then II). When asked if he found himself in the DSM, the killer replied, “No – maybe I’ll be in the DSM 8 or 9 but I’m not in this one.”

Psychiatry remains far from having the answer as to what goes so very wrong in the mind and brain of these killers. However, when CME programs as interesting as this one occurs, MPS members clearly come out to attend.