Cullen - American Evil

The Psychology of Serial Killers

Dr Eric Cullen

The text, views and opinions in this book are those of the author entirely and not necessarily shared by the publisher. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure factual accuracy, readers should draw their own conclusions concerning the possibility of alternative accounts, descriptions, points of view, interpretations, use of terminology or explanations.

There are two people I must thank in particular. Without them, this book wouldnt have been written.

The first is Professor David Wilson. David is a charming and persuasive man and through his TV work one of the UKs best-known criminologists. Due to his exhortations, I made three series on serial killers for Monster Films which met with some success and gave me the foundations for this book.

The second person is David Howard, the Director/Producer of Monster Films. David is a former barrister, and now filmmaker, a proud Welshman. Following the three TV series by Monster Films mentioned above, I offered an extended monologue to camera on my trenchant views about Americas culpability for serial killing. He suggested I write a book and get it off my chest. This is it. Thank you, David.

My publisher, Bryan Gibson, also a former barrister, has been invaluable in patiently and expertly transforming my sprawling and clearly imperfect manuscript into, well, the best he could. Waterside Press, his publishing house, frequently publishes academic works. Not a description that fits neatly on this one but I have tried to give some sources for my views and included at the end. So, I am doubly indebted to him for publishing it.

June 2020

Dr Eric Cullen was born in Kentucky, USA. After immigrating to England he became a British citizen and worked in borstals and other penal establishments, including Grendon Underwood (the UKs ground-breaking therapeutic community (TC) prison). Later, he worked in the private sector, notably as lead consultant for Premier Prisons Ltd in their successful bid to build and run a new 200-bed TC for offenders at Dovegate Prison in Staffordshire which opened in 2001.

He has served as a magistrate, been a government advisor and written widely on related themes of murder, life imprisonment, treating personality disordered offenders, and TCs. He contributed to three acclaimed TV series including Voice of a Serial Killer, Voice of a Killer (both CBS Reality) and Making a Monster (Sky Crime + Investigation).

He lives with his wife in Buckinghamshire.

I wrote this book because I was drawn into the sordid and terrible world of serial killers when I was invited to be a consultant to a television series entitled The Voice of a Serial Killer. I have also worked with killers, including serial killers, for over 20 years in my role as a prison psychologist and been an advisor to government as described overleaf on how to treat dangerous personality disordered offenders. Since then, Ive contributed to three TV series and have, reluctantly, learned a great deal more about serial killing. What Ive read has left me so profoundly moved by inescapable conclusions about how serial killers are made that I have written this book about my thoughts, findings and conclusions.

Serial killers, and the programmes, films and books about them, are a growth industry, a crowded field. It seems the public, or a sizeable section of it, find the subject morbidly fascinating. My hope is to add to the understanding of this phenomenon rather than prurience.

My main purpose is to put forward the argument that serial killers are one of several malign human by-products of a dysfunctional modern permissive society; and to show that the overwhelming majority of serial killers are the result of how significant numbers of Americans choose to live their lives. To do so I have set-out what I see as the causative elements in American modern life that lead to the creation of serial killers.

Before doing so I should outline briefly my professional experience which I believe qualifies me to speak as I do. In my career, I spent 22 years as a prison psychologist directly involved with treating offenders. I was Head of Psychology at HM Prison Grendon Underwood for nearly ten years. Grendon is a therapeutic community (TC) secure prison for the treatment of severe personality disordered offenders. Most of the prison population of Grendon are murderers. I was directly responsible for the assessment, treatment and evaluation of hundreds of these men. During my time working there, I was also a Wing Therapist for a community of up to 40 residents (inmates) and 12 staff, including psychiatrist, probation officer and prison officers. The work was entirely focused on an unrelenting, intensive therapeutic scrutiny of residents lives, their crimes and their defences, admissions, rationalisations and denials. I was also called upon on a number of occasions, both before and during Grendon, to interview serial killers.

At no time during that ten years of therapy did anyone in the institution the most famous therapeutic prison in Europe ever argue that any of the men there had or was suffering from a mental-illness which either mitigated or expiated their culpability. The therapy at Grendon involved staff in obliging residents to take individual and collective responsibility for their past and present acts. I know of no comparable treatment of serious and dangerous prisoners which approaches this level of scrutiny. The average time spent in therapy at Grendon was over two years and research established that, for those who were in therapy for at least 18 months, it was significantly related to reduced offending after release.