The major factors leading men to kill their families include impending divorce, male sexual jealousy, an obsession with control, and possessiveness, according to Dr. Jack Levin, a criminal psychology expert from North-Eastern University in Boston. A Scottish psychiatrist, and director of Priory Hospital in Glasgow. Scotland, Dr. Alex Yellowlees, says that there are definite differences between men and women who kill or harm their children. He says that women tend to be mentally ill, frequently suffering from post-partum depression. Men, on the other hand, feel rage, jealousy, hatred, and revenge when they kill their families.

American television leads most of us to seek a profile for killer “types.” Dr. Levin has provided a profile of the family annihilator as a middle-aged man, who appears to others (outside the family) to be a good provider, a loving father, and a faithful and loving husband. But he tends to be isolated, with no close friends or support system of his own, aside from his family. He has suffered with feelings of inadequacy and some form of long frustration. Ultimately, he suffers some catastrophic loss which leads to his crime. This trigger may be the loss of his job, or loss of money through a bad investment, but sometimes it is the impending loss of his wife. He doesn’t hate his children, although he may hate his wife and blame her for his own problems. He has previously been a controlling man, within the family, but now feels powerless. Dr. Levin’s belief is that the family annihilator wants revenge against his wife.

Other psychiatrists, though, in several journals including the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA, 1992), find that Family Annihilators may believe that they have become unable to provide for their family, and state in suicide notes, or at their trials, that they are trying to save their family from hardships, particularly when financial difficulties are the triggering factor. Dr. Charles Patrick Ewing, a psychiatrist in Buffalo, NY, and author of the book “Fatal Families: The Dynamics of Intrafamilial Homicide” says that “if anything, [family annihilators] are over-invested in their families… They’re being overly responsible” and feel they can no longer take care of their families, including their wives. They view their families as somehow an extension of themselves, and strive to make them fit some romanticized ideal. When they cannot, they feel like failures. This certainly describe the case of Robert Bryant, who in 2001 shot and killed his wife and four children, then himself, ironically on his 16th wedding anniversary, after losing his job, being disfellowshipped from his Jehovah’s Witness congregation, and moving from California to Oregon.

In a 2006 report called “American Roulette: Murder-Suicide in the United States” the Violence Policy Center described the family annihilator as a subcategory of “intimate-partner murder-suicide” and states that this type of murderer kills not only his wife/girlfriend and their children, but often other family members as well, such as a mother or mother-in-law who resides with them, before killing themselves. Renowned psychiatrist and frequent expert witness Park Dietz says these killers are in complete control of themselves when they kill, so do not fit the requirements of legal insanity. They are not psychotic, they realize that what they are doing is wrong, and they could stop themselves, but choose not to.

Dietz testified against Kenneth Seguin in his 1993 trial. Seguin was accused of killing his children and wife, and plead that he was psychotic and delusional at the time, believing that his family was in great danger and could only be saved by going to heaven. Dietz showed how carefully Seguin had planned and prepared for the murders. First, he took the razor he later used to slit the throats of his children, and placed it in the pants he intended to wear on the night of the killings. He then waited until his wife had left the house, and wouldn’t be able to stop him from taking the children away to kill them. Dietz recited the entire list of actions Seguin took that clearly showed he was not insane, but a murderer carefully planning his cold-blooded crime. Seguin was convicted.

Men who kill their families, these annihilators, usually have no criminal record. They are the perfect citizen, with jobs as doctors, lawyers, businessmen, military personnel, or even law enforcement officers. They are not drug or alcohol abusers, nor are they usually under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they kill. Their sudden attack on their family may appear to come out of the blue. Levin states, though, that if they had been seen by psychologists prior to committing their murders, those psychologists would have noticed warning signs of rage, and of blaming others for their problems. They would also notice that these men think of their families as their possessions. Some experts believe, however, that there may be prior patterns of domestic abuse in these families, even though it is not always reported.

As stated above, these crimes are not committed while the man is insane, either by the legal or clinical definition of insanity. Dr. Levin says, “These are executions. They are never spontaneous… they are not carried out in the heat of the moment… they are very methodical and it is often planned out for a long time.” Men who don’t commit suicide after killing their families, or who attempt suicide and fail, may try to plead insanity when brought to trial. Such a plea has yet to be accepted in any court in the U.S. or in Great Britain, because of the planning and execution of the crimes, and the lack of any discoverable mental illness. It should be noted that in the cases of women who kill for reasons other than psychosis or post-partum depression, such as Susan Smith, who killed her two sons because she believed they stood in the way of a new relationship in her life, pleas of insanity are just as unlikely to be accepted as they are for men.

In two recent cases of family annihilators in England, the case of Gavin Hall, who drugged and strangled his three year old daughter, and of Mohammed Riaz, who killed his wife, four daughters, and himself by burning down their home after locking the doors from the inside, newspapers reported heavily on the behavior of the wives prior to the men’s crimes. The detectives handling those cases were angered by such reporting, however. Superintendent John Jones of Northampton, where the Hall killing occurred, pointed out that affairs are far from uncommon, and most people don’t kill their children because of them. The problem lay not in the wife’s behavior, but in the husband’s.

Can crimes like this be prevented? Probably not. Dr. Yellowlees said that it can take a long time, even years, for a woman to realize that her husband views her as a possession, and that “initially, a woman can feel flattered” if her partner displays jealousy. By the time she realizes the degree of his possessiveness, it may be too late. Whether this obsessive possessiveness leads to rage or frustration and feelings of failure, the family annihilator believes his best course of action is to destroy his family, and he does so with cunning and careful planning.

L. Lee Scott

by Jon Roland

Definition of tyranny

Tyranny is usually thought of as cruel and oppressive, and it often is, but the original definition of the term was rule by persons who lack legitimacy, whether they be malign or benevolent. Historically, benign tyrannies have tended to be insecure, and to try to maintain their power by becoming increasingly oppressive. Therefore, rule that initially seems benign is inherently dangerous, and the only security is to maintain legitimacy — an unbroken accountability to the people through the framework of a written constitution that provides for election of key officials and the division of powers among branches and officials in a way that avoids concentration of powers in the hands of a few persons who might then abuse those powers.

Tyranny is an important phenomenon that operates by principles by which it can be recognized in its early emerging stages, and, if the people are vigilant, prepared, and committed to liberty, countered before it becomes entrenched.

The psychology of tyranny

Perhaps one of the things that most distinguishes those with a fascist mentality from most other persons is how they react in situations that engender feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Both kinds of people will tend to seek to increase their power, that is, their control over the outcome of events, but those with a fascist mindset tend to overestimate the amount of influence over outcomes that it is possible to attain. This leads to behavior that often brings them to positions of leadership or authority, especially if most other persons in their society tend to underestimate the influence over outcomes they can attain, and are inclined to yield to those who project confidence in what they can do and promise more than anyone can deliver.

This process is aided by a common susceptibility which might be called the rooster syndrome, from the old saying, “They give credit to the rooster crowing for the rising of the sun.” It arises from the tendency of people guided more by hope or fear than intelligence to overestimate the power of their leaders and attribute to them outcomes, either good or bad, to which the leaders contributed little if anything, and perhaps even acted to prevent or reduce. This comes from the inability of most persons to understand complex dynamic systems and their long-term behavior, which leads people to attribute effects to proximate preceding events instead of actual long-term causes.

The emergence of tyranny therefore begins with challenges to a group, develops into general feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, and falls into a pattern in which some individuals assume the role of “father” to the others, who willingly submit to becoming dependent “children” of such persons if only they are reassured that a more favorable outcome will be realized. This pattern of co-dependency is pathological, and generally results in decisionmaking of poor quality that makes the situation even worse, but, because the pattern is pathological, instead of abandoning it, the co-dependents repeat their inappropriate behavior to produce a vicious spiral that, if not interrupted, can lead to total breakdown of the group and the worst of the available outcomes.

In psychiatry, this syndrome is often discussed as an “authoritarian personality disorder”. In common parlance, as being a “control freak”.

The logic of tyranny

In Orwell’s classic fable, Nineteen Eighty-Four, the protagonist Winston Smith makes a key statement:

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Following the trial of the surviving Branch Davidians in San Antonio, Texas, in March, 1994, in which a misinstructed jury acquitted all the defendants of the main crimes with which they were charged, but convicted them of the enhancements of using firearms in the commission of a crime, the federal judge, Walter F. Smith, first dismissed the charges, correctly, on the grounds that it is logically impossible to be guilty of an enhancement if one is innocent of the crime. However, under apparent political pressure, he subsequently reversed his own ruling and sentenced the defendants to maximum terms as though they had been convicted of the main crimes, offering the comment, “The law doesn’t have to be logical.”

No. The law does have to be logical. Otherwise it is not law. It is arbitrary rule by force.

Now by “logical” what is meant is two-valued logic, which is sometimes also called Boolean, Aristotelian or Euclidean logic. In other words, a system of propositions within which a statement and its negation cannot both be true or valid. One of the two must be false or invalid. The two possible values are true and false, and every meaningful proposition can be assigned one or the other value.

A system of law is a body of prescriptive, as opposed to descriptive, propositions, that support the making of decisions, and therefore its logic must be two-valued. It is a fundamental principle of law that like cases must be decided alike, and this means according to propositions that exclude their contradictions.

It is also a fundamental principle of logic that any system of propositions that accepts both a statement and its negation as valid, that is, which accepts a contradiction, accepts all contradictions, and provides no basis for deciding among them. If decisions are made, they are not made on the basis of the propositions, but are arbitrary, and that is the definition of the rule of men, as opposed to the rule of law.

So what Winston Smith is saying is that freedom means being able to distinguish between a true proposition and a false one, and what his nemesis O’Brien therefore does to crush him is make him accept that “2 + 2 = 5″, which cannot be true if the logic is Aristotelian. O’Brien represents the logic of arbitrary power, a “logic” we might call Orwellian, although Orwell, whose real name was Eric Blair, was strongly opposed to it.

The methodology of tyranny

The methods used to overthrow a constitutional order and establish a tyranny are well-known. However, despite this awareness, it is surprising how those who have no intention of perpetrating a tyranny can slip into these methods and bring about a tyranny despite their best intentions. Tyranny does not have to be deliberate. Tyrants can fool themselves as thoroughly as they fool everyone else.

Control of public information and opinion

It begins with withholding information, and leads to putting out false or misleading information. A government can develop ministries of propaganda under many guises. They typically call it “public information” or “marketing”.

Vote fraud used to prevent the election of reformers

It doesn’t matter which of the two major party candidates are elected if no real reformer can get nominated, and when news services start knowing the outcomes of elections before it is possible for them to know, then the votes are not being honestly counted.

Undue official influence on trials and juries

Nonrandom selection of jury panels, exclusion of those opposed to the law, exclusion of the jury from hearing argument on the law, exclusion of private prosecutors from access to the grand jury, and prevention of parties and their counsels from making effective arguments or challenging the government.

Usurpation of undelegated powers

This is usually done with popular support for solving some problem, or to redistribute wealth to the advantage of the supporters of the dominant faction, but it soon leads to the deprivation of rights of minorities and individuals.

Seeking a government monopoly on the capability and use of armed force

The first signs are efforts to register or restrict the possession and use of firearms, initially under the guise of “protecting” the public, which, when it actually results in increased crime, provides a basis for further disarmament efforts affecting more people and more weapons.

Militarization of law enforcement

Declaring a “war on crime” that becomes a war on civil liberties. Preparation of military forces for internal policing duties.

Infiltration and subversion of citizen groups that could be forces for reform

Internal spying and surveillance is the beginning. A sign is false prosecutions of their leaders.

Suppression of investigators and whistleblowers

When people who try to uncover high level wrongdoing are threatened, that is a sign the system is not only riddled with corruption, but that the corruption has passed the threshold into active tyranny.

Use of the law for competition suppression

It begins with the dominant faction winning support by paying off their supporters and suppressing their supporters’ competitors, but leads to public officials themselves engaging in illegal activities and using the law to suppress independent competitors. A good example of this is narcotics trafficking.

Subversion of internal checks and balances

This involves the appointment to key positions of persons who can be controlled by their sponsors, and who are then induced to do illegal things. The worst way in which this occurs is in the appointment of judges that will go along with unconstitutional acts by the other branches.

Creation of a class of officials who are above the law

This is indicated by dismissal of charges for wrongdoing against persons who are “following orders”.

Increasing dependency of the people on government

The classic approach to domination of the people is to first take everything they have away from them, then make them compliant with the demands of the rulers to get anything back again.

Increasing public ignorance of their civic duties and reluctance to perform them

When the people avoid doing things like voting and serving in militias and juries, tyranny is not far behind.

Use of staged events to produce popular support

Acts of terrorism, blamed on political opponents, followed immediately with well-prepared proposals for increased powers and budgets for suppressive agencies. Sometimes called a Reichstag plot.

Conversion of rights into privileges

Requiring licenses and permits for doing things that the government does not have the delegated power to restrict, except by due process in which the burden of proof is on the petitioner.

Political correctness

Many if not most people are susceptible to being recruited to engage in repressive actions against disfavored views or behaviors, and led to pave the way for the dominance of tyrannical government.

Avoiding tyranny

The key is always to detect tendencies toward tyranny and suppress them before they go too far or become too firmly established. The people must never acquiesce in any violation of the Constitution. Failure to take corrective action early will only mean that more severe measures will have to be taken later, perhaps with the loss of life and the disruption of the society in ways from which recovery may take centuries.

From Fox Sports

PASCH Newsletter Summer 2010

This Resource Guide was written to support service providers in their work with parents, caregivers, and their children to strengthen families and prevent child abuse and neglect. The guide includes information about protective factors that help reduce the risk of child maltreatment, strategies for changing how communities support families, and evidence-informed practices. It also offers suggestions for enhancing protective factors in families, tools to build awareness and develop community partnerships, information about child abuse and neglect, a directory of national organizations that work to strengthen families, and tip sheets in English and Spanish on specific parenting topics.

Chapter 1: Laying the Groundwork

Protective Factors for Strengthening Families

Promoting Safe, Stable, and Nurturing Relationships

Levers for Change: Deepening and Sustaining a Protective-Factors Approach

Using Evidence to Support Efforts to Strengthen Families

Chapter 2: Working With Families: The Five Protective Factors

Promoting the Five Protective Factors

Nurturing and Attachment

Knowledge of Parenting and of Child and Youth Development

Parental Resilience

Social Connections

Concrete Supports for Parents

Chapter 3: Engaging Your Community

Tools for Engaging Your Community

Engaging Community Partners

Tips for Working With Specific Groups

Talking Points

Temas de conversación (Talking Points in Spanish)

Sample Press Release for National Child Abuse Prevention Month

Ejemplo de boletín de prensa (Press Release in Spanish)

Sample Public Service Announcements

Ejemplo de anuncio de servicio público para radiodifusión (PSAs in Spanish)

Chapter 4: Protecting Children

Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect

Reporting Child Maltreatment

Chapter 5: Resources

National Child Abuse Prevention Partners

Federal Interagency Work Group on Child Abuse and Neglect

Chapter 6: Tip Sheets for Parents and Caregivers

Using the Tip Sheets for Parents and Caregivers

Bonding With Your Baby

Usted y su bebé: El lazo que los une

Dealing With Temper Tantrums

Los berrinches

Connecting With Your Teen

Cómo relacionarse con su hijo adolescente

Teen Parents… You’re Not Alone!

Hay muchos padres adolescentes como usted

Ten Ways to Be a Better Dad

Diez maneras de ser un mejor padre

Raising Your Grandchildren

Cómo criar al hijo de un pariente

Abusive men make all kinds of promises about changing their abusive behavior but rarely do. Statistically, even the ones involved with Abuser Programs don’t change (estimated to be 2-3%).

ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS HONESTLY TO FIND OUT (YES OR NO)

Has he learned to treat your opinions with respect, even when they differ strongly from his?

Is he accepting your right to express anger to him, especially when it involves his history of mistreating you?

Is he respecting your right to freedom and independence? Including refraining from all interference with your friendships and giving up the demand to always know where you are and whom you are with?

Has he stopped making excuses for his treatment of you, including not using your behavior as an excuse for his?

Is he being respectful about sex, applying no pressure and engaging in no guilt trips?

Has he stopped cheating or flirting with other women, or using other behaviors (like addictions) that keep you anxious?

Does he listen to your side in arguments without interrupting, and then make a sincere effort to respond thoughtfully to your points, even if he doesn’t like them?

Have you been free to raise your grievances new or old, without retaliation from him?

Has he stopped talking about his abuse as if it where an accident and began to acknowledge that he used it to control you?

Is he actually responding to your grievances and doing something about them (for example, changing the way he behaves towards your children, friends or extended family)?

Has he greatly reduced or eliminated his use of controlling behaviors (such as sarcasm, rolling his eyes, loud disgusted sighs, passive aggressive behavior, manipulation, gaslighting, ignoring, projecting, talking over you, using the voice of ultimate authority, and other demonstrations of disrespect or superiority) during conversations and arguments?

When he does slip back into controlling behavior, does he take you seriously when you complain and keep working on improving?

Is he being consistent and responsible in his behavior, taking into account how his actions affect you without having to be constantly reminded?

Does he show greater respect for you in front of his friends and extended family?

Is he acting noticeably less demanding, selfish, and self centered? Has he started to appear genuinely kind to you and others?

Is he being fair and responsible about money, including allowing you to keep your own assets in your own name? Will he allow both of you to work on short term and long term budgets together and stick with it?

Has he stopped any behaviors that you find threatening or intimidating?

Has he significantly expanded his contribution to household and child-rearing responsibilities and stopped taking domestic work for granted or treating you like a servant?

Has he begun supporting your strengths rather than striving to undermine them?

Have you had any major disagreements with him in which he has shown a new willingness to conduct himself non-abusively?

Has he allowed you full access to: Family decision making? Household purchases? Where you take family vacations? Investments? Home computers? Private email addresses? Insurance policies? Retirement accounts? Wills? Deeds?

“No” answers to any of the above questions show that he is not willing to change his controlling behaviors.

I have held off posting anything about the unrighteous-dominion of Susan Powell until tonight.  I have watched every video, read every news report, read every blog and now spoken with Susan and Josh’s close friends.  Seems Susan had spoken openly for months about the control and verbal abuse issues.  Pray they find Susan soon so this doesn’t continue.  Her family needs her found, now!

28 year old mother of 2 Susan Powell was last seen Sunday night inside her home in West Valley City, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. Susan’s husband, Joshua Powell, and their 2 children were also believe to be missing at the outset, but later returned home Monday afternoon. Joshua Powell reportedly told cops that he decided late Sunday night to take the children on a late night camping trip. Powell allegedly says he saw Susan sleeping in bed around midnight Sunday when he left the house with the kids. Powell has told local media that he would go on these late-night camping trips with his children frequently, he would get them out of bed, and take them out to camp out and make s’mores.

After not hearing from anyone in the family for nearly 2 days, Joshua Powell’s sister, Jennifer Graves, called police Monday to report the entire family missing. Police went to the home and saw nobody inside. Fearing the family might have been a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning, cops smashed the window to get inside. There was no sign of Susan, or her husband and children. Powell and the children who are 2 and 4 year old boys, later returned home Monday, reportedly around 5pm. Powell told the Deseret News he didn’t even know his wife was missing until a friend called him Monday and told him police were looking for him and his family. Neither Susan Powell or her husband showed up to work Monday and the children were never dropped off at daycare. CBS news reports Powell did not show up for work because he had been confused about what day it was.

Items found in the home
Susan’s purse, cell phone, and keys were reportedly found in the home. Her car was also still parked there. On Wednesday, police executed a search warrant on the home and removed several items which they say they will be conducting forensic testing on. It is unknown what items were taken from the home. Police also reportedly searched Joshua Powell’s van, but have not commented on specifics. As expected, authorities have conducted interviews with the husband Joshua Powell as well as the 4 year old boy, though cops say interviewing the children has been a difficult process. Police do not have any suspects or persons of interest in the case, but are continuing to investigate non-stop. Police have reportedly gone out to Utah’s west desert to verify the husband’s claims that he took the children camping late Sunday Night. Police said there was no sign of Susan and unfortunately, because of fresh snow, there was no evidence that anyone had camped there. The weather had been bad in the area for days, including the night Susan was last seen and the boys went on a camping trip. In fact, it was so cold, that a friend of the family says when he saw Joshua Powell Wednesday night, his hands looked like they had been suffering from “freezer burn” and appeared almost frostbitten.

Husband’s Reaction
Friends and family are beginning to question Joshua Powell’s reaction to the whole situation. Susan’s father says he spoke with Joshua Powell on Tuesday and he sounded tired and broke up a bit. That differs from Powell family friend, Tim Peterson, who says when he saw Joshua Powell Wednesday night, Powell didn’t seem interested in talking about his missing wife Susan. Peterson said Powell had asked him for a ride to pick up his van, which had reportedly been searched by cops. Peterson described Powell’s behavior as “odd”, saying when he asked about Susan, Powell really didn’t respond, and Powell allegedly only wanted to talk about his kids and his lack of sleep. Peterson says Powell told him they went camping to test a new generator and make s’mores.

Marriage Problems
While Susan’s father says there has been no history of domestic violence, both he, family, and friends all say the couple had marital problems for some time and were trying to work them out. Susan’s father said the couple had issues in the past but Susan told him they had been talking to each other and things were getting better. Other friends and neighbors of the family say that about a year ago, Susan allegedly began talking openly about obtaining a divorce from Joshua Powell. Susan allegedly talked about trying to save up enough money to leave her husband. In August, Tim Peterson claims Susan told him that she and her husband were going to start marriage counseling. Susan allegedly told Peterson that her husband was very controlling, and that if things didn’t get better by next spring, she was going to leave Powell.

Self-sufficient Stockbroker
Family and friends are lost for words when describing Susan Powell. Words that always come to mind: Self-sufficient and hard-working. In addition to being a stockbroker with Wells Fargo Financial, Susan also baked her own bread, grew her own garden, and canned her own vegetables…all while raising her 2 children and taking care of her family. Joshua Powell says his wife Susan is a “really good mother” who enjoys singing in her church choir and doing art projects with her children. About 100 of Susan’s friends, neighbors, co-workers, and family members (including her husband and 2 children) gathered for a vigil last night.

Susan is 5-foot-3, 130 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. Police do not have a description of what she was wearing. If you know anything, please call West Valley City Police at (801) 840-4000