Research Article Open Access

Psychosocial Development on the Genesis of a Serial Killer “Mercy-Hero” Type

Abstract

On June 2013, Joan Vilà Dilmé was condemned to one hundred and twenty-seven and a half years by the murder of eleven old people at a geriatric residence. His case provoked a strong media effect and he became the most prolific serial killer in Spain on the current century, and the fourth for sixty years before. The goal of this article is to analyze in depth the living process as an important factor in the genesis of these criminal acts. To do so, we study the mental processes associated with motivations, feelings and fantasies. The methodology used is based on the analysis of the forensic reports made by psychological experts and psychiatrists, forensic interviews in prison and the documentary material taken from the crime scene. The results show the presence of disorders in the individual’s psychosexual development, like identification with female role and a personality structure marked by his handicap to create stable and secure emotional bonds from his childhood. Both factors affect the individual’s emotional development throughout his life, promoting the appearance of anxiety/depression symptoms, frustrations and insecurities. The conclusions show a serial killer, mercy-hero type, whose main motive is determined by the moral need to finish their victims’ agony, in order to reduce his own suffering. That’s why the lack of sadistic components. The psychosexual disorders, the absence of emotional bonds and the shortage of a stable and autonomous psychological structure, are compensated after beginning his professional activity at the geriatric. His first significant and firm emotional bond in his life appeared then, even though it involved a change in his morality. The analysis of his lifelong process reflects inconsistency and personal ambivalence in his criminal behavior, and allows understanding why the victims were the most important persons in his emotional life.

Miguel Angel Soria

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