Savage Spawn (11 page)

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Authors: Jonathan Kellerman

         

Index

Abbott, Jack Henry

Adolescence, impact of child abuse in

Aggression

and media violence

pathological

proactive (cold-blooded)

reactive (hot-blooded)

role models for

and stress

and substance abuse

and testosterone levels

See also
Violence

Alcohol abuse

American Psychiatric Association

Antisocial children

and adult criminality

group placement of

identification of

treatment of

and violent crime rate

See also
Psychopaths

Antisocial personality disorder (APD)

Anxiety, lack of

Arousability, low

Arousal, by media violence

Artists, psycopathic

Attachment, disruption of

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Barrow, Clyde

Behavior therapy

Biological determinism

and behavior modification

and brain abnormalities

in disease model of deviance

and eugenics

and genetics

interaction with environment

and low arousability

and testosterone levels

unsubstantiated claims of

Blacks

and crime

psychopaths

Bonney, William H. (Billy the Kid)

Boredom, low threshold for

Brain abnormality

Brain wave

Buckley, William

Bundy, Ted

Cassidy, Butch

Chessman, Caryl

Child abuse

arousability of parent

corporal punishment

and cranial injury

dissociative reactions from

impact in adolescence

prevention and remediation of

self-defense reaction to

Clockwork Orange, A
(Burgess)

Cold-bloodedness

Cornered-animal syndrome

Corporal punishment

Correlation/causation

Cranial injury

Crime rate

Criminality

in American history and folklore

of antisocial child

and brain abnormality

burnout phenomenon

and corporal punishment

gender differences in

and intelligence

and media violence

numbers of offenses

and poverty

precursors of

and race

recidivism rate

and substance abuse

and testosterone level

See also
Murderers; Violence

Criminal justice system

child murderers in

and death penalty

and firearms restriction

plea bargaining in

and preventative custody

social liberal policies in

“three strikes” laws in

Death penalty

Desensitization, to media violence

Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals
(DSMs)

Disease model

Disinhibition

Dissociative reactions

Drug abuse

EEG abnormality

Empathy, lack of

Environment

corporal punishment

correlation studies

family breakdown

genetic traits modified by

in infant/toddler period

interaction with biology

media violence

nature/nurture debate

paternal role model

political attitudes toward

prenatal

and race

social-learning approach to

Eugenics

Family

breakdown

chaotic

unification

See also
Parents

Fathers, as role model

FBI psychological profiles

Fearlessness

Firearms, restricted access to

47XYY karyotype

Galton, Francis

Gang leaders

Gender differences

Genetic traits

Golden, Andrew

Hare Psychopathy Checklist

Head injury

Heart rate

Hot-bloodedness

Huckabee, Mike

Identification, with media violence

Impulse control

In the Belly of the Beast
(Abbott)

Intelligence, and criminality

James, Jesse

Jamison, Kay Redfield

Johnson, Mitchell

Jonesboro massacre

Kaczynski, Theodore

Kellerman, Faye

Killer Inside Me, The
(Thompson)

Kinkel, Kipland

Laing, R.D.

Leopold and Loeb

Mailer, Norman

Manic-depression

Marxist criminological doctrine

Mauritius Child Health Study

Media violence

Menendez, Lyle and Erik

Millar, Thomas

Montagu, Ashley

Moral training

Murderers

brain abnormality in

child

for domination

faulty reasoning in

incarceration of

prehomicidal violence by

premeditation of

signs of violent criminality

coolness of

psychotic

serial

sexual

Nash, Robert Jay

Nature
vs.
nurture debate

Neurotransmitters

Newton, Huey

Noncompliant behavior

Orphanages, for abused children

Panzram, Carl

Parents

and family breakdown

incompetent

loss of

paternal role model

removal of high-risk child from

resistance to child's treatment

training of

See also
Child abuse

Phenylketonuria (PKU)

Plea bargaining

Polygraph

Pornography

Positive reinforcement, and media violence

Poverty, and criminality

Prenatal development

Psycho

Psychological profiles

Psychopaths

amorality of

artistic/creative

biological explanations for.
See
Biological determinism

black

in criminal justice system

defined

deterrents to

and disease model

emotions of

environmental factors in.
See
Environment

failure of therapy and rehabilitation

gang leaders

gender differences in

glamorization of

impulsive aspect of

interpersonal aspect of

labeling and relabeling of

from privileged backgrounds

psychological profiles of

vs.
psychotics

sanity of

schizoid

serial murderers

sexual

testing

underreactivity of

See also
Aggression; Criminality; Murderers; Violence

Psychotherapy

Psychotics

biological explanation for

and crime

Quantrill's guerrillas

Race

Raine, Adrian

Rehabilitation

Relabeling

Samenow, Stanton

Sanitization, and media violence

Schizoid psychopaths

Schizophrenia

School killings

Sensation-seeking behavior

Serial murderers

Serotonin

Sexual psychopaths

Skin conductance

Sleep patterns

Smith, Edgar Herbert

Social isolation

Social-learning approach

Sociopaths

Speck, Richard

Talmud, on incorrigibility

Testosterone

Thompson, Jim

“Three strikes” laws

Time-out

Truancy

Twin studies

Unquiet Mind, An
(Jamison)

Unterwegger, Jack

Violence

biological factors in

channeled by military conscription

characteristics of

and corporal punishment

gender differences in

manic-depressive

media

prehomicidal

rise in

role models for

schizophrenic

threats of

See also
Aggression; Criminality; Murderers

Weston, Rusty

Yochelson, Samuel

BOOKS BY JONATHAN KELLERMAN

FICTION

Billy Straight

Survival of the Fittest

The Clinic

The Web

Self-Defense

Bad Love

Devil's Waltz

Private Eyes

Time Bomb

Silent Partner

The Butcher's Theater

Over the Edge

Blood Test

When the Bough Breaks

NONFICTION

Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children

Helping the Fearful Child

Psychological Aspects of Childhood Cancer

FOR CHILDREN, WRITTEN AND ILLUSTRATED

Jonathan Kellerman's ABC of Weird Creatures

Daddy, Daddy, Can You Touch the Sky?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The recipient of numerous awards for achievement in fiction writing and psychology, JONATHAN KELLERMAN is the author of three volumes on psychology, two books for children, and fourteen consecutive best-selling novels, as well as scores of research studies and essays published in scientific and popular journals.

Trained as a child clinical psychologist, Dr. Kellerman was founding director of the Psychosocial Program, Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, and is currently clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine and clinical professor of psychology at USC's College of Arts and Sciences. He and his wife, bestselling novelist Faye Kellerman, have four children.

Read on for an excerpt from

GUILT

by Jonathan Kellerman

Published by Ballantine Books

 

CHAPTER
1

A
ll mine!

The house, the life growing inside her.

The husband.

Holly finished her fifth circuit of the back room that looked out to the yard. She paused for breath. The baby—Aimee—had started pushing against her diaphragm.

Since escrow had closed, Holly had done a hundred circuits, imagining. Loving every inch of the place despite the odors imbedded in ninety-year-old plaster: cat pee, mildew, overripe vegetable soup. Old person.

In a few days the painting would begin and the aroma of fresh latex would bury all that, and cheerful colors would mask the discouraging gray-beige of Holly's ten-room dream. Not counting bathrooms.

The house was a brick-faced Tudor on a quarter-acre lot at the southern edge of Cheviot Hills, built when construction was meant to last and adorned by moldings, wainscoting, arched mahogany doors, quartersawn oak floors. Parquet in the cute little study that would be Matt's home office when he needed to bring work home.

Holly could close the door and not have to hear Matt's grumbling about moron clients incapable of keeping decent records. Meanwhile she'd be on a comfy couch, snuggling with Aimee.

She'd learned the sex of the baby at the four-month anatomical ultrasound, decided on the name right then and there. Matt didn't know yet. He was still adjusting to the whole fatherhood thing.

Sometimes she wondered if Matt dreamed in numbers.

Resting her hands on a mahogany sill, Holly squinted to blank out the weeds and dead grass, struggling to conjure a green, flower-laden Eden.

Hard to visualize, with a mountain of tree-trunk taking up all that space.

The five-story sycamore had been one of the house's selling points, with its trunk as thick as an oil drum and dense foliage that created a moody, almost spooky ambience. Holly's creative powers had immediately kicked into gear, visualizing a swing attached to that swooping lower branch.

Aimee giggling as she swooped up and shouted that Holly was the best mommy.

Two weeks into escrow, during a massive, unseasonal rainstorm, the sycamore's roots had given way. Thank God the monster had teetered but hadn't fallen. The trajectory would've landed it right on the house.

An agreement was drawn up: The sellers—the old woman's son and daughter—would pay to have the monstrous thing chopped down and hauled away, the stumps ground to dust, the soil leveled. Instead, they'd cheaped out, paying a tree company only to cut down the sycamore, leaving behind a massive horror of deadwood that took up the entire rear half of the yard.

Matt had gone bananas, threatened to kill the deal.

Abrogate
. What an ugly word.

Holly had cooled him off by promising to handle the situation, she'd make sure they got duly compensated, he wouldn't have to deal with it.

Fine. As long as you actually do it
.

Now Holly stared at the mountain of wood, feeling discouraged and a bit helpless. Some of the sycamore, she supposed, could be reduced to firewood. Fragments and leaves and loose pieces of bark she could rake up herself, maybe create a compost pile. But those massive columns …

Whatever; she'd figure it out. Meanwhile, there was cat pee–overripe soup–mildew–old lady stink to deal with.

Mrs. Hannah had lived in the house for fifty-two years. Still, how did a person's smell permeate lath and plaster? Not that Holly had anything against old people. Though she didn't know too many.

There had to be something you could do to freshen yourself—a special deodorant—when you reached a certain age.

One way or the other, Matt would settle down. He'd come around, he always did.

Like with the house itself. He'd never expressed any interest in design, all of a sudden he was into
contemporary
. Holly had toured a ton of boring white boxes, knowing Matt would always find a reason to say no because that was Matt's thing.

By the time Holly's dream house materialized, he didn't care about style, just a good price.

The deal had been one of those warp-speed magical things, like when the stars are all aligned and your karma's perfectly positioned: Old lady dies, greedy kids want quick cash and contact Coldwell and randomly get hooked up with Vanessa and Vanessa calls Holly before the house goes on the market because she owes Holly big-time, all those nights talking Vanessa down from bad highs, listening to Vanessa's nonstop litany of personal issues.

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