Are mass murderers always insane? Researchers don't think so

UK Independent   File under "They know this because....?"  

" 'In almost all high-end mass killings, the perpetrator’s thinking evolves,' says one expert"

If what people do is any reflection of who they are, then Devin Patrick Kelley, who slaughtered 26 churchgoers on Sunday in Texas, surely was a madman.

Before the atrocity, he had attempted to sneak weapons onto an Air Force base after making death threats to his superiors, according to a local police report. In 2012, he had escaped from a mental hospital in New Mexico to which he had been sent after assaulting his wife and fracturing his stepson’s skull.

"A video of the church killing reportedly shows Mr. Kelley working his way methodically through the aisles, shooting some parishioners, even children, at point-blank range.

"But the rest of these murderers do not have any severe, diagnosable disorder. Though he was abusive to his wife, Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in an Orlando nightclub, had no apparent serious mental illness. Neither did Stephen Paddock, who mowed down 58 concertgoers from a hotel window in Las Vegas."

"Ditto for Dylann Roof, the racist who murdered nine African-American churchgoers in South Carolina in 2015, and Christopher Harper-Mercer, the angry young man who killed nine people at a community college in Oregon the same year." . . .

"Adam Lanza, who in 2012 killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., exhibited extreme paranoia in the months leading up to his crime, isolating himself in his room."