The drive to kill animals that begins during the childhood years of individuals who are potential serial killers may be based in several causes, but there is no standard pattern of childhood behavior or life experience that applies to all serial killers.
There can be the basic desire to retaliate against the source of suffering, rage, or abuse that is redirected toward something that is small and cannot fight back, as the real target of rage is too powerful to harm. Fire setting is a common alternative to animal cruelty. Another issue is bed wetting or Enuresis, where humiliation and abuse are consequences for bed wetting after the age when bed wetting should have stopped.
The three behaviors: animal cruelty, bed wetting, and fire setting are included in the famous Macdonald Triad, which was introduced in 1963. Since then, however, the conclusions of the Macdonald Triad have been successfully challenged as much more information about serial killers as opposed to problematic children who grew out of their behavior, has been collected. Also, Macdonald did not interview or examine a population of actual killers, but of mental patients who had only threatened to kill.
But the three Macdonald characteristics have been proved to be related in one way or another to serial killers, such as killing larger animals, especially dogs and cats. The killing is done from a personal perspective. The killing or fire setting is for personal enjoyment, rather than to comply with peer pressure or to impress others. There is little or no sympathy or remorse shown for victims. If the child develops into a serial killer, the methods used during the childhood killings can be carried over as the same methods that are used to kill human victims. There is an attention seeking, or “cry for help” dynamic to the fire setting, poor school performance, and in demonstrating other problematic childhood behavior.
Family backgrounds that include coercive, abusive, or affection aversive behavior by the parents or guardians can trigger serial fire setting or animal cruelty and killing behaviors. In many trauma cases, there was a death in the family where social and financial decline and dysfunction, or parental drug and alcohol abuse develops. Sexual and emotional abuse from parents, older or step siblings and step parents can trigger one or all of the elements of the Macdonald triad to be acted out, mostly in males, but not necessarily with the result of all males becoming serial killers.
In summary, while there is no clear link between animal cruelty as a predictor of children becoming serial killers, any child who demonstrates fire setting and animal cruelty, killing or abuse requires attention in order to determine if there are serious traumas or problematic life experiences going on.
The MacDonald Triad
