One of the primary differentiators between being identified with “autism” and not is the level of cognitive performance across different categories. An individual with “normal” to “above average” cognitive measurements across all measured categories is likely to escape “detection”, while an individual with low or extremely uneven performance is dramatically more likely to be considered “autistic”.
This pattern is overwhelmingly true for ventral dominant/”Asperger’s” phenotypes, where differences of a full standard deviation among components of various “IQ” tests is fairly common. For dorsal dominant/”Haven’tCoinedANameForThisYet” phenotypes, it’s unlikely they will be diagnosed as “autistic” at all except/until their children are diagnosed. For dorsal dominant phenotypes, they generally receive several other alphabet soup psychiatric diagnoses, but predominantly anxious-depressive categories.
The setup here is I am wondering, what happens to individuals like this who either don’t learn or experience the negative consequences of harm to others? Not so much why harm to themselves is bad, but why harm to others is bad? Examples like an overly protective family which isolated them from consequences or a subculture which aggrandizes violence would isolate these individuals from learning directly why harm to others is “bad”. For individuals who aren’t learning these social lessons “osmotically” as is an implied part of the “autism” description, are “autistic” individuals more likely to dissociate from the harm of their actions?
So where the hell is this coming from? There are two primary media circuses in the never ending train of circuses that really stand out, Moscow/Kohlberger murders and Long Island/Heuermann murders. Of course neither of these individuals has been convicted (yet), however the likelihood of exoneration for individuals arrested for crimes like this after extensive investigations is nearly none. Generally, the only serial murder suspects who are later released tend to be “usual suspects” types, and always with really solid alibis.
The first question is, are either of these individuals “autistic”? I picked these two specifically because they are absolutely both “autistic”, and frankly pretty glaring examples of a ventral/”Asperger’s” type in Kohlberger, and dorsal/”HCANFTY” in Heuermann. These two are examples of the above, where above average “cognitive performance” masks the “autism” part. The “how do you know” part probably deserves it’s own post, but the histories are consistent with those phenotypes.
There are other examples, like Samuel Little (dorsal) and Gary Ridgeway (dorsal, “low” but even “IQ” sections). On the ventral side, they tend to be spree/mass killers, and just about every single recent mass casualty shooter (or stabber in the case of Kohlberger) are phenotypically “Asperger’s”. Often individuals like Dahmer are purported as one phenotype (“Asperger’s”) in the absence of cognitive testing, but have the behavioral and family history which strongly suggests the other. Perhaps a behavioral differentiator between the two is that dorsals can lure victims, while ventrals generally cannot. We can also look at the perceived motives, ventral acts tend to be done to avoid perceived future harm, while dorsal acts are almost always examples of fucked up intimacy of self.
Unfortunately due to the lack of nuance everywhere I should probably state that I am in no way asserting all “autistic” individuals are likely to be murders, or even that anything other than a very small percentage will commit such a crime. The conceit here is that of individuals who do commit such crimes, “autistic” individuals are very very very very very over-represented.
Edit: I realize I kind of buried the lede here a bit, but individuals with “ASD” traits account for ~30% of all currently incarcerated multiple murder perpetrators.
Also, all of this is sort of the plot of the movie/book We Need to Talk About Kevin, ironic considering the author of the book is a raging “undiagnosed” aspie herself.
Neurodevelopmental and psychosocial risk factors in serial killers and mass murderers
Two types of aggression in human evolution – Under this conceit, ventral mass killings qualify as “proactive” violence.
Autism and School Shootings — Overlap of Autism (Asperger’s Syndrome) and General Psychopathy
Violence is Rare in Autism: When It Does Occur, Is It Sometimes Extreme? – This is mass shooters specifically which is a bit wider because it includes a lot of untargeted violence, I guess I should have made a clearer statement above about “targeted” violence being a qualifier.
Mass violence in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A case analysis of Anders Breivik using the “Path to Intended and Terroristic Violence” model – “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” is Aspergers/extreme ventral dominant processing.