What is the common theme that underlies most murderers?
“Is murder mainly a function of demographics, economics, or broken families?”
Murder is usually, when we get right down to it, driven by a need to wield power. Wielding power capriciously (which murder is nothing but) almost always is rooted in alcohol or other-drug addiction. Such addiction happens to markedly increase the rate of broken families.
Then how do we know that alcoholism and not, say, broken families, is the cause of most murder? For one, we know that alcohol (or other-drug addiction) is the only attribute shared by almost all murderers. Second, long-recovering addicts tell us they were capable of “anything” while using. Third, there is no difference in psychopathologies of children who later become alcoholics and those who do not. Fourth, almost all Personality Disorders that alcoholics are diagnosed as having, including Sociopathic Disorder, “disappear” within months of sobriety. We also know broken families in which murder has occurred almost always have long-standing alcoholism problems, particularly in the perpetrator.
Among numerous serial killers and mass murderers I have studied, there is not one in whom I have failed to find at least compelling evidence for addiction. This includes Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer and Timothy McVeigh (the first three were clearly alcoholics and the latter was an amphetamine addict).