Criminal Profiler Pat Brown on the Nikki Catsouras Case
May 06, 2009
Yesterday, I brought you the story of Nikki Catsouras, an 18-year-old girl from Orange County, Calif., who died in a horrific car accident in October 2006. Since that time, morbid and insensitive individuals who hide on the Internet's darker side have continued to harass Nikki's family by sending them taunting emails about their daughter's death, along with horrific crime scene photos of the accident. Those photos have since gone viral and can be found on thousands of Internet Web sites.
Read: Nikki Catsouras Crime Scene Photos Haunt Deceased Teen's Family
So what is it that drives these morbid individuals to partake in this bizarre fetish and why do they enjoy harassing Nikki's family? In an effort to better understand the motivations behind it, Investigation Discovery has reached out to Investigative Criminal Profiler Pat Brown and asked her to share her thoughts on the subject.
"There are many people in this world who are titillated by gore and death," Brown said. "They gain some perverse feeling of power, a sense of triumph, to see others brutally killed, to see the mutilation of the body, the destruction of another human being. When that person is attractive, well-healed, and successful, the thrill is even stronger. It is a "Ha-Ha, look what happened to you!" triumph for the individual who feels he himself has not received enough attention or glory in his life. In his own mind, he would enjoy tearing apart people, taking them all down off their perches, showing them who has the power to control life and death. But, since they are too chicken to become serial killers, they live through gore sites and slasher movies."
According to Brown, individuals who choose to only look at look at fictionalized gore and mayhem are able to justify it because it is not real - they are not actually glorifying and salivating over harm to others. On the flip side, "gore freaks" have no qualms about delighting themselves with actual photos and videos of people who have been brutalized.
"They relish that a real human being has come to such an end. And, even worse, there are those, who actual push the horror, pain, and humiliation the victims have suffered into the faces of their families, a form of sadism which gives them a increased feeling of winning," Brown said. "They know they are causing great anguish to another human being and they love it. Such behavior is a form of serial predation, using mental torture as opposed to physical torture."
The birth of the Internet brought with it a new venue for psychopathic predators, who Brown says fear actual contact with victims, because they are either concerned they will lose in a confrontation or they think they will be caught committing a crime.
"Instead, they sit in the comfort of their homes, attacking people with a keyboard and a send key," Brown said. "This new Internet method of assault and abuse is not yet illegal and carries no penalty."Freedom of speech" backs this behavior.
Brown believes that this disturbing trend of gore and Internet sadism will continue to spread until society realizes the horrendous damage that is being inflicted on innocent people - damage which is clearly evident in the case of Nikki Catsouras.
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Photo Credit: Contributed
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