Study: Bad Youth Shapes Murderers

May 14 -- As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

My dad used that expression often, and a major new study of 37 men who were executed in Texas in 1997 suggests that he was probably right on target.

Long before they reached death row, those 37 men — some of whom committed crimes so violent that they are almost unthinkable — had themselves been victims of violence as young children. And those who suffered multiple forms of child abuse during their early years committed the most heinous crimes.

The study, published in the current issue of the journal Violence and Victims, stops short of proclaiming a direct link between child abuse and subsequent criminal activity, but the data clearly waves a red flag.

Lethal Combination

Most children who are victims of violence do not turn to lives of crime, says lead author Dorothy Van Soest, now dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Washington. But her research, conducted while she was at the University of Texas, offers compelling evidence that multiple types of child abuse, at certain ages, may well turn the victim into an abuser later in life.

The convicts included 22 white, 13 black and two Latino men, all convicted of murder. The researchers divided them into two categories, those who committed the "most heinous" crimes, characterized by extreme violence and a lack of remorse, and those who committed "less heinous" murders, usually during a robbery or while strung out on drugs.

Sixteen of the crimes committed by whites were evaluated as heinous, and six as less heinous; six of the blacks committed heinous murders, and seven less; the two Latinos were split between the categories.

The data was a bit slim in some cases, Van Soest says, but it revealed that a total of 20 men had been victims of childhood abuse, 15 of whom later committed heinous murders.

But here's one finding that leaps out of the report: Those who suffered sexual and physical abuse, as well as physical or emotional neglect, committed the most ruthless murders. One stabbed his victim 50 times, another shot, stabbed and strangled his victim, and a third stuffed the body of his victim in the trunk of his car and then went to a party.