Serial Killer IQ: THE REALITY OF SERIAL KILLER INTELLIGENCE

I. Serial Killer IQ: THE ARCHITECTURE OF MEDIOCRITY

Subject: Serial Offender Intelligence & Competency Analysis

The collective consciousness of society is infected with a parasitic narrative: the myth of the “Evil Genius.” We have been conditioned by decades of Hollywood fiction and sensationalist media to believe that the serial predator is a Nietzschean superman, an apex entity operating on a plane of intellect so rarefied that law enforcement is reduced to the role of a befuddled child playing checkers while the killer plays multidimensional chess.

We consume this mythology in the form of Hannibal Lecter—sophisticated, multilingual, an appreciator of Bach and Chianti—or the intricate, morality-testing traps of Jigsaw. The public imagination demands a monster worthy of its fear. If the predator is a genius, the prey is not weak; they are simply outmatched. It is a comforting lie. It absolves the system of its failures and the public of its apathy.

This investigative report serves a single, ruthless directive: to eviscerate the “Evil Genius” myth through forensic deconstruction, statistical reality, and the cold, hard data of the morgue. The reality of the serial killer is not one of transcendent intelligence, but of profound, often pathetic, mediocrity. They are not apex predators; they are opportunistic scavengers who thrive in the cracks of a fractured system. They are the mold that grows in the damp corners of societal neglect.

The following analysis aggregates data from thousands of offender profiles, contrasting the media-generated hologram of the “criminal mastermind” with the grimy, stumbling reality of the men—and they are almost always men—who kill. We will dissect the intelligence quotients that barely scrape average, the cognitive distortions that pass for philosophy, and the systemic law enforcement failures—specifically “linkage blindness”—that are frequently mistaken for offender brilliance. We will examine the specific forensic failures in cases ranging from the Green River Killer to the recent Gilgo Beach suspect, demonstrating that their longevity was not a product of their intellect, but of our incompetence.

We are not hunting dragons. We are hunting failures who have learned to bite.

II. FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIC AUTOPSY: INTELLIGENCE & COGNITION

The Statistical Reality of “Genius”

The foundation of the “Evil Genius” myth crumbles under the weight of basic arithmetic. The archetype suggests that to kill repeatedly and evade capture over a sustained period requires an IQ significantly above the norm—a criminal intellect capable of complex planning, forensic counter-measures, and psychological manipulation. The data, however, suggests a reality that is far more banal.

A comprehensive and exhaustive study by Radford University, analyzing nearly 5,000 serial killers, reveals a portrait of intellectual mediocrity. The median IQ of serial killers is 86.0.¹ To contextualize this figure, the average IQ of the general population is approximately 100, with a standard deviation of 15. This places the median serial killer at the lower end of “average” or bordering on low-functioning. The “mastermind” is, statistically speaking, likely to be less intelligent than the average person waiting in line at the DMV.

The distribution of intelligence correlates disturbingly with the crudeness of the method. The “hands-on” killers—those who bludgeon, strangle, or stab—often possess significantly lower cognitive capacities than those who utilize methods requiring technical abstraction, such as bomb-making. The data indicates a clear hierarchy of methodology that mirrors cognitive capability, debunking the idea that the brutality of the crime implies a sophisticated motive.

Table 1: Serial Killer Intelligence by Methodology

Source Data: Radford University Serial Killer Database.¹

The myth is sustained by the outliers. We fixate on Edmund Kemper (IQ 145), the “Co-ed Killer” who famously manipulated psychiatrists and befriended the very cops hunting him.³ Kemper is the exception that proves the rule. He was articulate, introspective, and capable of navigating the social hierarchy of law enforcement, turning himself into a “friendly nuisance” at the police bar while decapitating co-eds in his mother’s home.³ We look at Ted Kaczynski (IQ 167), whose manifesto—however deranged—demonstrated high-level abstract reasoning and a commitment to a twisted ideology.²

But for every Kemper, there are a dozen Gary Ridgways (IQ 82) or Otis Tooles (IQ 75).⁵ Ridgway, the Green River Killer, murdered at least 49 women (and likely over 71) over two decades.⁶ He was not a genius. He was a dyslexic truck painter who barely passed high school and required his mother to clean him after he wet the bed well into his teens.⁶ His “genius” was not in eluding the police through intricate ruses, but in selecting victims who wouldn’t be missed immediately—sex workers and runaways—and dumping them in clusters to confuse the body count. His longevity was a product of police apathy and forensic limitations, not intellectual superiority.

The Mask of Sanity: Psychopathy vs. Intelligence

If they are not smart, why do they seem so? Why do they evade capture? This is the “Mask of Sanity” described by Hervey Cleckley—a simulation of normalcy that functions as social camouflage. The psychopath—a classification overlapping heavily with serial offenders—possesses a specific set of traits that mimic competence: boldness, superficial charm, and low anxiety.⁹

Robert Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) identifies “glibness/superficial charm” as a core trait.⁹ This is not intelligence; it is mimicry. It is the biological equivalent of an anglerfish’s lure. A psychopath can speak confidently about subjects they do not understand, maintain eye contact when a normal person would flinch, and lie with a physiological calmness that bypasses the human lie-detector test of intuition.¹¹

In police interrogations, this is often mistaken for a “cat and mouse” game played by a mastermind. In reality, it is a neurological deficit. They do not feel the stress that clouds the thinking of the investigator. When a detective presses a suspect, the suspect usually sweats, their heart rate increases, and their cognitive processing slows down due to cortisol. The psychopath remains cool. They are not outthinking the detective; they are simply not feeling the pressure.¹¹ The “boldness” allows them to operate in plain sight, not because they have calculated the odds, but because they are blind to the risk.

Furthermore, studies have shown that psychopathy is generally uncorrelated or weakly correlated with intelligence.¹⁰ The “Hannibal Lecter” figure—a man of supreme taste and intellect who is also a psychopath—is a statistical unicorn. Most psychopaths in the criminal justice system are impulsive, fail to plan ahead, and have poor behavioral controls.⁹ They are not plotting grand symphonies of death; they are acting on immediate, primitive urges with a lack of foresight that is staggering.

Cognitive Distortions: The Architecture of Delusion

The “genius” killer in fiction has a coherent, if twisted, philosophy. The real killer operates on “cognitive distortions”—mental gymnastics used to bypass the moral gag reflex. These are not profound existential insights; they are self-serving lies used to protect a fragile ego.

Research into sex offenders identifies specific “techniques of neutralization” (Sykes & Matza) that allow these individuals to kill without shattering their self-image.¹⁵ This is not high philosophy; it is the logic of a petulant child or a cornered animal.

1. Denial of Responsibility: “The beast made me do it.” “I have a sickness.” Richard Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento, believed his blood was turning to powder and his pulmonary artery had been stolen, necessitating the consumption of victim blood.¹⁷ This is not a “motive” in the traditional sense; it is a somatic delusion of a disorganized schizophrenic.
2. Denial of Injury: “She was a prostitute; she was already dead inside.” Gary Ridgway rationalized his murders by claiming he was “cleaning up the streets” and helping the women by ending their miserable lives.¹⁸ This re-framing allows the killer to view himself as a public servant rather than a monster.
3. Denial of the Victim: “They enticed me.” “She shouldn’t have been walking there.” This is the ultimate victim-blaming, where the predator convinces himself that the prey is responsible for the predation.¹⁹
4. Condemnation of the Condemners: “The police are corrupt.” “Society is the real sick one.” A favorite of Charles Manson and Aileen Wuornos, this distortion shifts the moral spotlight away from the killer and onto the system that judges them.¹⁵
5. Appeal to Higher Loyalties: Killing for a “greater good” or a specific entity. Herbert Mullin killed to prevent earthquakes in California, believing his sacrifices were saving millions.²⁰

These distortions function as a psychological shield. They allow a man like Dennis Rader (BTK)—a church council president and Boy Scout leader—to bind and torture a family and then go home to dinner.²¹ He isn’t compartmentalizing because he’s a genius spy; he’s compartmentalizing because his internal narrative is rewritten to exclude guilt.

III. VICTIMOLOGY: THE “LESS DEAD” AND THE ILLUSION OF INVISIBILITY

The most damning evidence against the “Evil Genius” myth lies in the selection of victims. A true hunter, in the romanticized sense, tests himself against formidable prey. The serial killer, almost without exception, targets the vulnerable, the marginalized, and the invisible. They are bottom-feeders.

The “Less Dead” Phenomenon

Steven Egger discussed the concept of “linkage blindness,” but the cultural corollary is the concept of the “Less Dead”.²² These are victims whose disappearances do not trigger the societal alarm bells that ring for a white, suburban college student. The killer’s “genius” is simply the realization that society does not care about certain people.

• Sex Workers: The primary prey of the Green River Killer (Ridgway), the Yorkshire Ripper, and Robert Pickton. Ridgway explicitly stated he chose prostitutes because he knew they wouldn’t be reported missing immediately.⁷ “I picked prostitutes as my victims because I hate most prostitutes and I did not want to pay them for sex,” he stated.⁸ This is not a stroke of genius; it is a calculation of cowardice. He knew the police would label them “runaways” or assume they had moved on.
• Transients and Runaways: John Wayne Gacy preyed on young men who were often estranged from families or looking for work. When they vanished, police labeled them “runaways” and closed the file, ignoring parents’ pleas.²² Gacy wasn’t invisible; he was operating in a system that refused to see his victims.
• Minorities in Neglected Zones: The Grim Sleeper (Lonnie Franklin Jr.) operated in South Central Los Angeles, targeting Black women during the crack epidemic. The police labeled the deaths “NHI” (No Humans Involved), a grotesque slang that effectively gave Franklin a license to kill for decades.²² The long gaps in his “sleeping” periods were likely not dormancy, but police indifference.

The killer’s “invisibility” is rarely a result of a supernatural ability to vanish. It is a result of the police looking the other way. When law enforcement apathy meets predator opportunism, the body count rises. The killer believes he is a ghost; in reality, he is just standing in a blind spot created by systemic bias.

Case Study: Robert Pickton’s Pig Farm

Robert Pickton (IQ ~low average) is a prime example of the “genius” myth colliding with the reality of the “Less Dead.” Pickton murdered up to 49 women in British Columbia. He was not a sophisticated cleaner. He was a pig farmer who lived in absolute squalor. He disposed of bodies by grinding them up and feeding them to pigs or mixing remains with pork sold to the public.²⁴

His “genius” disposal method? A meat grinder and a rendering plant that accepted barrels of “slop” without inspection.²⁵ Witnesses described him as dirty, handling barrels of bloody chunks with bare hands, looking “gross”.²⁶ He wasn’t caught for years not because he was clever—he was sloppy, erratic, and socially bizarre—but because his victims were Indigenous women and sex workers from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a demographic the authorities failed to prioritize.²²

The investigation into Pickton was a catastrophe of apathy. Relatives of the missing women were ignored. Pickton was known to police; he had even been charged with attempted murder of a sex worker in 1997, but the charges were stayed because the victim was deemed an “unreliable witness” due to drug addiction.²⁷ The “genius” of Robert Pickton was a myth; the reality was a man covered in pig filth, protected by a system that devalued the lives of his victims.

Case Study: The Green River Killer’s Selection

Gary Ridgway’s victim selection was purely functional. He targeted women on the “strip” (Pacific Highway South). He knew the terrain. He knew the women were vulnerable. He killed them and dumped them in the Green River or wooded areas he knew from his childhood.

His “evasion” was assisted by the sheer volume of potential suspects and the lack of DNA technology at the time. When he was finally caught, it wasn’t because he slipped up in a battle of wits; it was because the science (DNA) finally caught up to the evidence he had left behind 20 years prior.²⁸ He had left semen and spray paint particles from his job at Kenworth Trucks on the victims.²⁹ A genius would not have contaminated his crime scenes with microscopic signatures of his 9-to-5 job. A genius would not have spit gum and cigarettes at the dump sites.⁶ Ridgway was a creature of habit, not intellect.

IV. MODUS OPERANDI VS. SIGNATURE: THE BANALITY OF THE KILL

The Organized vs. Disorganized Fallacy

The FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit established the “Organized/Disorganized” dichotomy, a holy scripture of profiling that has since been largely debunked as statistically unsound and practically useless.

• The Theory: “Organized” killers are intelligent, socially competent, use restraints, clean crime scenes, and follow the media. “Disorganized” killers are low IQ, socially inadequate, blitz-attack victims, and leave messy scenes.³⁰
• The Reality: David Canter’s critique reveals that this is a false binary. Most serial killers exhibit a mix of traits. “Organized” features (bringing a weapon, isolating a victim) are simply necessary for any sustained killing, while “disorganized” features (leaving the body in plain sight) are often just errors or interruptions.³²

There is no distinct “disorganized” type; there are just incompetent killers who haven’t been caught yet, or killers whose psychopathology (like schizophrenia) makes them too erratic to plan. Richard Chase (The Vampire of Sacramento) is the archetype of the Disorganized offender: severe schizophrenia, drinking blood, leaving footprints in blood, leaving the engine of a victim’s car running.¹⁷ He was caught almost immediately because he was not a genius. He was a mentally ill man in a downward spiral.

Signature: The Compulsion of Mediocrity

The “Signature” is the ritual done for emotional gratification, distinct from the MO (what is needed to kill). This is where the “genius” myth often tries to hide, disguising perversion as art.

• Jerry Brudos (The Shoe Fetish Slayer): His “signature” was modeling women’s feet. He kept a severed foot in his freezer to dress in shoes.³⁴ He had a “slaughterhouse” garage where he suspended victims. This wasn’t the complex aesthetic of a fictional killer; it was a sad, fetishistic compulsion rooted in childhood trauma. His mother had burned a pair of high heels he found as a child, creating a pathological link between shoes and forbidden pleasure.³⁵ His crimes were an attempt to regain control over that childhood humiliation.
• Dennis Rader (BTK): Rader viewed himself as a mastermind, giving himself a moniker and taunting police. His “projects” involved binding victims and taking Polaroids of them in various states of bondage.³⁶ He stole their underwear and wore it, taking photos of himself in masks.³⁷ This is not the work of a “criminal genius”; it is the work of a sexually repressed narcissist acting out fantasies in a basement.
  • The “Genius” Verdict: An IQ of ~105 (average), a narcissist who thought he was smarter than the police. He was caught because he asked the police, “Can you trace a floppy disk?” in a newspaper ad. They lied and said no. He believed them. The metadata on the disk led straight to his church and his name.²¹ He wasn’t a master of technology; he was a dinosaur who didn’t understand that digital files leave footprints.

The “Zombie” Experiment: Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer is often cited as a “complex” killer. He drilled holes into the skulls of living victims and injected hydrochloric acid or boiling water directly into their brains.³⁹

• The Myth: He was a twisted scientist trying to create a subservient companion.
• The Reality: He was a lonely, alcoholic man who was terrified of rejection. He wanted a “zombie” who would not leave him, not because he was a master manipulator, but because he was socially incapable of maintaining a relationship with a conscious human being.⁴⁰ The experiments failed every time because biology does not work that way; the victims died or were rendered comatose. It wasn’t science; it was butchery driven by pathetic insecurity.

V. OCCULT & RITUALISTIC ASSESSMENT: THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD

The presence of pentagrams, candles, or “satanic” scrawls at a crime scene is catnip for the media. It suggests a vast, dark conspiracy or a killer with arcane knowledge. In 99% of cases, it is “pseudo-occultism”—the desperate theatrics of a loser trying to feel powerful.

Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker)

Ramirez is the poster child for the “Satanic” serial killer. He shouted “Hail Satan” in court, drew pentagrams on victims, and forced them to swear allegiance to the devil.⁴¹

• The Reality: Ramirez was a disorganized, drug-addicted drifter with rotting teeth and a diet of junk food (Coca-Cola and cupcakes).⁴³ His “satanism” was a hodgepodge of heavy metal lyrics (AC/DC’s “Night Prowler”) and Hollywood imagery, not a deep theological study. He was influenced by a cousin (Mike) who showed him photos of war crimes in Vietnam and taught him to kill.⁴²
• The “Ritual”: It wasn’t a summoning. It was psychological warfare designed to terrorize, but also a mechanism for Ramirez to externalize his own evil—”The Devil made me do it” (Appeal to Higher Loyalties neutralization). It gave him a framework to understand his own sadism.
• Capture: He wasn’t caught by a high-tech dragnet or a profile. He was caught by a mob of citizens in East Los Angeles after he tried to carjack a woman. He was beaten by the locals with a steel pipe until police arrived.⁴⁴ The “Night Stalker” was brought down by a neighborhood watch.

The “Satanic Panic” Filter

Law enforcement often falls for the “Satanic” angle, bringing in “cult experts” who muddy the waters with junk science.⁴⁵ True ritualistic violence (e.g., Narco-cults like Palo Mayombe) exists, but it is rare and distinct from the solitary serial killer using symbols to seem scary.

When a serial killer uses occult imagery, it is rarely “genius”; it is usually an attempt to build a brand. It is an act of marketing. The “Vampire of Sacramento” (Chase) drank blood not for a ritual, but because he was schizophrenic and believed his own blood was turning to powder.¹⁷ It was a medical delusion, not a mystical rite. Confusing the two wastes investigative resources and feeds the killer’s ego.

VI. INVESTIGATIVE & JUDICIAL CRITIQUE: THE FAILURE OF PROFILING

If serial killers are not geniuses, why do we need “mind hunters”? The industry of criminal profiling has perpetuated the myth of the “unsub” as a complex riddle. The reality is that profiling has a track record of catastrophic failure when it relies on the “genius” or “type” archetypes.

The Beltway Sniper Failure

In 2002, the DC Snipers terrorized the capital. Profilers went on TV describing a “lone white male,” likely a firefighter or construction worker, operating a white van. They theorized he was a “distantly angry” local.⁴⁷

• The Reality: Two Black males (John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo) in a blue Chevy Caprice. The “profile” blinded police to the reality, allowing the killers to pass through checkpoints because they didn’t fit the racial or vehicle description.⁴⁸ The killers weren’t invisible; the police were looking for a phantom created by their own biases and the “white male serial killer” trope.

The Rachel Nickell Fiasco

In the UK, profiler Paul Britton created a profile that pointed to Colin Stagg. Police used a “honeytrap” operation (Operation Edzell) to try to elicit a confession from Stagg, who was innocent but fit the “loner” profile. Meanwhile, the real killer, Robert Napper, remained free to kill again.⁴⁷ The profile was a work of fiction that drove the investigation into a ditch, costing lives.

Linkage Blindness

The term “linkage blindness” (Egger) describes the inability of law enforcement to connect serial crimes across jurisdictions.⁴⁹

• Mechanism: Serial killers are often mobile. They kill in County A, then County B. Without centralized databases (like ViCAP, which is often underused or fed poor data), these crimes look isolated.
• The Illusion: The killer appears to be a “master of evasion.” In reality, he is just a commuter.
• Rex Heuermann (Gilgo Beach): Heuermann worked in Manhattan and lived on Long Island. He used burner phones to contact victims. His “genius” operational security failed because he carried the burners with his personal phone, allowing cell tower triangulation to place both devices in the same location.⁵² He wasn’t a ghost; he was just a guy with too many phones in his pocket. He also used his personal email to search for “Gilgo Beach investigation” and “sadistic porn,” creating a digital trail that a child could follow.⁵³

The Expert Witness Charade

In the courtroom, the battle continues. Prosecutors often use “experts” to testify on bite marks (now largely discredited) or hair analysis to secure convictions, sometimes against the wrong people.⁵⁴ The “science” of catching a killer is often as flawed as the profile. The system relies on the appearance of certainty, just as the killer relies on the appearance of normalcy. Both are masks.

VII. THE MYTH OF THE MASTERMIND: CASE STUDIES IN STUPIDITY

To truly deconstruct the myth, we must look at the specific failures of the so-called “greats.” We must strip away the horror and look at the incompetence.

1. The Green River Killer (Gary Ridgway)

• Myth: An invisible predator who haunted the Pacific Northwest for 20 years, leaving no trace. A “sexual sadist” of high order.
• Reality: He left paint spheres from his workplace (Kenworth trucks) on victims in 1982.⁶ The technology existed to analyze it, but the sheer volume of evidence and the low priority of the victims delayed the connection. He passed a polygraph in 1984—not because he beat the machine with mental discipline, but because polygraphs are junk science and he was a sociopath with no anxiety response.⁶
• Intelligence: Low 80s IQ. He had sex with corpses because it was “cheaper” than prostitutes and less risky.²⁸ This is not the logic of a genius; it is the logic of a parsimonious necrophile. He was a creature of habit who returned to the same dump sites over and over. A genius would have varied his pattern. Ridgway was simply a creature of compulsion.

2. BTK (Dennis Rader)

• Myth: A taunting phantom who controlled the media narrative for decades. A family man hiding a monster.
• Reality: A compliance officer (dog catcher) with a petty need for authority. He stopped killing for years, simply fading away into a life of mundane bureaucracy. He only got caught because he craved credit. He couldn’t stand that people were forgetting him.
• The Error: He asked the police, “Can you trace a floppy disk?” in a newspaper ad. They answered, “Rex, it will be OK” (No). He believed them.²¹ He sent the disk.
• Verdict: His ego was inversely proportional to his intellect. He was a narcissist who was undone by his own need for validation.

3. The Gilgo Beach Suspect (Rex Heuermann)

• Myth: A sophisticated urban professional (architect) running a decade-long operation. A “Dexter” figure.
• Reality: He kept the “burner” phones used to terrorize victims’ families turned on in the same location as his personal phone and his office.⁵² He threw a pizza crust with his DNA into a public trash can in Manhattan while under surveillance.⁵⁵
• Insight: Even the “educated” killers (Heuermann, Ted Bundy) make elementary mistakes. Bundy drove a distinct car (VW Bug) and essentially flagged himself down.⁵⁷ They are caught by the mundane: parking tickets, broken taillights (Kemper), and trash. They are not masterminds; they are arrogant men who believe the rules of probability do not apply to them.

4. Jerry Brudos (The Shoe Fetish Slayer)

• Myth: A complex sexual sadist with a high-tech dungeon.
• Reality: An electrician with a foot fetish who couldn’t stop stealing women’s shoes. He was caught because he kept the evidence—the shoes, the photos, the body parts—in his own home.³⁵ He couldn’t let go of the trophies. The compulsion overrode the survival instinct. This is the definition of a disorganized, impulsive offender, regardless of how much planning went into the initial abduction.

VIII. LINGERING QUESTIONS: WHY WE NEED THE MYTH

If the data proves they are mediocre, why does society cling to the “Evil Genius”? Why do we keep buying the books and watching the movies?

1. Ego Protection for Law Enforcement: If the killer is a genius, then the police who fail to catch him for 20 years are not incompetent; they are simply outmatched.⁵⁸ It is a convenient narrative for unsolved files. It excuses the “linkage blindness” and the failure to prioritize the “Less Dead.”
2. Safety in Complexity: If a killer is a super-genius, then we (the average public) are safe from the “random” violence. We tell ourselves there is a pattern, a plan, a reason. The reality—that a dullard with a hammer can kill you just because you unlocked your door—is far more terrifying. We prefer a puzzle to a chaotic void.
3. The Hollywood Effect: Fiction requires a worthy antagonist. Watching a detective chase a genius is a thriller. Watching a detective chase a sloppy drunk who kills sex workers and gets ignored by the precinct is a tragedy.³² We want the narrative arc of the hero and the villain. We don’t want the reality of the bureaucrat and the pest.

The Mirror of Narcissism

Ultimately, the “Evil Genius” myth says more about us than it does about them. We project our own fears of the unknown onto them, filling the blank spaces of their personalities with our own nightmares. We make them bigger than they are because we cannot accept that something so small can cause so much destruction.

IX. INVESTIGATIVE CONCLUSION: THE BANALITY OF THE BEAST

The “Evil Genius” is a ghost story we tell ourselves to make sense of the senseless. It is a fabrication.

The Reality:

• Intelligence: Average to below average (Mean IQ ~94). The median is 86.
• Psychology: Not complex masterminds, but emotionally stunted narcissists relying on cognitive distortions to justify primitive impulses. They are mimics, not originators.
• Success Factor: Police apathy toward marginalized victims (Linkage Blindness), not criminal brilliance. They thrive where we fail to look.
• Capture: Usually the result of mundane errors (parking tickets, floppy disks, DNA on pizza crusts), not Holmesian deduction.

Final Assessment: The serial killer is not a lion. He is a jackal. He does not outsmart the herd; he picks off the stragglers while the shepherd is asleep. He is a failure in every aspect of human life—social, professional, sexual—who has found one area where he can exert total control: the moment of death. To profile them as geniuses is to give them the one thing they crave most: respect. They deserve none. They are merely the mediocrity of evil, magnified by the lens of our own fear.

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