Experts tell the Philadelphia Daily News’ Jenice Armstrong that Pittsburgh killer George Sodini fits in with misogynistic mass murderers like Richard Speck, who killed eight women in Chicago in 1966, and an anti-feminist who killed 14 women in Montreal in 1989. “What these mass killings have in common is that they are misogynistic or about hatred of women in general,” said Katherine van Wormer, co-author of “Death by Domestic Violence: Preventing the Murders and the Murder-Suicides.” “These men are also suicidal, therefore filled with self-hatred as well. Over 90 percent of murder-suicides in general tend to be male-on-female crimes, many being acts of revenge.”
David Baron, a Temple University psychiatry professor, said Sodini fits a pattern in which “instead of saying what’s the matter with me, you start blaming everybody else and it builds and it builds. All that rage will go out that’s been building up for years. This was really someone out of touch with reality.” Van Wormer added, “The only means of prevention of these types of crime is to work on gender issues and healthy relationships, as well as suicide prevention in the schools, provide mental- health counseling where needed, and, of course, tighten up the gun-control laws.”