Memory for Murder: The Qualities and Credibility of Homicide Narratives by Perpetrators

Offenders' Memories of Violent Crimes

Volumn , Issue , 2008, Pages 115-134

  Porter, Stephen ^a   Woodworth, Michael ^b   Doucette, Naomi L ^c  

^a DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^b UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

^c UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK   (Canada)

Author keywords

Eyewitness testimony; Homicide narratives; Memory impairment; Murder; Psychopath

Indexed keywords

EID: 84889370770     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1002/9780470713082.ch5     Document Type: Chapter

References (70)

1. American Psychiatric Association (1994) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
2. Bernstein, E.M. & Putnam, F.W. (1986) Development, reliability, and validity, of a dissociation scale. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174, 727-35.
3. Bernsten, D. (2001) Involuntary memories of emotional events: Do memories of trauma and extremely happy events differ? Applied Cognitive Psychology, 15, 135-58.
4. Bradford, J.W. & Smith, S.M. (1979) Amnesia and homicide: The Padola case and a study of thirty cases. Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, 7, 219-31.
5. Bremner, J.D. & Marmar, C.R. (1998) Trauma, memory and dissociation. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.
6. Burke, A., Heuer, F. & Reisberg, D. (1992) Remembering emotional events. Memory and Cognition, 20, 277-90.
7. Byrne, M.K. (2003) Trauma reactions in the offender. International Journal of Forensic Psychology, 1, 59-70.
8. Christianson, S.A., Forth, A.E., Hare, R.D., Strachan, C., Lidberg, L. & Thorell, L.H. (1996) Remembering details of emotional events: A comparison between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic offenders. Personality and Individual Differences, 20, 437-43.
9. Christianson, S-A. & Hubinette, B. (1993) Hands up! A study of witnesses' emotional reactions and memories associated with bank robberies. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 7, 365-79.
10. Christianson, S-A. & Nilsson, L.G. (1984) Functional amnesia as induced by psychological trauma. Memory and Cognition, 12, 142-55.
11. Cima, M., Nijman, H., Merckelbach, H., Kremer, K. & Hollnack, S. (2004) Claims of crime-related amnesia in forensic patients. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 27, 215-21.
12. Cleckley, H. (1976) The mask of sanity (5th ed.). St Louis, MO: Mosby.
13. Cox, M. (1991) The confessions of Henry Lee Lucas. New York: Pocket Books.
14. Disclosure (2003, January 28) Inside the interrogation room: The Darrelle Exner murder. Retrieved August 7, 2004, from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Web site: http://www.cbc.ca/disclosure/archives/030128_confess/murder_print.html.
15. Dotto, L. (2004) Liar liar. National Magazine, 13, 44-9.
16. Ekman, P. (1991) Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics and marriage. New York, NY: Norton.
17. Ekman, P. (2002) Telling lies: Clues to deceit in the marketplace, politics and marriage (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Norton.
18. Gray, N.S., Macculloch, M.J., Smith, J., Morris, M. & Snowden, R.J. (2003) Violence viewed by psychopathic murderers: Adapting a revealing test may expose those psychopaths who are most likely to kill. Nature, 423, 497-8.
19. Hare, R.D. (1991) The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. Toronto, Ontario: Multi-Health Systems, Inc.
20. Hare, R.D. (1998) Psychopathy and its nature: Implications for mental health and criminal justice systems. In T. Millon, E. Simonsen, M. Birkert-Smith & R.D. Davis (Eds). Psychopathy: Antisocial criminal and violent behavior, (pp. 188-212). New York: The Guilford Press.
21. Hare, R.D. (2003) The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (2nd ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Multi-Health Systems, Inc.
22. Herman, J.L. (1992) Trauma and memory. New York, NY: Basic Books.
23. Hervé, H.F., Hayes, P.J. & Hare, R.D. (2003) Psychopathy and sensitivity to the emotional polarity of metaphysical statements. Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 1497-1507.
24. Holmberg, U. & Christianson, S.A. (2002) Murderers' and sexual offenders' experiences of police interviews and their inclination to admit or deny crimes. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 20, 31-45.
25. Kassin, S.M (1997) The psychology of confession evidence. American Psychologist, 52, 221-33.
26. Kassin, S.M. & Gudjonsson, G.H. (2004) The psychology of confessions: A review of the literature and issues. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 33-67.
27. Kassin, S.M., Meissner, C.A. & Norwick, R.J. (2005) 'I'd know a false confession if I saw one': A comparative study of college students and police investigators. Law and Human Behavior, 29, 211-27.
28. Kihlstrom, J.F. (1996) The trauma-memory argument and recovered memory therapy. In K. Pezdek & W.P. Banks (Eds), The recovered memory/false memory debate, (pp. 297-311). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
29. Kopelman, M.D. (1987). Crime and amnesia: A review. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 5, 323-42.
30. Kopelman, M.D. (1995) The assessment of psychogenic amnesia. In A.D. Baddeley, B.A. Wilson & F.N. Watts (Eds.), Handbook of memory disorders, (pp. 427-48). Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
31. Levenston, G.K., Patrick, C.J., Bradley, M.M. & Lang, P.J. (2000) The psychopath as observer: Emotion and attention in picture processing. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 109, 373-85.
32. Lykken, D.T. (1995) The antisocial personalities. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
33. Meloy, J.R. (1988) The psychopathic mind: Origins, dynamics, and treatments. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc.
34. Parwatikar, S.D., Holcomb, W.R. & Menninger, K.A. II. (1985) The detection of malingered amnesia in accused murderers. Bulletin of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, 13, 97-103.
35. Patrick, C.J., Bradley, M.M. & Lang, P.J. (1993) Emotion in the criminal psychopath: Startle reflex modulation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 82-92.
36. Peace, K.A. & Porter, S. (2004a) A longitudinal investigation of the reliability of memories for trauma and other emotional experiences. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 1143-59.
37. Peace, K.A. & Porter, S. (2004b) Tales of trauma: Symptom profiles and memory consistency across a diverse range of traumatic experiences. Paper presented at the 65th Annual Convention of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), St. John's, NFLD, Canada.
38. Porter, S. (1996) Without conscience or without active conscience?: The etiology of psychopathy revisited. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 1, 179-89.
39. Porter, S. & Birt, A.R. (2001) Is traumatic memory special? A comparison of traumatic memory characteristics with memory for other emotional life experiences. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 15, 101-17.
40. Porter, S., Birt, A.R., Yuille, J.C. & Hervé, H.F. (2001) Memory for murder: A psychological perspective on dissociative amnesia in legal contexts. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 24, 23-42.
41. Porter, S. & Peace, K.A. (2006, in press) The scars of memory: A prospective longitudinal investigation of the consistency of traumatic memories in childhood. Psychological Science.
42. Porter, S., Spencer, L. & Birt, A. (2003) Blinded by emotion? Effect of the emotionality of a scene on susceptibility to false memories. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 35, 165-75.
43. Porter, S. & Woodworth, M. (2006a) Patterns of violent behaviour in the criminal psychopath. In C. Patrick (Ed.), Handbook of psychopathy (pp. 481-94). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
44. Porter, S. & Woodworth, M. (2006b, submitted for publication) 'I'm sorry I did it . . . But he started it': A comparison of the official and self-reported homicide descriptions of psychopaths and non-psychopaths. Law and Human Behavior.
45. Porter, S., Woodworth, M. & Birt, A.R. (2000) Truth, lies, and videotape: An investigation of the ability of federal parole officers to detect deception. Law and Human Behavior, 24, 643-58.
46. Porter, S. & Yuille, J.C. (1995) Credibility assessment of criminal suspects through statement analysis. Psychology, Crime, and Law, 1, 319-31.
47. Porter, S. & Yuille, J.C. (1996) The language of deceit: An investigation of the verbal clues to deception in the interrogation context. Law and Human Behavior, 20, 443-58.
48. Poythress, N.G. & Skeem, J.L. (2006) Disaggregating psychopathy: Where and how to look for subtypes. In C. Patrick (Ed.), Handbook of psychopathy. New York: The Guilford Press.
49. Pyszora, N.M., Barker, A.F. & Kopelman, M.D. (2003) Amnesia for criminal offences: A study of life sentence prisoners. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 14, 475-90.
50. Raskin, D.C. & Hare, R.D. (1978) Psychopathy and detection of deception in a prison population. Psychophysiology, 15, 126-36.
51. Rogers, R. & Cruise, K.R. (2000) Malingering and deception among psychopaths. In C.B. Gacano (Ed.), The clinical and forensic assessment of psychopathy: A practitioner's guide, (pp. 269-84). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
52. Rooke, A. Justice. (1996, March 20). Assessing credibility in arbitrations and in court: A difficult task for judge, jury or arbitrator. Presentation to the Canadian Bar Association. Edmonton, AB.
53. Schacter, D.L. (1986a) Amnesia and crime: How much do we really know? American Psychologist, 41, 286-95.
54. Schacter, D.L. (1986b) On the relation between genuine and simulated amnesia. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 4, 47-64.
55. Schacter, D.I., Wang, P.L., Tulving, E. & Freedman, M. (1982) Functional retrograde amnesia: A qualitative case study. Neuropsychologia, 20, 523-32.
56. Seto, M.C. & Barbaree, H.E. (1999) Psychopathy, treatment behavior, and sex offender recidivism. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14, 1235-48.
57. Shobe, K.K. & Kihlstrom, J.F. (1997) Is traumatic memory special? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 6, 70-4.
58. Swihart, G., Yuille, J.C. & Porter, S. (1999) The role of state-dependent memory in 'red-outs.' International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 22, 199-212.
59. Taylor, P.J. & Kopelman, M.D. (1984) Amnesia for criminal offences. Psychological Medicine, 14, 581-8.
60. Terr, I.C. (1979) Children of Chowchilla: A study of psychic trauma. The Psychoanalytical Study of the Child, 34, 547-623.
61. Terr, I.C. (1983) Chowchilla revisited: The effects of psychic trauma four years after a school bus kidnapping. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 1543-50.
62. Vanman, E.J., Mejia, V.Y., Dawson, M.E., Schell, A.M. & Raine, A. (2003) Modifications of the startle reflex in a community sample: Do one or two dimensions of psychopathy underlie emotional processing? Personality and Individual Differences, 35, 2007-21.
63. Verona, E., Patrick, C.J., Curtin, J.J., Bradley, M.M. & Lang, P.J. (2004) Psychopathy and physiological response to evocative sounds. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 113, 99-108.
64. Vrij, A. (2000) Detecting lies and deceit: The psychology of lying and its implications for professional practice. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
65. Wagenaar, W.A. & Groeneweg, J. (1990) The memory of concentration camp survivors. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 4, 77-87.
66. Warren, J.I., Hazelwood, R.R. & Dietz, P.E. (1996) The sexually sadistic serial killer. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 41, 970-4.
67. Woodworth, M. & Porter, S. (2002) In cold blood: Characteristics of criminal homicides as a function of psychopathy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 436-45.
68. Woodworth, M., Porter, S., Cook, B. & Patenaude (2005) An investigation of memory impairment in psychopathic and non-psychopathic homicide offenders. Manuscript in preparation.
69. Wrighstman, L. & Porter, S. (2006) Forensic psychology, First Canadian edition. Ontario, Canada: Thomson Nelson.
70. Yuille, J.C. & Cutshall, J.L. (1986) A case study of eyewitness memory for a crime. Journal of Applied Psychology, 71, 291-301.