TERRORISM: TV Blamed For Shootings

Charles McCoy Jr. has already admitted he's the I-270 shooter that terrorized motorists on the highway last year, killing one. What remains to be seen is how or if he is punished for it. He could get the death penalty if convicted, and he could try to plead insanity to avoid it. Since the prosecution rested its case Wednesday, it is now the defense's turn to tell their side of the story. From early reports, it looks like they are going for the insanity plea. (AP) Says he cried during opening remarks by his attorney yesterday, who portrayed him as a schizophrenic hearing voices from the TV that made him drop lumber and bags of cement off overpasses, and eventually to start shooting.



Can his attorneys convince the jury that he is insane, and not a cold-blooded murderer? We'll see. Regardless, this looks like one of those cases where, if he is actually convicted, it will end up in appeals forever, and the taxpayers will get stuck footing the bill for another murderous nutjob.

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[edit on 29-4-2005 by Icarus Rising]

Maybe we'll get lucky and somebody will stab him to death in prison before he eats too many tax-payer funded meals.

Anyway, I don't see where the voices in the TV are going to help is defense. They have to prove that he didn't know it was wrong to kill people, otherwise he's not legally insane.

At least they didnt blame RockStar maker of the Grand Theft Auto series for this one... This time....

Even if they find him insane, he still needs to be put away for good. I don't think they will, because you have to prove the defendant didn't know right from wrong. Well when you hide in the bushes to shoot at cars, it's because you don't want to get caught doing something wrong. Otherwise, he would have done it out in the open, and would have been caught much sooner. A no brainer IMO.

Heard voices from the TV telling him to do it That is a good one. I think he was just copying the shootings in the DC area.

He's insane and a cold blooded killer. People need to stop trying to blame television, music, and society for their actions. Nobody made him kill people but himself and now he needs to pay for his actions.

The title of this thread is misleading, and people are already commenting on it as if the title is the correct view of this situation.

"Heard voices from the TV', is not the same as "I watched McGuyver and it inspired me to build a working nuclear weapon from bubble gum and tin foil!" (For those too young, McGuyver could build anything from bubble gum and tin foil!)

If it turns out he was on anti-depressants at the time he was committing these crimes, he could very well get off scott free. Several cases have been won because these drugs are worse than crack when it comes to generating homicidal nut jobs.

sure...blame the idiot box

no one accepts responsibility anymore

I heard an interesting comment about the school shootings tho....that ALL the shooters had been taking psychotropic meds...I have not been following them close enuf to know.

can anyone verify that ?

just curious...

Originally posted by toasted
I heard an interesting comment about the school shootings tho....that ALL the shooters had been taking psychotropic meds...I have not been following them close enuf to know.

can anyone verify that ?

just curious...

Weise's prozac prescription was doubled the week before his rampage.

Kleibold of Columbine was also on anti-depressants, one of the victims is suing the drug company, because they are aware of the side effects and dangers of these drugs, but still they pump them into kids bodies.

Some info on this topic

As one would expect, the psychiatrist who profit from these drugs are in denial
Basing their opinion only on the murder suicides of a single city, instead of a nation.

Hmmm, my tv told me to rob that store, not my fault. The tv told me to d/l music and burn it onto cds. Tv told me to d/l Episode 3 of Star Wars instead of waiting in line for 3 days wearing diapers so I don't have to leave the line to go to the bathroom. Wait, my tv is helping me there.

Okay, I know this is an area for a psychologist and call me mad for entertaining the question, but being that this is a forum to discuss the paranormal, what exactly did he say the t.v. say?

Is it Manchurian Candidate type thing?

If voices, what exactly do voices say if they do "acutally" talk in peoples head?

Can the voices be written down as they are said and does our latest techonology involving brain to machine translation allow us to "record" and or "hear" for ourselves what the voices are saying?

Does he have any vcr recordings where he can say distinctly at what times and what shows exactly said what and what reasoned him to believe in his mind that the questions and or statements mentioned in the televsion broadcast (whether the broadcasts were live or pre-recorded) were directed at him and not someone else and how does he know if the television was serious or just joking around.

I have a theory that where there's a pattern, there is a shape. I believe in things according to chaos theory and all though he believes what he believes, just like theories on intelligent design, it's not that what he said is false, it's just that what he "soaked in" to his 5 (or maybe 6) senses went beyond what is taught in a classroom.

[edit on 24-5-2005 by pfunkarocka]

[edit on 24-5-2005 by pfunkarocka]

pfunk,
Unfortunately this case is probably not as complex as all that. The man sounds manic.

There are quite a few people in this world who are manic or bipolar. I think these names are a slight misnomer. They sort of make the conditions sound harmless or completely emotional. But during a manic episode people have paranoid delusions, hallucinations, and a great many of other things. This kind of emotional problem can develop and stick to people if they've suffered an emotional disturbance, have been abused, use too much of almost any drug, have had head trauma, etc. It's not all that uncommon.

Further, it seems that anyone can all of the sudden snap for no apparent reason (especially amongst adolescents) and have a paranoid delusion which can carry on for quite a while (and sometimes for the remainder of one's life). This doesn't sound like it had anything to do with the contents of modern television, the TV was just a tool in this man's insanity. It could very well be that he's just making a plea of insanity to get away with murder... but anyone who would kill random people for no reason is obviously a mental deviant in some way. Either way, he has to be locked up away from society. Perhaps a lobotomy or shock therapy?

Legalizer is right about the SSRI thing. This class of anti-depressant in particular has been linked to some of the more dangerous manics we've heard about in recent years. I think the FDA should address that.

To answer your question about hearing voices: This is pretty well documented. In the temporal lobe of the brain exist the centers for hearing. The two main areas entrusted with actually hearing a sound and then processing the information are called simply the "primary auditory area" and the "auditory association area". People who "hear voices" only show signs of activity in the association area while they are hearing voices. This suggests that they're not actually hearing anything in particular but rather interpreting coherent thoughts using that area of the brain and it confuses the person into thinking they "heard" something. The thoughts are normal thoughts that regular people think every day. The difference is that while we think these things subconsciously they usually get filtered out and don't come into the conscious mind.

Those who are manic have a "broken down filter" so to speak. Thoughts come intruding into their conscious minds and they are taken off guard by them. Some people "hear' them, some people "feel' them, some people simply think them, and some people are even confused about how they come across the thoughts. It's important not to forget that no matter where the person thinks they've received instructions, they all come from that person's very mind.

In a real circumstance people have a hard time quoting exactly what the "voices" said but they can always definitely tell you what they meant. Also, from what people have told me, it's really REALLY hard to tell yourself that you are just having a delusion and that it's all in your mind. It's been described to me as "intrusive thoughts that seem more real than reality". Sounds terribly confusing and frightening to have no way of differentiating reality from imagination.

Now, society at large might be to blame for this man having so much violence in his subconscious. I don't want to take blame away from him, but the amount of violence in the media and the simple human tendency to wage war and be all around violent might have contributed to the "voices" having told him to kill people rather than, say plant flowers or wear green underwear all the time.
-S

ServoHahn,

Really a well thought out and presented post. I'd like your opinion regarding paranormal phenomena and what you call the 'broken down filter'. Do you consider the former just incidences of the latter, some sort of 'manic episode' caused by thoughts out of place in the brain recognized as 'voices' or 'abductions' or 'projections'? Is there a line between hallucination and paranormal activity, or is the one just the product of the other in an entirely internal process? That is a fundamental question.

I've never heard voices from the TV that weren't part of the show I was watching. I did have someone try to read my mind with one once, but my channels were all blank on the quide. Now, was that a paranormal experience, or a hallucination? Definitely a memorable moment for me. I'm still trying to figure out what happened that night (see MRIs enhance Psychic Abilities). Like you said, one way or the other, it sticks with you. I'd almost rather be crazy than to have some of the things I speculate about be true.

The difference for me, and, thankfully, for most people, is we don't act out on the weird, unexplainable events in our lives by going out and terrorizing and killing other people from overpasses, like McCoy did. Anybody who engages in that kind of activity, for whatever reason, needs to be removed from society permanently by some agreed upon method.




[edit on 25-5-2005 by Icarus Rising]

Another thought on this matter... about the "hearing voices" defense. We all hear voices don't we?

The voices in my head say "wake up, you're gonna be late for work" or "ordering diet coke would be better for you".
The voices in a psycho's head say "no, no, aim for the heart stupid!"

They are YOUR voices! It's not a defense.

Originally posted by toasted
I heard an interesting comment about the school shootings tho....that ALL the shooters had been taking psychotropic meds...I have not been following them close enuf to know.

can anyone verify that ?

I heard something similar yesterday. The statement was made that the last 8 school shooters were on those meds. I wouldn't doubt it. Kids' minds can get totally screwed up by those meds.

Icarus,
No, I think the goings on in most people's heads are purely physiological. I'm not going to rule out possible paranormal causes for psychosis but the plain fact of the matter is that there aren't any good experiments one can use to test the paranormal. You can run a series of proven psychological tests on someone but anything that borders on paranormal is mostly hearsay.

Again hearing voices isn't like someone's in your ear whispering suggestions like "kill that guy" or "you have the reincarnated soul of Petra the third". They're invasive thoughts. To the person I'm sure that it's all very confusing and paranormal but I'm willing to bet that it's still just mental.

Psychic abilities? Again, I've looked and looked and haven't found anything a psychic says to be testable. TV specials, psychics I've met, hotlines... whatever. They seem to like to say things that can't be proven either way or make predictions about things that have excellent odds of coming to be anyway... not to mention all the predictions that don't come true. There's an unclaimed offer that's still on the table for one million dollars to any person that can prove that they are psychic. Oh and of course the ever so absent headline in the papers "Psychic Wins Lottery". Can I accept that there is SOMETHING about the human psyche that we don't understand? Could there be extra sensory perceptiveness in our grasp? Sure... but auras? Astral projection? Trips to the future? Visions? Premonition? People are talking like they can actually understand truths about the universe... incidentally NONE of it is provable.
-S