Psychopaths: Born evil or with a diseased brain?

Brian Dugan Scans of serial killer Brian Dugan's brain showed limited activity in the area processing emotions


When Brian Dugan pleaded guilty to the brutal rape and murder of a seven-year-old girl, Jeanine Nicarico, he seemed to be the very sketch of a brutal serial killer.

She had been murdered in 1983, though Dugan only pleaded guilty in 2009. By then, he had also been convicted of rape several times over, and the murder of two others - another seven-year-old girl and a 27-year-old nurse whom he ran off the road before raping and killing her.

If the death sentence had not been withdrawn in Illinois, Dugan would have been executed.

Yet strikingly, he showed no remorse for any of his murders or crimes. Scientists now believe this lack of empathy may in fact be linked to the reason he committed these acts.

Neuroscientist Dr Kent Kiehl of the University of New Mexico scanned Dugan's brain, as part of a unique project to understand how anti-social behaviour is related to brain structure and function.

"He struggles to try and understand why people even care about what he did," says Kiehl, describing his time interviewing Dugan. "Clinically, it is fascinating."

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