Inside a mass social interaction.
Bird seemingly rarely spoke to
murderer’s mind
Why rage killers such
as Derrick Bird go on
the rampage – and
who they kill first – is
the key question to
understanding events
such as Cumbria.
Outwardly Bird, a quiet divorced taxi driver who
liked motor sports and holidays in Thailand, was
Mr Normal.
But his trail of carnage, the targeted killing of his
twin brother David and the family solicitor Kevin
Commons, and other taxi driver colleagues, as
well as the random drive-by shootings, point to a
deeply enraged, calculating and destructive
individual.
Like the first murderer of the Bible – Cain – Bird
was inwardly consumed by a life-long jealousy of
his more successful, more accomplished non-
identical twin. Whether it was true or not Bird
came to believe that his brother David, born five
minutes before him, was the chosen one –
unfairly lavished affection and love by their
parents while he was cast out. David was always
first and Bird believed he was last.
A bitter family dispute over their mother’s estate
and his discovery that their father Joe had secretly
given David £25,000 shortly before his death
would have been the final confirming instance
that he had been cheated yet again.
Bird was a classic under-achiever – his every
failure magnified by his twin brother’s success.
Cumbria police say Bird’s body was covered in
self-harm scars – a physical map of his self
loathing for his own perceived life failures.
And the reported family dispute over the will
would have been the final blow to man who had
come to believe the whole world, including the
Inland Revenue, was out to get him.
Bird was probably mildly autistic and was likely to
be confused by normal workplace banter and
his passengers and found small talk difficult with
strangers.
Psychologists believe that most rage killers suffer
from what is called a “heightened sense of
personal sovereignty”. Any setback, any reverse,
even a mild reprimand at work is seen and felt as
an attack on their core sense of self. Inwardly
they believe they are being persecuted.
The run-up to a murder spree also follows a
familiar pattern. The killers’ lives begin to spiral
out of control as they are engulfed in a mixture
of debt or work-related problems. They begin to
feel overwhelmed, trapped, but are too
emotionally isolated to ask others for help.
Inside, they decide there is no way out and begin
plotting out what they see as their day of
reckoning.
The key element in all rage killings is access to
weaponry. Psychologically it is not hard to
understand how a gun can become a prop in a
life spiralling out of control. Virtually every male-
centred TV cop show and Hollywood movie re-
runs the same hero-with-a-gun-defeats-the
baddies plot. The gun is not just a killing tool but
a means of obtaining justice and respect.
The movies are tapping into a common human
fantasy that we can somehow transform our
lives instantly by a powerful magical device and
become a somebody.
The last “victim” of the rage killer is almost
always themselves – their suicide. In their
fantasy their mission is complete and so they go
out in a blaze of glory, as heroes, before being
captured. Bird abandoned his vehicle and took to
the hills as if he was some wartime sniper on the
run from the Nazis rather than the Cumbria
Constabulary. But his final act was never in
doubt – a bullet to the head from his own gun.
Sickeningly, as he shot and killed at random Bird
was for a brief few hours a happy man – who at
last felt he was in control of his life, and the lives
of those he was taking with him.