Prison psychologist Nathalie von Zelowitz spent a decade meeting with a killer who told her he’d cooked and eaten his victim’s heart. Hence the title of her book, translated from the French, I Ate His Heart. The incarcerated offender, called “Bernard,” wasn’t delusional. And he liked to talk. She met regularly with him to record his story.
All of this is framed through an explanation of her approach. She’s a psychologist who uses psychoanalytic theory. Her goal is clinical, which provides a buffer against the appalling statements that her subjects might make. She seeks their humanity. “I am interested in the psychological truth at the core of passing to the act. Against a background of drive-based movements, mental short-circuits, and unconscious archaic mechanisms that lead someone, for example, to eat human flesh.”
Von Zelowitz asserts the importance of showing dedication. “When my patients go too far, I impose boundaries, but I always give them another appointment to show that I am permanent, consistent, and committed.”
I was interested, because criminologists and psychologists who undertook the lengthy process of long-form analysis have significantly influenced me. During the 1890s, forensic pathologist Alexandre Lacassagne had initiated “prison autobiographies,” inspired by cases in which he’d testified. Each week, Lacassagne checked inmates’ notebooks, guiding them toward insight about their behavior. It was painstaking work, but it paid off in shifting crime narratives away from physical appearance and “degenerate” nature and toward factors in childhood and environment. One of his studies had involved the infamous French serial killer, Joseph Vacher.
I’d also read Dr. Karl Berg’s extensive prison interviews in 1929 with German serial rapist, murderer, and blood fetishist Peter Kürten. Decades before there were formulas about serial killers, Kürten had already defied them. He’d changed his weapon, MO, routines, and victim type, and had even gone dormant for years. It was important to record his developmental process and decision-making.
I learned a lot about this method from the late prison psychologist, Dr. Al Carlisle. As part of the prison’s 90-day unit, his job was to evaluate alleged offenders to help judges determine whether they warranted parole or a prison sentence. He’d watch for more than what they said; he’d added “feeling tone.” He’d performed one such evaluation of Ted Bundy at Utah State Prison.
Bundy knew the value of such interviews. He’d told Detective Bob Keppel that the key to talking to serial killers was time and patience. “You have to be content with slowly learning, what kind of person is this? You can’t drag it out of a guy overnight.”
I had my own opportunity with the “BTK” killer, Dennis Rader. It took nearly two years before he opened up in a way that offered items of value for criminologists and psychologists. We worked together for three more years to document his “dark journey.” Building trust was the foundation, especially when he described things that were difficult to hear.
Von Zelowitz shows that making sense of criminal behavior requires exploring not just the offender’s background but also their perception of their life events. Bernard experienced rejection at a young age, and this often became the frame through which he interpreted other setbacks. He’d grown to hate his biological mother, who’d given him up for adoption, and he imagined his unknown father as a serial killer. His sense of identification was rooted in these perceptions, neither of which had clear basis in fact. He’d been in prisons and psychiatric hospitals, married and divorced, housed and homeless. Throughout, he’d maintained his personal sense of significance. “One day,” he said, “I’m going to do something huge, and my father who doesn’t know me, will see my face on the evening news.” Rejection as he perceived it had threatened his sense of self, evolving into a craving for recognition. He’d decided that from the moment he was born, he was an “exceptional being.” People just hadn’t understood this. His act of cannibalism had seemingly verified it.
On a philosophical note, von Zelowitz delves into other cases of cannibalism and explores various theories before she gets to the meat, so to speak, with “Inside Bernard’s Head.” The guy loves being studied. However, we get just a taste of the raw material (“I realized he was dead, so I cut open his chest with a razor blade…”), because the story is largely filtered through psychiatric narrative. The interpretive decisions are made for us. This lessens the book’s value for professionals. When I delved into Rader’s life story, I supplied some explanatory framework, but I mostly let him do the talking. I wanted readers to experience being in the room with him as he talked. Bernard’s voice comes through here and there, but not as often as I’d hoped. His developmental process is still fascinating, especially when it shows how he formed his view of himself. He might not have been legally insane, but the glimpses we get of his own observations show that he was certainly disordered.