“The Tenant” was a serial killer. “He looks like a very nice guy, with the eyes of a spaniel”

Małgorzata Fugiel-Kuźmińska: After working in the police, you ended up as a psychologist in the forensic ward of a psychiatric hospital and took part in observations of perpetrators of crimes. What changed?

Jan Gołębiowski: First of all, when we are dealing with a suspect whose status is still undetermined, he is approached differently than a person who, as the perpetrator, is sent to a hospital for observation. The conversation is different too. Such a delinquent was brought for examination in a convoy, usually by the police, sometimes by the prison service, in full entourage, in a special car with bars on the windows, and in handcuffs. It’s quite a cinematic image.

However, before the meeting took place, we had to read the documents. The first one was usually a decision to put the person under observation. If Article 148 of the Penal Code was mentioned there, we already knew it was a murder. Then we looked through the files, which included the results of the scene inspection, autopsy, reports, opinions of other experts and forensic doctors. Before we met the man, we already knew his criminal record.

Were there any surprises, or did someone who matched the description in the file sit in front of you?

Differently. Sometimes the first impression was consistent with what I already knew, and sometimes there were surprises. In such situations, a lot depends on your own ideas and stereotypes.

I’ll anticipate the question because I just remembered one of the first killers I examined as an expert witness. Homeless, alcohol abuser, without a permanent job, convicted of theft and burglary. He lived in allotments with other homeless people, mostly men, although there were also women around them. The victim in a tent, the perpetrator in a gazebo-type house, they were collecting scrap metal together. To put it bluntly: a meliniar atmosphere. They supported each other a little, but they also competed for money and power, because an informal hierarchy had developed among these homeless men.

People who have no material assets and live from day to day often create alternative symbolic structures that help build self-esteem. The situation is similar in prison, where inmates have a limited number of personal belongings, have no influence on their own lives, and their functioning is controlled by the Prison Service: they are assigned hours to use electricity, go for a walk or take a shower. Prisoners create a prison subculture – part of which is, among other things, Grysping – with a strong honorary component. People who do not have a home or job, and all their possessions fit into a bag or backpack, may be equally sensitive about their specifically understood honor.

This is a paradox, because according to Maslow’s pyramid of needs, the most basic, material needs related to the satisfaction of drives, a sense of security, and food, are located at the very bottom. Further needs – psychological, including self-actualization – are located higher and to move to the next level, the basic ones must first be satisfied. But the examples I cited show that in exceptional situations and circumstances, when the satisfaction of basic needs is artificially deprived, people can make a leap and compensate for the failure to satisfy basic needs by symbolic, psychological needs. I feel like this is what honor does for people who have nothing but their own informal system of rules. They are very sensitive to offense, sensitive to how they are treated, how they are treated or how their objects are used.

But back to that crime. As usual in such stories, there was alcohol, there were ridiculous amounts of money involved, which the men lent to each other, and someone else said something about someone else. So there was a related theme, an emotional component, regret, revenge. There was a crowbar at hand, the so-called paw, and one of them split the other’s head with this crowbar.

I read the files, looked at the photos of the body and the allotment gardens, the seasonal homeless shelter, and then they brought you. Boxer nose, missing teeth, scars on his head, random clothes. First impression consistent with what I read in the files. An interesting thing came out during the analysis of his life line (this involves a biographical conversation with the observed person, sometimes also called the observer). The respondent said that in his youth he thought about becoming a policeman, or rather a militiaman, but under communism it was a shame, and later he was associated with an environment that violated the law and it would not fit the ethos of this group. At the end, he himself said that perhaps his life would have turned out differently if he had fulfilled his idea.

There are situations when the appearance of the scene or the brutal, cruel manner of committing the murder suggest that we will meet a monster, and someone who is completely inconspicuous from whom we would not expect such an act comes to the examination.

I had such a case. It’s The Tenant, the serial killer we’ve already talked about [w ksi±¿ce, wybierał ofiary z ogłoszenia w sprawie sprzedaży domu lub mieszkania, działał w Warszawie – red]. In appearance, he was a very nice guy, with the eyes of a spaniel, as some people called him. Smiling, able to express himself, eloquent, intelligent above average. I don’t think even when meeting Kamil, who killed his parents (the famous story from Rakowiska near Biała Podlaska), I didn’t experience such a shock. Although that boy also surprised me: slim, nice, well-groomed, not the type of thug or even athlete, actually a mama’s boy, a bit spoiled. You can expect many things from someone like that, but not a brutal murder.

What emotions accompany the psychologist during the examination?

I will talk about myself, because psychologists are different. This type of conversation always brings adrenaline to me, because I am dealing with a person who has committed murder – and it is a crime of the highest caliber. It’s not that the person sitting in front of me scares me, or that I feel afraid or disgusted. It is rather an excitement, even fascination. I’m dating a man who has experienced something I hope I will never experience. It’s like talking to someone from the other side of some dark mirror, from another planet. His experience is inaccessible to me.

Knowledge in such conversations is acquired with experience. At the beginning, the attention is focused on ourselves, on our own experiences. This is when the surprise we talked about can happen. The best way to get to the point is to remind ourselves that we are not there for ourselves. We should focus on the interlocutor, because we are supposed to diagnose him, and not think about what is happening to us. Nevertheless, the psychologist should not repress emotions towards the patient or his own thought processes, but rather consider what it says about the person being examined.

During the examination, the psychologist is at work, but also talks to another person. He may not like someone, someone may annoy him. Many times I observed how specialists were prejudiced against parents’ murderers or people who harmed children. I tried to approach the subject individually, regardless of what he did, I was naturally curious about him. There were rare people, although there were a few that simply irritated me. I had to force myself to cooperate and at the same time be objective in my opinion, but meanwhile this person was annoying me, and this could affect my perception of him.

Sometimes someone arouses in me positive feelings, sympathy, compassion. But I can feel sorry for someone and not absolve them at the same time. Cooperation with police negotiators taught me that when dealing with a person in a difficult situation, being natural works best. That is why negotiators are always volunteers, the person on the other side must feel this authenticity, the negotiator’s concern for his or her situation.

I happened to say this to a subject – that I sympathized with the situation he found himself in. The killer is also, in a sense, a victim – not only of the environment in which he grew up, but above all of himself. It’s not about romanticizing his fate, blaming pathological parents, pathological friends, or childhood trauma for his actions, but about understanding that when he committed the act, he crossed out his entire life, as well as the life of his loved ones. He will be in prison, maybe for a very long time. So yes, I sympathized, but I had no problem with thinking that someone was dangerous and should not be released too soon – or never.

Some psychologists approach the examination in a standard way and do not go beyond what they are asked to do. I don’t know if it’s a sign of burnout, or maybe someone’s career has taken such a turn that they’re doing something other than what they wanted to do, but such people lack curiosity. I chose this job myself, I feel called to it and I approach it with passion. While performing my duties, I want to learn more, understand the person being examined, and not just answer questions from the court or prosecutor’s office and get paid for it. Coming back to the question about what a psychologist feels: for me it is primarily adrenaline related to cognitive curiosity.

We touched on an important issue. Curiosity is curiosity, but generally the expert is supposed to answer very specific questions asked by the court or the prosecutor’s office. What kind of questions are these?

First of all, it’s about sanity. This is a code term, not a medical one. Our law is based on Roman law, in which we have a specific theory of guilt: a person who knows what he has done can be held responsible for his actions. Over the centuries, when the level of psychiatric awareness varied, it was believed that people who, as a result of illness or disorder, did not know what they were doing could not be held responsible. The Polish Penal Code specifies in article thirty-one that no person commits a crime if, due to mental illness, mental retardation or other disturbance of mental functions, he was unable to recognize the meaning of the act or control his actions during the act.

The question of sanity in serious cases such as murder is automatically asked, even if the act itself and the circumstances are not special. In minor cases, there must be clear doubt about the person’s mental state. She is examined for this if she is behaving strangely or has previously undergone psychiatric treatment. In the case of murders, just to be sure, a psychiatrist always meets with the perpetrator to determine his sanity.

Natural born killers? The unknown behind the scenes of a profiler’s work – cover promotional materials of the Mando publishing house