Mind of the Killer

Edward Sumner Grant III was born September 6, 1920 born to Edward Sumner Grant Jr. and Margaret Smith Schofield. His father made a fortune in the lumber business, and he was raised in a large house in the affluent Garden district of New Orleans. Although his parents were not abusive, they were emotionally detached, and his mother held a history of serious mental illness (schizophrenia). The parents hardly allowed Edward to make any decisions by himself; they seemingly had everything planned out for him, which little Eddy resented. He was nicknamed Eddy by his family, a nickname which he hated. He reports in his diary, titled “The Personal Biography of Edward Sumner Grant III,” he would only answer if addressed as Edward. 

His childhood history was free of any known criminal incidents, though given his later actions that sort of behavior could be reasonably expected.  What is noted in surviving correspondence between his parents is a history of bedwetting and the capture and numerous instances of fire-starting during his youth.

He worked  during the summers at a butcher’s shop during high school and into college. He also baby sat for Marguerite Oswald during the summer of 1940. He took classes regarding woodworking and machining at the private school his parents sent him to. These classes His surviving grades reflect an extremely advanced and intelligent mind, with a great disregard for authority then chalked up to arrogance. By the summer of 1941, he had graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from LSU, at just the age of 21. Despite this rapid advancement, Grant was still financially dependent on his parents, still neglected and isolated emotionally, and deeply resented having to live in their house and play by rules he did not see as practicable.

In late 1941, just days after Pearl Harbor, Grant enlisted in the US army without his parents permission. They were furious, and apparently had quite the horrible talk for daring to challenge their authority. He left anyway, and would never see his parents again. His mother would die in the 1951 after falling down a flight of stair in their home. It's been reported when he received the news he didn't shed a single tear.

Grant soon ascended the ranks, first as a Technical Sergeant in the 254th Engineer Combat Battalion, then later receiving a battlefield commission to First Lieutenant due to extreme courage and leadership under fire in the Battle of the Bulge.  He was transferred to the command of Colonel Derek Charles Um.

Um for his careless use of soldiers lives in large wave attacks. He used large scale corporal punishments, kept excessively strict regulations, far beyond what the army would normally allow,  but his success in battle allowed high command to look the other way.  Grant chaffed under Um. The strict control posed over every aspect of his life reminded exactly of his childhood, and he hated it. The extreme violence of the battlefield became a way for him to purge his emotions.

One day, towards the end of the war, Grant was on patrol with a few other soldiers when they captured a pair of German scouts. Grant commanded them down onto their knees, and executed them both in cold blood, but not before giving them a cigarette. It was the most fulfilled he ever felt in his life.

Upon returning from the war, he obtained a large inheritance from his parents and moved to a townhouse in New Orleans. Over the next few years, he would stockpile, plan, and prepare his future killing spree. 

Method of Killing

Grant favorited firearms as his method of execution. On occasion, typically after particularly long "cooling off" periods (time between murders) he would choose more "personal" methods of murder, such as strangulation or a tire iron. It is often cited by psychologists that 

Sense of Morals

Although he was a serial murderer, Grant held a series of moral boundaries which applied also to his victims. He refused to steal, fairly compensating King, Pinnick, Pham, and Castillo for the services he hires, and even including "hazard pay," according to Grant's diary, for Castillo.

Grant also refused to break into or ambush his victims as a stranger. He would typically take the guise of a customer or safe person, and only strike once he had familiarized himself with the victim. For example, he hired revealed his real name to, and took dinner with Seb Pinnick before he attempted the abduction.

Victimology

Grant claims in his diary to have no particular reason for his victims, but there is a clear pattern of targeting isolated, oppressed groups which the society of 1950s Louisiana would consider deviants or cast-outs. For example, Pinnick was a  communist, King an African American, the Brownes were children of Mexican immigrants, Pham was a homosexual and prostitute, and so on with the rest of the victims.

Grant did not seem to hold much outward racial, gender, or other bias. He affirms in his writing that he had no problem with Alec Pham's sexuality, and speaks respectfully of Dr. Stewart's gender preferences. 

That does not necessarily mean he is removed from any internal bias, as the social oppression of his victims is too overwhelming of a pattern to be a coincidence. One of the prevailing theories to this end is that Grant sought control over his victims,  and subconsciously sought victims whom social power structures had already given him some power over. Or, applied more general to serial killers, the social biases and structures of a killer's environment have been shown to affect their behavior greatly.

Signature

The signature of Grant's crimes, an unnecessary component to fulfill psychological needs, was his taunting of police. Grant wrote several letters to both police and media, sometimes with cyphers or red herring clues. This, in conjunction with the hiring of PIs and tailing of investigators, shows that Grant sought to control and toy with the detectives hunting him.

Organization

Grant was a clearly well organized killer, using fake identities (James Walker Thompson) to deceive victims and buy equipment anonymously, stalking both victims and  police, and disposing of the bodies in the bayou. He did not engage in any random crime and was not seeking to cause general terror.

Escalation

Grant's methods gradually evolved over time, with his precision and planning improving and creating more clearly organized scenes. Less witnesses were to be found, less forensic evidence was left, and victims were more adeptly maniuplated. In addition to this, emotional escalation can also be seen as Grant seeks greater psychological satisfaction from his crimes. For example, he savagely beats and repeatedly strangles Richard Castillo during his abduction, despite little to no resistance.

The Crescent City Cannibal was a nickname given to Grant by FBI agent Edgar J. Hoover, and perpetuated widely in the media due to its sensational nature. It became a thing of tall tales an urban myth to strike fear into society as a whole. The common conception of the Cannibal completely detached itself from the reality.

Exaggeration of Facts

Over time, the details of the Cannibal and his crimes progressively grew out of hand. Conclusions were drawn not from known fact, but to appeal to an audience in a way that they would find plausible and likely (Aristotelian concept of rhetoric). The Daily Tribune newspaper (Archive: Newspaper 2 and 3) are notorious for spinning partial police reports into large generalizations, most notably when they perpetuated the Crescent City Cannibal nickname, even though there was no confirmed evidence of cannibalism at the time.

Likewise, the public largely thought of the Cannibal as a brutal, bloody psychopath who had no moral code and committed random acts of crime, but this is not true. Grant was an extremely competent and intelligent killer who knew what he was doing was wrong and hurt others (qualifies Mens Rea). His actions were organized and in no way random, despite what Grant claims on occasion in his journal. 

Underlying Motives

Behind every expression of horror at the latest murder, or every article published decrying the evil of the Cannibal, underlying personal motivations fester. When Detective LeBlanc went to the Sign of the Times newspaper office, he found a team of editors willing to stonewall the investigation or withhold evidence from investigators if it could sell them more copies. 

The incorrect generalizations of the Cannibal may seem honest misconceptions, but they actually perpetuate many cultural mindsets of the 1950s. For example, is a rising fear from White Americans of random crime due to ongoing urban decay.

Disproportionate Media Attention

A critically thinking viewer may observe that the level of media attention surrounding the Cannibal cases varies wildly. Cases such as Alec Pham and Aaliyah Browne sell wildly, whereas cases like Albert Joseph King and Mahdi Pooya don't even warrant articles, they remain obscure trivia for future true crime buffs.

The reason for this is that certain cases just have more sensational value and emotional impact for the culture of the 1950s, and that's all that matters for the general public. The Browne murders were a targeted stalking and abduction of a young girl, while her brother was executed and left to rot. It was portrayed in the media as a random crime, and this, plus the gore filled nature of the case made it a bestselling headline. A local paper,  the Daily Tribune, is quoted even as asking rhetorically, "is anyone really safe?" 

However, that extremely targeted crime is far less threatening to the average person than other cases such as the Pooya abduction. Mahdi Pooya was a true everyman, a middle class tourist snatched from the center of the city and disappeared without a trace. The reason why the Brownes sold and Pooya didn't was that Mr.  Pooya simply wasn't as compelling a story. He was a middle aged man, she was a young girl. Both were people of color, but he was a  foreign tourist with darker skin, she was an American citizen with lighter skin.  

In addition to this, misogynist gender norms typical of the 50s expected women to stay at home in the safe, "domestic" sphere of living, whereas men were allowed to work and live in the "social" sphere of commerce, politics, and labor. Aaliayah Browne's murder represents a breaching of the sanctity and comfort associated with the home, and for this reason struck a chord deeply with the public. 

Fulfilled Killer's Psychology

Although media frenzy may have affected the public perception significantly, it can be seen in Dr. Maxine Stewart's psychological profile (Archive: Contemporary Psych Profile) that it did not significantly affect NOPD investigators. What, then, is the danger of such careless frenzy?

The most significant effect of cultural attention to serial crime is that it encourages and shapes new criminals, or, such as in the case of Grant, encourages and shapes the criminal being addressed. Grant loved the attention of the media, so much so that he was willing to give crucial handwriting evidence and other leads in order to get his letters published. He hired a PI to tail the NOPD detectives, not to evade them, but, as revealed in his journal, because the news surrounding the detectives made him curious. His cooling period grew shorter, his victim choice more bold, until eventually he hunted one of the detectives themselves, Adonis LeBlanc.

From these changes in Grant's behavior, it can be concluded that the cultural conditions of a killer's environment play a substantial role in their behavior.