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Monday, February 13, 2012

Thin lips III

The  following AP article appeared on Yahoos News this morning: 


It is about two men, Wesley Shermantine and Loren Herzog, known as the "Speed Freak Killers," who are thought to have killed as many as 15 people -- by some accounts more -- and dumped them in a well on an abandoned farm once owned by Shermantine's family. 

Shermantine is on Death Row, but Herzog's conviction was overturned when a judge found his confession to have been illegally obtained. However, he committed suicide a month ago when he found out that Shermantine was telling authorities about the well and two other locations. 

I'd never heard of these two before, so was curious as to what they looked like. Here's Shermantine: 


And here's Loren Herzog: 


Both men have the thin lips that seem to be so typical of Caucasian serial killers. I can't begin to explain it, or even come up with a theory as to why this might be. But it's hard not to notice the correlation. 

2 comments:

The Ambivalent Misanthrope said...

I know this post is older than dirt, but I had a sudden thought about the thin lip thing. Women who drink heavily during pregnancy give birth to children with FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome), which has behavioral and physical components. One of the defining physical characteristics of FAS is a thin upper lip. The three classic features for infants and children are a thin upper lip, a smooth philtrum (the vertical groove running from the center of the nose to the center of the upper lip) and a short shortened eye, giving them the appearance of being widely spaced apart. It's easy to spot on children in extreme cases, but the features soften and mellow as the face matures into adulthood.

Alcoholic mothers are already a risk factor for sociopathic children, so it would not be surprising if they also drink during pregnancy and actually damage their offspring organically.

On another note altogether, this blog is just too much fun! I have most certainly spent too much time reading it voraciously.

John Craig said...

Ambivalent Misanthrope --
If I were a more sensitive type, I might be hurt that you compare this post to dirt, but I suppose you made up for it with your last sentence. (Thank you; and you can never spend too much time reading this blog.)

Thank you, I hadn't fully realized that about the narrow eyes; I had just thought that FAS children had widely spaced eyes; you just taught me something. I also hadn't realized that a narrow upper lip was another feature of FAS.

Another feature of FAS children is a higher likelihood of a cleft palate, and I wrote about how all of that (plus sociopathy) came together in the person of Jesse Jackson here:

http://justnotsaid.blogspot.com/2012/07/sociopath-alert-jesse-jackson.html

Anyway, thanks for reading this far back.