I watched a very interesting documentary tonight about Kenneth Bianchi, the "Hillside Strangler", who terrorized Los Angeles back in the 1980's. In addition to that pesky habit of murdering women and children, it turns out he was an academic fraud as well. Bianchi purchased a fake Columbia University diploma back in 1974, indicating he had earned a Master's in Psychology, and also purchased a document from the non-existant "American Society of Psychiatry" that bestowed upon him the degree of "Doctor of Psychiatry". :bsflag: In addition, he set-up a fake counseling service where he solicited people with graduate degrees in Psychology to work for him, asking for transcripts. He took the transcript of one person, Thomas Steven Walker, who graduated with a Master's in Psychology from Pepperdine, and altered the name so it looked like he had earned the degree. One of his major undoings was trying to use the insanity defense based on having multiple personalities, one of whom was "Steve Walker". Bianchi was well-read on Psychology, knew how to act, and actually fooled 2 psychiatrists and a psychologist hired by the defense, until his house of cards came crashing down. After the police found the altered transcript and tracked it down to the real Thomas Steven Walker, Bianchi decided to plead guilty, leaving some mortified mental health professionals in his wake. Not much of a timebomb, considering the circumstances, but I thought it was pretty interesting.
While I don't claim that academic frauds are more likely to be murders, I do believe that academic frauds are dishonest and therefore are more likely to commit crimes.
I agree....I watched this video for a class, and was half falling asleep during a drier portion of it, until one of the detectives mentioned "fraudulent college degrees", and that was like a bucket of cold water over my head. mfg:
