The Narrative of Men Who Murder Their Partners

Abstract

This article deals with the strategies the storyteller uses to influence the listener’s perception and thinking. It is based on qualitative research, which examined the narratives of 12 men who killed their female partners. After entering prison, the murderer attempts to salvage some part of his social image. He does this using an assortment of means in two areas: the content of the narrative and its linguistic style. In terms of content, all the storytellers present themselves as extremely positive and their wives as very negative. With respect to language, the killers use verbs that distance them from responsibility, they hedge, repeat words and phrases to persuade, and use figures of speech they expect will impress their listeners. This artificial discourse is cunningly interwoven in terms of content and story art to recreate an alternative reality of a man who is normative and whom society can accept.

Keywords

murder female partners narrative excuses justifications repetitions artificial discourse false linguistic analysis

Introduction

Man stabs wife to death in front of their daughter

YNET, March 9, 2008

When we read this type of headline in the newspaper, we instinctively recoil from and perhaps even hate such an individual. We consider the man guilty and hope he receives a harsh sentence. However, when we read the man’s story, his description of the sequence of events that led up to the murder, the picture may change. We may understand the man, perhaps even identify with his motives, and are not sure our initial judgment was right. What is special about the story that turns the tables? How does he manage to turn himself into a more positive figure and his crime into an act that may even have been unavoidable? Is he presenting reality as he perceives it, or knowingly and intentionally depicting a false reality?

Section 300(a) of the Israeli Penal Code states, “A person who does one of the following is guilty of murder and is liable to imprisonment for life and only to that penalty.” Included among the earmarks of an act of murder specified in this Section 300(a), Subsection 2 is “with premeditation causes the death of any person.”

The Code thus mandates life imprisonment for all convicted murderers, who have no place in normative society. All that such people have left is the possibility of rehabilitating their image as perceived by the informal social system.¹ The verdict of the court is not the final word in the eyes of the convicted murderers. They still need to be heard to be able to influence others by evading their responsibility for their partners’ death and improving their image in the eyes of others hoping to improve their self-image in turn and save a conventional sense of self (e.g., Pogrebin, Stretesky, & Unnithan, 2006). Failing to make convincing accounts to the accusations may have negative influences on the convicted and manifested by psychosomatic sickness, depression, and other psychological problems (e.g., McAdams, Diamond, de Aubin, & Mansfield, 1997).

A person’s self-esteem and self-image are judgments that are significantly dependent on the perceptions of others and how they relate to the person (De Cremer & Mulder, 2007; Greenberg, 2008; Mead, 1934). Subconsciously, we perceive ourselves the way others perceive us, or more aptly put, the way we assume others perceive us (Rosenberg, 1979, p. 97). In fact, we take advantage of our human relationships to define ourselves (Aron & Aron, 1986; Sluss, 2011). Self-esteem is a judgment people reach about themselves based on how they are treated by others; it is not something they achieve apart from society (De Cremer & Mulder, 2007).

Positive self-esteem stems from the fact that the person is part of a group and has a good reputation. Personal identity is determined at least in part through social relations, and this motivates the individual to try to become positively perceived by society (Goffman, 1959).

The Speaker’s Course of Action

People have to explain their actions when others view them as unreasonable or deviant (Cavanagh, Dobash, Dobash, & Lewis, 2001; Dunn, 2008; Zelditch, 2001). Among other things, sociology of language focuses on the mechanism through which social deviants explain their actions to others and themselves. Weber (1964, p. 88) emphasized the actor’s tendency to ascribe subjective meaning to events and things in the environment and to that actor’s personal explanation of his or her behavior. The meanings people ascribe to things explain social phenomena. Weber discusses the system of subjective meaning that the actor or the observer views as a sufficient platform for the behavior in question. Mills (1940) noted that deviants frequently repeat explanations for their actions prior to performing them and organize them in a certain order so that the actions are perceived as legitimate. Thus, they allow themselves to engage in deviant behavior. As they see it, what is important in a social act is that it includes other actors, who interpret and ascribe meaning to the action. The decision to act is at times dependent on the ability to explain the act ex post facto. In fact, every act requires new explanations that are constantly being adopted, even as the act is being committed. The actor defines the present and future and reinterprets the past by reconstructing his biography (Fischer & Goblirsch, 2006). An individual accused of a crime tends to deny that he committed it, or he may admit the act, but neutralize his guilt in two main ways (Austin, 1961, p. 124):

using justifications to accept responsibility for the act, but deny it was bad; and

using excuses to admit the act was bad, but refuse, to some extent, to accept responsibility for the act.

Sykes and Matza (1957) focused primarily on justifications, noting the following five types: (a) denial of responsibility,² (b) denial of injury, (c) denial of the victim, (d) condemnation of the condemners, and (e) appeal to higher loyalties (such as commitment to a friend or family honor). Scott and Lyman (1968) focused on these excuses: (a) a one-time lapse, (b) defeasibility, (c) biological drives, and (d) scapegoating.

Another way of distinguishing between justifications and excuses is that while excuses focus on the characteristics of the subjective psychological state of the agent, justifications center on the objective external circumstances of the act (Fritsche, 2002). According to this explanation, the actions require justification, while the agents need excuses.

Along with the justifications and excuses, there are other less-direct ways to deal with being accused of deviating from the norm. Fritsche (2002), for example, added the tactic of relating to a new factor that deflects attention from violation of the specific norm to a different norm, behavior or person, and is thus calculated to reduce criticism of the speaker (referentialization). In this manner, the speaker does not justify the violation of a norm and does not minimize personal responsibility for the behavior, but adds information that allows the accused to reduce guilt, such as citing the similar behavior of others (“Other people in my position would also act this way”), or such as an indirect explanation focused on the functioning of the accused, but unrelated to the specific accusation (“I was fired from my job on that day and I did what I did out of anger”), (Stokoe, 2010; Timor, 2008; Wood, 2004). In addition to the explanations about the deviant act, the accused can present explanations about personal circumstances in an attempt to mitigate guilt, much as the accused in court do.³ The explanations can relate to the character of the accused, one’s past, age, conditions at home, physical health and emotional conditions, nature of the offense committed, or any mitigating circumstance under which the offense was committed.

Various studies dealing with the explanations given by men for their violent behavior toward their partners reveal the use of a variety of speech strategies. Some of these strategies are similar to those which were described here (Dobash & Dobash, 2011; Lamnek, 2003). Cavanagh et al. (2001) based their work on the “remedial work” theory of Goffman (1971), according to which males try to reduce the negativity of their violent behavior by use of apologies, explanations and wishes (“You shouldn’t interpret my behavior as aggression”), and in this way to neutralize the abusive experience.

Wood (2004) found three categories of explanations of men for their violent behavior toward their partners: justifications (“She didn’t appreciate me as a male”), expressions of remorse (“I am sorry that I hurt her”), and dissociations, arguments that do not relate directly to the charge (“I am not the kind of man who would abuse a woman”; see also Stokoe, 2010).

According to Adams, Towns, Alison, and Gavey (1995), men who are violent toward their partners use rhetoric which revokes from women the right to their opinions, to their beliefs and even to their contacts with others. They do this through the use of a variety of rhetorical means, such as exploiting the duality of certain pronouns (“What WE need to do is to revert to deeper family values”), the use of axioms to support fundamental principles and to defend them from attack (“A man’s home is his castle. That’s it. Plain and simple”), and so on.

In discussing an accusation of murder of a partner, Wowk (1984) argued that it was especially important for the accused to place part of the blame for the murder on the victim, his partner. This was done by the use of degrading gender generalizations such as, “We all know that women are supposed to be passive and not to initiate”⁴ (see also Dobash & Dobash, 2011).

The explanations for the deviant behavior are “social devices” (e.g., Mills, 1940), meaning that they are information tools that can be employed to influence others or oneself. Analysis of the speaker’s explanations shows his mastery of the vocabulary that can be used to describe one act or another. Explanations can be researched by identifying a typical vocabulary for different types of situations and actions. The speaker chooses from this inventory to describe his actions. It is clear that the choice also depends on his familiarity with the vocabulary. When a person gives new names to reality, he creates an updated hint of the event described. The fixed vocabulary is a form of social monitoring of acts (they cannot be described any differently). An updated description ostensibly changes the reality described and adapts it to the specific behavior (Mills, 1940).

The current study will show, among other things, how the words and discourse structures specifically chosen by murderers enable them to justify their acts in a manner that will be accepted by society.

Construction of the Narrative

A narrative (story) is the tool through which people organize the reality, events, and processes related to them and their relationship with the society in which they live (Bruner, 1990). Labov and Waletzky (1967) defined a narrative as one way of recounting past events, where the sequence of the sentences in the account corresponds to the sequence of the events described. All people have narratives that reflect their perceptions, experiences, and needs as well as being socially acceptable (Bruner, 1991). The narrative account is usually inexact, because the speaker tends to transform his narrative by omitting objective events and including subjective events in their place (Labov, 2003). Moreover, given that memory diminishes and events are forgotten, the speaker does not completely control the creation of his story, and the result may reflect subconscious things or subconscious changes in the original story (Labov, 2006).

In a criminal’s narrative, the explanations for deviant behavior constitute only a single component of the complete narrative—in other words, elements of a bigger story about the events or processes that are intended to persuade others as well as the speaker. By its very nature, a narrative is subjective and selective, and it is reasonable to assume that it does not match the narratives of others, for example that of the plaintiff in the case. It allows the speaker to draw a general, logical, and persuasive picture, which also includes the explanations designed to neutralize guilt or at least diminish it. Analysis of the narrative not only facilitates the study of the neutralization techniques, but also the interrelations between them and the speaker’s subjective reality (Riessman, 1993; Rosenthal, 1993).

The few articles dealing with narratives of convicts and ex-convicts are unanimous in considering these narratives’ expressions of the subcultures in which the subjects live, rather than causative explanations of their criminal behavior (Maruna & Copes, 2005; Presser, 2009; Ugelvik, 2012). The researchers claim that the essence of the narratives is the speakers’ desire to appear in a positive light, as opposed to the opprobrium with which society views them (see also Maruna, 2001). Ward and Marshall (2007) concluded from the stories of criminals who have desisted from crime that their narratives serve not only to show themselves in a positive light, but actually to bring about a change in themselves, which they claim as of their own doing, and not as the outcome of any rehabilitation programs. In place of the old emptiness and enslavement to money and material consumption, they emphasize their new present and future goals, including positive social functioning, creative activity, and even helping others. These narratives, including the linguistic means they use, contribute to their rehabilitation.

In their analyses of prisoners’ narratives, Youngs and Canter (2013), as well as Canter, Caouri, and Ioannou (2003), confirmed the theory of Frye (1957) that the roles adopted by the criminals in their narratives can be divided into four types—the hero, the revenger, the victim, and the professional. In connection with this theory, all the prisoners serving murder sentences in this study represent themselves in the role of victim in their narratives. It was their girlfriends and wives, whose characteristics were negative, who victimized them. The murders they committed were actually responses to the provocations of the women, acts of self-defense, or chance accidents.

The objective of this study is to present the range of techniques used by murderers in their accounts of the murders they committed. Since murder is considered the most extreme and serious negative act that one can commit (for example Gross, 1998),⁵ it stands to reason that one would employ the most numerous and effective means possible to excuse or justify oneself. What follows is a presentation of the wide range of narrative and linguistic techniques used by murderers in their attempt to explain their acts of homicide to improve their negative social image. This study is unique in presenting a range of combining techniques from two domains—the speakers’ content worlds and the linguistic methods they use. To the best of our knowledge, some of the means presented here and the way in which they are interwoven have never been presented in previous papers.

The Present Study

This study examined 12 personal stories of men who murdered their female partners and who tell their life stories until the murder. The study probes the ways these men endeavor to improve their image as perceived by readers or listeners; it attempts to identify the techniques of the story, in terms of content and language, that describe the reality in a manner that yields the expected result—a relatively positive image of the murderer in the mind of the listener.

The content of the story is the speaker’s description of himself and his partner throughout the story and the act of murder at the end. According to Goffman (1961), crisis situations arouse in people a need to preserve their routine and erect defenses. Crises necessitate a radical reinterpretation of the significance of past events or characters in one’s biography. Given that it is easier to invent events and things that never happened than to forget those that truly occurred, and particularly when the events that took place were dramatic and extreme, the individual may invent events that will make what is remembered fall in line with the invented past (Cavanagh et al., 2001). The analysis of the content of the stories that follows, examines how the narrators create their new reality after the crises they experienced (the murders), and how they lay the groundwork for being accepted as normative individuals in the future. In this context, it also examines their use of verbal tools to neutralize threats to their positive image. The linguistic style of the story is the language the speaker chose to use, words and expressions of various types that have an impact on the listener or those that are influenced by the speaker’s internal motives.

The analysis relies on studies that have examined linguistic means of deception, fabrication, and persuasion in Hebrew and other languages (DePaulo, Stone, & Lassiter, 2003; Dilmon, 2007; Hancock, Curry, Goorha, & Woodworth, 2005; M. L. Newman, Pennebaker, Berry, & Richards, 2003; Nordhielm, 2003, and others). The purpose of examining these parameters is to discover what techniques and tactics speakers use to create their personal stories.

Method

Participants

The corpus of this study consists of 12 transcripts of interviews⁶ conducted with prisoners convicted of murder or manslaughter of their life partners and serving sentences at the Ayalon Prison in Ramla, Israel. The subjects’ average age was 45 (between 26 and 56). The majority (9) are native Israelis; the others immigrated to Israel from other countries. Years of schooling ranged from 5 to 16 (M = 10). The average length of incarceration at the time the interviews were conducted was 7 years.

The participants were told that the subject of the research was men who had killed their wives or girlfriends, and they were asked to tell about themselves up to the day of the killing and about the killing itself. Having been assured that the interviews would remain classified and anonymous and would be used for research purposes only, they granted their cooperation. The subjects received no benefit of any kind in return for their participation in the study, which was approved by the Research Committee of the Israel Prisons Service.

Instruments

As need dictated, we were guided in our performance of in-depth interviews by a semi-structured interview protocol.⁷ Based on the phenomenological approach (Moustakas, 1994; Polkinghorne, 1989), the interviews’ objective was to enable the interviewees to express how they perceive, describe, and explain the murder of their partners (Elisha, Idisis, & Timor, 2010).

The phenomenological interview is considered by many researchers to be the most effective tool for gaining an in-depth understanding of the world and how the subjects experience it (Thompson, Locander, & Pollio, 1989). Phenomenological research refers to the life experience of the subjects and strives for an understanding of the behaviors and perceptions of the subjects from their own perspective. It focuses on the perceptions and meaning the occurrences have (Kvale, 1996; Moustakas, 1994). The researcher is not searching for the objective empirical existence of the objects, but their phenomenological presence in the subjects’ world (Giorgy, 1985).⁸ The researcher gathers stories as information bases and analyzes them as paradigmatic processes (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

Procedure

The objective of the study was explained to all the participants. They signed consent forms for being interviewed, receiving assurances of confidentiality regarding their personal details, and of their right to end their participation at any time. The interviews were conducted in the offices of the social workers inside the prison. All the interviews were recorded directly in writing by the interviewer. The interviews took between 2.5 and 5 hr, and the transcripts are 18 pages on average (5,334 words in an average story). The transcripts comprise the prisoner’s story, related without interruption. The interviews were held in Hebrew and later translated into English.

Analysis of the Data

Data analysis is a process of arranging and constructing the information gathered for the purpose of interpreting them and understanding their significance. In the process of the analysis the researchers want to answer questions such as “What?” “How?” and “Why?” The analysis involves division of the information into parts and reorganization of the parts into a new analytical order (Creswell, Hanson, Clark Plano, & Morales, 2007; Shkedi, 2003).

In this analysis, the researchers attempted to reveal common topics and shared perceptions within the stories upon which their research was founded (Polkinghorne, 1995). The analysis was inductive. The topics studied and their division into categories stemmed from the narratives themselves. Each category was illustrated by quotations from the interviewees, and only then were they examined. Along with identifying the common issues, the connections and relationships between them were also identified (e.g., the relationship between the description of the man himself and the way he describes his murdered partner [Gergen & Gergen, 1987]).

Validity and Reliability

The following steps were taken to ensure the validity and reliability of our findings:

The draft of the report was submitted to one expert in qualitative research and a second in sociolinguistic research for their comments, and their comments were taken into account in the final version (Merrick, 1999; Shkedi, 2003).

Many participant quotations were included in our presentation of the findings, to enable readers to form their own direct impressions of what was said in the interviews (Riessman, 1993; Shkedi, 2003). All of the examples cited in this article are representative of similar material in the texts of the quoted as well as other speakers.

In addition to the analysis of the stories, their linguistic style was also analyzed. As is customary in qualitative research, there is no claim that the interviewees and their explanations represent all murderers, but that they express a wide variety of authentic perceptions and feelings and not just reactions and affirmations of the researchers’ starting assumptions (Merriam, 1998).

Processing the Interviews

The personal stories of the prisoners were examined sociologically and linguistically through various forms of analysis: analysis of the specific content of each story and analysis of the linguistic style, including identification of words and loaded expressions and what they imply. The findings of the analysis of each story were compared with the findings of the analysis of the other stories. If common narrative methods were found with respect to the speakers, they were recorded and an attempt was made to interpret their contribution to the story and realization of the speakers’ objectives. Finally, conclusions were drawn regarding a criminal’s course of action when relating his personal story.

Content Analysis

Analysis of the content revealed the relationship between how the speaker himself related to his actions, his characteristics, and personality on one hand, and to the actions, characteristics, and personality of his partner on the other, and also limited reference to the murderous act itself. Following the content analysis, common characteristics were found among the 12 speakers, testifying to a similar narrative (the “Discussion” section deals with the element of the fabrication in their narrative—in other words, the part they know is not factually correct): All of the speakers present themselves as extremely positive people and their mates as very negative people. It is thus possible to conclude that the reality has been structured here to improve the speakers’ self-image or social image, as written above (Bruner, 1991). It should be noted that presentation of the man as positive and the woman as negative was found in all 12 of the stories, but the speakers structured this presentation differently.

Description of the Man as a Positive Person

The speakers consistently present themselves as positive people. They describe themselves as being goodhearted, caring, supportive, and generous; as people who do not lie; as being good and faithful partners, good and generous fathers.

Examples from the interviews follow:

It interested me, helping people, saving people, making people feel better (Subject 14). This subject presents himself as a lover of mankind.

I speak the truth . . . I cannot lie (Subject 12). Identifies himself as one whose honesty is unimpeachable.

She tried to rub against me after 3-4 months, but I told her that I was married and refused . . . I’m a very loyal guy (Subject 7). A faithful partner, whatever the circumstances.

I was ready to give up my house, everything for my children (Subject 6). An extremely devoted father.

In the previous two examples, the subjects describe their commitment to other people, the mate of one and the children of the other, and to their welfare.

Presentation of the speaker himself as a generous person with a good heart does not relate directly to the story of the relationship or the murder, but it may create a picture for the listener of a person who is incapable of cruelty. It thus may contribute to creating the positive image desired by the speaker and pave the way for the description of the horrible act—to show that it is not in keeping with his character and nature.

Description of the Woman as a Negative Person

The women in the stories are presented as the complete opposite of the men: They are covetous, deceitful, disloyal, and bad mothers.

Samples from the interviews follow:

Nothing satisfied her . . . My wife was greedy . . . That’s what interested her—the money (Subject 2).

I found out that for all these years I had lived with a woman who was a liar (Subject 8). He had been living an illusion, thinking his wife was honest.

R. didn’t even see the children . . . All she saw was how to use me for a doormat, and that’s all. She never took care of our little girl (Subject 1). This woman is described as a bad mother; all that interests her is to harm the speaker.

When the man presents himself as generous, a loyal partner, and a hater of lies, and the woman as covetous and a liar, he may believe that this makes it possible to understand the seeds of his hostility toward her.

The description of the woman as a neglectful and abusive mother serves the speaker’s purpose in presenting her as a negative person. Moreover, he hints to the listener that the loss of such a mother is not so serious for the child. In other words, it may be better to live without a mother than to live with a bad mother (Sykes & Matza, 1957). This is a “denial of injury” type of justification.

A study of the tools the speakers use when describing themselves indicates that they “cover” all of the characteristics required of a normative, or even exemplary person: Good-hearted, generous, trustworthy, a good partner, and a good father are the timeless mainstays of life. The speaker creates a story that covers all the infrastructure of life, and the conclusion at the end is that at his core, the speaker is positive. The opposite description of the woman underlines the difference between them and suggests that she is perhaps responsible for the murder. She is the one who pushed him into committing an extreme act through her deviant behavior. This claim is bolstered by the testimony some of the speakers provide as to the reasons for the murder:

It’s her fault (Subject 1).

She lied to me, lied to me, cheated, committed adultery, humiliated me, hurt me, didn’t want to give me back the money, attacked me. It’s done, the story’s over (Subject 5).

In these two examples the speakers blame the women for the murders. According to them, it was the women who provoked them to commit this act, so that the fault was theirs. They are thus employing a “denial of the victim” type of justification (Sykes & Matza, 1957). Their argument is that the woman was not the victim but the cause of the murder.

Reasoning Behind the Murder

Study of the descriptions of the murder in all 12 stories shows two main lines of reasoning for the act. One is a challenge by the woman (or provocation, in the words of some of them) in six stories, and the second, self-defense (against a physical attack by her) in four stories. These two types of reasoning are “denial of the victim,” and they are used to justify the act (as explained hereinbefore). In addition, the subjects used the reason of accidental killing in two stories. This reasoning is “coincidence” and serves as an excuse for the act (Sykes & Matza, 1957). Not one of the speakers did accept responsibility for the act and they all failed to mention that the murder was premeditated or that he murdered a passive woman. The woman was, according to them, the perpetrator, and the man the victim (for example, Wowk, 1984).

Examples from the interviews follow.

Provocation by the woman

She said, “Who the hell do you think you are?! You’re a deadbeat. I’ll turn you into a vegetable!” So I hit her, she fell on the floor. Then she spit at me, said she would call the police and I’d be put in prison for three years. I said, “I won’t be put away for three years, I’ll be put away for life.” I strangled her, put her in the bathtub, put a bag over her face (Subject 2). Here, we have a detailed description of the stages that led to the murder. The woman provoked the speaker, humiliated him (spat at him), and threatened to call the police. The man responded violently and murdered her.

Self-defense

She tried to stab me, and I reacted by hitting her with her car’s lug wrench (Subject 5). In this narrative, the first offensive move was made by the woman when she tried to stab the speaker, and the murder is the way he responded, to defend himself.

If the story of the murder explained by self-defense or in response to a provocation were presented separately from the background story, it would not convince the listener. However, when presented as a continuation to the construction of the character of the woman as selfish and provocative, the actions of the man, a person who is generally normative and positive who tried to defend himself, are understandable.

Mistake

I took a knife, she’s sitting here (uses his hand to show his left side). I open a beer with a knife, because the bottle opener broke. I tried to pull the knife, and the cap flew at her. She yelled, said, “Ow!” . . . I hurt her with the knife, hurt her in the chest. I didn’t even see blood (Subject 13). The speaker describes how he fatally stabbed his wife in the chest with a knife, without having had any intention of doing so. While he was trying to open a beer bottle, his knife flew sideways, hitting his wife in the chest. Her death was simply a mistake.

Everything that was pent up in me went into my hand. One blow was all there was . . . a mistake. But it’s a mistake I have to pay for. You pay for mistakes (Subject 9). Here the blow that caused the death of the woman is described explicitly as an error. The speaker hit her without meaning to kill her. The woman died, and now he is paying for his mistake.

The descriptions of the mistakes are incredible at times, but the reader must not forget that the man previously gave his assurance that he was a trustworthy person and not capable of lying. This introduction is designed to allow the listener to believe him here as well.

From all of the foregoing, we see the sophisticated course of action that “covers” the speaker’s past, his relationship with the murder victim, and creates a type of justification for the act. The speaker provides a new biography of sorts for himself and the woman (Marshall, 1981; Rotenberg, 1987). The entire story creates a “denial of the victim” type of justification of the murder (see above, Sykes & Matza, 1957), and perhaps even creates a new victim—the man, a victim of circumstance.

Linguistic Analysis

Fraser (1994) claimed that any presentation includes the speaker’s linguistic message. This message contains the content of the message (the reality) and the speaker’s approach to it. Goffman (1961) claimed that people make their self-existence objective through the use of language. Language transforms their subjectivity into something more realistic, not only for their interlocutors, but for themselves as well. Linguistic interpretation is used to describe the linguistic reality: The language reflects the aspects of the world that are relevant and filled with meaning in human life (D. M. Newman, 1995; Nicholson, 2010). We do not respond directly and automatically to situations. We use language to interpret and define them, and then act according to these interpretations. The definition of situations does not always match reality (Watzlawick, 1976).

As stated above, in this study an attempt was made to show how speakers create a new reality for themselves through a new story of the events. Through content analysis, we have shown that in their stories, the speakers create a one-dimensional reality in which the man is positive, the woman negative and the murder the result of provocation by her (or self-defense, or a mistake, but in any event, it was not done deliberately or with malice aforethought). The linguistic analysis that follows shows clear linguistic mechanisms that enable murders to excuse, justify, or deny the murder act. Each linguistic characteristic is assigned to its appropriate neutralization method, presented below.

The current study’s linguistic examination is based on research conducted in English to identify the linguistic characteristics of the lie (DePaulo et al., 2003; Hancock et al., 2005; M. L. Newman et al., 2003; and others), and on the findings of an extensive study (Dilmon, 2007) that examined and found unmistakable linguistic characterizations of the lie in Hebrew. The research compared texts of fabrication with fabrication-free texts, by examining them statistically and by classifying them according to the areas of the linguistic research. The findings reveal a significant difference between the discourse of truth and of fabrication in 17 linguistic measures, as follows (classified according to fields of study within linguistics):

Morphology—verbs in first and in third person; verbs in the past, present, and future tenses;

Syntax—hypotactic, independent, and coordinate clauses; binding morphemes;

Semantics—synonyms; emotional words; references to the other; negative words; specific words, and generalized words;

Discourse—intensifiers; sudden instances of confusion during description of an event; use of collocations; TTR (ratio of number of types to number of tokens, or type-token ratio); deviations in story structure; number of words in story;

Linguistic prosody—repetition of story details; full and empty pauses.

Some of the measures, which also serve normative individuals when they are lying, appeared conspicuously in the examination of the murderers’ narratives in the present study. Their function in discourse has parallels in the area of content—denials, justifications, and excuses, and an additional function: the desire to persuade the listener of the veracity of the story. The linguistic mechanisms are presented here in detail.

Use of Verbs to Distance Oneself From Responsibility

Distancing oneself from responsibility can be divided into two types: one, because of discomfort from being in a situation of giving testimony or inventing a false story, the speaker seeks distance from the physical situation. The second is distancing the story itself from any possibility of investigation, verification, or proof that it did not happen (Dulaney, 1982; Knapp, Hart, & Dennis, 1974; Sapir, 1987). Three syntacto-morphological features illustrate the speaker’s striving for distance from responsibility: use of verbs in the second or third person, use of passive verbs, and use of impersonal forms (verbs and sentence structures).

Hebrew inflectional categories in verbs are tense, mood, person, number, and gender. The pronouns also have a gender distinction in all persons except the first (Schwarzwald, 2001, pp. 34, 38). Thus, one word (like the verb badakta = you have checked) contains the information about the tense (past), the person (you), the number (singular), and the gender (male). In a study that examined the linguistic features of fabrications in Hebrew (Dilmon, 2004), it was found that stories based on invention make significantly greater use of verbs in the second and third person. This use of verbs indicates the speaker’s attempt at dissociation from the fabrication (DePaulo et al., 2003; Dilmon, 2007; Dulaney, 1982; Hancock et al., 2005; Knapp et al., 1974). Through use of the technique of “they did,” “he said,” the speaker appears to be passive or disappears from the description of the events, and if passive, without taking responsibility for the results.

Examples of Use of Verbs and Second- and Third-Person Pronouns in the Stories

*Everything starts* going through your head, *everything starts* from the beginning . . . and *you [singular] feel* like a doormat . . . (Subject 12). In this description, the speaker involves the listener in an agentless event; the second person form (your head, you feel) or the third person (everything starts—appears twice) are used to create dissociation from the story.

*They accused [one word in Hebrew]* me of murder . . . *things got* out [third-person plural] of control (Subject 8). In this description too, the speaker does not act. There is a murder charge; things get out of control. The speaker is passive, not active.

The second linguistic feature indicating distancing is heavy use of passive verbs. Hodge and Kress (1993) claimed that the use of passive without indicating the agent of the action serves a tactical purpose: deliberate ambiguity and obfuscation. Use of active verbs focuses the sentence on the agent of the action, who is therefore responsible for the acts described. In contrast, use of passive verbs shifts the focus to the recipient of the act, and the role of the speaker is blurred (Fruchtman, 2000; Halliday, 1985, p. 38).

Examples of Use of Passive Verbs in the Stories

She *was murdered* next to her house, by a knife (Subject 12). According to this description, the woman was murdered by someone, not necessarily the speaker.

. . . because of the number of shots *fired* (Subject 10). Here, it is related that shots were fired, but who did the shooting is left unsaid. There is no proof that it was the speaker.

The third linguistic feature indicating distancing is the impersonal form. This refers to a sentence lacking the source of the act (Nir, 1984) or a sentence that is complete syntactically, in terms of the structure, but in semantic terms it is impossible to know who the agent of the action is (Schwarzwald, 1979). In these types of sentences, the speaker may stress the act or its result without indicating who performed it. An impersonal form is expressed in several ways: use of third-person plural, use of passive forms (as presented above), use of abstract nouns, use of gerunds (Nir, 1984). This type of use minimizes the speaker’s role in the act (if the speaker performed it—Nir, 1984), particularly if disclosure may prove incriminating and harmful (Argaman, 2003), and this is another tactic of dissociation from the problematic description.

Examples of Use of Impersonal Verbs or Descriptions of the Situation in the Stories

Nevertheless, *a very difficult event* [referring to the murder] (Subject 10). The murder is described here as a difficult event. The wording is neutral.

There was *an injury* to her throat . . . things got *out of control* (Subject 8). The woman’s condition is described as a fact, with no one being responsible for her condition. The same is true of the murder itself—the speaker cannot be held responsible for what is out of control.

The three linguistic features exemplified here that indicate distancing show that the speakers are aware that the act they are describing is socially intolerable, and they must therefore prove that they are not involved. The way they achieve this, by describing the event but minimizing their personal involvement, works in tandem with the content of the stories in which they presented themselves as good people. In other words, even if they do not deny committing the murder itself, they manage to use language to distance themselves from taking responsibility.

Linguistic Hedging to Obfuscate

Linguistic hedging refers to expressions that appear in different places in discourse (such as connectors between sentences, parenthetical remarks, etc.), the import of which is reservation with respect to what was previously said or what will be said later. The hedging includes reduction, blurring, admission of loss of memory, generalization, and inaccurate estimates (expressed in the use of expressions such as “it’s possible …,” “it could be,” “maybe,” “supposedly,” etc.). Studies carried out on English-language interviews show that a liar shows less confidence in what he says and temporizes through the use of declarations that (he hopes) will not give him away. The use of the linguistic hedging camouflages the speaker’s role in the incident without raising the suspicion of the listener (Mey, 2001). The current study found use of linguistic hedging to obfuscate the facts, to downplay the importance of what was said, or to say something that did not really happen.

Examples of the Use of Linguistic Hedging in the Stories

I don’t remember . . . In court they say that *it’s possible that maybe* a stone flew at him (Subject 10). The fact that a stone was thrown is made light of twice by the use of two minimizers: “it’s possible” and “maybe” the event occurred. The tactic introduces doubt: The event may not have occurred.

*And it might be* that I spoke too much in my testimony. I made it seem that there *supposedly* was premeditated intent and not self-defense (Subject 5). The speaker attests that he may have said too much, and that it is only supposedly that he planned the murder. The implication is that it is also possible that he did not premeditate the murder, or that he said too much.

The examples provided here show the speakers’ attempts to dissociate themselves from involvement in the crime, this time not by distancing, but by demonstrating a lack of confidence. The speakers do not deny that the incident took place, but express doubt as to how it occurred. In this manner, they can minimize the gravity of their personal role in the incident. The speakers formulate “lack of knowledge” or “miscalculation” type excuses for themselves (Scott & Lyman, 1968), and this linguistic usage can be a technique to assert their blamelessness, thus paving the way to social acceptance.

“But” That Reveals the True Intention

The contrastive “but” has various uses in discourse. It may express a contrast between two elements in a sentence, or between an allegation or conclusion attributable to such a contrast between the two sentence parts. The contrast does not have to be explicit (Abadi, 1986). Ducrot (1980) and Anscombre and Ducrot (1977) argued that in a sentence where contrast is achieved through “but,” the second element negates the conclusion implicit in the first element and overshadows the first element. According to Dascal and Katriel (1977), “but” may indicate a contrast between different content that belongs to the same level of meaning, but it usually contrasts content belonging to different layers of meaning. In the last case, the content is driven to a world that belongs to a layer that is more external than the content accepted. Azar (1980) believed that the division between layers of meaning is not essential, and accepts the position of Anscombre and Ducrot that every “but” is a denial of what is expected, meaning that Element A gives rise to an expected conclusion, and Element B denies it. Collection of many examples from the stories showed heavy use of “but” to negate the claim hinted at in what the speakers say. Many compound sentences making declarations were found that were immediately negated with “but.” It would seem that the speakers employ this use of language to present their opinion of the situation or the murder: They satisfy the listener with what they say in the first part of the sentence, but negate the implication of the first part through the use of “but” and provide their personal opinion in the second part of the sentence.

Examples of the Use of “But” in the Stories

I wasn’t violent with my women. *But*, for example, if someone did something to me—I’d get back at them (Subject 7). The speaker claims he was not violent and then immediately contradicts himself. The final implication of his comments is that if necessary, he is actually violent.

I wanted her to live, to raise the children. *But* fate is fate (Subject 6). In this example, the speaker claims that he wanted the woman to live, but then he “makes peace” with the act of fate, when the implication of what he says is that he did not really want her to live, as he is the one who committed the act, not fate.

She was OK, *but* I couldn’t stand her anymore, I couldn’t even look at her (Subject 2). Here immediately after he claims that the woman was OK, the speaker backtracks and says he does not think she was OK.

The special use here of “but” reveals how the speakers relate to the women and the murders. In the first example, the speaker uses an excuse of the “uncontrollable urge” type (Scott & Lyman, 1968) to account for his allegedly uncharacteristic violence. In the second example, he justifies himself by means of denying his responsibility: It is not he but fate that was responsible for his partner’s death. Finally, the third quotation exemplifies a “denial of the victim” justification (Sykes & Matza, 1957)—the woman was not the victim but the cause of the murder, because she was unbearable.

The three linguistic features presented above are features whose atypical use indicates a discourse which contains a distancing of responsibility, and justifications and excuses through a variety of linguistic means: verbs (second or third person, passive, and impersonal), expressions (linguistic hedging), and the coordinating conjunction “but” with a special pragmatic use. The two features presented below (repetition of words and words of an overly high register) indicate a desire to sway the listener and the desire to impress upon him the veracity of everything said in the stories.

Repetition of Words or Expressions for the Sake of Persuasion

Repetition of words and expressions is a rhetorical technique that makes the subject under discussion catchier and easier to remember (Nir, 1996, pp. 20-21). Different types of repetition (repetition of words and repetition of the same subject in other words) are used for the purpose of persuasion in advertising and propaganda, as they assume that a person does not remember anything stated only once. In the testimonies and stories, the repetitions are intended to cause the speakers to remember and to persuade the listeners of the veracity of their content (Nordhielm, 2003; van Dijk, 1997). Examination of the repetitions in the stories in this study indeed confirms the sense that the speaker wants to persuade the listener (maybe even himself) of the truth of his statements. The effectiveness of persuasion may have very important implications for the speaker. If, for example, he manages to convince the listener that he did not commit the act of which he is accused, he will have succeeded in improving his image.

Examples of Use of Repetitions and Repeated Expressions in the Stories

I remember taking the knife and throwing it, but *I don’t see anything, don’t see anything,* it’s all a blur (Subject 6). The speaker repeats “I don’t see anything” twice, then reinforces it in different wording (“it’s all a blur”). In so doing he emphasizes his claim that he was not in possession of his faculties at the time of the event.

R. got off on the wrong track. If not—I wouldn’t continue. But *it was her fault*, because she went with someone else and kicked me in the ass. *That’s where it started.* She went with a friend of mine to trample me, *that’s where it started.* She went to shelters, *it was her fault.* I’d get out of jail, rehabilitate myself . . . *it was her fault* (Subject 1). Two utterances are repeated here. The speaker repeats “that’s where it started” twice to stress that it was the woman’s action that caused the hostility between them. He repeats “it was her fault” three times as a means of persuasion that it was the woman who was responsible for the murder.

In the examples presented here, we see an attempt at self-persuasion and social persuasion by the speaker, as if the more he repeats a given expression, the truer it will become. In the first example, the speaker uses a technique of distancing responsibility due to a “lack of knowledge” or “miscalculation” excuse (Scott & Lyman, 1968)—he had not been fully conscious at the time of the murder, and is therefore not responsible. In the second example, responsibility for the murder is cast on the woman—it was her fault—and the aim of the threefold repetition is to persuade the listener of the truth of the idea. This is an illustration of a “denial of the victim” justification (Sykes & Matza, 1957). The woman was not the victim but the one who was actually at fault.

Overly High Register Words Indicating a Desire to Impress

Words of an overly high register relate to language that is too formal or poetic, use of special words and erudition not generally used in daily conversation (Choueka, 1997). These are words that are not part of the speaker’s regular language and are intuitively perceived as words that are marked in terms of register, that are emotionally loaded, that dress the discourse and, by extension, the speaker in holiday garb. (Argaman, 2003). It would appear that the speakers use higher language to impress the listeners and cause them to believe they are normative people, who do not speak like criminals (Yair, 2005). This will make them more believable.

Examples of Use of Words of an Overly High Register in the Stories

Two months before my release, I married my wife, *may she rest in peace* [of the woman he murdered!] (Subject 6).

*My contribution to society until my embroilment with this* was out of a sense of giving and how I was educated at home (Subject 5).

What is striking in the second story is the sharp contrast between the medium to low register of the body of the story and the startlingly high register of “until my embroilment,” as if a jeans and sneakers-clad individual donned a tuxedo, to impress people. The types of usages presented above indicate discourse that enhances the speaker’s image and makes him seem more credible, more “bona fide,” a normative or even exemplary person whom society cannot help but accept.

Discussion

Analysis of the narratives of 12 men who murdered their female partners sheds light on how the speakers perceive themselves and how they construct their stories. Among the principles of discourse analysis proposed by van Dijk (1997), it was claimed that discourse must be examined in accordance with the local and general context, and that among other things, the participants, discourse objectives, relevant social situation, and the values and status of the speakers must be taken into consideration. According to van Dijk, two examinations of meaning interest researchers: (a) What does the speaker mean? (b) Why did he say it or mean it? They examine discourse strategies designed not only to be communicative (for understanding), but also to achieve sociopolitical objectives, some of which are concealed from the addressee. Apparently, the objective of the speakers in presenting their stories to the interviewer was to improve how society perceives them and as a result improve their own self-image (De Cremer & Mulder, 2007; Mead, 1934, presented in the introduction).

This study examined the stories of murderers to understand what is singular about them and how appropriately they serve the murderers’ objectives. It was found that the methods they used are distancing, obfuscation, persuasion, and a desire to impress, all of which serve to deny, justify, or excuse the murder in a variety of ways. The speaker is faced with a very tough challenge: trying to change his social image as perceived by the representative of society. If he is able to accomplish this, he will receive approval for a more positive image than that of a cruel murderer. If he fails in this, he may experience social exclusion, apathy, depression and other psychological problems (e.g., McAdams et al., 1997).

He has advanced tools at his disposal, more extensive than was previously known in the literature, related to content and language. Perhaps in prison the speaker has heard other prisoners with similar goals relate their narratives. He may also have told his narrative to his friends in prison, and based on their reactions improved his verbal tactics (spoken discourse is described as a workshop [Edwards, 1997] in which the participants jointly create local context-dependent versions of meaning of their interpersonal and intrapersonal worlds [Lucius-Hoene & Deppermann, 2000]).

To create a narrative that will suit his purpose, he uses the ultimate tools at his disposal. He turns the tables and describes himself in the most flattering colors and the murder victim in the most negative fashion. In doing so, he becomes the real victim in the narrative and his partner, the murder victim, the true criminal. Even when he admits that he caused the death of his partner, for the most part he does not define the act as murder, but rather as an act of self-defense, in response to a provocation, or for reason of insanity. In other words, these murderers employ “denial of the victim” or “coincidence” justifications or “uncontrollable urge” excuses (see above, Scott & Lyman, 1968; Sykes & Matza, 1957). From their lawyers’ conduct of their trials they probably learned tactics that can reduce blame and even alleged murder, to get them acquitted or to reduce their sentence. The fact that these tactics proved ineffective in court does not disqualify them from use in the informal social system.

The linguistic analysis presents the linguistic means that support the murderer’s objectives. Their use enables him to distance himself from responsibility, to justify or excuse what he did, to convince others of his probity, and to appear to be an individual who is normative and trustworthy, thereby creating an opening for his social acceptance. The striking use of the means presented here are typical of the stories of murderers, told in extremis.

The explanations for the murders that appear in the narrative are similar and, for the most part, are attempts to deny or reduce culpability, while using “denial of the victim” justifications and “coincidence” or “mistake” excuses. None of the interviewees completely denies guilt, although five of them claim that they do not remember important details of the incident, and no one accepts all the guilt for the act. To a large extent, prison culture dictates the character of the narrative. This is a culture of denial of responsibility, of a sense of being a victim (Abulafia, 2005). The removal of criminals to prisons, their isolation from society and their rejection strengthen their sense of injustice and victimhood, which encourage them to cast blame on others, particularly their victims (Abulafia, 2005; Loza & Clements, 1991).

Identifying the extreme tactics will facilitate not only knowing their range and how and with what frequency they are used, but also the construction of a differential scale ranked for varying intensities of accounts, according to the speaker’s or the addressee’s perception of the relative gravity of the deed.

We would like to point out two limitations of the current study. It should be borne in mind that this study was conducted among prisoners who were incarcerated in close quarters with others also convicted of murder. It is therefore likely that the characteristics common to our subjects also reflect some measure of learning and mutual imitation. Similarly, it is important to emphasize that the research method chosen, qualitative research, precludes generalizations regarding characteristics of the narratives of the murderer population as a whole.

Summary

Twelve men who murdered their partners told their personal stories. Despite their different backgrounds, ages, and levels of education, their stories are amazingly similar. The content and the language of the stories create a scenario in which the man is portrayed as a saint, the woman as a witch, and the murder as unavoidable or unintentional, given the circumstances. These common elements, in which the offender inadvertently reveals a great deal, appear in all the stories and at various levels. Analysis of the areas shows a uniform story tactic, which is part of the speakers’ strategy of improving their social image and thus, their self-image. Revelation of this tactic in this study may prove helpful in future analyses of narratives related in less-extreme cases. If a variety of the features presented here are found, in the content and the linguistic features of those narratives, it will be possible to draw conclusions regarding their intentions and objectives. Identifying the extreme tactics will facilitate the construction of a differential scale ranked for varying intensities of accounts.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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