Reason First: Patrick Kearney’s Choice- The Trash Bag Murderer

Patrick Kearney hunted other gay men who could be more imposing than his fragile, 5’5” stature from 1965 to 1977. In total, he murdered over forty men, primarily along the California highways, in what would be known as the “trash bag murders.”

“Childhood trauma may explain Kearney’s drive to kill. Kearney was sickly and small, and often the target of bigger, stronger bullies. It’s likely his way of confronting his painful memories was turning murderous ideation into reality.

Still a prisoner at California State Prison, Mule Creek, Kearney is serving a life sentence because he lacked a life. Sure, he was alive when he committed his crimes and remains so now but he is not living. He discarded his life like carrion in the wild. Kearney preyed upon the men that could only be knocked down with a pistol at least in part because he lacked empathy, or rational egoism. If he’d been able to care about them as human beings, or care about his own life and future, he might not have thrown it all away.

There was one person Kearney couldn’t bring himself to harm, his lover David Hill. Whether it was something about Hill that made Kearney say “don’t touch him” or a shred of humanity in Kearney himself, we may never know.

But the factor behind the monstrous side of Kearney remains his upbringing. Most of Kearney’s forty-three victims looked like those who pushed him around as a youngster. This is the clearest evidence he was acting out some revenge fantasy brought on by bullying during his childhood. After copulating, dismembering, and mutilating the corpses, he often beat up the torsos and engaged in sex acts. It’s also likely he felt a sense of power over those same abusers when he left his victims drained of blood and decaying in those bags along the road, in the desert. But only a person devoid of empathy or rational selfishness could possibly feel this way.

His complete lack of rational egoism or self-worth, enabled him to end the lives of the innocent men. These men had a right to their lives. Kearney silenced them out of narcissistic, egotistical viciousness stemming from his inability to recognize reality. Kearney continued his killing spree in order to sate the beasts of irrationality and self-sacrifice corroding his mind. The handgun he used made him feel as powerful as the physical Edmund Kemper who stands at 6’9” 294 pounds.

Kearney’s psychology should probably be left to his psychiatrist, but any layman can easily imagine the feeling of power he got standing behind a firearm. The problem was, the power was fleeting, unearned. By abandoning reason, he lowered himself to the station to that of the ultimate victim, incarcerated forever. Had he chosen to see all those men the way he saw his lover, David Hill, He would still have the power over his own destiny: he would still have a life.

Kearney chose to address childhood trauma by acting out murderous revenge fantasies and ideation, while it made him feel powerful for a little while, it ultimately left him utterly powerless. Had he perceived the power inherent in rational egoism, and moved on with his life, he would have a life, not just time to kill behind bars. His desire to sense that surge of might when facing his victims has led him to an existence that is completely anti-life. Kearney’s choice to murder men serves as the difference between someone who experienced childhood trauma but never violated another human being. The decision behind his horrific actions is the root of his ugliness and evil.