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Not only did she immediately confess murdering her husband to the 999 operator, her interaction with the police was also incredibly casual and at times almost cheerful.

To the officers who were called to the scene she chirped “Do you usually have murderers where they’re wearing their Marks n Spencer’s pyjamas?”.

As journalist Amber Haque and I discuss in the first episode of the new season of our ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sounds podcast Bad People, Jackson didn’t meet any of the expectations people have of a killer.

She was a well-off retiree, and apparently law-abiding citizen, at the time. And there seemed to be no warning signs that she might ever do such a thing. This led to a barrage of questions. Why did she do it? Why was she reporting her own crime? And the biggest head scratcher of all, why was she so oddly casual about it?

As a criminal psychologist, in this episode I delve into the important and uncomfortable questions about grief, trauma, and who is deserving of our sympathy after a tragedy.

In one study of spouses, family members, and friends of homicide victims, researchers found that more than 80% experienced complicated grief, also known as persistent complex bereavement disorder.[1]

It happens when the grieving process is longer and more intense than for regular grief, and it leads to significant impairment in the person’s ability to function.

So, what happens when someone is both the family member of a homicide victim, and the perpetrator of that very same homicide? Perpetrators experience this same complicated grief mixed with feelings of overwhelming remorse.

This can lead to a condition called offence-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

It feels odd to use PTSD, which is a condition originally developed as a label for people whose own lives were in direct danger in combat, for people who are the sole sources rather than targets of that endangerment.

But being a perpetrator of a crime can come with all the same trauma symptoms as being the victim of one. This includes having flashbacks, anxiety, and depression arising from their own crimes.

It's easy to see how not everyone’s sympathy readily reaches the darker edges of human behaviour. Why should we care that someone who has killed another is suffering from the grief-related consequences of their actions?

Photo of Penny Jackson courtesy of Avon and Somerset Police

They are the source of their own misery. But this kind of thinking quickly slides into dehumanising those who perpetrate crimes. .

Whether or not we think they are deserving of our sympathy, in research on men who have killed, many mention that in the act of killing another, they also killed a part of themselves.[2]

It destabilises their identity, in a frightening way. And this can increase the risk of self-harm and suicide, a risk that prison wardens and emergency providers then need to manage.

As for the pyjama killer, Penny Jackson, was her odd interaction with the police a sign of the immediate onset of complicated grief? Perhaps. But to understand that we first need to answer the question: why did she do it?

To learn the answer to that, and for a deep dive into the rest of this fascinating case, listen to episode one of the new series of Bad People on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sounds.

[1] van Denderen, M., de Keijser, J., Huisman, M., & Boelen, P. A. (2016). Prevalence and correlates of self-rated posttraumatic stress disorder and complicated grief in a community-based sample of homicidally bereaved individuals. Journal of interpersonal violence, 31(2), 207-227.

[2] Ferrito, M., Needs, A., Jingree, T., & Pearson, D. (2020). Making sense of the dark: a study on the identity of men who committed homicide. Journal of forensic psychology research and practice, 20(2), 163-184.