There is a Japanese legend that if a Muramasa-forged sword was drawn from its scabbard, the blade’s bloodlust is so great that if the wielder does not kill someone else, he needs to commit suicide before the sword can be returned to the scabbard. Oscar Ratti and Adele Westbrook in their 1991-book Secrets of the Samurai: The Martial Arts of Feudal note that medieval Sengo Muramasa “was a most skilful smith but a violent and ill-balanced mind verging on madness, that was supposed to have passed into his blades. They were popularly believed to hunger for blood and to impel their warrior to commit murder or suicide.”
In 1720 a wealthy farmer, Sano Jirozaemon, visited Edo and fell in love with the beautiful courtesan named Yatsuhashi, but she did not reciprocate his ardour as she had another patron. In a state of jealous rage, Jirozaemon waylaid Yatsuhashi and her patron and murdered them both. It was believed he used a cursed Muramasa sword. This story became the basis of the kabuki play “Kagotsurube Sato no Eizame”. Kabuki is a classical form of Japanese theatre, mixing dramatic performance with traditional dance. In 2008, it was inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In the same year, 2008, an 18-year-old South African schoolboy defiled the centuries-old tradition and honourable craftsmanship of Japanese swords by using a fake katana to commit school murder.
Morne Harmse in court (Maroela Media), with his mask (Instagram)
In 1999, I attended a course on Threat Assessment, presented by Gavin De Becker in Los Angelos, USA and I remember on 20 April 1999, sitting on my bed in my hotel room, I watched in horror as the Columbine School Massacre played out live on my television screen. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 students and one teacher, during this incident. Harris had written in his diary: “All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you as I can, especially a few people”, words chillingly echoed nine years later by Morne Harmse.
On 18 August 2008, 18-year-old Morne Harmse, a matriculant at Nic Diedericks Technical High School in Krugersdorp, South Africa, proclaimed to his friends: “Today is the day I will begin with the massacre and the bloodbath. Today is the day that you can get back at those who did bad things to you. Today I am going to kill people left and right. When the school bell rings, I am going to do it”. Donning a mask that resembled those of the American heavy metal band Slipknot, and armed with three samurai swords, Morne wielded the katana at the neck of Jacques Pretorius, a pupil passing by, fatally wounding him, and then he swiped at Stephan Bouwer, wounding him on his lower leg, chased after a group of children and then turned on two of the school gardeners, 43-year-old Lesiba Sam Manamela and 26-year-old Tshiamo Joseph Kodisang, striking Lesiba on the elbow and Tshiamo on the ear and cheek.
Morne very much resembled the innocence of the character Jamie Millar in the current television series Adolescence. Whilst waiting for the police to take statements, Morne told a friend: “It wasn’t like chopping plants at home. I can’t believe how easily this blunt blade cut through human flesh,” and “I enjoyed hurting those people, I don’t know why I stopped.” Morne was sensationally dubbed the ‘Samurai killer’ in the press, which is an insult to Samurai. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
Threat Assessment Evaluation
My colleague and successor as the commander of the Investigative
Psychology Unit, Dr Gerard Labuschagne, interviewed Morne in prison for his parole hearing in 2019 after Morne had served 11 years of his 20-year sentence. In his 2022-book Profiler Diaries 2 From Crime Scene to Courtroom, published by Penguin, Dr Labuschagne gives a comprehensive rendition of the case as well as the psycho-social legal pre-trial reports. As a qualified Threat Assessment professional, with a US Association of Threat Assessment Professionals Certified Threat Manager certification, Dr Labuschagne revisits the Morne Harmse case study as an example of how threat management intervention could have prevented this tragedy.
Dr Labuschagne points that school massacres are the end-products of targeted violence. It always starts with a grievance, either justified or perceived, followed by violent ideation, research and planning, probing and breaching and then the attack.
Dr Labuschagne echoes a basic principle I had learnt from Gavin de Becker: a threat is likened to a promise – there is no guarantee that it will be carried out. It should be taken seriously, but the behaviour of the person is much more important that the verbal threat and should be scrutinized.
In Morne’s case his grievance originated from being bullied and humiliated. Although his friends and teachers did not take these acts of bullying – throwing his school bag around and teasing him about his size – seriously, Morne perceived it as serious and it made him feel inferior.
His violent ideation was recorded in his pre-trial assessment by psychiatrist Dr Franco Visser, when Morne said he wanted to become a soldier and he was fascinated with weaponry and warfare. Hence, explaining his collection of fake Samurai swords. Morne fantasized that the school children were terrorists and he would eliminate them, making him a hero.
In my opinion school bullying and terrorism can be placed on the same continuum of fear inducing behaviour. Gavin de Becker said the currency of threat is fear. Urban terrorists instil fear in a general population by blowing up seemingly random public places such as restaurants, train stations, sports events, etc. People avoid attending these events in fear of terrorist attacks and are often warned by police to stay away. School bullies conduct a reign of terror against their victims based on fear, and the victims want to avoid going to school or the bathrooms on their own.
In his 1998-book The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence, Gavin de Becker notes that violent people often hero-worship other violent people like Hitler, collect military paraphernalia and show an interest in pseudo-commandos. Some of them never progress to attacking other people, some only threaten, some apply to join the army or the police force and are rejected. In 480 BC, Ephialtes was a deformed man, rejected to join the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae and betrayed them by showing the Persians a secret path around the mountain. Deformed babies were not allowed to live in ancient Sparta. Morne Harmse was certainly not deformed, but he was small for his age and relentlessly teased about it. He felt rejected.
Professor Peter Fonagy co-author of the book Affect Regulation, Mentalization and the Development of the Self, points that long-term rejection and disorganized attachment leads to the child becoming so focussed on protecting their battered and fragile ego, that they become fixated in their one-sided view of the world, and trapped in a ‘heavy’, endlessly ruminative thought-mode, which exacerbates the rejection sensitivity.
Warburton and colleagues in a 2006-article titled When ostracism leads to aggression cites that rejection predicts aggression in elementary and middle school students, but as rejection increases over time, so does aggression. The longer these children are rejected, the more aggressive they become.
Leakage is when a person voices their violent ideation to another. Morne shared his plans with his group of friends. Four of them agreed to participate in the planned school attack on the Monday. One even produced a fake bomb. Leakage also happens in diaries, as in the case of the Columbine perpetrators. In the 21st century, violent ideation is shared on social media, and unfortunately often encouraged, as a theme depicted on the television series Adolescence. There was no social media in 2005, but Morne’s friends all knew, yet no-one spoke up.
In the research and planning phase, Morne actually produced masks, resembling the ensembles of the band Slipknot. A few days before the attack he became withdrawn, polishing his swords in his room. He had drawn plans of the school, illustrating probing and breaching. He planned the attack for the Monday morning assembly. When the bomb turned out to be fake, Morne, all dressed up and no-where to go, had to save face and act out. Once he wielded that first sword, there was no turning back.
When Dr Labuschagne interviewed him 11 years later in prison, he asked him why he had done it and Morne answered: “To get killed or go to prison”. When Dr Labuschagne asked whether he had achieved his goal, Morne answered: “No, because I am still here.”
Whilst in prison Morne had set fire to his cell, he was found in possession of self-made weapons and drugs and threatened to kill other inmates, he assaulted a paraplegic man and he was involved in numerous fights. He attended a life-skills and anger management course but did not attempt to complete his matriculation nor any other educational course. He just wanted to sit in his cell and watch tv. There were also incidents of self-harm and suicide attempts.
At the parole hearing in 2019, Dr Labuschagne stated if Morne was released on parole, he would be “set up for failure, that could have dire even lethal consequences for innocent persons and himself.”
Morne’s jail term would have expired in 2029, yet despite Dr Labuschagne’s and Department of Correctional Services psychologists’ reports, on 4 March 2022 the parole board released Morne into the custody of his parents under strict parole conditions. A spokesman for the Department of Correctional Services said: “The aim of the parole system is to protect the community through prevention rehabilitation, control and supervision of parolees. The success of parole is closely related to the effectiveness of the supervision provided.” Such senseless rhetoric does not serve the community and can lead to more tragedy, that can be prevented.
Dr Labuschagne has a last word: “The parole board consists of laypersons who seem to know better than psychologists, but don’t have to take responsibility for the consequences of their decisions.” The tragedy could have been prevented if schools, universities and other institutions consult professional threat assessment experts. I concur with my colleague.
Top image: Sano Jirōzaemon Murdering the Courtesan by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1886) (Public Domain)
Books:
Gerard Labuschagne (2021) Profiler Diaries II From Crime Scene to Courtroom, Penguin
Gavin de Becker (1998) The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence. Dell
Peter Fonagy, Gyorgy Gergely, Elliot Jurist, Mary Target (2005) Affect Regulation, Mentalization and the Development of the Self. Other Press.