The media loves a neat narrative. When James Desborough was convicted of two additional murders, the headlines didn’t skip a beat. They branded him a "control freak." It is a satisfying label. It puts a human, albeit monstrous, face on the mechanics of evil. It allows the public to categorize a serial offender as someone who simply needed everything to go his way, as if the psychological profile of an office micromanager and a triple murderer are separated only by a matter of degree.
This is lazy reporting. It is a fundamental misattribution of intent and pathology.
Calling Desborough a "control freak" provides a false sense of security. It implies that his violence was a product of a recognizable, albeit antisocial, personality trait. It suggests that if we just spot the control freak in our lives—the guy who insists on planning every dinner, or the manager who tracks every keystroke—we can somehow predict or prevent the next catastrophe.
That is dangerous nonsense.
The clinical reality is far colder. True psychopathy, or the severe personality disorders often present in repeat killers, is not about a desire for control for the sake of efficiency or organization. It is about the instrumental use of violence to remove obstacles or gratify impulses. When a journalist describes a murderer through the lens of domestic behavioral tropes, they ignore the biological and neurological anomalies that distinguish a predator from an asshole.
The Myth of the Organized Monster
We obsess over the "control freak" narrative because it makes the chaos of murder feel ordered. We want to believe that there is a discernible method to their madness.
I have spent years watching the legal system wrestle with these types of defendants. Prosecutors often push the "control" angle because juries find it relatable. It is easy to hate a control freak; everyone has had a boss like that. It creates a bridge of common disdain between the victim impact and the defendant. But when you strip away the courtroom theater, you find that the "control" is a symptom, not the cause.
Imagine a scenario where a high-level corporate strategist meticulously plans a hostile takeover. Every move is calculated. Every variable is accounted for. Now, compare that to a serial offender who murders to sustain a specific, internal feedback loop. The strategist is motivated by outcome. The offender is often motivated by a total detachment from the humanity of the target.
By framing Desborough’s crimes as a manifestation of a personality quirk, we ignore the structural failures of our carceral and mental health systems. We stop asking how a man already on the radar of law enforcement managed to strike again. Instead, we comfort ourselves with a snappy adjective.
Why Personality Profiling Fails
The industry standard for criminal profiling is plagued by survivorship bias. We analyze the killers who get caught and build a taxonomy of "types" based on their most visible behaviors. If a killer cleans a crime scene, he is "organized." If he doesn't, he is "disorganized."
This is amateur hour.
True experts in forensic psychiatry—the ones who don’t make television appearances—will tell you that these labels are shifting sand. A killer can be disorganized in one instance and meticulous in another depending on adrenaline, sobriety, or the level of perceived threat.
Desborough’s second and third convictions shouldn't be analyzed as the logical endpoint of a "control freak." They should be analyzed as a systemic breakdown. We are failing to track the escalation of violence because we are too busy trying to psychoanalyze the character of the perpetrator rather than mapping the trajectory of his actions.
Stop looking at the character flaws of the killer and start looking at the gaps in the reporting and intervention chain. Personality is static; escalation is dynamic.
The Real Danger of the Label
When you label someone a control freak, you create a social blind spot. You categorize them into a bucket of "annoying people." You do not categorize them into a bucket of "lethal risks."
This linguistic framing downplays the severity of the threat. It suggests that the person is just difficult to be around, rather than fundamentally incompatible with a functioning society. It is the same mistake society makes when it brushes off red flags in domestic disputes as "just a toxic relationship."
Domestic violence experts have fought for decades to move the needle away from blaming the victim or psychoanalyzing the abuser’s "triggers." Yet, the moment a headline hits, the media regresses to the same tired archetypes.
Moving Beyond the Archetype
If we want to stop these individuals, we have to stop believing in the tropes.
- Prioritize Behavioral Evidence over Psychological Labels. A "control freak" label is an opinion. A history of escalating violence is a fact. We need to stop allowing courtroom psych-evals to influence the public narrative more than the hard data of previous arrests and infractions.
- Acknowledge the Vacuum of Empathy. Stop trying to relate to the killer. The reason the control-freak narrative sticks is because we can imagine ourselves being controlling. We cannot imagine ourselves being devoid of empathy. By trying to fit them into a framework we understand, we minimize the horror of their condition.
- Audit the Institutional Response. The real story isn't that Desborough was a control freak. The story is why he was still in a position to kill again. Who signed off on the release? Who ignored the warnings? That is where the accountability lies.
The temptation to assign a relatable psychological profile to a murderer is a vanity project for the reader. It makes the world seem smaller, more manageable, and more predictable. It is a lie.
The reality is that some people are simply broken in ways that standard personality metrics cannot touch. They aren't trying to control their environment to make it better; they are destroying it because they view other people as disposable scenery.
Stop reading the headlines about their personality and start questioning the institutions that let them roam. The murderer doesn't need to be understood. He needs to be neutralized.
