Selfie Sabotage: When Narcissism Leads to Self-Incrimination

By: Ariana Doty

Let me take a selfie. As awful as that radio hit “#selfie” is, selfies have become another widespread form of communication commonly used in the digital world we live in today. Some believe it is a psychological disorder caused by low self-esteem. Others believe it is a self-portrait used to communicate with friends and express feelings. However, there are also those who believe it is just a socially acceptable way for one to feed into their own narcissism.

As our social media options increase, individuals are given more opportunities to show the world and their friends what they are doing. The transparency of social media mixed with the strong desire to self-promote, is changing the lives of a group of people that notoriously crave the constant validation of others: violent criminals.

A 2012 survey found that four out of five law enforcement officials used online networks such as Facebook and Twitter during criminal investigations due to the increase in the number of criminals posting self-incriminating evidence.[1] Historically, violent criminals have used other methods to document their illegal activity, but social media provides them an immediate audience.[2] For example, the BTK killer, an elusive serial killer from Kansas who took police decades to catch, took hundreds of Polaroid pictures of his crime scenes and of himself dressed in women’s undergarments.[3]

A recent incident took place in February 2015, where a Pittsburg teen, Maxwell Morton, shot one of his classmates in the face, took a Snapchat selfie of himself with the victim in the background, and sent it to his friends.[4] One of his friends took a screenshot before the picture disappeared and his mother reported it to the police.[5]

In an incident in Missouri last summer, two individuals were high on meth when they dumped their friend’s body on a driveway after he died from an overdose.[6] Then, they posted a photo of themselves with the corpse on Facebook.[7] Facebook provides even more accessibility to others than Snapchat and also has substantially more users. Unsurprisingly, the police used this photo as evidence and both individuals were charged with voluntary manslaughter and abandonment of a corpse.[8]

By transmitting and/or sharing these photos on social media, these violent criminals are essentially handing themselves over to the police.[9] It is as if they are walking into the police station and confessing to the crime. The desire to share their personal feats of violence with others has trumped their fear of getting caught by the police. The offenders in Missouri stated that they dumped the body because they were afraid of being caught by the police.[10] However, they did not stop to think that the police would catch them if they posted a picture of their crime online. They went through the effort of concealing their crime, only to incriminate themselves later. By participating so cooperatively in police investigations, these violent criminals are completely disregarding their 5^th Amendment rights. These violent criminals are voluntarily testifying against themselves all for a few more spectators and of course, to send another selfie.

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