For serial killers, the prevalence of physical abuse was 36%;
sexual abuse was 26%; and psychological abuse was 50%. Neglect was equally prevalent
in the serial killer (18%) and societal norm populations.
http://maamodt.asp.radford.edu/Research - Forensic/2005 20-1-Mitchell-40-47.pdf
That is a fascinating paper. I had to tweak this chart to show up well here, and I highlighted something, but otherwise this is a quote from that paper:
Table 2: Comparison of serial killers to the general population
Type of Abuse-------General Population---- Serial Killer Population
Physical -----------------6% ------------------------- 36%
Sexual ------------------ 3% --------------------------26%
Psychological ---------- 2% --------------------------50%
Neglect ---------------- 18% ------------------------- 18%
Other --------------------6% -------------------------- N/A
No Abuse Reported--70% ---------------------------32%
So 32% of serial killers in this study had no kind of abuse! That's amazing. It's also far different than the 70% from the general population.
I think the aunt may certainly be onto something if she felt the grandmother Eric lived with was a problem for people, especially kids. That may not mean actual abuse, of course, but there could be significant dysfunction, easily, imho. There could be abuse, too, of course.
I just know that the criminal, vile psychopath I had the misfortune of being close to for so many years really couldn't have had significant abuse throughout any of her life. It would have had to have been something more like a bad pregnancy if we're looking for environmental factors. Or it could have been sparse and isolated incidents before a year of age that her mother absolutely didn't know about.
I find the topic so interesting. I also have to hold out that we really don't know that Eric's childhood contributed to his vile ways. I would trust my friend's parents to raise my own child, but I wouldn't trust her -- the daughter-- enough to spit on her!