Slate: Is Boston Like Columbine?
Were the Tsarnaev brothers a “dyad” like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, with a charismatic leader and submissive follower?
Since that idea is getting a lot of attention, let’s explore the “dyad” phenomenon and how dyads typically play out. Whether that pattern was relevant here will be determined later. We could be looking at a fusion situation, where Tamerlan Tsarnaev trained as a traditional terrorist, and followed the dyad model in the way he integrated Dzhokhar.
We don’t even know whether this was a true dyad in the sense of joint planning. For all we know, Dzhokhar (or Tamerlan) learned the contents of the duffel bag only 20 minutes before the attack. His older brother could have asked him to carry the bag for him and drop it over there. Dzhokhar could have suspected a little, a lot, or anything in between. All we know is that they were both there at the scene—and then became fugitives together. What came before is all still conjecture.
The good news: There is a typical dyad pattern. That’s in contrast to lone killers, who run the psychological gamut. Every study has drawn the conclusion that there is no typical mass murderer. Mass killers are mostly not loners or outcasts, and the Columbine killers were neither.
Killer dyads are more consistent. And the popular conception of the dominant, charismatic leader roping a submissive follower into his diabolical scheme—surprisingly, that usually turns out to be true. The leader is commonly a sadistic, dehumanizing psychopath—not always, but far more often than is the case with lone gunmen/bombers, where that personality type is relatively rare. The follower is often depressive, submissive, or otherwise dependent.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2013/04/tsarnaevs_and_columbine_were_dzhokhar_and_tamerlan_like_dylan_klebold_and.html
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