What do you think of this headline? ‘America’s Worst Volunteer Firefighter’
“America’s Worst Volunteer Firefighter”. That’s a headline that will get your attention. An article online today (Thursday) at The Daily Beast takes a close look at 20-year-old John Corcoran who had been a volunteer firefighter with Goodwill Fire Company #1 in Darby Township, Pennsylvania (Delaware County). STATter911.com first told you in August about Corcoran’s arrest on arson charges. But I hadn’t gotten around to the latest news from December about Corcoran, which is making a bad story about a firefighter arsonist so much worse.
Prosecutors and investigators say that Corcoran isn’t just a firefighter who liked to set fires that he could then fight. He’s also a serial abuser of children. This brought about Christopher Moraff’s profile of the charges against Corcoran and the headline above. Below is an excerpt from the article.
The FBI has identified a number of traits common to firefighter-arsonists that track closely with Corcoran’s background—parental aloofness, above average intelligence, and low social integration.
A forensic psychologist contacted by The Daily Beast said firefighters who start fires are often narcissists seeking attention or praise, but added that misdirected anger can also be a strong motivator.
“Starting fires is a way to express rage for people who—either because of rigidity or some other limitation—don’t have a way to appropriately express anger,” said Dr. Joel Dvoskin, of the University of Arizona.
But while researchers have also identified sexual pathology as a motivating factor in some serial arsons, Dvoskin said he has never heard of a case where serial arson and pedophilia were present simultaneously.
