Without Conscience

by Robert D. Hare

  • Psychopaths have an uncanny ability to spot and use “nurturant” women—that is, those who have a powerful need to help or mother others. Many such women are in the helping professions—nursing, social work, counseling—and tend to look for the goodness in others while overlooking or minimizing their faults: “He’s got his problems but I can help him,” or, “He had such a rough time as a kid, all he needs is someone to hug him.” These women will usually take a lot of abuse in their belief that they can help; they are ripe for being left emotionally, physically, and financially drained.

  One of my favorite anecdotes is about a psychopathic offender—a “nurturance-seeking missile”—who had a local reputation for attracting a steady stream of female visitors. His record of violence against members of both sexes was long, and he was not particularly good-looking or very interesting to talk to. But he had a certain cherubic quality that some women, staff included, seemed to find attractive. One woman commented that she “always had an urge to cuddle him.” Another said that “he needs mothering.”

  DEADLY ATTRACTION

  I have always been puzzled by the strong attraction that many people feel toward criminals. I suppose that in many cases we vicariously live out our fantasies through the actions of those willing to cross over to the wrong side of the law. These “liberated” souls often become folk heroes or role models for people too inhibited to act out their own fantasies of “badness.” Of course, most people are generally pretty selective about the folk heroes they choose. Pedophiles, petty thieves, and insane offenders are less likely to fill the bill than are rebels-on-the-run, like those portrayed in movies such as Bonnie and Clyde and Thelma and Louise.

  Perhaps the most bizarre example of deadly attraction is found during and after the trial of a notorious killer: the emergence of a host of courtroom groupies, pen pals, avid supporters, and love-struck fans. For these “desperado junkies,” the most powerful attraction of all is to psychopathic serial killers whose savage crimes are sex-related. Ted Bundy, Kenneth Bianchi, John Gacy, and Richard Ramirez, to give but a few examples, all had their enthusiastic cheering sections. In such cases, notoriety is confused with fame, and even the most callous criminal is turned into a celebrity. We now have serial-killer comic books, boardgames, and trading cards, the latter once reserved for sports heroes.

  In a book about Richard Ramirez, the Satan-worshipping “Night Stalker,” the author described a young co-ed who sat through the pretrial hearings and sent love letters and photographs of herself to Ramirez. “I feel such compassion for him. When I look at him, I see a real handsome guy who just messed up his life because he never had anyone to guide him,” she is reported to have said.3

  Daniel Gingras, a psychopathic killer serving three life sentences in Canada for murder and sexual assault, convinced the prison staff that he should receive a day parole. He escaped custody and killed two people before he was recaptured. A woman from California read about the case, began corresponding with Gingras, and stated that she wished to marry him. “I just saw this picture of him and I had this compassion,” she said.

  It is difficult for most of us to understand how some people can disregard the monstrous crimes committed by the killers they so admire. What is clear, however, is that these devoted admirers are often victims of their own psychological hang-ups. Some participate because of a romantic need for unrequited love, others because of the notoriety, ritillarion, or vicarious danger they experience, and still others because they see a cause worth fighting for, such as abolition of the death penalty, a soul to be saved, or the firm belief that the crimes were an inevitable result of physical or emotional abuse in childhood.

  It is not only notorious males convicted of violent crimes who attract such avid followers, as the saga of Lawrencia Bembenek illustrates. Nicknamed “Bambi” by the media, she is a former Playboy bunny and ex-cop convicted of the murder of her husband’s former wife in Milwaukee. While she was in prison, hundreds marked her birthday with parties in the Grand Hotel ballroom. Following her escape from prison a rally held to celebrate the event drew three hundred people, waving signs that read, RUN, BAMBI, RUN. She fled to Canada, where she was soon recaptured. An extradition request by the United States resulted in an interminable series of hearings, delays, and fawning support from a vocal segment of the public that accepted—and promoted—her claim to be an innocent victim of a frame-up by a male-dominated system. The Canadian authorities considered and rejected her submission that she was a political refugee on the run from American injustice, and she was returned to the United States.

  Although she has attained a certain cult status and is the subject of many magazine articles, television programs, and several sympathetic books (one of which she wrote),4 the Milwaukee authorities insisted that she was in fact an ice-cold killer, a cunning femme fatale. Guilty or innocent, media accounts represented her case as a telling example of “using what you’ve got” and of society’s mindless attraction to the glamorous and the beautiful. Recently, her original conviction was overturned and a new trial was ordered. She pleaded “no contest” to a lesser charge, was sentenced to time already served, and then released. She became a popular talk-show guest.

  Bambenek’s rise to fame was painfully slow compared to Amy Fisher’s leap into the spotlight. Dubbed the “Long Island Lolita,” she was convicted of shooting her alleged boyfriend’s wife in the head, rapidly became a media event, and was the subject of three television movies, two presented on the same night. A disgruntled “professional” criminal who took part in one of our research projects commented, “She’s a nobody. Then she tries to blow away her boyfriend’s wife and botches the job. Now she’s a big star.”

  In most cases the adulation given to those convicted of notorious crimes is harmless enough; the criminal is seldom helped, and the zealots are not put in real danger, at least as long as the focus of their ardor remains in prison. Rather than being victims of a psychopath’s manipulative skills, they are willing participants in a macabre dance.

  DISTORTING REALITY

  Beyond this vicarious—and generally safe—experience of the dark side of human nature, the sad fact is that the psychopath’s need for self-gratification is often easily satisfied because some people are quite willing to play the role of victim. In some cases, the individual simply refuses to believe that he or she really is being taken advantage of. For example, the husband of one of our female psychopaths vehemently denied the credibility of reports from friends that his wife was cheating on him. He remained convinced of her virtue even after she ran off with another man. Psychological denial is an important mechanism for screening out painful knowledge from conscious awareness, but it can also blind us to truths that are obvious to others.

  Some people are immune to the truth because they manage to distort reality to make it conform to their idea of what it should be. The former girlfriend of one of our psychopaths saw his criminal behavior as an expression of manliness and virility. She looked at him and saw her fantasy of a near-perfect man, “deeply sensitive ... a mover and a shaker a man not afraid of anything,” as she put it. And of course, her projections of who he was fitted in perfectly with his self-image.

  Women who rigidly adhere to traditional feminine roles in their relationships with men are in for a very difficult time if any of the men are psychopaths. In contrast, a psychopath married to a woman who has a strong sense of duty to be a “good wife” can have a very comfortable life. The home provides him with a reliable source of succor, a base of security from which to carry out his schemes and to develop an unending series of short-term liaisons with other women. The long-suffering wife usually knows what is happening, but she feels that she must somehow maintain the integrity of the home, particularly if there are children. She may believe that if she tries harder or simply waits it out her husband will reform. At the same time, the role in which she has cast herself reinforces her sense of guilt and blame for the unhappiness of the relationship. When he ignores
, abuses, or cheats on her, she may say to herself, “I’m going to try harder, put more energy into the relationship, take care of him better than any other woman ever could. And when I do he’ll see how valuable I am to him. He’ll treat me like a queen.”

  IN AN OCTOBER 1991 article for New Woman magazine titled “The Con Man’s New Victim,” Kiki Olson explored an unanticipated side effect of the steadily increasing entry of single women into the professional work force. “The single career woman who has—or can borrow—anywhere from $2,000 to $20,000 and is looking for love and money is a natural target for a con man.” According to Joseph D. Casey, head of the economic crimes unit of the Philadelphia DA’s office, Olson reported, “the male con artist preying on the single working woman with expendable income will stalk his prey in places she frequents—singles’ bars, health clubs, and social clubs—places where single women congregate, looking for something more than a cocktail, a workout, or a dance.... ‘The con man will know who she is. He’ll be able to spot a certain vulnerability. That’s his job.’ ”

  While the women he preys on for money, clothes, room and board, cars, and bank loans are obvious to him in any crowd, the con makes himself indistinguishable from the legitimate suitor. Still, said Casey, “it’s safe to say he’s good-looking, charming, glib, self-assured, manipulative, and no doubt quite lovable.”

  In one case, described to me by forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy,5 a white-collar psychopath assaulted his wife and seriously injured her. Later, she wrote in a journal she made available to Meloy, “He needs such special care. I haven’t been the wife I should have been. But I will, I will, and I’ll turn back this anger into something good and strong.” This woman’s fierce commitment to the man and to being a loyal, “proper” wife had distorted her sense of reality and drained her of all self-confidence. Needless to say, the reality is that she is doomed to a lifetime of disappointment and abuse.

  Unfortunately, much the same can be said for any woman—or man—who has low self-esteem, strong feelings of dependency, and a lack of personal identity who becomes intimately involved with a psychopath. Psychopaths have little difficulty in making use of people who feel physically or psychologically inadequate, or who feel compelled to hold on to a relationship no matter how much it hurts.6

  WHAT CHANCE DO WE HAVE?

  By this time many readers likely have the uneasy feeling that there is little they can do to protect themselves from any psychopath who happens to cross their path. However, even though most of the advantages lie with the psychopath, there are several things we can do to minimize the pain and damage they cause us. (In the final chapter I discuss a variety of survival techniques.)

  Chapter 10

  The Roots

  of the Problem

  “I know now, so there’s no sense in lying any more,” said Mrs. Penmark to her daughter Rhoda. “You hit him with the shoe: that’s how those half-moon marks got on his forehead and hands.”

  Rhoda moved off slowly, an expression of patient bafflement in her eyes; then, throwing herself on the sofa, she buried her face in a pillow and wept plaintively, peering up at her mother through her laced fingers. But the performance was not at all convincing, and Christine looked back at her child with a new, dispassionate interest, and thought, “She’s an amateur so far; but she’s improving day by day. She’s perfecting her act. In a few years, her act won’t seem corny at all. It’ll be most convincing then, I’m sure.”

  —William March, The Bad Seed

  The scene described above is from a bestselling novel that capitalized on the unthinkable and “monstrous” idea of children simply “born bad.” The novel told the story of a little girl named Rhoda Penmark, whose true nature was revealed in the book when she murdered a classmate:

  There had always been something strange about the child, but [her parents] had ignored her oddities, hoping she would become more like other children in time, although this had not happened; then, when she was six and they were living in Baltimore, they entered her in a progressive school which was widely recommended; but a year later, the principal of the school asked that the child be removed. Mrs. Penmark called for an explanation, and the principal, her eyes fixed steadily on the decorative gold and silver sea horse her visitor wore on the lapel of her pale gray coat, said abruptly, as though both tact and patience had long since been exhausted, that Rhoda was a cold, self-sufficient, difficult child who lived by rules of her own, and not by the rules of others. She was a fluent and a most convincing liar, as they’d soon discovered. In some ways, she was far more mature than average; in others, she was hardly developed at all. But these things had only slightly affected the school’s decision: the real reason for the child’s expulsion was the fact that she had turned out to be an ordinary, but quite accomplished, little thief with none of the guilts and none of the anxieties of childhood; and of course she had no capacity of affection either, being concerned only with herself, [p. 40–41]

  The story told in The Bad Seed is really that of Rhoda’s mother, Christine Penmark, and it is a story of guilt. Christine Penmark, after forcing herself to see her daughter clearly for the budding psychopath she was, asks herself how on earth the relatively calm, orderly, loving, and promising family life she and her attentive husband had provided resulted in nothing short of a child murderer.

  Eerie as it seems, this novel is remarkably true to life. The parents of psychopaths can do little but stand by helplessly and watch their children tread a crooked path of self-absorbed gratification accompanied by a sense of omnipotence and entitlement. They frantically seek help from a succession of counselors and therapists, but nothing seems to work. Bewilderment and pain gradually replace the expected pleasures of parenting, and again and again they ask themselves, “Where did we go wrong?”

  YOUNG PSYCHOPATHS

  To many people the very idea of psychopathy in childhood is inconceivable. Yet, we have learned that elements of this personality disorder first become evident at a very early age. A mother who read of my work in a newspaper article wrote this note to me, clearly in desperation: “My son was always willful and difficult to get close to. At five years old he had figured out the difference between right and wrong: if he gets away with it, it’s right; if he gets caught, it’s wrong. From that point on, this has been his mode of operation. Punishment, family blowups, threats, pleas, counseling, even a run at what we called ‘psychology camp,’ haven’t made the slightest difference. He is now fifteen and has been arrested seven times.”

  Another mother wrote that her family was being held hostage by the young boy they had adopted several years earlier. As he learned his way around the world and became more aware of his powers of manipulation and intimidation, this child became the chief actor in a chaotic and heartrending family drama. At the time she wrote the letter, the mother had just given birth, and she and her husband were now in fear for its well-being in the presence of their incomprehensible adopted son.1

  Many people feel uncomfortable applying the term psychopath to children. They cite ethical and practical problems with pinning what amounts to a pejorative label on a youngster. But clinical experience and empirical research clearly indicate that the raw materials of the disorder can and do exist in children. Psychopathy does not suddenly spring, unannounced, into existence in adulthood. The precursors of the profile described in the preceding chapters first reveal themselves early in life.2

  Clinical and anecdotal evidence indicates that most parents of children later diagnosed as psychopaths were painfully aware that something was seriously wrong even before the child started school. Although all children begin their development unrestrained by social boundaries, certain children remain stubbornly immune to socializing pressures. They are inexplicably “different” from normal children—more difficult, willful, aggressive, and deceitful; harder to “relate to” or get close to; less susceptible to influence and instruction; and always testing the limits of social tolerance. In the early school-age years ce
rtain hallmarks emphasize the divergence from normal development:

  • repetitive, casual, and seemingly thoughtless lying

  • apparent indifference to, or inability to understand, the feelings, expectations, or pain of others

  • defiance of parents, teachers, and rules

  • continually in trouble and unresponsive to reprimands and threats of punishment

  • petty theft from other children and parents

  • persistent aggression, bullying, and fighting

  • a record of unremitting truancy, staying out late, and absences from home

  • a pattern of hurting or killing animals

  • early experimentation with sex

  • vandalism and fire setting

  The parents of such children are always asking themselves, “What next?” One mother, with a graduate degree in sociology, told me that at age five her daughter—whom I’ll call Susan—“tried to flush her kitten down the toilet. I caught her just as she was about to try again; she seemed quite unconcerned, maybe a bit angry, about being found out. I later told my husband about the episode, and when he asked [Susan] about it she calmly denied that it had happened.... We were never able to get close to her, even when she was an infant, and she was always trying to have her own way, if not by being sweet then by throwing a tantrum. She lied even when she knew we were aware of the truth. We had another child, a son, when [Susan] was seven, and she continually teased him in cruel ways. For example, she would take his bottle away and brush his lips with the nipple, drawing it away while he frantically tried to suck. She’s now thirteen, and although sometimes she puts on her sweet and contrite act we’re generally tormented by her behavior. She’s truant, sexually active, and always trying to steal money from my purse.”