Social Predators: With Friends Like These Who Needs Enemies?

Sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction. Consider the following true story, which sounds so fantastic that it could have been lifted off the pages of an Agatha Christie mystery. One October evening 1998, a despondent Englishman named John Allan rushes into the hotel lobby of the New Winter Palace Hotel in Luxor, Egypt. He appears to be very distressed. He announces in a panic-stricken voice that his wife is dying in their hotel room. Pamela Black, a guest who happens to be trained in administering first aid, goes with him to try to help his wife. She finds Cheryl Lewis sprawled out naked on the bed. A ring of sweat surrounds her limp body. She’s also frothing at the mouth. Unwilling to risk her own life for a stranger, Black tells Allan that she’ll instruct him on how to give his dying wife mouth-to-mouth. Strangely, the man refuses to help. He paces back and forth by the foot of the bed while his partner is dying. To make matters worse, the doctor called to the scene also refuses to aid the sick woman, claiming that she’s a foreigner. The hospital staff can’t save her either. Cheryl Lewis, a seemingly healthy woman, expires at the age of 43.
Claudia Moscovici

It Pays to be Infamous: Psychopaths and the Media

I’m not alone in thinking that the NOT GUILTY verdict in the Casey Anthony trial, the young woman accused of killing her young daughter Caylee–like that of the O. J. Simpson trial before it–was a travesty of justice. What’s more appalling than when a clearly disordered person seems to be getting away with murder (at [...]

Charismatic Psychopaths: Mark Hacking and Neil Entwistle

The most dangerous social predators are, unfortunately, also the most common and the best camouflaged. Charismatic psychopaths rely upon their natural trademarks–glibness, magnetism and charm–to lure others into their lives. Romantic relationships with such individuals tend to have one thing in common: they initially appear to be absolutely perfect, the very picture of happiness and the envy of all your friends. Charismatic psychopaths give their partners flowers and say all the right things to win their trust and love. They engage in ostentatious public displays of affection that leave other women drooling, wishing they too could have such romantic partners. But we must remember the age-old adage: what seems too good to be true usually is. If predators weren’t especially alluring and didn’t behave exceptionally well at first, they wouldn’t trap so many victims into their dangerous nets. They also wouldn’t be able hold on to the partners they inevitably come to mistreat. Few women are so masochistic as to be enticed into a relationship by overt and immediate signs of abuse. Yet many remain trapped in abusive relationships with psychopaths because of the lure of the initial honeymoon period and the vain hope that they can somehow recapture it. In their international study of 75 women who got romantically involved with psychopaths, entitled, appropriately enough, Women who love psychopaths, Sandra Brown and Liane Leedom observe:

“The early days of being wooed and lured by a psychopath are the most exciting times that women remember. Consistently described as ‘charming’ the psychopath is irresistible in his personality traits. Women described him as ‘a charming and engaging conversationalist, agreeable, insightful, sweet, twinkling eyes, a compelling talker, funny, a great storyteller, fun to be with, delightful, exciting, companionable, loyal, enthusiastic, upbeat, fun-loving, intense and sensitive.’ From this list of traits, it’s easy to see why women are enamored with his personality. By this list, what’s not to like?” (93)

As it turns out, what’s not to like is absolutely everything about this dangerous and sometimes deadly charmer. His image of perfection is only a mask, set up to ensnare his target into a vision of her dream come true, which eventually turns into a nightmare. This is precisely what happened to Lori Kay Soares and Rachel Entwistle, two young women who believed that they had married their dream lovers. In actuality, however, they fell into the clutches of psychopathic partners who killed them for the flimsiest of reasons. The most common question people ask when they hear or read about such cruel and senseless crimes is: why did he or she do it? Even the journalists who cover these crimes ask this question, which shows quite clearly that they lack a basic understanding of the kind of people they’re dealing with. Once again, psychopaths don’t have rational or comprehensible motives. They don’t steal primarily for money, which they could get through honest means. They don’t rape primarily for sex, which they could get voluntarily. They don’t kill their spouses primarily for freedom, which they could get through a legitimate divorce. They have malicious motivations. They harm others primarily for pleasure and fun; for the sport of it. Hurting others, sometimes even killing them, gives psychopaths the greatest rush of euphoria and power. This constitutes their only real purpose in life. Fooling their families, their lovers, their colleagues, their buddies, the media and even the police into thinking that they’re decent, caring human beings–or, when caught, that they feel genuine remorse or have been victimized themselves–offers the extra bonus. It’s the icing on the cake, so to speak. It also enables psychopaths to sometimes get away with their evil deeds.
Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness