Asperger's, Psychopathy

[egotrout]

Jul 22, 2017 4:27:04 GMT Any of N said:

egotrout , have you had the opportunity to read the original police reports, or are you relying on Crompton and Shelby's books like most of the rest of us? I ask because there's sparse mention of certain things in the common data pool, like the Mommy business, the odd gait, and the avoidance of eye contact. I don't remember that last one at all.

Fascinating discussion. Thank you for sharing your views. A few more questions:

• If I'm following correctly, Asperger's might explain the GSK's childish behavior, and that opens the door for him to be older. Some of us lean toward our guy starting out as a teenager, but if he had Asperger's like you theorize, what age range would you think is most likely?
• Where do you stand on the VR-GSK connection? It seems that the VR was even more childish yet elusive and cunning. In the 12-26-75 podcast, they describe his encounter with Officer McGowen in such a way that it really makes that kind of duality stand out.
• If you are right about his previous mental health history, don't you think he would have been looked at hard by law enforcement as an EAR suspect? I can easily imagine several ways where he's brought to their attention. How did he slip through the cracks?
• To be so elusive, didn't the GSK need some understanding of human psychology? You know, some sense, some instinct, for how people think, whether victim or investigator. I realize this is not the same thing as social interaction, but it seems to me the mental capacities could well be related. Wouldn't Asperger's make it difficult?
  

(A quick aside for my message board compatriots: I fully realize that Aspergers's is absolutely not a monolithic thing. Some people diagnosed with Asperger's may act childish in certain ways. Some will have difficulty socializing. Some may have certain mental health issues. I'm strictly talking here about how egotorut characterized GSK.)

Thank you for your questions. I'll try to answer as best I can:

GSK's on-site behavior could be regressive. I may have unfortunately inferred that people with Asperger's in general have a tendency to childishness.

I tend to give weight to the VR connection and so I think GSK got going in his teens. From what I know (which isn't exhaustive), it seems he started at full steam, which I think says something about the kind of adolescent he started out to be. He wasn't just busy entering homes, his escalating recklessness was bound to lead to dangerous behavior. Which turned to be true with McGowen and the Snellings. (And when/why did he start carrying a gun? Ominous.)

As for his mental health history. Law enforcement cannot simply enter mental health facilities and obtain patient records or interview patients or obtain lists of patients. Even if he had been designated a Mentally Disordered Sex Offender in the early 70s, or later, after '86, a Mentally Disordered Offender, he could've fallen through the cracks, even with registration. (He may not have even been designated anything at all.) I tend to think GSK didn't have a commitment after the early 70s; though it's possible part of his early-mid 80s absence was due to one. MDSOs didn't always stay on the radar, unfortunately (see Jack Bokin, William Bonin). GSK would certainly have had law enforcement contact in connection with an offense that led to a forensic commitment, which is why, among other things, I tend to think he was not committed during the offending period.

Asperger's wouldn't make planning, cunning, execution, etc. difficult for this individual, especially given he is/was a psychopath, which I think really is the governing "layer" that allowed him to operate as he did. People with Asperger's observe others and can learn from their behaviors and learn about their motives and therefore understand risk.

[oldguy]

He did not have Asperger's because DSM5 abolished! Therefore it never existed and never will exist. (Unless DSM6 recreates it.)

In discussing DSM diagnoses It is too easy to enter the world of, oh, see below:

Reification (Gestalt psychology), the perception of an object as having more spatial information than is present
Reification (Marxism) (German: Verdinglichung), the consideration, in Marxism, of an abstraction or an object as if it had living existence and abilities (also sometimes called "objectification", but see below)
Reification (computer science), the creation of a data model
Reification (fallacy), the fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing
Reification (knowledge representation), the representation of facts and/or assertions
Reification (linguistics), the transformation, in natural-language processing, of a natural-language statement such that actions and events represented by it become quantifiable variables
Reification (statistics), the use of an idealized model to make inferences linking results from a model with experimental observations.

But it is a useful shorthand for describing the observable behaviors and capabilities of EAR-and thereby bring him to life. Then we can (and do) infer likely associations and experiences. In making these inferences we inevitably relate to our own experiences-so all of our inferences, though potentially knowledge-building have limitations.

So for example, I do think EAR was one of our Social Security beneficiaries-because the psychopathic (to use a term) behavior tracks so well with behaviors I have seen in so many disability folders. But his narcissistic self esteem likely precludes his self-presenting for a disability claim.

So-how do I see him getting on disability? By the "pre-release" route. Beginning in the 1970's SSA "encouraged' field office managers to create pre-release relationships with major treatment facilities in their service area. So in the mid-Atlantic region, district offices would coordinate with social service staff and send field reps for application days at state hospitals. I could clearly see EAR getting into our system that way.

But my insight is limited by my experiences-before the advent of e-mail the agency's various administrative regions were surprisingly autonomous. I do not know what San Francisco Region did with the Central Office suggestions. Under Bush One, pre-release coordination was absolutely demanded as a Commissioner's initiative. Everybody saluted and did it. Of course that post-dates EAR, so far as we know. By the late 1990's each region was the same in its standards and practices.

Yes. EAR was the somewhat odd kid who suffered with a disordered mother-and who peeked into windows. And who grew into a very disordered adult.

For more light hearted but pointed insight into the DSM-you might look at "The Book of Woe-the DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry."

BTW, I respect everything written in this thread....

[egotrout]

Jul 22, 2017 20:52:28 GMT oldguy said:

He did not have Asperger's because DSM5 abolished! Therefore it never existed and never will exist. (Unless DSM6 recreates it.)

In discussing DSM diagnoses It is too easy to enter the world of, oh, see below:

Reification (Gestalt psychology), the perception of an object as having more spatial information than is present
Reification (Marxism) (German: Verdinglichung), the consideration, in Marxism, of an abstraction or an object as if it had living existence and abilities (also sometimes called "objectification", but see below)
Reification (computer science), the creation of a data model
Reification (fallacy), the fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing
Reification (knowledge representation), the representation of facts and/or assertions
Reification (linguistics), the transformation, in natural-language processing, of a natural-language statement such that actions and events represented by it become quantifiable variables
Reification (statistics), the use of an idealized model to make inferences linking results from a model with experimental observations.

But it is a useful shorthand for describing the observable behaviors and capabilities of EAR-and thereby bring him to life. Then we can (and do) infer likely associations and experiences. In making these inferences we inevitably relate to our own experiences-so all of our inferences, though potentially knowledge-building have limitations.

So for example, I do think EAR was one of our Social Security beneficiaries-because the psychopathic (to use a term) behavior tracks so well with behaviors I have seen in so many disability folders. But his narcissistic self esteem likely precludes his self-presenting for a disability claim.

So-how do I see him getting on disability? By the "pre-release" route. Beginning in the 1970's SSA "encouraged' field office managers to create pre-release relationships with major treatment facilities in their service area. So in the mid-Atlantic region, district offices would coordinate with social service staff and send field reps for application days at state hospitals. I could clearly see EAR getting into our system that way.

But my insight is limited by my experiences-before the advent of e-mail the agency's various administrative regions were surprisingly autonomous. I do not know what San Francisco Region did with the Central Office suggestions. Under Bush One, pre-release coordination was absolutely demanded as a Commissioner's initiative. Everybody saluted and did it. Of course that post-dates EAR, so far as we know. By the late 1990's each region was the same in its standards and practices.

Yes. EAR was the somewhat odd kid who suffered with a disordered mother-and who peeked into windows. And who grew into a very disordered adult.

For more light hearted but pointed insight into the DSM-you might look at "The Book of Woe-the DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry."

BTW, I respect everything written in this thread....

No offense, but what you said about the DSM makes no sense. To start, you'd have considerable difficulty finding a psychologist or psychiatrist who would say the DSM is gospel or always reflects reality or they're are in total agreement with the latest version. But the thing to keep in mind here is this: The constellation of symptoms/behaviors that make up a particular disorder does not vanish from the population simply because the APA DSM committee has come out with a new book and no longer calls the disorder by it's name or has rearranged the constellation into a different configuration or has refined a particular diagnostic category or collapsed several diagnoses into one category--which is what happened. (Actually, there was a massive protest from many groups over this.) Furthermore, while it is useful in many ways, the DSM over the years has classified individuals with varying accuracy, and sometimes it is this that spurs development of new DSM.

What I hear you saying is akin to saying that if the medical establishment decided not to recognize leukemia, then it does not and did not exist (tell that to my dad).

I know the book of which you speak.

[egotrout]

Jul 22, 2017 7:11:09 GMT findons said:

Jul 20, 2017 18:26:59 GMT egotrout said:

Asperger's is a tender topic for some contributors, so I'll tread as lightly as I can. There have been some unintentional inaccuracies in this and other boards, one being that the disorder and psychopathy are mutually exclusive. Some of GSK's behaviors weren't psychopathic, but just odd—even regressive—in ways that don't seem to add up to a psychotic disorder or something like schizotypal personality.

Some contributors consider GSK's odd, seemingly inconsistent behaviors to have been maneuvers to snow investigators. Too much cleverness has been attributed to this offender because he hasn't been caught, the case has nosebleed complexity, and/or his obvious psychopathy so predominates that anything strange or contrary he's said and done must've been imitative, faked.

Some Background, Violence

Mental disorder doesn't simply predict violence and violence doesn't simply signal mental disorder, though certain aspects of mental disorder can help explain or raise the risk of violent behavior; such as an impostor delusion (see Ted Kaczynski, Jonathan Haynes).

While the vast majority of Asperger's people don't engage in criminal or violent behavior, there is a small subgroup who do and these typically have another disorder. Prevalence and case studies of violence in Asperger's individuals vary widely in generalizability and validity, and have looked at affective and physical violence, weapons use, planned/predatory behavior, even (rare) binding. Sex offenses and fire setting noted, too, with sadism being exceedingly rare.

The association of psychopathy and violent behavior is well-known and the literature vast.

Asperger's and Some Features of Psychopathy

Though there is a popular tendency to see it everywhere, Asperger's is not common. Also contrary to popular opinion, psychopaths do not constitute a majority in incarceration or forensic psychiatric settings, where they're usually found. Except for certain despots and financiers, they are largely invisible in the community.

Like psychopaths, people with Asperger's function along a continuum and can have other disorders. Having one of these two disorders doesn't raise the risk of having the other.

People with Asperger's can imitate charm but don't usually pull it off so well. They can appear self-absorbed, but a grandiose sense of self-worth doesn't typically apply. They can have big ideas, though.

They can be prone to boredom and need stimulation, but this doesn't necessarily lead to thrill-seeking, dangerous behavior.

They may lie, but for reasons that may be illogical, childlike, or highly idiosyncratic. They can be cunning and manipulative, but probably not as a personality trait. They can have difficulty accepting responsibility for their own actions, but largely due to misunderstanding.

They can experience remorse and guilt, though it may seem shallow, with even flat affect; giving the appearance of a lack of empathy, even callousness. They can appreciate distress in others—though they may not always completely understand it or respond commensurate to the level of distress.

Emotional detachment or the appearance of lack of empathy in someone with Asperger's has more to do with misapprehending people and their emotions than with the truly careless self-absorbed detachment, cognitive cut-off, and victim devaluation that makes it easy for a psychopath to hurt people.

Though some may be dependent on others to varying degrees, they typically do not engage in a parasitic lifestyle. They may have problems with intimate/marital relationships, but don't typically leave a swath of wreckage behind a string of relationships. They may lack realistic long-term goals, and like anyone else, can be irresponsible with money and people, but not as a deliberate uncaring tendency.

They can be prone to impulsive, destructive behavior, with difficulty delaying gratification. They're not typically sexually promiscuous. They may have early behavior problems, but these typically don't qualify as a conduct disorder—they can have a juvenile record, but it is likely to be minor. They can have trouble following rules of probation or parole or conditional release from state hospital, but don't typically scoff at them. Criminal versatility is rare.

People with Asperger's can possess some of the generally recognized features of psychopathy, but not necessarily with the same quality or to the extent that psychopaths do.

If Asperger's played any part in GSK's crimes, I don't believe it contributed the large part to fulfilling lust, a need for power, and/or getting a thrill; more likely the motives of someone who's purely a psychopath. The behavior in this case may have been a repeated attempt to solve something rather than to resolve an inadequacy, anger, anxiety, or a lack of a sense of control.

Clearly psychopathy has predominated in this case but with occasional—but significant—disruptions of Asperger's or Asperger's-like behaviors. (Another thread will go into this more specifically...not enough room here.) A GSK-level offender whose sole difficulty is Asperger's would be VERY rare.

Thank you for your post.  I have to ask what made you want to discuss Asperger's?  I have to say that in EAR's case it is difficult to try to fit this label to him.  I suppose and believe he probably has more than one issue here.  He may have ADHD along with Oppositional Defiance Disorder as well as Anti-social personality disorder.  It seems that these types of issues would more fall in line with EAR and ONS.  Asperger's seems a more difficult connection for the behaviors that ONS exhibited.  I think that might be what you are saying in the long run if I am not mistaken?  The risk taking and excitement he got from his prowling's, breaking into homes and progressing from there as well as the intense and thorough planning with the complete attention to detail in most cases in order to not be caught seems more in line with ADHD.  Unless he had a very light case in the spectrum of Asperger's that would not interfere with his intentions and his game.  Like I said it is difficult for me to make this particular issue fit EAR.  So your last comment "a GSK level offender whose sole difficulty is Asperger's would be very rare."  I would think so as well.  It does not fit for me.  Thank you again for the post and any response. 

I mainly wanted to address some of the things that have been floating around about Asperger's and GSK's behavior. Also, there's been a bit too much talk about autism in this case which I don't believe applies. Given that GSK's obviously got a truckload of psychopathy on board, I had to address the overlap.

[locard]

"I tend to give weight to the VR connection and so I think GSK got going in his teens. From what I know (which isn't exhaustive), it seems he started at full steam, which I think says something about the kind of adolescent he started out to be. He wasn't just busy entering homes, his escalating recklessness was bound to lead to dangerous behavior. Which turned to be true with McGowen and the Snellings. (And when/why did he start carrying a gun? Ominous.)" - Egotrout

I am also in the camp that thinks that EAR/ONS/GSK honed his criminal skills in Visalia, CA as the Visalia Ransacker. (Being the careful, methodical planner, I don't think he lived in Visalia or the other counties where he offended.)

During the VR crime spree, besides Mr. Snelling being shot and killed while saving his teenage daughter from being kidnapped from their home in the middle of the night by the VR an, VR shooting at Visalia PD Detective Bill McGowen during a stakeout and hitting his flashlight,  two teenage girls were found murdered during this time period in Visalia. Visalia had not had these types of crimes before the VR or after the VR. Did he murder these two girls?

Here is the 15-part new podcast series on the Visalia Ransacker 12-26-75.com/

[oldguy]

Jul 22, 2017 22:22:21 GMT egotrout said:

Jul 22, 2017 20:52:28 GMT oldguy said:

He did not have Asperger's because DSM5 abolished! Therefore it never existed and never will exist. (Unless DSM6 recreates it.)

In discussing DSM diagnoses It is too easy to enter the world of, oh, see below:

Reification (Gestalt psychology), the perception of an object as having more spatial information than is present
Reification (Marxism) (German: Verdinglichung), the consideration, in Marxism, of an abstraction or an object as if it had living existence and abilities (also sometimes called "objectification", but see below)
Reification (computer science), the creation of a data model
Reification (fallacy), the fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing
Reification (knowledge representation), the representation of facts and/or assertions
Reification (linguistics), the transformation, in natural-language processing, of a natural-language statement such that actions and events represented by it become quantifiable variables
Reification (statistics), the use of an idealized model to make inferences linking results from a model with experimental observations.

But it is a useful shorthand for describing the observable behaviors and capabilities of EAR-and thereby bring him to life. Then we can (and do) infer likely associations and experiences. In making these inferences we inevitably relate to our own experiences-so all of our inferences, though potentially knowledge-building have limitations.

So for example, I do think EAR was one of our Social Security beneficiaries-because the psychopathic (to use a term) behavior tracks so well with behaviors I have seen in so many disability folders. But his narcissistic self esteem likely precludes his self-presenting for a disability claim.

So-how do I see him getting on disability? By the "pre-release" route. Beginning in the 1970's SSA "encouraged' field office managers to create pre-release relationships with major treatment facilities in their service area. So in the mid-Atlantic region, district offices would coordinate with social service staff and send field reps for application days at state hospitals. I could clearly see EAR getting into our system that way.

But my insight is limited by my experiences-before the advent of e-mail the agency's various administrative regions were surprisingly autonomous. I do not know what San Francisco Region did with the Central Office suggestions. Under Bush One, pre-release coordination was absolutely demanded as a Commissioner's initiative. Everybody saluted and did it. Of course that post-dates EAR, so far as we know. By the late 1990's each region was the same in its standards and practices.

Yes. EAR was the somewhat odd kid who suffered with a disordered mother-and who peeked into windows. And who grew into a very disordered adult.

For more light hearted but pointed insight into the DSM-you might look at "The Book of Woe-the DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry."

BTW, I respect everything written in this thread....

No offense, but what you said about the DSM makes no sense. To start, you'd have considerable difficulty finding a psychologist or psychiatrist who would say the DSM is gospel or always reflects reality or they're are in total agreement with the latest version. But the thing to keep in mind here is this: The constellation of symptoms/behaviors that make up a particular disorder does not vanish from the population simply because the APA DSM committee has come out with a new book and no longer calls the disorder by it's name or has rearranged the constellation into a different configuration or has refined a particular diagnostic category or collapsed several diagnoses into one category--which is what happened. (Actually, there was a massive protest from many groups over this.) Furthermore, while it is useful in many ways, the DSM over the years has classified individuals with varying accuracy, and sometimes it is this that spurs development of new DSM.

What I hear you saying is akin to saying that if the medical establishment decided not to recognize leukemia, then it does not and did not exist (tell that to my dad).

I know the book of which you speak.

Egotrout...you miss my point. Of course the constellation of behaviors exist. (Just as, unfortunately, does your dad's leukemia.) The evolving diagnostic categories are attempts at capturing usable meaning when observing the constellation of behavior. You missed the fact that the first sentence of my post is entirely in jest.

The rest of the post is not in jest...Reification (fallacy), the fallacy of treating an abstraction as if it were a real thing.

The DSM is a highly useful tool. That is all.  It contains changing descriptions and classifications of human realities. The realities themselves do not-perhaps never have changed. Hence, the DSM categories are abstractions.

I do not understand how you can tolerate working with that prison population for 20 years. I always found the sexual offenders highly disquieting to deal with. My hat is off to you.

[Mitchell]

Any critique of EAR/ONS with Asperger's will ultimately become a critique of Asperger's itself...so here goes.

Some background, Asperger's is such an ethereal and multi-dimensional diagnosis that it is hard to define a specific model. The spectrum is nearly as diverse and all-encompassing as the human condition. There are a few stereotypical characteristics that people always go to. Avoidance of eye contact, obvious discomfort in social settings, delayed emotional developement, self-soothing, etc... Stir that pot and you'll cover every introvert on earth.

Personally, as someone who refused the diagnosis early in life, I don't think it is a real disorder and I'm glad that it is not featured in the latest version of the DSM(the DSM-and by extension the APA-has become as politically subservient as the school textbook industry...but that is something else). To be shy, to be soft spoken, to be uncomfortable around and interacting with large groups, and primarily, to be introverted is not a disorder. It is a state of being that is perfectly acceptable. The only friend I've made in the last twenty years was also diagnosed as a child as having Asperger's. Just another super introverted and brilliant guy who found a way to function in society-albeit awkwardly-and had no predilection for crime. An aversion, perhaps, because no introvert wants that much attention

To those who may think I'm making light of a serious disorder, please know that I'm not; if the Asperger's someone suffers with is so severe as to be debilitating, I would wager that person is Autistic.

All that being said, trying to fit a diagnosis of Asperger's onto an unknown offender is a bit of a reach...bit that's fine. It's what we do here. If the diagnosis is as ethereal and diverse as Asperger's, it does become a bit more difficult.

To anyone who is highly motivated to accomplish a goal, or multitude of goals, with a margin of error that approaches zero, I would guess that any psychological or developmental disorder would greatly inhibit their effectiveness. With Asperger's presenting itself most prominently in social situations and the fact that the crimes of EAR/ONS are decidedly non-social could, I guess, be relevant and lend weight to the hypothesis.

As to the notion that EAR/ONS would have inevitably found his way into the system at an early age(due to observation by his teachers at school) and from there migrated onto disability; that's one path, sure. He also could have just opted out of school and into petty crime.

I can buy that EAR/ONS had Asperger's simply due to the fact that he was probably a loner and an introverted guy. I don't necessarily think it likely that he was ever diagnosed as such. I also don't think it likely that it matters at this point.

[Any of N]

Jul 22, 2017 17:17:32 GMT egotrout said:

Jul 22, 2017 4:27:04 GMT Any of N said:

egotrout , have you had the opportunity to read the original police reports, or are you relying on Crompton and Shelby's books like most of the rest of us? I ask because there's sparse mention of certain things in the common data pool, like the Mommy business, the odd gait, and the avoidance of eye contact. I don't remember that last one at all.

Fascinating discussion. Thank you for sharing your views. A few more questions:

• If I'm following correctly, Asperger's might explain the GSK's childish behavior, and that opens the door for him to be older. Some of us lean toward our guy starting out as a teenager, but if he had Asperger's like you theorize, what age range would you think is most likely?
• Where do you stand on the VR-GSK connection? It seems that the VR was even more childish yet elusive and cunning. In the 12-26-75 podcast, they describe his encounter with Officer McGowen in such a way that it really makes that kind of duality stand out.
• If you are right about his previous mental health history, don't you think he would have been looked at hard by law enforcement as an EAR suspect? I can easily imagine several ways where he's brought to their attention. How did he slip through the cracks?
• To be so elusive, didn't the GSK need some understanding of human psychology? You know, some sense, some instinct, for how people think, whether victim or investigator. I realize this is not the same thing as social interaction, but it seems to me the mental capacities could well be related. Wouldn't Asperger's make it difficult?
  

(A quick aside for my message board compatriots: I fully realize that Aspergers's is absolutely not a monolithic thing. Some people diagnosed with Asperger's may act childish in certain ways. Some will have difficulty socializing. Some may have certain mental health issues. I'm strictly talking here about how egotorut characterized GSK.)

Thank you for your questions. I'll try to answer as best I can:

GSK's on-site behavior could be regressive. I may have unfortunately inferred that people with Asperger's in general have a tendency to childishness.

I tend to give weight to the VR connection and so I think GSK got going in his teens. From what I know (which isn't exhaustive), it seems he started at full steam, which I think says something about the kind of adolescent he started out to be. He wasn't just busy entering homes, his escalating recklessness was bound to lead to dangerous behavior. Which turned to be true with McGowen and the Snellings. (And when/why did he start carrying a gun? Ominous.)

As for his mental health history. Law enforcement cannot simply enter mental health facilities and obtain patient records or interview patients or obtain lists of patients. Even if he had been designated a Mentally Disordered Sex Offender in the early 70s, or later, after '86, a Mentally Disordered Offender, he could've fallen through the cracks, even with registration. (He may not have even been designated anything at all.) I tend to think GSK didn't have a commitment after the early 70s; though it's possible part of his early-mid 80s absence was due to one. MDSOs didn't always stay on the radar, unfortunately (see Jack Bokin, William Bonin). GSK would certainly have had law enforcement contact in connection with an offense that led to a forensic commitment, which is why, among other things, I tend to think he was not committed during the offending period.

Asperger's wouldn't make planning, cunning, execution, etc. difficult for this individual, especially given he is/was a psychopath, which I think really is the governing "layer" that allowed him to operate as he did. People with Asperger's observe others and can learn from their behaviors and learn about their motives and therefore understand risk.

To follow up on the mental health history, this slides into an area I've long wondered about. While law enforcement cannot simply demand patient records, are they permitted to ask practitioners if they remember anyone with such-and-such characteristics? (A similar question applies to criminal juvie records in general, but that veers us off-topic.) One the flip side, might someone in the mental health system tip off the police? I wonder if this might be a legal and ethical gray area, leading to some informal, unofficial conversations. In particular regard to a highly prolific sex offender like the GSK, this seems like a missed opportunity for "somebody who knows something" to have spoken.

[Deleted]

I wish that there had been someone with asperger's in the Sacramento sheriff's department back when the ear was getting started. The ones that I've met have above average intelligence.

[ellebee]

Jul 22, 2017 22:34:50 GMT egotrout said:

Jul 22, 2017 7:11:09 GMT findons said:

Thank you for your post.  I have to ask what made you want to discuss Asperger's?  I have to say that in EAR's case it is difficult to try to fit this label to him.  I suppose and believe he probably has more than one issue here.  He may have ADHD along with Oppositional Defiance Disorder as well as Anti-social personality disorder.  It seems that these types of issues would more fall in line with EAR and ONS.  Asperger's seems a more difficult connection for the behaviors that ONS exhibited.  I think that might be what you are saying in the long run if I am not mistaken?  The risk taking and excitement he got from his prowling's, breaking into homes and progressing from there as well as the intense and thorough planning with the complete attention to detail in most cases in order to not be caught seems more in line with ADHD.  Unless he had a very light case in the spectrum of Asperger's that would not interfere with his intentions and his game.  Like I said it is difficult for me to make this particular issue fit EAR.  So your last comment "a GSK level offender whose sole difficulty is Asperger's would be very rare."  I would think so as well.  It does not fit for me.  Thank you again for the post and any response. 

I mainly wanted to address some of the things that have been floating around about Asperger's and GSK's behavior. Also, there's been a bit too much talk about autism in this case which I don't believe applies. Given that GSK's obviously got a truckload of psychopathy on board, I had to address the overlap.

Didn't they just take the traits associated with Asperger's and shove them into the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum?  To-may-to, to-mah-to.  it's still a collection of behaviors associated with autism.  Just has a different name.  Or am I thinking of a different disorder here?  

[the411]

The problem is that many behaviors that EAR appeared to manifest could be attributed to so many different causes. Child like behavior can be a function of BPD amongst many other diagnoses.

The problem is that using disorders on a spectrum to describe someone that is unknown is like trying to take stereo settings on one stereo and duplicating them exactly on another stereo. It can't be done because the possibilities are far too great.

We can only guess based on our perception of what we believe are his behaviors.

I don't like EAR for asperger's because while it fits child like behavior it doesn't fit well in with a lot of other behaviors.

I like ADHD with coke/meth as possible reason for hyper focus and foul odor.

As someone who suffers with ADHD taking stimulants can put me into a state of deep hyper focus and keeps me glued to tasks.

Of course there are many other descriptions for his lengthy stalking and perceived planning.

[ambertmbg]

EAR's mental health has always intrigued me. I've always thought he was acting crazier than he actually was. It's like he has basic knowledge of symptoms and used that knowledge to pretend to be someone he is not. Like when a patient quotes symptoms verbatim from WebMD in an attempt to get pain meds, EAR's behavior is almost *too* textbook.

Egotrout, do you have any examples of his behavior that have led you to believe his crying and mommy issues were legit and not an act? How much abnormal psych would the average person have known at that time? I know the victim did believe he was not pretending.

His compulsions (ransacking and tying and retying his victims), I do think were genuine, but I never felt like the crying was real. What behaviors would you look for to determine if someone was merely acting?

[Mitchell]

Jul 25, 2017 0:28:09 GMT ellebee said:

Jul 22, 2017 22:34:50 GMT egotrout said:

I mainly wanted to address some of the things that have been floating around about Asperger's and GSK's behavior. Also, there's been a bit too much talk about autism in this case which I don't believe applies. Given that GSK's obviously got a truckload of psychopathy on board, I had to address the overlap.

Didn't they just take the traits associated with Asperger's and shove them into the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum?  To-may-to, to-mah-to.  it's still a collection of behaviors associated with autism.  Just has a different name.  Or am I thinking of a different disorder here?  

You're right. High-functioning Autism or nothing at all. I would assume a large portion of those would probably be described as odd, eccentric, loners, quiet, shy, or pretty much any euphemism for non-social you that can be imagined.

[egotrout]

Jul 23, 2017 19:36:08 GMT Any of N said:

Jul 22, 2017 17:17:32 GMT egotrout said:

Thank you for your questions. I'll try to answer as best I can:

GSK's on-site behavior could be regressive. I may have unfortunately inferred that people with Asperger's in general have a tendency to childishness.

I tend to give weight to the VR connection and so I think GSK got going in his teens. From what I know (which isn't exhaustive), it seems he started at full steam, which I think says something about the kind of adolescent he started out to be. He wasn't just busy entering homes, his escalating recklessness was bound to lead to dangerous behavior. Which turned to be true with McGowen and the Snellings. (And when/why did he start carrying a gun? Ominous.)

As for his mental health history. Law enforcement cannot simply enter mental health facilities and obtain patient records or interview patients or obtain lists of patients. Even if he had been designated a Mentally Disordered Sex Offender in the early 70s, or later, after '86, a Mentally Disordered Offender, he could've fallen through the cracks, even with registration. (He may not have even been designated anything at all.) I tend to think GSK didn't have a commitment after the early 70s; though it's possible part of his early-mid 80s absence was due to one. MDSOs didn't always stay on the radar, unfortunately (see Jack Bokin, William Bonin). GSK would certainly have had law enforcement contact in connection with an offense that led to a forensic commitment, which is why, among other things, I tend to think he was not committed during the offending period.

Asperger's wouldn't make planning, cunning, execution, etc. difficult for this individual, especially given he is/was a psychopath, which I think really is the governing "layer" that allowed him to operate as he did. People with Asperger's observe others and can learn from their behaviors and learn about their motives and therefore understand risk.

To follow up on the mental health history, this slides into an area I've long wondered about. While law enforcement cannot simply demand patient records, are they permitted to ask practitioners if they remember anyone with such-and-such characteristics? (A similar question applies to criminal juvie records in general, but that veers us off-topic.) One the flip side, might someone in the mental health system tip off the police? I wonder if this might be a legal and ethical gray area, leading to some informal, unofficial conversations. In particular regard to a highly prolific sex offender like the GSK, this seems like a missed opportunity for "somebody who knows something" to have spoken.

That is a really good question. How would law enforcement be led to a particular practitioner is another one. Sure, they could inquire with a practitioner but would get booted out of the office or stopped at the gate, even for asking vague questions. Mental health law & ethics being what they are today, this would definitely happen. In the old days? Maybe not...hate to say it but once upon a time patients weren't so well protected; balance between patient's rights and public safety, particularly for forensic patients on conditional release. The question re: would someone in the mental system tip law enforcement? This repeatedly comes up, especially for people working in corrections or forensic facilities. The answer is "no" not legally. But: Many, many times you run across cases you just "know" have more than what's on the record. Some correctional systems forbid clinicians to report new crimes an offender's brought up in treatment, and some systems do not and may even require a report. (Some sex offender treatment programs require this.) I had a colleague who once suggested that there would be nothing to stop someone from making any anonymous phone booth call to law enforcement.

[egotrout]

Jul 25, 2017 22:06:32 GMT Mitchell said:

Jul 25, 2017 0:28:09 GMT ellebee said:

Didn't they just take the traits associated with Asperger's and shove them into the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum?  To-may-to, to-mah-to.  it's still a collection of behaviors associated with autism.  Just has a different name.  Or am I thinking of a different disorder here?  

You're right. High-functioning Autism or nothing at all. I would assume a large portion of those would probably be described as odd, eccentric, loners, quiet, shy, or pretty much any euphemism for non-social you that can be imagined.

I agree. The APA, in its infinite wisdom, folded Asperger's into another category. The DSM has been largely concerned with reliable classification of individuals, sometimes at the expense of validity.