psychopathy behavior understanding of EAR

[nick]

The most compelling trait present in the understanding of a person with a psychopathy personality is that they basically are lacking emotions in the way of fear and distress. It is though if you clap your hands behind someone’s back, they will startle, and you can measure elevated heart rate and sweating.If you do that with individuals with psychopathy, tests have shown that their response is flattened and show no signs of what a person without that personality trait does.They barely startle and their hands stay dry and no heart rate elevation. The thinking is if you had never felt real fear or distress, how could you empathize with the fear or distress of others?  The type of person EAR is most likely to be in my opinion is a combination of psychopathic and sociopathic traits and not a clear-cut one or the other and with his ability to compartmentalize his life he is able to conform to standards as it suits him in everyday life.

I think where LE using profiles for EAR and ONS are missing the mark is in trying to hard to push him into one psychological box instead of the many boxes that he actually fits into. I think he is a watcher and spent many hours studying human behaviors and how others interact with each other and I think it may have been from a need to fulfill those parts of his own life that were lacking or nonexistent in normal relationships. He might be the only one who knows he was lacking fulfillment and people around him would be surprised to know that is how he felt because he was presenting himself in a way that others thought he was well adjusted and was not lacking for anything in his life. Those type of behaviors that the public and LE are looking for in a suspect will not be present in him he is well insulated and guards his true emotional state against nearly everyone including close family members. He did and still does by all appearances to be someone that would not be thought of as EAR or ONS and he has been playing at his life since he hit puberty and began the fusion of sexual and violence stemming from an occurrence in that timeframe of his sexual development as a pre-teen. The occurrence will not be known to anyone other than EAR and he may have even pushed it to the deep recesses of his mind to suppress the feelings of worthlessness and embarrassment he felt. It does not have to be a child molestation or other incident like that but could be something a healthy individual would not think to be of significance but a normal thing that teens pass through on the way through life. EAR would, for example, take something small and prove the adage of making a mountain out of a molehill. 

Thoughts??

[ripost]

EAR would, for example, take something small and prove the adage of making a mountain out of a molehill.

There is another post that has some interesting points here. It throws Asperger's (a part of the autism spectrum) into the discussion too, which I think is relevant.

[nick]

Behavior disorders with a lack of social skill sets can most diffidently be something of interest in the EAR case. EAR may have displayed inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances during his childhood that went unnoticed by parents and teachers. I think his childhood could have also have involved an inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers but again many of these things could go unnoticed as a child and when a person such as EAR matures he is able to hide those traits by choice or in defense of himself. If he had in fact openly displayed these behaviors I believe he would have stood out to teachers family members or peers and he would have been looked at by LE I think it is the opposite and he was able to hide what was truly occurring in his mind and when he reached his teens he was fully able to suppress any outward appearance of anything other than he is a normal well-adjusted kid.

[nick]

I guess my bottom line is he does not have to be an offender who had some great traumatic event or a victim of a sexual assault himself or have terrible parents or any other deep seeded things that are normally associated with this type of troubled individual. Sometimes boys just grow up into bad men and the ones that LE and people around them miss all the signs if there were any to be seen. That explains why he has not been caught because he does not fit into the psychological profiles that others who have been caught before him. He is above suspicion to even those close to him even during the height of the series and never drew enough attention to himself enough to be identified.

[Deleted]

The FBI states that “the psychopath is an intraspecies predator.”     
 
Obviously, LE is looking to get their heads around this phenomenon and, especially, its ramifications within criminal justice system.

leb.fbi.gov/articles/featured-articles/psychopathy-an-important-forensic-concept-for-the-21st-century

The PCL-R assessment tool as well as speech pattern differences associated with psychopathy are touched upon in the above-referenced article; however, interestingly, clinical findings of frontal brain deficits are not mentioned in the FBI's discussion.

In addition, there are studies showing that a diminished sense of smell is another indicator of psychopathy and that, along with antisocial behaviors, this also appears to be linked to frontal brain dysfunction.

psychcentral.com/news/2012/09/21/psychopathy-linked-to-impaired-sense-of-smell-frontal-lobe/44949.html

Perhaps this will prove to be something that may aid in deterring the present statistics for increased likelihood of parole for these offenders, due to their manipulative nature:

"... psychopathic sex offenders are 2.43 times more likely to be released than their nonpsychopathic counterparts, while psychopathic offenders charged with other crimes are 2.79 times more likely to be released. Their acting ability can enable them to frequently manipulate and persuade members of a parole board to release them approximately 2.5 times faster than other offenders up for parole, despite their longer list of offenses and elevated risk. Psychopaths can be adept at imitating emotions that they believe will mitigate their punishment."

Both psychopathic and sociopathic individuals exhibit physical abnormalities in the frontal area of the brain associated with empathy, response to fear and distress, and self-conscious emotions such as guilt or embarrassment. A very involved discussion for anyone interested is here:

www.cerebromente.org.br/n07/doencas/disease_i.htm

I'm no shrink, and I've only been looking at EARONS for about three months, but I think he was totally about control. Sex and terror was merely a means to an end.   As Bundy said, "It's not about lust; it's not about possession; it's about control."

Control: to have power over; rule. 

And I think that it is being seen that this "control" issue is evident far, far earlier in these individuals than has been previously associated with puberty/sexual coming of age.  Sexual maturation seems to accompany the ability to seriously offend within society at large, rather than just the family unit, perhaps in part due to autonomy, but the intent has been there for a very long time. 

“The psychopath is an intraspecies predator” raises some difficult questions as to how to deal with them.     

[oldguy]

Feb 8, 2018 6:51:39 GMT nick said:

I guess my bottom line is he does not have to be an offender who had some great traumatic event or a victim of a sexual assault himself or have terrible parents or any other deep seeded things that are normally associated with this type of troubled individual. Sometimes boys just grow up into bad men and the ones that LE and people around them miss all the signs if there were any to be seen. That explains why he has not been caught because he does not fit into the psychological profiles that others who have been caught before him. He is above suspicion to even those close to him even during the height of the series and never drew enough attention to himself enough to be identified.

Excellent posts...

EAR's psychopathy explains his "unnatural" calm when things went sideways for him. E.g., his casual stroll down the street (nude in the southland) after a momma bear beat him off in attack #3. It also helped engender the explosive total commitment attack modes he evidenced again and again when actively resisted.

Two points:

1. The ability to mimic normal human empathy and to exude charm when it  advantages him does make the psychopath more difficult to discern than say, a criminal with "simply" an intermittent explosive personality but persons in EAR's life long-term will know "something is wrong." And persons who were close to him 1975-1986 (and possibly later)  may put this awareness together with memory of incidents. E.g. that morning in summer 1981 when he came in with a contusions on his face an injured shoulder and a strange explanation. Or the many mornings he seemed oddly fatigued and "scruffy." And then he always insisted on doing his own wash.... We can only hope the greatly increased awareness from the forthcoming book and ID Discovery series stimulate these memories in multiple people.

2. Brain study is wonderful, indeed exciting but it opens the worrisome possibility that many more truly violent offenders will be treated as victims themselves-unfortunate  carriers of brain abnormalities given to them by nature. The prospect of the identified EAR living his last days as a pitied target of soothing  psychiatric research (complete with grounds privileges!) is, well, nauseating.

[Any of N]

It's unethical for a mental health professional to diagnose a person from a afar. They can get away with it when it's an unknown serial killer, but they really don't know what the truth is in the absence of extensive interviews. Non-professionals should avoid the temptation altogether, even if the subject is a scumbag criminal like the EAR. 

It's probably safe to say that our guy is at least reasonably far along on the psychopathy scale, but one doesn't have be a full-fledged case to commit those types of crimes. It's even possible that he falls into the average range. To the point that we shouldn't look for a guy who displays a certain type of pathology, I agree. And it may not be because he's hiding it. It could be that he doesn't have it, whatever it is that we're talking about at the moment.

[ripost]

Feb 9, 2018 6:09:26 GMT Any of N said:

It's unethical for a mental health professional to diagnose a person from a afar. They can get away with it when it's an unknown serial killer, but they really don't know what the truth is in the absence of extensive interviews. Non-professionals should avoid the temptation altogether, even if the subject is a scumbag criminal like the EAR. 

It's probably safe to say that our guy is at least reasonably far along on the psychopathy scale, but one doesn't have be a full-fledged case to commit those types of crimes. It's even possible that he falls into the average range. To the point that we shouldn't look for a guy who displays a certain type of pathology, I agree. And it may not be because he's hiding it. It could be that he doesn't have it, whatever it is that we're talking about at the moment.

What is unethical, is to believe and act as if people-diagnosing is an exact science. We had a mass murderer here in Norway (Breivik). He received six different diagnoses from different "professionals".

I look at it in term of probabilities. If he has a higher probability of being a psychopath, there is a higher probability of finding him in prison (or as a manager). That doesn't mean I think "psychopathy" is some binary label that you either got or not.

There is no actual diagnosis of psychopathy in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The recognized characteristics of psychopathic personality and behavior:

• glibness/superficial charm
  
• grandiose sense of self worth
  
• need for stimulation/prone to boredom
  
• pathological lying
  
• conning/manipulative
  
• lack of remorse or guilt
  
• shallow emotional response
  
• callous/lack of empathy
  
• parasitic lifestyle
  
• poor behavioral controls
  
• promiscuous sexual behavior
  
• early behavioral problems
  
• lack of realistic long term goals
  
• impulsivity
  
• irresponsibility
  
• failure to accept responsibility for their own actions
  
• many short term relationships
  
• juvenile delinquency
  
• revocation of conditional release
  
• criminal versatility

ref

[oldguy]

Feb 9, 2018 6:09:26 GMT Any of N said:

It's unethical for a mental health professional to diagnose a person from a afar. They can get away with it when it's an unknown serial killer, but they really don't know what the truth is in the absence of extensive interviews. Non-professionals should avoid the temptation altogether, even if the subject is a scumbag criminal like the EAR. 

It's probably safe to say that our guy is at least reasonably far along on the psychopathy scale, but one doesn't have be a full-fledged case to commit those types of crimes. It's even possible that he falls into the average range. To the point that we shouldn't look for a guy who displays a certain type of pathology, I agree. And it may not be because he's hiding it. It could be that he doesn't have it, whatever it is that we're talking about at the moment.

These are not formal diagnoses..they are discussions of likely attributes of an unknown subject. The probability is that EAR scores high on the psychopathy scale...a commonly accepted belief is that maybe 1% of the population  would be high on the psychopathy scale. And maybe about a third of convicted rapists score high. EAR, we know is a rapist (among other things). So the probability he is psychopathic is great. Add in other known behaviors and their congruence with psychopathic traits and the probability shoots up.

drpamelabuchanan.com/blog/psychopathy_sex_offenders.en.

Now, why incorporate the concept of psychopathy into discussion here? Simply because it helps explained observed behavior. And explanation enhances the ability to predict. Ability to predict enhances investigation. 

Of course we do not "know" EAR's mind. We do know his observed behavior and its results. We do know much about his physical attributes: we know his racial make up, his biologically assigned sex, his approximate size, and we know if living he is not a 99 year old nursing home resident. Nor is he a 45 year old recently retired military man. Beyond this, not much is truly known. (Oh, and given his diction, he was not raised in Brooklyn or Long Island.)

All schema of psychological classification are tenuous and heuristic. They are reflective of the values of the culture and people who designed them. But they have value in their (admittedly variable and often minimal) powers of predictability.

Yes, EAR might score fairly low on the psychopathy scale. Probably not. And in the absence of knowledge, we work with probability.

[Any of N]

Do I have an issue with posters who speculate this way? Not really. I just don't think it's very useful.

oldguy -- Let's assume for a moment that the prison studies generalize to the EAR. Thus he has, perhaps, a one-third chance of being high on the psychopathy scale. He also has a two-thirds chance of not being high on said scale, and that's a lot of uncertainty. But the EAR was not some generic serial rapist. He had specific traits that, while unknown to us, tipped the odds in one direction or the other. 

Reading your Pamela Buchanan link, I see that psychopathy is linked to recidivism rates and employment. That's according to some studies. If true, then the EAR is less likely to be a psychopath if he has a job and stopped offending. Detective Paul Holes seems to think that both scenarios are quite possible, as do many of our posters here. Those .333 odds could be a big overestimate. Who knows what other traits have strong links, and we're operating with minimal information as you pointed out.

All schema of psychological classification are tenuous and heuristic. They are reflective of the values of the culture and people who designed them. But they have value in their (admittedly variable and often minimal) powers of predictability.

I recall when you brought up Dr. Gary Greenberg previously, the Book of Woe guy. That work is totally about the limitations and lack of validation in psychiatry. In your quote above I was with you until you got to "powers of predictability". Speculating about mental states based on offender statistics is basically predicting the past. It's exactly the kind of thing that makes criminal profilers look silly at times

ripost -- Those six different diagnoses for Anders Breivik speak to the uncertainty. They were made by various practitioners who had a chance to speak with him directly, and here we are speculating about a different offender we barely know anything about. We have a listing of his offenses and summaries of certain police reports as filtered through various writers.

It seems like we're more in agreement than not. My point about the "professionals" was that they tacitly acknowledge their limitations though their codes of ethics. It's worse when they make public pronouncements with limited info because of their official status. And psychopathy is still a diagnosis whether or not it's in the DSM, wouldn't you say? About those recognized characteristics -- who's to say that any apply to the EAR?

[NaptimeNancy]

And then there's the psychopaths with the clean records that LE can't do anything about because they haven't caught him in the act. They will finally be able to bring him to justice after it's too late and he retaliates for someone exposing his true colors. It is truly scary to know of such a person when the SOL has run out and they can present themselves to authorities as a doting father and caregiver. This is what my family deals with and it is truly a terrifying and helpless feeling.

[looking4justice]

I lean towards the sociopath aspect for EARONS. Here's an frightening excerpt from "Confessions of a Sociopath" www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions-sociopath?collection=122715

Sociopaths are able to mask themselves adeptly and many, like the author (and the author's father), "play the game" well enough to pass as somewhat normal.

[looking4justice]

Here's another example of a high functioning sociopath, although the title of the article is "Dunkin Donuts hired a psychotic credit card thief ...as director of communications." I would venture to guess EARONS is kind of like this, just not as compulsive when it comes to money.

www.businessinsider.com/dunkin-donuts-hired-psychotic-credit-card-thief-carolyn-kravetz-as-director-of-communications-2013-7

[ripost]

Feb 15, 2018 20:24:13 GMT looking4justice said:

Here's another example of a high functioning sociopath, although the title of the article is "Dunkin Donuts hired a psychotic credit card thief ...as director of communications." I would venture to guess EARONS is kind of like this, just not as compulsive when it comes to money.

www.businessinsider.com/dunkin-donuts-hired-psychotic-credit-card-thief-carolyn-kravetz-as-director-of-communications-2013-7

What a monster! Thieves often use the argument "if they are so stupid they don't look after their stuff, they deserve to get stolen from". Maybe sociopaths uses the same argument. "If people are so gullible they trust other people, they deserve to be conned".

[BoxersFracture]

Feb 15, 2018 18:23:41 GMT looking4justice said:

I lean towards the sociopath aspect for EARONS. Here's an frightening excerpt from "Confessions of a Sociopath" www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions-sociopath?collection=122715

Sociopaths are able to mask themselves adeptly and many, like the author (and the author's father), "play the game" well enough to pass as somewhat normal.

Looking4justice: I think you’ll find these articles interesting. EAR was/is a sexual sadist who graduated up the spectrum (three or four “levels” in terms of victim outcome depending on whom you read) in what seems to be a typical progression.

www.justiceguy.com/?p=56

www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/disturbed/201307/sadistic-killers%3famp

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/095d/8b137d396f9b7debb227f2484922a7e0b4ad.pdf

You’ll note in the bottom article they delineate between sexually sadistic serial killers (SSKs) and killers. An important differentiation between the two is intelligence. I believe 3 or 4 of the case studies involve SSKs with IQs in the mid-120’s. That’s more than a standard deviation (closer to two) than an “average” person. Where 29% of the “just” killers in the study had IQ scores over 100, 58% of SSKs did. I’ve said in several other posts that I think if EAR were to be caught tomorrow and given an IQ test, he’d score 125 or higher. I’m not trying to glorify him or make him out to be some kind of supervillian, but I don’t think there should be any doubt he was very, very bright. IMHO, he is still unidentified today because his intelligence masks his derangement.