Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer - Self

Myths and the
Female Psychopathic Killer
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—
deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—
persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”
--John F. Kennedy
35th President
of the United States
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What you will learn
1.
2.
3.
4.
Some misperceptions of female criminality
Current Research on female psychopathy
Case studies of female psychopathic killers.
How societal perceptions influence how the
criminal justice system operates
5. Recommendations for law enforcement and
forensic examiners who have to interact with
them.
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Socially Constructed
Perceptions of Gender
• Male dominance, as expressed through aggression, has
been historically supported by a patriarchal society
that viewed female aggression as a threat and, as an
extension, unnatural and atypical.
• Since the war-time mobilization of the economy during
World War II, women have began to fill many of the roles
that were traditionally held exclusively by men.
• Corporate world, military, law enforcement, government,
professions, acquiring higher education.
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Misconceptions about female criminality
• Socially constructed understanding of gender
influenced by religious and macro-cultural
influences on gender roles.
• Women are innately nurturing and gentle
• Women are not violent.
• Women only hurt others in self defense or in the
defense of others, or because they “loose
control.”
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What is a psychopath?
“Psychopaths use charm, manipulation,
intimidation, and violence to control others and
to satisfy their own selfish needs. Lacking in
conscience and in feeling for others, they coldbloodedly take what they want and do what
they please, violating social norms and
expectations without the slightest sense of
guilt or regret.”
Hare, R. (1993) Without conscience; The disturbing world of the psychopaths among
us. New York: The Guildford Press, Inc.
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What is a psychopath?
“Psychopaths are not disoriented or out of
touch with reality, nor do they experience the
delusions, hallucinations or intense subjective
distress that characterizes most other mental
disorders. They are rational and aware of what
they are doing and why. Their behavior is a
result of choice freely exercised.”
Perri, F.S., Lichtenwald, T.G. & MacKensie, P. (2008c), The lull before the storm: Adult
children who kill their parents. The Forensic Examiner, 17(3), 40-54
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What is a psychopath?
“Psychopaths also have difficulty
projecting into the future; that is,
understanding how their actions play
themselves out in life, and they also have
deficits in reflecting upon their pasts.
They are prisoners of the present.”
Meloy, J.R. (2000). They psychopathic mind, A Jason Aronson Book
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Reactive Homicide
(Not associated with psychopathy)
• High level of spontaneity or impulsivity.
• Lack of planning.
• Occurs mostly among relatives and
acquaintances.
• No apparent goal other than to harm the
victim soon after a conflict/provocation.
Harm to the victim is the goal.
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Instrumental Homicide
(Associated with Psychopathy)
• Lack of spontaneity or impulsivity.
• Long-term planning.
• Murder is only a means to achieving a
larger goal.
• Victim is usually a stranger. At most a
superficial relationship exists only to
facilitate the pursuit of the larger goal,
such as financially plundering the victim.
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The difference in action.
Reactive Homicide
• Elizabeth and Mark are married for 22 years
and have four children.
• Mark is the bread winner.
• The couple purchases a life insurance policy
early in their marriage.
• The marriage sours over time as many do.
• Elizabeth kills Mark to “get rid of the creep”and
gets the life insurance money to boot.
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The difference in action.
Instrumental Homicide
• Sarah and Richard have been married for 2
years. It was a shot-gun wedding in Carson City,
Nevada. Richard’s family thinks Sarah is not
right for him. Sarah keeps them at a distance.
• Richard is retired and has a large nest egg, and
probably doesn’t need life insurance.
• Sarah buys a life insurance policy on Richard.
• Sarah kills Richard to cash out this life
insurance policy and gets the old man out of
the way, perhaps so she can do it again.
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Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP):
Psychopathic mothers and caregivers
• A severe form of child abuse in which a parent or
caregiver fabricates symptoms on behalf of another
causing that person to be regarded as ill.
• Persistent and repetitive inducement of illness or injury.
• Mothers or the most common perpetrators.
• Injuries and illnesses are caused in such a manner that
they are masked as accidental or natural, e.g. poisoning.
• The goal of the perpetrator is to gain attention,
notoriety and treatment as a hero because “she is such
a trooper for raising a sickly child.”
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Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP):
Psychopathic mothers and caregivers
• Injuries and illnesses are caused in such a manner that
they are masked as accidental or natural, e.g. poisoning.
• MSBP is difficult to detect because the cause of death
is often plausibly natural. After all, the parent is
putting so much effort into “protecting” the child. Few
of us can imagine how a parent or nurse could
repeatedly injure a child and then deceptively thwart
efforts of medical personnel to treat such a vulnerable
victim.
• Medical science settling the debate that sudden infant
death syndrome as an explanation has made it easier
for MSBP perpetrators to kill undetected.
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Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
murders are difficult to detect.
• MSBP murders are staged to look mimic natural or
accidental deaths. Victims are often too old or to young
to rule out medical explanations.
• No outward signs of foul play—i.e. marks, weapons, or
struggle.
• The socially constructed myth that women are incapable
of brutality diminishes suspicion.
• Serial MSBP murderers get a lot of attention from the
ambulance crew, clergy, emergency room staff, doctors
and social workers. When the noise dies down, the
process starts again with another child.
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Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP):
The Journal of Pediatrics Experiment
• Physicians at several British hospitals covertly
videotaped 39 parents, mostly mothers, whom
medical personnel had begun to suspect were
deliberately killing their young children.
• 30 of the parents were filmed intentionally
suffocating their children.
• Two were seen attempting to poison their
children.
• One mother deliberately broke her 3-year-old
daughter’s arm.
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Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP):
The Journal of Pediatrics Experiment
• Abuse was inflicted with no provocation, but
with premeditation.
• In some instances, elaborate lies were
constructed to explain the consequences. For
example, a mother claimed that she had
suffocated her son because he kept her up all
night. But in the film, he was in a deep sleep.
• The 39 patients together had a total of 41
siblings, 12 of whom had died suddenly and
unexpectedly
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Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP):
Abuse of syndrome defenses used at trial.
• Syndromes, (battered child syndrome, fetal alcohol
syndrome, etc.) are often used at trial by the
defense to justify the killing.
• Syndromes are characterized by behavior seen to
be in common among a class of people. The logic
goes that a battered child will grow up to beat
their children.
• When pathological behaviors, which are by their
nature deliberate, willful and calculated, are labeled
as syndromes, courts may fail to see people with
MSBP to be in complete control of their behavior.
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Aileen Carol Wuornos:
Erroneously hyped as the “First female serial killer.”
killer.”
• American serial killer who
murdered seven men in Florida
between 1989 and 1990,
claiming they raped or
attempted to rape her while
working as a prostitute. She
was convicted and sentenced
to death for six of the
murders, and executed via
Aileen Carol Wuornos
lethal injection on October 9,
(February 29, 1956 –
October 9, 2002)
2002. She was the 2nd woman
to be executed by Florida.
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Aileen Carol Wuornos:
Erroneously hyped as the “First female serial killer.”
killer.”
• Wuornos was a prostitute who admitted to killing 7 men,
who were truck drivers, between 1989 and 1990.
• Scored 32 out of 40 on Hare Psychopathic Checklist
Revised (Moderate to Severe)
• Atypical in that she killed strangers in public rather
than in accepted social or professional settings like a
hospital where women can operate with less scrutiny.
• Later said that she planned to kill at least 12 men.
• In her final 8 October 2002 interview with NBC’s Nick
Broomfield the day before her execution, you can
observe the psychopathic traits of blame
externalization, egocentricity and lack of remorse.
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Carol Bundy (with Doug Clark):
“Sunset Strip Killers”
Killers”
• Carol M. Bundy, along with Doug
Clark became known as "The
Sunset Strip Killers" after being
convicted of a series of murders
in Los Angeles during the late
spring and early summer of
1980. The victims were young
prostitutes and runaways.
Carol M. Bundy
(August 26, 1942 –
December 9, 2003)
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“Remember, I look innocent.
Impression is worth as much as
facts.”
Carol Bundy
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Carol Bundy
Manipulated court with claims of coercion
• Carol Bundy was the embodiment of “impression
management” in a criminal case.
• Her defense advanced the myth that she could only commit
violence because she was either coerced, abused, was
mentally ill, and simply because women just aren’t like that.
• Bundy also claimed self defense even though she shot,
stabbed and beheaded a former lover before going to the
police.
• Psychopaths in the legal system us impression management
to control the players in the system such as detectives and
prosecutors. Impression management should be taken very
seriously, considering how myths are used to project a
message to the jury.
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Diane Downs:
Appeared in court pregnant
• Elizabeth Diane Frederickson
Downs shot her three children,
killing one, and then told police
a stranger had attempted to
carjack her and shot the
children. After her conviction in
1984, she was sentenced to life
in prison.
Diane Downs: Her Children Got in the Way
Elizabeth Diane Frederickson Downs
(born August 7, 1955)
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Diane Downs:
Shot her 3 children, killing 1
• Downs claimed she was carjacked on a rural road near Springfield,
Oregon, by a strange man who shot her and her three children.
Investigators, however, became suspicious when they noticed her
manner was too calm to have experienced such a traumatic event.
• Their suspicions heightened when Downs went to see her daughter
Christie in the hospital; Christie panicked and her heart rate
jumped.
• The forensic evidence did not match Downs' story; there was no
blood on the driver's side of the car, nor was there any gunpowder
residue on the driver's panel.
• Witnesses saw Downs' car being driven very slowly toward the
hospital—Downs had claimed that she drove there at high speed
after the shooting.
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Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt:
“Little Old Ladies”
Ladies” or “Black Widows”
Widows”
Helen Golay
Olga Rutterschmidt
• Golay and Rutterschmidt
took in homeless men and
then spent thousands of
dollars on life insurance
policies and then would kill
the men after certain
provisions of the $2.8 million
worth of insurance policies
kicked in. They would drug and
run over their victim to make
it look like a hit and run
accident.
The Black Widow murder: Episode 26 American Greed
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Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt:
“Little Old Ladies”
Ladies” or “Black Widows”
Widows”
• “The prosecution has to be worried that one or more of the jurors
will feel sorry for these two old women.”
--Jean Rosenbluth, law professor
• “When we see women generally, we either view them as nurturers or
as needing protections; age is a proxy for non-threateningness.”
–Jon Simon, criminal justice researcher
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Reality Check for Law Enforcement
and Forensic Professionals
• “I don’t think most parents who murder children wake up
in the morning and say, “ This is the day I’m going to kill
my kids.”
--Social Worker
• This line of thinking is heavily influenced by socially
constructed “knowledge.”
• Parents who kill may not be mentally ill, but
psychopathic. This makes them more prone to planning
the murders.
• Could the social worker do a capable evaluation of a
mother who killed a child without resorting to the myths
about women’s motives for murder?
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