“When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail.” Abraham Maslow
I have a book in my library by J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D., called The Psychopathic Mind—Origins, Dynamics, and Treatment. I struggled through about half of it, and finally gave up. Meloy is a forensic psychologist, and the book appears to be for professionals in the field—he’s written 10 books and authored or co-authored 180 peer-reviewed papers. Meloy’s specialties include stalking, violence, threat assessment, mass murder, serial killing and sexual homicide.
When mass murders go on a rampage, the media often turn to Meloy for commentary. After the Fort Hood shootings in 2009, for example, ABC news quoted him:
Mass murderers tend to come in two types, according to academic articles authored by forensic psychologist J. Reid Meloy. One type is predatory, premeditated and emotionless. The other acts out from anger, fear, or response to a perceived imminent threat or trigger.
Timothy Masters case
Back in 1999, Meloy testified in the case of a murder that took place in 1987 in Fort Collins, Colorado. A 37-year-old woman named Peggy Hettrick was killed, and her body sexually mutilated. Twelve years later, Timothy Lee Masters, who was 15 at the time of the murder and lived next to where the body was found, was charged.
There was no physical evidence connecting Masters to the crime—the case against him was purely circumstantial:
- Masters was the first person to see the body lying in a field, but he did not report it. Masters said he thought it was a mannequin, and a prank.
- Masters’ mother, who had red hair like the victim, had died, and the murder took place close to the four-year anniversary of her death.
- Shortly after the murder, police searched Masters’ bedroom and found 2,200 pages of writings and drawings depicting violence and gore. Masters said he created them because he wanted to be a horror writer like Stephen King.
But J. Reid Meloy looked at some of those drawings, and testified in court that they were a “fantasy rehearsal” for the crime. Masters drew a picture on the day he saw the victim. It depicted one figure dragging another that appeared to be wounded or dead. The body being dragged was riddled with arrows.
Ignoring the arrows—there were no arrows in the actual murder—here’s how Meloy interpreted the picture, according to FortCollinsNow.com:
“This is not a drawing of the crime scene as seen by Tim Masters on the morning of Feb. 11 as he went to school,” Meloy wrote. “This is an accurate and vivid drawing of the homicide as it is occurring. It is unlikely that Tim Masters could have inferred such criminal behavior by just viewing the corpse, unless he was an experienced forensic investigator. It is much more likely, in my opinion, that he was drawing the crime to rekindle his memory of the sexual homicide he committed the day before.”
Based in a large degree on the testimony of J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D., who said he fit the profile of a sexual predator, Timothy Masters was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Cop indicted for perjury
This story is in the news again because Lt. Jim Broderick of the Fort Collins police department, the lead investigator in the 1999 case against Timothy Masters, was just indicted on eight counts of perjury.
The indictment includes exactly what Broderick wrote in his application for an arrest warrant for Masters about his obsessive fantasies, the impulsive nature of the crime, the fact that the teenager was a loner. The indictment says that although Broderick wrote the statements in the arrest warrant application, he did not believe them to be true.
Masters had served nine years in prison, until 2008, when he was released. DNA evidence proved that he had nothing to do with the murder.
Later that year, Masters filed a civil suit against Broderick and the Larimer County prosecutors in the case—Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair, both of whom had become judges. The suit charged that they withheld evidence from the defense team and other experts, including Dr. Reid Meloy.
Larimer County settled the suit for $4.1 million. The city of Fort Collins settled for $5.9 million. The two judges were reprimanded.
And now, Broderick may go to jail.
Forensic error
Why did Dr. J Reid Meloy get it so wrong in this case? For one thing, the police apparently did not give him evidence that might have cast doubt on Masters’ culpability. For another, Meloy never interviewed Timothy Masters in person. He based his conclusions on Masters’ violent short stories and crude drawings.
For more on the role that the famous psychologist played in this tragedy, read The Tim Masters Case: Chasing Reid Meloy on FortCollinsNow.com.
For more about the doubts other police officers had in the case, read Police split over conviction in Colorado slaying, on CNN.com.
Be careful
Why am I writing about this terrible miscarriage of justice? It is a warning to all of us to be careful. If someone like J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D., the respected forensic expert, can be wrong, so can we.
Knowing that psychopaths exist, and being able to spot them, is important. It can save our lives. But we have to be careful in deciding who is a psychopath, and who is not. I clearly remember receiving e-mail from a woman, and a separate e-mail from the man she thought might be a psychopath. After reading the e-mails, I could not tell who was the abuser, and who was the victim.
Personally, I think Meloy’s mistake was that he did not meet Masters. Perhaps if he had, he would have felt that something was amiss—Masters never deviated from his claim that he was innocent, and never deviated from his story.
Our intuition is probably our most accurate tool in evaluating the possibility danger. If we listen to it, without clouding it with preconceptions, it will steer us in the right direction.
But in order for our intuition to work, we need the right input. Whether we’re reading police reports, news stories or comments in the Lovefraud Blog, the information our intuition needs may very well be missing.
You can bet if they were and could prove it one of them would have already scooped up the $1 million dollar cash prize that has been out there for many years for anyone who can prove they are.
This case has been on some of the old investigative shows. That Broderick was single- minded in his pursuit of Masters even going overseas to follow him in the military I believe. He also lived in close proximity to the body. But what no one followed up on was that there were also sexual offenders living nearby, and one who had a house full of tapes of women in bathrooms doing their business. They never even looked at any other people as suspects because they narrowed in on him from the beginning. Cops and lawyers get shortsighted at times in their zeal to prosecute someone for the crimes.
I’ve seen the shows, read all the articles about this case and I know that doesn’t make me an expert by any means, but the DNA that cleared Masters was the DNA on the inside of her underware that was her EX boyfriend AND he had supposedly not seen her in 2 weeks.
She was apparently carried there not dragged by TWO people (two shoe prints) none of which were Masters’ etc. And yes, the cop did zero in on the boy from the get go, but except that he lived close by and was a “weird” kid, without a lot of friends etc. there just was NO evidence he killed her, or could have killed her.
The cop hid shoe prints and other stuff from the DA, defense, etc. and LIED LIKE A RUG….and did persue the boy for 10+ years relentlessly. The woman’s BF was a good idea from the get go but was never persued. Now they will never be able to persue him is what I am hearing now even though the DNA was HIS and had no other way to get there than him being the one that mutilated her. The whole thing is such a miscarriage of justice. It is bad enough when a person is convicted by accident but on PURPOSE–that is worse than awful.
Yes he fit the profile although in their defense anyone seeing those drawings would say yes he is capable of committing such a crime. But it just happened to be that he did not commit this crime. Without looking at anyone else, (seeing the whole picture/story) it could appear that he did it. But that is why false accusations are so effective for psychopaths and others who use them. People don’t bother to investigate the other side of the story especially when these psychos pass for charming, sweet, individuals. Back to this case though; we had a kid in our M.S. who wrote explicit stuff in his English class about how he wanted to learn how to kill people and get away with it. Serious red flags, but what could we do as teachers? We did refer him to the counselor, but we are obligated to teach anyone and everyone that is in school. All of us knew it was just a matter of time. Before the year was out he was caught with a loaded gun waiting to kill another one of my students who made a pass at his girlfriend. He being only 14 or 15 was charged with attempted murder, but will probably be released after serving time in juvenile detention with possibly some time in adult jail. It is easy to see how Masters could be zeroed in on as a suspect, but yes have the courtesy to interview him before making an official diagnosis or allegation.
I tend to both agree and disagree that being involved with a S makes you think everyone is one. Ok, back that up…I think it means you see the potential in everyone. I think it makes you look ten times harder at any inconsistencies you may see in someone. It makes any white lie they tell glare at you like a beacon. BUT, that said, people who know about me and the S will sometimes say offhandedly about someone who has lied or who has reacted a certain way to a circumstance in a way they didn’t like, “Do you think they could be a sociopath?” Generally, my answer is, “I doubt it.” Why? Because I came to the conclusion of what my S was after knowing him and his behaviors WAY too well, piles and piles and piles of evidence, and because after I tried and tried to come up with any other reason for his behavior, was forced that his behaviors and personality fit the description of a S and then some. They may as well have his picture next to the description in any journal or dictionary. I didn’t think it of him just because he did something that annoyed me or pissed me off. That said, I’ve met one person since him that set off my S radars. It was because not of one or two lies, but a whole package where I found lies as well as that his behaviors were a little too reminiscent of the S’s. I think yes, you definitely have to be careful not to “diagnose” everyone, because I can see where that would be a problem. But I also think gut is powerful, and letting your guard down when past experience screams NO! at you isn’t a good thing either.
M~
http://www.theunlikelytarget.blogspot.com
BloggerT7165, they maybe are clairvoiant to our emotional energy? – a piece of paper in an sealed envelope gives off no emotional vibration. It’s not alive. We are. You are right though if they could they would. But human emotions are transmitable.
Every single human being is nothing more than a vibrational construct made up of photons. We are like radio transmitters. When the USA Navy took a piece of DNA from a human being and moved it hundreds of miles away, the same piece of DNA would behave to the same responses and triggers the DNA in the person it came from was being exposed to. It happened instantly too. There was no delay.
There is something profoundly uncanny about sociopaths in this respect. It’s more than just visual and liguistic cues or psychological profiling. They can seem to still read us even when we are out of sight. It is almost like when you have sex with them and leave ones DNA in them that they have a homing device right to our emotions forever?
Anyways this is off topic. Yeah I agree with the original article. We have to be very careful whom we declare to be a sociopath. As victims we have to remind ourselves we have a duty not to victimise others who don’t deserve being falsely labeled.
Teacher, I agree with you 100%—but it isn’t just ONE flag that shows someone with the potential to be violent or that is “working up to it”—like the guy in california who had robbed and beaten and robbed and beaten and then he got nabbed for a $10 theft and shoving the clerk and they gave him 35-life on a 3-strikes law.
People will scream, you can’t give a guy LIFE FOR A $10 theft, he did NOT get life for the $10 theft, he got it for the 57 times prior that he had robbed people and been violent to them, he had “56” second chances and blew them all, he is not going to reform. He is high in psychopathic traits—how do I know? Because he doesn’t learn from his mistakes and he keeps on robbing and being violent, he needs to be off the street. P or not.
I think it does tend to make us less accepting of lies, dishonesty etc. and we tend to quit trivalizing that kind of behaviors, and I didn’t sever the relationship with my son C for the one “insignificant” lie he told me, but for the “57” previous lies he had told and the fact that this was the “last straw” as far as I was concerned. He wasn’t learning. I was no longer willing to overlook a series of lies and dishonest behavior, and he isn’t a psychopath, just dysfunctional and immature. Oh, well….not my problem. I don’t fear him. He isn’t going to try to get even with me, or hurt me, or burn my house down, and if I was in need he would come if I called him, unlike my P-son who would hunt me down if given half a chance and kill me with a smirk on his face.
Two different situations, but I don’t want much more to do with the non-convict son than with the convict psychopath. I’m just DONE with dishonesty. I’m done with people who treat others with dishonest behavior and aren’t responsible for their own behaviors. I’m done with liars.
I’ve known a truck load of people that I WOULD diagnose as psychopaths, people that would score more than 30, people who have killed, beaten wives or others, who have conned people, deliberately hurt others and enjoyed doing so. I’ve known quite a few frankly, but if you stop and think that they are even 1% of the population, how many people do you KNOW? 100? 200? 300? 500? What about if they are 4%? How many do you know, or have known in your life? 10? 20? 30?
Of course I happened to be blessed with quite a few in the family, so that gave me a leg up! And in my professional career I’ve dealt with quite a few….
Maybe some of the people I think are Ps are ONLY ones who would score 20, that’s still the AVERAGE of the general population of inmates that don’t score 30 or above in Dr. Kiehl’s research. Still not folks I want to deal with or have intimate relationships with. Or, God forbid, TRUST!
I live in a rural county in Arkansas where there is a great proportion of what is referred to as “poe white trash” which is the previous name for “someone high in psychopathic traits” and sure they are poor, and they are white, and they are criminals, alcohol and drug addicted, sexually rowdy, steal the nickles off a dead man’s eyes, wife-beating scumbuckets that would on average score 20-35 on the PCL-R in my gestimate. None of them are very bright, and most dropped out before finishing school, they cook meth in their bathtubs and sire kids like rabbits and don’t pay child support or own a car with more than 2 doors the same color as the rest of the car.
They aren’t psychopathic because they are poor and uneducated, they are poor and uneducated because they won’t work or hold a job, because they spend time in jail. So fixing poverty isn’t going to fix them….and educating them isn’t going to work either because they don’t see any value in education because they don’t want to work, they want to steal.
My son is in the top 1/10th of 1 percent of the top of the Bell Curve on the IQ scale, he never finished high school. He doesn’t WANT to work, he wants to con and steal. He wasn’t raised like that, but that is what he became. If he ever did get out of prison he would never have a “pot or a window” because he wouldn’t work or stick to anything, and he would screw anything that would hold still and sire kids that he wouldn’t support. Kids who would grow up poor and uneducated, abused and with a chance of being high in psychopathic traits or at best dysfunctional.
Some Ps manage to “hold it together” enough to get educations and become president or governor or Doctor or Judge, but it doesn’t make them any more caring or kind or give them a conscience. Just better educated psychopaths and they wind up in the corner office at ENRON or become Bernie Maddoff Or Edwards, or Patterson etc. I guess we can add Gore to the list of people “high” in traits as well…at least he is a cheating SOB even if that is his ONLY trait…
So maybe I over react to the term psychopath or psychopathic traits, but I am just fed up with dishonesty in whatever form it takes and people who appear to have little if any remorse for the things they do that wound and hurt others.
If that makes me a judgmental old biddy then so be it, I will wear the label proudly! I no longer dispense trust without it being EARNED and at the first sign of dishonesty I’m taking that person out of the list of potentially intimate friends.
ps Teacher, “labeling” them publicly is one thing and doing it within your own mind are also two different things. I might “label” someone here on LF (like that cop or a public figure) a P, but I wouldn’t do it in a court of law, though I had the legal authority to diagnose when my license was current, just like Meloy does. Not that I claim to be the “end all or be all” of diagnosis…just like I was qualified to diagnose pneumonia too, but there are criteria for the diagnosis so the person has to meet that criteria and looking at their writings and drawings (especially of a dysfunctional kid) doesn’t meet the criteria to call him any kind of “sexual sadist.”
I’m glad this article is on LF. I get so caught up in using professionals, because they will get it, when in reality they can make mistakes too. The lesson in this is sometimes we can jump to a false conclusion and think the worst because it fits our little puzzle so nicely. This weird kid must have done it because he fits the description to a T.
One thing my therapist has told me has been to not assume anything, sometimes it makes me angry because I need to blame someone for all the crap in my life. Taking responsiblity for yourself means to not place blame without knowing for sure and owning up to your actions.
I used to believe that having a PHD or MD meant you should be respected for that title alone, so not true. Oxy has done her homework on this J. Reid Meloy Phd character and he doesn’t deserve to be respected just because he has a title. Heck, I was inappropriately felt up by a MD as a teen, so gross to think about. I went in for the flu, since when does that mean I get a breast exam?
When in doubt, trust your instincts.
I think it is outrageous that the judges got off with a reprimand. They are just as guilty, if not moreso, than the cop.
Our legal system is seriously broken. Judges and lawyers cover for each other and use the legal system to line their pockets with little concern for truth and justice and in many cases with malice, both in large and in petty ways, against those they dislike.