Editor’s Note: The author of this piece, Travis Vining, told his story to Lovefraud readers back in 2008. He is the son of a psychopath, and wrote about how confusing it was to know that the man was his father, and also a murderer. Travis’ previous blog articles are listed under “True Lovefraud Stories.”
Travis helped get his father, John Vining, convicted of three murders. The Orlando Sentinel recently published a three-part series of articles about Travis and the murders. You can read the articles here:
Part 1 of 3: In ”˜o4, killer’s son recalled dad admitted to 2 killings
Part 2 of 3: Plan by killer John Vining’s son involves betrayal, lies, audiotape
Part 3 of 3: Search for killer John Vining’s 4th victim ”˜not over’
Since I first wrote for Lovefraud in October of 2008 my life has become a series of extraordinary events and real life miracles as A Witness to Healing. It is astonishing what can happen when we realize that we really are not alone, ask for help and become honest with ourselves and others.
In January of 2010 I was finally able to help cold case detectives solve one final murder that my father committed in 1987. It was his first victim, the one that started it all. After months of “pressure” I was finally able to convince my father, who is still on Florida’s Death Row, to give a written confession that included the location of the body. Although the remains have not yet been recovered, the confession and details about the crime are enough to close the case. I have now been able to bring closure to three unsolved murders that my father committed.
I have also written a book that is soon to be published (Son of Terror—A Confrontation with Evil Reveals the Truth about My Father”¦and Me) and become an inspirational and educational speaker. I speak to dozens of groups a year, detailing my experience with sociopaths and the 17 months when I was my father’s “trusted confidante” as he planned and murdered four people. This journey may have started in hell, but it ended in heaven. My story is really about overcoming life’s tragedies. My hope is that this book will inspire readers to transform their own challenges and tragedy into peace, joy and a deeper understanding of divine wisdom.
In 2009, I was given the opportunity to team up with Toni Furbringer, PhD., a licensed clinical social worker and founder of Heartwork to introduce “Victory Through Peace,” a project dedicated to helping people and families affected by similar devastating relationships and experiences, as well as anyone suffering from addiction, compulsive behavior, depression or trauma. This wonderful relationship and project have turned the liabilities of my childhood and early adult life into one of my greatest assets.
More importantly, I have come in contact with the children of three of my father’s victims and it has been a truly extraordinary experience. It is through these relationships that I am beginning to see true healing, in ways that I never thought possible. These events that have occurred are not by chance and cannot simply be explained away as “coincidences”.
If I use my experience with my father as a measuring stick I should no longer question circumstances in my life or try to label them as “good” or “bad.” Those 17 months with my father looked pretty bad at the time. In fact, it seemed like the end of the world. And today? It’s one of my greatest assets. It is a gift. A gift of experience that seems to provide others who are suffering in life with inspiration, hope and a willingness to believe that all things do work out for the better, maybe even helping them take a step closer to our creator.
If you don’t believe in miracles, imagine this for just a minute. All that evil stuff that my father did in his life is now helping people who are suffering find their way to a higher power that can help them bring meaning, peace and joy into their lives. My father”¦he wanted to harm people and now his story is helping people find the very peace that he tried to destroy. He tried to take life and now his story gives it. This is what happens when we become willing to ask for help, and more importantly, accept that help.
Sharing my experience with sociopaths openly in the right forum and finding others that have had similar experiences was one of the most important steps towards recovery. It helped to teach me about the importance of true forgiveness. That forgiveness led me to a life that is full of peace and happiness. Much of it started with my writing on this site. I am grateful that Donna Andersen provides this forum. It is an extremely useful service for those of us that have had experiences with sociopaths. And for that”¦I am forever grateful.
Travis F. Vining
Louise
Skylar:
I don’t think you are jaded. You just saw through it like the rest of us. I agree with Panther…that stood out to me immediately when he said he could not live the rest of HIS life knowing. Yep, it was still all about HIM. He MAY have felt remorse about what he did, but it’s different from what we feel when we know we have hurt someone.
Thanks for posting that link.
skylar
Panther and Louise,
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks the old man is full of BS.
1 year in jail is not long enough to erase a lifetime of being a spath.
Panther, like you said, how did he manage to get 1 year for murder?
panther
Well, he didn’t pull the trigger. He was the one who convinced that abusive husband to go in with a gun. So, this guy actually spathed another spath into taking the fall for his sadistic goals and then he got to walk away. The joke is on everyone and they forgive him to top it off. Just lovely.
Ox Drover
Many times the “psychopath by proxy” is the dupe who “pulls the trigger” but the STRING behind that trigger being pulled is the psychopath. The psychopath convinces some “dupe” (for lack of a better word) that their cause is just and/or beneficial for the dupe, but the dupe is the one who must do the “work” to accomplish the work because x, y or z.
The psychopath themselves is “innocent” of the violence, though they are guilty of conspiracy to commit the crime….sometimes in our laws, “conspiracy” is punished more than the actual crime.
For example, if you and I “conspire” (agree to and plan to) to rob a bank, and we make all these plans but someone over hears us BEFORE the bank is robbed and the cops arrest us and the DA prosecutes us for CONSPIRACY to rob a bank, though no bank has actually been robbed, we may actually get more federal prison time than if we had ACTUALLY robbed the bank.
Many times, though, the psychopath who is the “mastermind” behind a crime against another party is slick enough to “keep their hands clean” of the actual crime so that there is not enough evidence to convict them, even of conspiracy.
My son Patrick was quite adept at securing dupes to do many of his crimes. Unfortunately, he was not street smart enough to not get caught for those crimes and to take a fall for having possession of the stolen merchandise. In the end, his credit card fraud case, in which HE never actually signed on the fraudulent card but got his dupe-girl friend to do so (though he got some of the merchandise) when she ratted him out as a co-conspirator when she was caught, and him being on parole, chances are he would have gone back to prison again, so he decided to kill her. He actually did that himself, and apparently didn’t even try to hide it from his “friends” or her friends (low-life petty thieves) but in the end, even his low-life petty thief friends weren’t up to covering up for a murder. Patrick found out there wasn’t as much “honor among thieves” as he thought/hoped there was and Jessica wasn’t the only one to rat him out. He didn’t seem to learn from that experience though, as he again trusted a psychopath to do his bidding and when the going got tough, the Trojan Horse psychopath ratted him out, and left him in the lurch holding the bag.
superkid10
I have a question. I don’t know where to post it. i would reallly like to see an answer by Dr. Leedom or Steve the LCW, so I will keep my fingers crossed.
I was researching on the web today and found somebody asked the question, “what is the personality disorder when a person lies all the time”. All the responses were “pathological liar”.
But “pathological liar” isn’t a personality disorder.
I realized that I think I typed the same question a long, long time ago (before I i first came to this site, in August 2009) and it still look me a while to link “pathological liar” to “anti-social personality disorder” and then it took even longer to link THAT to “sociopath” and once I did that, I hit the jackpot.
Anyway.
My question is this. Is “pathological” or “chronic” lying a symptom of any other personality disorder? Say, Borderline Personality Disorder? Anxiety Disorder? Anything else?
Thank you so much.
SK
Ox Drover
SK, I’m not Dr. Leedom or Steve but it is generally recognized that most if not all psychopaths are “pathological or chronic liars.” Sort of “they will tell a lie when the truth would fit better.”
It is a behavior often found in people high in other traits that together make up the personality disorder. Many of the “different” personalitiy disorders have OVERLAPPING behaviors so that lying, manipulating, criminal or illegal behavior, sexual promiscuity, love bombing, etc. are just a very few of the behaviors that we here on LF call “red flags.”
In the “hard sciences” you can know that 2+2 ALWAYS =4, but in psychology, there is “wiggle room” in what “diagnosis” or opinion you are going to get about how someone behaves equalling X, Y or Z illness or disorder, so it is kind of like I think, a “preponderance of evidence” for a disorder=that disorder. At least it is that way until there is a blood test or a scan that “proves without a doubt” that this + that= psychopath.
skylar
Hi Superkid,
that’s a great question, I can’t wait to hear feedback on that.
here’s a link that attempts to answer the question:
http://bpd.about.com/od/faqs/f/BPDlying.htm
The only PD that I’ve ever heard of being directly connected to lying is the N/P/S. And Dr. Scott Peck specifically called them “the people of the lie”. What is unusual about the way they lie, is that they do it needlessly. For no forseeable gain.
I think it is due to their addiction to manipulation. They actually like to hear themselves lie just so that they can think, “because I can.” They like to watch as the listener sits back and allows them to continue lying. When I first met the spath, I couldn’t believe the obvious lies. Of course I confronted him on it. He blew up like a nuclear bomb.
“I AM NOT A LIAR!!!!!! NEVER!!! CALL ME A LIAR!!!!”
Well of course I didn’t want to experience that again, so I never did. Until 25 years later.
superkid10
Oxy, Sky,ar
Good food for thought. Skylar, good link.
Of course I want to hear the rest of the story. So what happened when you called him a liar 25 years later? Is that when he fake cried?
SK
skylar
ROTFLMAO!
SK,
Ummm..no, I hadn’t called him a liar yet at that point.
When I found out that he was a “people of the lie”, then I called him a sociopath and a liar. He didn’t even blink.
He said, “I’m not a social spaz, quit calling me a social spaz.”
I think he knew exactly what I meant by sociopath, but he was using his mask of ignorance to pretend he didn’t know. I think by this time in his life, he was fully aware of what he was.
superkid10
Skylar
OMG that is just hysterical, what do you call it when they talk like that? SPATHOLOGICAL? You call him a “sociopath” and he says “don’t call me a social spaz”. Holy shit that is funny. It’s a complete attempt at dodging, dismissing, making fun of, confusing, everything all in one line.