In Gold Bar, a tiny town in the state of Washington (population 2,075), the local news website posted an article entitled The Mind of the Stalker. It’s unclear who wrote the article, because there is no byline. The author describes the behavior of stalkers, writing that many of them are textbook sociopaths.
Most of the article is accurate, and is drawn from the work of experts, such as Dr. Robert D. Hare and Dr. Hervey Cleckley. I disagree with a few statements, such as “they cannot control their behavior.” But I’m glad to see that someone in this tiny town outside of Seattle is trying to alert the community to the social predators who live among us.
I imagine that this person had a personal experience with a sociopath. Like so many Lovefraud readers, he or she was probably baffled by the experience and researched the disorder to make sense out of what happened. Then, shocked to learn that millions of people are inherently manipulative and destructive, the author did what he or she could to warn the townsfolk.
At least that’s my interpretation. Here’s the article, which was sent to me by a Lovefraud reader. What do you think?
The Mind of the Stalker, on SkyValleyChronicle.com.
Donna Thanks for posting article.
For me the following line touched home:”Knows what they are doing is wrong and depending upon the crime the stalker is engaged in, will go to great lengths to cover their tracks to avoid prosecution.”
He was brilliant and a law school graduate, of course he knew what he was doing was criminal.
The extremes that the latespath went through from beginning to end are unreal. Lawyers just shook their heads, others said it was impossible for someone ‘make up’ documents and go through the hoops, he did, especially when he could have worked and made millions. Even with incontrovertible proof, some of which were their own records, the broker just telling me, he ‘didn’t know’. All the broker had to do was make one phone call to my mother and this whole mess could have been avoided before it started. Bur he never felt he had to, because the ‘latespath told him so’.
While spaths as a whole, may be impulsive, others spend inordinate amounts of time planning and testing their schemes before they unleash them. Some may even learn new skills to implement them. The latespath, who took exactly 2 computer classes in the mid 70s, became a master at producing computer forged documents.
True a spath in our university entered medical school with false documents, at first by lovebombing the graders for the professors who then inflated his grades. One poor girl (grader) even flew down to meet him at the medical school that he was attending only to return empty-handed and ignored and rejected after helping him illegally boost his grades. The key to it all was when he forged signatures to false documents ( not sure how it helped) granting him entrance. Point being this took a lot testing and planning so yes spaths can plan and test.
Excellent article Donna! What I really got out of the article was that the sociopathic stalker can eventually be prosecuted due to what he/she considers to be their “best qualities”! Those qualities will ‘tell’ on them sooner or later;become their Achilles Heel.
Surprisingly in depth on the subject especially for a newspaper. I agree with Donna that overall it was well written and helpful but I don’t agree with everything the writer asserts. While I will agree that spaths cannot change their nature, I don’t agree that they can’t control their behaviors. I was just thinking about the expression yesterday ” he just can’t help himself ” and thinking yes they can. It’s willful, often highly calculated. Under Grandiose sense of self the writer basically says that serial killers and serial chid abusers are not sociopaths which baffled me. What ? The closing section which implied that it would be super easy to get the goods you need ” leaving a trail of evidence a blind man could follow ” – again I say What ? While I think it’s good to educate, and to try to instill hope that we can overcome, and have some tools to use in doing so, implying that its going to be a simple straight forward process is not reality based, at least not with the really masterful ones.
I thought the piece was pretty impressive despite some inconsistencies which Donna and 4light have brought up. It touches on a trait – raging – and its affect – serving to give the sociopath a temporary sense of being alive – which resonates with my own experience with PDs. My abuser by his own account felt ” dead” in the brief period he remained faithful to his second wife. Wearing mask of normalcy is deathly dull and tiresome for sociopaths I believe. The intensity of their acting out ( e.g. Raging, substance abuse, deviant sexual activity) is testemony to the amount of stimulation they require to feel anything, in my observation.
Funny that stalkers should be the topic of an article here. By coincidence, I just spotted this story in Yahoo news tonight:
Pitcher Kris Benson’s ex-wife broke in and trapped him in basement
This crazy woman was in full SWAT gear, armed with a gun, a Taser, an expanding baton and a hatchet, dressed in black clothing with an ammunition belt and a bulletproof vest when she broke into his home. She must be THE original “psycho ex-wife”!
I thought this article was pretty good, other than giving the impression that these folks always get caught, and pay the price- because of their hubris. Although I do think they are ‘seen’ from time to time….I am not sure that so many of them really get caught. Caught, to me, means they are brought into public scrutiny, and then pay a full price for their discretions.
I agree, in some respect, they always DO get caught. The problem is they generally get caught by individuals, such as ourselves, and outed in their ‘private’ lives. But they rarely get outed in the bigger sense, and pay for their zillions of transgressions.
I understand the author is trying to zone in on the sociopathic stalker, and not ‘just’ sociopaths in general. But my experience, stalker or not, is that they sometimes get truly caught and prosecuted. But more often than not they just get found out by separate people, and that the bigger picture of their lives never is fully put into perspective.
This is what frustrates people who have been abused by these types so much: It’s hard for other’s to see all the ‘dots’ in these abusers lives that paint a big ugly destructive picture. So, sociopaths tend to walk away into the the next scene of their self-scripted play, no one (who can do much about it) the wiser.
I think part of my healing process was to find the strength to let go of the things I could not change. One of those things was that the ex would still get away with ‘it’. If it were as direct and understandable as the author implies….well it would be solvable. It’s not.
No yet. Maybe never. We have no idea. It is a really complicated problem involving biology, culture, environment, and things we probably don’t have the science to understand (my ideas about it, not meaning to sound like a know it all). I am not convinced, either way, that it is something these types can control. I have things about me I cannot control. I seem to be able to control other things. At least I think I can.
I cannot stop this disorder, and the chaos and violence it brings into the world. I can save myself. I can speak out to help individuals (when the timing is just right). I can support those who are waking up to the reality.
I can be a person who embraces compassion and awareness. And I can shed light on the fearful and dark impulses that plague our humanity.
Slim
I agree with you Slim, they are caught by individuals….but they always have victims and know how to spot a persons vunerablilities almost immediately – like doctors and judges, they can even convince court order therapists that they are rehabilitated. My daughters children believe and will state things that she has told them that are not true. They believe everything she says, even to the point of forgetting what really happened in the cases where they were there and saw and heard the truth. I am a monster because I know the truth and she spends a lot of time making sure those around her will not believe me.
Awesome article, describes my adult daughter very well. It is a tough battle when it is your child. My daughter is 35 years old and there is no end to what she will do to keep the people in her life from me. She will tell lies about me, lie about her own life experiences “the victim”, and will use any means or anyone to do so. I would like to see more here about parents of adult child sociopaths I think it can be helpful for all the parents dealing with a sociopath. I blamed myself and my life experiences for many years for her behavior. I was told she had Sociopathic Tendencies at the age of 14, although they could not determine for sure until she was 18. At that time resources were limited. Between writing a history of her childhood and the internet, I learned that I taught her right from wrong very well…..and reading that genetics plays a part in the sociopathic life has helped me a great deal as well. I want other parents to know sooner, rather than later, what they are up against and the coping skills they so need to survive and not lose theirselves in the constant anxiety.
Wow. I didn’t like this article at all and found it more unprofessional than most things I’ve seen on this topic. Many of the traits described could be misconstrued to apply to independent thinkers, or those outside of a particular norm, but who have no connection to psychopathology.
This is your opinion Corinne, however; I found the article to be spot on for the most part. I raised a sociopath, I was in a relationship with one and I found the article enlightening and right on.
The latespath certainly was an independent thinker. Rules didn’t apply to him.
His IQ put him outside the norm tested twice several years apart, both times 180+ multiple tests each time.
Ivy League lawyer, fluent in 4 foreign languages, worked for about 5 1/2 years in 28 years since graduation. Fraud, forgery stole 1.3 million from my blind mother. Stole every bit of jewelry in the house. Never had a house or apartment, never paid a bill, had car repossessed. Told me to abort his child as the pregnancy served it’s purpose. Became the ‘darling’ of the internet escorting world. Threats if I filed for divorce. Abuser, physical, mental and verbal. Shall I go on?
Diagnosed as a sociopath by a forensic psychologist.
Ok – but my point is that most highly intelligent, independent thinking professionals are NOT necessarily sociopaths.
I don’tthikn this article tapped into much of what a stalkers pathology is. Many many times stalking behaviour comes from deep rejection and the rejection is what keeps the cycle going. Stalkers and sociopaths are not even close to the same thing.
I loved this article and despite some small things mostly that they cannot control their behavior as others have said, find that it VERY accurately described my exspath. I am talking about SPOT ON. In his case he was terrible with computers and underestimated my intelligence and boldness in going after him with a restraining order. He was one of the only ones who wanted to “contest” my order and was his own lawyer. He thought he could fool the judge as he has so many people. I had a stack of emails and other things proving that he was indeed insane. Hard to argue with that kind of stuff. So that’s a perfect example “sociopathic stalker can eventually be prosecuted due to what he/she considers to be their “best qualities”! Those qualities will ’tell’ on them sooner or later;become their Achilles Heel”. This was only a restraining order but in my case even though he is still plotting from what I hear from others and has no doubt learned from that incident, I got him out of my life for that period of time. He was terrified of going to jail and being exposed to everyone. Now he is working on turned everyone against me with his sad stories of how he was betrayed and used. The restraining order has run out and he knows not to email me again or text me because I save EVERYTHING. I have been through so much hurt from all of this. I will probably never trust anyone in the same way I did before. Maybe that’s good. I want to be smart. The damage these people do sends us reeling though. So many people have no idea what it’s like to try to recover. I still have triggers every day from another of his family members that have turned against me. He is telling lies about me and despite THEM urging me to get the restraining order in the first place, they are believing him….again. Sigh. Sorry I rambled, just hurting a lot from things that I hear or experience every time I think I am on the road to recovery and needed to get it out. Thanks so much for the article.
Lamber Royakker says stalking is a form of mental assault in which the perpetrator repeatedly, unwantedly and disruptively breaks into the life-world of the victim. This is a great summation.