I read two interesting articles in the newspaper this morning. The first was about the original mass murderer, Howard Unruh, who in 1949 walked down a street in Camden, New Jersey, and killed 13 people in 20 minutes. Psychiatrists at the time tried to find out why he did it by giving him "truth serum." On Oct. 20, 1949, Camden County Court Judge Bartholomew A. Sheehan signed the final order of commitment for Unruh after a team of four psychiatrists classified him as a case of "dementia praecox, mixed type, with pronounced catatonic and paranoid coloring." In modern parlance, he was a paranoid schizophrenic, a classification that would appear again and again in Unruh's records. Read …
Red Flags in the news again
By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired) Last week I wrote an article about the captain of the sunken Italian ship who said he “fell into a life boat by accident” and that was why he got off the ship very early, not waiting for the rescue efforts. It also turned out this married man was with his lover and was drunk at the time the ship was steered, on his command, closer than normal to an island so he could show it off to the residents and his friends there, crashing it into known rocks. Even after the ship had hit the rocks and was stuck, he denied to the company and potential rescuers that anything other than an electrical “black out” occurred and delayed even issuing an “abandon ship” until …
Overcoming the hype to educate people about sociopaths
Lovefraud recently received the following email from a reader whom we'll call “Eleanor.” Thank you for your wonderful site Lovefraud! It has helped me tremendously. I am still with my sociopath husband, but am quietly and surely planning on leaving. We have a few children so it really makes it more complicated. He has now gone up to the next stage in what I've read sociopaths love to do. I'm so thankful that I read about it before he did it and know how to react and what to expect! He's started to call up my family, giving them a sob story about how broken he is and how I won't get any help (we've gone through a few counselors, with no obvious results as they've all been taken in by his a …
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Joe Paterno and ignorance of evil
Joe Paterno, the legendary Penn State football coach, has died. I can't help but wonder if the travesty of the last few months, with his former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, being charged with sexually molesting 10 young boys over 15 years, killed him. I'm not an alumna of Penn State. (I am, however, an alumna of Syracuse University, with its own scandal of an assistant basketball coach allegedly molesting boys.) Still, I hate to see the storied career of Joe Paterno forever blackened by the malevolent behavior of one man, if that proves to be the case. Some people argue that Paterno had to know what was going on. They argue that Paterno was so concerned about his legacy, the …
Another documentary to spread the word about psychopaths
Filmmaker Alexander Davidis has directed commercials for international advertising agencies and documentaries about historic race cars. Then he had an experience with a psychopath, and now wants to help tell the world that these predators live among us. Davidis already started by interviewing some of the world's leading researchers on psychopathy. To complete the project, he's listed it on Kickstarter, which is the world's largest funding platform for creative projects. He wants to raise at least $60,000. Kickstarter is interesting. Anyone can be a backer, pledging as little as $1 on a credit card. In order for the money to be collected, the project must reach its entire goal by the …
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Bank intentionally hires psychopaths
Last week Lovefraud published an article about the paper written by a British professor who theorized that the global financial crisis was caused by corporate psychopaths. Here's another article on the same topic with an amazing twist: One British investment banker admits that his company actually hired corporate psychopaths on purpose, because "their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles." I wonder if that bank is still in business. Read Brian Basham: Beware corporate psychopaths they are still occupying positions of power, on Independent.co.uk. …
Food for thought: I am fishead movie
It's an ambitious project—attempting to explain psychopaths in global leadership positions, a possible cause of what looks like psychopathic behavior, and what to do about it all. This is the documentary film, I am <fishead(, produced and directed by Misha Votruba and Vaclav Dejcmar. Here's a clip, featuring Dr. Robert Hare, the guru of psychopathy: [youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/xiDhVdCjaok rel=0 fs=1 autohide=1 modestbranding=1] Corporate psychopaths Fishead is divided into three parts. Part 1 is about psychopaths, specifically corporate psychopaths, who are blamed for the global financial meltdown that began in 2008. This is probably true, although the only individual n …
Psychopaths and the financial crisis
With their charm and charisma, they take over business organizations. Then they enrich themselves, without regard to who gets hurt in the process. Finally, the organizations crash and burn, and they lie, blame others, and walk away with obscene buy-outs. Does it sound familiar? Read Cohan: Did psychopaths take over Wall Street? on Bloomberg.com. Link supplied by two Lovefraud readers. …
Holidays after the sociopath
Lovefraud recently received the following email: It's almost a year since I last saw my x-sociopath as a boyfriend, the real last time was in May in a court and some after. It is hard this time of year with the Holidays around, and I have a lot of health issues and so not hearing his voice, or getting calls, has been hard—even though I know now he is liar. This time last year I did not know how much I had been scammed up til then. Still, with all the reading I have done, and all the thinking and grieving, I just can't understand how this person could have fooled me, or that he knew that he was doing so much wrong to me, while sometimes still saying I love you back to me after I said i …
Millions of elderly suffer financial abuse every year
Researchers conducted a phone survey of 4,000 people over age 60. Even though none of these people suffered dementia or other mental decline, 4.2 percent said they had been the victim of financial fraud or exploitation during the preceding year. On a national scale, that translates to millions of victims. Read Financial abuse of the elderly is approaching a crisis, researcher says, on Philly.com. …
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