Kidnapping case exposes need for society to learn about psychopaths

Reigh Storrow Mills Boss, the 7-year-old girl allegedly kidnapped by her father, Clark Rockefeller, has been safely reunited with her mother, Sandra Boss.

Last Thursday, I received a phone call from an ABC News reporter who wanted information about women who marry con men. At that point, I knew nothing about the case. The girl’s mother had just released a video appeal to the father of the child, pleading for her safe return. But I did know about marrying a con man. After speaking to the reporter for about 30 minutes, I put her in touch with Dr. Liane Leedom and two Lovefraud readers who were willing to be interviewed.

Here’s the story: How do smart women get taken by con men?

The story was mostly accurate. But one sentence exemplified the people’s confusion about con artists, sociopaths, psychopaths. The reporter wrote: “Leedom believes con artists seek out people who will be ‘good’ victims, just like a psychopath may seek out someone to kill.”

Con artists are psychopaths. And not all psychopaths are killers.

Blaming the victim

In her article about this case on Friday, Dr. Leedom drew attention to a Boston Herald columnist, Peter Gelzinis, who wrote a piece highly critical of Sandra Boss. He wrote that the con man, Clark Rockefeller, “managed to stay married to a brilliant Stanford/Harvard Business School world beater for about a dozen years before she apparently figured out her husband had no Social Security number, no valid driver’s license and no visible means of support.”

Readers posted comments in reaction to the story. Here are some of them:

She’s not missing!!!!! She’s with her father!

I agree that Ms. Boss has a lot of explaining to do. Fourteen years is a long time to remain in the dark about one’s spouse, assuming a person has two brain cells to rub together. And I think it’s pretty outrageous that she accepted a higher-paying position in England, when she knew it would damage Rockefeller’s rights to visit their child.

More support for con artist

With this, I started looking around the web for more blog comments. Here are some on the Topix web site, based on a Chicago Tribune article:

Massachusetts is notorious for taking parental rights from fathers and financially ruining them. Why wasn’t the mother prosecuted for abducting the child to England. God forbid the lunatics in the media question her…..

I think it is very important that a child has the right to a relationship with both parents therefore in Idaho where I live joint custody is the law of the land unless extreme abuse against the child can be proved, the social worker injured herself by running after and grabbing onto that car, that is ridiculous, she was never attacked, I don’t blame the Father for absconding with his child if he was required to only have supervised visits and yet the Mother was globe trotting with his child.

I do not agree that abuse against a woman or the Mother is good reason to require supervised visits because sometimes the woman starts the abuse, I have seen my sister in action and she beat the living crap out of her ex husband simply because he didn’t give her his paycheck!

Here are comments on a story published by CBS News, in which Reigh Boss’ former babysitter called Clark Rockefeller a “great father”:

The system is set up to cater to women, period. I hope this guy has a great life with his daughter.The only thing the money hungry bitch is worried about is $$$$$.

I still see that the mother is an instigator. I hope as a woman, that I would never take my child away from the man I had him/her with. No matter how much I hated him. My sister HATES her ex-husband but allows him to see his children all the time…you know why? Cause they love daddy too, it’s not just about mommy…when you do what this “shrew” did….THATS WHAT screws up a child. And now I am contradicting myself because the father has now done that. BUT SHE STARTED IT.

Learning needed

There are, of course, plenty of blog comments that supported the mother and criticized the con artist father. But I was looking for the comments that indicate how little people understand about con men, psychopaths and child custody.

Con artists are psychopaths, also called sociopaths. Here’s what we all, as a society, need to learn about them:

• Psychopaths can be either men or women.
• Anyone can be conned by a psychopath.
• Psychopaths make terrible parents.
• Psychopaths do not love their children. They use the children for their own purposes, and damage the kids in the process.
• Children should be protected from psychopathic parents.
• The issue is not whether the father or mother should get custody. The issue is that the healthy parent should get custody.