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.
how terribly yet further enlightening…i followed most of the threads…..we have quite a road ahead of us….just reaffirms why so many of us find comfort here
The task of trying to make people “get it” seems daunting. The comments are upsetting and I think many of them represent the vast majority out there of opinions on abused women.
Maybe we should write a book called,
Would you know abuse if you saw it? Are you sure?
Some Definations of “con”
To swindle (a victim) by first winning his or her confidence; dupe.
”“adjective 1. involving abuse of confidence: a con trick.
”“verb (used with object) 2. to swindle; trick: That crook conned me out of all my savings.
3. to persuade by deception, cajolery, etc.
”“noun 4. a confidence game or swindle.
5. a lie, exaggeration, or glib self-serving talk
LoveFraud could also be called LoveCon. People don’t get what it is to be conned.
Also, I keep seeing the comments that Donald Trump has made about Anne Hathaway. What an idiot… and how sad for her. He is making her out to be some kind of money grubbing gold digger when I am sure she has plenty of her OWN money. He is such an idiot!
Dear Donna,
Word IS filtering out SLOWLY, and TOO slowly for my “money.” Another group that can “qualify” as psychopaths are CHILD SEXUAL PREDATORS–yet they are not as a group listed as psychopaths, but quite frankly, how could a child molester NOT BE A PSYCHOPATH?
The sheer numbers of these people (mostly but not entirely men) if added to the “numbers” of people computed to be psychopaths alone would double or triple the percentage of psychopahts in our society.
Those “pro father kidnapping child” articles make me want to scream! I believe in BALANCED journalism, but Jimmeny Cricket, that is unbelievable.
As for downing the woman who was married to this creep, the guy showed that he knows NOTHING and should not be allowed to print a word for the public to read!
While I am sure that Ms. Boss is quite bright, there are lots of BRIGHT women that are screwed over as bad or worse than she was and for longer periods of time. Aloha’s writing the definitions of “con” are so right on, maybe some of these “journalists” should be sent a dictionary!
I really hope this case makes the major news media though and that SOMEONE calls him a psychopath. Maybe he will go to a big public media trial as well as a legal one. Every one of these guys who is “outed” in the media gives us (the public) a chance to get to see another one of the “super Ps” in action, but also maybe there will be some professionals that will speak out about this and other such cases and try to get the public to see that it isn’t JUST THE SUPER PS that are dangerous but the neighbor who beats his wife, the swindler at the bank, or the used car dealer or the attorney or the physician or the clerk at the store. All of these people are dangerous, but only a few are serial killers or “upscale” con men, like the Governor of NY or the ENRON CEOs, or our last X-president (that’s my opinion–not the opinion of LF or other bloggers) The current Senator from Alaska who is being charged with taking bribes AND NOT REPORTING THEM—LOL
Our society is rife with these predators–large and small–in every level of society. But the more publicity that comes out, I think the better–as long as it is even half way accurate.
It will be interesting for “Rockefeller’s” real history and life story to come out—I imagine there will be a book out before long, and who knows, maybe a movie! Popcorn anyone?
the other sad part about all this is that many people read these articles for entertainment and just briefly touch on the depth of the story….this prevents them from really feeling the pain that these creeps cause…..and many looking for a cause, any cause, will believe the idiot author…after all, she is with her father……..what about the poor pediatrician who lost her kids….they after all were with their father!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think too, that with such a media blitz as we hav ewith so much “news” and “entertainment” available to everyone, it is like these things aren’t “real.” I don’t normall watch broadcast tV and I don’t have cable but with the election coming up I have been watching a bit lately and in flipping channels I have seen some of the media hype about varous “stars” (I don’t even know who these people are) and their dysfunctional and narcissistic life styles, their child abuses for their children, their drinking and drugging lifestyles and it is like when they get picked up and arrested for various things with drugs, DUI and so on, or endangering their children it is just more “entertainment” and no one looks “seriously” at this terrible behavior. And we wonder why some of our youth don’t have a moral compass? Youth who have these “stars” held up to them as role models? Sheesh! I am more than ever glad that I “deprived” my children of television completely from ages 7 to 14.
I did watch an episode of “America’s most wanted” with Walsh which had “Rockefeller” and the kidnapping on it. HE seems to get it that these people are psychopaths though he doesn’t call them by that name usually. But, then, after losing a child to a kidnapper, I would imagine he WOULD get it. I still hope that the judge that let Dr. Amy’s kids go for unsupervisied visits with their psychopathic father that killed them gets disbarred and thrown off the bench. His name should be posted on a web site in a “hall of shame” for judges.
Maybe one of us can do such a thing, put up a web site for “hall of shame” for judges who let these criminals and psychopaths get away with murder. As long as we didn’t “defame” them just printed the TRUTH and named the judges themselves and cited the cases it wouldn’t be illegal.
How about it donna? You up for that?
It’s such a hard thing to judge, without knowing the individual case. On the one hand you have abusive fathers or mothers lying about their exes in an effort to keep the kids from them.
Then on the other hand you have innocent parents trying to do the right thing and keep their kids away from the sicko who might ruin their lives.
It makes me agree with good old Dr. Laura: Just because you are dating a guy doesn’t make him worth marrying, and just because you marry him doesn’t make him worthy of having a child with you.
Right now this makes me think of inthebreach, who is up against the lions in her own custody battle.
Comes back to what we have all been taught, “There are two sides to every story”, except that ALWAYS gives the benefit to the one who is LYING.
The media loves a good he said she said, good bad story, and there are WAY too many socio’s out there to defend each other.
My guy had really sympathetic points of view about Michael Miliken and Carl Ickard – old timey big time swindlers on Wall Street. But in a good way. ( I kid)
It has been some time since I have chosen to live without the invasion of the mainstream media, so I am not familiar with the nuances projected to us, BUT, for those of us with some awareness of the SPN’s whaddya say?
Was it the SUPPLY – the 15 mins. the attention?
Was it the REVENGE- the I will destroy you?
Was it the PITY PLAY- Poor me I am married to a first class b-tch?
Or was it “when this is over I am going to write a book and star in a reality TV show?
Most of the people screaming about defending these folks are likely either A) Really good targets, or B) SNP’s
So she went to a big school and she is smart and successful. Does not mean she could see through the mask.
For the record, my first husband kidnapped my daughter when she was two, and kept her for 4 months, without a sign of life. She is now 37 and struggling to heal from a 12 year two children relationship with a classic P. Charming as all hell, an ARTIST.
P’s run in families and so do victims. That is the stuff we need to educate on, IMHO.
Peace to all.
P.S Sorry if I sound angry and bitter, I know that LIFE is actually GOOD.
DEar Eyeswideshut,
your above post is very thought provoking and your mention of the “there are two sides to every story” reminds me that we were taught that in school, and it was it seemed to me to mean that there are TWO VALID sides to every story, but you know, I have found that that is NOT THE TRUTH. There may be two sides, but it DOES NOT mean that there is ANY validity to one of them.
They also taught us that “it takes two to fight”—which is entirely WRONG., it only takes ONE to beat the crap out of you. Every “fight” does NOT mean that both parties are at fault. Yet that was what they taught us in grade school.
EWS, please don’t apologize for sounding “angry or bitter” (you didn’t sound that way by the way) I can’t even imagine how you must have suffered while your child was gone, and how you have suffered since, seeing her involved in a long term relationship with a P. My son just got out of a 7-8 year one, and thank goodness there were no children from it.
I am glad though, that both our adult children are on the road to healing from the P-experiences. (((hugs))) to you and your daughter and your grandchildren as well.
ps..I have very limited access (by choice) to the mainstream media, and every once in a while I do turn on the broadcast TV (and I do watch DVD movies and read the NYTimes on line) but it doesn’t take but a show or two for me to turn it back off again. LOL When my kids were 7 our TV broke, and I kept telling them we “couldn’t afford to get it fixed” and I did that for 7 years. (they would accept a financial reason but would have rebelled if I had said “I don’t want you to watch it, go out and play”) so my kids learned to play, make toys, roam the woods and build forts, ride their horses, care for pets, garden, learned to hunt and fish and camp and GASP—READ!!!
newworldview,
You are absolutely right. When they tell a story like this on TV.. they tell all of the bits like.. he was married to two women, he stole some money… blah blah… but they never really tell the real story.
The real story is what we talk about here… the fall out of being betrayed in this way and how hard it is to heal from it.
But how would they put that in words?
Victims of abusive/exploitive relationships have already been cast in a role that makes it hard to feel for them… they have been cast as stupid, weak, “should have known”. These are roles that don’t allow for people to relate to them and therefore try to understand or empathize. If you see a person in a movie get hurt really bad by doing something that is stupid, you don’t feel for them as much because you don’t identify with them.
People see themselves as separate and/or above us. They can not identify with us because who would want to relate to or feel for someone that they think is stupid, weak, and should have known?
These explanations also help people to believe it couldn’t happen to them because of course, they think they would know, are not weak, and not stupid.
It’s an imaginary safety net.
Dear Aloha,
As usualy, you cut to the chase “imaginary safety net”—I guess we all think we have one to some extent or another–otherwise the world would be a really scary place.
I know that I had one of those imaginary nets, knitted from my own arrogance.