Last month I was in a law firm. Not because of a legal issue—I was there to discuss writing the content for their new websites. Two lawyers, who had been part of one firm, were setting up independent practices. One lawyer hired me. The other wasn’t sure, so he wanted to meet me. A week later I learned that the second lawyer decided he would write his website himself.
On Saturday, I was shocked to see a story in the local newspaper: The second lawyer, Seth A. Fuscellaro, who was also a public defender in Lower Township, New Jersey, was charged in a $15 million mortgage fraud scheme. The FBI actually arrested him in municipal court and escorted him out in handcuffs.
The lawyer was one of 11 people charged in the scheme. One man was also charged with attempted murder—he allegedly shot a witness multiple times. (The witness survived.)
As I read the article for the second time, I still couldn’t believe my eyes. When I met Fuscellaro, I saw absolutely nothing that might indicate any inappropriate behavior, let alone fraud on the scale reported in the newspaper. I had no reason to think the man might be anything but a busy lawyer.
Colorado movie massacre
People are having the same reaction, on a much larger scale, to the news that James Holmes, a shy neurosciences student who was working on his Ph.D., was arrested in the shooting massacre in the Aurora, Colorado movie theater.
People who knew Holmes, and knew his family, are stunned. Neighbors and teachers described him as “smart” but “quiet.” According to an article on CBSNews.com, “In high school, Holmes won a competitive position at a rigorous science boot camp and an internship in neurobiology at the prestigious Salk Institute.”
A video has emerged showing Holmes as an 18-year-old making a presentation to fellow students at a science camp, explaining “subjective experience—what takes place inside the mind, as opposed to the external world.”
Watch: James Holmes: First video of alleged killer released, on ABCNews.go.com.
Obviously, people want to know, “Is Holmes delusional? Does he have a mental illness?” It’s certainly too soon to know. But reporters are already asking the question:
Was this killer mentally ill?
“It says a lot about the type of prejudice we have when we automatically go to the presumption that a clinical mental illness was the cause,” says Praveen Kamban, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California-Los Angeles. “Even the surgeon general of the United States has said there’s very little risk of violence or harm from a stranger who has a mental disorder.
“Not all bad behavior comes from mental illness. Sometimes it can simply be bad behavior.”
Read Probe of shooting suspect James Holmes intensifies, on USAToday.com.
Syndrome of sociopathy (psychopathy)
Here is the point of today’s post: Just because someone behaves badly, even murderously, it does not prove that the person is a sociopath (psychopath).
Sociopathy is a pattern of behavior in which individuals manipulate and exploit others. It is a syndrome, which means the disorder is associated with several recognizable features, symptoms or behaviors.
As I explain on the Key Symptoms page of Lovefraud.com, Dr. Robert Hare identified the traits of a psychopath as:
- Glib and superficial
- Egocentric and grandiose
- Lack of remorse or guilt
- Lack of empathy
- Deceitful and manipulative
- Shallow emotions
- Impulsive
- Poor behavior controls
- Need for excitement
- Lack of responsibility
- Early behavior problems
- Adult antisocial behavior
Although James Holmes has yet to be charged in the Colorado shootings, let alone tried and convicted, he was caught at the scene and his apartment was booby-trapped with explosives. I think it’s fair to anticipate that he will go to prison.
Obviously, his actions were massively evil. Holmes planned his assault in a cold, calculated way. But is he glib, egocentric, grandiose or impulsive? Does he have a need for excitement? Did he have early behavior problems? Look at the video—does this guy at all resemble the human predators that we were involved with? No.
In my opinion, as heinous as this man’s actions were, he probably is not a sociopath (psychopath).
Joe Paterno
Here on Lovefraud, there was also a raging debate a few days ago about Joe Paterno. This case is a bit muddier, because we have learned, through the Freeh Report, that Paterno did lie, at least in reference to his knowledge of Sandusky’s behavior with young boys. We’ve also learned that he wielded incredible power at Penn State, used his power to protect his turf, and was willing to throw innocent children under the bus in order to avoid negative publicity and a stain on the shining image of Penn State football.
This is reprehensible. It is a betrayal of everything that the coach supposedly stood for. Still, based on what has been published about this affair, I doubt that any competent clinician would diagnose Paterno as a sociopath.
Keep in mind that not only is sociopathy a syndrome, it’s also a continuum. That means that a disordered person can have any of the traits listed above to a greater or lesser degree. To qualify as a sociopath, an individual needs high enough scores on enough of the traits to meet the threshold.
So perhaps Paterno would have scored high on “egocentric and grandiose.” But would he have scored high on all, or even many, of those other traits?
Quite honestly, I don’t know for sure. I never went to Penn State, never met Joe Paterno. I only have access to media reports, and they may be incorrect or biased. Many, many sportswriters have been coming out with articles saying, “I believed Joe Paterno and I was wrong.”
Bad behavior
Here at Lovefraud we’re learning about sociopaths, which is important not only for us as individuals, but for all of society. Millions of these predators live among us; they are incredibly destructive; and we need to watch out for them. The more people who are aware that they exist, the better.
Still, we need to guard against seeing a sociopath behind every bush. Not everyone who is power-centered, lies and steals, or even commits mass murder is a sociopath. As the psychiatrist quoted above says, sometimes bad behavior is just bad behavior.
I’m sure if we googled, profile of mass-murderer, we would find out the “type” of person who commits the “type” of crime. It may or may not have some of the same symptoms that sociopathy does, but that may be a good place to start answering these questions. Think I’ll do that, now.
The stress of medical school is grueling. I witnessed a suicide from a nearby medical school building last year (saw the body after the person had jumped). I heard rumors that it was a medical student. Who knows what kind of delusions or mental illness may have been triggered by stress or other events in this person’s life?
Did any of you ever see the movie “Falling Down” with Michael Douglas? He is an ordinary business man who has a series of frustrations that drive him to obtain a gun and go on a shooting spree in a manner of hours. The story line illustrates how someone can be a non-spath and just get to a point of desperation. This can happen. People can be complex. There are a whole range of dangerous people who are not necessarily sociopaths. A sense of isolation and inability to express ones feelings can created a sense of being bottled up. When the bottle explodes, that can look different for different people.
In any event, I’ll let you all continue the debate over whether he’s a spath or not. I’m not interested in that part of the conversation. The point of my post was to show you that there ARE good people in the world. All the people who responded to this event are good people. When stuff like this happens, it is important for me to know that there are good people. I thought maybe it might be important for some people here, too.
Yes, Falling down. Very good movie.
Yes this is a tragedy but all I can think of is he is a creation of a screwed up society. Look at the violent vidio games children grow up watching..shoot shoot kill kill…
What james holmes did in that theatre was actually a scene he reenacted from a previous batman movie. If society feed’s this kind of crap into the mind’s of people from an early age what can we expect in the future?
I dont care what he is, I hope this wakes up some folk’s that let their kid’s grow up on this kind of shit..People are fuckin CRAZY
Star,
of course there are good people. It’s very important to recognize that and the media is already hailing all the amazing heroes who saved lives in this tragedy.
Those people are absolutely amazing. It overwhelms me emotionally.
Falling down does seem to epitomize some of this guy’s problems. maybe I need to watch it again. It’s all about perspective.
Darwinsmom,
I think I get what you mean: It’s all about the mask. For most of his life, it doesn’t appear (from what we know) that he wore a mask, or very much of one. He didn’t live a life of lies so he might not be a spath. That’s a very good point. You make very good sense. Just wondering if someone who has psychopathy along with another problem, like high-functioning asperger’s, might not be so good with lying?
There is definitely something to that, hens. We live in a society with more crime per capita than many other countries. Why? The roots of violence are deep in our culture. I think Michael Moore did a great job examining them in his movie “Bowling for Columbine” which took on the subject of the Columbine shootings. He asks the question of how something like this can happen. And the answers are pretty sobering.
We can look at the gun control angle and ask why it was so easy for Holmes to have ordered so many weapons in such a short period of time.
And then there is the personal angle of what was going on in his brain to cause his particular type of genius (and I’m guessing he probably has a genius level IQ) to destruction. Genius is pain in a society that values conformity and mediocrity.
Sky, we have it eons easier than people in third world countries. However, those countries have built in values and customs that enable people to feel connected to one another. This decreases stress. The poor people of Costa Rica are amongst the happiest in the world. Happiness has nothing to do with material wealth. If it did, Americans would be ridiculously happy.
Well if some law abiding person or person’s with a gun permit had been carrying a concealed weapon maybe they could of taken him out. In November people in my state can openly carry a gun. I guess that include’s mass murderer’s and various degrees of personality disorder’s mixed in with the honest lawabiding guy out to proctect himself and his family. Aint life interesting. Let’s face it we are never going to have gun control law’s that work, not in our life time. If this orange headed freaking genious could buy assault weapons and bomb building supply’s online, with the money we tax payer’s were giving him (grant’s) what’s the next tragedy going to be? Reality is bleak sometimes.
That’s just it. I don’t see why it should be so easy for someone to order 50 assault weapons without anyone stopping to ask why he needed them. The Columbine shooters, two high school students, were able to buy bullets at K-mart. Why did no one ever question why high school kids were buying bullets or guns for that matter? These are just common sense things. My neighbor upstairs, a former cop, has a concealed weapons permit, and he owns a gun. This is a guy who is seriously depressed and living on SSDI for his depression. Did anyone ever question why a seriously depressed person needs a gun?
Star and Hens,
when I left my spath, I made sure to take his case of 1000 rounds of hollow point bullets for his semi automatic whatever thing he bought. Gave it to a spathy cop far from our county.
argh. I wish I’d sold it for the $1000 it was worth but I was too freaked out at the time, my spath parents wanted it out of the house and my car was heating up to a thousand degrees in the summer and I was afraid it would expode. I really needed the money, I wish I’d sold it.
Hens, I was thinking the same thing, but then someone online pointed out that he was wearing armour. Yeah, he’s smarter than the average rat. unless you carry an ak47 into the theater, your little gun would just get you killed. UNLESS, maybe, you can shoot his face with deadly accuracy. oh wait he was wearing a gas mask.