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.
Yeah, interesting questions. If you’re under eighteen you can’t buy cigarettes, but you can buy an arsonal. hmmmm.
My dad was a dyed in the wool conservative, and he was a sportsman, a hunter and a fisherman….My Dad was a good man, but as I grew up, I didn’t like that he slaughtered animals….he also was a member of a trap and skeet club, and recieved a lot of trophys for his accumen at shooting clay pidgeons…it was his hobby. He had a small arsenol in his den, that he kept locked up, and a sticker on the bumper of his car that read, “when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.” This is, yet, another conundrum, because there is so much truth to that. Our Governent is corrupt, psychopathic, even, that convincing us that taking guns out of the hands of the people, leaves us at the mercy of Government and hoodlums….so, another politically packed issue.
I’m sure, though, that there could be some sanctions in place that would make it against the law to sell bullets to alled kid….or some kind of technical record keeping, that signa someone was stocking up on assault weapons and might pose a danger to society.
US gun culture is unique in the industrial world (though similar gun culture is present all over the Americas).
Personally I think that if someone wants to go out and create a massacre they will: the Liege massacre last year in Belgium (spath); the Utoya island massacre along with a bombing of a year ago in Scandinavia (also spath); teen Hans Van Temse who went on a racist killing spree in Antwerp, Belgium with a shotgun couple of years ago; but also Kim De Gelder who violently entered a daycare center and knifed babies in Belgium (there are a lot of signs he was psychotic for a while already; but prosecution experts diagnozed him a spath faking psychosis… personally I believe he is psychotic, but they want him tried for murder anyhow… a psychosis diagnoze would have meant no trial and straight to the mental hospital; as a BTW he looked like the Joker because of his neglect in personal care – white faced, dark circles around the eyes, and therefore stark red mouth – and it happened not long after the Batman movie with Heath Ledger came out). Kim De Gelder shows that massacres can happen even without guns and bomb material. But that doesn’t necessarily mean society imo should make it easy on people though to acquire lots of massacre weaponry so easily.
The biggest difference though between countries with gun control and the US are the fatalities of accidental shootings. A child dies every 3 days in the US because of an accident with a gun.
Sorry, I don’t buy the concept of ‘bad behavior’ for a massacre. If a premeditated rampage is bad behavior then I think bullying should be called the act of compassion.
There may be environmental influences triggering a genetic predisposition but ‘bad behavior,’ I don’t think so. Even a gang member, used to of crime, differentiate his/her targets and don’t kill whoever comes in front of his/her weapon.
mani, I understand your response, but the article is not just about the massacre, and Donna does not call massacring people ‘bad behaviour’ but ‘murderous behaviour’.
Donna wrote: “Just because someone behaves badly, even murderously, it does not prove that the person is a sociopath”
Other than that ‘bad’ in general is the adjective opposite of ‘good’.
Well, at least, that’s how I read it 🙂
There are many unanswered questions about the Colorado shooting, but two stand out to me. 1) The prevalence of violence in our culture. For example, the movie that the victims were watching? We cannot expect our culture NOT to be affected by watching horrific violence and have it not affect most of us – some worse than others. 2) I do believe that it is highly probable that there will be many elements of mental illness discovered in the shooter. Sandra Brown has written in her book “Women who love Psychopaths” that many psychopaths are “combo platters.” They exhibit signs of depression, OCD, ADHD, and bi polar disorder. Personally, I think this shooter does display a lot of symptoms of psychopathy. Predatory, intelligent, aloof, deattached, glib, superficial, guiltless, and poor behavioral controls. There is still much work to be done for this horrific event, but I do not think we should eliminate this as the work of a psychopath yet. Remember, there are many things we dont know about the human brain. We are still discussing human beings and there can be variances in their behavior.In the meantime, we wait and pray for the victims and their families.
Yes, it is can be argued that living in a culture where bad guys have guns, good people should have the right to arm themselves, too. But the culture of violence and guns in this country runs deep and is tied in to our ongoing fear that is perpetuated by the media. We are a very fearful people, and owning weapons ties into our irrational fears that the bad guy is around every corner. News stories in our country tend to focus mainly on crime and to sensationalize everything that plays into our fears. When people are in fear, they perceive that they need weapons to make them safe. Couple that with the fact that guns have been glamorized in our society since the John Wayne days. It’s considered being a “man” to be able to fire your first gun. If any of you haven’t seen it, “Bowling for Columbine” addresses this issues with great depth. If you haven’t seen it, it’s worth seeing. Now if you guys also consider Michael Moore a sociopath, then I don’t have much more to say.
My Jamaican friend heard of the massacre and wrote to me worrying about me. I had to explain to her that a massacre like this is very rare, and Denver is very large. The probability of this happening to me is still infinitessimally small. But based on the media coverage, you would think America is a warzone like parts of the Middle East and you can’t walk down the street at night safely. It’s really not like that at all here. But when events like this happen, people go into fear, and that fear is perpetuated by the media.
This is NOT to say that if you are being stalked, your life is not in real danger. I’m not talking about those situations, where having a gun can give you a sense of peace and possibly save your life. I’m talking about the average person feeling like he/she needs a gun just to walk down the street.
hope52, I think this guy is one taco shy of a combo platter.
Star, Recently here in OK, a 12 year old boy killed his little sister for interupting his vidio game. He got two years in a juvinile detention center.
At the same time an american/indian mother got 12 years for selling 30 dollar’s worth of weed. Go figure.
When I make the statement about violence in our culture I say it in referring to the violence in our media. I have two children now in their 20s who have witnessed far more violence in movie theaters and on video games than I think is healthy. It is desesentizing our culture to violence.The shooter may have been thinking it was a “movie” and those were not real bullets OR he knew that he wanted to kill a lot of people for the sport. They deserved it. At any rate, gun control doesnt help because where there is a will there is a way. I think we need to take another look however at the violence in movies, video games, and on tv. It does have an affect on young children and adolescent behavior.
hope52: I agree with you.
The media is sensationalizing violence and bad behavior.
I absolutely agree with you. However, where is the line between doing what is absolutely morally right, and freedom of expression?
When I was a kid, growing up, most of the things we see on television and/or in the news never made the news but perhaps in a brief passing comment because of the suspicion that people become influenced and desensitized. Just as you have brought up here. The so called ‘copy cat’ crimes that follow due to over coverage and reporting.
I never allowed my children to watch televison as they were growing up for that very reason. While I DID make them aware of the ‘ugliness’ that exists in life, I did not spoon feed it to them on a daily basis. Nor did I allow them to make their own choices and/or decisions until I felt they were responsible enough to handle it.
I was Mom and Dad, both, to them, for over half their lives. They have all turned out well adjusted, smart and successful people and I can’t think of a better achievement I could have ever made in my life: my children.
Yes, all of this DOES have an immense affect on children. And, I would guess there are a whole lot of ‘latch key’ kids out there, in our society…just sitting prey for these kinds of influences, without the proper guidance because Mom and Dad are NOT rotten people but because their thoughts are on trying to make a life. I don’t believe it’s intentional but parents have to be aware PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR KIDS. They need to be safeguarded from the violence and things that are not good for them. Things that will ‘taint’ them as human beings. It’s all about the ‘attention’.
GOD BLESS THE CHILDREN
AND WHAT THEY SEE AND HEAR.
I totally disagree with the article. All the above names listed in my opinion, at the very least, are all sociopaths, evil, in fact, no normal thinking person does those things. I don’t even want to play the game of semantics, in the end they are all evil bastards. Enough sad.