Lovefraud has just posted a new case study on Lovefraud.com. It’s probably the most frightening article in True Lovefraud Stories:
Mark Ledden stabs his wife 11 times, then accuses her of attacking him
This is the story of a man who would probably score at the top of the PCL-R, the tool that measures psychopathic traits. He was charming, scamming and over sexed. He coldly threatened violence. Then, when he was crossed, he brutally acted on his threats.
It is also the story of a woman caught in a no-win situation. He seemed like a good guy, a responsible guy, when they became involved. Three months later they were engaged, and three months after that she was pregnant.
After the second child, Mark Ledden started threatening to kill his wife if she ever left him. By this time, Denise knew him well enough to take the threats seriously. She knew he was capable of committing that act of violence.
She also knew that if she left him, he would track her down and make good on his threats. So she stayed—until he did commit violence so atrocious that he was sent to prison. Luckily, she survived.
What do you do?
This case brings up the most difficult scenario when involved with a psychopath: What do you do when he (or she) threatens brutal violence, and you know the person means it?
What good is a restraining order? In reality, they are nothing but pieces of paper, and violence-prone psychopaths don’t care about paper.
Do you go off the grid and completely disappear? If so, how do you start over? You’ll have no identity, no background, no support network.
If Denise had called me for advice while she was still with this man, I don’t know what I would have told her. So I ask Lovefraud readers for your views. How would you advise someone who is living with a psychopathic volcano that could explode at any time?
I wish I could offer an answer specific to the question.
This is why it is ever so imperative that word get out about this dangerous disorder, so that people can more easily spot them BEFORE getting so deeply involved, and so that once unwittingly enmeshed the targets can reach out and expect to be believed and get meaningful help.
Well, my son didn’t actually manage to have me killed by his ex cell mate that he sent into my family like a Trojan Horse, but he was working on it…if his Trojan Horse hadn’t gotten greedy and got caught lying to me about getting money from my egg donor, and if my friend in Texas hadn’t found his mug shot on a SEX OFFENDER list, I might never have known that I NEEDED TO RUN.
The girl my son is in prison for killing, a 17 year old girl, he had told several people he INTENDED TO KILL HER, one guy he even discussed where he would put the body, after he killed her, he took her rings and purse and jewelry back to her roommate and told the roommate he had killed her.
I think this Mark Ledden is the same kind of violent psychopath my P son is and the violent threats are not just angry threats that are not real, I think he, like my psychopathic son feels that he has a RIGHT to do this. Mark’s comment that “I’ll already get 5 years for what I’ve done” showed to me that he has NO FEAR OF PRISON, and KNOWS that the law thinks what he has done is wrong, but HE THINKS HE HAS A RIGHT to do what he wants to.
I think this young woman made a terrible mistake to stay with him out of FEAR.
At this moment I am taking a calculated risk of living in my own home under my own name, knowing that my Psychopathic son, though he is in prison, would murder me if he could. He feels justified in doing so, he knows it is wrong, but he hates me so even if he figured he would be caught (but of course he’s too arrogant to acknowledge that) he would STILL try to kill me if he could.
If my egg donor dies and he gets possession of any significant amount of money ($1,000 or more) from her estate, I have decided that the RISK TO STAY HERE IS TOO GREAT and that he will be able to “finance” one or another of his ex convict friends to come after me. Since he has no friends who could afford the gas money to get them from Texas to here, I actually calculate I am fairly safe now, but if he does get enough money to finance one, he is crafty enough to convince some dumb yo-yo ex con that by killing me he will inherit a Zillion dollars and share it with the con for knocking the old biddy off! Especially if he can provide the guy with a few hundred dollars to drive up here to do it.
I have read just about every book about stalking and/or how to hide from someone that I can find on the internet from Gavin DeBecker’s “The Gift of Fear” to others on how to stay under the radar and not leave a paper trail. I have researched which states and countries are friendly to Americans and what papers they require. BTW California is actually very friendly to people being stalked and will help with name and SS# changes etc.
I am a retired person wihtout any minor children too, which helps me, and I have at least minimal resources to get up and go with, that this young woman and many women or men with children don’t have. How do you make a living? How do you educate your kids without leaving a PAPER TRAIL? In the internet age, where it is almost impossible to NOT leave a trail, I’m sure it can be done, though, as there are somewhere about 11 million illegal aliens in our country alone. I also read about a young woman who hid in Holland and worked as an illegal maid to support herself and her child while running from her husband.
I wouldn’t say it would be EASY, or even in many cases legal, but I do know that I would I think (knowing what I know now) take my kids and run. I had a hard time convincing myself to go off and leave my possessions and my home and go into hiding as it was….my first reaction was to “stay and fight”—but it finally became obvious that I don’t live in a fort or a castle where I can put down the shutters or pull up the draw bridge and be safe while I slept. I don’t have armed guards to keep watch at every window.
I read the story of Dr. Amy Castillo that was printed here several years ago and I cried and cried. I wondered just how much that woman wished she had given up her medical career and RUN with her children while she had the chance before her X husband got unsupervised visitation and killed them. I wonder to this day how the woman keeps her sanity (if she does) because she made the decision to “fight fair” with a psychopath that had threatened to KILL her children.
Not all people who kill are psychopaths, and not all psychopaths are likely to kill, but I have seen “professional” estimates that 75% of abusers in domestic violence are “qualified” psychopaths so in MY estimation if someone is beating you or threatening violence there is a 75% chance they are a “card carrying psychopath” and there is 100% chance that they have DEMONSTRATED they are CAPABLE of violence which means YOU ARE AT RISK FOR BEING SEVERELY HURT OR MURDERED BY THIS PERSON. Staying only puts you at risk for a longer period of time.
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Most of the time the risk is increased at the time or shortly after leaving such a person so leaving has its own additional risks, and some abusers will STALK the victim FOREVER though some will give up eventually. The woman who holds the FBIs “world record” for being stalked —for 40 years continually by her two x husbands, one mentally ill the other simply psychopathic–Dr. Sherry L. Meinberg wrote about stalking in her book “The Bogeyman, Stalking and its aftermath.” The statistics on stalking are that 1 in 12 women in the US will be stalked at one time in their lives.
I was in fear and I delayed running because it meant leaving my life’s work, my home, my possessions, behind. It meant that I “gave up” the fight in my own mind and was “defeated” by the lies—again, in my own mind.
I’ve come to a different way of looking at things now…and I am “set on go” if at any time I begin to feel that the conditions for my safety have changed, and I will grab my “grab and go” bag and either head off into the woods afoot, or jump in a vehicle and zoom away to safety, or duck behind a wall and shoot it out til the cops get here….whatever it takes. I will NOT live in terror and hyper vigilance to the point that I jump every time I hear a car drive by a half mile away on the highway, wondering if it will turn in here. I live in CAUTION, not terror. I am PREPARED and I also realize that life is not a safe thing, that being born means that there is 100% chance we will die, and that everything we do is a “calculated risk” but trying to appease psychopaths is a losing proposition. This young woman is fortunate indeed that she got out of it alive. If, and more likely, WHEN, her X gets out of prison, he WILL come after her in my opinion. He has had and will have had X number of years to fume and blame her for his being in prison, in fact, to blame her for everything that ever went wrong in his life, just as my psychopathic son blames me for everything he has ever done to get himself arrested, because I called the cops on him when he was 17 and had used my car in the middle of the night to haul the loot from my friend’s business that he robbed. Even the murder he committed three years later is my fault, his life is my fault.
I know there are several things that work against people leaving abusive relationships like this; the trauma bonding that takes place, the lack of self esteem, the lack of financial resources, lack of social resources and support, and the depression and PTSD that goes along with chronic abuse, the fear of physical abuse, the lack of validation by society and the courts and laws, and everything else that is a result of living in chronic fear and stress.
My heart goes out to women and men who have children with these monsters, and who live in fear of their lives and the lives of their children being taken by these violent men and women.
In light of what I know now though, I would advice anyone who is living with or separating from someone who is VIOLENT either physically or with threats to RUN, do whatever it takes to take your children and get away from them where they can’t find you. That may mean leaving behind your career and your professional license that you worked so hard for, or even violating the law, but I can’t even imagine what Dr. Castillo must feel since she chose to work “within the system” and it cost the lives of her children. I don’t blame her for the choice she made, any “reasonable woman” would have done the same I think–and she was a reasonable woman, she tried to work within the law and to conserve what she had worked hard for, her professional license and career, but it was a gamble she lost, that her children lost and I would be willing to bet that she now blames herself.
None of us can see the future, or know what tomorrow brings, but I think it is a pretty good “bet” that if someone is threatening to kill you or your kids, or behaving violently toward you are them, this behavior can ONLY get worse the longer you stay. Get out as easily and as quickly as you can, but GET OUT. GET OUT and hide out if you need to to be safe….even if it means turning your back on everything else in your life and starting over.
You can contact a licensed private investigator for a small fee to get advice on how to live without leaving a paper trail. You aren’t hiding from the FBI, just a stalker who can hire a PI to track you (or do it himself over the internet). If you do end up violating the laws or court orders to hide out because of custody violations, it will be much more difficult and if you get caught by the law you are facing prison time. However, there are countries where you can find refuge. Holland I think is one of them but you may never be able to return to the US.
It is a “crying shame” that psychopaths can put good people in this kind of situation and their kids as well. The general public doesn’t believe this sort of thing is “real” I don’t think, but it IS REAL, and we need to educate others that it is real, but more importantly we need to educate the courts and our legislators that it is real. CHILDREN SHOULD HAVE RIGHTS, parents should not, but it may come down to our protecting our own and our children’s lives with our own.
After putting more thought into it, and reading OxDrover’s excellent comment, I can only add that what I’ve done is tell many people what the sociopath/psychopath in my life has done, what I have reason to believe she may be plotting and why, and her anticipated methods of accomplishing it ”“ which is the polar opposite of how I’ve lived my life previously of keeping my mouth shut except for defending, protecting, and advocating for her. This broadcasting of her history and my suspicions makes it harder for her to get away with whatever, if anything, she may try.
As for moving & hiding, as much as I am determined to hold onto my home, despite her attempting to get it from me, I have considered the danger I’m in living here, where I’ve been since purchasing the house 22 years ago. I guess that’s what I get for being stable. 😉
Instead though, if I do manage to not lose my home ”“ at least not to her ”“ then I would probably stay, now that many people who believe me (and a few who don’t) have been made aware of what she’s done and is capable of doing.
So, if nothing else, get the word out. It may help keep us safe.
Dear Sibs,
Just depends on the amount of violence that the particular psychopath is capable of. Some of them are not violent in the terms of physical danger, and others are very violent in physical ways. Bernie Madoff is in my opinion a psychopath, but I wouldn’t worry about him killing me, just ripping me off financially.
The guy in this story is VERY violent physically, and the THREATS that he made and the past history of physical abuse show that his threats should be taken seriously. Unfortunately the people least likely to take the threats and past violence seriously are the victims…partly due I think to the trauma bonds.
I am amazed that this woman was ABLE to get away from this man…amazed that he didn’t get her while he was out on bail for so long.
One thing I firmly believe is that my P son’s vision of things is so warped that he would come after me even if he knew there were machine gun nests around my house and that he could not kill me wihtout being killed himself–I think he would come on anyway, figuring that if he succeeded in killing me even at the cost of his own life it would be “worth” it and he would be “the winner.”
That being the “winner” and having “control” aspects of the way my son seems to think is so twisted. He thinks of himself as a “success” though he has spent 50% or more of his life in prison, almost 100% of his adult life, yet he thinks he is a “success?????”
What is successful about being a convict? How is he better off and higher status than a prison guard with a GED and a few missing teeth just because his IQ is bigger? Sheesh! My P son’s view of reality and what is success is so twisted he doesn’t even get enough of how other people, normal people, think, to even gestimate how they think.
Just like this guy told his wife that what he’s already done was 5 years so he intended to finish the job????????
Mark. A truly tragic story. These people WILL carry out their threats.
It is real, I know because I lived with this threat for 30 years.
I could not break free. ‘Ordinary’ people do not ‘get it’.
I have a friend in this situation. I told her options that occurred to me, but told her she needed more expert help, and suggested she go to a domestic violence shelter to talk and get advice. I told her to make sure they know what a sociopath/psychopath is. I told her to listen to her body’s reactions to things. I told her things to read on this site, books that I thought would be helpful, but urged her to first go talk to the domestic violence folks. I told her about betrayal bonds. I told her about the roller coaster of he’s nice, he’s horrible.
I also told her that my niece in the same situation got a panic button from the sheriff….push it and they are on their way, no question. They also told her to get a big black dog. (But if you plan on leaving for a domestic shelter, it is not the time to get a dog unless you have someone who can keep it for you for as long as needed.)
Even though I’m in a very safe place, I still have 6 dogs, three of which have made it clear they will attack if I’m in danger. There is a big bell to ring if someone wants on my property, and the gate is closed. The dogs are always with me in the house and one on the screened porch, and only loose in the yard if I’m out there. If you can care for them, some dogs are naturally protective. I had one who circled around one relative anytime he was talking to me….he turned out to be a bad man. The dog knew, even though I didn’t have a clue at the time.
I also highly recommend self-defense courses….but check out the instructor, some of them are P’s! But I took mixed martial arts/self-defense. While I think the best defense is horrible (and easy) stuff that inflicts a lot of pain quickly, what a course did for me was help me gain confidence, and taught me to be physically fit (so I can RUN) and to not panic, to not wimp out at pain, what to do when confronted with a gun or knife, a choke hold from behind, etc. The instructor also taught us every time we look at a clock, to trigger the thought “I will survive”….that fighting spirit, that determination often makes all the difference in the world.
I also learned to show aggression right from the start. When a strange man approached my mom and me in a parking lot that was deserted, as stores had just closed, as he got near I yelled “Get the F*ck out of here!” He looked shocked and turned and walked away. Of course my poor mom looked even more shocked! But I told her, a nice man would realize we might be scared and whatever he wanted, he shouldn’t be approaching us.
I also learned to look at strangers and give them the “up and down”look unsmilingly, so they know I’m not friendly prey and I can identify them. Before my inclination was to pretend I didn’t see them, which just encourages a bad guy.
But when you are living with the enemy, my opinion is you need to get out….and experts in your community can tell you how to do that safely.
Oxy,
Your history is so heartbreaking. While you may not personally feel frightened, I know you are smart enough not to place yourself as a target b/d dang it, these type of sociopaths are Persistent!!!
My husband and family (the NEST of vampires) are also persistent. It was not enough to drive me away, to destroy my reputation, to bankrupt me. They are angry that I did NOT SUBMIT to their demands and control. Thus they feel entitled.
THAT seems to be the common thread. Entitlement b/c the target did not comply to their will.
As my husband answered why did you murder that cow? (he described murdering a woman and right after, started murdering our cows) – and he replied, “b/c she had to learn “NOT TO MAKE ME MAD.”
For that reason, I stay essentially off the grid. My abusers are such that they have patience (they live into their late 90’s). They bide their time and are opportunity strikers. They know that NOW I am vigilent, but will wait a few years until I am not so protective. What they don’t know is that I have habits now, so I don’t have to be paranoid. My security habits are my safeguard, as well as a backup plan to my backup plan.
Think I’m crazy? Over-reacting? Well, a security plan and habits are no big deal compared to IGNORING a sociopath’s mindset, esp for the ones that say it’s not over until THEY say it is.
KNOW THY ENEMY.
What another horrible story – thankfully, Denise survived (and also her children). Mark is where he belongs, in prison (too bad it’s not for life), being a menace and threat to his family and society-at-large, having a hair-trigger temper. These people do NOT think rationally, being justified (in their twisted minds) to do whatever they they want to do (having no moral compass). I feel badly for any woman or child that is related to a dangerous psychopath. Getting out, escaping from the enemy is the key – it can be done, but it will be difficult to do so, being life-altering for the vicitm(s) (in a positive way). My mother-in-law stayed with her abusive husband, raising six kids and all of them were affected by their father’s rages, mistreatment of them. To this day, my children’s paternal family members keep quiet, not recalling or talking about their father’s violence toward them. It is worth it to do whatever is necessary to get free of a psychopath, allowing the victim(s) to reach a state of peace, stability.
This story is so horrible. This man deserves to rot in jail the rest of his pathetic life. It’s a true shame that he will be free one day to walk the streets and no doubt probably pick up right where he left off…threatening his wife and heaven forbid actually hurting her again or killing her! If there is any justice in this world, he will be “taken care of” in prison.
And those poor children. I can’t even imagine what goes through there heads having witnessed their father brutally attack their mother like that. I thank God every day he gave me good, loving parents, a good family, a good life. My run in with my ex is just a blip on the radar for me. This guy actually makes my ex look like a puppy dog. I hope and pray this woman gets as far away from her husband as possible and start a new life with her children. To think she will have to live hiding from her husband once he gets out of prison is so sad. He doesn’t deserve to be on this planet. I pray this woman and her family gets the peace and justice they deserve!!