By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired)
I recently bought a book, Violence Risk and Threat Assessment: A Practical Guide for Mental Health and Criminal Justice Professionals, by J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D. I actually bought it to give some “credence” to the statistics I put into my letter to the parole board protesting the release on parole of the Trojan Horse-Psychopath that attacked our family,
Of course this book is directed, as the title says, to professionals, and to assess risk of violence. But since we are dealing with psychopaths, it is, I think, a good idea for us to be able also to look at the assessment for possible violence in our own psychopaths when we thwart their desires, or kick them to the curb. We need to answer the questions, “Is my psychopath likely to respond with violence? If so, how?”
Most violent individuals are not violent all the time. In the introduction, the author illustrates that “just because an abnormality (in behavior) ”¦ only shows on occasion, does not mean it has gone away.” (My emphasis.)
A “false negative” is when you decide that your individual will not be violent, and you are wrong. You may pay for this decision with your life. A “false positive” is when you think your individual will be prone to violence, and they are not. Being prepared for violence, even if your individual psychopath does not turn out to be physically violent is, of course, the safest way to play it. If you are going to err, erring on the side of caution is the best course. False positives are less damaging to us than false negatives.
There are also different kinds of “violence.” Not all violence that does damage to us is physical. Psychopaths can become financially violent and deprive us of our income, our estate, and a hundred other violations that we can all imagine.
Contributors to violence
Dr. Meloy uses what he calls a bio-psycho-social model for Violence Risk Assessment to assess an individual’s risk for violence. This consists of the biological aspects, the psychological aspects and the social aspects of the individual in question.
The first, the psychological domain, contains such things as gender, age, past history of violence, frequency of violence, how recent have they been violent, and severity of past violence, paranoia, intelligence, anger, fear problems, and the frequency and intensity of them, as well as control of impulses. Of course, the psychopathy and other attachment problems will weigh in heavily on this.
The second, the social or environmental domain, looks at the family of origin violence, economic instability and poverty, WEAPONS HISTORY, weapon skill, interest and approach behavior, as well as alcohol and or psycho-stimulant use.
The third domain is the biological one. Is there a history of head trauma, or major mental disorder (like untreated bi-polar disorder).
Dr. Meloy also emphasizes that the MOST IMPORTANT factor in his judgment is the history of past violence. The best predictor of future violence is a history of past violence.
Questions to ask yourself in doing your own “risk assessment for violence” in your psychopath are: How “provoked” is your psychopath by losing you? Do they have the paranoid personality disorder, in which they feel “that everyone is out to get them,” with a long memory for imagined slights or wounds from those people “out to get them”? Are they chronically angry, fearful and jealous? Some forms of illegal drugs will also contribute to paranoia, and as the use of drugs and the interest and reliance on weapons goes up, so does the risk of violence. Dr. Maloy mentions the killing of Nichole Brown Simpson, where she was not only killed, but after death her body almost beheaded. He says that drugs, along with the rage, could have easily lowered the threshold for the abandonment rage which probably motivated the killer.
Fear and stalking
Dr. Meloy also goes into the lack of difference between biochemical reactions to both fear and anger. Both cause the same reaction within the body. How intense is the anger response in the person you are evaluating? How does the person handle anger?
Dr. Meloy differentiates between two different kinds of violence by illustrating his text with a story about a cat.
We have all seen a cat, cornered by a dog, with its hackles raised, its tail up, hissing and spitting. That cat is emotionally reacting in a violent way to the fear inside it that it is going to be attacked by the dog. (This is called “affective” or emotional violence in reaction to a perceived threat.) Once the perceived threat is gone, the cat will quickly return to a state of calm. The purpose of this kind of violence is “threat reduction.”
The second type of violence illustrated with another story of a cat is the predatory violence, which is planned and purposeful and goal directed.
The planned and purposeful (or predatory) violence has a minimal or absent autonomic arousal, (which is the hair standing on end, the hissing and spitting etc.). As you observe the cat in predatory violence—such as stalking a mouse or bird—the cat is calm, cool and collected. It is focused on a goal as it stalks the prey. It tries to keep its purpose (violence) hidden and it tries to keep the prey from realizing that it is prey.
The brain chemicals released in each of these states of violence are completely different. The emotionally generated fear induced violence is a defense mechanism. It can still be a threat to anyone who is the perceived enemy, but it quickly subsides once the threat is gone.
With predatory violence, the predator is goal directed to do violence to the prey. They may plot and plan and take quite some time to stalk and corner the prey. The predator may strike without warning. Unlike emotionally (fear) induced violence, predatory violence is not time limited and the stalking may go on for days, weeks, months or years.
Knowing which type of violence your psychopathic adversary is involved with at any given moment can help you assess what your course of action should be. If the Psychopath is showing the “cornered cat” response, for example for being confronted in a lie, your best response is to just “back off” and let them calm down when the perceived threat is removed. If the psychopath is stalking you; emotionally, financially, or physically, they will not be so obvious to spot as the enraged cat. Once you have determined that the person you are dealing with is a psychopath, or likely one, you must assume that the person will engage in predatory violence on some level. The fact that this stalking and predatory violence may be very subtle does not make it any less dangerous.
In the short term, cornering one in a threatening manner (confrontation of any kind) can produce an emotionally violent response or even physical attack, but in the long term, the predatory violence can do more damage to us, body and soul. We need, I think, to assess the state our psychopath is operating in, and learn when to back off with confrontations, and when to prepare ourselves for “out of the blue” attacks when they are in a predatory state.
and wasn’t that little girl the most adorable child? so sad…
I, too, e-mailed the effa-b-eye, about my ex. s.’s confession to me that he had killed a man out in California. The s. worked for a loan shark, & did “collection activities”. The FBI wrote me back, saying they appreciated the info, but were so busy & understaffed, they didn’t have the manpower to do anything. I kept thinking to myself,”..But that man who was killed was some body’s dad or husband or son. How would the family feel, if they knew no one had time to investigate why this man was beaten to death with a ball bat, & tossed into a ditch? It’s just sickening to me.
In other posts, the look of a P.’s eyes has been mentioned , for some reason I kept thinking about this. I think the ole drunk shark boat captain in “Jaws” just about nails it–the eyes are dead, like a doll’s eyes. spooky.
Stiles,
I would suggest that you contact the California Bureau of Investigation, or if you know the city or county where this crime was committed, or the name of the victim, anything that is SPECIFIC to this crime. It isn’t likely that anyone will take up the COLD CASE but sometimes they are taken up, especially if you have some specific evidence. Anything, like the year(s) it probably happened, etc might be a help to them to get them to look into it.
Of course, too, your S may have lied to you about it entirely, or not given you enough SPECIFIC information to do anything about. If someone just tells you “I killed someone in California” that isn’t specific enough to go on and no one, even the Feebies couldn’t trace down something like that that might not even be true in the first place. Sometimes they like to brag, but they are bragging about something that didn’t happen. My P-bio-father bragged about murders he had committed, but he was such a LIAR about EVERYTHING, I only know of TWO people he actually did kill, but there was no way that I Would have had enough evidence to get him convicted, plus, both of those murders took place outside of the US and the bodies were completely destroyed. One man was tossed from an aircraft at 12,000 feet into the ocean, and another man was fed to crocs in the African bush after he was tortured to death. As far as I know those are the only two murders he committed that I truly BELIEVE. I talked to one witness for the man tossed out of the airplane into the ocean that verified my father’s story (it happened so quickly the witness could not have stopped it) and the other one my father told me himself, because the man was a friend of mine, and he did go to Africa with my father, and he was never seen again, so I do believe that one. I do believe the man was tortured as my father said, as my father knew some things that only that man and I knew so that would have been the only way he would have had that information. But that does not a criminal case make, unfortunately. My father was tossed out of that country shortly after the man “disappeared” but I have been unable to find out if the two things had anything to do with the other. My father is dead now, so I believe that he has met the Greatest Judge of them all, and will receive an appropriate sentence for his crimes in the hereafter.
In my many years of dealing with the criminal justice system due to my son’s criminal activities, and incarcerations, I don’t have a great deal of confidence that the people who deserve to be behind bars for life always, or even frequently, get what they deserve, but no government or human system is even I think adequately “just,” because of a multitude of reasons.
Our prison and legal systems are as corrupt, in my opinion, as the “crime” they attempt to stomp out. Look at the OJ case, he got a walk on the murder of his wife and her friend, but he did eventually let his arrogance put him in prison. So maybe your X will do the same thing and he will go to prison for something, if not the crimes he did commit.
I saw a show the other night on 48 hours Mystery where a crooked/stupid detective persecuted a 15 year old kid that he thought had killed a woman for over 20 years and finally did get a “conviction” due to the fact that the detective withheld evidence that would have exonerated the boy, and the boy spent 10 yrs in prison before DNA evidence (extracted from the woman’s clothes 20 years later) eventually released the man and proved him innocent. Yet, even after all the proof that the detective had withheld all this evidence (including shoe print molds, etc.) the detective still maintains the boy’s guilt. DUH????
This young man was very very fortunate that he had some lawyers and friends and family that believed in him for over 20 years and did their best as a group to get the evidence to prove him innocent. At a cost of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of privately raised money by people who were NOT RICH.
With as many people as the US has in prison, if only 1/2 of 1 percent are innocent (and I strongly suspect the number of innocent people is MUCH HIGHER) that means that there are “zillions” of innocent people in prison and some of them on death row.
If you look at the other side of the number of crimes vs the number of convictions you also see that only a small percentage of serious crimes are even prosecuted, much less convicted. And with the “Plea Bargains” that are struck with much of the list of crimes these people DO commit being dropped in exchange for no trial expense—sheesh! It will give you a permanent wave in your hair and turn it gray over night! LOL
Another OMG moment for me. When I found a text un his phone he nearly killed me, I was suprised to be attacked when he was the one caught being unfaithfull, he was on me immediately, strangling and smashing my head on the floor whilst sat astride my chest, I actually thought this is it..Im dead. the baby came in and for the first few seconds he was oblivious to her screams, then I saw realisation in his face and he let me go..I cradled the baby and all the while he was telling me “when she goes back to sleep I am going to kill you” “Hurry up and get her to sleep I want to kill you” He done this in whispered tones whilst smiling lovingly at the baby..When i caught his eye he would bite his tongue and contort his face….I was terrified, it was the first time I had ever caught him bang to rights, where he could not spin any elaborate tale. I understand that response now, never did before…what I dont get is, how do I assess what kind of and how much threat he poses to me now that I no longer play his ball game?
Muldoon,
Document. Please document everything from here on out.
He has just instant message to my friend on her facebook, he threatened to kill her husband if she gets involved with this. he then immediately cancelled her permission to view his facebook which also deleted the instant message… I then rang her, and in the background was his voice, she handed him the phone and he said he was contacting the police re me harrassing him,that I was a fucking liar and sick in the head…I said swear on the babys life I am these things…he did!
My friend will not go to the police but I am now worried he will egt people to bear false witness against me..The things I say are documented at m,y doctors going back 5 years, I also swore an affadavit in october when I was granted residency fro our child. he now says he did not come to the court becaus ehe never knew it happened till today…a lie, he was served papers by the bailiff, he has forgotten that detail. He was aslo served by hand the judges verdict immediately after the case. The police have been here at least thrirty times for domestic violence…..has he forgotten this also?!
He is saying he is going to take texts I sent him when it all first kicked off…before I knew the no contact clause and when I was angry.
I now know this is classic tactic and he is setting me up…The mad bastard may even try for custody calling me a bad mother he said to my friend, she wont report cos she scared of her boyfriend getting a kicking.
OxDrover
I too read many book on the Scott Peterson case. And you are right that if one was to look at the family background and how dysfunctional it was one can understand how he become “his mother’s son”. His mother and step father were controlling and unfeeling people. In fact his half brother was kick out of the home for not complying to what the parent expected of him. How if a child wasn’t all they wanted that child to be that the child would just be “dismissed and forgotten” and how Scott himself must have feared that type of rejection from his own parents. Many times the parent themselves refer to Scott as “their golden boy”. In short the perfect son! Doesn’t this show us just how narcissistic his parents were? All they wanted was the “perfect life perfect home perfect family and yes of course the perfect son! But then we see how Scott killed not only his wife but their expecting child. “Their golden boy” was only that in their eyes and never a part of anyone’s reality. This also shows how conditional love is wrong dysfunctional and how much harm it does to a child’s heart and soul..
Mudloon,
Please take every precaution possible to insure the safely of your child and self. Whenever physical violence become part of the picture we must up the ante and understand that everything and anything is possible. Please be careful!!
Dear Muldoon,
All the w hile you thought he was just “quiet” he was out there PLOTTING, and getting his plan in order to ATTACK you. Even though you are trying to disengage, he is making plans and carrying them out. YOU ARE NOT AWAY FROM THIS MAN NOW. You are his PROPERTY and he is ANGRY, in a RAGE that you are trying to escape. He IS VERY DANGEROUS. He has already proven this.
He is in my opinion MORE DANGEROUS NOW THAN EVER BEFORE because he is PLOTTING AND PLANNING THIS IS A COLD RAGE. Before, he was in a Hot rage, just reacting, now he is PLOTTING AND PLANNING IN A COLD RAGE. Much more dangerous than ever. He will attack you on all fronts.
Sit down and make a plan of your own. You must not become just fearful and in a panic….you, too, must be cold and calculating and PROTECT YOURSELF. I was in very much the same condition a couple of years ago, and I was in such a mess mentally, physically and emotionally, that I was totally a basket case. I too made mistakes, sent letters written when I was “crazy” that were used against me, so I do know where you are.
First. He will attack you in every way, and keep in mind, he may actually WIN if you don’t protect yourself. He may actually try to take the kids away and sometimes the courts are so stupid they will go along with it because you are made to seem crazy and you are crazy—with fear and worry.
Because they have no fear, they can appear calm.
To the cops/courts/lawyers etc: YOU MUST APPEAR CALM AND COMPOSED
Secondly: Get your documents in order
THE NUMBER OF TIMES, DATES, ETC. when the cops were called on domestic violence
About your car. Photographs of the car, the date it was vandalized (even t hough you can’t prove it was him, it still looks suspicious)
Buy a small tape recorder. Keep it in your pocket at all times. If you are in contact with him, turn it on. If you are in contact with some of your friends TAPE RECORD THEM as well, like when they tell you about his threats. But in any case,, your friend can be MADE TO TESTIFY even if she doesn’t want to. Add this to your list of documentation.
Now is NOT the time for you to have a “melt down” and I know it is difficult to not melt down when you are in fear of your life….and if you are not in fear, you should be in my estimation, Muldoon. This man is VIOLENT AND VISCIOUS. He has already PROVEN THAT.
Even if you win in the courts, he may not stop there, he strikes me as one that has to be in UTTER AND COMPLETE CONTROL. You saw how he reacted when he was UNMASKED and could not deny he had cheated. He responded with VIOLENCE. My son who is a psychopath is exactly the same way and he tried to have me killed because I unmasked him. He had a very complex plot and almost pulled it off. The girl that did unmask him and his criminal activities 20 years ago, HE KILLED HER, an d is in prison now for that crime. Even in prison, he is trying to have me killed to get money from inheritence. DON’T EVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN.
Come here every second you can spare and READ and learn. Go to the link for “leaving a sociopath/psychopat” here on this blog and read. Take the suggestions for an “escape bag” that I mentioned earlier, get money together, get documents together, you need to be in action every minute getting yourself safe–SAFETY above all else. This is not a “play” it is for REAL, and real danger, and real danger requires real preparation and action.
Keep in touch with us so we can know you are safe. Muldoon, I’ve been in danger of my life, and believe me, I didn’t handle it as well as I should have at first especially, because I was so distraught and unsettled….but I did learn from this and I promise myself I will never be caught short again. I will never let my guard down as long as these people breathe, but I WILL NOT LIVE IN TERROR—but in CAUTION. I don’t want you to be terrorized, but I want to help you acknowledge that the DANGER IS REAL…he is a MAD BULL right now and one of his “cows” is trying to get away, and he cannot tolerate that. I think the man is very dangerous on both a physical and a legal aspect, and I think he will try both of them at the same time, so be CAUTIOUS! BE SMART, BE AWARE, BE WARY, and HAVE AN ESCAPE PLAN IN PLACE—
If possible, go to a women’s shelter and TALK TO THEM tell them your story (document this as well) and ask their advice. Find a domestic abuse counselor/cop that speializes in that sort of thing if there is one and talk to him/her (and document that as well) Find some professional that will listen to you,, validate you and may have some suggestions. ((((Hugs))) and my prayers are with you and your children. Oxy
He is at it now….insinuating whta I previously told the court and others is lies here is a part of the email he sent……
i never actually defended myself against what you said for two reasons the first being that i never had any knowledge of court proceedings so was not present to defend myself. the second reason was because i stupidly came back to you so thought all proceedings had stopped. if your concerns were so great that you felt you had go as far as ringing social services to report me and a phantom girlfriend with children then why as a mother would you allow your own children to again co-habit with such a dangerous pervert. does that say something of your parenting skills. should you really be in carge of such young children when your judge of character is a litlle wayward to say the least. so when your ready jesse james let the war begin.
Note in it he says he never knew proceedings happening then he says we were back together so thought they dropped…Starting to feel alarmed.