I just read the story about Melissa Jenkins, a popular teacher in Vermont, who went to help her neighbors, only to be brutally murdered as soon as she got out of her car.
I am sick to my stomach. Not only because of the stupid, horrific crime, but because I believe the victim suspected something was wrong.
The story in the Burlington Free Press begins:
ST. JOHNSBURY When Melissa Jenkins answered the phone Sunday night, the couple who used to plow her driveway said they were stranded half a mile from her home. Their car had broken down on the remote country road, they said, and they needed her help.
Before driving out to meet them, Jenkins called longtime friend and coworker Randy Rathburn and said she “wanted someone to know what was going on,” police would recount later. She told Rathburn about the “weird call” she received from the couple whose first names she could not remember. She still had their business card and asked Rathburn to write down the pertinent information: the name Prue, a phone number, an address in Waterford.
The fact that Jenkins called her friend tells me that she had a bad feeling about the call for help. My guess is that she was afraid, but chided herself for her fear, convincing herself that she had no reason to worry.
Jenkins should have listened to her intuition. As Gavin de Becker eloquently explains in The Gift of Fear, our intuition has been honed over millennia to keep us safe. The best thing we can do to protect ourselves from predators is heed that inner knowing.
But we don’t. We are not taught to listen to our intuition. In fact, our rational world seems to regard intuition as mumbo jumbo, so we talk ourselves out of our fears.
This is one of the most important points that I make in my new book: Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath. The book is based on last year’s survey of Lovefraud readers. The results showed that 71% of Lovefraud readers had a bad feeling about the sociopath or the relationship early in the involvement. But most of them did not listen to their gut. Instead, they doubted themselves, or felt like they had to give the individual the benefit of the doubt.
My guess is that Melissa Jenkins had those same exact thoughts. If she didn’t, why would she have called her friend to let him know where she was going?
This murder is a tragedy that I suspect could have been avoided.
Read Melissa Jenkins answers a call for help, and then a sudden attack, on BurlingtonFreePress.com.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
Wow, Oxy. That is a GREAT insight. I hadn’t quite seen it that way before. My ex-husband seems to have married himself an even spathier wife. He is abusive to the kids and me (and service people, who are naturally beneath him… he learned that one from his dad, I think), but narcissistic and generally keeps his mask on in public. She, on the other hand, derives pleasure from inflicting cruelty and playing with people. Her mask is too fake to be real, or at least it is clear to ME and the kids. She is a classic alpha b***h who likes to mess with people for the fun of it. I think she has no idea that I am onto her, and I’d like to keep it that way. She is dangerous.
My kids who go over there come back and tell me “things” — rather sick things… which I would rather not hear or be aware of, about their twisted relationship. But the two of them together have absolutely teamed up against me.
I believe the wife is now the “top dog” because my ex-husband is no longer capable of dealing with me, without her by his side. He cannot even respond to an email from me without having her vet it first. It is like a two-headed monster. So strange.
This story is so horrifically sad. It makes for a useful cautionary tale, though I am so sad for her and her son, and her community. What a tragic loss.
20 years,
Yes, they will partner up both in business and romance….and then turn on each other as well. When the Trojan HOrse psychopath that my son sent to take over our family and “off” me realized that he couldn’t find me, I had “disappeared” in the middle of the night, he decided to abandon my son’s agenda and to take care of his own, so he and my DIL teamed up together to steal from my egg donor and my DIL decided that in addition she/they should kill my son C…and they had this plan to make it look like “self defense” but it didn’t work out that way and they got caught and both went to jail/prison….and egg donor got most of her money back.
But yes, they team up together to accomplish a purpose, but they may then turn on each other as well. She turned on him and cleaned out his bank account and signed over the truck they had stolen the money from my egg donor to purchase…he had given her a power of attorney while he was in prison and she used it to shaft him.
They are not trustworthy so there is NO HONOR AMONG THIEVES.
Dr. Hare explained that they cannot stay together because of the narcissism involved and a narcissist hates competition.
I think Gavin de Becker’s book, The Gift of Fear, should be required reading for high school students. Had Melissa Jenkins read this, she would have been alive today.
I had it in mind when a guy I met online, after spending two hours talking with me, sent me an email stating how proud he was to be seen walking down the street with me. Creeped me out BIG TIME because it was inappropriate for the very little time that he had spent with me. Told him I wasn’t interested in any further contact.
I think de Becker’s book, Protecting the Gift-Keeping Children and Teenagers Safe (and Parents Sane,) should be standard issue for anyone enrolling a child in a public school system.
If you go to his website, http://www.gavindebecker.com, he has whole sections dedicated to safety questions parents might have pertaining to their children or the schools they attend.
He also provides a free resource, http://www.mosaicmethod.com, for domestic violence (or potential domestic violence) victims.
The Mosaic Method provides assessments via a series of questions to determine how seriously one should consider the potential for violence from someone in a variety of situations including domestic environments, schools, workplaces, universities, and judicial figures.
I took it for my P sister. I am at medium risk for violence from her.
Oxy,
Some Ps are so good at disguising their true natures that it can take a very long time before their ulterior motives are revealed.
Some of them have their manipulations and deception skills honed to a high art.
Even with the best of knowledge, there are times when we cannot tell what it going on and would not pick up on what we are dealing with.
G1S,
you’re right that the P’s can be very good at hiding behind their mask. Though I’ve come to the conclusion that there is some logic in the saying:
They can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but they can’t fool all the people all the time.
In other words, they DO tailor their mask for us individually. Then they compartmentalize so that you never get to see the mask that they wear for the other people. Because if they tried to fool all the people all the time, they would have to find a mask that works on everyone – and that is a difficult task.
So, I think that a good strategy, when meeting someone new, is to try to watch them in different settings. When you don’t see consistency, that would be a red flag.
Hi G1S, and Skylar,
One of my main issues with Gavin de Baeker is that he consistently and overwhelmingly understates and underestimates violence committed by women, even though his own experience of violence growing up was witnessing his own mother shoot his, in his own estimation, loving and responsible stepfather. He used that as the incentive that got him into his profession and then works to deny female perpetrated violence? I don’t get it, I really don’t. I found myself shaking my head reading the disconnects in his book, and had to put it down unfinished.
In my opinion he has himself greatly contributed to the problem by helping to perpetuate a false image (by ommission) that only men perpetrate violence. According to “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell, our gut instincts need training and examination for biases in order for us not to be blinded by our own prejudices – something I seem to remember that Mr. de Becker agrees with.
Here in Canada we’re dealing with two murders: of Tori Stafford and Aleksandra Firgin-Hewie where it was women who either abducted or lured the victims to their deaths (and in the first case actually committed the murders). In the case Redwald mentioned: Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, it was Karla who picked their last victim – Kristen French – and who lured her close enough to be taken in a blitz attack in a church parking lot in full view of witnesses in the middle of the day, no less. In each case people didn’t raise the alarm, ***because they assumed that if a woman was involved it couldn’t really be as dangerous***.
I can’t help but think that Ms. Jenkins wouldn’t have responded with the same behaviours – particularly putting her son at risk – if it weren’t for the presence of Mrs. Prue.
Just my opnion, but I think Mr. de Becker needs to wear some of the responsibility for that.
G1S, Amen to all of this:
“Some Ps are so good at disguising their true natures that it can take a very long time before their ulterior motives are revealed.
Some of them have their manipulations and deception skills honed to a high art.
Even with the best of knowledge, there are times when we cannot tell what it going on and would not pick up on what we are dealing with. ”
Local news stories reveal the banality of evil: George Hartwig (http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2012/03/24/george-hartwig-justice-finally-served/) and now Melissa Jenkins.
I feel like I don’t want to leave my house because of the ever present random, evil SPs that freely walk among us.
I bet Melissa Jenkins (RIP) was a really nice person and that despite her doubts (the red flags that flared in her gut), she wanted to help someone in need. Lesson: don’t be so nice.
Like Oxy said, “injured” man lying in the ditch” may well be Wil e coyote, so call 911 & keep yourself safe. And, that is something I don’t understand: Why didn’t Ms. Jenkins call a tow company instead of going herself? I mean, she was a teacher and a woman with a baby, not a car mechanic with a tow truck.
Also, Ms. Jenkins was beautiful and a beloved teacher. The Prues probably seethed with jealousy and wanted to destroy her because she was so many things they could never be.
Stay safe, everyone. Listen to your gut & your instincts. RIP, beautiful Melissa.
Annie,
I hear what you’re saying. Bottom line for me: know that there are SP couples that work together. Know that there are SP organizations, institutions and corporations. Always listen to your gut. If you feel the least bit uncomfortable, do not do what they want you to do.
Annie,
male predators commonly will use a woman, a child, a puppy or a kitten as “arm candy”. They know this makes them appear harmless. The movie Changeling, a true story, portrayed a serial killer of young boys who used one young boy as a lure to get more.
Most spaths go looking for a “respectable wife” for that very reason. It’s part of the mask.
It is becoming obvious that all dangerous predators wear masks and we HAVE to strip away the extraneous information that they present to us. These are distractions. The reality is as clear as day, if we just allow ourselves to SEE what’s before our eyes.
Unfortunately people feel safer by closing their eyes.
Melissa KNEW that the dude was creepy. The dude knew that she knew. So he had his wife call her.
Men in general, get more respect when they present themselves as married, family men. People don’t trust a single man as well.
This is just how society has always seen things, I don’t think Gavin DeBecker has very much to do with this perception.
It has been shown, in fact, that testosterone does lower oxytocin, which is the bonding hormone, so it’s possible that, in a cross-section of non-spaths, we would find men to have less empathy than women.
I believe there are as many “little old lady spaths” as there are other types (I know a couple! and they are PURE EVIL), but it’s easier to fight them off, physically. Testosterone gives men more confidence to believe they will get away with criminal behavior. And finally, it does trigger sexual aggression.
So I think that the disorder which causes borderline or spath behavior is probably about equal in men and women, the men are still going to be more dangerous because of testosterone.
Look at SUSAN SMITH (the one who pushed her car into the lake with her kids in it because her boy friend didn’t want kids) I think she was probably “borderline personality disorder” but it over laps so much with psychopathy that it is difficult to draw the line and say “the ones on this side are BPD and the ones on the other side are PPD”
Women do some horrible things…look at the wife of that guy that helped him kidnap Jaycee Dugard and helped him keep the girl for all those years. Was she also a VICTIM or was she also a psychopath? Where does becoming a trauma bonded victim who helps a psychopath end and being a criminal start? The courts counted her criminally responsible and sent her to prison too.
Patty Hearst went to prison (but then was pardoned) for robbing a bank—when she was trauma bonded to her kidnappers.
There are a lot of things to consider both psychologically and legally.
I’ve seen too many situations where there are whole families who are disordered—like something from “Deliverance” that makes your skin crawl. They fight among themselves but band together to attack others.