Stories in the newspaper yesterday were disheartening. After reading them, I had to conclude that full-blown sexual predators are everywhere, and doing something about them will be difficult.
The first story I found was about Canadian Col. Russell Williams, an elite pilot who was commander of Canadian Forces Base Trenton, the largest air force base in the country. In 2005 he was photographed with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip. On February 7, 2010, he was charged with murdering a young woman who had been missing for almost a week.
That’s not all. Williams, considered a “shining bright star” in the military, has been charged with the murder of two women, sexual assault of two other women, and 82 break-ins. What did he steal? Women’s panties. An Ottawa newspaper reported that police seized more than 500 pairs from his home.
The charges have shocked the Canadian military. Retired Major Greg McQuaid wrote reports that helped Williams get promoted. McQuaid’s observation, however, is telling:
“I remember he had a very focused stare or look, and I was just reminded of that when this happened and they showed the photos of him and I said, there’s that look. I remember that look. It was like he’s looking through you at the back of your head,” McQuaid said.
To read about this incredible story, click on these links:
Canada top commander charged with murder, assault, on Philly.com.
The secret life of Colonel Russell Williams, on Macleans.ca. This story discusses psychopaths at the end.
Another story in the Sunday paper was about another sexual predator in the Catholic Church—this one from Brazil. A Polish priest, Marcin Michael Strachanowski, is accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old former altar boy, and then threatening to kill the youth if he spoke of it.
According to news reports:
Judge Alexandre Abrahao Dias said that investigators found “erotic material sent to the victim via Internet to seduce him” and that the priest also took other youths to the parish house, “which he converted into a kind of erotic dungeon where he submitted them, often with the use of handcuffs, to orgies.”
To read about this case, see:
Polish priest accused of running pedophile ”˜dungeon,’ in the Montreal Gazette.
Priest charge cites ”˜erotic dungeon,’ on Philly.com.
The Canadian colonel is being prosecuted. The priest has been arrested, and the diocese of Rio de Janeiro didn’t cover up the incident. It immediately suspended the priest and expressed regret over the alleged abuse.
These guys have been caught. Given the nature of their crimes, if proven guilty, they’ll probably go to prison for a long time.
Ten days ago, a sex offender in California, John Gardner III, was sentenced to life in prison for raping and murdering 17-year-old Chelsea King and 14-year-old Amber Dubois.
California lawmakers are now considering a bill, nicknamed Chelsea’s Law, that would mandate life sentences for some child molesters and lifetime parole for others. It’s a great idea—but it will cost a lot of money.
After the first 10 years, keeping the predators in jail would cost tens of millions of dollars, according to a California corrections department analysis. But the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which provides fiscal and policy analysis to the California Legislature, puts the cost much higher—at hundreds of millions of dollars.
Read the article here:
California bill aimed at molesters would cost millions, on Google.com.
Last week, Lovefraud reported that the Supreme Court upheld a law to keep sex offenders in jail after their sentences are served. People who commit crimes like these deserve to spend their lives in jail. But is our society willing to pay for it?
Hi Wini,
it definitely does feel like shell shock. Unfortunately, my stuff has to be published in scientific, peer-edited journals, and guess who’s on the editorial boards of the ones I should publish in (there are three main scientific journals appropriate to my topic, a Spath who hates me is on the ed. board of each one). They really do position themselves in power for a reason, they love that they’re there and I’m where I am. Anyway, I feel like if I can clear what’s blocking me, I’ll be able to see the right path. I feel like it’s there, but I just can’t see it.
Thanks for listening and caring,
Psyche
I don’t have much time to answer (and I am a bit slow when I write in english).
The reproductive advantage doesn’t only lie in his promiscuity or his hability to seduce women (or men).
I believe that many psychopaths are very good at reaching top positions in any organization. At least the « best » ones.
Superficial charm, glibness, excellent social skills, impression management, manipulativeness, toughness (or callousness), charisma, lack of anxiety, narcissism, puppeteering, cunning, paranoia : Machiavel believed these skills and personality traits were useful to reach power and hold it.
These are also personality traits that characterize psychopaths.
I believe psychopaths are not only good at criminal activities, but also to seize power, wherever they live. It’s not by chance that many of the most well-known politicians displayed so many psychopathic talents : Stalin, Hitler, Hussein, Arkan, Milosevic, Idi Amin Dada, Niazov, Agathocles. All would score pretty high on the Hare scale.
I am convinced that if you administer the PCL-R to all congressmen, you will get a mean score significantly higher than among the general population, because politicians need to be charming, self-confident, possess oratory skills, etc.
Psychopaths crave for power. It seems that psychopaths and narcissists are over-represented among managers in companies. Hare believes that there are quite a lot of psychopaths among politicians, and it’s quite obvious. They can be masterful at leading people.
Donna mentionned Father Maciel a few weeks ago. You may know this man who held massive amount of power at the beginning of the century. He is mentionned in McChord & Mc Chord’s book on psychopathy :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._Stephenson
Rank is constantly associated with wealth and various advantages, which, in traditional societies, were translated into more reproductive success. So it might be a good thing to pass on at least a certain amount of psychopathic traits.
And psychopaths don’t always disappear.
Moreover, once many females have evolved a preference for certain features in males, these features become advantageous per se (the so-called sexy-son hypothesis).
According to evolutionary psychologists, the criteria most desired by women in their prospective partners are mainly confidence, charm, wealth and status.
Even dirt poor psychopaths are often able to trick people into believing that they come from some wealthy background. They masquerade under false props showing status, like Montgomery giving a speech as a war hero.
Men are mostly interested in criteria like youth and good looks (so superficial :-)) which are seemingly indicators of fecundity.
So they tend to somewhat overlook personality traits, at least at the beginning of the relationship, which may explain why some men fail to see through the mask of sanity. As I wrote earlier, many men can get blinded by an attractive woman. I think it’s very easy for a female sociopath to entice a man into having sex, pretend she is pregnant, or actually become pregnant. This is probably the trick the above-mentionned woman used with these GIs.
But even if men and women have a different mating brain, there’s always some overlap. It’s quite possible that psychopathy is more prevalent among men (let’s say 3 to 1 for instance), and that more women possess cognitive biases that may make them more vulnerable to the psychopathic mask of normalcy, but some men may possess a similar preference for the same personality traits (like confidence, charm, etc).
Game theorists have shown that a life strategy like psychopathy can be efficient provided that such individuals don’t become too numerous (a frequency-dependant strategy), because when they become too numerous, too many people learn to recognize them and are willing to knock them out.
I think paranoia is another major personality trait of psychopaths. My boss felt that I could see through his mask and that I was aware of his manipulations, and he was clearly paranoid about me (although I was only a junior employee) ; psychopaths have probably been eliminated over and over during our history (capital punishment), so that only the best of them, those that could best deceive other people, were selected. Those who were too awkward would be killed before passing on their genes. Paranoia certainly helped them cope with the possibility of being found out. All dictators are quite paranoid and use preemptive strike, especially against those who know them best.
This is what happens in the workplace. Bullying is nothing but a soft purge : the psychopath tries to get rid of a colleague who knows too much, using various techniques like sabotaging, disparaging, bullying, until the threat is dealt with. This is what happened to me.
Sorry I made it so long.
Psyche,
You are an incredibly smart woman, trying to earn a doctorate. I wouldn’t have the patience or stamina for such work. You will make it somehow, someway. I feel for you, sensing the struggles that you’re facing. I think that you’ll be okay.
Psyche, yes, most Spaths do get to the top of the heap … surrounding themselves by all unsuspecting good folks. As we chatted about the other day, Spaths know how to put that decent mask on … surround themselves by others in positions in power, play destructive games behind the scenes, playing puppeteer and no one is the wiser … except those of us that got victimized by them.
I never understood why people don’t listen to the whistle blowers of the world? They are the ones blowing the trumpet loudest (warning, warning, warning …. evil is among you) for all to hear before the Spaths destroy their lives and throw them on the scrape heap.
I believe the whistle blowers of the world are our heroes and heroines. Jesus told us that we are all to put on our armor of righteousness and fight evil (lies and deception) wherever evil is to be fought. For the courts and those in the law enforcement environments to give us a hard time, or not listen, is beyond evil. Then to slap the evil ones on the wrist and let them go on their way is beyond sleeping while they sit in position of power that govern ALL. And we wonder why evil exists today?
Psyche, dont give up.
Your posts are amazing.x
You sound like you’re having a big “process” day. x let it be. be good to yourself.xxx
Nicolaid, great post. You are correct about the bullying in the work place. It happened to me too. Many of the top people who conducted the bullying were forced to retire (yes, they should have been put in handcuffs and hauled off to prison for 20 years … but, that’s only my opinion as the victim of their evil wrath … who happened to survive long enough to tell authorities about it).
What got me the most were the people who I knew were decent folks … stuck their heads in the sands and allowed this harassment to happen. They knew the bullies would go after anyone that would help out. Incredible. These bully’s have it all down to a science. Well oiled machines.
As I stated, they rid the place of the main bullies … but, the helper bullies are still in place, collecting paychecks long enough to start their evil up again when they know that no one is paying attention again.
Wini…I am an artist and restorer, so I have worked at home with little interaction in the ‘real’ world. I have had depression, and anxiety since I was a kid, and have a hard time socially. I found a great comfort at an antiques chat room on ebay. My ex-spath became very jealous of this at the end of our relationship, and I finally had the strength to ignore him.
When he started ‘gaslighting’ me, and I kicked him out….where do you think the first place he went? That’s right! Not only did he stalk and slander me where i was once comfortable and connected, but some of the posters were jealous of the unwanted attention i was getting.
It was awful…I was called a cheat, a drug addict, an alcoholic by the ex-spath thief, drug addict alcoholic. This one group attacked me relentlessly and I didn’t understand why?…and I finally had to leave with just a shred of my sanity left.
That’s not the end of the story…they started bullying other posters that they didn’t like. Eventually (months!) ebay kicked the whole ‘hive’ off the ebay discussion boards.
The surprising thing is that these were ‘adult’ women. They still come back under pseudo i.d.s to this day. I kept some friends I made there, but I don’t post anymore.
Psyche, I believe he stole from you. I worked 2 jobs for years…one was in a factory during the day, and the other I gilded antique trays at night (my artistic side). Every night for 8 years (EIGHT YEARS!) I swept the excess 23k gold into a coffee can.
my ex-spath…who couldn’t hold a job…who lived in my home…melted it down, and stole it from me.
I also restore antique lighting (yeah, I’m a Jane of all trades..mistress of none…lol). He stole many of my lighting parts…after i kicked him out…it was just awful..I would go in my closets to find a part, and it was gone. You would not believe the rage I had.
I’m much better…a year and half later. He never did anything with my stuff. it was only after that i realized that many of ‘his’ possessions…jewelry, medical equipment, furniture…were stolen. DUH!
But I don’t feel stupid…who knew that there were these monsters among us?
JURY VERDICT IS IN…..will be read in the next 30min.
Jury has only deliberated for about 6.5 hours.
Go to link below to watch verdict read LIVE!
http://www.kolotv.com/
Click on the grey channel 8 biela verdict ribbon at top and it will show up.