Russell Williams was a colonel in the Canadian Forces, a pilot who flew dignitaries including Queen Elizabeth II, and commander of the largest airbase in Canada. That is, until he was arrested for breaking into women’s homes and stealing their underwear, sexual assault and murdering two young women.
Lovefraud has written about Williams before: For Halloween: A real monster who liked to dress up.
The question, of course, is how did such a predator achieve the rank of colonel? Should he have been flagged along the way? How was it that Williams received nothing but stellar reviews, and turned out to be a murderer?
The Canadian Forces, stunned by what happened, launched an inquiry into how candidates are selected for senior command positions. Could enhanced psychological testing have revealed Williams’ true nature? Here’s what Macleans reported:
The answer, sadly, is no. Among hundreds of pages of internal military documents, obtained by Maclean’s under the Access to Information Act, is a draft version of that review. It confirms what leading experts have long maintained: there is no off-the-shelf exam that employers, armed forces or otherwise, can use to detect sociopathic killers. “Given the recent events in CFB Trenton, it is natural for the CF to question whether or not the organization could have identified a sexual sadist or predicted that an individual would become a serial sexual murderer,” the report says. But that “would be unrealistic to expect.”
Read There’s no way to spot another Russell Williams on Yahoo.com.
It’s probably true that no one could have spotted Williams. His case, however, is highly unusual. As I wrote in Sudden psychopath: The horrifying yet strange case of Col. Russell Williams, this case is unique in that Williams showed no signs of disorder before he suddenly became a sexual pervert and predator. Unlike most sociopaths, he didn’t have a history of lying, cheating and abusing. That’s why his case is so weird.
Judged by behavior
Although I don’t know much about the various psychological tests that are available, I doubt that any self-report inventory, where the subject answers questions about himself or herself, would work. After all, sociopaths lie. They lie about everything, so of course they’re going to lie on a personality test. Even if the test is designed to spot inconsistencies, how would anyone know which part is true?
To diagnose sociopaths, you need to know about their behavior. Most sociopaths leave a lifelong trail of destruction, ranging from overt crime to subtle emotional and psychological abuse. Dr. Robert Hare developed the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), and it has become the gold standard for diagnosing psychopaths (the term he uses). The PCL-R has two parts—a semi-structured interview, and a “file review.” This means that the individual’s criminal and psychological records are included in the evaluation. In other words, the psychopaths are identified by their behavior, not by their answers on a test.
The Gift of Fear
We, of course, don’t want to experience a sociopath’s behavior. We want to avoid them, so they don’t have an opportunity to inflict any damage of any kind. Can we do it?
I believe the answer is yes. The way to avoid a sociopath is to listen to our intuition.
Several people on Lovefraud have posted about a book called The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker. Oprah Winfrey called de Becker the nation’s leading expert on violent behavior, and his company helps hundreds of people, including celebrities, stay away from stalkers and other predators.
De Becker’s whole point in The Gift of Fear is this: Your intuition will tell you about danger. Listen to it.
I can back this assertion up with data. In the Lovefraud Romantic Partner Survey, conducted earlier this year, I asked the following question: “In the beginning of the involvement, did you have a gut feeling or intuition that something wasn’t right about the person or the relationship?”
Seventy-one percent of respondents said yes. Let me repeat that: 71% of people who became involved with sociopaths knew early on that something was wrong. Unfortunately, most of them stayed in the relationship anyway.
Trust your intuition
I think it’s unlikely that an accurate paper-and-pencil test for spotting sociopaths will ever be developed. However, we all have a built-in early warning system. The system isn’t designed to identify sociopaths in an abstract sense; it’s designed to warn us when we are in the presence of danger.
Here are the three steps to protecting yourself from sociopaths:
- Know that sociopaths exist.
- Know the warning signs of sociopathic behavior.
- Trust your intuition.
The key is to pay attention to the warning signals that we receive. But often we don’t. We doubt ourselves. We give the person another chance. We wait for hard evidence. In the end, we are damaged and filled with regrets.
Would listening to their intuition have saved Russell Williams’ victims? We’ll never know. But Gavin de Becker did relate a story about a woman who was assaulted in her apartment. The assailant told her to be quiet, promised he wouldn’t hurt her, and left the room. The woman, filled with fear, didn’t listen to him. She listened to her intuition and slipped away. The guy returned with a kitchen knife, intending to kill her. But she was gone.
Oxy- I plan things for me and the kids. He is allowed to tag along as an afterthought. He knows this. I know he will use the girls against me like you said. I am prepared for that and yes documented everything. From the way they treat me in public and in private settings like their houses…. All things to show how his whole family is screwed up. Exactly WHY I don’t want them around my girls.
As far as playing my cards close to my chest- I DO! All the time. Nothing he does surprises me anymore and I don’t give him any edge at all to even think something or anything is up. Or what the plan is. He does use one thing I hold dear, against me and as a way to keep me just under water financially. But won’t he be surprised when I walk away and leave it all behind because I have emotionally detached myself, knowing his position?
Sky- he has not grown up at all. His parents are his worst enablers and by them buying him everything- trucks, cars, property and all sorts of other things as well as giving him a sizeable ‘gift’ (allowance) of $500 every month, he may as well live at home with them. The only difference is I cook the meals, not his mother.
I cook for me and the girls, he just happens to be there too. At least that’s how I look at it. Yet if you ask him, I refuse to pay any household bills or buy groceries… Which my bank records prove beyond a doubt is total BS.
His account records? Bwahahahahahaha! Good luck with that. He changes banks, insurance companies, cell phone/internet providers, etc. at the bounce of a check…. Usually on a monthly basis or so.
Phoenix,
You know that “disconnect” from the “STUFF” and being willing to let it all go, to walk out with your clothes on your back and your kids, is a surprise to them. My egg donor thought I was so “attached” to the farm that I would never willingly leave….or that I wanted her money…she never realized, I don’t think she still does, that STUFF is nothing compared to peace.
AMEN! Oxy, you said a lot there.
It will suck leaving this stuff behind but there are agencies that will be able to come in and take care of things afterwards. Nothing will suffer except for maybe his reputation, pride and ego. He may even get his 15 minutes of shame out of it all. Won’t that be nice?
As far as the material things I had. The stuff he got rid of for me? Well I can always rebuild and this time I will have nicer things. He just helped make it easier to make a fresh start. I don’t have all that stuff to worry about moving or draging along behind me. Thanks honey! (dripping heavily with sarcasm of course!)
I’m out of here until tomorrow. Play nice in the sandbox. lol
Dear Phoenix,
When I bought the RV trailer and moved into it, I was amazed at how LITTLE I REALLY NEEDED to be comfortable….and a 4 bedroom house and a barn full of stuff and an aircraft hangar full of stuff was NOT necessary to be comfortable or happy. It was amazing how little I needed. I am back in my home now, but the LESSON is still with me, and I am perfectly willing to leave home with what is on my back, sleep in the woods if I have to….but whatever I have or don’t have, it is better to feel and BE safe. I am not going to stay here “defending” STUFF when my life is in the balance.
I didn’t know myself just how little that stuff REALLY MEANT when the show down came. NOW I DO KNOW!
Sky: “A child naturally has no identity, since it was only born recently and has not had a chance to develop that identity. Nature facilitates the young one’s development of an identity by giving the social species a memetic ability. Infants and children naturally are fascinated by and want to be like their elders, so they copy them. That’s why role models are so important. It’s like spaths are constantly looking for a role model.”
What do you mean with identity? A full grown identity of temperament + personality + experience? Do you include the absence of temperament in a child? I’m asking, because children are not total empty vats when they are born, but born with a temperament and a natural approach to life situations, and it is the one thing of the identity that cannot change or be altered. It can be developed and directed to appropriate situations, but in essence and extravert will remain an extravert for example. I tried to change part of my temparement in my first relationship of 5.5 years and ended up with an ID crisis. Meanwhile my innate learning approach is neither my father’s nor my mother’s.
darwinsmom,
temperment, giftedness, sensitivity are some of the things we are born with. People say that sexual tendencies are that way also.
But if you look at a spath, they’ll screw anything. They don’t have a preference. Also, they don’t have any values. What that means is that they don’t know what is important except by looking around to see what others think is important. Then they want what they see that others want. It feels like envy to them. In fact, it’s just an infantile response to the world.
Identity is a unique combination of the traits we are born with, the parental influences and the utilmate choices we make to value or prefer something.
Today, the color pink is considered feminine and blue is considered masculine. But about 100 years ago, blue was considered the feminine color and pink was for little boys because it was a lighter shade of red (which is considered agressive). Being female, I’ve always had a preference for pink, but I doubt I was born with it. I IDENTIFY with it because I was raised to think I should. It doesn’t change my preference, to know this, but it’s interesting to me.
It’s normal for people to go through identity crisises when they attempt to wear new roles. But not for spaths. They can take on new roles all day long and there is no crisis because they never had an identity to begin with. They can try on any identity because it never goes very deep. Nothing about them is very deep. They are simply shallow people.
this might interest you:
http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/identitycrisis.htm
researching identity and identity crisis might help open up a new understanding about what happened to you and why.
Thanks for clarifying Sky,
Now I know what you meant with identity: the full package.
Thank you also for the link. My ID crisis was not so much a role confusion at the time, but the combination of being an outsider to my peers, combined with the effort to change my temperament. Plus, I’m prone to dissociate. As a consequence I was out of touch with my feelings: I could talk about feelings, but not with feeling at the time. My therapy then involved a half year of individual session and then 1.5 year in group therapy.
Strange in comparison to spaths. My earliest memories involve choices regarding preferences, moral values, etc… from when I was 2 years old.
At the age of 2 my preferred colours were red and green, while I disliked blue and yellow. Pink didn’t even come into question. In my mind blue and yellow were ninny colours, weak colours. Red and green were strong colours. I actually was not so fond of the idea of being a girl originally. Though I certainly would not have gotten the idea from home or my ‘daycare mom’, but I associated ‘girl’ with being ‘girly’ and it was not what I wanted to be. (I was a tomboy). And I associated bleu and yellow with girly girl colours, which was why I loathed them. For the birthday party my mom had bought several colourd broad width colored sunglasses: blue, yellow and red. Before I was even able to pick the red one, a slightly older girl (who already had her birthday a month before) picked the red one. And I ended up having to wear the blue rimmed one. Totally HATED that! I knew it was unfair that she had picked the red one before me, because it was my birthday after all. And I was very envious of her wearing the one I had wanted. But I didn’t tell a soul, because I deemed envy a bad feeling. So I wore the damn blue ones. Only a decade later, at a reunion with my daycare mom, did I ever reveal the memory.
Luckily my mother was not a girly girl. She was a woman alright, but strong, working, logical, down to earth. She was my example of feminity I could live with.
Because of the memory I think that even some values may be innate. I had no brothers or sisters for my parents to teach me not to be envious. Nor did my daycare mother ever needed to teach me that. It was a total internal choice for me to turn away from the envious feeling, to turn away from the feeling of injustice.
I think that aesthetical values may be innate as well. The conflict that arose from the colours, apparently also rose when I had to stay for several days with my grandparents when I was ill (thick ear). I don’t remember it myself, but my mother once told me that I refused to stay over at my grandparents after that. My mo was worried that I had been mistreated by my older miserable feeling and envious cousin or something (she rolled me up in a carpet once). But that wasn’t it. My grandmother made me wear my clothes in combinations that I disliked and found improper: she made me wear what was not yet dirty for a second time, while she washed what was dirty. Sounds normal, but I felt strongly about which t-shirt belonged to which pants and socks. I must have been between 2 and 3 years old. No wonder, I’m so stoked at the apartment I’ll be living in and I may consider mine to decorate, paint, wallpaper, tile and furnish (within budget limits of course)
So, the identity development starts very early already in children. Spaths therefore only have their innate pathological temperament, with a developed ego that is stuck at the age of 5.
The reading has been very interesting on this thread, and so I wanted to add my thoughts. I agree with Constantine about the danger of overpathologizing ourselves. I know some very healthy happy people who fell prey to sociopaths. The ones I’ve talked to who have been involved with sociopaths did not even use the term or know the guys were sociopaths. When they explained the behaviors to me, a light bulb went off in my head. The two women I’m thinking of were like me – as soon as they figured out something was amiss and that the person was behaving very cruelly, they were out the door. With me, it took me a little longer because I am one who sentimentalizes and gives people the benefit of the doubt. I wouldn’t say I’m an extreme giver – but I’m not quick to jump to conclusions.
But back to the “overpathologizing” part. I think it’s really good to examine our lives and realize our part in things that happen to us, how we were vulnerable, etc. But we are so much more than our past, with all due respect to deep the issues can go. It’s good to examine the past and work through any issues from the past that prevent us from moving on. But to dwell in it is unhealthy to me. Or to view ourselves in a pervasive sense as victims or even survivors. I believe we just move on, grow, change, and make better decisions. I hope I am not offending anyone here. Human beings are so very complex and capable of so much. It hurts me to hear people calling themselves “n-supply” and such because we are only these things if we choose to be these things in the present. I dated a spath once. But I don’t consider myself a spath magnet. I’ve also dated some very wonderful men and almost married a few times. I grew up in a very dysfunctional, abusive family. And yet I try not to let this define me. It’s the reason I don’t tell many people. Outside of here, very few people know about my past. I only bring it up if it is applicable. I don’t want people feeling sorry for me or pigeonholing me as a certain kind of person. I do think much of my wisdom and resourcefulness comes from surviving years of extreme abuse. But it’s not something a lot of people know about me.
My entire adult dating life, many of my relationships began with sex. We’d have sex, and therefore we were “in a relationship”. This involved monogamy and often living together. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve finally finally learned that sex only causes bonding for me, but not necessarily for my partner. This has nothing to do with my past – it is simply about the politics between men and women.
And it’s very sad because in my 40’s (and now 50’s) I have enjoyed some of the best sex of my life. My life came to a brief turning point lately when I briefly took a lover from a latin country who is very interesting but who doesn’t speak English well. Darwinsmom, it reminded me of your vacation romance, and I regarded it as such, even though we are in the US. The “affair” which lasted only a few times was really good and enjoyable for me. I went to work with a smile on my face and remembered what life is for. Had he never called again, it would have been fine. But when he continued to call, I faced a dilemma. I could view his behaviors in a sentimental way or I could interpret it as just a booty call, which is something I generally don’t want. I agonized over the decision the last time he contacted me because every fiber of my being wanted to be with him. I did not reply. And in doing so, I took a stand for deserving more in my life than an occasional booty call. I am amazed at how easy it was to detach, considering the hormones had already started to kick in. I realized that this was a conscious choice I made. I actually left it to fate that night because if he’d just come over, I wouldn’t have sent him away. And I probably would have gotten hurt. Maybe not – maybe he regards me as his girlfriend. It’s hard to tell with him because of our language barrier (my spanish is not fluent). He did make me a beautiful necklace, which I wear a lot. So who knows what he wants? Too much work for me to try and find out.
I cannot tell you how much I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. But this time I didn’t. It’s a huge change for me. I will never know whether I made the right decision. But if my past history is any kind of indicator, I did.
Oxy: “There is starting to be scientific proof though that a traumatic event does have a CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL CHANGE upon the brain itself. We are DIFFERENT after a trauma than we were before the trauma. Our brain functions differently. The stress hormones released by the trauma effect our entire bodies not only our brains and CHANGE the way our body and our brain both function afterward. There is a physical assault to our selves from the emotional trauma.”
Just to clairfy: When I mentioned my therapist not using the term PSTD on me, and how I ws able to improve the quality of my life and my feelings about myself by putting my post traumatic behaviour in a total different concept perspective, I certainly do not wish to infer that PSTD does not exist or should not be treated. In a way I am treating my PSTD by structurizing my life, jotting down to-do-lists, and the flybaby program: I’m taking away the stress out of everyday life as much as I can to prevent any further damage and to rebuild and reach the brain capabilities of before… though I obviously need memory aid more now than ever before. But I only found the key, the strength and the will to do that once I defined myself as being ‘normal’ rather than ‘damaged’ (and of course having PSTD after a spath is norma). It may work totally diferent for other people. So, I certainly not wish to devalue the truth or the veracity of PSTD and its physical effects on the brain. Nor does my therapist really. She refers to the symptoms herself in my case… she just doesn’t mention the diagnosis for it.
Constantine and Oxy,
She also never uses the diagnostic term for my spath. But again she agrees to all the symptos, NC (and includes the advice to avoid contact with anyone related to him, including his family), the possible sword of damocles hanging above my head if I had a child by him because of what may have or hot have been passed on by such a father. She verified the symptom list by my story and the last thing was the picture she asked to see of him. She picked out the one of his truest self and said, “If I look at this man I would think he is DANGEROUS. And as it turned out HE IS DANGEROUS.” I guess she cannot professionally call him a psychopath, because she has never investigated himself. But we both talk about the same thing, no doubt about it. I certainly don’t feel invalidated in my own conclusion of what he is by her, on the contrary. I even think it’s a good exercise, because it helps me to talk about him in everyday language. We know how people tend to respond if you tell them about psychopaths and sociopaths. My therapist helps me to explain what they are to friends and acquaintances without me having to use the P/S-word.
Stargazer:
The part about sex…I feel like at my age, I should be having the best sex of my life and feeling so good about life and instead I feel like I have had that joy stolen from me. I feel like I have so much to offer and this beautiful body is going to waste…haha! I do understand that it is up to me to not feel like a victim, etc., but what happened to me so changed me that I just can’t seem to get past it. The chance to be with someone again for me just isn’t worth the risk; it just isn’t…at least not now. I don’t know when it will all come back for me. It will just have to play out.