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.
Skylar
I’m interjecting myself in last night’s conversation b/c again, your spath reminds me of mine.
My husband’s image is everything to him. He protects it and cultivates it. Our dogs were part of that image, the rancher with his dogs in the back of the truck. Looked great right? One day I was sitting outside in the rare warm sunshine and the dog’s fur looked so shiny that I put my foot on her to massage her back. She FREAKED. Cried. Whimpered. She wasn’t injured. I didn’t pressed too hard. It was FEET that freaked her. I tested the boy, same reaction. That’s when I knew he kicked the shit of them. You see, I caught him beating them and told him to NEVER do that again, that the only thing it taught them was fear. I thought that was the end of it. Wasn’t. She died of a broken back. I think he kicked her to death. He died soon after, I think he poisoned him with the same stuff we use to medicate calves (he had over medicated 8 calves one day and they were lying dead the next morning.)
Part 2
I never told anyone this b/c I thought it made me a nutcase. But I could read his mind sometimes. He be concentrating on a task like stacking hay and I FELT his thought that he intended to skip dinner and go to town that night. He had to be basically zoned out and then think a thought and I’d know. Spooked him. Lots of similar incidences. That’ s how sensitive and intuitive I became about him.
So, I agee with Darwinsmom, it’s not HIM with the skill, it’s YOU.
Funny how we develope survival skills to such a sensitivity and don’t close the loop. It never occurred to me about sociopathy for the same reasons voiced by others, I didn’t think he was that level of evil. Yet if I had defined evil as missing the emotions to stop himself from being cruel, as “nothing stopped him”, as enjoying watching others to be in pain and suffereing, as “winning” even when it cost his best interests – all these are embody evil. It wasn’t until I realized he excused murder as an unavoidable possibility (he’d kill if he thought it was necessary) tht I realized he was dangerous and evil. Yet… his mom/aunt/dad/brother/misc other people close to him… I was able to see their emotional evil immediately.
Saying this about ME b/c my experience is what I have BUT thinking it fits YOUR spath, some of YOUR life. Certainly the dogs, the image, the arrangement of “accidents”, the KNOWING what he thought (he didn’t put the thought in your head, rather, YOU READ HIS).
Oxy
My husband had his smell too. A familiar smell. That’s how I knew when he’d cheated. B/c he didn’t smell like him anymore. I couldn’t correlate the smell with anything else, he didn’t smell of purfume or sex. He just temporarily lost “his” smell.
Oh my DawnG ~ I am SO glad you said the hot cooking oil smell ” was not at all unpleasant as gross as it sounds”
I have severe skin problems and allergies to anything with fragrance and almost all skin care products. My dermatologist recommended a skin cream that he manufactures. The main ingredient is peanut oil. It is the only thing I can use to keep my skin from turning to parchment paper. BUT, I swear I smell like one of those deep fried turkeys. I can’t use perfume so I just pray no one else notices. I think they can because the dog (no joke) follows me around droolling.
Katy and Oxy,
so you both think I’m psychic and he’s smelly?
😛
just kidding.
Anything is possible, perhaps all of the above. I think we will eventually find out that we all have abilities beyond the 5 senses. Some more than others. Spaths, unwilling to feel empathy for anyone other than themselves, I would guess they can project but not receive telepathy. It makes sense for someone whose mindset is ME ME ME ME!
My gf was just telling me about her X FIL. He had a huge belly, not athletic in the least.
She said……the only time he smelled good was after he ‘claimed’ to spend the evening after work playing raquetball. He always smelled like cologne. He never wore cologne…….except when he ‘played’ raquetball!?!?!
It couldn’t have been an affair right? LOL!
Skylar
Yep. He stinks and you Really know it!! 🙂
Seriously, I read it somewhere about kids who are severely abused grow up to be highly intuitive adults. I am not so convinced it’s psychic but I do believe we are so Sensitively Honed to Anticipate that it SEEMS psychic b/c we can sense things (anticipate) before NORMAL, unabused people become alert.
So when I read about LF members who can read their abusers thoughts, I know they were most likely, as I was, severely abused as children.
The family murdered so horrifically in Conn? They were so normal that their radar did not register danger even when dad screamed a bloody unearthly sound.
I wake COMPLETELY on the first note of an off sound and am completely alert. I had to turn my bedroom into a safe room so I could get RESTFUL sleep. I could not seem to turn off my inner alarm. It’s been a few years since the spath so I now sleep soundly through the night but a bang or odd sound still wakes me; the dif is I can go back to sleep easily.
My radar works esp well on pedophiles. I do think I can smell them. Or that my senses are so honed to their smell and that triggers MY danger center in the pit of my brain. I get that feeling from people who seem so nice and EVERY TIME, they turned out to be pedophiles. It’s like I can feel the blackness around them.
My radar did NOT work initially on my husband although in later years, I was SO intuitive and SO anticipatory that I SEEMED psychic. But then again, when his mask finally came off, even a very dull fellow could intuit that I was in danger. Once the mask was off, EVERYTHING I predicted was proven correct.
EB
Me thinks he made a racket during his “ball” game.
Milo
consider using palm oil shortening.
It has no smell, you can buy it organic, it doesn’t go rancid lasts forever, and you can bake a pie with it too.
I put it on my skin and sometimes use it as a bedtime dry hair treatment.
Yes, smells, muscle tensions are data we don’t notice consciously, but the data gets transferred anyway. We feel emotions not just mentally but often even physically. When they are strong enough they are transported through the body by hormones in the blood and secreted from glands.
As for knowing when you’re a target. This is very instinctual to animals who can become prey. If there is a herd being watched by hunting animals, an the hunting animals settle on a target you’ll often notice how the animal gets skttish before they launch the attack, while the rest of the herd moves away calmly enough. It’s like the whole herd, including the target know which animal they’ll be going for. I’ve been in two prey situations, once when I was 14 and near to my 30s.
The 14 year old episode was in Italy. I had two Italian female friends who sometimes were bored with the evening entertainment on the campsite. I wasn’t allowed to go to the disco, but I was allowed to go with them to a fair with bumper cars and those kind of things. Since we were 3 there was always one of us who had to wait for their turn in a bumper car. It was my turn to stand to the side and wait, when a woman appraoched me and started to ask questions. I felt something was off, but I couldn’t find a rational explanation for it, and as a 14 year old I gave her honest answers. Then a man joined her and started to talk to me. They were complimenting me… how I looked like a model, looked older than I was, blablablablabl… My gut feeling was screaming alarm by then. When I noticed they had moved in such a way that I was cornered and standing in the shade where soon nobody could see me, I moved into action that I could not have stopped even if I had wanted to. I suddenly pushed through the both of them and my biggest luck was that the bell ringed that time was up, and I jumped into the bumping cart with one of my friends. They disappeared unseen, and my friends and I returned back to the campsite.
Once there was a Maroccan guy in my favourite bar who was insolent and drunk, straight out proposing to me. I told him no of course. I had a nice evening with my mates, but as I was saying goodbye to them, I saw him leave the bar, as if pretending to go home. All I could think was “he’s gonna follow me to my car.” Because he actually walked off into the opposite direction of my car I ventured to my car by myself. But sure enough, as soon as he knew he’d gone off the wrong way, he retraced his steps and came my way. Unfortunately I was driving a hired car that night, instead of my own one, and the exact same type and colour was parked next to mine. There was no other way to know which one was mine by trying one. And yup, I tried the wrong car first. By then he was close enough to realize what was going on and he laughed with me for standing at the wrong car. I could have tried to enter the correct one, but I guessed that he was close enough to be able to grab me as I’d be climbing into it. Meanwhile an anger reflex built and I walked up to him and faced him, starting to shout angrily at him, seemingly encircling him myself. Prey acted like a hunter. He hadn’t expected that, and for a long enough time he had been frozen, even saying “Why are you mad at me? I only want to have sex with you.” But those precious seconds had been enough for me to get a free path back to the bar if I ran. And as soon as I started my sprint, he was too slow to respond to it, and I would have been just out of reach if he would have tried to grab me. So he ran away, calling me names and whore and all that stupid stuff. I got to the bar and asked one of my mates to accompany to my car because the creep had followed me to my car. Only the next day when I woke I finally felt the fear that I did not allow myself to fear during the event, and I cried then. I felt nothing but cold thinking and survival rage and adrenaline during the event though (I was aware of every slight move, and it was as if time had slowed down so I could ‘see’ more to get out of the situation). The following night I learned the creep had been carrying a knife and had threatened one of my mates with it, without my knowledge (must have been to the toilet or something).
I don’t regard those moments as ‘intuitive’, but ‘survival instinct’, because it involves adrenaline. A typical sensation during adrenaline episodes is the slowing of time. What only took a few seconds seems like a minute to the person. The reason for this is that adrenaline enables a person to become aware and conscious of more environment data than on an average moment, to find and detect a way out of a life threatening situation. Normally you do see that data but register it as unimportant random noise. When your life is on the line, the random noise can be a life saviour, and you become consciously aware of every detail. Because it is more data being noticed consciously than normal it gives a time distortion sensation, as if you are stretching time.
I was once bumped into by a car as a teen. It was my fault. I crossed a busy street with my bycicle without looking good. The car was driving at the allowed speed, but too close to stop before taking me on the windshield. I bumped my head against the windshield and then slid of the front of the car again while the car was still breaking to slow speed. I had this sudden realization that I was going to slide off in front of the car and if he could not stop on time, I’d be hit again and end up underneath it. It seemed to take forever before I hit the road. But in those very few seconds I had managed to twist my body in such a way I fell on my feet, knees and hands. As soon as I landed, I sprung up and to the side of hte road and ended up only with a slight concussion and neck pain from the neck muscle reflexes during the windshield impact. My friends who had witnessed it all from the side of the street mentioned afterwards that it was the weirdest looking thing, because it was as if I fell and stood simultaneously.
Interesting about the killer you met during a hike, Sky. Perhaps you weren’t a target of his and so there were no alarm signals to pick up, and no alarm needed?
The Gift of Fear is an amazing book! (from what I was able to read before it vanished whilst living with the spath)
The main point in that book is to LISTEN to our intuition. He gives such a solid, undeniable argument for doing so that I actually was able to start changing the judgments I had passed on my intuition and start using it…finally! Finally I was utilizing what Mamma Nature gave me. Yes, I FELT it STRONG with all of them. I remember the exact sentence that went through my head with the last one:
Stay away from that one. He will destroy your life, swear he’ll change, but never change. This one is an addict. He’s dangerous.
Which was followed by this thought:
You are being so judgmental! This man hasn’t done anything to you, and here you are labeling him all these horrible things without even giving him a chance. Look how nice he’s being, and here you are thinking all these bad things about an innocent person!
So it began….
I still hold to my guns that most seasoned LF readers could spot a spath. As I always say, put an LF reader in a room with one for an hour. We’ll give you the damn diagnosis probably before the hour is even through….