Geraldo Rivera provided his analysis of the ”¦ Natalee Holloway disappearance case. Prime suspect Joran Van Der Sloot has given a series of interviews proclaiming his total innocence. “The lie that he has fastened on,” Rivera pronounced, “is that he took her on the beach but didn’t have sex because he didn’t have a condom, then left her on the there. It’s at odds with the story he told earlier, but as he tells this story he becomes more confident and more glib. I believe there is a pathological aspect to this man.” The Factor concurred that Van Der Sloot seems psychologically unbalanced. “I can’t figure out why he wants do these interviews because he comes off as a sociopath. If he makes one slip-up he’s done. It looks to me like he’s a danger junkie – he likes this cat-and-mouse game, it’s exciting to him” (source)
Does it matter whether or not Joran van der Sloot is a sociopath/psychopath? Why not just be satisfied that he is a “criminal” and an evil person?
Yes, it does matter, because when dealing with a sociopath the usual rules of human interaction do not apply. Anyone who treats a sociopath as they would a non-disordered person is likely to get burned and to be implicated in the evil that sociopath does. Joran van der Sloot’s story illustrates this principle.
Joran’s father, Paulus, was an attorney many believed knew the truth about what happened to Natalie Halloway, the first young woman Joran was accused of murdering. Paulus strongly supported his son after the murder accusations first arose, and was even charged himself as an accessory after the fact, though the charges were dropped.
Paulus van der Sloot died of a sudden cardiac death last February and so did not live to see the result of his enabling of his son. Joran’s mother, Anita, is now alone to deal with the repercussions of the family’s enabling.
The lesson to be learned is that if you have a family member who has been charged with a serious crime, and that family member has psychopathic personality traits, or is diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder, DO NOT HELP THAT PERSON IN ANY WAY.
Over and over again, we have said on this website that sociopaths are able to do evil in a large part because they are enabled by family members and various governmental agencies- including the judicial system and law enforcement. Well, law enforcement does it again.
It turns out that the FBI wired Joran $25,000 as part of a “sting” operation, as they were trying to arrest him for shaking down Natalie Halloway’s parents. According to former agent Paul Lindsay, “the FBI formula for extortion stings is, “set ’em up, pay ’em off, get ’em to talk, never let them leave the room without handcuffs on.” Because the FBI did not understand the psychology of their suspect, they let him leave the room and were out smarted by a sociopath.
The lesson to be learned here is that next time the FBI wants to sting a sociopath they should contact Lovefraud so that Donna and I can tell them not to give a sociopath any money”¦ that is unless they want the sociopath to use the money to kill someone.
One more lesson to be learned from the van der Sloot case is that media psychiatrists should stop confusing people with their false categorical statements. I came across this analysis of van der Sloot by psychiatrist Keith Ablow (who I have criticized before):
“Serial killers whether organized or disorganized are always made, never born. Having interviewed dozens of killers myself, I can tell you that it turns out that evil never appears ”˜out of the womb’.”
Well, I knew Rodney Alcala, and I can tell you that he was born with a disposition to become a serial killer that was present in his early childhood. Serial killers are both born and made. Evil is in the genes of some people but like many other traits it needs the right soil to take root and blossom.