My friend Sheila sent an email asking if I’d seen Joran van der Sloot’s five-part interview with Greta Susteren. No, no I hadn’t. But we’re both sort of into psychopaths – she loves serial killers, I get fixated on certain special crimes like the Brand Dividian massacre, the Columbine shooting, the Oklahoma City bombing and a couple of others. Anyway, on the subject of Joran, our interests intersect.
I was fascinated with him during the Natalee Holloway hullabaloo because he was just way too calm. He never got upset, never seemed particularly bothered by the death of the young blond high school graduate. It was chilling to see, but also luridly fascinating.
Then when he was caught in Peru, the same thing happened. He began uttering these outrageous stories, expecting that police would believe him (example: a thief killed Stephany Flores.) Again, incredibly creepy and transfixing.
And yet as creepy as I know he is, I also know that if I had been a young girl, eighteen or twenty-one years old, and a man like Joran began to talk to me… Yep, I’d have been head over hills. I’m not proud of this, I’m only pointing out that for young girls who are inexperienced, his good looks and charm would have been irresistible.
That glib charm is part of the psychopathy profile. And I have not one iota of doubt that Joran van der Sloot is a psychopath. I was confirmed when I took Sheila’s advice and watched the five part series. He was just so calm, with that weird flat-effect. It’s a paradox because I say that I would have been charmed by him, but seeing him on screen, I feel goosebumps. It’s the same reaction a cat has when she arches her back and hisses. The message is clear: stay far away from me.
So I’ve been watching Nancy Grace and reading various newsreports, but I already know what happened. The most fascinating thing for me is to watch him walk through the media. He is utterly calm.
It’s also a weird little reminder that Tim McVeigh, for all his faults, was not a psychopath. Tim McVeigh was stone-faced, and looked hard the first time the media saw him. I am talking about this sequence:
In the McVeigh Tapes, he said that when he was preparing to leave the jail, he intentionally held his back straight, kept his eyes straight ahead, and refused to acknowledge any of the media. He was hard, rigid. Compare that to van der Sloot:
That is a smile of contempt. A smirk that says I did it and I’m gonna get away with it. He’s completely relaxed, and maybe even enjoying the attention.
He completely freaks me out.
My conjecture is that he was a budding serial killer. I think killing two women in a five year period qualifies for some kind of serial offender status. The first rumor for motive that came out of Peru was that he had found Stephany on his computer, and she had discovered something incriminating about his involvement with Natalee Holloway. I believe it. I can see him losing his mind in a rage and beating her to death. No problem whatsoever with that imagery. And I think if he’d not been caught, in a few years we would have heard stories about other women, victims of his aggression.
I am sorry that Stephany was murdered, but I am happy that Natalee Holloway’s family might finally get some peace. They won’t have justice because it is unlikely, in my opinion, that he will be tried for Natalee’s murder unless he makes a full confession (I know he already has, but he’s withdrawn it; he might make another.) But maybe, with Joran locked up now, they can sleep.
I’m also pleased that Joran won’t be housed in some Aruban jail with tropical breezes and the smell of salty sea-air. No, he’ll be in Peru, with all that entails.
I will be curious to see watch the journey to justice this young man will endure. I have the unsettling suspicion that he will indeed rather like it. The blog Raising A Psychopath is about a couple who adopted a psychopath. They had to institutionalize him, and he loves being institutionalized. He’s calm and generally obeys the rules. I can see Joran enjoying it the same way.
How do you punish someone who you can not punish? I doubt seriously anyone can ever make Joran feel bad about what he did to those two women. That lack of remorse is fascinating and horrifying. I like the safety of studying it from a distance – and while he is behind bars.
He really is a fascinating case. I get goosebumps too. You just know you are in the presence of something not quite right with this guy. I’m not a fan of Susteren, generally, but I thought her interview with him was pretty damn great.
He is MISSING something. Empathy, connection, whatever it is that makes us human. I bet if you gave him the Psychopathy Checklist he’d be off the charts.
As I was jotting down my thoughts, I was going through the major ones:
- glib
- superficially charming
- arrogant (believes he will be believed no matter how outrageous the lie)
- utterly unconcerned with Natalee Holloway or her family (my thought was that he was thinking “why would anyone care about her? She’s gone. Get over it.”) Also unconcerned with Stephany.
- I am not sure if you saw the video of him setting up an alibi by coming out of the room with two coffee cups. He looks into the camera, and knocks, then walks away to get someone to open the room. That reminded me of this post on Raising A Psychopath. In both cases, they KNEW they were on tape, and they did it anyway.
- The goosebump feeling.
I’ll be watching – he’s just fascinating in a horrible way.
“he’s just fascinating in a horrible way!” Just how can such a person be fascinating? He is beyond help, and like a vampire. can never aquire enough fulfillment. One victim, two victims, three victims more. Once apprehended, then they should receive the death penalty, We do away with mad dogs, and the very same fate should be the same for those the likes of Joran van der Sloot.
Yeah, he’s very very slick.
Wait, what’s the coffee cup moment? I know he left the room originally to go to the market for a sandwich or whatever and came back to find her on the Internet (so he says) – but what’s this about the video with the coffee cups?
Never mind. I got it.
Chilling.
Yep. He KNOWS he is on tape. And just like that kid on Raising A Psychopath, he does it anyway. Like it doesn’t matter – his words will override anyone who sees the tape.
It’s crazy.
You all might think I’m daft, but this reminds me of something I saw on Dr. Phil a couple years ago – Ladybug had heard about it and decided to record the show because of the subject matter. They had on a creepy old guy whom the daughter claimed had molested her as a child, and she would not let him see his grandson after she suspected him of inappropriate conduct in that direction.
It was uncomfortable and riveting. The guy claimed that whatever physically abusive things he did to her in the past were for her benefit – and that’s just the stuff he copped to, like whipping her with a thick outdoor extension cord. OR else that he was healed and forgiven of them. But he categorically denied everything regarding the grandson, and claimed that he’d found Jesus and was a youth pastor (of all things) who loved working with kids (big red flag) and took them on camping trips (ginourmous flashing sports-car-red flag with brass band and fireworks).
It was obvious the guy was pathological, or at least in deep denial – but when she described what she suspected he had done to his grandson, the camera caught him with that same fucking smirk on his face – for just a second, NOBODY caught it, I think, on the set, because they were looking at her, and she was talking with Dr. Phil at the moment. It was sickening. Really, that picture of van der Groot just flashed me back to him: it’s a time tunnel. It was a “can’t prove anything” grin. At one point his son-in-law asked him (paraphrasing) “How can you just sit here and deny it all, and lie, and know you did all of this, and still live with yourself?”
It was like he was glad he fooled nobody, because he had already gotten what he wanted, and wanted others to know that he had. The only time he was even partially human-acting was when he talked about not being able to go on the camping trips with the boys he was pastoring. Then he was angry – and not because the kids were being deprived, but because he was; he was very threatening and dangerous. I hope he doesn’t know where his daughter’s family lives.
Oh yeah, I’ve seen moments like that on Oprah or whatever. I know that smirk. Anyone who sees it knows to RUN.
You can’t reason with it. All you can do is try to protect yourself and stay far, far away from that kind of pathology.
That blog you linked is absolutely creepy. And so very sad…
People of the world, can you stop effing up the kids, please?
I would love to adopt, but it is stories like that that make me terrified to even attempt it. The tragedy of it all is that babies are not born pathological, they are made that way from abuse/neglect.
Jessica,
I don’t know if they’re born that way or not. It’s a fascinating issue. I do know the reverse is not true: just because you are abused doesn’t mean that you’ll be a psychopath.
In any case, I feel so bad for that adoptive family. I am sure when they decided to adopt, they had visions of a sweet little boy or girl, someone they could nurture and love. And their son is now in an institution – and they’re afraid of him.
Horrible. But yeah, psychopaths are terrifying.
Jessi – a kid like the one in that blog is not that way because of his parents. some people are just born that way. He wasn’t “effed up”. Many psychopaths come from fine families. sure, with some problems maybe – but plenty of people have divorced parents or moved a lot or had workaholic dads or whatever – and don’t become psychopaths.
someone like Joran van der Sloot feels textbook to me, and this is something I’ve studied.
His father perhaps was baffled at what he had created – many parents of psychopaths don’t even have a word for what is wrong with their child. but they know something is off. It is impossible to treat. and even a diagnosis is something sketchy. by the time someone is “diagnosed” it’s usually too late and they’re in prison.
anyway: Just had to say, all the studies show that psychopaths are NOT “created” by parents messing them up. Not at all.
What I find really heartrending about that blog is the great majority of the comments. These parents clearly weren’t out to raise a monster, but so many of the commenters react as if they did – as if they take pride in how their son is turning out. They read all sorts of “sick satisfaction” into his matter-of-fact accounts, but whatever they’re seeing is not in the text. They’re adding it in and then reacting. Some even called it entirely made-up. I don’t fathom it at all.
Even if Lucas had never left the foster family he’d bonded with, there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t have turned out “off,” though perhaps he would learn to adapt better, behave properly, and form some sort of enduring relationships.
My heart just hurts for all of them.
A great novel about a parent of a psychopath is Lionel Shriver’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin”. An unforgiving (and polarizing) book – it leaves no stone unturned in the whole nature-nurture debate. Any parent who has a child who grows up to shoot up the school (the situation in the Kevin book) is going to look back and think, “Where did I go wrong??”
But to assume that there are easy answers to such questions is to completely misunderstand the nature of the psychopath.
There are theories now that their brains are different – MRIs show an undeveloped emotional center. People who rate as psychopaths are shown pictures that in “normal” people brings about brain activity in the emotional centers: a child crying, an open grave, a woman with a black eye – random images, but with heavy emotional connotations. People with normally developed brains have automatic responses to such images, which means things like empathy are activated. One of the main qualities of a psychopath is an absence of empathy. The MRIs show that psychopaths have zero activity in that brain section when shown identical images.
They also don’t experience fear in the same way. Most people, when faced with violence, have automatic fight-flight responses – not an intellectual thing, but something automatic. Psychopaths have the opposite (and this has been noticed in very very young children – from very good homes with loving parents): There is a theory that violence actually activates them emotionally in a way that they don’t otherwise – they get to feel real and human, and not so “other” while committing violent acts (hurting animals, for instance, a classic early sign).
There are no easy answers, no A to B. It’s almost like a “perfect storm” scenario needs to take place in order to create a Ted Bundy. Plenty of people are glib, or lack empathy, or are promiscuous sexually but could never be called psychopaths. But the CLUSTER of characteristics (narrowed down by Robert Hare, the top researcher in psychopathy in the world today) is what makes up a psychopath.
I have picked up We Have To Talk About Kevin several times and always put it down because the format of the book – letters to an ex? – seems alienating to me. Am I wrong about that? It seems otherwise a great book that I’d like to read.
I’ve read those reports about the difference between psychopath brain and normal brain. Here’s a hidden “tragedy” or at least a fact: because the psychopath is focusing all his attention on “acting normal”, he never really experiences an authentic life. Like, he can’t just make himself happy by torturing animals or killing women. I don’t know if they’re unhappy about that, but it seems to me that such a life is a constant balance-beam act, always disguising one’s true self (and thank God. I’m NOT making the point that psychopaths should be able to “express themselves” or whatever. I just think it’s an interesting observation.)
Cara – I would say, yes, you are wrong about the format – there is a deeper something else that is going on there. It is a device, but it has a POINT. But to say more would be to give it away!!
Okay you’ve hooked me. I gotta pick it up!
But tell me what the point is! I am the type of person who reads the first sentence of a book and then the last paragraph before I buy it.
I noticed that as I was reading the posts with Dr. Hare’s list of 20 characteristics of psychopathology. It impressed me strongly enough to take notes. In a lot of the categories the key was “lack of empathy” or “callous disregard” – there was no natural reluctance to overcome to commit a harmful act against someone else, and afterward, no remorse.
There was also something that Lucas’ father called “lack of scale.” He noted it most clearly in Lucas’ inability to really feel the passage of time: five minutes or five hours made little difference mentally to him. That lack of scale seemed to pop up in Dr. Hare’s list a few times as well (at least how I was thinking when I jotted notes). It wasn’t just inflated self-esteem, but excessive and fantastic assessment of his own abilities. Not just fibs but outrageous and complex lies, and in situations where the truth was completely obvious, or when nothing was at stake – the example was, I think, putting away a football: Lucas did it when asked but still said that there had never been a football left out. Not just distance or shyness, but a complete emotional detachment. Not just sexual experimentation or curiosity, but intense, aggressive acting-out.
And as you say – no easy answers. It’s scary to think that such things happen, and how many influences go into it. No one thing is going to suddenly flip a switch to “evil.” There’s no one single thing to do to flip the switch to “good” either. What’s most scary is how subtle it can be, how hard to look for that cluster, how to figure out if someone is truly “out of scale.”
You mention cruelty to animals. As I recall there’s a trio of behaviors that are red flags at that age: that’s one of them, along with pyromania and bed-wetting. I can’t remember now where I read that, it wasn’t at the Raising a Psychopath blog.
Cara – really?? I hesitate to do so because it’s the big shocking reveal at the end. I’ll private message you. The letters are essential to the format because by the end, you realize what she has lost, and that she is pretty much insane. an unreliable narrator. unable to narrate her own story in a forthright manner because it is just too horrible.
Okay send it by private message. But wow, that sounds AWESOME. I suspected – though this is based on NOTHING AT ALL – that it was written as letters because she is in prison or a mental asylum.
Maybe I’m wrong. But I’m dying to know now!
My husband is kind of like this. He show no emotions, seeks all the attention. If he does not get it he drown baby rats, burn ground worms or became violent. If he caught any attention he laughs and keep on talking how how would kill someone or thing.
He knows when not to talk about this where other people he new, don’t like it. I am scared of him. When I do not pay attention to his acts, he done worser things. How do i get out of this. He did not do or talk about this in front of our grown-up children. When they where kids I thought it his thing will blow over. It didn’t. If I stated talking about this he get angry to me. Clearly he want our children not knowing about his doings. This man you talking about sounds like this.
Note: Sorry for grammer and spelling mistakes. I’m Afrikaans speaking