So, the beauty about this empirical research now is that we know a lot about these individuals and when we use the word psychopath, scientist to scientist, person to person, we know exactly what that means and we've come so far in our understanding of these individuals that it's amazing but we can now really do, I think, a much better job even in predicting what they will do next just in terms of really their life and the damage to the people around them.
R.K.: So, you've worked with the FBI and you teach the FBI. What is the goal of the FBI in terms of understanding and dealing with psychopaths?
M.O.: Well ,as everybody knows, the FBI is a law enforcement agency and I, not only do I teach interviewing psychopaths over at the FBI, or have in the past, I also teach law enforcement throughout the country and on psychopaths because even though the majority of psychopaths are not violent, a large percentage of our especially violent crimes are committed to people who manifest traits of psychopath,y so to understand them is critical before you walk into that interview room. And let me give you just an example.
When a detective, or FBI agent, walks into an interview room where someone who manifests traits of psychopathy, they have got to understand that a psychopath is a predator and the prey-predator relationship exists. So, that officer, that detective, that FBI agent is walking in and that is the prey and the psychopath will read them better, read their body language better, read their behavior better than the detective, or the law enforcement person will.
So, it's very important, since law enforcement probably has more contact with psychopaths because of the work that we do than even mental health folks. Because our mental health professionals don't come into this degree of contact with psychopaths, because in a psychopath's world they don't think there's anything wrong with them, so they don't seek out mental health treatment. But they will come into contact with law enforcement which is why we need to know what the traits are and why they behave differently in their crime scenes and why they behave differently in court, and I can give you some examples of that and why they will be such a challenge to interview.
R.K.: Okay, so let's start with crime scenes. How do they behave differently in crime scenes?
M.O.: Well, in their crime scenes, and most of the crimes, I'm also an FBI agent so my expertise comes from an investigator and then on top of that being a behavioral scientist, I've studied hundreds and hundreds of, for example, serial murder scenes and consulted on serial murder cases. If you commit a crime like a serial murder, over and over again, and you even learn how to do it better and you learn how to do it much like Gary Ridgway, so you don't get caught, the inference from that is that there is no empathy for the victims and there's no empathy for the society where you're doing it. So, that's number one. You will see behavior with the victim that shows no empathy for the victim or the victim's family.
R.K.: What would that behavior look like?
M.O.: Committing it over and over again. It may also include, for example, torturing the victim before the victim is dead. It could include postmortem mutilation. It also can include something I've seen regularly in a series of murders where there are no defensive injuries on the victim and I look at that and say, why are there no defensive injuries on these victims? Especially if the victims are very streetwise people, male or female, very streetwise, smart people. They know not to open their front door. They know not to get into a car. Why is it that these people over and over again would let their guard down?
If the person is psychopathic, they can come across as incredibly glib and charming and you look at them and they don't look threatening. In fact, they can use that ability to be, as you call it, charismatic to convince you that they're not going to hurt you. So, when I'm looking at a series of crimes I look for the absence, for example, of defensive injuries which tells me whoever approached that woman, that man, must have had some sort of good verbal camouflage, I love that word, or persuasiveness that allowed that person to put their guard down.
So, when I look at crime scenes I look at the whole crime scene. I don't pull out one or two traits, but look at the lack of empathy, how he was able to access the victim, what he did to the victim, and then I also look for what's the evidence that's left behind, what's the amount of planning that went into the crime? If you're dealing with someone who lacks empathy, they may put a lot of planning into their crime scene because they're not overwhelmed by what they're about to do, but in fact they want to carry it out successfully, so you may see a lot of planning in their crime scenes as well.
R.K.: Okay. Now, well, how about, you say they behave differently in court. How do they behave differently in court?
M.O.: Well, I'll give you a perfect example. Recently, we were all I think very troubled to watch the case out of Cleveland with the man, Ariel Castro, who kidnapped the three girls and kept them for ten years in his home in Cleveland very close by to where the vigils would be held for the girls and fliers would be handed out and where the girl's families were.
So, that's very arrogant and grandiose to think that you can live in the same area where you've actually committed these abductions but, if we recall what he did in court, I think it was very stunning. When the judge asked him if he wanted to make a statement, that statement went on for pretty much close to an hour and in that statement to the courts,as it was filmed on television, he blamed the victims.
He made himself... it was not his fault. He did not take responsibility for it. He blamed law enforcement. He talked about how they were so happy in that household that that's the happiest that he has ever been. So, he completely twisted everything around and it's not because he was crazy, in fact, there was a noted absence of any mental health issues. He was just going to make himself look better and blame the victims and he took over the courtroom because the courtroom is a stage for a psychopath where they can be on the international stage and that's exactly what he did and his final words were absolutely amazing to me. Little hard to hear, but his final words were, had to do with making arrangements to view his baby daughter, the daughter that he had with one of his victims. And when you think about the context of that, here's a man who kidnaps three girls, fathers a child by one of the victims, and then as he's basically walking out the courtroom, he wants to know, or is making a statement about having visitation rights to his daughter. Really? Are you kidding me? And that's shocking and yet he does not care about the fact that all of the world is listening to him and they're shocked by his lack of empathy, or his lack of compassion.
But he made it all about him and I think that to me is a very good recent example about how they view the courtroom.
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