The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience (10 page)

Guiteau never apologized for or indicated he felt any guilt over the assassination of President Garfield. Even on the way to the hangman, he never seemed to come close to appreciating the gravity of his crime. He perplexed an entire nation.

John Wilkes Booth, on the other hand, begged his family in his diary to forgive him for the crime he committed, and he confessed that he hated to kill but that he felt forced to act. And apparently, just before his death in the weeks following the assassination, he came to realize the fault of his act. History has recorded Booth’s scheme to be one of the most vile and cowardly crimes ever committed, but he seemed to have the ability to experience remorse and guilt.

Here we are concerned with the depth, quality, and stability of an individual’s emotional life. Cleckley described the psychopath as showing absolute indifference to hardships, whether they are financial, social, emotional, physical, or other, which he readily brings upon others, and even those whom he professes to love.
⁴
In interviews, the psychopath seldom claims he has no idea what love is. He often equates love with sex. It’s not uncommon for him (the overwhelming majority of psychopaths are men) to admit that he has never really felt any emotions for anyone, other than the physical pleasures associated with sex. The careful observer will note that psychopaths will readily express feelings, emotions, and affect, but the feelings and emotion are rather limited in strength and depth of feeling. The psychopath “knows the words but not the music.”
⁵

Cleckley reported that psychopaths never experience grief, honesty, deep joy, or genuine despair. From my own experience, I would add to Cleckley’s observations that the psychopath never ruminates on anything. Rumination is a process that often contributes to depression and in extreme forms to obsessive-compulsive disorder. The process of rumination is often associated with some anxiety or subjective feeling of concern or worry, and this can help precipitate change in the individual in order to reduce the anxiety. The psychopath experiences none of this. Indeed, if you ask a psychopath if he has ever worried about whether he left the house with the stove on (a common problem among those with obsessive-compulsive disorder), he will look at you like you are an alien, in stunned disbelief. Obsessive compulsiveness is completely foreign to the psychopath’s way of thinking. Psychopaths are on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Certainly, with respect to his incarceration, Guiteau showed no ill effects. He actually scouted the jail where he was to be incarcerated prior to the assassination to preview the accommodations he was going to enjoy. Guards and prison food workers documented that he showed no evidence of sadness, depression, or concern during his period of incarceration prior to and up to the day of his execution. Indeed, his lack of emotional consternation regarding his execution
is noteworthy. He showed absolutely no anxiety or fear of punishment. This is another hallmark characteristic of psychopaths. Punishment, real or threatened, does not alter the psychopath’s behavior. For the rest of us, a sharp tongue lashing or physical punishment will suffice to make us (re)consider our choices, and usually alter our behavior in order to avoid such retribution in the future. For the psychopath, such punishments do not take. It’s hard for people to understand this point. For the vast majority of us, real or threatened punishment is sufficient to keep us on the straight and narrow. But psychopaths seem unable to learn from punishment, severe or not. It will not change their behavior. Take the death penalty, for example. Proponents argue it is a deterrent. But the thought of life without the possibility of parole, confined to a six-foot by nine-foot cell with very disagreeable people surrounding us, is sufficient deterrent for 99 percent of us. However, for that 1 percent who are psychopaths, even the death penalty never enters their awareness as a potential punishment for murder—it has absolutely no deterrent effect. Such was the case for Guiteau.

There is plenty of evidence that suggests Guiteau was unable to develop strong emotional attachments to people. He had few acquaintances and he was “not able to make any friends.”
⁶

Booth, in rather stark contrast to Guiteau, showed significant signs of anxiety in his life, especially during early stage performances. He maintained very close relationships with his sister and brothers prior to the Civil War. Even during the war, Booth maintained a close relationship with his sister despite the fact the Booth family was split along ideological lines. The Booths were raised in Maryland, a border state in the War Between the States. His brothers were supporters of the North while John Wilkes supported the South. Edwin, John Wilkes’s older brother, distanced himself from John Wilkes because of this, and he initially disowned him following the assassination of President Lincoln. However, later Edwin lobbied and obtained rights to bury John Wilkes’s body in the family burial plot so he could rest in peace with the rest of his family.

Booth attended funerals of family and close friends, and he apparently showed a normal range and depth of emotion at these and other events. He cared for and left his money and property to his
siblings and their children, understanding the fateful path he had chosen.

Booth was reported to be excitable and his acting reflected that. He was known as a highly enthusiastic actor who threw himself into the characters. Many of the plays he was in portrayed the theme of killing or overthrowing an unjust ruler, as in the story of William Wallace (made famous by Mel Gibson’s film
Braveheart
). Booth’s favorite role was Brutus—the slayer of a tyrant. Historians have speculated that his experiences with the plays he acted in may have contributed to his political ideology, and ultimately to his views that Abraham Lincoln was a tyrant who needed to be removed. It is worth noting that Booth was not alone in his (misguided) ideology. In any event, there is considerable evidence that Booth was able to experience a normal depth and range of emotion.

Guiteau was known through the city of Chicago as a “pettifogger”—a vicious, wild character. He’d been barred from working in the courts, which precipitated his departure from Chicago and move to the East Coast. He was described by his father, brother, brother-in-law, sister, former wife, friends, and business associates as having a wicked temperament. In his swindlings, he was impervious to sentiment or feeling for the victims. His former wife reported that she never once, in her five years with him, heard him say that he was sorry for his behavior; he apparently did not suffer pangs of regret on account of his dishonesty.
⁷
His natural disposition was reported as “ugly.” He delighted in controlling others. He mentally and physically abused his wife daily and demonstrated callousness and a lack of empathy to individuals throughout his life.

One of Booth’s letters helps to better understand his empathy and understanding. Is this the letter of a callous man?

Booth had adopted the racist ideology of the time. Personally, I find it very difficult not to score a racist who endorses slavery high
on
Callous/Lack of Empathy
. However, we have to review the rest of Booth’s life. In it we find little evidence of any callousness or inability to empathize with others. Since we find evidence in only one domain of his life, we must score him in the low to moderate range.

Guiteau frequently borrowed money from friends and relatives, lived with them for long periods of time, often made no effort to obtain a job, and apparently never paid anyone back. He borrowed money from others to attend college well past when he dropped out.

When I lecture to undergraduate audiences, I note that most of us, on at least a few occasions, have asked our parents for a little extra money. But if you go to mom and dad repeatedly, to the point where they are having problems paying their bills, you begin to fulfill the criteria for this trait.

Guiteau continually relied on others. He was described by his father as “lazy beyond degree.” He pretended to be a preacher so that he could get free travel on trains. Guiteau epitomized a parasitic orientation in all relationships and business dealings.

Booth, as far as I have found, never borrowed money from anyone. He donated to charities. There is extensive documentation regarding his reliance on hotels while on the road, but there is no evidence suggesting that he failed to pay his bills. He left bonds, cash, and land to his sister and her family in his last will and testament.

Guiteau once threatened to kill his sister with an axe (although he later claimed he was only horsing around). He reportedly drew a pistol on a man in Rochester, New York. At age eighteen, he got in a fight with his father. His father described him as someone with a wicked, explosive temper. Stories of physical altercations on the part of Guiteau are relatively rare, but verbal and aggressive outbursts are common. Others described him as intensely high-tempered, becoming angry upon the most trifling provocation, or no provocation at all. He often lost control of himself. Perhaps one of the most salient and documented examples of Guiteau’s poor behavioral controls comes from his behavior at trial. He verbally interjected during all phases of the trial, during jury instruction, testimony, routine lawyer interactions, and so on. He would frequently pound his fists upon the table, raise his voice, even stand up and yell, often to the chagrin of the prosecutor. The judge was notably lenient in this regard. However, the yelling, screaming, or fist pounding wasn’t done in any delusional or psychotic sense. It was just poorly regulated behavior. The general public was shocked by his antics, but Guiteau’s wife was unfazed, stating that he was always like that.

Booth has been described as rather impulsive, often acting without planning or thinking. Some accounts discuss Booth as an excessive drinker and include stories of uninhibited behavior. But it does not appear that Booth was hotheaded to the degree that Guiteau was.

Guiteau’s wife, Annie Bunn, successfully won a divorce from Guiteau by presenting Guiteau’s mistress, Clara Jennings, at the proceedings. On the stand Jennings admitted to having an affair for years with Guiteau.

In the language of the times, Guiteau was variously described as a man of many vices, and a man who supported “vile” women. In one report he frequented brothels, which resulted in his contracting venereal disease. It’s difficult to document Guiteau’s sexual proclivities over the course of his life, but there appears to be enough evidence to safely warrant a high score.

Booth scores high here too. His sexual liaisons were legendary—he rarely went home alone after an acting performance. But his attitude toward sex was not dissimilar to his brothers’ or father’s, or to the attitude of many other men of the time. Nevertheless, Booth had a very cavalier, if straightforward, attitude about sexual relations. He simply chose to engage in as many liaisons as possible, which merits a high score on this trait.

Charles Guiteau was described by a family friend as a fear and terror to his parents growing up. He possessed a mean and stubborn disposition. His father could not control him and (correctly) predicted Charles would bring disgrace to the family. He apparently tried everything he could to make a good man of Charles, but to no avail. By most accounts the family was considered highly respectable, and Charles’s five siblings were apparently raised without incident. Charles was the black sheep of the family.

His father was considered a model parent by most. Alternative accounts suggest that his father was authoritarian and highly religious, even to a pathological degree. It is not clear how Guiteau’s father disciplined Charles. But Charles was known throughout the neighborhood as a “miserable rascal.” A family physician had diagnosed Charles as an imbecile, echoing the term
moral imbecility
, popular at the time (a euphemism for
psychopathy
).