The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience (19 page)

I thanked the driver and sat there in my Toyota as he pulled away.
Someday
, I thought.

Parents of children with severe disruptive behavioral
problems often write me letters asking for help. The parents frequently start out with a frank declaration of their trepidation about sending me a letter because it means they have arrived at the dark realization that their child could be a budding psychopath. No parent wants to confront, much less accept, that fact. I have a rather large file where I keep copies of these letters. Occasionally, when I run into a stumbling block or have a difficult time doing research, I’ll return to the parents’ letter file and read a few. It gives me an extra surge of motivation to hurdle the stumbling block or push through the difficult period and keep focused on the prize—developing an adequate answer to the questions parents raise in their letters.

The letters are heart wrenching to read; I can’t imagine how difficult they are to write. They come from around the world, but the letters share a common theme. Parents typically start by saying they have been dealing with their child’s problems for many years. From the beginning, they struggled to understand why their child had difficulties developing attachments to them, particularly to the mother. The troubled child was impulsive and angered easily, much more easily than other siblings or children with whom the parents had experience. Fights were common and often left the other party
injured and their child unwilling, or unable, to accept responsibility or show guilt. Sanctions or punishment did not change the pattern of impulsivity or anger. Parents often raise, with difficulty, incidents of animal cruelty. Goldfish are often found outside the bowl or trapped someplace where they can’t swim, like at the bottom of a sink where the water has been drained out and there is just enough left for the fish to flop around in. Hamsters, gerbils, and other such animals mysteriously disappear or are found dead in their cages. Abuse often escalates to injury to or death of cats and dogs.

The child usually had significant and repetitive problems at day-care, preschool, and kindergarten; and as school progressed, the repertoire of behavioral problems expanded: repeatedly hitting other children with foreign objects, throwing rocks, and getting into playground fights, all of which resulted in visits to the principal’s office.

The child has little interest in developing friends or spending time with them. The troubled child seems to prefer to be on his own (these children are usually male). Affect is limited or lacking in every aspect of the child’s life. Attachments to people are weak or feeble, and such children show evidence of a profound inability to understand relationships and social behaviors such as sharing or cooperation. Some parents think their child has an undiscovered emotional learning disorder; they want to know if I agree with that assessment.

One of the most telling aspects of the letters is that none of the children are described as normal from birth. Parents say they noticed something different, odd, or abnormal about the child from the very beginning. The letters never describe a normal child, followed by a sharp transition in behavior precipitated by something like a head injury or stressful event (i.e., divorce or death of a parent or sibling). They never describe a period of time where the child went from a normal state into a slow decline. Such a pattern is seen in a number of mental illnesses and is commonly referred to as a
prodromal period
—a slow, progressive change in normal functioning until a real mental break occurs. These children’s histories are presented as qualitatively different from other siblings or children from a very early age; if anything, the behavior has been disappointingly consistent, if not worsening, since birth.

I am never the first mental health professional that parents have sought advice from. Parents usually start asking questions in the pediatrician’s office. It is not uncommon for the parent to say that the child was first diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Following administration of amphetamine (the main ingredient in medications for ADHD such as Ritalin or Adderall), the child’s behavior initially slowed down but then exploded with an even more bewildering array of behavioral problems once the child’s system adjusted to the stimulant effects. A return to the pediatrician’s office will often lead to another diagnosis, then another, and an associated cocktail of medications. Childhood bipolar disorder and autism spectrum disorder are diagnoses du jour that are often used to (mis)label the child with severe disruptive behavioral problems. Frustrated, parents turn to school psychologists, then to professional clinical psychologists, to a second and then a third opinion from child psychiatrists. And then some parents turn to academics. The parents look to academics like me because they feel the community mental health providers are missing something. The parents have educated themselves about the various diagnoses their child has been given, and they often disagree with the child’s doctors. They have cataloged and reviewed the symptoms their child has, and then they realize some of the symptoms fit the definition of
psychopathy
. Sometimes they feel like they have discovered a new disorder that needs to be studied. Most to the point, they just want to know what they can do to help fix their child. The stress is palpable in every letter.

A number of my colleagues who study psychopaths have told me they too are often contacted by parents with troubled children looking for help. I meet up with my colleagues every year at annual scientific conferences. There is usually at least one conversation at dinner about a particularly troubling letter from a parent or relative looking for help. We ask one another whether there are any new treatments, drugs, help groups, or other options that have been developed in the last year to help answer the parents’ questions and address their pain.

At these dinners, we also often discuss clinical cases of adult psychopaths that have come across our desks in the past year that were
illustrative of the condition. Someone will often note the similarity between the child described in the parents’ letters and the case history of the latest psychopath who showed up for a prison research study.

Much can be learned from examining specific case studies of psychopaths. Two cases that I will review in great detail are those of “Brian” and “Eric.” In this chapter, I will present the childhood of these two boys. Later, I will examine their adolescent and adult years to demonstrate the symptoms of psychopathy across different developmental periods of life.

Brian was born in the idyllic town of Nashua, New Hampshire, located in the southeast corner of the state, about an hour’s drive from the closest major city, Boston, Massachusetts. Nashua has been named
Money
magazine’s “Best Place to Live in America” and is the only city in the country to ever win the honor twice. Brian is the second child born to parents Genevieve and James; he is two years younger than his sister, Hillary. The family would eventually grow to five children, with the additions of Stephen, Jeffrey, and Jimmy.

His mother went into labor prematurely with Brian, and prior to the attending physician’s arrival, an emergency room nurse reportedly pushed Brian’s crowning head back into the birth canal and forcibly crossed his mother’s legs to prevent delivery. Brian was born an hour later.

Brian suffered from migraine headaches throughout childhood. Doctors are unclear whether the migraines are related to the birth complications, but it seems not unlikely that the traumatic birth played some role. The headaches are amplified by stress or excitement and are so severe they lead to vomiting. As an infant, Brian banged his head against the baby crib and walls until he was black and blue. These problems continued until he was three and a half years old, and headaches would plague Brian through his teenage years.

Brian’s father, James, was a traveling salesman. Shortly after
Brian’s birth, James was back on the road, and he was absent for the majority of Brian’s and his siblings’ childhoods. Largely raised by their mother, the five children lived in a typical home for the area, just a few miles outside of town. Genevieve adopted an authoritarian parenting style trying to manage the five children. Punishment was strict and discipline was harsh. A belt, sometimes with the buckle end, was used to punish the children. Brian’s brothers and sisters reported that their mom often hit the children so severely she would wear herself out. These beatings often took place in front of the other children so that they would learn from observing the punishment. The beatings were unpredictable and severe.

Both parents drank heavily and were reported to be “functioning alcoholics.” However, before Brian started elementary school, James’s drinking became worse and contributed to his losing his job. Unable to pay their bills, the family was evicted from their home and forced to rent, with the children crowded into shared bedrooms.

Brian was a chronic bed-wetter, a problem that infuriated his mother. She would make Brian sleep in the soiled sheets. Childhood acquaintances would report the home smelled like urine.

At the age of seven, Brian and his five-year-old brother, Stephen, set fire to the detached garage. Even after being harshly disciplined, the two brothers continued to play with matches. They would throw lit matches at each other, daring the other to see who could sit still the longest as matches flew by. Their mother once caught them and held their hands until the matches burned down and seared their palms. In addition to bed-wetting and fire-setting, Brian had other behavioral problems in childhood. Also when he was seven, Brian chased his older sister around the house with a large kitchen knife. When his sister evaded him and locked him in the basement, Brian stabbed through the basement door in anger.

Brian didn’t make many friends growing up. His behavior was risky and impulsive, and he had accidents and got into fights. One fight with his brother Stephen resulted in his front teeth being knocked out.

From an early age, Brian was cruel to animals. When he set fire to a snake, the resulting blaze ended up spreading to a field and fire-fighters
had to be called in to save the neighborhood from going up in flames. He poured gasoline on a cat and lit the animal on fire, burning it to death. Brian also reportedly abused the family dog.

Brian’s schoolwork performance was sloppy, and his grades were average to below average, even though he had no reported learning disabilities. Brian’s attention span was limited, and he was unengaged by school or after-school activities. He did not participate for any significant period of time in any group sports. He began smoking cigarettes by age eleven.

When Brian was in fourth grade, the family moved to Lisle, Illinois. His mother worked as a playground supervisor at a local school, while his father took a job as a traveling salesman at a new company and was again away frequently. By age thirteen, Brian was doing drugs and engaging in burglaries. He had sex for the first time with an eleven-year-old girl. He had multiple contacts with the police and childhood charges that included disorderly conduct, vandalism, and burglary.

Before his fourteenth birthday, Brian had had sex with multiple partners, including a twenty-year-old married woman. His drug use escalated from nicotine and marijuana to PCP, LSD, methamphetamines, cocaine, Quaaludes, hashish, codeine, Valium, inhalants, and alcohol. Brian was removed from his home by social services and placed in a boys’ home. He promptly ran away. Before his fourteenth birthday, he landed in detention for a series of burglaries.

Eric was from the south side, the tough side, of Milwaukee. He grew up in a very unstable home not unlike many of the homes in the neighborhood. Exactly who was taking care of him when he was very young is difficult to determine. However, when he started school at age seven, he was living with his mother, with periodic visits from his father, who sold heroin, cocaine, and marijuana. His mother was addicted to cocaine. It was not clear if his parents ever lived together for any length of time, but both had multiple sexual
partners who lived with them at times. Eric witnessed several fist-fights between his parents. His father was arrested during one fight and charged with domestic violence.

About the time he started kindergarten, Eric’s mother had been arrested for dealing cocaine. His father was also in prison at the time, so Eric was sent out of state to live with an aunt and uncle. He claimed to have no emotional attachments at this time in his life. Later, Eric reported that he had gotten into a lot of fights in elementary school and never made any friends. He described himself as an outsider. He said he preferred it that way, and he liked being different from the other kids.

Eric developed a taste for drugs and alcohol from his father and his father’s girlfriends. His father began to supply him with alcohol when he was in first grade, although Eric did not like the taste or effect it had on him at first. By age eleven, he was back living with his father, who had just been released from prison. His father supplied him with marijuana and cocaine and encouraged Eric to begin to traffic in drugs. Predictably, within two years, his father was back in prison, this time on multiple counts of armed robbery. Meanwhile, Eric’s mother was undergoing detox in a women’s prison. Eric’s aunt and uncle were unwilling to take him back because he was too disruptive, so he was sent to live with his grandmother in another state.

Eric spent little time actually living in his grandmother’s house. Instead, he roamed the streets, traveling to other parts of the country and living “by my wits.” He was twelve years old. He used several fake IDs to get around. He earned spending money by selling drugs, “hustling dice,” selling things he had stolen, and “conning” other kids out of money or possessions with rigged gambling swindles. He was adjudicated delinquent on charges of trafficking marijuana. He had sex for the first time while on the road, a one-night stand with a younger girl. He had about twenty sexual partners during this time, all casual acquaintances. Many of the girls he slept with gave him money or a place to stay. He would steal from, con, or manipulate the girls and their families until they would kick him out or until he moved on.