Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives by Marilee Strong
Authors: Marilee Strong
Tags: United States, General, Social Science, Psychology, True Crime, Health & Fitness, Pregnancy & Childbirth, womens studies, Murderers, Murder, Case studies, Violence in Society, Crimes against, Uxoricide, Pregnant Women
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those whose conduct they
find morally and socially objectionable, whether it be a mass mur-derer or (as one recent documentary film argued) a corporation.
The Dark Triad
3 3
But for forensic psychologists, psychopathy has a distinct meaning
and—with the cooperation of the subject and enough time and skill
on the part of a qualified examiner—the degree of psychopathy in
a particular personality can be measured and quantified. Because
such cooperation is required, however, few if any of the world’s most
famous psychopaths— the classic type represented by Jeffrey Dahmer
or Ted Bundy—have ever been formally tested for psychopathy using
the recognized ‘‘gold standard’’ for diagnosis.
That test, the Psychopathy Checklist or PCL, has been developed
over the course of at least three decades of investigation by the
acknowledged leader in the field, Robert Hare, now professor emer-itus of psychology at the University of British Columbia. Hare has
spent his entire career trying to understand the minds of psychopaths,
primarily studying those in prison for violent offenses. Hare based his
body of work on the groundbreaking research done by the famous
American psychiatrist, Hervey Cleckley. Cleckley wrote the first mod-ern treatise on psychopaths, The Mask of Sanity , in 1941, a seminal
work still used and referred to today.
Through trial and revision, Hare perfected a test that measures
twenty key items to assess the presence and degree of clinical psy-chopathy. Eight of the items concern primarily psychological and
interpersonal factors, which, for simplicity’s sake, we can call the
personality items:
1. Glibness and superficial charm
2. A grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Conning and manipulation of others
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. An overall shallow affect
7. Callousness and lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions
The second axis of the checklist deals with lifestyle traits and
criminal behavior, how psychopaths’ lives are characterized by a high
degree of social deviance—the constant breaking of rules, lack of an
ability to control negative impulses, and inability to set and achieve
3 4
E R A S E D
goals. We can sum these up as the behavioral or antisocial lifestyle
items:
1. Constant need for external stimulation and a tendency to
become quickly bored without such stimulation
2. A parasitic lifestyle (sponging off or taking advantage of others)
3. The inability to control one’s behavior
4. Behavioral problems early in life
5. Lack of realistic, long-term goals and instead having either no
goals or wildly unrealistic ones
6. A high degree of impulsivity (for example, tending to do things
to excess or without substantial thought, from high job turnover
and relationship volatility to excessive spending, drinking, or
gambling)
7. Irresponsibility (lack of trustworthiness, reliability, punctuality,
and so on)
8. History of juvenile delinquency
9. Failure to adhere to the conditions of probation
There are three additional items that, according to established
typologies, might fall into either the first or second categories:
1. Promiscuous sexual behavior
2. The tendency to have multiple short-term marital relationships
3. Criminal versatility (which means that one commits and is
accomplished at not just one specialized kind of crime, such as
forgery, but a wide array of crimes)
Having two or three traits in moderate levels from various parts
of the checklist does not mean that someone is a psychopath. The
testing procedure involves assigning a score from 0 to 2 on each
item, then adding up the total, with a score of 40 being the highest
possible. Those scoring 30 and over are generally regarded as clinical
psychopaths, though some researchers set the cutoff at a lower level.
When tests are done among large groups of prisoners, the average
score is typically around 22, but different
find morally and socially objectionable, whether it be a mass mur-derer or (as one recent documentary film argued) a corporation.
The Dark Triad
3 3
But for forensic psychologists, psychopathy has a distinct meaning
and—with the cooperation of the subject and enough time and skill
on the part of a qualified examiner—the degree of psychopathy in
a particular personality can be measured and quantified. Because
such cooperation is required, however, few if any of the world’s most
famous psychopaths— the classic type represented by Jeffrey Dahmer
or Ted Bundy—have ever been formally tested for psychopathy using
the recognized ‘‘gold standard’’ for diagnosis.
That test, the Psychopathy Checklist or PCL, has been developed
over the course of at least three decades of investigation by the
acknowledged leader in the field, Robert Hare, now professor emer-itus of psychology at the University of British Columbia. Hare has
spent his entire career trying to understand the minds of psychopaths,
primarily studying those in prison for violent offenses. Hare based his
body of work on the groundbreaking research done by the famous
American psychiatrist, Hervey Cleckley. Cleckley wrote the first mod-ern treatise on psychopaths, The Mask of Sanity , in 1941, a seminal
work still used and referred to today.
Through trial and revision, Hare perfected a test that measures
twenty key items to assess the presence and degree of clinical psy-chopathy. Eight of the items concern primarily psychological and
interpersonal factors, which, for simplicity’s sake, we can call the
personality items:
1. Glibness and superficial charm
2. A grandiose sense of self-worth
3. Pathological lying
4. Conning and manipulation of others
5. Lack of remorse or guilt
6. An overall shallow affect
7. Callousness and lack of empathy
8. Failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions
The second axis of the checklist deals with lifestyle traits and
criminal behavior, how psychopaths’ lives are characterized by a high
degree of social deviance—the constant breaking of rules, lack of an
ability to control negative impulses, and inability to set and achieve
3 4
E R A S E D
goals. We can sum these up as the behavioral or antisocial lifestyle
items:
1. Constant need for external stimulation and a tendency to
become quickly bored without such stimulation
2. A parasitic lifestyle (sponging off or taking advantage of others)
3. The inability to control one’s behavior
4. Behavioral problems early in life
5. Lack of realistic, long-term goals and instead having either no
goals or wildly unrealistic ones
6. A high degree of impulsivity (for example, tending to do things
to excess or without substantial thought, from high job turnover
and relationship volatility to excessive spending, drinking, or
gambling)
7. Irresponsibility (lack of trustworthiness, reliability, punctuality,
and so on)
8. History of juvenile delinquency
9. Failure to adhere to the conditions of probation
There are three additional items that, according to established
typologies, might fall into either the first or second categories:
1. Promiscuous sexual behavior
2. The tendency to have multiple short-term marital relationships
3. Criminal versatility (which means that one commits and is
accomplished at not just one specialized kind of crime, such as
forgery, but a wide array of crimes)
Having two or three traits in moderate levels from various parts
of the checklist does not mean that someone is a psychopath. The
testing procedure involves assigning a score from 0 to 2 on each
item, then adding up the total, with a score of 40 being the highest
possible. Those scoring 30 and over are generally regarded as clinical
psychopaths, though some researchers set the cutoff at a lower level.
When tests are done among large groups of prisoners, the average
score is typically around 22, but different
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