Guest Blogger: Katherine Ramsland, PhD: Contextual Cues for Predatory Targeting

Contextual Cues for Predatory Targeting

Pattern repetition improves the speed and efficiency of victimizing. 

Elsewhere I’ve written about the predator’s advantage and six things that make us vulnerable to them. Essentially, predators keep their eyes open for certain types of people, behaviors, and situations. The more they watch for these things, the better they get at seeing them. There’s a concept for that.

It’s contextual cueing or honing the ability to spot desired targets with the repetition of specifically configured patterns. Repeated exposure to the pattern arrangement improves search efficiency. In other words, the brain develops mechanisms to increase its competence for selecting what it’s seeking.

We all have the ability to improve the efficiency of our scanning activity. That’s why we can find our way home, night or day, or locate our car in a crowded lot. We match the reality with our image. Our contextualized focus guides visual attention and object recognition, and memory of the context navigates attention toward future similar goals.

Recent research shows this is not a narrowing of focus but filtering. We use inner representations to filter out irrelevant data so we can better find what engages us. If certain patterns matter a lot, such as prey to a predator, our brain develops more sensitivity to them. In fact, before we’re conscious of the cues, deeper brain structures that form body memories and perceptual sets have already processed them. Perception serves action, so familiar configurations generate faster search performance than do novel configurations. Once the pattern’s set, we can act more quickly.

This means predators who stay vigilant for opportunities can develop a robust memory and visual skill for certain cues, which guides where and how they look. Repeated experience and expertise update their memory and yield advanced search benefits. The items (or people) they seek stand out faster and more precisely the more they work at it. They can cut quickly through the noise.

Serial killer Israel Keyes, who built houses, described what he’d look for before committing a murder. If he wanted time with a victim, he’d look for signs of an abandoned house where he could take them. A ‘for sale’ sign was a good indicator, and such signs always caught his eye. In Essex, Vermont, Keyes saw an isolated, abandoned farmhouse for sale. He broke in and looked around. Then he looked for a victim close by. He chose the home of Bill and Lorraine Currier because it had an attached garage and showed no evidence of children or a dog. Knowing house layouts, he found a window AC that suggested the master bedroom. He found a vulnerable entry point and went in. Waking the couple, he kidnapped and killed them that night. He was efficient because he looked for certain things.

For predators like him, contextual cues form a cognitive map or the representation of how we become habituated to a specific perspective. We encode, recall, and recognize our “situated existence” according to familiar parameters. We mentally “place” things so we can find them when we need them.

Researcher E. C. Tolman theorized long ago that successful learning occurred spatially. In the 1940s he ran rats through a maze, finding that once they became familiar with it, they could make their way through it with fewer errors during later trials – even with roadblocks placed in their way. If the maze was filled with water, for example, they still swam the correct route. Tolman surmised that the rats had internalized it and developed an inner field guide. Further research since then appears to confirm that the neurological system is set up to encode locations, distance, and directions. It likely also encodes contextual cues in the same manner.

The brain links our perceptual sets with our physiological systems. Researchers at London’s University College studied the size of the memory-consolidating hippocampus in cab drivers because they surmised that these cabbies must have an enhanced working memory of locations. Over the two years in which they trained, they had to prove they could locate thousands of sites all over London. Compared to a control group, their hippocampus showed greater development. The more years they’d been on the job, the larger its size. That is, they had developed strong embodied biological intelligence – grounded cognition.

Predators have this, too. They know what they want and remember how to get there. Other serial killers have similarly discussed what they look for to detect vulnerable victims. Some watch for young women alone, some lock on unsupervised children, and others zero in on people who need money or drugs. Con artists say the same thing, as documented in this book, The Confidence Game. The more that serial offenders work at a specific type of crime or focus on a specific type of victim, the more ingrained their contextual cues become. These encoded cues then enhance and improve their chance of success during their next predatory outing.

References:

Tolman, E. C.. (1948). Cognitive maps in rats and men. Psychological Review, 55(4), 189-208.

Callahan, M. (2109). American predator: The hunt for the most meticulous serial killer of the 21st century. Penguin.

Maguire, E., Gadian, I., Johnsrude, C. et al, (2000). Navigational Related Structural Change in the Hippocampi of Taxi Drivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97, 4398-4403

Costa, S., & Shaw, P. (2006). ‘Open Minded’ Cells: How Cells Can Change Fate. Trends in Cell Biology 17(3), 101–106.

Konnikova, M. (2016) The Confidence Game: Why we fall for it…every time. Penguin.

Junge, J. A., Scholl, B. J., & Chun. M. M. (2007). How is spatial context learning integrated over signal versus noise? A primacy effect in contextual cueing. Visual Cognition, 15(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/13506280600859706

Original Post in Psychology Today: psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/202010/contextual-cues-predatory-targeting

 

Guest Blogger: Lisa Black: WHEN FRAUD TURNS TO MURDER

WHEN FRAUD TURNS TO MURDER

We all chuckle at the emails to announce that the heir to a foreign fortune wants to give us a hefty chunk of it to help them get it out of the country, the friend requests from European models or silver fox military contractors, and the phone calls from the IRS telling us deputies are on their way to our door with a warrant for our tax-evasion request. But the losses suffered by the ones who don’t hang up or who write back to that email, though a small percentage, are no laughing matter. Reports indicate over 1.5 billion dollars were lost to scammers last year—that’s billion, with a b. 

But some have lost more than that. 

Romance scams can break more than hearts. Lonely housewife Renee Holland of Pennsylvania sent nearly thirty thousand dollars to a scammer posing as a U.S. soldier in Iraq, then attempted suicide when he didn’t show up at her airport as planned. Her husband, former military himself, tried to understand. They moved to Florida and tried to start over, but the stress of guilt and caring for an elderly father drove her right back into ‘Chris’s’ arms. Two days before Christmas 2018, her husband shot her, her father, and then himself.

The foreign fortune that needs your help to move is commonly called the Nigerian prince scam, or a 419, that number being the criminal code for fraud in Nigeria. Sometimes it’s couched as a business opportunity, sometimes a palatable form of money laundering, or sometimes it’s a pure gift, but will always involve money required up front for ‘fees’ and ‘transfers’ before you ever get that big ol’ check. Jiri Pasovsky, a 72-year-old retired doctor in the Czech Republic, gradually lost his entire life’s savings buying in to a fictitious Nigerian oil business and spent over a year lobbying to get it back. Pasovsky was no stranger to deceit—while a real doctor, he had also been an agent for the Czech secret police under Communist rule. In the 60’s he lived in Afghanistan, pretending to work with a team of Czech doctors but in reality, monitoring his fellow countrymen. He joined the CIA, but only in order to unmask fellow Czechs trying to defect to the States—but his cover disintegrated when a fellow secret agent made it to the west. This work must have been part of the pension he lost to the oil scheme and in 2003 he made the last of his many visits to the Nigerian Embassy there in Prague to demand they recover his funds. There he shot fatally shot diplomat Michael Lekara Wayid, 50, and wounded the man’s receptionist who came to intervene. 

The Jamaican version of this is the lottery scam, in which a phone call informs potential victims that they’ve won a prize of millions to be collected…as soon as they pay the taxes on the winnings. Once they get a vulnerable person on the line, the calls don’t stop. In 2015 they hounded dementia patient Albert Poland, 81, out of over five thousand dollars—a relatively small amount in scam land, but enough to drive the retired factory manager to suicide. 68 year old Heidi Muth flew from California to Jamaica to track down her money in 2017; her body was found with multiple stab wounds on a street in Montego Bay. But while the scam produces death in America, it leaves a massacre in Jamaica: over two hundred deaths per year on the island are linked to scam gangs, even after a 2013 law gave prosecutors the tools for sweeping raids and numerous arrests.

Then there’s German expat Christian Gerhartsreiter, who faked the rich and famous lifestyle so well that he made a career of it, churning through identities for nearly thirty years, two marriages, and a double homicide. He spent his last ten years of freedom posing as Clark Rockefeller—yes, of those Rockefellers. Apparently, once you stroll into the club, no one questions whether you belong there. But when his long-suffering wife decided to divorce, she began questioning everything, leading to the discovery of his former landlady’s son buried behind his house. The daughter-in-law’s body has not been found. It didn’t help that Gerhartsreiter had buried two of his own bookbags along with the body, or that he drove the dead man’s truck for several months afterward.   

But authorities are fighting back. Indian cybercrime detectives, working with the U.S. and other countries, arrested over two hundred people in one area of their country for running call centers which raked in over $50K a day, mostly from Americans and Canadians. In another case, 24 people in the U.S. are currently sitting in jail for running an IRS scam in which they would launder the money an Indian call center wrung out, one prepaid gift card or wire transfer at a time. In 2018, 28 U.S. and Jamaican defendants were sentenced in a lottery scam. And in just the past two years citizens of Canada, Nigeria and the U.S. were convicted in romance scams.

In the meantime, we will continue to hang up on the phone calls that tell us we won a contest we never entered, unfriend the fashion model or hunky soldier, and never, ever, click on the link. 

 Lisa Black is a latent print examiner and CSI for a police department in Florida. In her August release, Every Kind of Wicked, forensic scientist Maggie Gardiner and homicide detective Jack Renner track down a nest of scammers. http://www.lisa-black.com

 

Guest Blogger: Dr. Katherine Ramsland: The Unique Allure of the Scene of a Crime

 

Visits to murder sites reveal more than mere curiosity.

There’s been a lot of attention lately on why people love true crime. I can recall when publishers considered the subject a waste of their time. Suddenly, it’s big business. Psychologists are weighing in, mostly guessing at the motivation. I’ve seen no representative studies on the topic, but I’ve been among true crime fans for more than two decades, so I can speak anecdotally.

I don’t think it’s because, as one expert put it, people are fascinated with evil. That’s just a superficial sense of something deeper. Crime is specific. The fascination is not with evil itself but with the formation of the motivation to harm and the development of a mind that can think up twisted and cruel treatment of others.

Extreme behavior is difficult to fathom, especially the cold-blooded kind, and TC fans want to try to understand. Women, especially, are attuned to motives and to victim predicaments. They enjoy feeling compassion and empathy. Sometimes, they identify with the woman who snaps or plans revenge.

The intensity of emotion typically involved in murder, whether a domestic homicide or a mass killing, draws us out of everyday dullness. We focus. There’s a heightened sense of suspense and thrill. For some, it also involves the cycle of being scared by what happens in the story and then feeling safe.

Another expert said that the current interest in true crime is driven by the 24/7 news cycle. It does play a part. When news anchors hype crimes with over-the-top coverage, the networks that broadcast “all crime all the time” will scoop up the story. The media certainly contributes, but possibly only to stoke a spark that is already present. The news covers other areas of life every day that don’t become obsessions; true crime stands out. So, it’s not just about 24/7 news.

We get closer to the embrace of TC when we study the core narratives that turn up in one presentation after another. Most TC books, documentaries, and TV series build up to the same resolution. They present the lure of a puzzle, provide guidelines for protection and preparation, and resolve tension by showing how the perpetrator was caught (often by being outsmarted) and punished. Thus, TC narratives play on our desires for catharsis, safety and closure. We enter through the intrigue of mystery and exit feeling better, sometimes even smarter.

Perhaps there’s an evolutionary benefit, as some psychologists suggest, in terms of making us pay better attention to dangers in our environment. Whenever I teach a course on serial killers, multiple students tell me they now lock their doors and notice people around them. But I don’t think this fully explains the fad. It’s true that TC has always fascinated, but recently it’s become much more of a cultural obsession. There’s an emotional payoff that’s become a collective pursuit.

True crime lets us experience anxiety and fear in a controlled way. It’s not happening to us, but we can work our way through it. People gawk at terrible things sometimes for reassurance. We can let ourselves imagine monsters coming for us because they can’t really get us. We purge fear within a frame of safety. As the TC community grows, we can share our “guilty pleasure” and form groups that reinforce the payoff.

Although a small sliver of the TC fan community seeks the bloodiest, most disgusting images they can find, most immerse themselves, then and get out. They’re interested in human behavior, not a gore-fest.

This brings us to visiting actual murder sites. I once wrote a travel column about tourable murder sites and I’m currently creating a presentation about “Dark Tourism.” This involves looking for sites that people visit who want to see where a murder happened: The steps of Gianni Versace’s former South Beach home, for example, where Andrew Cunanan gunned him down, or the clock tower at the University of Texas at Austin’s campus from which Charles Whitman picked off targets in August 1966 until police killed him.

It may sound morbid, but getting close to the intense energy of disturbing events initially evokes a rush. The energy of madness, anger, lust, or jealousy seems to pervade the place. People linger outside the “Amityville Horror” house where Roy Defeo shot his entire family, the home in Ohio where Jeffrey Dahmer killed and buried his first victim, and the former boarding house where kindly Dorothy Puente murdered men for their welfare checks and buried them in her garden.

In some cases, there are tours. In London’s Whitechapel neighborhood, expert guides will take you to where Jack the Ripper allegedly killed at least five women in 1888. In Wisconsin, there’s a Jeffrey Dahmer tour, and in Los Angeles, you can take any number of tours to infamous places, like where the Black Dahlia’s body (parts) were placed, where Nicole Brown Simpson was killed, or where the Hillside Stranglers dumped their victims. In Chicago, there’s an H. H. Homes tour (“The Devil in the White City”), although his actual murder castle is long gone.

You can see Lizzie Borden’s infamous former house just by walking by it in Fall River, Massachusetts, although it’s worth taking the tour inside – or getting a room. You can also see the JonBenet Ramsey murder house and the house in Villisca, Iowa, where a sensational mass murder occurred a century ago. Now it’s a museum. Another museum graces the Jesse James Farm in Kearney, MO, as well as the Sarah Winchester House in San Jose, California. Frank Lloyd Wright’s tourable Wisconsin estate, Taliesin, was the scene of a massacre in 1914.

Savannah, Georgia, hosts several genteel homes in which murder occurred. The most famous is Jim Williams’ Mercer House, the setting for Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, which is open to tours. Then, there’s the murder-suicide in poet Conrad Aiken’s former home. Many of the ghost tours in the historic area describe criminal incidents, but Savannah has also added a few TC tours.

New York, New Orleans, Chicago, San Francisco – practically any large city has a crime history that lends itself to tours or museums. People go to experience the details of the horrendous acts by getting as close as possible to the physical setting.

I said above that, initially, there’s a rush. This often gives way to reflection and sadness. At the sites, people learn more about the victims than they typically know. When I stood in front of the homes where Dennis “BTK” Rader killed his victims, I thought a lot more about them than about him. Whatever one might have learned from offender-centered media, the sites themselves usually humanize the victims and invite us to imagine their plight. It’s about lore, not gore.

Dr. Katherine Ramsland is a professor of forensic psychology and the assistant provost at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. She has published over 1,000 articles and 65 books, including The Psychology of Death Investigation, Forensic Investigation: Methods from Experts, Confession of a Serial Killer: The Untold Story of Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer; The Mind of a Murderer; The Forensic Science of CSI; Inside the Minds of Serial Killers, and The Forensic Psychology of Criminal Minds. She presents workshops to law enforcement, psychologists, coroners, and attorneys, and has consulted for several television series, including The Alienist, CSI and Bones. She also writes a regular blog for Psychology Today and has appeared on 20/20, Dr. Oz and numerous crime documentaries for the ID and Oxygen Networks.

Originally posted on the Psychology Today website:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/201907/the-unique-allure-the-scene-crime

 

Guest Blogger: Roger Angle: How To Avoid Getting Lost In The Woods

HOW TO AVOID GETTING LOST IN THE WOODS 

By Roger Angle
Author, “The Disappearance of Maggie Collins”

When I first started writing novels, I was used to creating literary short fiction. I’d begin a story with a line that came to me, or with an image in my mind, without much else. I’d follow the story wherever it led me, like a dog following a scent. 

That worked OK for short fiction, but when I started writing novels, I’d often follow the scent for 175 pages or so and then realize I had not yet found a story, not even close. I had gotten lost in the woods. 

So, I asked myself, how do you avoid that? 

My answer was to plot out the major turning points in the novel:

1. The triggering event or call to action. 
2. The big story problem: Will James Bond defeat Dr. No? 
3. The point of no return, where the hero or heroine commits to the action and can no longer turn back. 
4. Deep doo-doo, where the hero gets in up to his neck in alligators. 
5. The struggle to survive or to win with several reversals. Looks good, looks bad, looks good, etc. 
6. The climax, win or lose.  
7. The hero returns and everything is hunky dory again.

No matter what outline you have in mind (and there are many), you need to find a way to structure your story, both to lead your reader from one plot point to the next and to keep your own eye on the ball. 

My answer is to write each chapter in such a way that you drive toward a goal, toward a plot point or turning point that will end the chapter and propel the reader onward. Hollywood writers sometimes call this a “button line.” In newspapers, we used to call it “a kicker.” 

For example, suppose your main character is a middle-class teenage boy who is unhappy at home and is acting out. You want him to get in trouble. You might have him meet some kids from the wrong crowd, as they say, and steal a bunch of car parts. The climax of the first chapter could be his getting arrested at a gasoline station he and his buddies intend to burglarize. The end of the chapter could be the sound of the jail door clanging shut, a life-changing event. 

Of course, that is just Chapter One. He has to get in and out of more trouble before the story comes to its conclusion. You may want to cover his whole life, or just a summer, or just 24 hours. That is up to you. 

When I was writing MAGGIE COLLINS, I knew I wanted the two main characters to be in love and having trouble. I also wanted to introduce the killer. So I orchestrated two scenes. The first shows the hero and heroine embroiled in the case and arguing about their future together. The second scene shows the killer stalking a victim. 

As the story goes along, it gets deeper into the characters, deeper into their relationships, and deeper into the story problem. A famous thriller writer, Lee Child (a.k.a. Jim Grant, a former TV writer and director) says the best way to structure a story is around questions that you raise in the reader’s mind. 

In MAGGIE COLLINS, the first question is, Will the hero and heroine catch the killer? Oddly enough, the second question is, Will the killer find love? (His idea of love is twisted, to say the least.) 

Another thing you need to know, as a writer, is your theme. What is your book about? I needed to know, to keep from wandering off onto side paths and getting lost in the woods. 

I thought about the three main characters and what they want. The older detective, Dupree, is in love with a younger woman, Maggie. He wants to retire from the force and take her with him to live in Maine, literally in the woods. He wants a quiet life. 

But, alas, that is not what she wants, which is the danger and excitement of being a NYPD detective. In a way, she is a thrill seeker. She loves her job. 

What does the killer want? As I said, he wants true love. When he kidnaps women, he goes through a kind of ceremony that declares his love for them. If they don’t respond in exactly the way he wants them to, that brief relationship does not end well. 

So what, I asked myself, is my book about? I decided that my theme was the perversion of love. I put that on a sticky note above my computer, as a guide, so I wouldn’t forget. That helped a lot. That, and driving toward a plot point in each chapter. 

It isn’t easy. Good luck. You will need it. I sure did.

BIO: Roger Angle was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize his first year as a reporter and won the Random House short fiction contest in 1999. He grew up around cops and has always been fascinated by criminals, con-men, and desperados. He lives in Southern California. 

http://rogerangle.com/

“The Disappearance of Maggie Collins” is scheduled for publication on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2018, by Down & Out Books: 

A brief description of the publisher: 

Small Press Spotlight: Down & Out Books

 

Guest Blogger: Lisa Black: CAUTION: CHILDREN AT PLAY

My current release revolves around a series of deaths at a juvenile detention facility—and seeing as I don’t even have children of my own, this represents a world I know nothing about. Much research was in order. 

Among many other topics, I read a book about play therapy. Playing—unfettered, unstructured running around, preferably outside, is not only vital to a child’s development but vital to understanding what is going on in their lives. Apparently, children have as much trouble just being ‘themselves’ as adults do. We all bring a suitcase full of ideas and expectations into the room with us, ideas inherited from family life and other experiences. Watching how a child functions on the playground can give great insight as to how they’re functioning in their own mind. 

 

Every family assigns roles. Mom is the sensible one, while Dad is a soft touch. The oldest child is the go-getter and the middle one is the whiner. Sometimes these roles can be a good thing, providing support and encouragement, but no one wants a child to feel locked into only one way of being by the age of eight. At school, at activities, at play, a child should be able to experiment with alternative personalities, perhaps finding a better fit or at least rounding out the one they have. 

Here are some common family roles:

The sensible child is the one that’s helpful, cheerful, mature past his/her years. They’ve been encouraged to be mummy or daddy’s little helper and that’s wonderful, as far as it goes, until they begin to feel so burdened by this role as pseudo-adult that they miss being a little kid. They may begin to withdraw from others. This child would be helped by teachers and playgroup monitors giving him no responsibilities for a while, letting him be free to simply enjoy his childhood.

Another version of the sensible child has been forced into the role of peacemaker by warring parents. At home, this child tries to soften the parents’ messages to each other and perhaps distracts them by acting out so that they focus their aggravation on the child instead of the other parent. In the schoolyard, this child can try to manage their peers’ conflicts to the point where they’re told to butt out. While they may be initially hurt, it’s important to relieve them of the weight of constantly having to solve other people’s problems. 

Every family has one—the black sheep, the sibling who always starts the fight or never does their homework or lets the goldfish die when it’s their turn to feed it. A scapegoat, who—not coincidentally—helps out by making everyone else look good by comparison. Sometimes this is due to, again, warring parents who enlist the child in their attacks—I’m not mad, but little Timmy was so disappointed that you weren’t here, that he missed the bus and forgot his lunch. Didn’t you, Tim?

Or the opposite—children who are good at everything they do. They allow their siblings to slack off and their parents to feel great about their parenting abilities. But the praise heaped upon them can become crushing if they come to believe the slightest stumble will render them unlovable. 

Similar to the scapegoat is the troublemaker, the one who starts fights and objects to the instructions. Troublemakers usually come from families in which there is a large and hard to manage the problem and it’s much easier for everyone’s psyche to define the problem as child #whatever. The child’s peers who might occasionally feel oppositional don’t have to be, because ‘the troublemaker’ will kick up a fuss for them. They relieve the stress of those around them but need to be guided into ways to relieve their own stress. 

Children’s behavior at play can tell you what you need to know about them. We only need to look more carefully.  

Lisa Black spent the five happiest years of her life in a morgue. As a forensic scientist at the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office she analyzed many forms of trace evidence as well as crime scenes. Now she’s a certified latent print examiner and CSI in Florida and is the author of thirteen traditionally published novels. Some of which have been translated into six other languages, one has been optioned for film and one reached the NYT bestseller’s list. The latest is Suffer the Children, which involves forensic scientist Maggie Gardiner and homicide detective Jack Renner in a series of deaths inside a center for violent children. 

http://www.lisa-black.com

 

 

Guest Blogger: Dennis Palumbo: EROTOMANIA

EROTOMANIA: When the bad guy’s motive is a delusion

By Dennis Palumbo

Nietzsche once wrote, “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

Perhaps. Then again, Nietzsche never met Sebastian Maddox, the villain in my latest suspense thriller, Head Wounds. It’s the fifth in my series about Daniel Rinaldi, a psychologist and trauma expert who consults with the Pittsburgh police.

What makes the brilliant, tech-savvy Maddox so relentlessly dangerous is that he’s in the grip of a rare delusion called erotomania, also known as De Clerambault’s Syndrome.

Simply put, erotomania is a disorder in which a person–in this case, Maddox–falsely believes that another person is in love with him, deeply, unconditionally, and usually secretly. The latter because this imaginary relationship must often be hidden due to some social, personal, or professional circumstances. Perhaps the object of this romantic obsession is married, or a superior at work. Sometimes it’s a famous athlete or media celebrity.

Not that these seeming roadblocks diminish the delusion. They can even provide a titillating excitement. Often, a person with erotomania believes his or her secret admirer is sending covert signals of their mutual love: wearing certain colors whenever a situation puts them together in public or doing certain gestures whose meaning is only known to the two of them. Some even believe they’re receiving telepathic messages from their imagined beloved.

What makes the delusion even more insidious is that the object of this romantic obsession, once he or she learns of it, is helpless to do anything about it. They can strenuously and repeatedly rebuff the delusional lover, denying that there’s anything going on between them, but nothing dissuades the other’s ardent devotion.

I know of one case wherein the recipient of these unwanted declarations of love was finally forced to call the police and obtain a restraining order. Even then, her obsessed lover said he understood that this action was a test of his love. A challenge from her to prove the constancy and sincerity of his feelings.

As psychoanalyst George Atwood once said of any delusion, “it’s a belief whose validity is not open to discussion.”

This is especially true of erotomania. People exhibiting its implacable symptoms can rarely be shaken from their beliefs.

Like Parsifal in his quest for the Holy Grail, nothing dissuades them from their mission.

In Head Wounds, Sebastian Maddox’s crusade–when thwarted in his desires–turns quite deadly and requires all of Rinaldi’s resourcefulness to save someone he cares about. In real life, the treatment options for the condition are limited to a combination of therapy and medication, usually antipsychotics like pimozide. If the symptoms appear to stem from an underlying cause, such as bipolar disorder, the therapeutic approach would also involve medication, typically lithium.

What makes erotomania so intriguing as a psychological condition, and so compelling in an antagonist in a thriller, is the delusional person’s ironclad conviction–the unshakeable certainty of his or her belief.

Nonetheless, as philosopher Charles Renouvier reminds us, “Plainly speaking, there is no such thing as certainty. There are only people who are certain.”

BIO: Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter (My Favorite Year; Welcome Back, Kotter, etc.), Dennis Palumbo is a licensed psychotherapist and author. His mystery fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Strand and elsewhere, and is collected in From Crime to Crime (Tallfellow Press). His series of mystery thrillers (Mirror Image, Fever Dream, Night Terrors, Phantom Limb, and the latest, Head Wounds, all from Poisoned Pen Press), feature psychologist Daniel Rinaldi, a trauma expert who consults with the Pittsburgh Police. For more info, visit http://www.dennispalumbo.com 

 

Guest Blogger: Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.: Killer Pen Pals

 

Killer Pen Pals

Whenever I give talks about my work, people sometimes ask how they can be pen pals with a serial killer. They’ve gotten hooked on true crime shows and they have the idea that because offenders are behind bars, they’re no longer dangerous. This would give the would-be correspondent a “safe” form of titillation and something cool to tell friends.

Sometimes, people just want to ease someone’s (or their own) loneliness. So, they look for an inmate who seeks connection.

I’m not talking about criminologists and journalists who correspond with killers to acquire information to improve our comprehension. I’m talking about people – especially kids – who think it would be fun to write to a killer. Often, they don’t grasp the potential consequences of having an offender focused on them. Not only do inmates know people on the outside whom they might persuade to be their proxy, but some of them eventually get out, too.

There are plenty of stories about pen pals becoming so enamored that they turn into prison groupies. In fact, in British news this week, a young pen pal from Poland supposedly became engaged to the ailing Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe. He’s 72. She’s 17. This kind of bond can make a person more vulnerable to manipulation.

It doesn’t take much searching to find examples where such relationships have ended in murder. Phillip Carl Jablonski murdered his wife in 1978. He was serving a sentence for it when he placed an ad for a pen pal. Carol Spadoni answered it. In 1982, they got married while he was still in prison. He got out in 1990. A year later, he sexually assaulted and shot Carol’s mother and suffocated Carol with duct tape before stabbing her to death. (That same month, he also murdered two other women.)

These potentially violent inmates can hook people by talking about how lonely they are and how they’re looking for love. They promise that they’ve reformed, they’re “spiritual” now, and they just need a friend. Some pen pals want to give them a second chance. Laura Jean Torres offered a helping hand to violent ex-con Robert Hernandez, who’d served time for aggravated battery. Torres ended up fatally stabbed.

David Goodell, 33, murdered pen pal Viviana Tulli, 22. They’d met when she was 16 and began a relationship through correspondence when he went to prison for assault. Once Doodell was out on parole, they reunited. Their mutual affection was short-lived as he soon strangled her to death. Hoping to avoid prison, he decided to fake a fatal car crash. Putting sunglasses and a hat on Tulli’s corpse, he placed it in the front seat of her car. His staging failed and he was arrested. In 2013, he pleaded guilty.

Darren Pilkington, convicted of manslaughter at 18, had a reputation for being a troubled kid. From prison, he put out word that he wanted a pen pal, which got the attention of 15-year-old Carly Fairhurst, five years younger than him. When she was 16, she visited him in prison, and after he was freed, he moved in with her. He soon began to abuse her. In 2006, after they came home from a pub, they argued. Pilkington hit Carly and she fell down the stairs. He covered her, waiting until morning to call for help. She died a week later from her injuries.

And it’s not just females who are vulnerable.

In 2014, Scott Kratlian fatally strangled 82-year-old Harry Major, a former high school teacher. The men had become pen pals while Kratlian was serving a sentence for manslaughter. Upon his release, Major invited Kratlian to move in. That was a fatal mistake.

Then there was Thomas Knuff, on parole in Ohio after serving 15 years for armed robbery and home invasion. He’d become acquainted with John Mann, 65, and his girlfriend Regina Capobianco, 50, through a prison pen pal program. He’d asked them to pick him up. Since he had nowhere to go, they brought him to their home, where he tied them up and stabbed them, killing both. He then lived in their home, with the bodies, for a week.

Edward Andrews started a correspondence with Thomas Jeffrey Brooks, nearly forty years younger than him. Upon Brooks’ release in 2007, he moved into Andrews’ mobile home. They became lovers, or so Andrews believed. Brooks had other ideas. With an accomplice, he killed Andrews, wrapped his body in duct tape, entombed it in a cement egg in a former employer’s rock garden and drained Andrews’ bank accounts.

“It’s not shocking when inmates behave like criminals,” says former U. S. Probation Officer Sally Keglovits. “It’s what most people expect. Manipulation comes with the territory and it’s not difficult for them to project a sympathetic image while in prison. What is somewhat shocking is the number of people who invite and encourage manipulation. They fall in love with an image that an inmate created. Reality can slap them in the face, often literally, upon the inmate’s release.”

Although many offenders do benefit from a kind word and a helping hand, those people who wish to assist (or acquire a more serious friend) should learn the behavioral red flags. Past violence is among the best indicators of future violence. So is a lack of remorse for harming others, a history of deception, a lack of respect for others, and a tendency to blame others for one’s own behavioral issues. Convictions for murder, sexual or physical assault, home invasion and crimes involving deadly weapons all foreshadow a dim future with such offenders. Often, they have poor skills for inhibiting impulses and for negotiating in relationships.

More to the point, what they’re like behind bars is no indication of what they might be like once free. Those who seek to become an inmate’s pen pal need to educate themselves about risk factors.

Follow Katherine on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katherine.ramsland

Originally posted on Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/201807/killer-pen-pals

 

Guest Blogger: Sharon Torres: 7 Crime Novels That Show the Horrors of Addiction

7 Crime Novels that Show the Horrors of Addiction

Addiction has been a re-occurring theme in many works of fiction. It is a common human experience shared by many across the world, so it is no surprise that the theme appears in a large number of books. One genre that is partial to portraying addiction is the classic crime novel. Usually centered on detective characters with humanizing flaws, like Sherlock Holmes, crime novels make no attempt to shy away from the realities of addiction. They can take you on a journey that is both frightening and interesting at the same time.

When it comes to these all too common scenarios, many people find they may know someone who’s dealing with the horrors of addiction that are portrayed in these novels. If you know someone or you yourself are dealing with this, whether it’s an alcohol or opiates rehabs you’re looking for, you can get help. Let’s take a look at seven crime novels that show the horrors of addiction and see what happens to the main characters of each story.

7. Dope by Sara Gran

Dope revolves around an ex-heroin addict and prostitute turned jewelry thief named Josephine Flannigan. She has quit heroin and prostitution, but still steals jewelry from local department stores in New York City to get by. A strange and wealthy couple searching for their estranged and addicted daughter offers Josephine thousands to track her down and bring her back. She must navigate a maze of addict houses, whorehouses, and dance halls in order to solve the mystery. This book provides a harrowing portrayal of the dangers of heroin addiction and how it can ruin someone’s life, but it also illustrates a heroine who is human and has conquered her addiction. Opiate rehabs offer help for those addicted to opiates, such as Dope’s Sara Gran.

6. Inspector Morse by Colin Dexter

The Inspector Morse series of crime novels by Colin Dexter also feature an addicted protagonist. In this case, the eponymous Inspector Endeavor Morse solves murders in a series of investigations. The books were so popular a successful detective drama television series, Inspector Morse, was spawned and ran from for 13 years from 1987 to 2000. Inspector Morse himself is a flawed character, and he is addicted to alcohol. As we will learn later on further down the list, the alcoholic detective is a trend in literature. This is the result of many factors, but the primary factor is likely the fact that giving a character a tragic flaw makes them more human and realistic. Alcoholism is a believable and common flaw that many have, and by no coincidence, writers are infamous as alcoholics.

5. The Next Right Thing by Dan Barden

More likely a novel about addiction than crime, The Next Right Thing by Dan Barden tells the story of a Californian carpenter named Randy Chalmers. Randy Chalmers, a recovered alcoholic, owes his life to his Alcoholic Anonymous sponsor and ex-police officer, Terry Elias. Terry Elias helped Randy Chalmers quit alcohol and take control of his life, but he is suddenly and mysteriously found dead of a heroin overdose after fifteen years of assumed sobriety. Randy is launched into a fact-finding quest to solve the mystery of the death of the man who saved his life. This book provides a terrifying portrayal of the horrors of addiction and an all-too-human tale of redemption and intrigue.

4. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

A community of Jewish Holocaust refugees in the Alaskan panhandle is home to homicide detective, Meyer Landsman. Landsman leads a life of utter disrepair. He is addicted to alcohol, his marriage with his wife is a total disaster, and his career as a detective is fraught with lost cases and unsolved murders. After learning of a murder that occurred in the very hotel he is languishing in, he is spurned into a detective quest to redeem himself and solve the murder. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union offers the reader a sobering tale of alcoholism, a tale of love, a tale of redemption, and a tribute to classic noir novels. This book carries with it a gritty and realistic story of addiction and redemption that is sure to shock, intrigue, and enlighten the reader.

3. Flaggermusmannen by Jo Nesbø

Flaggermusmannen or The Bat is the first in a series of novels revolving around a Norwegian police investigator and alcoholic named Harry Hole. A young and famous female celebrity named Inger Holter has just been murdered in Australia and Harry Hole is called down to help solve the mystery. They eventually learn that the suspect is a serial killer and strangler who specifically targets women with blonde hair. As the plot thickens and more questions come up un-answered, Harry Hole falls deeper and deeper into alcoholism. The story, which was originally written in Norwegian and then translated into English, depicts a harrowing portrait of addiction and entertains with a suspenseful tale of murder and addiction.

2. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

Any list of crime novels would not be complete without at least one Sherlock Holmes book. A Study in Scarlet is a classic detective novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that provides a gripping tale of a murder investigation by the famous detective. One striking feature of this particular Sherlock Holmes novel is the exploration of the detective’s addiction to an injected cocaine solution. Perhaps a more obscure flaw of detective Holmes is his addiction to cocaine. In this novel, Doyle describes Holmes lying about immobile for days and days on his sofa in the throes of cocaine addiction. His ever-faithful companion, Dr. Watson, eventually helps Holmes defeat his cocaine addiction, but he underlines his successes by saying, “the fiend was not dead, but sleeping;”

1. The Shining by Stephen King

A classic American horror novel and perhaps an even more famous Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining comes packaged with surreal, mind-bending horror, domestic abuse, family dysfunction, and the perils of alcohol addiction. Jack Torrance is an alcoholic on the road to recovery who must watch over a remote and enormous property with the company of his wife and children. As time progresses, Jack falls prey to a supernatural terror, relapses on his beloved gin martini, and is sent into a murderous rampage against his own family. There is no doubt that Stephen King has incorporated themes of alcoholism and the destructive effect it has on families.

Sharon Torres is a freelance writer who focuses on addiction and recovery. Her favorite author is Phillip K. Dick. You can find her blog here:

https://sharontorreswriter.blogspot.com/

 

Guest Blogger: Katherine Ramsland, Ph.D.: Redheads and Serial Killers

Redheads and Serial Killers

Several killing sprees have targeted women with red hair.

Last week came news that police in Texas and Louisiana are investigating whether a serial killer is killing and decapitating redheaded women. The heads were discovered in plastic bags, tossed near lakes 150 miles apart. On March 1, one was found in undergrowth near Lake Calcasieu, and the other turned up three weeks later near Lake Houston. Witnesses described a man who got out of a pick-up truck and stood on a bridge to toss a trash bag over the rail. Investigators hope to track him down. 

If it turns out that the same person is responsible for both, the case might be similar to a few others, like trucker Charles Floyd. On July 1, 1948, he broke into an apartment in Tulsa, Oklahoma, attacking a woman and her two teenage daughters. He raped her, but a neighbor interrupted, so he fled before he killed anyone. Down the street, Floyd cut a hole into the door of another home, entered and bludgeoned a woman to death. The victims all had red hair.

A witness outside the second house described Floyd to police and they traced him to where he worked at a trucking company. Under arrest, he admitted that redheaded women triggered an overwhelming lust in him. In fact, he said, he’d killed before. Six years earlier, Floyd had murdered the redheaded pregnant wife of a fellow trucker. Later that year, he’d raped and murdered a mother and daughter, both redheads. Two and a half years later, he’d killed a redhead he’d seen undressing in her apartment. Due to Floyd’s low IQ, a judge sentenced him to life in a mental institution.

Glen Edward Rodgers also seemed to have a thing for redheads. The “Cross Country Killer” traveled from state to state between 1993 and 1995. He’d cozy up to women and ask for a favor. He even moved in with one, briefly. He was convicted of five murders, but bragged that he’d murdered more than 70 people, including Nicole Brown Simpson. Four of his victims were women with reddish hair. It turns out that his mother was a redhead and Roger’s brother says that she’d rejected and abused him.

Then there’s a series of incidents known collectively as “the Redhead Murders.” You’ll find different ideas about who should be counted among the victims, but according to one source, this set of murders started in 1978 and possibly continued until 1992. Some people identify three victims, but others say there are more (between 6 and 11). Most were strangled and their bodies dumped along major highways, as if they’d been hitchhiking or offering services to truckers. One young mother who disappeared from her home, mentioned on some lists, was found years later in a river. Most of the victims remain unidentified.

Many believe that a serial killer is responsible for all of the victims, and some have suggested links to Glen Rogers. Two truckers became suspects, but both were cleared.

The FBI got involved in 1985 to investigate possible links among victims found in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. Linkage analysis turned up significant inconsistencies, such as their state of dress and evidence of sexual activity. The agency also ruled out a victim in Ohio and four in Texas. They did not solve the cases.

Jane Carlisle published a brief e-short, The Redhead Murders. She believed that the killer targeted victims who had no one who might come looking for them. This would suggest that the killer picked up redheads, queried them, and then decided to kill them based on satisfactory responses. Carlisle starts with a body discovery in 1983 in Virginia. The next one was in Arkansas. Several turned up in Tennessee in 1985. Only a few have been identified.

The murder in 1992 in Tennessee that some believe is linked involved a nun. An arrest was made, which undermined any link to the other redhead victims. Since most of the “Redhead Murders” remain unsolved, it’s not possible to know if a serial killer with a preference for redheads committed them, but it’s an intriguing mystery. 

Follow Katherine on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katherine.ramsland

Originally Posted on Shadow Boxing on the Psychology Today Blog

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/shadow-boxing/201805/redheads-and-serial-killers

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Guest Blogger: KJ Howe: THE FREEDOM BROKER, SKYJACK—FULL IMMERSION IN THE DARK WORLD OF KIDNAP AND RANSOM

Do you ever wonder how well you would cope if you were kidnapped?  This question burned in my mind, so I started digging, and my fascination with this dark world led me down a rabbit hole that has truly changed my life.  

For the last five years, in preparation for writing The Freedom Broker series, I have interviewed kidnap negotiators, former hostages, reintegration experts, psychiatrists who specialize in the captive’s mindset, K&R insurance executives, and the special forces soldiers who deliver ransoms and execute rescues. This monumental journey has been both inspiring and heartbreaking.  Captivity is a form of purgatory.  Hostages are alive, but they aren’t really living, dependent on their kidnappers for everything, all freedoms snatched away the moment they are taken. 

Worldwide, more than 40,000 people are kidnapped every year, and this staggering number only reflects the incidents that have been reported. The actual number is much higher, as kidnapping has become an international crisis, especially in certain politically unstable parts of the globe. Why?  In some cases, displaced military and police turn their security skills to kidnap-and-ransom to put food on the table; criminal organizations of all kinds and sizes abduct locals and tourists for quick cash; and terrorist organizations carry out kidnappings not just as a fundraising mechanism, but also as propaganda stunts. With little to no threat of punishment in some regions, these individuals and organizations can often kidnap at will.

Only around twenty-five to thirty people work as full-time crisis response consultants, the industry term for elite kidnap negotiators—and that number is also growing. Response consultants work for private companies, counseling their clients on travel safety.  And when the worst happens, they offer support and guidance to hostages and their families while negotiating for the release of the captives. Responders travel all over the world and risk their lives to help others. I created Thea Paris, an elite kidnap negotiator who has very personal motivations for following this challenging career.

These kidnap specialists are patient, tactical, and brilliant at making decisions under enormous duress. They are usually fluent in at least one other language (and sometimes many more), as linguistic nuance can be critical in life-and-death negotiations. The backgrounds of these elite negotiators vary, but most have experience in the security arena, with résumés that include jobs at such organizations as MI6 or the FBI.

I had the privilege of getting to know Peter Moore, the longest-held hostage in Iraq—almost 1,000 days—and his story touched me deeply. Peter was taken with four British military soldiers, and he is the only one who made it home alive. He spent many months blindfolded and chained. To keep himself occupied, he caught mosquitos between his cuffed hands, trying to beat his daily record to keep his mind engaged. When the blindfold was removed, Peter spent endless hours staring at the cracks on the wall, designing an entire train system in his mind, which he was able to reproduce on paper after returning home. He also tried to befriend his captors so he could negotiate for small luxuries, like toothpaste and toilet paper.

I hope that the intensive research I’ve done and the novels I’ve brought into the world, The Freedom Broker and Skyjack, help to raise awareness for people fortunate enough that kidnapping remains an experience that happens only to characters in the books they read.  For an in-depth map of the kidnap hot zones of the world, please visit my website at http://www.kjhowe.com

Join Kim Thursday 4-29 at 7 pm at Book Soup in LA and Saturday 4-21 at 3 pm at Book Carnival in Orange.

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