From teaching in prisons and penitentiaries for many years, I’ve seen psychopathic behavior up close. Some prisoners, one wonders why they are there …for their minds are clear and hearts are good, but they made a terrible mistake somewhere, or a true injustice was created.

But one kind of incarcertated person is the epitome of decay.

I don’t know if Joran van der Sloot falls into this category. But, here are some of the main characteristics of a psychopathic personality for you to measure with.

For a person who arranges to exploit and then murder others and then sets up long cat and mouse games with families and media and law enforcement, that person’s mind moves in a way we call psychopathic.

A person with this kind of mind, uses old old ways of deceiving mixed with questionable charm, attempting to draw sympathy from vulnerable others, to become the focus of yet others through media appearances as though a VIP, and to be roundly reviled at the same time.

Sounds odd, doesnt it? To hope to be found a symathetic creature and to be reviled sound like opposite desires. But, to the psychopathic person, they are all understood as being the same energy, that is, ‘attention from others proving one is above it all, above all rules and above all censure.’ This is a form of grim entertainment for the psychopathic person. And it is what matters most to them.

A psychopath definitely does know right from wrong, but proceeds to harm others anyway. The thrill of the act of power over vulnerable others, and the subsequent being in the limelight, whilst hiding the blackest of black hearts, is the entire point.

It is a game in which one of the payoffs is to confuse all the ‘marks’ (the victims, victims’ families, law enforcement, the courts) so others can be laughed at by the perpetrator… a form of deeply satisfying entertainment for the psychopathic person.

And yet, a form of deadly entertainment- for the producer of all this will stop at nothing, no lie too big or small, in order to be in the limelight and be entertained by throwing confusion into all concerned while using the most dark acts to harm others who he perceives have in someway been drawn to him first, and then changed their minds. He will strike to punish them to death.

The person with this kind of psychopathy says yes to themselves about any and everything that comes to their minds. They cannot tolerate being told No. They cannot tolerate that there are rules. For them, there are no rules of decency, or comportment. They are often addicted to various ‘pleasures’. Bouncy and often smiley, yet they are calculating and choose only the most vulnerable as their victims, the ones who are taken in by the persona, who havent a clue of the black heart behind that.

Also, in terms of a psychopathic person committing murder, she or he is often caught because they have a huge blind spot. It is this: They think others, (their marks) are too stupid to catch them. So, they become more and more careless, while leaving more and more clues to whatever evils they have done.

It is also noted there is a difference between one person committing a murder in the heat of passion. Those persons most often kill one person only. But a psychopathic person committing murder has cold pre-calculation, in a sense thinks they are entitled to snuff out the lives of others, and once caught will often confess to or be tied to with evidence, many other murders as well.

The person with this psychopathy, does not have conscience. Not at all. Not one shred. They are often highly talkative, often charming enough, often sexually dim or over the edge, often work alone, but will with forethought on their forays, often draw weak male and female sidekicks/ partiers/ students/ to themselves in order to camouflage their main intent of murder…

and also to point out that their followers ‘ never saw me do anything wrong’ and eventually, when cornered, the psychopathic personality will spread blame on their followers, often falsely implicating them. For such a person, there is not even honor among thieves.

Oddly though a person who has a psychopathic personality believes themselves to be the most clever of the clever, the most handsome of the handsome, the most blameless of the blameless, when they are caught and questioned, they trot out a boringly predictable pattern of response meant to obfuscate and try to endlessly confuse the mark(s) who would be, now, law enforcement.

Passive-Aggressive Psychopathic Behavior

Tell a lie that sounds like the truth.

Follow with a truth that sounds like a lie.

Claim one was influenced by drugs.

Claim one was present at the murder, but didnt commit the murder.

Falsely claim others were involved and they probably did the murder.

Tell another lie that sounds like the truth.

Follow with another truth that sounds like a lie.

In so many words, confess that maybe one did the murder oneself, but didnt realize it because one was under the influence of drugs or narcotics or other.

Withdraw one’s confession and claim one was being badgered to confess.

Tell another lie that sounds like the truth.

Follow with another truth that sounds like a lie.

Claim the victim struck first

Claim one didnt have able legal representation,
before confessing

Claim being under the influence and being badgered by law enforecement, and that the victim attacked first, are reasonable reason to not be found guilty of a murder.

Agree to bargain for lesser sentence by telling where other bodies are buried so ‘families can be at rest.’

Tell a lie that looks like the truth about where the bodies of murdered people are buried.

Tell a truth that looks like a lie about where the bodies are.

Be highly entertained by all the law persons, families, public running in all directions following the lies that are not true but appear to be so at first… and overlooking the truths that the psychopathic person has parsed to make them look like lies.

The ultimate cornering of a psychopath is to not allow him to redefine and redefine the issues but to stick to them like a broken record, to lock down completely the facts, and not allow the person with psychopathic personality to continue to add and add irrelevancies for others to chase around.

Cornering a psychopath comes from not offering them gates: to want nothing from him that decent people would want… for instance, truth about where his victims are and how many there are. To give him no access to internet to broadcast his form of ‘entertainment’ with himself as the star of his own ‘reality show.’ And to hold all legal hearings out of the way of cameras. To cut off his communication with the world screen, until his guilt or innocence is determined with finality.

Barring not allowing him to direct his own media circus, to capture a psychopathic murderer, one has to remember, he thinks you are stupid, that he can use to his advantage what we call ‘case-worked talk,’ telling you all the right things you want to hear, including regret, and crying on self-demand, and asking for mercy for his family and friends, and all other lies that appear to be truths.

His idea that all others can be re-directed and snowed emotionally, spiritually and factually, and his most cherished idea that he alone is above the law, are the very set of weakminded characteristics that bring him down at last.

When a person who is a psychopath is found guilty of murder and sentenced to a long prison term, they must be watched constantly so they are not allowed to become predators, sexually and otherwise on other prisoners. Their pattern of causing deep pain for others in order to be entertained by it, will continue.

CODA
Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés is a post-trauma specialist and psychoanalyst, in practice for forty years. She is the author of several books, and has had a prison ministry since 1975.