Depths of Depravity 4

This post is one of a series about the book The Anatomy of Evil by Dr Michael Stone. It is recommended that these posts be read in order. Unless otherwise noted all quotes used are from the book The Anatomy of Evil.

Doctor Stone took care to describe the traits associated with psychopaths. Much literature on the subject is inconsistent but I think he gave a good basic description. 

He took a look at the work of Robert Hare who gave us the Psychopathy Checklist.

It lists multiple traits and Stone chose to focus on several. He emphasized those associated with narcissism, with ruthless disregard for rights and feelings of others. He listed the personality traits of glib speech or superficial charm, grandiosity, conning or manipulativeness, pathological lying, lack of remorse or guilt, callousness or lack of empathy, and a failure to accept responsibility for one's actions. He listed the behaviours of impulsivity, sexual promiscuity,poor behavioral controls, and a parasitic lifestyle. He said that again and again these people display the characteristics of extreme narcissistic traits, especially conning, callousness and lack of remorse. He said "Armed with those dreadful qualities, a person is capable of just about anything." (page 47)

We have the example of serial killer Ted Bundy. Bundy would look for victims and put his arm into a sling, faking a broken arm. He would pretend to be having trouble putting groceries in his car and when a young woman got into his car to put the bag into the back seat for him he would close the door and lock it, then take the woman to a remote location to rape and murder her. He raped and killed these young women, these human beings, with no remorse whatsoever. 

Stone described sadism, present in many of the worst of the worst people, as taking enjoyment in hurting others. Two main qualities of sadism are humiliation and control. He noted that a person may be psychopathic and not sadistic or sadistic and not psychopathic or neither (like most people) or both. 

Stone noted that most murders would fall very low on his scale and that only truly noteworthy ones get the books written about them which he has studied.  Many barfights that go too far and abusive husbands who kill a wife for leaving them or threatening to leave or men who catch a cheating woman don't warrant a book. 

Stone has jealously murders ranked near the beginning of his scale. Many of us could imagine ourselves or perhaps people we know getting a strong impulse of anger and killing a cheating lover of spouse and perhaps the person they cheated with, especially if they cheated with someone who was a trusted friend. I have heard of more than one man who discovered his girlfriend or wife in bed with his best friend, only to realize the best friend was using him to get access to the woman.

The category of jealousy murders is so understandable to most of us that we are almost not even surprised by these murders. We have plenty of operas and plays that feature jealousy murders and they even hold a place in ancient and modern religions. Whether it is David murdering his friend Uriah or Hera punishing one of the many lovers of her husband Zeus jealousy murders are as old as mankind.

Doctor Stone lists a few garden variety jealousy murders that rate 6, 7, or 8 on his scale. Stone lists several impulse murders as from 4 -7 in his scale. These often involve no planning and a moment of lashing out that is inconsistent with most of the life of the offender. 

The vast majority of murders in the United States, ninety percent, are committed by men. In general men commit far, far more crime especially violent crime than women. Doctor Stone took care to point out that the mentally ill commit only a tiny fraction of violent crime, especially the mentally ill who do not have substance abuse issues are very unlikely to commit acts of violence. I have seen other literature suggesting that the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. 

Doctor Stone took great care to distinguish two groups of the mentally ill - the majority who are extremely low risk, perhaps comparable to the general population, and the much smaller group that he described as having a risk of perhaps ninety percent or higher of committing acts of violence,including in some cases murder. He sees murder as generally less likely for the high risk mentally ill than violence in general but still a significant risk for them. 

Although it is not something I wish to dig into in significant depth Doctor Stone went to great care to list numerous traits that the high risk mentally ill display, so they can be properly evaluated regarding their likelihood of committing acts of violence including murder. I think most of us far prefer the incapacitation of the most dangerous among the mentally ill to the alternative. 

Stone wrote: "The other reason we find these acts inexplicable is, I suspect, because we need to reassure ourselves that not even under the greatest imaginable stress could we descend to violence of that sort." (page 87)

Doctor Stone described a range of crimes that included 6 (impetuous hot-headed murderers, yet without psychopathic traits) through 10 (killers of people "in the way"; marked egocentricity)and remarked on the use of the adjectives evil, depraved, heinous and monstrous by journalists and reporters who covered them.

Stone described these as murders of envy, hate crimes, felony murder and parental cruelty in several examples. 

He gave many examples but I want to focus on one for a moment. Brian Stewart is a notable case. He in February of 1992 committed an act that has universally been labeled evil by all the media who covered his case. Doctor Stone pointed out that this is the type of act that gets described as such: "I couldn't think of something like that in my wildest dreams" and" Even if I could imagine such a thing, I wouldn't do that to my worst enemy. " (page 105)

I think it's worth looking at the more understandable impulse and jealousy murders that we can imagine ourselves or people like us considering, if not actually committing, under certain circumstances and contrasting those acts against the "unthinkable" act that Brian Stewart committed.

Brian Stewart had to pay $267 a month in child support. He was not happy and tried to solve his problem in the most gruesome way possible: he worked as a phlebotomist (person who draws blood and gives injections) in a hospital unit that had many HIV positive patients. He injected his own child with HIV positive blood. His intention was to murder his own son with a horrific withering case of AIDS. Not exactly father of the year material in my opinion. 

Doctor Stone described the child as alive but with AIDS and a condition that includes being too weak to engage in a full day of school or ordinary play and to additionally be suffering from nightmares that his father will get out of prison and murder his entire family someday.

I feel Brian Stewart is a good case to demonstrate that we can reasonably be expected to see some offenders as requiring imprisonment without release. Depending on some factors they may belong in prison or a psychiatric hospital but either way they are in the category of "never release" and should never be removed from it under any circumstances. Stone described Stewart as a level 14, ruthlessly self-centered psychopathic schemer.

Obviously the levels from 14 on up are especially heinous, we particularly may find offenders from 17 - 22 as "never release" candidates and the very, very rare people who Stone feels stand out even among the 22s are going to easily be seen as "never release." Their crimes bring to mind the concept of beings of pure evil with no traces of humanity whatsoever present. by

Stone described several more lower level murders such as honor killings, revenge, school shootings, theft of fetus, and stalking. 

Stone took care to point out the traits from the Psychopathy Checklist. He divided them into factor I for personality (and emotion), and factor II for behavior.

I want to include these traits because they are so important in identifying human predators.

 "Factor-I Traits

1.glibness and/or superficial charm

2.grandiose sense of self-worth

3.pathological lying

4.conning or manipulativeness

5.lack of remorse or guilt

6.shallow affect (shallowness of emotional display)

7.callousness, lack of empathy (also includes lack of compassion)

8.failure to accept responsibility for one's actions

The second factor concerns behavior and consists of nine qualities:

Factor-II Traits 

1.parasitic lifestyle

2.poor behavioral controls

3.lack of realistic long-term goals

4.impulsivity

5.irresponsibility

6.juvenile delinquency

7.early behavioral problems

8.need for stimulations, boredom

9.revocation of conditional release (in the case of incarcerated persons)

There are three additional items that do not fit neatly into the two main factors:

1.sexual promiscuity

2.criminal versatility (by which is meant a history of committing a large variety of different types of crimes, such as assault, fraud, theft, escape, kidnap, vandalism, rape, etc.)

3.a history of many short-term marital (or "de facto") relationships. " (page 117)

Stone remarked that the factor I traits are least likely to change over the course of one's life in his opinion. Stone is careful to point out that many people have many of these traits but never commit murder. They can be embezzlers, con men and people who delight in ruining the lives of other people but never "graduate" to murder. 

 The book The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout includes extensive descriptions of human predators who never commit murder but are completely callous and utterly devoid of empathy. They may "merely" ruin people with tactics like lying, gaslighting and cultivating then betraying trust but they are certainly worth studying in their own right. 

Stone went on at length about spouse murders and gave this insightful remark:

 "The vast majority of people are incapable of lying with anything like the poise and facility that the psychopath brings to this task. In contrast, the vast majority of people, though In their mind they may now and again plot to hurt or kill someone who has deeply offended them, have adequate inner controls that slam the brakes on these vengeful thoughts, which then whither and disappear." (page 139)