The Anatomy of Evil

by Michael H. Stone

  The power of Shakespeare's play stems in no small part from the plot's similarity to what happens all too often in real life and is based on feelings with which almost all of us have one time or another struggled. In Verdi's opera Othello we see the instantaneous switch from burning love to burning anger. We sense the fatal consequences that jealousy will swiftly bring in its train. The very adjective we use-"burning"- describes perfectly the powerful impulses here: the consuming urge to make love and the explosive urge to kill, separated only by a razor-thin partition in the jealous soul.

  We should not overlook yet another factor that can raise jealousy to the point of murder. This is the phenomenon sometimes spoken of as a grand passion, sometimes as an obsessive love. It is more a characteristic of the young-who may fall in love with such intensity (as in Romeo and Juliet) that no other person on earth could ever satisfy as a replacement for the beloved.9 This kind of love harkens back to the uniqueness of the bond between mother and infant in its earliest days-for whom, after all, mother is the only irreplaceable figure. But whatever its psychological underpinnings, this kind of all-consuming (and to that extent, morbid) love can readily inspire the urge toward murder and suicide, should the beloved suddenly desert one for another. One is reminded of the Spanish saying: el raton que no sabe mas de un agujero, el gato to coge presto-the mouse that only knows one hole, the cat catches quickly. This is the situation with the person who knows one and only one option, one solution, to the quest for a mate. When one loses their beloved-especially if the beloved has rejected one for another-life loses all meaning. Reduced to one option, there is only death, and whether that occurs by suicide, murder, or murder-suicide is a mere detail. The technicality of interest here is that because two of the choices involve murder, the issue of evil is evoked.

  There are many examples of jealousy murder to be found in the crime literature, to say nothing of the less-prominent cases in magazines and daily newspapers. These cases have a way of touching us, because they can so easily stimulate the thought that there but for the grace of God go I. Our susceptibility to jealousy is a quality shared by all peoples from all cultures-and this is why we find it so often the major theme of operas, plays, and novels. The table below shows the details from just seven among the hundreds of operas built around jealousy.

  We can speak of a biological push in the direction of jealousy, when we view this emotion as an early-warning device that evolution steered us to by way of minimizing the tendency to cheat. As a species, we are inclined-men probably more so than women-to a certain measure of sexual promiscuity. The poet Dorothy Parker10 understood this as well as any evolutionary psychologist, when she penned her famous quatrain:

  Higgimus hoggamus Women-monogamous; Hoggamus higgamus Men are polygamous.

  Chimpanzees-our closest primate cousins-are notably more promiscuous than humans;11 geese and prairie voles (small mouselike creatures), in contrast, mate for life. We occupy a position in between, perhaps nearer to the geese and voles. Chimpanzees would think operas about jealousy were crazy; prairie voles wouldn't understand what they were all about. Most human cultures encourage us strongly to mate for life, which for many will create a conflict between what we ought to do and what we might like to do. The rules we are supposed to live by were given to us long ago: the Old Testament tells us "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife nor his maidservant."12 Those who recite the Lord's Prayer ask of him: "Lead us not into temptation."13

  JEALOUSY MURDERS

  The jealousy murders described in this section are of the expressive, or heat-of-passion type, driven by sudden impulse and showing little or no planning. What planning was involved, if any, had mostly to do with hiding evidence so as to escape being brought to justice.

  George Skiadopoulos

  The story concerns a wild and beautiful "pin-up" girl, Julie Scully, who had modeled for magazines and then married a wealthy businessman, Tim Nist. Men found Julie "foxy," but she was also very bright and had a fabulous memory. Still, she abused drugs, had a theatrical temperament, and was one of those people whose engine required novelty and thrills to keep it running. She became bored with her husband after a few years, and while on a cruise in the Caribbean, she met a younger Greek sailor, George Skiadopoulos, with whom she quickly fell in love. Soon after, Julie and Tim divorced. Julie began to live with George. An intensely jealous man, George would listen in on her phone calls and became argumentative-even with Julie's mother, whom he once tried to choke. Tim, who was still in Julie's life because of their daughter, advised Julie's mother to press charges. As a result George was made to return to Greece, where he implored Julie to join him. This she did, but she found the little town where George lived wearying and dull. She insisted on returning to the United States to see her daughter, realizing that she no longer loved George anyway. At this point George lured her to a remote spot, strangled her to death, and dismembered her, throwing her body parts into the Aegean Sea. Police saw through his claim that she just "went missing," and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. The dramatic nature of the murder gives it the ring of evil, though Skiadopoulos's flaws were those of jealousy, anger, and impulsiveness-plus, in linking his fate to Julie, he had tackled more than he could handle. I placed him in Category 2 on my scale. His story resonates remarkably with that of Carmen, the seductive gypsy so similar to his Julie, whom George, as the counterpart of Don Jose, killed the moment she flung him aside.14

  Clara Harris

  The only child of an affluent Colombian family, Clara Suarez Harris became a dentist and married another dentist, David Harris. They lived and flourished in an upscale enclave in Houston, Texas. Childless for several years, Clara eventually had twins. A tall, attractive woman, she got busier than ever with motherhood and her practice. David felt sidelined and entered into an affair with his receptionist, Gail Bridges. They were not very discreet, and word got out to Clara. Thanks to a private investigator, Clara discovered that David and Gail had checked into a hotel. She drove there, and when she saw the two emerge from the hotel, she revved up her car and drove into her husband, running over him three times, killing him. Like other jealousy murders where someone suddenly "snaps," Clara Harris is not so different from jean Harris (no relation to Clara) who murdered Dr. Tarnower, or George Skiadopoulos. But there was a modest degree of intentionality in her act (driving to where she assumed he and the other woman would be and thus putting herself into a state of higher emotion and risk for violence). Also, there was a measure of "overkill": backing up her car in order to run him over two more times as he lay on the road." Taking these aspects into consideration, I placed her in Category 6.

  Jeremy Akers

  Born in Mississippi to a working-class family, Jeremy Akers was a straight-A student, a bodybuilder, and a highly competitive man. Selfconscious about his height, he became an "overachiever"-working twice as hard as necessary to achieve his potential. He graduated law school and served in Vietnam, winning several medals. Upon his return he married Nancy Richards, who came from a wealthy family in the northeast. Her parents were against the marriage because of his abrasive, hottempered behavior. Macho to the point almost of caricature, Akers was brash, domineering, and opinionated, but also jealous and possessive. The marriage began to deteriorate. Nancy was depressed after the birth of her third child and she gained a great deal of weight. Her husband grew critical and disparaging, even though she managed to get back down to her original weight and underwent some cosmetic surgery. Ever more dissatisfied in her marriage, she struck up an acquaintance with a truck driver, Jim Lemke, twenty years her junior. Love of writing formed part of their bond: he wrote poetry, Nancy wrote novels. They became lovers, and for a time Jim even lived in the Akers's own home, as though he were just a "friend." Jeremy suspected Nancy's infidelity despite Jim's denial of it, and his already jealous feelings escalated when Nancy sued for divorce. Jeremy begged her to reconcile, but she refused and went to live elsewhere with Jim-despite Jeremy's warning that
he would kill her rather than submit to divorce. Finally, after luring Nancy back to their house under the pretext of discussing divorce details, Jeremy shot her to death with a .3 8, which he then turned on himself, committing suicide a few hours later.16 Here is another example of an "evil" act by someone no one considered evil (nasty, maybe, but not evil). Pride and jealousy contributed to his conviction that there was "no other option" but murderthe "righteous slaughter" of which Professor Katz wrote. Besides Jeremy's intense egotism, there was careful planning here, as well as deceit (tricking Nancy to return to their house), making this case appropriate for Category 7 of the scale.

  Jonathan Nyce

  The eldest of four boys from a working-class family in Pennsylvania, Jonathan Nyce was studious, quiet, awkward, and lacked confidence around girls. He suffered no abuse or losses during his formative years. An excellent student, he eventually earned a doctorate in molecular biology. As an asthmatic himself, he turned his efforts to asthma research. His first marriage failed after seven years. He then began corresponding with a Filipino girl, Mechily Riviera, and eventually flew to Manila to meet her and propose marriage-which she accepted. At forty, he was twice her age, but he pretended to be thirty-two. In the early 1990s they had two children, and Jeremy founded a company for producing what he hoped would be an asthma cure. He obtained considerable venture capital, and they moved to a huge house, living in luxurious circumstances. The business began to fail, however, especially when venture capital dried up after 9/11. Even so, Jonathan installed a gym inside their house because he worried that Mechily would attract other men if she went to the local gym. She was, after all, very attractive. But the real problem resided in his behavior toward her. He limited her freedom as though she were a harem concubine; to make matters worse, she found out he had lied about his age. And money problems aggravated the situation.

  In these unsettled circumstances, Mechily developed an attraction for the landscape gardener she had hired. Again she ended up with a man who lied to her, only this time, the lie concerned his name. She knew him only by one of his aliases, "Enyo," though his real name was Miguel Dejesus. Jonathan-already depressed because he was voted out of the directorship of his company-suspected Mechily was cheating on him. This was confirmed by a private investigator. One night, when Mechily came home late after having been with Miguel, Jonathan smashed her skull with a baseball bat. Placing her body into the driver's seat of his car, he then pushed the car down an embankment, and told the police that her death resulted from an accident. When the real cause was discovered, he was arrested and then convicted-though the judge was unusually lenient, sentencing him to only five years for "passion/manslaughter." He continues to deny having killed his wife. The murder was impulsive but was followed by "staging" of the crime scene-to fool the police and to escape arrest: an "expressive" act followed by an "instrumental" act. Still, Dr. Nyce, though jealous and narcissistic, was not psychopathic.i" The case fits in Category 8 of the scale.

  IMPULSE MURDERS OF OTHER TYPES: EMPHASIS ON RAGE

  Murders done on the spur of the moment do not all derive from jealousy. The driving force can be rage that is ignited in a few seconds, or it can be a smoldering anger that gradually builds up and crosses the threshold into murderous rage. The following murder was done in a state of what is called "blind rage"-a state in which all semblance of rationality and self-control is momentarily lost. It is as if someone were driving a car without brakes, the accelerator pedal to the floorboard, and with a blindfold firmly in place. The trigger can be an overpowering humiliation or else a feeling of entrapment in an intolerable life situation. Most of the people in these situations have no psychopathic traits. But as we ascend to the higher categories on the scale, we see some extreme egocentricity along with a few psychopathic traits (such as callousness or a lack of remorse). We are dealing with evil acts-committed by people whom others would rarely call "evil" in any general, day-in day-out way. As we shall see, in some of the cases, rage led to repeated stabbing with mutilation of the body or to destruction of the body through burning. As we try to imagine what the victims must have felt in such circumstances, the notion of "evil" comes more quickly to mind than if the murders were (relatively) painless, say, from a stab to the heart or a shot to the temple.

  Susan Cummings

  One of fraternal twin daughters born to a billionaire arms dealer and his Swiss wife, Susan Cummings lived on a huge rural estate in Virginia where she owned and managed a horse farm. Whereas her sister was pretty and popular, Susan seldom dated and was shy, tomboyish, and not as attractive. She fell in love with an Argentine polo expert, Roberto Vil- legas, hired originally to teach her how to play. He had come from a poor background but now moved among the people in Virginia's well-to-do "horsey set." In 1995 they moved in together, but the "honeymoon period" was short-lived. Each became increasingly irritated with the other. Roberto was ill-tempered and verbally abusive. Rumor had it that he was also cheating on Susan. She became sexually indifferent and tended to alienate him as well as others by her tightness with money. Local farmers would complain, for example, that she haggled over a $5,000 horse, offering only $500, despite being immensely rich. By 1997, the situation between the two became explosive, culminating in Susan shooting Roberto to death (with four bullets) in her kitchen. Her upbringing with her arms-dealer father had made her quite handy with her 9mm Walther semiautomatic. Claiming she had acted in self-defense, she showed some cuts on her body and produced a knife when apprehended. Some thought she had done the cutting herself to make her reaction seem more justified. Though declared guilty of manslaughter at the trial, she was sentenced to a mere sixty days in jail.18 Hers is not the story of an inoffensive woman maltreated by a bitter and vindictive brute, the way Heathcliff treated Cathy's daughter in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.19 Roberto was no ideal mate, but Susan contributed in good measure to the tension that finally precipitated the murder. For this reason I felt her story conformed to that of Category 4 of the scale: killing in self-defense, but extremely provocative toward the victim.

  Robert Rowe

  Robert Rowe was an attorney, one of two brothers raised in a Protestant family. He married a Catholic woman, Mary, over the stringent objections of his bigoted mother. They had two sons: Bobby, the normal one, and Chris, who was born blind and deaf, owing to Mary's having con tracted rubella early in that pregnancy. Robert proved unusually stoical in the face of so handicapped a child. He formed a support group for other similarly affected couples, who took inspiration from his cheerfulness and self-transcendence. When he was forty, he and Mary adopted a girl, Jenny. Rowe's mother died three years later, but not before humiliating him with her "confession" that she wished she could have aborted him as she had done with her first two pregnancies. Added to that, she told him she saw him as just a lowly bureaucrat, a fake, and the head of a damaged household. As her final coup, she disinherited him, leaving what little she had to his brother, Kenny. Robert had several disturbing dreams in which his mother urged him to kill his whole family. He became seriously depressed, began to hear voices, and once fled the house after he had started to pick up a kitchen knife.

  Under the care of a psychiatrist, he was given medications for depression and anxiety. No longer able to work as an attorney, he took a job as a cab driver in New York. Through his carelessness, his cab was stolen, so the $25,000 he spent for the taxi medallion was lost. Reduced to being a house husband while Mary worked, he sunk deeper into depression, and deeper still when he learned that Bobby, his "normal" son, had a congenital hip disease that might consign him to a wheelchair. Robert stopped taking his medication, causing him to plunge to the very bottom of depression and despair. He thought of placing Chris in an institution, but Mary wouldn't hear of it. It was this endlessly deteriorating situation that culminated in February of 1978 with his taking a baseball bat and crushing to death his three children. When Mary came home, he put a blindfold on her, telling her he had a "big surprise" for her-the surpris
e was killing her with the bat as well. Rowe then made a suicide attempt with gas from the oven but was rescued by a neighbor who summoned help. He confessed to the murder of his family and was sent to a forensic hospital.

  Released three years later, he was able to gradually rebuild his life. He remarried and had a son. Rowe died five years later at age sixty-eight. His is the story of murder under tragic circumstances, remorse, and redemption. Though he had been temporarily in the grips of a psychotic depression20 (one in which he heard voices), Rowe had no psychopathic characteristics. His case corresponds to Category 5 on the scale: desperate persons who have killed (usually relatives) but who are without psychopathic traits. What made the murder appear more "evil" was the public's reaction to the bludgeoning of one's whole family with a blunt instrument. There was also some premeditation-in the blindfolding of his wife so that she would have no idea what he had in store for her."i

  Susan Wright

  As a young and pretty woman of eighteen, Susan Wyche had worked for a time as a go-go dancer. Jeff Wright, who had met her at the discotheque where she worked, became enamored of her. In the stormy affair that ensued, she became pregnant, but to her irritation Jeff put off marrying her till she was eight months along. Jeff was a fairly successful salesman, so they were able to live in a pleasant area of Houston, Texas. But Jeff was addicted to cocaine and to other women. These avocations were ruinous to their finances. Susan caught a sexually transmitted disease as a result of one of his escapades. She also complained that he was physically abusive, partly because, infidelity aside, he was very jealous of her. The abuse history was corroborated by her mother and denied by his mother.