Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior

by Robert I. Simon

  Rape will continue unabated as long as society and culture empower men at the expense of women. From this perspective, the profiling of rapists deals with only the individual consequences of a maledominated society, not the fundamental, underlying causes of rape. It is critically important to seek to eliminate rape by challenging societal beliefs and cultural values that promote and condone sexual violence. Every effort must be made to foil attempted rapes by educating potential victims about risks and by teaching realistic strategies for selfdefense. We need to reduce the emotional and physical trauma of rape through early, appropriate attention to the individual needs of the rape victim. And, finally, we must prevent recurrences of rape by insisting on the incarceration and treatment of offenders.

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  Stalkers

  Forever Yours

  If you leave me, I will track you down, I will kill you.

  —A stalker’s prophetic threat to a woman he later murdered

  Kristin Lardner, a 21-year-old art student in Boston, met Michael Cartier, 22, a nightclub bouncer, in January of 1992. They started dating. On April 16, 1992, they had an argument, and he struck her about the face, knocked her to the ground, kicked her over and over, and told her, “Get up or I’ll kill you.” By the time she staggered to her feet, he was gone. Two motorists stopped by and assisted her home. She determined never to see him again.

  But Lardner had a hard time getting rid of Cartier. Spurned, he called her apartment 10 times a day and showed up at the liquor store where she worked part-time. There, he would be alternately violent and tearful, telling her that he did not know why he always hurt the people he loved. Maybe it was because his mother never loved him. He knew he needed help.

  Lardner was now terrified of Cartier. She knew he was on probation, but she did not know why. His probation officer did—it was for attacking a woman with a pair of scissors—and when Lardner complained to the probation officer, she was told to take her complaint to the Brookline District Court. She did, and while she was there she filled out an application for a complaint that charged Cartier with

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  domestic abuse. Now he would be ordered to stay away from her, she thought. She would not have to feel the dread of catching a glimpse of him stalking her or experience the awful panic and terror of a direct confrontation that could turn violent. Inexplicably, the court did not immediately issue a summons for his arrest.

  On May 30, 1992, Michael Cartier found Kristin Lardner and shot her in the head and face, killing her in broad daylight. When the police burst into his apartment, they discovered Cartier sprawled on the bed, with a fatal, self-inflicted bullet wound to the head.

  After the murder and suicide, the police investigated. They learned that the Brookline District Court had never issued the summons for Cartier’s arrest. They found a friend of his who told them that Cartier had spoken to him a few weeks earlier, telling the friend he could not live without Lardner, and vowing that he was going to kill her with a gun he was going to buy. Another friend described Cartier as a man unable to handle rejection, someone who had always been extremely jealous and unpredictable. According to other sources, Cartier had experienced extreme abuse as a child. As a youngster he had shown signs of severe emotional disturbance.

  Stalking: An Epidemic Problem

  The FB I Classification Manual (1992) defines a stalker as “a predator who stalks or selects a victim based on a specific criterion of the victim.” Federal and state laws (all states have enacted anti-stalking laws) define stalking as a crime in which a person “on more than one occasion” engages in “conduct with the intent to cause emotional distress…by placing [another] person in reasonable fear of death or bodily injury,” or the “willful, malicious and repeated following and harassing of another person.” Plainly and simply, stalking is terrorism directed against an individual in order to obtain contact with and gain control over that individual. In the United States, more than 1 million women and more than 370,000 men are stalked annually.

  Despite official classifications, the definition of stalking remains hazy. The term is used very broadly, particularly by law enforcement. For example, the man who cases a woman’s home before a sexual assault is often dubbed a stalker. Is the contract killer who follows his victim to determine the best point of attack a stalker? What about the rejected husband or lover who cannot let go? Is the egotistical person who writes a movie star for a date a stalker? Those who are called stalkers present a wide spectrum of behaviors. There is no stalker syndrome, only a common behavioral pathway to the victim for a broad variety of motives. Stalking is frequently precipitated by a rejection or the onset of a mental illness. The stalkers most often examined by psychiatrists are those with the delusional belief that they have a special relationship with a stranger, who is then pursued.

  In most cases, the stalking victim is a woman and the stalker is a man, but there are cases in which women stalk men or stalk other women. Men stalk other men, and they stalk children; and children stalk other children. Stalkers may be straight or gay. They are not hit men or professional kidnappers; for one thing, those criminals tend to work in groups. Many stalkers are loners who have abnormal mental and emotional fixations on a specific individual.

  Stalking and Intimate Partner Violence

  The statistics on stalking and intimate partner violence are chilling. Each year, 4.8 million women experience intimate partner–related physical assaults and rapes. Men are the victims of about 2.4 million intimate partner–related physical assaults. Studies reveal that 76% of intimate partner murder victims were stalked by their intimate partner; 67% were physically abused by their intimate partner; 89% of murder victims who were physically abused were stalked in the 12 months before the killing; and of the 79% of abused victims who reported stalking to the police, more than half were murdered by their stalkers. Although intimate partner stalking does not necessarily result in physical violence, the psychological violence is severely damaging and long-lasting.

  Domestic violence is a frequent backdrop for stalking. The stalking usually begins when the abuse victim leaves or when the abuser is forced to leave by the authorities. About 30% of women who suffer physical injury by spousal abuse are eventually killed by their partners. The FBI estimates that one in four women who are murdered are killed by husbands or partners. Doctors are told that every physician in America, regardless of specialty or where his or her practice is conducted, has seen a battered women in his or her office in the last 2 weeks.

  Battered spouses often find it very difficult to leave an abusive partner. Victims stay for many reasons: first and foremost, there is the real threat of further harm or even death if they attempt to leave. Abused women are used to hearing the very real threat, “If you leave me, I’ll kill you.” Also, they may feel ashamed, they may feel grateful when the abuse stops and bend over backward not to reexperience the terror of abuse, or they may have nowhere to go or no means of financial support. In between the violent episodes, the spouse may be loving, kind, a good provider, and an esteemed citizen. Victims often are bewildered when the abuser apologizes for the progressive violence but then blames the abused person for the incidents.

  Stalking is often an invisible crime until violence breaks out. One study showed that the time from the beginning of stalking to the occurrence of violence was 5 years. Until the violence reaches such a level that the victim has to go to the police or to the hospital, the victim usually does not talk about being stalked. Most stalking victims suffer in silence. The act of stalking plays on a victim’s deepest fears of being hunted, harmed, and killed. Common symptoms include anxiety, insomnia, social dysfunction, and depression. Kristin Lardner must have experienced such feelings. Even reporting stalking to the authorities does not always bring protection; 54% of women who reported stalking to the police were killed by their stalkers. This was Kristin Lardner’s fate.

  Stalkers are motivated by myriad reasons. In cases where celebrities are stalked, mentally disorder
ed people desperately seek contact in the search for identity, love, power, and relief from their personal problems. Some stalkers even seek contact with total strangers to redress perceived or real grievances or wrongs. Statistics reveal that of all the victims of stalkers, 38% are ordinary people, mostly women; 17% are high-profile celebrities; and 32% are lesser-known celebrities. Of the remainder, 11% are corporate executives stalked by current or former employees, and 2% are people such as supervisors stalked by disgruntled subordinates and psychotherapists stalked by current or former patients.

  Stalking has always existed. It is rooted in the ancient concept that women are chattel or property. By wielding power over a man or woman, the stalker is asserting that he or she will be part of the victim’s life whether the victim likes it or not. In the past, stalkers were brought up on charges of criminal trespass or not prosecuted at all. The residue of this old way of looking at stalking can be seen in the common but erroneously held belief among men that women somehow entice their stalkers. In fact, however, 90% of stalkers suffer from mental disorders, and the remaining 10% are very upset or angry persons.

  Today, stalking is recognized as a major social problem, with an estimated 200,000 stalkers on the loose in the United States. Some experts assert that this figure is apocryphal and that nobody knows how many people are stalked. One out of every 20 women, at some time during her life, will be stalked by a former boyfriend, an ex-husband, or a stranger. Statistics show that 77% of women stalked and 64% of men stalked know their stalker. Most of the targets of stalkers are single or divorced women between the ages of 20 and 45. The stalking may begin in a benign fashion, perhaps with a compliment, but can escalate into a pattern of surveillance, obscene language, harassment, threats of bodily harm, and actual physical injury or murder.

  Stalking occurs at all socioeconomic levels. Proof that education and professional stature are no bar to stalking comes from the case of then 63-year-old Sol Wachtler, the former chief judge of the State of New York. After Joy Silverman ended a relationship with Wachtler, he conducted a 13-month campaign to threaten and terrorize her. Wachtler was arrested when he demanded that Silverman pay him $20,000 or he would kidnap her 14-year-old daughter. He received a 15-month federal prison sentence and was fined $30,000 for stalking and threatening Silverman and her daughter. Before the court, Wachtler explained his bizarre, 2-year harassment as the result of a “sick and aberrational” attempt to create a situation that would recapture the woman’s need for him.

  Stalker Typology The Celebrity Stalker

  In our mass-entertainment culture, some entertainers may enjoy an audience of 100 million people or more. These large audiences, coupled with our fascination with the personal lives of entertainers, sports stars, and other celebrities, have produced some inevitable consequences. Out of 100 million viewers, some will feel that the entertainer is speaking, singing, or performing directly to or for them. Others will develop the notion that their own destinies are inextricably intertwined with that of the media star. Some will write love letters. Others will write hate letters or letters that say they are being tormented or abused from afar by the entertainer. Still others will have deviant sexual thoughts. Considering that scantily clad entertainers enter the bedrooms of millions of viewers, many of whom may themselves be in various stages of undress, it is not difficult to understand that this situation will stimulate some viewers to act in aberrant ways.

  One of them was Teddy Soto, an admirer of Christina Applegate, who played the “teenage sexpot” character of Kelly Bundy on Fox television’s show Married . . . With Children. Soto was noticed hanging around the security gate of Columbia Pictures television studios, where the sitcom was taped. He was recognized as a man who had previously been arrested after being spotted near Applegate’s home. When he steadfastly refused to leave the security gate at the studio, the guards arrested him.

  Soto may have had trouble distinguishing between the actress Christina Applegate and the Kelly Bundy character she played. Applegate has been emphatic in telling people that privately she is the antithesis of the Kelly Bundy character, who on television wears extremely tight skirts and tops that reveal cleavage. Soto is an example of how tenacious some people will be in their attempt to contact media stars about whom they have developed an obsession—or a delusion.

  Only a small minority of stalkers are disgruntled fans. The vast majority of stalkers of public figures are mentally ill. They tend to be media addicts who are highly self-absorbed loners. Some of them delude themselves into thinking that they have a special relationship with a famous person. Others believe that they can become celebrities themselves by their association with a famous person—even if it means killing that person. Mark David Chapman, who stalked and killed John Lennon, was one of these. He described himself as a “nobody” who “didn’t know how to handle being a nobody.” Chapman said he struck out in anger “to become something he wasn’t, to become somebody.” Margaret Ray, a 41-year-old stalker, reportedly believed she was actually a specific somebody, the wife of David Letterman, and she repeatedly broke into the talk-show host’s home.

  Forensic psychiatrist Park Elliot Dietz has researched the subject of celebrity stalkers and has found that celebrities who are perceived as “nice” attract more pursuers than do those celebrities with a less friendly image. The obsessed fan generally pursues the nonthreatening, “girl-next-door” types, not the actresses who project strong personalities, such as Elizabeth Taylor or Joan Collins. The friendly, outgoing image of actress Rebecca Schaeffer, who starred in the television series My Sister Sam, attracted the attention of a man named Robert John Bardo. He sent her a fan letter. She did what most actors and actresses have been urged to do in such instances: she sent him in return a picture of herself with a brief thank-you note. In this case, it was a mistake because Bardo misread this as a real interest in him, and he stalked and killed Schaeffer. Almost always, a confrontation between the stalker and the person who is the object of his or her intense fantasy is ineffective in deterring the stalker, no matter what the celebrity’s intent. Such contact will likely reinforce the stalker’s unshakable belief that a love relationship exists between him or her and the celebrity. The only way for a person being stalked to help himself or herself is to enforce complete separation from the stalker.

  People in love think constantly about their loved ones. What is she or he doing now? I wish I could see her this very moment, at work, at play. What is he thinking about? Is he thinking of me? Even reasonably healthy people “mind stalk” those to whom they are attracted. People harbor subconscious wishes to merge with others that derive from the earliest stages of human development. But aberration can occur. I once examined a short, skinny man with a hawklike appearance, who repeatedly stalked and injured his ex-wife. When I asked him why he did this, he chillingly said: “Before we married, I loved her. Once we married, she was mine. And since I’m no good, she became worthless. She is me. I can’t let her go.” So it is no wonder that stalkers reflect the entire spectrum of psychopathology, from the moonstruck adolescent to the delusional psychotic. The difference between the healthy and the nonhealthy is that the latter are driven by internal psychological needs to actually pursue their object of interest, whether or not that person wants to be pursued. Stalkers cannot confine their obsessions or delusions within their heads; they must act them out. Bad men do what good men dream.

  Many stalkers are men who have been rejected by women. Most stalkers are mentally ill loners without meaningful lives of their own. But there is some psychological distance between a vengeful ex-spouse and an obsessed celebrity stalker. In the following pages, I look into some of the psychological profiles of stalkers, but I need to warn the reader in advance that the categories into which stalkers are placed are not as neat or as all-encompassing as those for rapists or for other criminals described in other chapters. The lines separating categories of stalkers must not be seen as hard and fast.

  The Immature Romantic St
alker

  Let us begin with that moonstruck adolescent. It is not unusual for an adolescent to become infatuated and romantically preoccupied with some person. Indeed, the relationship may be totally one-sided and exist only from afar because the idealized person of the adolescent’s ardor may be unaware of this interest. The young romantic sits outside the person’s house, hides in the bushes, follows his or her car to steal a glimpse, or telephones and hangs up just to hear the voice of the person. Boys are acculturated through television and movies to persistently pursue the woman of their desire. Unlike adult stalkers, adolescents usually do not make threats. In developmentally normal adolescents, these pursuit behaviors usually cease as the person matures. Most people have gone through this phase. In some adults, however, the behavior may continue and become fixed—and that, of course, can cause problems.

  The Dependent, Rejection-Sensitive Stalker

  Generally, the dependent, rejection-sensitive stalker is a person who is extremely sensitive to being rejected and at the same time is extremely dependent on the person with whom he or she has a “love” relationship. This jilted lover gathers intelligence on the person who has rejected him or her and attempts contact through incessant phone calls, e-mails, letters, gifts, and visits. Some rejected lovers badger the victim’s friends, coworkers, or relatives for information. Others go further, reading the victim’s personal mail, breaking into his or her house, checking the computer, listening to the answering machine, even watching the person sleep. The most vicious of this category of stalkers applies every means of harassment and of psychological terror he or she can dream up. Some of the more harsh tactics include pouring weed killer on a lawn, taping gun cartridges to a car window, leaving threatening notes scrawled in nail polish, destroying property, sabotaging cars, killing the victim’s pets, and threatening the victim’s children.