From Chris’s perspective, emotion and dealing with conflict in a healthy way were not modeled for him in childhood. Chris, in his prison confession, stated, “I just don’t show emotion as much as other people do. Even when the girls left North Carolina, Shanann’s brother, dad were all crying when I left. I never saw my parents get like that when I left. Was I born that way? My dad couldn’t speak at the sentencing hearing because he was going to lose it. It hit me because I’ve never seen him like that. No one has ever seen me that way either. I never saw my dad cry, so maybe it imprinted in my brain that I should never cry… even if something was wrong, I probably would never say anything because I would just deal with it myself. I don’t know if growing up that way kept me that way. You deal with things on your own until they build up so much, and you can’t deal with them. They take a hold of you in a way you never thought.”
These are important insights into Chris’s early childhood messages he internalized, and they speak to the importance of allowing children to have space to access all their emotions. Culturally, there has been an epidemic of teaching boys to cut themselves off from important emotions. Universal messages many boys receive include, “Don’t cry,” “Crying is weakness,” “Don’t show emotion,” and “Don’t be a pussy.” But boys and men are deeply sensitive humans, and these messages encourage them to repress their basic needs and feelings. The issue I see with men consistently in my psychotherapy practice is like what Chris describes. They cut off from their emotions for so long that, when they finally come to the surface and erupt, they manifest in extreme anxiety, depression, relationship issues, rage, alcoholism, and more. When children grow up with parents who don’t express much emotion and don’t allow them to express their feelings, they can feel as if they can’t depend on anyone, and that increases their risk for becoming adults with narcissistic traits.
I think it’s important to say that I do not blame Cindy or Ronnie for Chris’s lack of ability to deal with his emotions properly. The only information I have heard about Cindy’s relationships with her family of origin was in Cadle’s book, which referenced Cindy’s relationship with her mother. In the book, it says, “Cindy and her mother did not get along; living just down the street her mother tried to control Cindy, tell her how to raise her children. Although his grandmother was extremely negative, that didn’t rub off on Christopher.”
Other than that, I have no idea what Ronnie’s or Cindy’s childhoods were like, but if they grew up in homes where emotion was not outwardly expressed and where problems were not discussed, then I wouldn’t expect them to have an open family dynamic in their own family.
As one of my mentors likes to say, “No one teaches us how to be in relationships.” If we don’t have the right models, then we all just do the best we can without much guidance. Only in recent years, have trends in parenting advice been focused on helping children become emotionally vulnerable and process their feelings. In many families, there are messages that whenever there are problems, you suck it up and keep going.
Apparently, Cindy and Jamie did try to get Chris to open up as a child, so it does sound as if they wanted him to talk about his feelings and open up to them. My speculation is that, from the day he was born, he probably already had emotional vacancies and an inability to authentically connect with others or empathize. However, a “brush-things-under-the-rug” type household could have contributed to his lack of ability to deal with his relational issues in his marriage with Shanann and the other issues he was suppressing and not dealing with in a mature way.
From some of his comments, it seems that Chris almost felt jealous of Shanann’s relationship with her family. He saw her parents cry when she left North Carolina, and he thought, “I never saw my parents get like that when I left.” He expresses what seems like a longing for someone to outwardly express those feelings toward him, to help him feel special. That was what Chris seemed to crave, and he may have started to resent Shanann for having what he didn’t. In fact, in her Daily Mail exclusive, Cadle said that Chris was “mesmerized by Nikki. She showed him respect that he didn’t feel like he’d ever been shown before.”28 It sounds like Chris felt he had a life-long pattern of feeling disrespected by the people in his life. Whether or not this was real or perceived by Chris, any feelings of disrespect over the years most likely fueled his anger and entitlement.
When Chris was older and in college, and Ronnie developed a cocaine addiction, Chris was as detached as ever. Remembering that time in his life, Chris says: “I don’t think it affected me. It didn’t deep down really hurt as much as I thought it would. It was kind of weird. When my mom and sister tried to talk to him about it, he would change the subject, and when I tried to talk to him about it, he would immediately change the subject. He was just coping with…I never came back home. I never really knew why he was doing it. After the fact, I knew he was coping with that. My mom thought he was having an affair because the money was going somewhere. I tried to talk to him about it. You could see it in his face, what drugs do to your face. His skin was loose, nose was bleeding all the time. You could see it in his eyes.”
This is another example of the secrecy and shutting down in the family. Ronnie was turning to very unhealthy coping mechanisms to deal with his inability to deal with the difficult emotions of “losing” his son when Chris left the house for college. The secrecy and lack of communication fueled further anxiety in the family. Cindy knew the money was going somewhere and assumed he was having an affair. When we don’t have enough information, we create stories, and our minds run away with those stories, creating anxiety. This example also shows Chris’s potential lack of empathy and feelings. He expected to feel hurt, but he didn’t because he doesn’t seem capable of feeling the depth of what is expected with normal human emotions.
Childhood messages
As Chris said in his prison confession, he believed that he would have to rely on himself for emotional support, and he would have to deal with his problems by himself. It’s not that Cindy or Ronnie necessarily ever blatantly told him that, but it’s the story he may have told himself based on his perception. In his childhood, some of his needs may have been overlooked, partially because he couldn’t vocalize them, either because he didn’t know what they were or didn’t have the emotional landscape. Or, he may have also interpreted the unspoken family dynamic as a message that his emotional needs would not be met by his family and therefore, he never vocalized them. The focus on emotional needs may have been placed on the stronger personality types in the family, such as Cindy and Jamie. Chris may have just faded into the background and went about his business quietly.
In order for Chris to get his needs met, he believed he would have to rely on himself to deal with issues as they came up, but he would also have to find a way to get positive attention given his personality limitations. He didn’t have the vivacious personality that attracted people to Jamie, so he would have to figure out other ways to get people to like him. Jamie was described as outgoing, extroverted, and popular, and Chris figured out those are often the types of people who command attention. But Chris wasn’t that type of person. He remembers going with his grandmother to pick up Jamie up from school, knowing that she would always be the last one out of the building because she stopped to talk to everybody. That was just her personality. Chris wasn’t like that and said somewhat defiantly that he never wanted to be like Jamie anyway.
Somewhere along the way in his childhood, he learned that in order to get positive attention, he should assume the role of the “good boy.” If he was kind, helpful, and quiet, he could be seen by others and could elicit praise for himself. When Chris remembers the type of child he was, he describes himself as the person who was always trying to “coax people down.” One fight in third grade was the only trouble he ever had at school.
According to him, “I never really talked to many people. People knew who I was. I never spoke to many people. I didn’t have
a girlfriend in high school. I was under the radar. I didn’t want to be part of a group or a clique. I didn’t want a whole lot of friends.”
This comment is particularly interesting because it shows Chris is trying to differentiate himself from Jamie. As she took the role of the likable, popular one, Chris would be in her shadow. Understanding that he was not the one to get the attention he secretly might have craved, he put up a defense by telling himself he didn’t want to be like Jamie. He even said, “I was the opposite of her. Maybe I drew on that. I didn’t want to be the popular one.”
He certainly did an excellent job of constructing his identity as a person everyone liked, respected, and admired. Not one person in his past had anything bad to say about him. The unspeakable acts of violence he inflicted on his family shocked everyone who knew him because of his persona of perfection and goodness. One of his former teachers, Joe Duty, told the Fayetteville Observer,29 “Oh my God. This is a shock. He was one of the best students I ever had.” Duty also spoke to the Daily Beast,30 saying that he told Chris before he graduated, “If I ever have a student who was going to be tremendously successful, it’s you.”
“That’s one of the smartest students I ever had,” Duty said. “The guy had a photographic memory.”
When the news first broke of the crime, one of Chris’s high-school friends, Brandi Smith, told the Daily Beast that girls always had crushes on Chris and said, “Most of our conversations that I recall were about music and things like that. I was a bit of an outcast, and he kinda just seemed to understand me. Everyone liked him. It’s actually amazing how many people that knew him completely turned on him and think he’s this monster when he hasn’t even been convicted.” She went on to say, “Chris found himself as a father. Those girls brought him to life and out of his shell. He’s not a crazy person. He’s not a violent, abusive, or mean person. I’ll be broken if he’s convicted, and it was a lie, but there’s a chance…and it’s not fair that he’s being crucified.” Currently, with verbal and written confessions from Chris, it is true that he is a violent, abusive, and dangerous person. This quote from Brandi Smith shows just how skilled he was at portraying the complete opposite of the reality, and that is really quite frightening.
Lance Alfonso, another person from Chris’s past who spoke to the Daily Beast, played recreational football with him when they were kids. He said Chris “was someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Again, the contrast here is stark. The man who is described as someone who wouldn’t hurt a fly plotted the murders of his family and was relentless about following through with his plan. He’s even said in his letters to Cadle that he felt no remorse for his family. All he felt was that he was free to finally be with Nikki. All he cares about is himself.
Chris clearly loved feeling that people thought so highly of him. It’s why he played the part of the nice guy so perfectly. It brought him the type of attention he needed. He enjoyed being different from the stereotypical male. He discovered that people liked him if he showed interest in them first, and if he was agreeable and bent over backward for others. In other words, he wanted to come across as a “people pleaser,” and the likable Chris that everyone loved carried on into his adulthood. He was the friend, husband, and co-worker everyone wanted. All his coworkers had great things to say about him and fondly referred to him as “Rainman” because of his uncanny memory. After he dropped a lot of weight, they called him the “Silver Fox” for his gray hair and handsome features.
Chris, unlike a person with textbook psychopathic traits, seemed to care deeply about what other people thought of him, and he did not want anyone to see cracks in his carefully constructed mask. This is more in line with traits of a narcissist because narcissists rely heavily on the approval of others for their self-worth. In Cadle’s book, one of the things she keeps repeating is how important it is for Chris to maintain a good image for others. She says, “It has been very important for Christopher what people think of him. He says he has always tried to be good to people, always be kind and helpful, and what people thought of him made a difference. It bothers him that people hate him, and, as he puts it, ‘judge’ him.”
Chris felt a sense of pride when he talked about being “different” than the other guys Shanann had dated before him, including her ex-husband. He boasted about how Shanann’s father liked him when he and Shanann first started dating.
“I think he really liked me the first time he met me because I was helping Shanann with this car from the dealership, and the wheel was about to fall off. I tried to fit it, and he (Frank) said, ‘every other guy she dated would have let me do it.’ I always wanted to help people, not hurt anyone. I would always do whatever I could to help. I didn’t try to change her (Shanann). I let her be who she is. She knows what she wants, and she goes and gets it. Her first husband tried to control everything. He tried to be Sandi (Shanann’s mother), and it didn’t work. And she turned into… almost me. She was almost laid back and let him do what he was doing, and then learned she could be herself, and with me she could definitely be herself… and that’s how it worked.” In these comments, Chris feels good about being liked by being the guy who allows people to be themselves.
I believe that, in many situations in his life, Chris felt he could never be himself (whatever being himself meant to him), so it’s interesting that part of his persona was to give the space to allow others to be themselves around him, often at the expense of himself. Chris also mentioned in the prison confession that he could never be himself around Shanann and was always nervous around her. Part of his desire to enter a relationship with Nikki was that he supposedly felt he could be more himself with her, even though he let her control much of their relationship and relied on her advice on everything, from counting calories, to a protein eating plan, to apartment hunting.
In one part of Chris’s confession, Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Tammy Lee tells Chris in reference to his texting coworker Kodi Roberts a day before the murders (to tell him he would go to the Cervi 319 location by himself), “There’s a lot of people who said you normally wouldn’t do that.”
Chris, not understanding what Tammy meant, seemed shocked and aghast and replied,
“Said I wouldn’t help somebody?” Chris seemed more upset to think that someone said he wouldn’t be helpful than he did discussing Bella’s post-mortem injuries. All of Chris’s identity is wrapped up in being helpful. Even in prison with a life sentence, he is concerned about his
carefully constructed identity having holes poked in it. Cadle, in her visits with Chris relayed that he “feels famous. He’s very careful, he wants people to think good of him. It’s very hard for him to be called a monster or to be called a murderer. He doesn’t like that.”
• • •
Deep inside of him, there was an inner conflict brewing between the two opposing parts. There was his construct of “perfect” Chris, and then there was the “repressed rage” Chris. Chris needed to be “good” to fill his need to be admired and liked, but the other part of him resented always having to wear a mask and always having to do things for others.
This inner conflict can, in part, be attributed to the “Nice Guy Syndrome,” coined by Dr. Robert Glover who describes these “nice guys” as men who try too hard to please others, neglect their own needs, and end up resentful, unhappy, and angry. In his book, No More Mr. Nice Guy,31 he says the term “Nice Guy” is a misnomer because these “Nice Guys” aren’t so nice after all.
In the book, Dr. Glover describes some of the not nice traits of Nice Guys as: 1. Dishonesty. This is because they avoid conflict at all costs and repress their feelings, which actually makes them dishonest with themselves and others. 2. Secretive. Because they need so much approval, they hide things that they think might upset others. 3. Manipulative. They use manipulation to get their needs met because they don’t know how to ask for their needs in clear and direct ways. 4. Give to get. They give only to get
something in return, and they become angry and resentful because they feel they give so much and don’t get much back in return. 5. Passive-aggressive. They express their frustration and resentment in indirect ways. 6. Full of rage. “Though nice guys frequently deny ever getting angry, a lifetime of frustration and resentment creates a pressure cooker of repressed rage deep inside these men. This rage tends to erupt at some of the most unexpected and seemingly inappropriate times.” 7. Addictive. Because the nice guy represses so much, he needs to relieve his stress, often through addictive behaviors. The most common is sexual compulsiveness.32. Difficulty with boundaries. Nice guys have a hard time saying no. They see others as the cause of their problems instead of self-reflecting.
Dr. Glover also notes in his book that nice guys are often mistaken for healthy males, when in fact, they have very unhealthy behaviors in relationships. Many of the women who end up in relationships with these men feel they have met a “real catch,” like the way Shanann felt when Chris won her heart. But Glover remarks that, “Unfortunately the negative traits listed above find a way to ooze out into Nice Guys’ lives and personal relationships. As a result, these men tend to swing back and forth between being nice and not-so-nice. I have listened to countless wives, partners and girlfriends describe the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde qualities of Nice Guys.”
Dr. Glover also believes that the Nice Guy Syndrome arises in childhood. “Becoming a Nice Guy is a way of coping with situations where it does not feel safe or acceptable for a boy or a man to just be who he is,” he writes. “Further, the only thing that would make a child or an adult sacrifice one’s self by trying to become something different is a belief that being just who he is must be a bad and/or dangerous thing.”
Nice Guy Syndrome applies to Chris because it was a way for him to feel valued, respected, and adored. It made him feel special, but it also made him feel resentful. It was the identity he created to adapt to a world and fit in when he felt different from the others around him. Every single human being has needs, and the people who deprive themselves of their needs are almost always deeply resentful inside. In Cadle’s book, Chris says he couldn’t say no to his wife, he didn’t make any decisions, and he swallowed his own needs in order to keep the peace. He admits it was his fault that he kept quiet and never expressed any of his grievances, so Shanann never knew what was bothering him and simmering inside. Clearly, the Nice Guy Syndrome was a ticking time bomb for him that could last only so long.
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