Friday, July 27, 2018

Female Psychopaths: Quotations (Academic)


Female Psychopaths: Quotations /  Notes on a major, and long overlooked, area of scientific study.

***

QUESTION: Why are more men diagnosed as “psychopath” than women?

ANSWER: The criteria for measuring “psychopathy” (as is the case with the profile of the “serial killer”) is based upon the study of the male brain, which has a different neuroanatomy structure than the female brain. Further, much less research as been done on female that male aggression, leading to a failure – in law enforcement, criminal justice, forensics, psychology practice and everyday life – to understand and identify severe female aggression.

***

1) Gynocentrism, Chivalry

• MYTH: “Violence is masculine. Men are the cause of it, and women and children the ones who suffer. . . .  Though the evidence may contradict the statement, the consensus runs deep. Women from all walks of life, at all levels of power – corporate, political, or familial, women in combat and on police forces – have no part in violence. It is one of the most abiding myths of our time.” [Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence, 1997, Viking Press, p. 7]

• “The message being conveyed is that women, being blameless, are entitled to victimize without consequence.” [Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence, 1997, Viking Press, p. 232]

• “There’s a common erroneous assumption that because females are “nurturing,” they won’t be violent. But we’ve had female serial killers who have shot, stabbed, smothered (with her enormous weight), and even used chain saws and ice picks.” [Katherine Ramsland Ph.D., “What Do You Say to a Teenage Murderess?” Psychology Today, Jan. 27, 2012]

• “Dana Crowley Jack (Behind the Mask: Destruction and Creativity in Women’s Aggression, 1999, Harvard UP) commented on the issue: Almost all of what psychologists have thought and felt about aggression has been shaped by a predominantly male perspective. This position is supported by the facts that much of the research conducted on female aggression has been associated with domestic violence or violence perpetrated on a significant other and that many in the social and behavioral sciences communities were unwilling to accept that women could be violent—and men the victims—when researchers examined the evidence of female on male aggression (Beckner, 2005).” [Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G. Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,” Forensic Examiner, V:19,  Iss: 2., Summer 2010, pp. 50-67. p. 53]

2) Failure of Academic Research to Study Female Aggression

“The study of female aggression is a phenomenon in itself has only recently begun to receive due attention. Buss (1961) claimed that women are so seldom aggressive, that female aggression is not worth the trouble to study. Aggression is, accordingly to his view (at that time), a typically male phenomenon. Olweus (1978), who investigated bullying, i.e., aggressive harassment, among adolescent school children, was of the opinion that bullying occurs so rarely among female adolescent that he excluded girls as subjects from his research. Later, he has changed his opinion, and he is now investigating bullying also among girls (e.g., Olweus, 1986). Frodi, Macaulay, and Thome (1977) reviewed 314 studies on human aggression, and found that 54% of these concerned men only, and only 8% women. These facts are certainly revealing.” [Kaj Björkvist. Sex Differences in Physical, Verban, and Indirect Aggression: A Review of Recent Research. Sex Roles. Vol. 30, Nos. 3/4. 1994.]

• “So, what can one say to a teenage girl who either wielded a weapon or masterminded a slaughter? So far, we have solid data on treatments only for boys at risk for adult psychopathy.” [Katherine Ramsland Ph.D., “What Do You Say to a Teenage Murderess?” Psychology Today, Jan. 27, 2012]

• In 2013, British Forensic psychologist Zoe Stephenson noted more generally that there was still a “dearth of gender-specific research” on violent juveniles and in her study, “Sex differences in predictors of violent and non-violent juvenile offending,” concluded that “more attention needs to be paid to the mental health of female offenders.” [Zoe Stephenson et al., Sex differences in predictors of violent and non-violent juvenile offending. Aggressive Behavior. Volume 40, Issue 2, March/April 2014. pp. 165-177.]

• “So, what can one say to a teenage girl who either wielded a weapon or masterminded a slaughter? So far, we have solid data on treatments only for boys at risk for adult psychopathy.” Katherine Ramsland Ph.D. “What Do You Say to a Teenage Murderess?” Jan 27, 2012]

• “When women act violently, the only explanations frequently offered have been that it is either involuntary, self-defense, the result of mental illness, or hormonal imbalances inherent in female physiology. This article’s review of relevant research, however, shows that homicides committed by women stem from diverse motives, including the offender’s psychopathic traits that spawn a motive for the homicide. . . .  the authors caution forensic examiners and law enforcement personnel to avoid acting on misconceptions of gender-based violence when interacting with female psychopaths.” [Abstact, Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G. Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,” Forensic Examiner  V:19  Iss:2. Summer 2010, pp. 50-67.]

• “Female serial killers … haven’t received anywhere near the same amount of attention from the media or from criminologists as males have. Even researchers on psychology have tended to focus on male populations. There’s a common erroneous assumption that because females are “nurturing,” they won’t be violent. But we’ve had female serial killers who have shot, stabbed, smothered (with her enormous weight), and even used chain saws and ice picks.” [D. P. Lyle, MD, “Forensic Psychologist Dr. Katherine Ramsland Talks About Serial Killers,” The Writer’s Forensics Blog, June 25, 2009]

• “Our belief in the intrinsic, non-threatening nature of the feminine is deceiving to both genders and actually exposes both to homicidal risks that are ignored because of long-internalized myths about female criminality. As we shall see in the next section on female psychopathy, some of the societal perceptions of female aggression may have influenced the lack of research on female psychopathy because it has not been seriously explored until recently. We will also look at how the myths that still surround female aggression are used by female psychopaths in what Dr. Robert Hare refers to as “impression management.” [Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G. Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,” Forensic Examiner  V:19  Iss:2. Summer 2010, pp. 50-67. p. 53]

• “[E]mpirical research explicitly examining gendered relationships between BPD [Borderline Personality Disorder] and psychopathy factors is lacking. . . . [The study’s] results suggest that BPD and psychopathy, at least as they are measured by current instruments, overlap in women and, accordingly, may reflect gender-differentiated phenotypic expressions of similar dispositional vulnerabilities.” ] Sprague, J., Javdani, S., Sadeh, N., Newman, J. P., & Verona, E. (2012). Borderline personality disorder as a female phenotypic expression of psychopathy? Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 3(2), 127-139.]

***

3) Myth of Absence of Agency

• “It is a common but mistaken belief among law enforcement and forensic professionals that people who commit violent, incomprehensible crimes must be crazy, psychotic, or they “just snapped.” This perception is reinforced in the media (Herve & Yuille, 2007).” [Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G. Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,” Forensic Examiner  V:19  Iss:2. Summer 2010, pp. 50-67. p. 54]

• “[T]he study of female criminality (as opposed to the study of male criminality) has only recently been linked to antisocial behaviors instead of relying on socio-cultural explanations.” [Frank S. Perri, J.D., Terrance G. Lichtenwald, Ph.D. “Last Frontier: Myths and the Female Psychopathic Killer,” Forensic Examiner  V:19  Iss:2. Summer 2010, pp. 50-67. p. 52]

4) Relational Aggression; Getting Away With Psychopathy

• “If a woman is a psychopath, she can be just as dangerous as a male psychopath—perhaps more so because, based on social conventions, we're less likely to see her coming.” [Seth Meyers PhD, “The Field Guide to the Female Psychopath . . . and why we rarely see her coming,” Psychology Today, Aug. 10, 2015]

• “For years, the research has told us that psychopaths are usually male. Research on psychopaths largely stems from studies conducted from prison samples, but remember that those in prison are there because they have been caught. We will never truly know the exact prevalence for male or female psychopaths because many only come to light once they have been arrested for a crime. (Robert Hare estimates that approximately 1% of the population are psychopaths.) Is it possible that women can get away with certain crimes more than men because society is less likely to expect certain antisocial or violent behaviors among them?” [Seth Meyers PhD, “The Field Guide to the Female Psychopath . . . and why we rarely see her coming,” Psychology Today, Aug. 10, 2015]

• “Other research has examined the importance of relational aggression among females, suggesting that women may display aggression differently than their male counterparts. Crick and Grotpeter (1996) studied relational aggression, also known as covert aggression, which is a type of aggression in which harm is caused by damaging someone's relationships or social status—and it’s different from the type of aggression (typically, physical) that males show each other. Relational aggression tends to be more subtle and manipulative. /// It may be that while many male psychopaths act in traditionally aggressive, socially -constructed ways which can eventually lead them to be incarcerated (and evaluated for psychopathy), female psychopaths operate in more nuanced, less overtly physically aggressive ways, though they can ultimately lead to equally destructive outcomes. Think of a seemingly kind older female nurse who cares for a sick man. This woman could well be a psychopath but her presentation as an older woman in a helping profession causes others to see her in a benevolent light.” [Seth Meyers PhD, “The Field Guide to the Female Psychopath . . . and why we rarely see her coming,” Psychology Today, Aug. 10, 2015]

***

5) Relational Aggression

• False Accusations frequently destroy lives and sometimes lead to the suicide of the victim. Oddly the press – after years of being fed fake theories, fake statistics and fake pseudo-psychology – still refers to criminals who make false rape accusation as “the victim” (unless the false rape accuser is a male). [Robert St. Estephe, Jul. 27, 2018]

***

***

Friday, July 6, 2018

Lucy Letby, Suspected Serial Baby-Killer Nurse – England, 2018


28-year-old pediatric nurse Lucy Letby was known as a do-gooder. She was “kind-hearted” and “amazing,” and she looked after newborns at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Chester, England. She was active in a $4 million fundraising campaign to build a new neo­natal unit at the hospital. She was arrested July 3, 2018 on suspicion of murdering 17 infants over a 16-month period.

“The 680-bed hospital in Chester, southeast of Liverpool, asked police in May 2017 to investigate a sudden, unexplained mortality-rate spike in the unit that houses premature babies and those needing special care. When doctors couldn’t determine how they died, the police were asked to rule out ‘unnatural causes of death.’”

“The probe initially focused on the deaths of eight babies, but authorities said Tuesday it now includes the deaths of 17 and 15 ‘nonfatal collapses’ between March 2015 and July 2016. A “nonfatal collapse” is when an infant’s health severely declines but the child survives.” [NYPost]

The investigation continues.

[Lia Eustachewich, “Friends, co-workers shocked by ‘kindhearted’ nurse suspected of murdering babies,” New York Post, Jul. 4, 2018]

***
CHRONOLOGY

Victims (all under 12 mo.) — Joseph Johnson, Cemlyn Bennett, Elsie McNall, Daisy Parkin, Barney Gee, Maddie Freed, Eli Gelder, Joseph Gelder.
 
1990 – Lucy Letby born. Unmarried.
2011 – graduated with a nursing degree from Chester University.
Jun. 2015 – Letby employed at neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester hospital, where she worked, between June 2015 and June 2016. Letby “was the only constant presence” when three babies died and one suffered a life-threatening collapse in two weeks on the neonatal unit in June 2015.
Jun. 8, 2015 – Count 1; Charged with murder of Baby A.
Jun. 8, 2015 -- Count 2; Charged with attempted murder of Baby B between the Jun 8-11, 2015.
Jun. 14, 2015 – Count 3 - Charged with murder of Baby C.
Jun. 22, 2015 – Count 4 - Charged with murder of Baby D.
Aug. 4, 2015 – Count 5 - Charged with murder of Baby E.
Aug. 5, 2015 – Count 6 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby F.
Sep. 7, 2015 – Count 7 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby G.
Sep. 21, 2015 – Count 8 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby G.
Sep. 21, 2015 – Count 9 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby G.
Sep. 26, 2015 – Count 10 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby H.
Sep. 27, 2015 –  Count 11 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby H.
Oct. 23, 2015 – Count 12 - Charged with murder of Baby I.
Nov. 27, 2015 – Count 13 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby J.
Feb. 17, 2015 – Count 14 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby K.
Apr. 9, 2016 – Count 15 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby L.
Apr. 9, 2016 – Count 16 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby M.
Jun. 3, 2016 – Count 17 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby N.
Jun. 15, 2016 -- Count 18 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby N.
Jun. 15, 2016 -- Count 19 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby N.
Jun. 23, 2016 – Count 20 - Charged with murder of Baby O.
Jun. 24, 2016 – Count 21 - Charged with murder of Baby P.
Jun. 25, 2016 -- Count 22 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby Q.
Jun. 2016 – end of employment at Countess of Chester hospital.
May 2017 – Police launched a probe into the neo-natal unit at Countess of Chester Hospital in May 2017.
Jul. 3, 2018 – Letby arrested for 8 murders.
Jun. 2019 – Letby rearrested in connection with the attempted murder of three additional babies. 
Nov. 10, 2020 – Letby rearrested again and charged with eight counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder.
Nov. 11, 2020, the Crown Prosecution Service authorised Cheshire Police to charge Lucy Letby with murder in connection with an ongoing investigation into a number of baby deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Nov. 12, 2020 – Letby appears at Warrington Magistrates' Court on November 12, 2020, to face all charges which relate to the year from June 2015 to June 2016.
Oct. 10, 2022 – trial; Letby denies seven counts of murder and 15 counts of attempted murder, relating to 17 babies in all.
Aug. 18, 2023 - Found Guilty: 7 murders and 6 attempted murders.
 
Sources: Jay Akbar, “Who is nurse Lucy Letby and why has she been arrested?” The Sun, Oct. 3, 2021; Rory Tingle, 'Cold-blooded' Lucy Letby 'smiled at mother after she had murdered her newborn daughter on the fourth attempt' - then 'sent a sympathy card to the parents,' Mailonline, 12 Oct. 12, 2022.
 
***

“I am evil” – A hand written note found by police in at Lucy Letby's home at Westbourne Road, Chester.

***


***
 

***

***

***

***

***

***

For more cases, see Sicko Nurses

***
[1808-1/14/21; 2637-8/18/23]
***