March 18, 2007
The Narcissist as Beast - Part II
Adhering to the proud tradition of uninspired spousal murderers, Beast contemplates how best to hide Beauty’s body, rehearsing an anemic variation on the well-worn fiction that she went “missing” after he last saw her. To distinguish himself from clichéd ideas such as sinking the body in water or strapping it in the family vehicle and pushing it off a cliff, Beast contrives a brilliant but grisly solution: dismember Beauty using the tool and die equipment at Dear Ol' Dad’s place of business.
The audience finally sits up and raises its collective eyebrows.
To add callous insult to injury, thus ensuring himself at least a paragraph in future true-crime anthologies, Beast transports Beauty’s parts to a nearby sentimental location using their children’s sled.
Mixed reactions from the audience include groans, titters, gasps and incredulous head-shaking. They whisper to each other, “Who wrote this stuff?”
When the news-starved media descends upon Beast, the limelight blinds him to what remaining sense he once possessed, and he, like his predecessors, talks too much, emits an in appropriate affect, fails to blink more than twice a minute, seizes upon a sympathetic reporter with whom he confides (remember Ted Rowlands?), and obsesses over his publicity. And, like most of his nitwit fraternity, Beast monitors the search and finds himself returning to the scene of the crime over and over. (Berkeley Marina, anyone?)
The audience is disappointed again. “Oh, come on,” they protest. “He can’t be that stupid.”
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Beast is indeed that stupid and unwittingly leads the police directly to a large body part that he retrieved from the park and hid in his garage when the search was getting too hot for his taste. Taking advantage of his narrow window of opportunity, Beast flees with his dog (like Andrew Luster) to a northern Michigan wilderness area where he manages to evade arrest for a day. Unable to stifle his compulsions, Beast contacts family members and the au pair with whom he was playing house and reveals his location via cell phone towers.
The audience groans. “UGGH! Not again! Not the cell phone, you idiot!”
A posse of sheriffs and rescue workers converge upon a frostbitten Beast who surrenders without incident. Later, in custody, Beast confesses to the gruesome details of his adventures with more glee than regret.
The audience does not applaud. They were hoping for an escape scene complete with motorcycles, barbed wire, machine guns, Germans, and a ball and mitt handed to Beast as he enters solitary confinement. Or, at least a coconut disguised as a head in a sleeping bag as a hastily-pitched tent is ripped from its stakes. Alas, the audience is left with yet another craven narcissistic creep removed from harm’s way but not soon enough to prevent a senseless tragedy.
Good riddance, Beast.
Posted by lorelei at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (76)March 09, 2007
The Narcissist as Beast - Part I
After several attempts to compose something meaningful and original about the incredible events surrounding the Tara Grant murder, I found myself uncharacteristically at a loss for words. Grant’s atrocities were so outrageous, so ruthless, if we did not know the story to be true, we would think it was written for a bad B horror movie by an unimaginative 25-year old between bong hits. Or, was it written by a narcissist?
Plot summary: underachieving, boyishly charming, spoiled Beast meets overachieving Beauty. His obsessive desire to possess her is mistaken for love. Beauty is swept off her feet and marries Beast. Soon, they have two children and Beauty rises to the top of her career, leaving spoiled Beast feeling emasculated, envious, and neglected. Beauty agrees to hire young, willing, foreign au pairs to help Beast cope with the childcare responsibilities. Beast attempts to seduce each girl, chasing off or intimidating those who don’t acquiesce. At least one falls in love with him.
Beauty is admired by male coworkers and her boss, and Beast interprets all attention toward his wife as a threat. The more Beauty is exposed to genuine love, admiration, and support, the more his façade is exposed. Meanwhile, Beast carries on a sexually charged cyber relationship with a long-distance former lover, which ensures that he will never have to perform or produce in real life. After several years of frustration and resentment, the lines between reality and fantasy begin to blur, and Beast begins to imagine his emancipation.
So far, the plot is familiar and banal. The audience is yawning. The motive is weak. The protagonist is predictable and wholly unlikeable, and not nearly evil enough. Boring! Time for the murder scene.
How would this Beast murder Beauty? In the most personal and least messy way, of course: strangulation. He lives the greatest fantasy of his life: crushing the woman who reflected all his deficiencies; the woman who possessed all the qualities he loved, which, ironically, were also the qualities he lacked and therefore loathed. As he looks into her eyes, sees her terror, savors that he is denying her breath as she loses consciousness, Beast thinks (or perhaps even says) “I decide who you love. I decide when you die.”
The ultimate pseudo-control to a Beast overwhelmed by powerlessness and rage.
The audience shrugs. Surely you can do better than this.
To be continued.
Posted by lorelei at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (41)February 23, 2007
Deconstructing the Tara Lynn Grant Case
A potential “Spouse Murrrder Theater” has occurred in Washington Township, Michigan. Tara Lynn Grant, a 34-year old working mother of two, disappeared on February 9, allegedly after getting into a “dark sedan” at the end of her driveway after an argument with her husband, Stephen. Tara worked for a company with headquarters in Idaho in a position that took her to Puerto Rico five days a week.
When analyzing the “facts” about this case, let’s keep in mind that all the information we have came from either Stephen Grant (the prime suspect) or the media; neither of which is a reliable source. We have no evidence when Tara left her house, if there was a “dark sedan,” or phone records showing calls made from her home or cell phone at the time of her reported departure.
We also have no evidence that Tara had the type of cold-blooded personality to let her family suffer, let her husband take the rap, plan her own disappearance, set aside the money, create a new identity, and conspire with someone to assist in such a complex maneuver.
Considering all the possibilities, including that Tara has willingly disappeared to escape from her life or punish her husband (a la Jennifer Wilbanks), that her husband killed her for yet unrevealed motives, or that she was murdered by a stranger (disgruntled employee, serial killer, satanic cult member), let’s deconstruct this case.
Stephen Grant claims she made a call to someone just before she left. Grant claims she has “gone black” on him before, given him the “deep freeze”, which is why he didn’t report her missing for five days.
According to Tara’s mother, Grant told her Tara was “missing”. Did he say that word, or did she interpret it as “missing”, or did the press insert that word? We know from previous spousal murder cases that using the word “missing” is a red flag.
Did Stephen really think Tara was merely miffed at him? Did she find Grant’s emails to his ex-girlfriend, excerpts of which have been published and demonstrate that Stephen doesn’t take his marriage vows very seriously? Grant has made accusations that Tara was unfaithful to him, yet carries on this salacious correspondence with a former lover. Is Grant playing by a different set of rules, the hallmark of a narcissistic personality?
Did Grant actually own a gun? If he had the means and opportunity, what was his motive? Emancipation? Money? We have little to go by at this stage. Grant lawyered up rather quickly, but we can’t fault him for that. Yet, he seems callous in interviews and more interested in how he appears to the public (and the press) than in finding his wife. This behavior, and Grant’s over explaining irrelevant details reminds us too well of Scott Peterson.
He is being advised not to talk. Not a bad idea. His lawyer insists that the police conduct their questioning in writing through a fax machine. Today, Grant voluntarily surrendered his computers, which may indicate he is bowing to public opinion. Being under this kind of scrutiny would be humiliating, and the buzzards in the media are no doubt hoping for another sensational murder trial.
However, without a corpus delecti, Grant skates. If he did it, that is. Stay tuned.
Posted by lorelei at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (457)December 08, 2006
Dr. N Buster on Jason Young
The celebrated Dr. N Buster returns from a long sabbatical (in which she completed a correspondence course on canine psychology and determined that it was not a viable practice, cyber or otherwise) to comment on the peculiar behavior of suspected spousal murderer, Jason Young.
Dr. N Buster noted the many remarkable similarities between the Michelle Young murder case and the Laci Peterson case, more of which could surface as the investigation continues. Are these similarities the result of the alleged perpetrators reading from the same Narcissist’s Handbook? If so, what does this tell us about Mr. Young and the outcome of this case?
Does Jason Young expect to get away with murder?
If Young suffers from this malignant personality disorder, yes – he does expect to get away with it. We can take heart, however, that he has undoubtedly self-sabotaged and unknowingly left enough evidence of guilt. Despite careful planning, perpetrators with this type of personality have major blind spots in their thinking and fail to comprehend the consequences of their behavior. Whether this stems from a lifetime of evading blame, disarming and successful manipulations, or enabling by parents and other authority figures, it is inevitable that they will be caught.
Why did Young take possession of his child if his motive for murdering his pregnant wife was to be free of responsibility?
If Young is a narcissist, his toddler child is mainly a prop. He may love her in his own inadequate fashion, consider her an extension of himself, and hope that he can deprogram any possible memory she has of the murder so that she becomes useless to the investigation. He also may hope that her attachment to him will lend sympathy and reluctance by Michelle’s family to remove her from his care. Who would want to further traumatize this toddler after such a horrific and confusing experience of being alone with her mother’s bloody dead body for half a day? Right now, Cassidy is Jason’s ace in the hole until he’s arrested.
What damages Young’s case for innocence the most?
While we are somewhat dismayed at the recent revelation that Young may be an adulterer, we are not surprised; nor does it, in isolation, point to guilt. The more telling behaviors that indicate Young is probably guilty and a narcissist include his lack of cooperation with the police, a pattern of deception of which we are only seeing traces (and expect much more); his aloof (if not rude) treatment of Michelle’s family, his retention of a criminal defense attorney before the funeral; his suspected arrangement of a third-party discovery of his wife’s body by her sister (which was especially sadistic), and his facile abandonment of the family home. Taken as separate events, they are fodder for the proponents of the laughably anemic “there’s no playbook for grief” defense. However, taken in context as a whole, they are quite damning.
A stand-up guy does not hide behind a toddler. He does not lawyer up when he’s innocent. He cooperates with the investigation. He returns to his home and grieves with his wife’s family. He dumps his girlfriend. He admits to what he has done and ensures that he clears himself of suspicion as soon as possible, whatever it takes. He submits to a polygraph, Chinese water torture, or intense interrogation because he knows he will not be charged.
Like Scott Peterson (and Jason Young?), a guilty, cowardly narcissist runs and hides!
Posted by lorelei at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (182)November 28, 2006
Anatomy of Motive - The Young Case
Three years ago on this blog, we were speculating the possible motives a man like Scott Peterson would have for murdering his pregnant wife. By all accounts, Peterson was a pampered child with overindulgent parents. He led a privileged lifestyle with country club memberships, a low golf score, a nice house and truck, and all the trappings of California Yuppiedom. So, why would he throw it all away? Was he a victim of pathological self-sabotage, or did he really believe he would never get caught?
How does this apply to our discussion of Jason Young, if he is, in fact, responsible for his wife, Michelle’s murder? The following excerpt is from John Douglas’s book, The Anatomy of Motive. Douglas is a former chief of the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit and pioneered modern behavioral profiling of criminals.
What motivates many, if not most, of these guys is a desire for power and control that comes from a background where they felt powerless and out of control. Being able to manipulate, dominate and control a victim, to decide whether that victim lives or dies, or how that victim dies, makes them feel grandiose and superior, as they believe they are entitled to feel.
Did Jason feel emasculated by Michelle’s academic and professional success? Did she earn more money and have control of the purse strings? Did he feel minimized by the rapid inclusion of a baby early in the marriage and then a second baby who would usurp even more of Michelle’s love and attention? Did Jason grow up in a broken family where he had to vie for his mother’s attention? We know his birth father was displaced by a step-father, but what do we know of his childhood and adolescence? Little information is forthcoming from any sources close to the family. We are left to speculate.
It is difficult to know when the breaking point occurred for Jason, if he went to these lengths to destroy his wife and unborn baby. Their marriage was still in its early years; not nearly enough time to develop long-seated bitterness. Clearly, if Jason is responsible for Michelle’s murder, he has been simmering with oppressed rage for some time. If he committed the act in question, he must have become completely overwhelmed by his responsibilities as husband, father, and provider. He felt trapped, unmanageable, frustrated, and resentful of his lack of freedom. It is also possible that he was in some kind of secret debt that was about to be exposed. With the reality of even more financial demands looming ahead with the new baby, he may even have hatched this plan during Michelle’s second pregnancy that was abbreviated.
As bizarre as this may seem to newcomers to true-crime stories, according to John Douglas and other experts on criminal behavior, emancipation is a very common motive for murder.
Posted by lorelei at 09:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (249)November 18, 2006
I Love You to Death - Reprise
Sam and Marilyn Sheppard
Jeffrey and Colette MacDonald
Eric and Pegye Bechler
Michael and Jennifer Blagg
Michael and Kathleen Peterson
Bruce and Jana Koklich
Greg and Kristin deVillers
Scott and Laci Peterson
Mark and Lori Hacking
What do these couples have in common?
- Proclaimed by friends and family to be doting lovebirds.
- Affluent, professional, well educated and living in nice neighborhoods.
- Statistically very low chances for victimization by strange assailants.
- The victims were found dead under suspicious circumstances, murdered, or vanished without a trace.
- Most of the victims were pregnant at the time of their murder.
- The accused or suspected spouse was guilty of major deception, chronic infidelity or was carrying on an extramarital relationship at the time of their spouse’s “disappearance” or murder.
- All of the accused staged dramatic scenarios (staged domestic homicides, per FBI parlance) to deflect suspicion.
- None of the couples had a history of abuse or domestic violence. The Bechlers and the Koklichs ran businesses together. Most were first marriages where the couple met in college.
- In most cases, there were severe financial problems that were not disclosed until after an investigation of the crimes, and large life insurance policies on the missing or murdered spouse.
- What were previously close family relationships among in-laws and siblings were irreparably divided by the incidents. The family of the victim tirelessly pursued justice and actively assisted the prosecution.
The Scorecard:
Sheppard – conviction was overturned, accused passed away rather young.
MacDonald – convicted of multiple murders; was eligible for a parole hearing in 1991, still working on an appeal based on DNA evidence, but don’t expect to see him strolling on the beach anytime soon.
Bechler – convicted (without the body of his wife ever being found) - currently serving a life sentence.
Blagg - convicted of murdering his wife, but has not been charged or tried for his daughter's murder.
Michael Peterson – convicted and sentenced to life without parole.
Bruce Koklich – convicted of second degree murder (with no body found), sentenced to 15 years to life.
Kristin Rossum – sentenced to life.
Scott Peterson - convicted of double murder and condemned to death.
Mark Hacking - pled guilty and is serving an inexact amount of time.
Oh yeah, they loved them to death!
Posted by lorelei at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (275)November 15, 2006
Trotting out the “Constitutionally Incapable” Defense
In the annals of spousal murder cases, the first line of defense from family members or friends of the accused is often, “He couldn’t have done it.” None of us is willing to believe that our loved one is capable of murder; it’s not fathomable to most people that their sons, brothers, friends or priests have a double life or an insane impulse to resort to such a cold-blooded act. Years after a trial, some supporters of convicted murderers persist in defending the innocence of their loved ones. They invest time and resources into appealing convictions, setting up web sites as ad hoc defense cases, petitioning courts, hiring investigators and attorneys, and refusing to accept the verdict. This is not unusual or unexpected.
We naturally resist accepting the evil nature of the human condition, especially in ourselves or someone we love. Despite the barrage of actual crime stories in our midst, and the plethora of crime-related television programs, somehow when it comes to our own family or friends, these dark realities don’t apply. Yet, isn’t it a fact that prominent members of the community: celebrities, sports figures, rabbis, fertilizer salesmen, scout leaders, elders in the church, postal carriers, teachers, scientists, millionaires, and drifters alike have been convicted of murder with no previous history of criminal behavior and, rather, otherwise sterling reputations?
Have we not seen people we would never expect to behave in a manner inconsistent with their values do horrendous and despicable things?
There are cases where the natural suspect was falsely accused and wrongfully convicted, but these are rare. While the court of public opinion may jump to erroneous conclusions and try and convict without the legal standard of reasonable doubt and admissible evidence, criminal courts across the land (arguably) do not. I am the last to claim that our justice system is infallible; however, white middle- or upper-class men usually receive fair trials. It is not the purpose of this blog to be a venue for discussing the justice system. I prefer to look at cases in the context of history, statistics, the psychology of evil, and patterns that appear to recur in staged domestic homicides.
In a recent article about the Young murder, investigators are said to be looking at a peculiar car accident the couple was in prior to Michelle Young’s murder. Armchair sleuths on crime forums are speculating that this was a possible attempted murder that went awry. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. A man in California was convicted recently for murdering his wife and children by driving his car off a cliff into the ocean where his wife and child drowned as he resurfaced unharmed. It’s a crazy way to kill someone, but it’s not unprecedented. As the saying goes, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
Still, they are examining every aspect of the couple's life together, including a May 29, 2005, car accident in Transylvania County when Jason Young drove off a road down a 100-foot embankment into the French Broad River. Neither he nor Michelle Young were seriously injured."They just wanted to know the circumstances and if I saw anything unusual with the wreck, which I did not," said sate Highway Patrol trooper David Hicks, who investigated the crash.
The couple’s house is still an “active crime scene”, but Jason Young has not been declared a suspect. Neither has anyone else:
Over the course of the investigation, they have taken fingerprints from any person who has had access to the house, including Young's husband, Jason Young, who gave his fingerprints under a court order.Investigators have also interviewed and collected fingerprint evidence from other people, although they have declined to say how many and whom.
Statistically, the longer the crime goes unsolved, the more difficult it becomes. If there were compelling evidence that this murder was committed by a stranger, a neighbor who didn’t belong in the house, a “goth” teenager copycatting Scott Dyleski, or a serial killer who had stalked Mrs. Young and knew her husband would be out of town that night, I suspect there would have been some hint of this from police. As it stands, or until more information points to a different conclusion, Occam’s Razor must apply.
Posted by lorelei at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (193)November 10, 2006
Jason Young - Murderer?
A week ago, in a bucolic setting near Raleigh, North Carolina, in a neighborhood quieter than Covena Avenue in Modesto, Michelle Marie Young was found lying face down in her bedroom, apparently murdered by blunt force trauma. Michelle was 29 and five months’ pregnant with her second child, a son. Her two-year-old daughter, Cassidy, had tracked blood throughout the house in the approximately 12 hours between the time of the murder and the discovery of Michelle’s body by her sister, Meredith Fisher.
Michelle Young's resemblance to Laci Peterson is uncanny. Will the resemblance end there?
Jason Young, the husband, allegedly left for a business trip rather late on Thursday evening, some three hours before Michelle was murdered. The following day, for whatever reason, he called his sister-in-law, Fisher, to retrieve a fax that had been sent to his house. Why would he call Fisher rather than call his wife? This is just one of several suspicious events in what has become a textbook example of staged domestic homicide.
First, we have the husband creating an “out of town” alibi. Possibly cell phone records or witnesses can corroborate his whereabouts that night. Then, we have him arranging for a third-party discovery of the body, typical of these types of cases. Then, he lawyers up right away and refuses to speak to the press.
Finally, we have the suspect’s family expressing the all-too-familiar outrage over the confiscation of Young’s car and luggage:
McIntyre said he told Jason Young to get a lawyer. He said he was afraid that police would pin the death on his stepson, regardless of evidence."I do not want my son to be talking to any type of investigators," he said. "They're not going to be trustworthy when they talk to him."
McIntyre criticized the sheriff's office for not immediately returning the belongings, which included medical prescriptions, purses and cell phones.
How many cell phones? Was one of them Michelle’s? Why would he have a purse with him on a business trip? Is it Michelle’s purse? Was this a murder for hire?
Young has been questioned and fingerprinted by Raleigh police, but officials are giving little information to the neighbors, who, according to news stories, expressed the following:
"What I remember mostly about Michelle is that her smile just lit up the room," said friend Laura Studdard. "She was so nice, and she was so smart and so pretty -- it's just so sad to me, right now."
"You couldn't imagine anything happening to a nice couple like this," said Martin, the neighbor.
I believe we have heard this song before.
Let’s look at the facts so far:
- No sign of forced entry into the home.
- Victim found in the couple’s bedroom.
- Investigators insist that it was not a “random act of violence” but fail to elaborate.
- The house wasn’t ‘tossed’ and nothing was stolen, thus indicating no burglary was in progress.
- The couple’s toddler was left unharmed. It is likely she was asleep at the time of the murder, so she did not witness what happened.
- Police are reassuring the neighbors “not to worry about their own safety.”
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…stay tuned. We have a local misfit keeping tabs on this case.
Posted by lorelei at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (257)