by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
New York Times Bestselling authors of MINDHUNTER and Journey into DARKNESS
The FBI`s Legendary profiler probes the psyches of killers, rapists, and STALKERS and their victims and tells how to fight back.
Crimes is out there...When will we learn to be civilised???
STALKING - chapter 9 - p.274
When I joined the Bureau in 1970, you wouldn`t have seen stalking listed as a category, even in a criminology textbook. In those days, there was no single, encompassing temp for the set of behaviours we now recognise as menacing rather than annoying, and more dangerous than what was then generally lumped under the heading of simple harassment.
The first U.S. antistalking law wasn`t enacted until twenty years later, in 1990, when California passed landmark legislation. And it is only in the last few years that other states have adopted their own laws to address the crime. ...
...a stalker is someone who engages "in a course of conduct that would place a reasonable person in fear for his or her safety, and that the stalker intended and did, in fact, place the victim in such fear."
Depending on the stalker, this conduct can range from overtly aggressive behaviour, such as the abduction and murder of the victim`s pet or threats in letters, to repeatedly calling someone, say, every hour on the hour all day long, asking for a date. The key is that the behaviour is repeated over time, establishing the type of pattern Stanton Samenow had defined so well, and creates fear in the victim. ...
When most of us hear the term stalking, we think of the well-publicised cases involving celebrities... but the statistics indicate it`s a far larger problem than than. Plenty of cases involve ordinary citizens...
There are also instances where a victim is stalked by someone with who she never had a relationship - maybe someone she never previously met. Indeed, even as this book is beein written, sucha a case is in the news near where I live.
It started innocently enough. A twenty-one-year-old college social-work major was courteous to a fellow employee at the large department store where she had a part-time job. the coworker, described by the victim is a loner who was shunned by and alienated from others on the job. read quite a bit more into her simple kindness than she ever intended. He began sending her E-mail messages and giving her gifts, behaviours that she did not reciprocate.
She began noticing him in places she didn`t expect, such as outside her home, where he left a note and a cookie for her on her car. This note was neither romantic nor threatening, but it was entirely inappropriate. It thanked her "for being supportive" of him at work, which seemed to imply she`d done more for him - or at least said more to him - than she had. She`d shown him the same degree of friendliness and courtesy she did every other acquaintance and stranger she met.
When she left her job in July 1997, he showed up at her college. At that point, she contacted the police and filed a harassment complaint. Just about two weeks later, he appreared at her house one morning and abuducted her at gunpoint, according to numerous neighbours who witnessed the woman being handcuffed and forced into a car by a man holding a gun.
The neighbours flooded 911 operators with desperate calls, shocked that something like that could happen in such a quiet, upper-middle-class neighborhood.
In another neighborhood, folks were equally shocked that the hometown boy who shoveled snow for them in the winter and apparently never gave them cause to worry would do such a thing. One was quoted in disbelief, "I saw him just the other day and he looked happy and said hello to me."...
...Although the woman was physically unharmed and reported that her captor tried to comfort and reassure her that he was not going to hurt her as he drove seemingly without a plan, I believe her to be a lucky young woman, under the circumstances. At some point, it would have become clear to this guy that his fantasy of life with her - whatever details he`d imagined - would not come true. Instead of "coming around", growing to love him back, she would remain a frightened captive. And as we`ve seen over and over again, when reality doesn`t live up to the fantasy, that can be when a victim faces the greatest danger. ...
Fortunately, not only was she found before any physical harm came to her, her alleged abductor crossed state lines, meaning he now faces a federal kidnapping charge as well as state charges both of kidnapping and firt-degree assault. The federal charge alone could land him a life sentence. This may sound harsh to some who would feel sympathy for the confused young man; even the vitim`s own mother told the Washington Post, "He`s a victim of society.
We`re talking about a sick young man who needs help and hasn`t gotten it. Now he is going to spend maybe the rest of his life in jail." But one thing we have learned is that many obsessive personality types don`t lose interest, and they pose an ever-growing threat to the objects of their obsessions. Some victims have been stalked by the same offender for decades.
The stalker may focus his attention on someone new (which solves the original victim`s problem but means a life of terror and uncertainty to the new target), or he may die, but he rarely gives up the obsesssive hehaviour altogether-particularly when he is gone as far as abducting a victim. Behaviour based on fantasy - regardless of the type of crime in which it manifests itself - has an overwhelming tendency to escalate rather than wind down. ...
Even today, with new laws in place and greater public awareness, we still have difficulty dealing with the crime, in large measure because we are talking about a CRIME THAT IS DEFINED BY OFTEN SUBTE ACTIONS ON THE PART OF THE OFFENDER and is often only witnessed by the victim. Sometimes there are obvious warning signs: a series of threatening letters or messages left on the answering machine tape. Other times there may be no overt clues that a crime has occurred. Unlike other categories of crime, with stalking we find no money missing from a purse, no fingerprints on the steering wheel of a stolen car, and (in the cases that turn out well) no dead body at a crime scene. A stalker`s weapons of choice can be items normally not considered menacing, such as a phone that rings too often, or gifts left on the doorstep or office desk. But as we see, these can be just the prelude to a harrowing future moment when more traditional weapos will be employed.
Particularly frightening and confusing for the stalking victim is that she often recognised that something is not right long before those around her, sometimes including law enforcement. David Beatty, an attorney with extensive legislative experience who is acting executive director of the National Victim Center, points out that even though the legal definitions of stalking vary from state to state, one thing that remains constant in the experience of victims is that "stalking begings before the legal definition kicks in. ...You can be harassing and you can be threatening before your actions reach the level of the legal definition." what`s so bad about having an admirer, secret or otherwise, leaving gifts for you? How can you really expect the police to consider a bouquet of roses with a love note attached threatening?
What antistalking groups, many of which are founded by former and current victims of stalkers, emphasise is that a pattern of this unwanted and unwarrented behaviour does create fear and stress in the recepient, who realises both that it is not normal, socially acceptable behaviour in its context, and that it can be a precursor to violence. Acts and words that seem harmless today may turn lethal down the road, which is a message that is only just now starting to be heard and understood.
...Unfortunately, in some ways it is harder to develop a general profile of a stalker than it is a rapist or murderer. They can come from any background, any walk of life, and their behaviour can accelerate from seemingly "normal" to deadly quickly. The majority of stalkers are men, and in most cases (75 to 80 per cent, according to the National Victim Center), a male offender stalks a female victim. Most stalkers are in their late teens and early twenties, up to their forties, and of above-average intelligence. It will come as no surprise that they are typically LONELY PEOPLE, OFTEN SOCIALLY WITHDRAWN, AND MAY HAVE A CLOSER relationship with their television set (providing a rich source for their fantasy life) than with other human beings. some have never had a close personal relationship, never had sex, and have no immediate prospects of either.
...But it is also because stalkers really do run the gamut from the clinically psychotic to otherwise fully functioning, SUCCESSFUL, AND WELL-RESPECTED MEMBERS OF OUR COMMUNITIES. As with other crimes, their choice of victim-from a famous celebrity who doesn`t even know they exist to a former lover- and the different types of stalking behaviour they engage in give us clues as to what sort of individual we`re dealing with in a given casxe. And although specific behaviours and characteristics exhibited by stalkers vary widely, we start out by placing them into one of two broad categories: so-called LOVE-OBSESSION STALKERS, whose victims are people they don`t really know, and SIMPLE OBSESSION STALKERS, who focus their attention on people they know and with whom they MIGHT HAVE HAD A PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIP, rather than on complete strangers.
IF I CAN`T HAVE YOU, NOBODY WILL - chapter 10 -p.331
... In May of 1991, police in the Sherman Oaks section of Los Angeles charged a man with the stalking of his ex-girlfriend. The two had dated for a couple of years, and when the woman tried to break up with the man, he wouldn`t accept it. He began harassing her by telephone, vandalised her car, and even abducted her dog.
...Simple obsession stalkers not only represent the majority of stalking cases, but are the most dangerous and, at times, deadly. While a percentage of love-obsession and offenders hund down the object of their obsession and attempt to physicall harm them, many are too disorganised to launch such an effort or carry it out successfully. The majority are NOT CAREER CRIMINALS. Simple obsession stalkers, on the other hand, can have a long history of abusive and/or violent behaviour, although that may not be reflected in the form of a criminal record.
It`s like Ronnie Shelton getting away with years of Peeping Tom activities. We`ve seen that for every serial rape case prosecuted, there may be a frightening number of lesser or even equal offenses committed that go UNREPORTED. Similarly, many simple obsession stalkers practice behaviours leading up to stalking that are abusive - emotionally and sometimes physically- for which they are never charges or PUNISHED. In some cases, this is because the offenses are minor and the victim is more concerned with getting out of the relationship than pursuing legal action. ...
Simple obsession stalking is so intimately related to domestic violence that they are virtually inseparable - different extensions of the same pattern of controlling, dominating behaviour.
...There are warning signs before one of these guys begins stalking his victim, but, unfortunately, they are often not revealed until she is already somewhat involved with him, which is why intelligent, otherwise self-protective women can find themselves in this type of situation. These OFFENDERS ARE NOT OBVIOUS "BAD GUYS" you can spot across a room. On the contrary many can be quite charming at first, creating a favorable initial impression. Like certain other types of sexual predators, they are good at what they do. ...
...It is especially true in this particular crime category, because, domestic abusers - including those who end up stalking their partners - often reveal their personality defects in subtle ways that don`t set off warning buzzers. The future victim may be completely unaware of what she is getting into at first. The abuser can be so manipulative and cunning, the behaviour so insidious, that she may not realise what is going on until she is enmeshed in a potentially dangerous relationship.
Before any physical and/or emotional abuse begins, the offender may first appear attentive, which soon reveals itself as truly more posssessive and jealous than caring. He tries to control aspects of his mate or girlfriend`s life - from picking out her clothing to trying to limit the time she spends away from him. An abusive husband or boyfriend may humiliate his victim, criticising her appearance, downplaying her skills as a homemaker, mather, student, successful professional - whatever role she holds withing and outside their relationship that gives her a sense of self-worth. He has the most strength if he can keep her off-balance, and playing mind games is one way he does this.
His most successful game involves switching moods: loving and tender one moment, angry and violent the next. His partner never knows whom she`s dealing with, and while she fears and loathes the one side of his behaviour, she cares for the other and thrives under his attention.
To increase his control over his partner, the abuser will try to put his victim in a situation where she is economically dependent on him.
And if a child is involved, this makes it even easier for him to keep her under control as she may not feel able to support herself and her child on her own...
There have even been cases where terrified mothers have escaped to a community "safe house" only to have the court force her to reveal her location when her husband sues for visitation rights. Thus, the same court system that a victim of domestic violence may turn to for protection has also been used by the abuser/stalker to exercise further control over her and maintain his presence in her life even after she`s physicall fled their home.
...In the man`s mind, violence occurs not because he is unable to cope with his emotions and lacks self-control, but because the victim did something wrong, something to set him off.
In the horrific example, as a Fort Worth man stabbed his wife to death in front of their two children, aged twelve and sixteen, he told her, "You did this to yourself." His rationale was that she and the children had started eating without him.
Before you shout, "The guy is nuts!" note that he held a
responsible position as a computer specialist with the Federal Aviation Administration. This was probably not the first time he`s assaulted his wife, and I` am sure it was not the only time he found a way to justify his actions to himself.
"YOU should be flattered by his attention" people say, thinking the man is merely smitten and will either give up when he realises the woman is not interested or will eventually succeed and win her affection. That`s the way it may be seemed to peole arour Laura Black, who say that Richard Farley baked her blueberry bread, leaving...
At first, many people, possibly including his victim, may have thought he was just pathetic. In this, he fits the classic profile of other types of offender, including both rapists and murderers who get their satisfaction from manipulating, dominatin, and controlling another human being. It is also highly telling that Farley chose as his victim someone fourteen years younger than he was, a common practice with offenders who feel more comfortable and in control of the situation with a victim younger than themselves. Many serial killers select younger victims in early crimes, intimidated by people their own age.
After Black made it clear that Farley`s feelings were not mutually shared, turning down dates, refusing to give him her phone number and address, even telling him in desperation that she would`nt date him if he "were the last man on earth" he grew increasingly more harassing. As he would explain "I had the right to ask her out... When she did not refuse in a cordial way, I felt I had the right to bother her." And bother her he did, showing up in her office when she was there alone putting in overtime on weekends or at night. Like Arthur Jackson, he had a mission and was able to call up tremendous resourcefulness in its pursuit. He lied to a colleague in the personnel office at ESL just weeks after meeting Black and said he wanted to surprise her for her birthday. when the coworker called up Black`s file on the computer, Farley memorised her adderess from the screen.
He broke into Black`s desk and traced her keys so he could make copies. when he learned she was going to visit her parents for Christmas, he again gained access to her desk by telling corporate security he lost his desk key and giving them the number of her desk instead. Searching through her belongings, he found the address for her parents` place and sent one of the nearly two hundred letters she would receive from him-this one eight single-spaced pages long.
All these efforts served two purposes. First, like a rapist who breaks into women`s homes when they`re not there, stealing panties so he has a physical object to build his fantasies around before actually assaulting his victim, Farley was fueling his fantasy of possessing Laura Black. Sure, she wouldn`t have anything to do with him by choice, but he was gathering intelligence collecting details and snippets of her real personal life. ...
He stated, "We fight like an old married couple," revealing the degree to which his fantasy redefined their interaction, allowing him to fill in her side of the relationship he imagined them to have. Although not deluded like Hinckley, who was so adept at finding secret messages for him in Jodie Foster`s every action that he wrote to her in 1980, "You didn`t wear you plaid skirt today... You have no right to disrupt our relationship in such a manner."
Farley played the stalker`s mind game fully, rationalising his behaviour with his belief that he could win laura Black`s attention. He didn`t necessarily want her as his wife or his girlfriend, but he wanted to know he could have her, that he wasn`t the loser he and so many others took him to be.
With his intelligence-gathering and other stalking behaviour, Farley also controlled how much privacy she had, taking that basic right away from her. And therein lies the second part of his motivation. Every piece of information he gathered, every intrusion he made into her life that she would have prevented, allowed him to reassert his control over the situation. She didn`t want a relationship with him, but he was finding ways to make sure she thought of him day and night. There was no place she could go that he wouldn`t be. ....
Much as the other criminals find ways to rationalise and project the blame for their actions onto their victims, Farley was trying to justify his behaviour, while at the same time intimating that he would step up his abuse. He would have her believe he`d tried to be accommodating, but that she had made things difficult - as though an adult in a normal, healthy relationship would have the inclination, let alone the right, to set up such "rules" for his or her partner.
...It wasn`t enough for him simply to observe her or learn personal details about her, he needed to make sure she was aware of his surveillance. He joined her gym, photographed her doing aerobic. He went to company softball games to watch her play and insinuated himself into after-game celebrations over pizza. He called her at home, often late in the evening, and would drive by when he was unable to get her on the phone.
...We are going to call this final chapter FIGHTING BACK. ...With regard to attitudes toward rape, the first one we`ve got to get across is that it is never acceptable.
This may seem pretty basic and elementary until we remember the survey of teenaged boys and girls who thought that forcing a woman to have sex was okay under certain circumstances - mainly having to do with the length of time the parties had known each other and how much money the boy had put out.
As Gene Schmidt says, "On all our visits to college campuses, we`re finding that girls have to be taught that it`s okay to say no, and that boys have to learn that no means just what it says. It doesn`t need any interpretation."
...
The Jennifer Levin and Stephanie Schmidt cases underscore the warning that you must never assume you know a person better than you do. Here were two bright and outgoing young women whose sole fault was trust - a quality we find admirable. Neither one of them did anything wrong, but because of their trust, both found themselves in situations that proved deadly.
Look after your friends and be aware of what they are doing. Stephanie Schmidt was the ideal victim from Don Gideon`s perspective. Not only was she unaware of his predatory past, she was going home for summer, so than none of her girlfriends would miss her in the next few days.
And don`t assume that sexual predators are going to be obvious, any more than Robert Chambers or Alex Kelly or Don Gideon. A killer or rapist can look like anyone.
Fairstein has had cases in which the defendants were DOCTORS, LAWYERS,TEACHERS, DENTISTS, EVEN MINISTER AND RABBIS, who assaulted their victims in "professional" surroundings. The best advice is what your mother told you ever since you can remember: Don`t pick up hitchhikers, don`t hitchhike yourself and don`t accept rides from people you don`t know well... and so on.
PROSSIMAMENTE SU QUESTO NUMBERO... MORE TO COME...
.../John Douglas and Mark Olshaker
OBSESSION