Roanoke Athletic Club Changed Anti-Gay Policy Thanks to Petition!

Before: The Roanoke Athletic Club in Virginia reportedly told Will Trinkle, Juan Granados and their 2-year-old son that they didn't qualify for a family membership because Will and Juan are gay, and therefore not a real family. After: In just eight days, nearly 175,000 people signed a petition on Change.org supporting Will and Juan, and the Roanoke Athletic Club responded by issuing a new policy: Any family, gay or straight, married or unmarried, now qualifies for a household membership.  "I want to thank everyone who signed," says Mark Lynn Ferguson, the Roanoke native who started the petition supporting Will and Juan. "You hailed from all over -- Roanoke to Rome -- and you delivered a clear message that there is no room for this kind of discrimination in the world."

Miami Homicide Detectives on First 48 ROCK!!!

"The First 48" is a mesmerizing documentary series following real detectives solving real cases. I grew up "hating cops" out of some misguided anti-establishment notion. And I realize now that what I dislike is a) the fact that "Vice" even exists and that people's personal 
choices, good or bad, are regulated by law.  I don't believe you can legislate morality.  Nor do I think we should;  and b) cops who abuse their power. 

But I digress. I'm watching Miami homicide detectives, Det. Kevin Ruggiero, Det. Orlando Silva, Sgt. Ervin Ford,  solving the brutal murder of a 24 year old woman, a corrections officer, and her beautiful 2 year old son. The woman's boyfriend, the boy's father, was laying in bed with his girlfriend with their two-yr-old lying in the middle, and suddenly half asleep he heard POP POP POP POP POP... Bam! His son is dead in his arms- And he sees his girlfriend, his son's mom, also shot dead. All I can say is, should something so tragic, so chilling, happen to you or someone you know, you--or they--should only hope for detectives a tenth as passionate and capable as Miami PD Murder police.  They do not give up! 

 I'm glad for us and for them that doing this job has not deadened or hardened them so much that they are unaffected by a crime like this.  I mean using an AK47 to shoot a baby?!  Who could possibly be so cruel and heartless.  If there weren't detectives willing to face that kind of ugliness, who would get these animals off the street? How would we? 

Moms and dads themselves, they have to live with these images  yet  keep their perspective. They have to care enough to be motivated, but have to keep the feelings in check so they really can do their job. It's amazing how little respect police tend to garner and how much we owe cops like these.  

To have the chance to see homicide detectives up close has changed my view of "cops" forever. (Thanks First 48.)     These men and women in Miami homicide are surprisingly free from gender bias, to my surprise. The boss is a woman, Sgt. Eunice Cooper, and not one of these men treats her differently than their male superiors.  The best of the male detectives aren't afraid to tear up or experience genuine emotion when on a scene like the brutal killing of a young woman and her two year old son..  And yet they're  professional enough, and experienced enough, to find a way to set their emotion aside to do their job. 

This murder, of a completely innocent young and her toddler son, is no run of the mill crime.  Left behind is a shocked and traumatized husband whose son died in his arms, grieving siblings and parents devastated. Detectives feel this woman, a corrections officer, is one of their own, and several have children around the same age.  With nothing at all to go on, every  detective in homicide works this case, no one sleeps for 48 hours.  And by the third day they know the identity of both perps and bring them in. Way too hardened too be swayed by interrogation techniques neither talk but one is arrested and charged as they also found his gun .   

How did they do it? Because the victims were shot from outside the house through the window, and thus there were no fingerprints, DNA, and no witnesses who saw their faces.  All they had were shell casings.

First they put out a public plea for information. The female victim's parents who were also the baby's grandparents spoke about their daughter. She was clearly kind and caring and greatly beloved. The boy's father was too distraught to speak but several spoke of the sweet, bright young boy who had barely begun to live. And  after the parents spoke, Sgt. Ervin Ford spoke too.  He also teared up as he spoke, concluding his remarks with a simple plea.

Usually television pleas like this bring many calls to a tip line in a city like Miami as even gang members will call in on the death of a child.  This time the lines were eerily quiet. 

Experienced detectives knew there had to be someone out there who knew something, and the silence told them that anyone who did know was too scared to talk. So every member of homicide reached out to any of their informants who might know who was likely responsible or be able to find out.  Det. Kevin Ruggiero had a hunch that a C.I. who was serving time might be able to get some info. The felon made one phone call and produced a name- not the shooters, but a woman who knew their identity.

She was brought in though determined not to talk. Det. Kevin Ruggiero asked if she thought what they did was right.  It was clear she did not but her fear of retribution was great. Det. R masterfully got her to see that she had to help them. Meanwhile they finally got a tip about where the guns used were being kept. And lo and behold they found the 357 Magnum (though not the assault rifle) and were able to tie that gun to one of the men the witness named. 

They were not able to arrest the second perp who'd used a "stick" in the shooting ("stick" being slang for an assault rifle) then but one imagines they'll find enough evidence soon. 

My new heroes: Sgt. Ervin Ford, Det. Kevin Ruggiero, Det. Orlando Silva, and Det. Emiliano Tamayo, Sgt. Eunice Cooper- you guys ROCK!   

Casey Anthony Trial continues...

Narcissistic and sociopathic personalities are by definition charming, and easily able to convince others they are sincere and normal.  Casey Anthony appears to fall right into that category, and apparently has convinced her defense team that she's just a poor innocent young woman who was sexually abused by her father, a fact that hasn't been proved, and seems merely a ploy to get sympathy by Casey.

On TruTV, several of the correspondents seem to say that Casey seems to have "loved" her daughter Caylee, based purely on behavior she displayed in front of others.  Her former friends, mostly male, state that her daughter appeared "well fed," that Casey did not yell at her or hit her, that Casey has a backpack with her with various DVDs and toys, that Casey played with Caylee and appeared to be having fun, and Caylee seemed to enjoy it. When the defense asked if it appeared she was a "good mother," several said "Yes", based on the above facts.

The defense (Attorney Jose Biaz) keeps asking questions like this: "Did you ever see Caylee malnourished?" and  "Did you ever see Casey strike or torture or harm Caylee?"  Well, first of all, Casey and Caylee lived with Casey's parents for quite some time, and they made sure Caylee was fed, clean, well dressed, and had DVDS, toys, learning tools.  Certainly Casey hadn't worked in two years so she wouldn't have had her money to buy these things.

But more relevant here is this: What is the definition of a good mother? Feeding and clothing and not "torturing" your child only suggests a lack of neglect and overt abuse. They certainly do NOT indicate, alone, that a mother loves a child.  In my view, a good mother is someone who is mature enough to love her child enough that her well being is more important than you "having fun. A good mother does not leave her 2-year-old unsupervised while she has sex with her boyfriend of one month in the other room.  One witness, Maria K., testified that when she came to Tony/s (the boyfriend's) apartment, little Caylee answered the door while Casey was nowhere to be seen. Maria then noted that Casey was in her boyfriend's bedroom at the time.

Casey Anthony seems to have some similarities to Susan Smith, who killed her two children because her boyfriend did not want to be with her because she had kids and he did not want the responsibility.  Prior to the incident where Smith's children were drowned, no one said or noticed that Susan Smith was either a bad mother or abusive to her children.  But the fact is, she loved herself more than she loved them.  As soon as they became an impediment to what she wanted, she got rid of them.

As for Casey Anthony's father George, several of the In Session correspondents, including Beth Karas and Casey Jordan, defended George's behavior on the stand, and felt that defense attorney Jose Biaz was badgering him.  Jose Biaz was questioning George about two gas cans that were stolen from him and the police report that George then made. He questioned whether George had he told the police that his daughter may have been the one who took them since she'd taken his gas cans in the past.  The point of the questioning was to show that George may have been lying about the gas cans being stolen (a key piece of evidence) and may have in fact reported them stolen in order to lay groundwork for a later defense.

There was much discussion about whether Jose Biaz was badgering George Anthony or whether George Anthony was simply a controlling angry man.  The fact is, Jose Biaz was nervous and tripped over his words quite a bit during that cross examination.  He would ask a question about July and then say, Oh, I mean June.  He asked other questions that were leading, and others that were simply unintelligible.  George Anthony had to say he did not understand the question, or challenge the question, a number of times.  I myself found Jose Biaz confusing and unclear, and don't think George Anthony was doing anything other than trying to be certain that what he said On the Record, was true.

In addition, Jose Biaz had accused George in opening statements of sexually abusing his daughter beginning when she was 8 as well as knowing about and covering up his granddaughter's disappearance. It certainly is understandale, if these things are untrue, which I believe they are, that George would be angry, and humiliated after hearing these statements (which he was called by the state to deny)

Most of the In Session correspondents (Beth Karas, Casey Jordan, their law enforcement expert) felt that George Anthony was believable on the stand, appeared genuine, and wasn't any angrier than anyone else would be in the same situation.  I tend to agree.

The only emotion Casey shows is when her ex-boyfriend testifies, someone she either loved or was extremely attached to, and when Tony says that Caylee was a wonderful little girl, Casey mouths the word, yes, while holding back tears.  However those tears were turned on and then off.  I think she wanted appear to be touched by hearing about her daughter in the presence of this man she loved or wanted. No such emotion appeared at any other mention of her daughter thus far in the trial.

They have Casey dressed quite conservatively of course.  On Thursday, however, she was wearing a white shirt with poofy sleeves, and a ponytail with the top teased up in such way that she looked like one of those Mormon wives living on the Texas compound that were in the news.

The prosecution is painting a pretty ugly picture of Casey, pretty effectively.  The defense is going to have a lot of "splaining" to do.  

Ray Krone: Another Wrongful Conviction Based on Junk Forensics

Ray Krone spent ten years in an Arizona prison, four of them on death row, for a crime he did not commit.  Shocking?  Not really.  He was the one hundredth person to have served time on death row and later to be exonerated by DNA evidence.  What is so shocking to me is the so-called evidence used to convict him.  With the advent of "CSI" (the "CSI" phenomenon perhaps?) people are more and more swayed by so-called "scientific forensic evidence" and less by motive, character, even alibi witnesses.

Paula Zahn ("On the Case with Paula Zahn," 1/23/11, Shadow of a Doubt) reported on this case last Sunday evening.  You have to think that, were it not for shows like this, were it not for reporters like Ms. Zahn, were it not for a public interest in these things, that many less folks would be exonerated. And goodness knows many many more innocent folk are locked up.)  
In Ray's case, it started with a murder in 1992.  Kim Anacona, a young mother of three and a bartender at the CBS Lounge in Phoenix, was murdered, her body left in the men's bathroom.  Not just murdered, but brutally murdered, sexually assaulted, and left on the floor with a visible bite mark on her breast.  This was a tragedy.  The cops noted
the bite mark on the victim's breast and decided it appeared "snaggle-toothed".  Bar patrons remembered that Ray Krone, who served in the Air Force and later worked for the U.S. Post Office, had crooked front teeth due to a car accident.  Further, they had seen him give Kim Anacona a ride to a holiday party that many bar patrons attended, and saw Ray kiss Kim under the mistletoe there.  Later, when questioned about Kim Anacona, Ray at first said, "Who?"  He'd never known her last name.  This got them suspicious.  Then, when they asked again, "You don't know Kim Anacona from the CBS Lounge?", he replied that he did in fact know the bartender there, a woman named Kim.  The cops were stunned that Ray did not know his own "girlfriend's" last name.  That, of course, is because Ray and Kim were not boyfriend and girlfriend. Their entire relationship outside the bar consisted of that ride to the party and the kiss under the mistletoe.

Because the bite mark seemed like such an important clue, investigators asked Krone if he would submit a bite mark sample, and he agreed. Most innocent people are eager to clear their name and willingly provide fingerprints, DNA & in this case a bite mark, which Krone couldn't know was in fact a highly subjective & non-definitive piece of evidence. The DA asked a forensic dentist employed by the state to examine the bite mark & compare it to Ray's. That dentist on a superficial exam, looking at one, then the other, said, yes, those bites are identical.  This was the day after Anacona was murdered.  And detectives decided right then they had their man. There was no other evidence of any kind. All investigation stopped that day.  This, despite the fact that the lab had identified hairs left at the scene as belonging to someone who was Native American (unlike Ray) and that police had received an anonymous note about the murder of Ms. Anacona stating, "An Indian did it- I saw him behind the CBS bar. He was 6 foot and 200 lbs." Other evidence at the scene included blood of someone other than the victim, but DNA was not yet sophisticated enough to match this blood to anyone, let alone Ray. Shoeprints were also found at the scene belonging to a shoe that was never found. The hair, blood and shoe prints were basically ignored.

Ray's public defender for the first trial made a serious error by not calling another forensic dental expert to challenge the bite mark ID. Clearly a defense lawyer must challenge the one piece of so-called evidence the prosecution is making their case on. This was, no doubt, because Ray's attorney was unaware of the "junk"-like quality of this type of evidence and accepted it as fact. Barry Scheck's "Junk Forensics" had not yet been written back in the '90s. If  Ray's lawyer had spent some time looking he'd have found more than one forensic dentist who would contest the original analysis. In fact, when retrying the case, three forensic dentists stated they were 100% positive the bite marks were not Ray's. One of them had been a longtime expert for the state. So if Ray's attorney didn't know how precarious this type of evidence was, certainly one could not expect the jury to have such information.

In presenting the bite mark, the prosecution used a fancy projection technique to show an overlay of Ray's teeth on a picture of the bite mark, and voila, it looked like a match.  This type of showmanship is typical when "junk forensics" is used. This "evidence" (an expert saying the bite matched Ray), combined with the fact that several people testified that they had seen the two together and it looked very much like they were romantically involved, which
Ray denied.  And, the prosecution stated that the footprints found at the scene were
"CLOSE" in size to Ray's shoe size.  (The shoe prints were actually smaller than his foot and he couldn't have gotten them on. All of this "evidence" was enough to send Ray to death row.  A faulty bite mark "match", and a "close" footprint size.  Ray's lawyer did not challenge that either.

Four years later, at an appeal, three forensic dental experts all testified that they were CERTAIN Ray's bite mark did NOT match the bite mark on Ms. Anacona.  They explained that, while the jaw size might be similar, there were striking inconsistencies.  One definitive
one was that the "biter" had spaces between his lower teeth.  That was clear.  Ray had NO spaces in his lower teeth.  NONE.

Four years later, also, there was more important exculpatory evidence.  The DNA found at the scene had been identified, and it did NOT match Ray Krone.  The footprints could NOT be Ray Krone's because they were a size SMALLER than his.  (It might be possible to wear shoes larger than one's own size, but smaller? Clearly not.)  AND, the hair, which in the first trial was thought to possibly match Ray (from visual examination), was proven NOT to
belong to Ray.  So in this second trial, of course it seemed that Ray would be exonerated.  I was SHOCKED, then, when a jury convicted Ray a second time.  So, too, was the judge, who said that this case "would haunt him the rest of his life" and added that he had serious doubts about the identity of the killer.   However, for whatever reason, the judge did not overturn the jury verdict.  And back to prison, but not death row, went Ray.

For many, that would be the end.  But Ray's cousin, Jim Rix (author of Jingle Jangle) and his lawyer could NOT let this go.  They knew Ray was innocent.  And his attorney
explained that in order to free Ray, for all intents and purposes, they would have to catch the killer.  So his attorney petitioned the court to test the DNA again, not just to exclude Ray (which they had), but to put the DNA through the DNA database and see if they could find who's it was.  As Ray says, the court resisted this, saying it was "a wild goose chase, a waste of the court's time and money... "   But what happened was, it matched a man who was a Native American and a convicted sex offender, currently incarcerated.  A man who Ray's attorney's investigator spoke to and who finally admitted
that he'd committed the crime.

So finally, Ray Krone was set free.  Ten years later.  And actually got a settlement from the state. As the prosecutor said, it's too bad this couldn't have been detected sooner...  Talk about an understatement!  However, I'm impressed he actually admitted that Ray was innocent.  This rarely happens.

Just a reminder folks- Our justice system may be the "best in the world" (although I kind of doubt it), but it is seriously flawed.  And we need to be aware of that.  We have to know that everyone in prison is not necessarily guilty- that jury verdicts are not magical- that juries can be WRONG!

And maybe next time you are called for jury duty, don't try to get out of it.  If those of us who know the system is flawed do not serve, you can see what happens. Thank you Paula Zahn.  Thank you Ray Krone for the dignity with which you walked through this nightmare, and for the work you do now to educate others.  Thank you Cousin Jim for your dogged determination.  What a nightmare!  Let's free the innocent who are locked up and allocate funds for DNA tests.  Please!  

Why Crime, the Psychology of Crime, Criminals & Crime Solvers Capture Our Imagination

Claudia Miles, MFT   San Rafael, California

January 14, 2011

I chose to become a psychotherapist after working in another field, motivated by the intense experience I'd had volunteering with people diagnosed with HIV at a time when HIV was a swift death sentence.  Having the opportunity to talk with people who must come to terms with dying, especially at such a young age, was scary, humbling and moving. When people know they are dying, the facade we all put up tends to fall away, and the people I met were so present--and more than that, so ALIVE. I'd never considered psychotherapy as a career before, despite my years as a client, but the experience somehow mirrored my passion for music, and underscored my lifelong search for meaning.

I have had the opportunity of working with people who genuinely do want to know themselves beneath the "mask", to know others in that way, and to live life authentically.  I have watched clients become better parents, better partners, better citizens of the world.

So how did my fascination with people's goodness translate into an equally strong interest in people's badness and in the criminal justice system?  But more importantly, since I am not alone in this, how did we as a culture become so obsessed with crime and punishment?  People are not merely interested in crime drama, but true crime (i.e., the First 48) and also developments in forensics and forensic psychology formerly probed only by law enforcement, scientists and psychologists who research the criminal mind. Since the advent of Court TV (Tru TV), then shows like the Forensic Files, American Justice and CSI in the 90s, solving crime has become "cool."  By this the first decade of the new century, criminal profilers like Robert Ressler and Jack Douglas, and Candace DeLong have become mini-celebrities and most people understand the basics of forensic evidence like DNA, fingerprints and ballistics-  And shows like Criminal Minds (based on famed profilers Robert Ressler and Jack Douglas) have elicited an abiding interest in the sociopaths and psychopaths who commit serial murders.

When I grew up in the 60s and 70s, I'd never heard of criminal profiling, as if I had, I might have considered it as a career. In those days, only those in law enforcement knew of such things.  And becoming, say, an FBI agent certainly was not in the cards for me.  I was too young to have been a hippie, but I seemed to have an instant simpatico with the era, and its anti-establishment sentiment. Becoming a cop was the last thing I could imagine doing.

At some point, though, I heard a forensic psychologist discuss the psychological traits that were most likely there in a person who had committed a particular unsolved murder.  They discussed motivations that normal people do not have, and how did they possibly know, I wondered?  How could a normal human being without such deviant interests ever understand someone who wanted to have sex with a lifeless body?  The kind of murders they studied, now known as "serial murders", were not murders motivated by jealousy, greed or revenge--those were easier to understand. They were motivated by a lust for killing and even torture, something I just couldn't understand, no matter how deeply I explored my darkest thoughts and the mustiest corners of my mind.

No, I could not relate with the idea of finding pleasure of some kind in killing no matter how I searched myself.  But I could understand being under the spell of some obsession or compulsion--something one needs to do no matter the fact we'll regret it tomorrow.  And I have most definitely come to see that reading into the behavior of serial criminals is incredibly similar to reading people in general.  One small thing tells me so much about someone-- Some specific action tells me so much about the person who committed it.

With police work, the most noble of units would seem to me to be "Homicide", and the chance to speak for the dead.  I always felt for homicide cops in that, no matter how much a family wanted to see someone caught, once that person was caught, you always knew the family would have it hit them that, well, it is a good thing, and a necessary thing-- but it just does not bring the person back.

People who lose loved ones often want to know why.  They often have a longing to understand why the killer did it.  Understandable, of course, but I have yet to see a reason that would satisfy anyone. The justice part is a different story.  But could there ever be a sufficient reason for the family as to why their loved one was murdered?

Understanding the "why" as a criminal profiler is something else entirely.  In many cases, it may be the only way to stop a killer who will continue to kill victim after victim.  Before Robert Ressler and Jack Douglas developed the FBI's famed Behavioral Analysis Unit, most "stranger murders", murders committed by someone unknown to the victim, remained unsolved. Robert Ressler, who was largely responsible for capturing Ted Bundy, recognized that until one could figure out the "why" in a case like that, with a killer smart enough not to leave forensic evidence, was the only was of stopping him means saving lives.

But why are we, all of us, so captivated by these questions?  The answer to this lies in things not foreign at all, but rather our quest to understand good and evil. And while most of us don't commit evil acts, all of us have inside us something called a "shadow," a part of the psyche which possesses dark thoughts or imaginings. These are thoughts we do not act on, thoughts that most of us control, at any cost.  And then of course the times we can't control those parts cause us deep alarm.  I cannot, and am glad I cannot, in any way relate to the motivation behind a killer, the serial killer, who kills to work out a conflict, for some kind of pleasure.  Being human, though, and having to accept the fact that my fellow humans engage in behaviors that are more frightening and twisted than anything I wanted to believe were were capable of-- this is a sobering and saddening thought.

I will never be someone who writes about killers to titillate. And I agree strongly with Robert Ressler that even in an interrogation, even when one must get a suspect to talk in order to save lives, that to pretend we can "relate" to a killers lust to molest and kill children, for example, to pretend that we think it's "neat" or fascinating to do the things a killer does, in order to get him to "trust us", is crossing a line that, for the most part, should not be crossed. He quotes Frederick Nietzsche, in discussing this topic, reminding us and himself that, "Whoever fights monsters should take care lest he become a monster himself; for if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."

My interest in serial criminals comes from my desire to understand how this strain of sickness has permeated our society, and what ought to be done, and what can be done.

Serial killers is a term most often credited to Robert Ressler, who spearheaded the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit or as its often referred to, the BAU.  One might say, well serial killer-- how is that a special term?  Aren't all killers who kill multiple victims serial killers?  Not at all..  Those folks may be mass murderers, bombers, killers, among other things-- but the term has come to mean something specific- yet hard to understand-- it has come to mean someone who kills because he enjoys it, and kills because he's compelled to do so.  It has come to mean someone who gets something like sexual pleasure from killing, whether directly or indirectly, and feels some kind of gratification.  These folks tend to kill in a personal way, with a knife or a rope or their hands.  They want to feel the life leaving a person's body.    They tend to choose strangers as victims, so there is no personal motive like jealousy. The Unabomber, and the Oklahoma City Bombers are not serial killers.  Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez (The Night Stalker), The Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway, and Jeffrey Dahmer-- these were serial killers.  And so too was Richard Trenton Chase, a serial killer in Sacramento who killed his human victims in 1977 and 1978.

I knew of Chase from Robert Ressler's book, "Whoever Fight Monsters," which is one of the most fascinating accounts imaginable of Ressler's experience profiling and catching killers in the FBI.  Ressler profiled Chase, and in fact, because Ressler just so happened to be in the area, and brought in during the earliest stages of Chase's career, he was able to help the police capture Chase in a matter of months through an accurate psychological profile.

Being a therapist, I have an interest in the idea of what it means, really, to be sane at the time of a killing.  On the one hand, yes, one does have to be crazy in some way to commit some of these crimes.  But is it crazy like a fox, or crazy like insane, can't form rational thoughts, has little control over one's beliefs, is not able to "pass" as normal in our society (would be noticed easily and seen as alarming and bizarre).  I can see why Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez, and Gary Ridgeway could be seen as sane-- or rather, sociopaths who have no conscience, and desire a gratification that involves the torture of other humans.  I CANNOT see that Jeffrey Dahmer, for one, or Richard Trenton Chase, for another, can, by any reasonable assessment, be considered sane, either while killing, before killing, or after killing.

Jeffrey Dahmer, who had "his marbles" more so than Chase, was nevertheless, gripped by a loneliness and need to be loved, and belief that this could never be, that he found gratification in curling up with comatose (but not dead) bodies--because these people wouldn't or couldn't leave.  He did not enjoy terrorizing victims or causing them pain. He knocked them out with drugs, in fact. His goal, and I know this is hard to hear, to say the least, was to perform a kind of homemade lobotomy on his victims, that would leave them alive, or their bodies' alive, but leave the mind in suspended animation. Leave them brain dead.  Once he went through this, and lay with what was left of the human he'd captured, and found comfort in this behavior, he then did things that are even more sickening to most.  He cooked and ate parts of his victims, primarily because he wanted to united with them forever.  It was a ritual sexual in nature.  Just as making love causes us to feel united or one with our partner, what Jeffrey did allowed him to feel completely united with those he'd murdered.  He could, finally, not feel so empty inside.

Imagine going back to an ex-lover whom you know is bad for you but just can't stay away for him.  You KNOW this person is bad and wrong for you, yet you cannot seem to stop yourself.  You know that you will suffer and they will suffer, if you go back, and that eventually you will have to leave.  And still, you do it anyway.

If you know what I mean, you know how Dahmer might have felt. And that is a frightening thought, but a true one.

But understanding obsession in a love relationship has no relationship whatsoever to killing and eating people, you say in protest.  No, it does not.  But it does have a relationship to the desire to be with someone who is bad for us, no matter how unhealthy a choice, no matter who it might hurt, including a wife and kids, and even our own children.  It is the thing people do who would never do anything else under any circumstances that they knew could hurt another person. Dahmer was compelled to do something none of us could imagine doing or wanting to do, for any reason whatsoever. But he was motivated by the same thing that motivates all of us when we desperately seek love in ways that are risky, whether the risk is physical, or more likely, psychological.  And he, more than any single other killer I know of, appeared tormented by his own actions.  He admitted them, and said he should be locked up, and also never released.  He knew what drove him, and that must have been the worst punishment of all.

Dahmer, however, pled guilty by reason of insanity.  Had he been found guilty of that, he would have been locked up for life in a prison mental hospital for the criminally insane that in no way resembles a spa.. Forever, or until he could be taken to prison.  He was, however, found to be sane when he committed his crimes, something which has always bothered me.  The law has decided that sanity means one thing: a person knows his actions are wrong, while the insane do not.  This is not by any stretch of the imagination a full definition of either what's sane and what's not sane. I think Jeffrey Dahmer did know that what he was doing was illegal, and if caught, he would be punished. But the drive to sleep next to near corpses, to keep in your apartment body parts and preserved organs in jars, and to cook and eat human beings-- to feel the need to do these heinous things in order to feel anything resembling love and connection with others--this is not sane.  Yes, he covered up his crimes, because if he did not, he knew he couldn't keep on doing what he needed to do to survive.  Because this was survival.

If he wasn't insane, who is?

The prosecutor in effect sought jury nullification here.  This is especially easy when our justice system does things like, not given an explanation as to where he will end up if the jury finds him insane.  If it means he'd be let out, and if the only option to lock him up is to find him sane, of course a jury would find him sane.  Even Jeffrey Dahmer acknowledged that letting him go was not an option.  Why not tell the jury that the choice is, criminal mental hospital vs. prison, so they can do their job?  So in the end, they did find him sane.  And as anyone could have expected, when Dahmer was tossed into the general population with the rest of the prisoners, and not left in isolation, he was murdered by fellow inmates within hours. No surprise there. Could the guards who "accidentally" dumped him there have been surprised?  I think not.

Then there's the matter of Richard Trenton Chase, a man who killed people and drank their blood due to a delusion belief that he was losing his, a belief caused by paranoid schizophrenia.  Chase did not attempt at all to cover up his crimes.  He wandered around in blood soaked shirts.  He was disoriented.  He drove around with a cow's liver in his car.  He believed he needed people's blood to survive, and simply was unable to conceive of them as human beings.  Just as in Dahmer's case, in a case like this that is so horrific, the lust for vengeance (more than justice) takes center stage.  We must have vengenance.

And the only way to get vengeance is to have these folks declared guilty.  Which is why the plea should be, guilty but insane, rather than, not guilty by reason of insanity, which no one can bear.  Then, people like Chase and Dahmer are locked in a prison hospital for the rest of their life, rather than thrown into maximum security prisons where the staff is simply unequipped to deal with them.

Robert Ressler advocated for the idea that Chase was not sane and should not be declared so.  And again, even more than Dahmer, Chase clearly and positively was insane and psychotic. Unlike Dahmer, he made no attempt to hide his crimes. He wandered the street with a bloody clothes, and actually walked to people's homes and just walked in. He lived in circumstances too grotesque to recount.  However, Chase did kill himself in his cell, so there was no way to know.  I believe even here the jury would have found the man sane, and sent him off to a maximum security prison.  If Chase was not insane, then no one is.

I will write more about the human shadow, how we all have a dark side, and what happens when we deny it as time goes on.  But I wanted at least to start this journal and share it with anyone interested.

And I will also be writing about what I've learned of wrongful convictions, and why and how they happen; and the kind of feedback and support I give my clients that helps them to get centered, what mindfulness is, and why 20 something guys seem crazy about 40 something gals..  No shortage of topics.  I sign off now.  Good night to you.  .