Into the Mind of a Psychopath
As you may have learned last time with me, psychopaths can be diagnosed with the help of the famous “Hare Checklist” or “Psychopathy Checklist — revised” (PCL-R). What I did not tell you is that there is more to it than a simple 20-item list.
First, however, I need to tell you about my most recent “discovery”. His name is Ted Bundy and his story is very disturbing and fascinating all at once.
Theodore Robert Cowell, born in 1946 to a single mother, was a very intelligent kid, yet always shy.
Here’s where things go off track.
As of the age of 3, Ted was fascinated by knives. He also admired his tyrannically abusive grandfather.
In high school, Ted was liked by others but decided to spend his time alone as he claimed he didn’t understand interpersonal relationships.
Ted spent this time watching hardcore violent pornography; which became an addiction. When this was not enough, he made his fantasies come to life by acting them out.
During his University studies in psychology (yikes!) and law, women starting disappearing. As Ted moved from one University to another, the disappearances also moved.
He attacked his first victim on January 5, 1974. Soon after that, women disappeared at a rate of one per month. Police saw a pattern; Ted has a type; young slender women, with dark brown hair parted down the middle.
Ted Bundy later confessed to 30 murders he committed in 7 different states, but it is suspected that his number of victims is well over one hundred.
On a few occasions he broke into these women’s houses and bludgeoned them to death. Twelve of Ted’s victims were actually dismembered, although he kept their heads several days as mementos.
“How could these women let a psycho like Ted even approach them?”
I’m glad you asked.
Ted Bundy was a charming, good looking a young man when approaching these women in public places. He kept up his act just long enough to gain his victims’ trust, and then assaulted them in more remote areas.
Ted sometimes went back to his crime scenes to perform sexual acts with their corpses until he no longer could due to decomposition.
Using (not exclusively) the PCL-R, Ted Bundy was diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder and High Factor 1 Psychopath. Although Antisocial Personality Disorder does not come from the PCL-R, High factor 1 psychopath does.
The current PCL-R includes three factors; 1a, 1b and 2a, which divided the 20-item list by factor analysis. However, at the time of Ted’s diagnosis, the factors used were simply 1 and 2.
Factor 1: “selfish, callous and remorseless use of others”
Factor one is strongly correlated with narcissism personality disorder, low anxiety, low empathy but high social behaviors, and high achievement.
Factor 2: “chronically unstable, antisocial and socially deviant lifestyle”
Factor two on the other hand is correlated with antisocial personality disorder, social deviance, sensation seeking and low socioeconomic status.
Although both factors are strongly related, and Ted had charactetistics of both factors, don’t you agree with his diagnosis focused on factor 1?
I’m convinced.
Theodore Robert Cowell died in the electric chair on January 24th 1989.
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