Psychopaths are fascinating types of people because of their twisted, strange and terrifying nature. Therefore, when I came across this piece of research I just had to do a podcast episode on it because of how scary the implications of this are. If you’re interested in psychopaths and clinical psychology, you really are in for a treat!
This episode has been sponsored by Criminal Profiling. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it.
How Beauty Amplifies A Psychopath’s Natural Advantage?
The real selling point for me on this topic was the horrific finding that now that the psychopath Ted Bundy is dead. Lots of people have become devotees to him and lots of young women have commented on his attractiveness, looks and how much of a shame it was they couldn’t meet or date him.
Personally, I was just shocked when I heard that. Because my brain doesn’t compute how people could be that interested in a psychopath who raped a corpse, strangled a young girl and removed heads.
Now I did omit the age for the sake of the podcast. Because I just don’t feel comfortable saying how young she was.
In addition, as we know from a previous podcast episode, psychopaths have a lot of advantages in their easy ability to charm, manipulate and deceive others without any shred of remorse for the harm they inevitably cause. As well as their awful narcissistic and grandiose core belief system driving them to seek whatever they want.
However, those apparently blessed with physical attractiveness can get even further than these manipulative people normally would.
And this is especially true for female psychopaths.
A Case Example of Beauty and Psychopathy
Furthermore, this example will support this point very strongly. Then I’ll quickly explain at the end how this really connects to beauty and hammer the point home.
Since the psychopath called Sheila LaBarre and the strange thing about her case was that former FBI Profiler (yes I know I don’t support FBI profiling in the slightest) and an acting investigative consultant Mark Safarik pointed out. She sexually assaulted and tortured male victims, which is more commonly seen in male sadists than female psychopaths.
Then it all started with Shelia Jennings (her name before she married) seeing a personalised ad for Wilfred LaBarre, who owned a massive estate, because he was lonely after his wife died. So Shelia saw it and saw an opportunity for her to get a lot of money. leading her to use her beauty as a former beauty contestant and poise to made it impossible for LaBarre not to invite her into his home.
Then as you can imagine, she moved in, didn’t get married but still took his name.
However, the interesting part is she scared him and he was unable to get rid of her. Leading the police to break up tons of domestic disputes. With the police officers having to use a two-officer response after a while because Shelia was overly flirty and sexual with them. probably making it very hard for them to do their job, see how dangerous she was and get her removed.
Consequently, when Wilfred died in 2000 from a heart failure, Shelia got the estate to the utter shock from his family and they suspected she forged his signature on a fake will.
Yet if we consider how great at manipulation psychopaths are I don’t think it’s unlikely he really did give her everything, after a series of manipulations.
But again that’s all just theory from everyone.
Now I wouldn’t blame you for just thinking it would stop there. Because surely, Shelia has everything? She has a two million dollar estate, so what else could she want?
However, it turned out she wanted a lot more than just LaBarre in the first place. Since even whilst living with him she got involved with other men, who she later tormented and murdered. And in a brilliant (not!) attempt to manipulate officers even further, when she was under arrest she claimed she had killed and buried them in her garden because she was an angel on a mission to kill paedophiles.
Thankfully, this manipulation outright failed due to the 12 hour long interview conducted by a forensic psychologist that proved Shelia did not believe in her lies. Since she showed other behaviour instead, like deception, lack of empathy and paranoia.
Additionally, it case you doubt she was really a psychopath. Remember the amount of manipulation this all took, and according to prosecutors she also preyed on homeless men. As well as Shelia had a need to control, isolate and torment her victims. Suggesting she got great pleasure from her sadistic acts.
Then she killed two of her victims.
But given how there were three human toes found on her property that did not belong to the
two victims, there is a very real possibility that a third victim exists.
How Does Beauty Amplify A Psychopath’s Advantage? Conclusion
As we can see from the example above, psychopaths are great manipulators that can achieve a lot sadly. Through their constant lies, deceptions and more. Personally I doubt a non-psychopath would make Wilfred Labarre open his doors so easily in addition to all the other male victims she found.
But her beauty helped.
Without her beauty adding to her already powerful advantages, I think it’s clear she might have had to work harder to get into Wilfred’s life. As well as make all those homeless men and other victims fall for her.
And there is another very dangerous benefit of beauty for psychopaths.
Despite all the news and other sources of information out there on how to spot and protect yourself against a psychopath. A very beautiful psychopath can make even the more vigilant person fall prey to them, because beauty really can make us think they aren’t dangerous.
Something interesting to think about today!
I really hope you hoped today’s clinical psychology podcast episode.
If you want to learn more, please check out:
Criminal Profiling. Available from all major eBook retailers and you can order the paperback and hardback copies from Amazon, your local bookstore and local library, if you request it.
Have a great day!
Clinical Psychology and Psychopath References:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/shadow-boxing/201907/the-striking-psychopath
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201906/why-female-psychopaths-are-different-breed
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