Psychopaths & Sociopaths Archives

‘Bombshell,’ #MeToo, and Hollywood’s inability to portray its own villains.

January 5, 2020 By Karl Leave a Comment

As promised I will share your questions and comments and update mine now that I’ve seen Bombshell and thought about the #MeToo tie-in. First, I was dazzled by Theron's spot on depiction of Megyn Kelly. And the movie kept my interest and my companion's. Mostly, though, my concern in my prior blog - that Bombshell might gloss over institutional #MeToo issues - was unfortunately borne out. Additionally, I kept thinking, is Hollywood the best industry to lecture us about #MeToo behaviors, … [Read more...]

Crime – Serial Killer Myths – Scientific American mag’s truth – Tutorial II

November 1, 2019 By Karl Leave a Comment

Hope you were able to check out the first in a number of tutorials I'm writing about serial killer myths. Check back for others from time to time. If you're a writer of a true-crime books as I am, you may need to brush up, as I do, on your serial killer IQ. The same may be true for criminology students or anyone interested in what science can tell us about these most-heinous of criminals. Unfortunately, a lot of our general knowledge concerning serial murder is a product of … [Read more...]

Beauty Queen Killers – Known and Unknown – Crime Tutorial

September 21, 2019 By Karl 7 Comments

Maybe you're an author writing about JonBenet Ramsey, a little "beauty queen" whose murder is still unsolved. Or you're writing about grown-up queens who've been murdered, like the ones featured in podcasts and 24/7 crime shows. Well, here's a tutorial that might help you flesh out some details in an article or book you're writing. It's about a few of the deets about both a known killer and an unknown one. Known and Unknown Beauty Queen Killers There are a few books about the known "Beauty … [Read more...]

True Crime — do these reasons explain why you love it?

August 10, 2019 By Karl 5 Comments

Some have called my book-in-progress a true crime memoir. Its working title is Privileged Killers...and a criminologist mugged by reality. It's tagline — When friends kill and loved ones betray him, a progressive criminologist must ditch his idealism or lose his wife and even his life. True Crime rules...these days. Whether seen as a pure true crime story, or a hybrid true crime memoir, my book's alerted me to the huge appetite we have these days for true … [Read more...]

CRIME FRAUD Tutorial—Imposters Anna & Maddie —“Skilled” Criminals

June 9, 2019 By Karl 2 Comments

Today's blog is one among my series on "skilled" criminals —fences, imposters, forgers, and art thieves. There's also a related series on "unskilled"criminals. The hope in this blog is to fire up writers, provide info to criminology students and true-crime fans, and to, well, have some fun. Recent Russian immigrant to the U.S. Anna Sorokin created the fictitious identity of Anna Delvey, pretending to be a wealthy German heiress. On May 10, 2019, a court sentenced her to 4 to 12 years in … [Read more...]

CRIME MASS MURDER Tutorial—The 5 W’s of Multicide—Definitions, Stats, Events

January 13, 2019 By Karl 4 Comments

Homicide is the criminal killing of a human being, and this tutorial deals with the multiple killing situation known as multicide, or sometimes mass murder. By the end of this tutorial, you should have a handle on four of the five Ws—the who, what, where, when. The whys are for another blog. Also, since it's a different kind of multicide, serial killing is treated as a special category. MASS MURDER There are a wide variety of ways that homicides with more than several victims might … [Read more...]