Spotting a Bad Person
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How good are you at spotting a bad person?
In this chapter, you can either read the text or you can watch a video with the same content. The video is good because you also get to hear the people talk before you decide whether or not they are a bad person.
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Ted’s Profile
- Law Student
- Assistant to Washington State Republican Chairman
- National Republican Convention Delegate
- College Honor Student
Answer:Ted was a terrible person.
- But if you thought he was a good person, you are not alone. Police were looking for a killer named “Ted” who drove a VW Beetle (just like Ted). They had a sketch of the killer that looked like Ted and Ted’s co-worker at a suicide hotline called him in (it was Ann Rule, prior to her days as a celebrated crime writer). Police didn’t believe this good looking clean-cut kid was capable of murder and cleared him as a suspect. He went on to murder 100 women.
- One woman who escaped did so because she trusted her instincts. Ted used to pretend he was hurt by wearing a sling on his arm or using crutches. He would ask a woman to help him carry something to his car and then hit her in the head from behind and shove her into the car. In this instance, his intended victim got a feeling like a blanket of evil covering her and she trusted that feeling, dropped what she was carrying and ran. Later that day, Ted found another girl and killed her instead.
Lessons: Predators may use tricks (as elaborate as a cast or as simple as a smile) to appear non-threatening: stay on guard. Trust your instincts: If you think something is wrong, it probably is. Don’t worry about being polite. Get out of there!
Mark’s Profile
- H.S. Star Football QB
- Scholarship to UCLA
- Aspiring Actor
- Father won Heisman trophy as best college football player
Answer: No, but he played one on TV. Mark Harmon played Ted in The Deliberate Stranger. He was so good it hurt his career for a time. Some people could not look at him without thinking of Ted. If you get a chance to see The Deliberate Stranger, do so. The movie was a great public service because it showed how charming, ruthless, pitiless, and deceptive a predator can be. Prior to taking the role of Ted, Mark was named People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 1985. Mark now stars in the TV series NCIS. Mark played a PE teacher in the classic movie Summer School.
Lesson: If Mark played Ted, then Ted must have been attractive. It shows you that you cannot tell a bad person by the way he or she looks.
Ketrell’s Profile
- Homeless
- Unemployed Barber
Answer: Although many registered sex offenders are homeless because they can’t find anyone to rent them an apartment, Ketrell is not a sex offender and is actually a hero. He stopped a man from raping a woman. Ketrell is also smart because before he intervened, he got himself a weapon. Ketrell isn’t rich and didn’t have a gun or a knife, but Ketrell is resourceful, so he found a stick and a brick and he beat the bad man with them. Ketrell’s combination of two weapons is extremely effective for self-defense because if one weapon is blocked, the other weapon can be used. When confronted by a criminal, always use a weapon if you can find one.
Lesson: If you are attacked, be smart like Ketrell and use a weapon to defend yourself. When you use a weapon like a stick use short repeated swings and go for bone, like the hands, elbows, shins, hips, or knees. Almost anything hard can function as a weapon, but the best weapons are sharp. According to the Department of Justice, 99% of women wielding a projectile or edged weapon when attacked by a would-be rapist escaped unharmed.
Molly’s Profile
- Former Homecoming Queen
- Married one of Baltimore’s richest men
- Former Baltimore Ravens Cheerleader
- Mother of 3 children aged 11-15
- Co-Chair of United Way of Central Maryland
- National Advisory Board for Johns Hopkins Children’s Center
Answer: Molly molested a 15-year-old boy after starting a texting relationship with him. She began the relationship by reaching out to the boy on Instagram and then having her son tell the boy “you should text my mom, she is obsessed with you.” Offenders can be very good at flattering you and making you feel special. Some boys and girls who meet people over the internet wind up being kidnapped, drugged, raped and literally sold into sex slavery.
Lessons: The boy kept this relationship secret from his parents. Predators use secrecy to commit their depraved acts. Children are most at risk when doing things that are kept secret from their parents. Beware of internet/texting relationships. People contacting you over the internet rarely are who they say they are. This is particularly dangerous because once they get your phone they can text pretending to be you, and arrange to meet your unsuspecting friends.
Additional Lesson: Kidnappers will tell you “we got you, we’ll get your friends and family if you try and escape.” That is a lie. Your friends and family are at the greatest risk when you are captive because no one is warning them about this continued threat to their safety. Thousands of girls have escaped and we have never seen an instance where their friends or family were harmed. Once you escape, your kidnappers will run because they know you are going to the police. Kidnappers will also force their victims to work as prostitutes and say “you had sex for money so you will go to jail if you go to the police.” That is also a lie. No one who was kidnapped and escaped after being forced to work as a prostitute has ever gone to jail.
Darren’s Profile
- Volunteer Fire Chief
- Local Hero
- Father of seven
Answer: Daren confessed to 200 acts of molesting a young girl. Even after the confession, many professionals (including a school board member) wrote letters on his behalf. Many people also continued to accuse the victim of lying. 60% of girls who are raped tell a friend about the assault. Sadly, 40% of those “friends” say something like “I don’t believe you” or “it was your fault you were raped.”
Lesson: Offenders can be very charming and seem very nice, often gaining significant support in the community. How anyone can justify that support after a confession or conviction remains a mystery. Further, if someone trusts you enough to tell you they were sexually assaulted, that is not the time to express your doubts or make observations about what they should have done differently. That is the time to say “I love you, I believe you, what can I do to help you?” and then listen.
Jorge’s Profile
- Catholic Priest
- Society of Jesus (Jesuit)
- Known for care of the poor and destitute
Answer: Pope Francis, formerly known as Jorge, has never been convicted or even accused of a sex offense, so if you said he was a bad person, you are probably going to hell. More seriously, about 4% of offenders are people in positions of authority, such as priests, teachers, and police officers.
Lesson: Even people in positions of authority can be sex offenders. 4% of offenders are people in positions of authority, like teachers, coaches, religious leaders, police officers, etc.
Is it possible to spot a bad person?
Not always, but certain signs exist depending on the type of predator.
The most polite, seemingly nicest young man in the maximum security unit where I worked raped a 3-year-old girl for several months and when that wasn’t exciting enough for him, he raped and murdered her. As part of his therapy, he had to tell me about his crimes, which he described in the same manner you would describe an afternoon in Algebra class.
When being charged for his crimes, as he put it, he “played a game with the prosecutor” by pretending to be developmentally disabled so he would not be tried as an adult. He was given a 3-year sentence. I would argue that the prosecutor in his case was not particularly good at spotting a bad person.
In protecting younger children, the signs are pretty clear if you have been taught to recognize them. I’m sure the single mother of this precious 3-year-old was thrilled that this kind teenage boy took an interest in caring for her daughter. But this mother was never taught that a normal teenage boy is not interested in “alone time” with a 3-year-old child. In addition, anyone who wants a child to keep secrets from their parents should be viewed as a potential threat. “It will be our secret” is something we need to teach adults to stop saying to children, whether it is said innocently or not.
Children — and adults — should also be very suspicious of anyone who wants to take them someplace without first telling their parents or someone else. Bad things happen in places like that. Be suspicious of anyone who attempts to undermine your relationship with or respect for your parents.
As you start to date, anyone who shows early signs of not respecting your boundaries is not someone you should trust. A dating partner who encourages you to experiment with drugs or alcohol is similarly untrustworthy.
A study of predators
In 2012, an AskReddit thread posted the following: “Reddit’s had a few threads about sexual assault victims, but are there any redditors from the other side of the story? What were your motivations? Do you regret it” [sic]. This thread drew a huge number of responses and significant media attention.
An analysis of the responses gives us useful insight into the minds of predators. If you ever hear a potential dating partner express any of the views below, BEWARE! Why did the perpetrators say they committed sexual assault?
The perpetrator was extremely aroused and claimed s/he could not help him/her self.
The perpetrator thought women say “no” when they actually mean “yes”.
The perpetrator thought men are supposed to be aggressive sexually and women are supposed to put up the show of resisting, i.e., sexual scripts.
The perpetrator thought the victim did not say “no” enough, was drunk, dressed seductively, was “slutty”, or didn’t fight back.
The perpetrator was impaired by drugs or alcohol.
The perpetrator was influenced by pornography that was violent and degrading to women.
The victim initiated the encounter but did not want to go all the way, and the perpetrator felt entitled to continue.
The victim previously had sex with the perpetrator, and the perpetrator viewed sex as an on-going entitlement.
The victim was merely an object to satisfy the perpetrator and not really a human being.
The perpetrator hated females and wanted to hurt one.
Importantly, none of these “justifications” would constitute a valid legal defense to a sexual assault charge. Many of the respondents expressed extreme remorse for their actions, some to the point of experiencing severe psychological trauma, except those in the last category who hate females. Perpetrators in the last category were happy to have an audience for their depravity, although, like many other sociopaths do, one repeated rapist saw fit to issue a warning:
Let me leave you with this message, you never know who someone truly is, so be careful. I’m going back to my main account to do normal reddit looking at cats and posting pictures of bacon, and I think it’s kind of funny that no one will ever know if the person they’re talking to on reddit, or someone who moderates their subreddit, is me on my main account… just food for thought.
I repeat this warning because it very graphically illustrates the serious danger of online relationships. To the extent we needed confirmation that terrible people are online doing seemingly normal things, we received it, and therefore repeat the caution that it is extremely risky to engage in online relationships, as is detailed in chapter four of this book.
Many responses to admitted sexual assaults were sympathetic (one even posted “it’s not your fault”). When women posted that they had committed a sexual assault on a man, the idea was generally met with ridicule and derision.
We take away several lessons from the data. First, many perpetrators justified their actions as part of sexual scripts. Second, victim blaming and shaming is alive and well, as is sympathy for perpetrators who commit sexual assault. Moreover, there was little sympathy for male sexual assault survivors if the perpetrator was female and little condemnation of female perpetrators. Third, the perpetrators generally do not identify themselves as sex offenders or even as bad people, although a fair number characterized their actions as unacceptable. Fourth, most posts involved a victim who had reason to trust the perpetrator (as one posted, “She was a good friend.”), underscoring the fact that most rapists are not hiding in the bushes but in plain sight.
Finally, a significant number of perpetrators knew what they were doing was wrong but proceeded anyway. Unfortunately, the only message that will resonate with this offender type is violent physical resistance. Complicating matters is the fact that many victims are rendered helpless by incapacitation due to drugs or alcohol or by panic and fear (for example, one posted “She never said stop or anything but I could see how she could have froze up in fear.”). However, research demonstrates that when females are empowered with the knowledge of how to respond forcefully and violently, they are better able to do so even in extremely terrifying circumstances. Moreover, the descriptions of incapacitated sexual assaults underscore the critical need for us to include effective education on drugs and alcohol, which is in chapter five of this book.
Resistance Technique 1: Escaping the one-handed grasp
NOTE: This information is worthless if you: (1) don’t practice it with a partner; or (2) your partner gives you a false sense of security by not gripping as tightly as safely possible.