? Capable of delusional thinking and distortion of information ? Seeks emotional fulfilment
? Attention-seeker ? Dangerous and volatile when provoked ? Uses sexual attraction to meet victims/partners ? Has the ability to compartmentalise killings ? Early trauma: damage during development of relationship between the id, the ego and the super-ego ? Ability to adjust to preferred sexual fetish – prior sexual grooming ? Will operate solely or within a small group ? Lacks trust
? High level of hatred
? Emotionally damaged
? Violent attacks: possible pleasure/release for killer ? Creation of crime scene: reflective of visual awareness ? Takes pride in the end result
? Level of intelligence: HIGH
? Ability to avoid detection: HIGH
? Victims are chosen and are potentially groomed ? Calmness of killer during aftermath v. frenzied assault: further analysis required ? Risk of repeat killing: HIGH
? Time frame: subject to stressor/s ? Identification of stressor: unknown Having reviewed the information a number of times, her attention kept going back to one line: Capable of delusional thinking and distortion of information. How delusional? How distorted? What was the level of personality disorder involved? She had treated many cases of detachment over the years, fragmented recall due to trauma, psychotic and psychopathic sufferers, but it felt like something else was driving this.
Walking around the room, she considered how, at first glance, many patients appear normal. They can hold down credible careers, give an illusion of living a normal life, but there are cracks once you start digging. They walk a tightrope: their relationships are usually fundamentally flawed, and no matter how much they achieve in life, career or other accomplishments, they cannot rid themselves of the demons that fuel their sense of worthlessness, igniting anger and a pathway to self-destruction.
Did the killer murder the victims because she craved the intimacy they could give her, even though each of the relationships was doomed to fail? With a mind capable of this level of hate and destruction, there could be no simple fix. Kate thought about another case. She had met Samantha Deering in her first year at Ocean House. Samantha had made a number of suicide attempts, and was eventually referred to her. The girl used her sexual appeal, because she desperately craved affection, hating herself afterwards, creating a vicious circle of sex, intimacy, regret, depression and then attempted suicide. She remembered having to commit the girl. It was after Samantha’s mother had called, with the girl uncontrollable, that she finally had to take action.
When she had arrived at the girl’s home, Samantha was in her bedroom, her eyes closed as if she was deep in sleep. When she called her by name, at first Kate thought she couldn’t hear her, so she went closer, touching her on the shoulder. She would never forget the expression in the girl’s eyes when she opened them. She looked lost inside her mind, breathing fast, her face contorted. She began screaming, hitting out blindly, sweat pouring from her forehead, and yelling expletives at invisible monsters in the room. She had become utterly detached from reality, her mind split, and she was visiting Hell. Samantha had been abused by one of her mother’s ex-boyfriends, which only came to light when her sister told her mother about an approach he had made to her. The sister had refused him. When Samantha found out about it, it was as if she was being abused again. She blamed herself for not saying ‘No’, for being weaker than her sister, a part of her feeling complicit with the abuse.
If Rick Shevlin’s killer walked a dangerous tightrope, the answers to why would be found in their early development. The forming of unhealthy attachments occurs for a reason. Kate opened a file on family therapy, which dealt specifically with attachment styles, examining child–parent relationships over a life cycle – how it affects the child and the forming of their adult romantic attachments. Children exposed to constant stresses and problematic situations, exceeding their ability to cope, specifically where abuse occurs, are found within a disorganised attachment style, with deep psychological problems in adult life. Avoidance, denial and suppressed anger can all form part of their psychological makeup. That brought Kate back to her first question: how delusional was this killer? Was a dissociative disorder involved, a means of avoiding reality, and what coping methods had she sought?
Pacing the room again, she finally realised what it was about Sandra Regan that had bothered her. It had been her facial reactions. When they had spoken about her time in Paris, and alluded to the faking of documents, the upper part of her face had been harsh, her forehead frowning, her eyes intense, yet the lower part was different: her mouth had curled downwards, her cheeks soft. It was almost as if she had two separate faces.
SANDRA